I don't mess with the supernatural in uncontrolled environments. I read the Exorcist as a youngster and it put me off devil worship even as a prank. William Peter Blatty showed me that conjuring spirits can have very negative consequences for the living (and the dead) and it's best for children to stay innocent. As Blatty said in recent WaPo interview:
“The Exorcist” put forward the notion of evil incarnate.
I have moved away from the belief in fallen angels to the belief that demons are, in fact, spirits of the dead who are behaving very, very badly. In fact, in all of the possession literature since the beginning of the 20th century, most cases involve the spirit of someone who has died.
Unfortunately, thanks to social media, the Charlie Charlie Challenge is all the rage among the adolescent set world wide, and the dead are being invited into the living world through pencil portals in suburban homes by clueless teenagers. Word is that the teenage mind is "wired" for this kind of incantation and the only thing at risk is their soul - great! Priest and pauper know the dangers, but most editorial copy brushes it off as harmless fun - sure, it's all harmless fun until someone looses an eye. Even a passing knowledge of the supernatural and the occult gives one pause when delving into these mysteries - best not to go it alone or unsupervised. The young are ignorant and profane and should be dissuaded from unschooled experimentation with the spirit world lest they become possessed and cause injury to an unaware friend or family member (or themselves). In the age of the machine/science the default is always a rational explanation for mysterious events, but reason is bound by reason itself and can barely acknowledge the existence, let alone the vastness, of the great unknown and unknowable. Walk the path of righteousness - or at least try to do so - life is better there.
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