I Believe in Demons. I Just Don’t Believe in Christianity

There is a slightly awkward flaw in my claim that I don’t believe in Christianity.

I might believe in demons.

Not necessarily Christian demons. I’m not picturing a red man with horns, a pitchfork and an administrative role somewhere beneath Satan. I don’t believe in the Christian understanding of God, I don’t believe the Bible is the divinely dictated explanation of reality, and I certainly don’t believe Christianity has exclusive ownership over whatever might be lurking in the parts of existence we don’t understand.

But do I believe there could be negative entities, forms of consciousness or something resembling what humans have historically called demons?

Yeah.

Possibly.

Which is inconvenient.

I started thinking about this again while watching Evil, a show that very deliberately plays around in the uncomfortable space between psychology, Christianity and the supernatural.

It reminded me of my longstanding fascination with The Conjuring films and, by extension, Ed and Lorraine Warren.

I’ve actually tried reading books about the Warrens’ paranormal investigations before.

I stopped.

Not because I suddenly decided they were rubbish, but because they creeped me the fuck out.

There is apparently an important distinction inside my brain between watching a fictional woman get dragged down a corridor by an invisible demon and reading an account written with the insistence that something like that actually happened.

One is entertainment.

The other leaves me staring suspiciously into the corner of my bedroom three hours later.

And I think I finally understand why.

I don’t have the luxury of being certain it’s all bullshit

If I believed with absolute certainty that demons, spirits and paranormal phenomena simply did not exist, supposedly true paranormal stories wouldn’t have much power over me.

I could categorise them neatly.

Misinterpretation. Fraud. Sleep paralysis. Mental illness. Religious hysteria. Exaggeration. A weird noise in an old house becoming increasingly dramatic every time somebody retells the story.

Done.

Unfortunately, my actual position is much more annoying.

I think there are probably aspects of reality that human beings don’t understand yet. And somewhere within that enormous category of shit we don’t understand, I am open to the possibility that forms of consciousness or energy might exist that we currently describe using words like spirits, entities or demons.

I use the word “demon” because it is culturally convenient.

It doesn’t necessarily mean I believe in the Christian definition of a demon as a fallen angel working for Satan.

Maybe they’re independent spiritual beings.

Maybe they’re some form of consciousness we don’t understand.

Maybe there’s something energetic happening.

Maybe humans have encountered a phenomenon for thousands of years, interpreted it through whichever religious or spiritual framework was available to them, and given it hundreds of different names.

Maybe none of those explanations are right.

I am surprisingly comfortable saying:

I don’t know.

What I find interesting is how often we’re expected to go from I don’t know to therefore it doesn’t exist.

I don’t need to do that.

If I believe in demons, why don’t I believe in God?

This is where things get particularly strange.

Christianity offers a wonderfully tidy package.

God exists. Satan exists. Demons exist. Demons can influence or possess people. Certain religious practices can expel them.

The problem is that I can reject the package without necessarily rejecting every individual observation contained within it.

Imagine, purely for the sake of argument, that something humans describe as demonic possession really does happen.

That fact alone wouldn’t establish what caused it.

It wouldn’t prove the entity was a fallen angel. It wouldn’t prove Satan existed. It wouldn’t prove Jesus was the son of God. It wouldn’t prove the Bible was divinely inspired.

It would establish only that something happened.

The explanation would still be up for debate.

And Christianity isn’t remotely unique in having concepts involving harmful non-human beings, spiritual interference, cleansing, banishment and protection.

Humans have been worrying about unwanted spiritual visitors for a very, very long time.

Christianity doesn’t suddenly own the concept because “demon” happens to be the English word sitting closest to my hand when I try to describe it.

But that realisation raised another question for me.

How much of what I think I believe is actually just the language I inherited?

How many of your beliefs are actually yours?

If you grew up in a predominantly Christian culture, Christianity probably supplied a surprising amount of your supernatural vocabulary even if you have never considered yourself religious.

