Do demons exist? Some say they do. What is a demon? There are a couple of different definitions for demon. I don’t know if I agree with all of them, but here are a couple, an evil spirit, devil or fiend, but it can also be a person considered extremely wicked, evil or cruel. The type of demon I am talking about in this article is considered spawn of the devil. They are said to not only be able to haunt a place but also to be able to possess a human body. Some say Vlad III the Prince of Wallachia who lived in the 15th century was possessed by a demon. He has also been reputed to have been the inspiration for the story Dracula. He gained his reputation by doing things a normal human being would find repulsive. When he fought his enemies he would capture them and have them impaled, sometimes thousands at a time. He would then sit outside among the impaled who were still alive and suffering and have his meal. The man was either possessed by a demon or mentally ill. The consensus of opinion is a demon was inside him.

When people talk about places being haunted they are usually talking about spirits of the dead who are said to have remained on earth for one reason or another. There is another twist to this however and it is a demon is said to be able to do what looks like the same thing. The difference according to folklore is demons are violent and are also looking to possess the residents in some instances. According to investigators of such things one might confuse a poltergeist with a demon. A poltergeist is a spirit which feels it has to let one know of its presence by making loud noises and possibly throwing things around and knocking things over. One of the definitions of a poltergeist is an unusually mischievous ghost. The term poltergeist comes from the German and means knocking ghost. It has been said one of the distinguishing features of a spirit is it is looking to be able to move on. Interestingly there are those who believe a poltergeist could be a demon, further confusing things. This would mean it had no human origin.

There are some scientific sites which completely deny the possibility demons possess people. They call it the stuff of horror films and dismiss the cases of possession many of us have heard about. These sites claim instead of demons possessing people the people are emotionally disturbed or in laymen terms, crazy. How can one tell if a demon is present? The Catholic Church has issued guidelines which were changed in 1999 to reflect these signs, superhuman strength, aversion to holy water and the ability to speak in unknown tongues. There are many people who are not priests who have become exorcists and some question their ability to be effective. One stated he had done many exorcisms and never saw anyone levitate or turn their heads completely around. When one reads some of these reports it become glaringly obvious who wrote them. It was people from the Skeptical Inquirer or similar institutions. I am not saying they were all written by these people, far from it, but I read a couple which looked like scientific reports until I got to the name of the authors. The problem with these articles is you want to read articles by those who are neither firmly on the left of the subject or those on the right. You will never change the minds of those groups since their articles will almost surely push their beliefs.

One psychiatrist who was board certified told his story which was quite unusual. He had been contacted by a Catholic priest about a woman he had encountered. He asked the psychiatrist if she was mentally ill so the psychiatrist examined her. She believed she was Satan’s queen and dressed the part. After speaking with her and giving her a psychological examination the psychiatrist confessed what he found out was well beyond his training. According to the psychiatrist the woman knew things she should never have known. As the psychiatrist gave her names of people he knew the woman would tell him how they died, but how could she have known this? Exorcisms had been performed on her in the past and six people who had been there for them stated they heard her speaking in strange tongues. When she would come out of what seemed like a trance she had no knowledge of what she had said. After seeing this the psychiatrist decided to join with the priest and become part of the exorcism ritual for almost three decades. He became a believer and now believes evil spirits or demons exist, but are relatively rare when compared with mental conditions. Interestingly the amount of exorcists in the Catholic Church has increased over the years and is more than 4 times as many as just a few decades ago.

One woman felt she was possessed and she requested the Catholic Church do an exorcism of her. This was almost 10 years ago. The case appeared in the Oxford Review. The woman was American and a board certified psychiatrist agreed she was possessed. He based this on the fact she levitated, had psychic powers and spoke foreign languages which were unknown to her. The woman had been involved with satanic groups for years. While a group of priests and others observed her, objects would fly across the room as she levitated. The woman was known to fall into a trance while the observers were sometimes present. In the trance she would threaten the team members. Voices would claim she belonged to them and the other people should leave her alone. When the woman would wake up she would have no memory of what happened. While conducting an exorcism on the woman the group of priests and observers complained they became intolerably hot and the woman cursed at them and made animal noises which were said to be impossible for a human to make. She became so strong it took 4 men to hold her down. The psychiatrist stated possession is a very rare event, much rarer than what is known as infestation where a demon moves into the premises.

It seems there are quite a few things on earth we can’t explain adequately. Rather than demons, the devil or evil spirits, could there be another explanation for what is happening to some people? Could some other dimension be impinging into our own and causing chaos for some people or could we be sharing the earth with some unknown race? For now demons seem to be the best answer, but this could change in the future.