Summary:
• Angels, ghosts, and demons are types of spirits, defined by how they behave. Every living being has a soul and a spirit. The behavior of a spirit determines its category.
• There is no scientific proof that angels, ghosts, or demons exist. Perhaps this is because God allows us the freedom to choose what to believe. Physical proof of supernatural beings would compel belief, which would make our behavior less authentic.
• Angels are messengers from God; this means you do not need to be supernatural to be an angel. Any genuine act of kindness—or even the companionship or protection of a pet—can be a Divine message to someone in need.
• A ghost is the soul of someone who died but then chose to stay on Earth for a time, often due to emotional attachment, unfinished business, or trauma. Ghosts keep the personality they had in life. Many simply want to be remembered, or to watch over loved ones still alive.
• Demons are ghosts who choose to be cruel. In life, they were probably abused, which encouraged them to behave cruelly. After death, they avoid returning Home because they feel shame and fear of facing the consequences of their cruelty.
• Demons feed on negative emotional energy such as fear, anger, and despair. This is why they target vulnerable people. Positive emotions—such as love, forgiveness, and joy—create an atmosphere that most demons prefer to avoid.
• Demonic possession occurs when a demon enters a living person’s body and takes control of it. Signs of demonic possession include a hostile new personality, extreme strength, and attempts to provoke fear or despair. Demonic possession is well documented, but also rare. Most people may live their entire lives without ever encountering a demon.
• A successful exorcism depends on the victim’s desire to be free and on the exorcist bringing strong positive energy, such as courage, compassion, and faith. Rituals may help, but sometimes a firm command or a loving presence is enough.
Stories about angels, ghosts, and demons can be fascinating, but they are not the purpose of human life. Helping people in need—the mission of an angel—is far more important than any supernatural encounter.
They are categories of spirits. The specific category refers to the behavior of a soul’s spirit.
Remember that your soul contains your essence, but that your spirit consists of your intentions and actions. Your soul is alive but not living. Your spirit is living but not alive. Your spirit is you living your life.
We usually imagine that angels, ghosts, and demons are supernatural and somehow unusual. They are supernatural but they are not unusual. Every living being has a soul and a spirit, which means the number of spirits could be infinite. The behavior of a soul is what makes it an angel, a ghost, or a demon, or it may represent another category of spirit—because the number of categories could be infinite. (Why not?) Nevertheless, every soul within those categories is a soul, much like every person is a person regardless of body or age.
According to most scientists, there is no definitive proof that angels, ghosts, or demons exist. We have many stories about them, but those stories have simpler explanations than anything supernatural. Some people say there is some physical evidence in the form of photographs, videos, or tape recordings, but even that purported evidence is not absolute proof. There are other explanations for what those technologies have recorded. For example, the content of photographs, videos, or tape recordings might be fraudulent, created to deceive people. Even the operators of those technologies might be deceived by a very clever deception. Alternate explanations are always possible, even if nobody intended a deliberate deception.
So, why is there no absolute scientific proof? One possibility is that angels, ghosts, and demons do not exist, at least not as supernatural beings. Perhaps they exist as only symbols. We can still learn from them, though. Within religious stories, the possible lessons they can teach are as numerous as the stories themselves and their many possible interpretations.
Another possibility is that angels, ghosts, and demons do exist as supernatural beings, but that God has decided that science must not prove their existence. The reason is because scientific proof would cause everyone to believe in them; and if every person believed in them, then the behavior of many people would not be entirely authentic. For example, physical proof that angels exist would be physical proof that God exists. Many people would behave very differently if they had physical proof that God exists. They would know for certain that God is watching them, and that knowledge would dictate their behavior. Their behavior would not be authentic.
The spiritual purpose of Earth is to provide souls with a vast variety of possible experiences. Earth accommodates people who believe in God despite no physical proof that God exists. Earth also accommodates people who do not believe in God, and it accommodates people who are not certain if God exists. Earth even accommodates people whose beliefs about God change during their lifetimes, perhaps several times. None of that would be possible on Earth if the existence of God were physically proven by science, and likewise if the existence of angels, ghosts, and demons were physically proven by science. Physical proof of anything supernatural would weaken the planet’s spiritual purpose as a place where souls can grow spiritually, but the lack of physical proof supports that purpose because it allows for your behavior to be more authentic. It allows you the freedom to choose what to believe.