Heaven.

Hell.

Angels.

Demons.

Possession.

Exorcism.

Even the image that appears in your head when somebody says the word “demon” came from somewhere.

But recognising the language doesn’t require us to accept the belief system attached to it.

And I think there is an interesting exercise here whether you are Christian, Muslim, pagan, spiritual, atheist, agnostic or occupying some bizarre theological cupboard of your own making like I apparently am.

Where did your beliefs actually come from?

Which things have you consciously decided you believe?

Which things did your parents believe?

Which came from religion?

Which came from your culture?

Which came from books, films, folklore or the internet?

Which came from experiences you couldn’t explain?

And perhaps most interestingly, which things have you rejected intellectually while discovering that some tiny part of you still behaves as though they might be true?

You might insist that ghosts are complete nonsense but refuse to spend a night alone in a supposedly haunted building.

You might reject religion but still instinctively say a little prayer when somebody you love is in danger.

You might think superstition is ridiculous while simultaneously refusing to tempt fate by saying something is going too well.

You might confidently announce that demons do not exist and then respond to the suggestion of using a Ouija board in your bedroom with:

Absolutely the fuck not.

Humans are wonderfully inconsistent creatures.

And I’m starting to think those inconsistencies are some of the most interesting places to look when examining what we actually believe.

I think an exorcism could work without proving Christianity

Here is where I get even more religiously inconvenient.

I am open to the possibility that exorcisms sometimes work.

I realise how ridiculous that sentence probably sounds to people on both sides of this argument.

The committed atheist is wondering why we’re entertaining exorcisms at all.

The committed Christian might reasonably ask why I am willing to accept the possible effectiveness of a Christian ritual while rejecting the theology behind it.

But I don’t think an effective ritual automatically proves the explanation given for its effectiveness.

There are obvious psychological possibilities.

Expectation matters. Suggestion matters. Authority matters. Ritual matters. Altered states of consciousness matter. Human beings can have incredibly powerful physical and psychological responses to symbols and beliefs.

But my own spirituality leaves another possibility open too.

Maybe ritual, intention, symbolism or collective belief genuinely affects whatever phenomenon is being experienced.

If negative entities exist, why couldn’t a Catholic priest successfully remove one while being completely wrong about where it came from?

The priest might believe his authority comes from the Christian God.

Someone else might describe the same process as banishment.

Another culture might understand it as cleansing.

Someone might use prayer.

Someone else might use smoke, salt, chanting, water, herbs, visualisation or protective symbols.

Perhaps those rituals are doing fundamentally different things.

Or perhaps humans have developed dozens of different languages for interacting with something we don’t properly understand.

Again:

I don’t know.

And I’m fine with it.

An observation isn’t the same thing as an explanation

I think this distinction sits at the centre of my spiritual beliefs.

We are often encouraged to choose a worldview and then accept or reject everything that comes packaged inside it.

If you’re Christian, demons make sense.

If you’re atheist, they don’t.

If an exorcism “works”, either God did it or the entire thing was psychological.

But why are those the only possibilities?

How often do we confuse an explanation with the thing it is attempting to explain?

Human beings have been doing that throughout history.

We observe something.

Then we build a story around why it happens.

Sometimes that story turns out to be correct.

Sometimes it doesn’t.

And sometimes we simply don’t have enough information yet.

I think I’m comfortable living in that third category more than I once realised.

Then we get to the witchy shit

I believe, to some extent, in the idea of vibration.

This is the point where somebody inevitably starts asking for peer-reviewed evidence that sadness makes your aura vibrate at 3.7 witch units per second.

That’s not what I’m claiming.

I know there is no established scientific evidence demonstrating that humans emit a measurable supernatural “vibration” which attracts literal demons when it gets too low.

This is spirituality, not a physics paper.

But I do believe that when we are deeply depleted, frightened, traumatised or emotionally unwell, there is something about us that changes.

