When is something a demon and when is it something else -- for example, a psychiatric effect?

Or a superstition?

Or the imagination (fiction)?

There is "night terror" -- a supposedly psychological circumstance in which people (especially youngsters) suffer such real fear during dreams that they sweat and shake uncontrollably or feel paralyzed.

Just a bad movie they saw, the figment of a yearning, wandering mind?

Those who take a non-spiritual approach call it  pavor nocturnus (a "parasomnia disorder"). Of course, they also speak of a person who changes into different and very distinct personalities as if possessed by different spirits as "multiple-personality syndrome."

Have we really progressed in our understanding of the mind or obfuscated: allowed certain kinds of spiritual forces to remain in the dark, which is what they prefer? (In Jesus' time it was known as "legion.")

It is in the penumbra of science -- which has come to be its own kind of "religion" -- that the confessional has been replaced by the couch of the therapist.

Perhaps the reason so many branches of mental studies (particularly psychoanalysis) have such high failure rates is because they are failing to address the real root problem. In fact the first major case addressed by Sigmund Freud -- the father of psychoanalysis -- was of a woman who ended up causing fear in Freud's associate researcher, who apparently came to believe the woman was right when she said her problem was not psychological but a spirit infesting her.

Strange it is that while Freud professed no belief in the supernatural (at least as being behind such cases), he was himself a collector of occult artifacts; almost obsessed with them. There certainly is such a thing as mental illness, but psychiatric wards have their share of folks who nurses believe need deliverance, not drugs.

In the news recently: a filmmaker named Carla MacKinnon who according to MSNBC "started waking up several times a week unable to move, with the sense that a disturbing presence was in the room with her."

Instead of calling up her local ghost hunter, says the news outlet, "she got researching." 

"Now, that research is becoming a short film and multiplatform art project exploring the strange and spooky phenomenon of sleep paralysis." The orientation will be, of course, that it's a medical phenomenon. Adds the article: "Myths and legends about sleep paralysis persist all over the globe, from the incubus and succubus (male and female demons, respectively)... One man told her about his frequent sleep paralysis episodes, during which he'd experience extremely realistic hallucinations of a young child, skipping around the bed and singing nursery rhymes. Sometimes, the child would sit on his pillow and talk to him. One night, the tot asked the man a personal question. When he refused to answer, the child transformed into a 'horrendous demon,' MacKinnon said."

Myths and legends?

It's interesting how many Hollywood "stars" report that their homes become "haunted."

Also in the news of late: a man named Daniel Lutz, who as a ten-year-old went through the infamous "haunting" known as the "Amityville horror."

He recently spoke in a documentary -- after forty years of silence.

Through the decades, many have attributed this case, from which a book and movie were generated in the 1970s, to fabrication, imagination, and even geological disturbance (causing sounds or oozes). A priest, Father Ralph J. Pecoraro, visited during the most active stage and was blessing one of the rooms when he said he heard a voice telling him to "get out" (he later advised the Lutzes not to use that room again; interestingly, Father Pecoraro was also a psychotherapist).

It seems obvious that something very frightening and paranormal had occurred there. There were slams and knocks and strange behavior by the dog and other voices like a choir (legion) and a Crucifix that spun and foul odors and strange pig-like prints in the snow on the property. Moreover, the house had been the scene of a gruesome crime when six people were murdered there thirteen months before the Lutzes bought the house (at a bargain-basement price).

Many attributed the events to the murders; others mentioned that there may have been an Indian burial mound nearby, or that it may have been the site where Sinnecock Indians abandoned their mentally ill and dying. Now, Daniel -- who was at odds with his father (and thus might be prone to discount his parents' claim of a true haunting) -- says it was in fact true: he saw extraordinary (and dark) phenomena.

But he says whatever the spiritual dynamics already in place, much of it was triggered by his father's involvement in the occult. "He recalled seeing his step-father’s bookshelves lined with titles on Satanism and magic," reports a London newspaper (caution: tabloid). "And he even claimed he saw George Lutz move a spanner telekinetically in his garage — before the family ever moved to Amityville. ‘George’s beliefs and practices triggered what was going on in the house,’ he said, his voice shaking. ‘It was like a magic trick gone bad that you couldn’t shut off.’" 

So it seemed like a perfect storm. Did one evil serve as a magnet or magnifier for another?

It is a tightrope walk:

Paying too much attention to the power of darkness, which gives it energy (some say "glory") or ignoring the demonic and letting it flourish like a mushroom in a place without light (or Light).

[resources: spiritual warfare books; also: Michael Brown retreats, spiritual warfare, family healing: Portland, Seattle and Buffalo, Syracuse]

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