· Angels.
You may wonder why angels exist. If God is all-powerful, why would God need any assistants? Asking why angels exist is like asking why souls exist. The answer is because God is all-loving and loves to create souls. Angels perform Divine missions, and those missions are opportunities to learn and to spread goodness. God wants souls to have those experiences, including the souls of angels. Angels enjoy being angels.
In Hebrew the word angel is mal’akh— מַלְאָך —and in koine Greek, it is ángelos— ἄγγελος —and in Arabic, it is malak— ملاك . Each of these words for angel means “messenger” because that is what an angel is: a messenger from God. You can perform the mission of an angel as even a human, sometimes without knowing that you are serving as God’s messenger. When somebody desperately needs help and then you provide that help, you could be a messenger from God because God arranged that situation. (Perhaps the needy person asked God for help, although asking for help is not a requirement.) Most acts of kindness are acts of genuine kindness rather than acts of cruelty disguised as kindness, such as knowingly helping a murderer commit another murder. Genuine kindness qualifies as a message from God.
A friendly animal, such as a cat, dog, bird, or horse, can also perform the mission of an angel. Animals can be companions; they can warn of sudden danger; they can rescue someone from harm. Many people owe their lives to their pets.
When most people imagine an angel, they usually imagine a supernatural angel. Sometimes they imagine someone who looks human but has wings. Some supernatural angels do look like that, according to some purported sightings, but the reason is due to centuries of religious stories and artwork portraying angels as humans with wings. Angels appear to have wings because we expect them to, but they do not really need wings. The wings are decorative, meant to reassure you if you ever see a supernatural angel. If an angel’s wings were really necessary for flying, they would be much larger than you might expect, almost as long as the wings of a small airplane.
Angels do not need human bodies, either. A specific mission may require an angel to look human, without wings, but an angel can assume the form of anything that helps it accomplish its mission. The possible forms include as a ball of light, called an orb. Or the angel can be invisible to us, which most angels are.
Some people, including some theologians, imagine that supernatural angels do not have free will. Presumably those people assume that an angel can never disobey God and, therefore, the angel must lack any free will to refuse a Divine mission. That is a flawed interpretation. It assumes that free will cannot exist unless an ego exists, an ego which encourages the individual to be selfish and disobedient. Free will can exist without an ego, however. A supernatural angel obeys God because the angel knows that its Divine mission will create more goodness in the world. The angel also knows what will go wrong for the people involved if the mission is not performed. A supernatural angel is not a mindless robot; it merely lacks any temptation to sin and has no reason to disobey God.
Some religions imply that when God created supernatural angels and then humans, God used different substances to create the two groups. Those descriptions of the substances could be more symbolic than literal. All angels and all humans are fundamentally souls, and all souls are equal. All souls are also non-material; they have no physical substance. According to some NDE testimonies, a supernatural angel can choose to become a human by living a human lifetime. Likewise, a human can, after death, choose to become a supernatural angel. Being an angel or a human is a role, a spiritual choice. Choosing one role does not prohibit you from later switching to a different role.
· Ghosts.
A ghost is a soul who lived a physical lifetime on Earth, died, and no longer has a physical body, but the ghost still stays on Earth. Most people alive cannot see ghosts except in very particular situations. (A person who can see ghosts very easily is called a clairvoyant, but that psychic ability is rare and usually inherited from a parent or grandparent who was also a clairvoyant.) When a ghost is seen, it usually appears to be wearing clothes, but in actuality the ghost is not wearing anything because the ghost no longer has a physical body. Instead, the ghost holds the shape of what the dead person looked like while alive, including the clothes the person wore, because the ghost retains that person’s personality. Since the personality of each person is unique, the personality of each ghost is unique.
What Christians call Heaven and Muslims call Paradise, many near-death experiencers call Home. There, the soul is pure. However, in a material Universe, especially on Earth, the soul carries an ego. The blend of a soul with an ego is called a personality. When the soul and its accompanying personality travel back Home (sometimes called “going into the light”), the soul becomes pure again by losing its ego, including that ego’s fears and obsessions. Until then, however, the ego can survive on Earth. Most souls prefer to return Home immediately after death, but some souls prefer to stay on Earth for some period of time, perhaps for minutes, days, weeks, years, or even centuries, and during that time the soul is what we call a ghost.
