When I talk about my experiences with demons, I can’t help talking about some pretty out there stuff. ‘Supernatural’ phenomena like shaking beds and ectoplasm and dark shapes in the mirror all sound dramatic, and they are certainly terrifying when they happen. But they’re also mundane; when they happen in the real world, there’s no sudden clanging of symbols or screeching of tires. You don’t see them from the perfectly calculated angle of a watching camera. There’s no tension-building lead up, no tah-dah! It’s normal, it’s happening in the real world, it’s gone almost as soon as it’s happened; you doubt your own senses more than you jump to the most dramatic and terrifying explanation.
I think it’s easy for people who haven’t experienced them to misunderstand how subtle these phenomena are. Almost nothing I’ve experienced has been truly shocking, particularly any of the ‘supernatural’ stuff. It was almost always simply creepy, odd, wrong. It was every day reality, with a disturbing twist.
And on the same note, it’s not glamorous either. Being really possessed isn’t heroic, there are no brownie points with the angels for surviving it, and there’s no handsome hunk coming to save the day. The best you can usually hope for are some battle scars and a lifelong sense of self doubt. We’ll not go into the worst…