Spiritually, I conceptualise that as our energy or vibration becoming lower, and I am open to the possibility that this could make us more vulnerable to negative energy or what I sometimes think of as energy parasites.

There is one distinction here that matters enormously to me.

Low vibration is not a moral failure.

I hate the bastardised version of manifestation and spirituality that tells people terrible things happened to them because they weren’t positive enough.

Depressed?

Should have raised your vibration.

Traumatised?

You attracted negativity.

Something awful happened?

Apparently the universe reviewed your vision board and found it insufficiently enthusiastic.

Fuck that.

Suffering is not evidence that somebody spiritually failed.

When I talk about raising my vibration, I mean something much gentler.

I mean recognising when I feel depleted and deliberately doing things that make me feel alive again.

Sunlight. Water. Music. Nature. Laughter. Sex. Creativity. Cleaning and changing my environment. Spending time with animals. Meditation. Ritual. Being around people I love.

And here’s where I don’t think spirituality and psychology actually need to fight each other.

Maybe lying in sunlight feels energetically restorative to me and regulates my nervous system.

Maybe cleaning a room changes its “energy” because the sensory environment has literally changed.

Maybe swimming makes me feel spiritually cleansed while also changing my physiological and emotional state.

Maybe a ritual works on several levels simultaneously.

Calling something psychological doesn’t necessarily make the spiritual meaning I attach to it disappear.

But if I’m questioning your beliefs, I have to question mine too

It would be incredibly convenient to spend an entire essay interrogating Christianity and atheism and then quietly sneak my own spiritual beliefs out through the back door without subjecting them to the same scrutiny.

So where did mine come from?

Why does golden light represent protection to me?

Why do I conceptualise emotional depletion as “low vibration”?

Where did I first encounter that language?

How much have I absorbed from modern witchcraft, New Age spirituality, books, films, folklore and the internet?

How much have I unconsciously borrowed from religions I don’t believe in?

How much have I constructed myself because certain concepts intuitively describe experiences I already had?

I genuinely don’t know.

But discovering that a belief has cultural influences doesn’t automatically make that belief meaningless.

Every religious and spiritual tradition exists within culture.

Even atheism develops in conversation with the religious and philosophical ideas it rejects.

The interesting part, for me, is noticing the architecture.

I want to know which pieces were handed to me and which ones I chose to keep.

My spiritual protection doesn’t involve asking anybody to save me

I have a meditation I return to when I want to feel spiritually protected.

I picture myself being bathed in warm golden light.

I imagine it surrounding my body first.

Then I expand it.

It fills the room.

Then it moves beyond the room.

Eventually, I imagine it expanding around my entire home like a force field.

Sometimes I picture dark wisps within the space, representing anything negative that doesn’t belong there.

As the golden light expands, they flee from it.

They’re expelled.

They dissolve.

They burn away.

Whatever they are, they don’t get to stay.

And the more I’ve thought about this practice, the more I’ve realised something fascinating about it.

There is no priest.

There isn’t even necessarily a god.

There is me.

Traditional possession stories are often built around the terrifying loss of personal power.

Something enters your body or your home.

You lose control.

Eventually an external religious authority arrives and, through his relationship with a still higher authority, saves you.

My meditation runs in precisely the opposite direction.

Protection originates with me.

I create the light.

I decide its boundaries.

I expand it through my home.

Anything negative doesn’t get to negotiate.

It leaves.

Maybe that’s why my home feels so safe

I feel extraordinarily safe in my own home.

And perhaps my little golden-light force field has something to do with that.

Does my meditation literally create an energetic barrier around my house?

I have absolutely no way of proving that.

But I also don’t think that’s the only interesting question.

Because psychologically, repeatedly imagining my home as protected territory reinforces something incredibly important.

This is mine.

This space is safe.

I decide what enters.

I decide what stays.

I decide where the boundary is.

And there is another layer to that which I’ve only recently started considering.