During its time on Earth, a ghost may visit one or more loved ones to check on them and perhaps leave behind some sort of message that the dead person, now a ghost, is still alive in another form. The ghost may watch the person’s own funeral and burial. If the ghost was a soldier who died in a major battle, the ghost may stay for a while to discover which side wins the battle.
Sometimes a death occurs so quickly that the personality does not immediately realize that its body is now dead and that the person has become a ghost. Not requiring any food or sleep, the ghost never gets tired and so it never gets bored. But if the ghost has nothing to do, it soon discovers that its existence on Earth has become meaningless. Days or weeks may pass before the ghost realizes what to do next. Eventually, the ghost may encounter someone—another ghost, or an angel, or even a living person who is a clairvoyant and therefore can converse with ghosts—who tells the ghost that it needs to return Home because its physical lifetime has ended.
If the ghost does think of a reason to stay on Earth, it may stay for a very long time. The ghost may stay to help a particular person, such as a loved one, and it may even follow that person around. (The loved one may or may not be aware of the ghost.) Or the ghost may stay at a particular location, such as where the person died, or where the person owned some property such as a beloved house.
When a death is especially traumatic, such as within a burning building, or on a battlefield, or due to a horrific murder, the victim may want people alive today to remember the horror that occurred at that location. So the victim, now a ghost, haunts that location. Places where hauntings can occur include old prisons, old facilities for mental patients, places associated with slavery, and buildings that were crowded with people when a fire ravaged it, such as a theater, a factory, or an office building. Or the trauma might be more emotional than physical, such as the betrayal of a romantic relationship; the location where the betrayal occurred might then be haunted, such as an old hotel or a boarding house.
An old house might be haunted by a past owner. Typically, if the owner was full of anger and hatred, then its ghost will probably have the same personality and torment anyone living in that house today. (Such a ghost could be considered a demon.) Fortunately, such ghosts are relatively rare. Most ghosts who haunt a house they once owned are quite willing to share their beloved house with people alive today, but the ghost wants the house to be respected, not abused. The house is where the deceased person had experiences and invested hard work, money, and creativity to make it special. The ghost feels an emotional attachment to it.
History holds lessons for us, and we should commemorate the experiences of people who lived long ago. Many people alive today are committed to that. Apparently, many people dead today are also committed to that.
Sometimes a soul who has already returned Home after a physical lifetime will, as a ghost, visit Earth. Such visits are short, usually to deliver a message to a particular person the ghost is fond of. Such visits require Divine permission because Earth has a specific spiritual purpose and, therefore, admission to Earth is restricted, even for a ghost. During the visit, the ghost may or may not appear in human form, and the message may look either mysterious or coincidental. Since the message is tailored to the recipient, however, the recipient will likely recognize it as being a message and will treat it as important.
The soul of an animal can become a ghost, but this is very unusual unless the animal’s ghost has a reason to stay on Earth; otherwise, it goes Home. The soul of a beloved pet may stay, at least for a time. Sometimes, though this is extremely rare, the ghost of a person and the ghost of that person’s pet may remain on Earth together. Companions in life, they remain companions after death and will likely return Home together.
Please remember this about a human ghost: before it became a ghost, it was a person, someone as physically real as you are now and with a personality as complicated as your own. Most people do not like to be treated as something not human. They have emotions and experiences, joys and sorrows, desires and frustrations, talents and intelligence, and complicated personalities. No person wants to be treated like a simpleton or a stereotype. No ghost wants to be treated like that, either. The lifetime of a person is not something abstract, not a few sentences in a history textbook, and not a joke, even if decades or centuries have passed since that lifetime ended. People who lived in the past treated their lives with seriousness. You should respect that. Every person deserves respect, including a dead person, and for these reasons every ghost also deserves respect.
· Demons.
Demons are ghosts who choose to be cruel. Demons are not inherently evil, but the behaviors they have chosen to do are evil. When they were alive as people, they probably suffered abuse. That abuse encouraged them to become cruel people and, after they died and became ghosts, they became cruel ghosts. Their cruel behavior as ghosts prompts people to call them “demons.” Not all ghosts choose to be cruel and not all religions teach that demons are cruel ghosts, but the behavior of cruel ghosts is demonic.
