Demons

I just recently finished up the book by Steven LaChance called "The Uninvited". Our meetup group plans to have a discussion this Sunday on the beliefs in demons. I have seen so many wrong doings in this area, so much that borders on bad morals and downright wrong judgments that I tend to shy away from ever using the word "demon". I come from a Baptist upbringing. I was terrified as a child of demons and the devil and everything that the church tells us to be afraid of. I would dream of burning in hell and the devil grabbing at my legs as I play to drag me down with him. Once I grew up and looked back I realized that scaring children into believing in a "God" is not really faith at all. Faith should simply be believing in something because you feel it in your heart and your soul. Not because you are afraid that if you are wrong you might suffer the consequences. I have found this to be so true in most Americans. That they only believe out of fear. To me that's not real faith.

I found the book to be very thought provoking. If the story he lays out for us in this book is indeed true then something major was going on in that house. It wasn't just one person experiencing these things - it was many people and they all saw the same types of phenomenon. Although the skeptic in me yells that they were sharing stories and that caused mass hysteria and therefore everyone saw the same things because it was pre-planted into their heads. So many scientific explanations can be thrown out for what was going on. But, what if it was more? What if it was so type of paranormal activity that we don't yet understand? To label something like the demonic just because it is negative seems a bit extreme to me. We have no proof that ghost exist, we have no proof that demons exist. How do we distinguish between the two things if we have no proof of either one? If the priests in the story were unable to help her and win the battle of good vs. evil then was it really a demon? or does that mean that demons are stronger than just a man with a title? I've seen a person who have achieved their degrees on the internet try and battle what they believe is a demon. To perform an exorcism on someone because they are hearing things and because they are seeing things without first getting medical opinion seems to me to be outright dangerous. Anyone who has these sorts of symptoms, who is experiencing hallucinations, needs to first and foremost consult a doctor. There are many practices like this going on in the paranormal field. People taking it upon themselves to label things as being demonic with no proof. Without even an investigation that shows that something is really happening and it's not all in the person's head. It pains me to hear of these practices, it causes me great distress to know that people are hurting others when they are at their weakest points in their life. I don't know if there are demons. I do believe there are things we don't understand, rather they be ghost, demons, or some inhuman form from another dimension. I don't know, nobody does. But, we must as investigators who are trying to seek the approval of the scientific community work to help these people and that means looking at all possibilities with an open mind. We must start with things that science has already explained and if science can not explain it then we are left with something we can label as paranormal.