Exorcisms: Real or Fake?

[Dr. Briggs]

I have a theory that came with my posting in NHB lately. Demons can live within us, perhaps not possessing us to the extent they do in movies, but making us angry and our lives miserable. They take us at our moments of emotional vulnerability, creeping in by way of bad thoughts and making such thoughts fester and overtake us. They try and get powerful somehow, build up until we can do no more and turn psycho, or shoot out through our mouths when we can no longer tolerate them in our souls anymore, infecting others with fear and resent.

Obviously the latter option is more preferable, but such things can do untold harm to others. Anger is a sin for a reason, in fact if you think about it, there is a practical reason against each of the seven sins as well as a practical reason for a bunch of Biblical things many may have skipped over simply on principle. On that subject, it occurs to me that anger may not be sinful in and of itself, but harming innocents with it surely is. What must be done is we need to let such demons out at places they can not infect; let them out to individuals who accept our feelings even if they turn dark, individuals who will not at all be hurt, engraged or frightened by such remarks, and instead care, listen and try to make things better. I pretty much support the Esalen way of doing things: scream your head off with all your irrationally fucked-up and politically incorrect thoughts at someone who won't be negatively affected by them. No Hold Barred seems to work on the same principle .