Since the typical demon was a cruel person, the typical demon is afraid to return Home and face Divine accountability. A personality is a blend of a soul and its ego on Earth. The ego is always lying, it is vain, it is obsessed with materialism, resentful, cruel, inflicts cruelty upon even the soul that it is blended with, and the ego is afraid of accountability by a Divine Judge. Even the possibility of receiving God’s forgiveness and mercy may feel terrifying because the personality may feel deeply ashamed to meet God. But as long as the demon remains on Earth, the ego delays the final phase of a lifetime: returning Home, meeting God, and experiencing a life review when the soul will feel all of the harm and suffering that it inflicted upon other souls during that lifetime. (The soul will also feel all of the joy and appreciation that its spirit encouraged during that lifetime, but the ego still worries.) This final phase is inevitable, but if the demon is stubborn enough, this final phase can be delayed for centuries.
Unfortunately for the demon, any harm that it commits as a demon gets included in its eventual life review. (Being alive as a ghost still qualifies as being alive.) Until the demon stops abusing people and animals, the record of harm it commits will grow longer and longer and longer.
In some religions the word demon includes other categories of beings in addition to ghosts. For example, many Hindu and Buddhist texts describe beings that symbolize human vices, such as arrogance and vanity. Religious stories about those beings represent warnings to us to not indulge in such vices.
An old notion in traditional Christianity is that demons are “fallen” angels who rebelled against God and lost. This notion is almost certainly false, however. This notion is not in the Jewish Bible and not in the Christian Gospels, despite stories in the Gospels about Jesus and his disciples casting out demons. If Jesus ever explained what a demon is, the Gospels do not record that. The notion that demons are “fallen” angels is derived from an unreliable interpretation of some sentences in the Book of Revelation, a book that was added to Christianity’s New Testament centuries after the death of Jesus. The Book of Revelation is an account of a dream that is so full of symbols that the dream makes no logical sense unless those symbols are interpreted. Unfortunately, those symbols can be interpreted in so many different ways that the dream is easily misinterpreted. Furthermore, no angel is foolish enough to rebel against God. Angels know from direct experience that God is all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful.
Even if you believe that demons are “fallen” angels instead of cruel ghosts, the precautions that you can take to protect yourself against demons are essentially the same. (Explained later.)
In Islam, demons are sometimes equated with jinns, but demons and jinns are not the same. Muslim descriptions of jinns are similar to Christian descriptions of goblins and fairies, especially in medieval Europe. Islam teaches that jinns are spiritual beings that God created from smokeless fire. They are described as having free will, can marry, and can live long but mortal lives. Good jinns live peacefully and may convert to Islam, but bad jinns are considered to be adversaries of humans. Some schools of Islamic theology question whether jinns are actual beings or, instead, are only symbols of sinful temptations and behaviors.
Demons are supernatural because ghosts are supernatural, but ghosts are also non-material, and that means they have limitations in a material Universe. One limitation is energy. If a ghost only observes the world and does nothing else, that ghost needs very little energy, if any. However, if a ghost wants to be seen by a living person (and that person is not a clairvoyant), doing that requires more energy. For example, when a ghost is noticeably present in a room, the room may suddenly become cold. That is because the ghost is consuming the room’s heat. The ghost does not need that heat in order to survive, but the ghost wants humans to know a ghost is present.
To interact with people more frequently, a ghost needs more energy. To interact daily requires more energy than to interact only once a month, or once a year, or once a decade. If a ghost wants to move a physical object, such as to hide the object or push it or throw it, that requires energy. When a demon has enough energy to move an object, that object is usually something that you can hold in your hand, or it might be as big as a chair, but moving it is probably near the limit of the demon’s physical abilities, at least without help. The average human, as a material being, has more physical strength than a demon itself.
Emotions, especially human emotions, generate spiritual energy. Spiritual energy is not like heat or electricity, but a ghost can use spiritual energy. Spiritual energy can be either positive or negative. Positive emotions, such as joy, love for God, and love for others, generate positive energy. Negative emotions, such as hatred or despair, generate negative energy.