I was raped when I was 14.

I don’t want to do that annoying thing where every aspect of a woman’s personality gets reverse-engineered until somebody can explain it through her trauma.

I don’t know whether what happened to me has anything whatsoever to do with how my spirituality developed.

Maybe it does.

Maybe it doesn’t.

But I can recognise the resonance.

There is something interesting about having once experienced an extreme violation of bodily autonomy and later developing spiritual practices centred so heavily around boundaries, protection, agency and control.

My spiritual world is one in which I decide what is permitted within my body and my space.

And if something isn’t welcome?

Get the fuck out.

Which brings me back to the creepy books

All of this probably explains why I have to be careful with paranormal nonfiction when my mental health isn’t great.

Fictional horror has walls around it.

The credits roll.

The actors go home.

The demon probably has an IMDb page.

Supposedly true paranormal accounts are different for me because I don’t completely reject their underlying possibility.

And that can create a nasty little feedback loop.

I feel psychologically vulnerable.

I read something frightening that I think might be possible.

It frightens me.

Feeling frightened makes me feel more vulnerable.

Then the part of my spirituality that believes vulnerability may make us more susceptible to negative energy starts whispering, Well, this seems like a spectacularly bad idea.

So I stop reading.

Not because I think a demon is definitely going to climb out of a Warren case file and start living in my wardrobe.

But because knowing when something is fucking with your head and choosing to disengage from it is probably a sensible spiritual practice in itself.

Maybe the question isn’t what you believe. Maybe it’s why.

The more I think about all of this, the less interested I am in deciding whether my spiritual beliefs fit neatly into a particular category.

“Spiritual agnostic with witchy tendencies” will probably do.

I’m much more interested in how I got here.

And maybe that’s worth asking yourself too.

Not simply:

What do I believe?

But:

Why do I believe it?

When you picture a demon, who taught you what one looks like?

When you think about death, where did your assumptions about what happens afterwards come from?

If you don’t believe in ghosts, have you actually considered the possibility and rejected it, or does it simply conflict with the worldview you already have?

If you do believe in them, why?

If you would never describe yourself as religious but still feel uncomfortable tempting fate, disrespecting the dead, using a Ouija board or joking about inviting something supernatural into your house, where does that hesitation come from?

What beliefs did your parents give you?

What did your culture give you?

What came from religion, even if you no longer practise it?

What came from folklore?

What came from films and books?

What came from experiences you couldn’t quite explain?

And which beliefs are genuinely yours?

I don’t think examining a belief necessarily means trying to destroy it.

Sometimes examining it makes it stronger.

Sometimes you realise you don’t believe something at all. You simply inherited it and never thought to put it down.

And sometimes you pull at one thread and discover that your worldview is considerably stranger than you realised.

Apparently mine includes the possibility of demons but not the Christian God.

It includes spiritual cleansing without organised religion, exorcisms that might work without proving Christianity, psychology existing alongside spirituality, and a belief that there are probably things in this universe that I simply don’t understand.

I’m comfortable with that.

Because accepting an observation doesn’t require me to accept somebody else’s explanation for it.

I can believe that something humans call a “demon” might exist without believing Christianity correctly explains what it is.

I can accept that an exorcism might sometimes produce an effect without believing the priest’s theological explanation of why.

I can believe in spiritual protection without believing that protection has to be granted to me by an institution, religion or external authority.

I don’t need certainty about what exists beyond the edges of human understanding.

I don’t need a complete cosmology.

And I don’t need a random priest to create safety for me.

My spirituality, when I strip everything else away, seems to come back to agency.

I decide what I believe.

I’m allowed to question the explanations I inherited.

I’m allowed to keep the pieces that make sense to me and discard the ones that don’t.

And when I need to feel protected, I don’t wait for somebody else to grant me protection.

I picture the golden light.

I expand it.

Anything that means me harm can leave.

And my home is mine.