Demons prefer negative energy. They avoid positive energy because they hate positive emotions. Positive energy can distress a demon and even pressure it to leave. The reason is because when demons were alive as people, they were driven by fear and envy because they hated themselves. The joy of other people made them feel powerless and inadequate. Now as demonic ghosts, their hateful beliefs about themselves are no better, perhaps even worse, and so they avoid positive energy because it reminds them of something they are not: happy. Therefore, they seek out negative energy, especially from fear, anger, and despair. That is why some demons prefer to torment children, because children are easily frightened. When a person is under demonic attack, the usual reason is because the demon is feeding on that person’s negative energy. The demon would still exist without that energy, but only barely.
You might wonder if a demon, being a ghost, could change its emotional nature by forgiving itself and forgiving others—in other words, the demon could become receptive to unconditional love. That is possible, but the demon probably began as an emotionally troubled person with a dominant ego; that ego later survived the person’s death, the person became a ghost, and then the ego and behavior of that ghost became demonic. That ghost is continuing a very old habit, even older than a human lifetime. To change, its personality must choose to change, must choose to repent, must choose to put aside its ego-driven beliefs and behavior. Making that change is not impossible, but a personality that has become demonic can be extremely reluctant to do that. If someone asks it to change, it may get extremely angry.
The most dangerous ability of a demon is called demonic possession—that is when a demon enters the body of a living person and takes control of that body. Many religions, perhaps most religions, have recorded numerous stories of demonic possession. Demonic possession can occur when the person invites a demon in—and there are people who willingly do that, sometimes because they believe the demon will help them. (Whether or not the demon helps you, demonic possession is not worth the cost and it is not why you are living a human lifetime.) Religions disagree over whether demonic possession can occur without the victim’s consent. Regardless, you can take precautions. (Explained later.) Some people wonder if they have a demon inside of them. If you wonder about this, then you probably do not have a demon inside of you. People who suffer demonic possession definitely know it. They have no doubt whatsoever.
The most obvious sign of demon possession is when the victim shows seemingly super-human strength, such as the ability to throw another person across a room. Perhaps surprisingly, that extraordinary strength is not due to evil magic and, in fact, is not really super-human. Most people are physically much stronger than they know, but using all of that strength can physically harm the person because of the extreme strain. (An example of extreme strain is when a person runs so fast and so far that the effort kills him.) A sudden emergency requiring extreme strength may cause a person to use all of the person’s possible strength, but those situations are extremely rare. However, when a demon possesses a victim’s body, the demon does not care if the victim gets hurt by using all of the victim’s strength. The demon wants to cause fear, pain, and despair because those negative emotions generate negative energy. The use of supposedly super-human strength is one of the tricks the demon uses to do that.
Another sign of demon possession is a dramatic change in the victim’s personality. A new personality emerges, a demonic one. What that demonic personality says (and it may use a different voice and tone) is typically profane, obscene, insulting, crude, and blasphemous against anything religious, including sacred texts, religious symbols, and religious clergy. The demonic personality may be violent and try to physically harm the victim and others, or it may try to humiliate them, such as by talking about or even performing sexual acts in shocking ways. The demonic personality may speak languages unknown to the victim, and talk about events or people that the victim would have no knowledge of. All of these behaviors are attempts by the demon to provoke negative emotions to generate negative energy.
When a living person persuades a ghost to stop haunting a location or persuades a demon to stop possessing a victim’s body, that change is called an exorcism. Even a ghost with good intentions might need some persuasion to return Home. A good ghost may even want to return Home. A demon might be afraid to, however. That means a successful exorcism might cause the demon to wander elsewhere on Earth until the demon finds a new victim.
Numerous religions have specific rituals and guidance for conducting exorcisms. You might prefer your own religion’s rituals and guidance, but every demon is different and every victim is different. An exorcist from one religion can help the victim from another religion and still achieve a successful exorcism.
Centuries ago, some Christian churches warned their clergy that some people seeking exorcisms were only pretending to be victims of demonic possession. (Presumably, the pretenders were trying to attract attention and sympathy.) More recently, several Christian churches have decided that an exorcism shall not be attempted until after scientific experts in psychological health examine the possible victim of demonic possession to ensure that there is no scientific explanation for the person’s strange behavior. Some Christian exorcists even prefer that those scientific experts be atheists so that their scientific evaluation has no bias towards a religious explanation.
An actual exorcism can look very different from what many people expect. An exorcism may not require any religious ritual at all. It can be as simple as firmly telling a demon to leave—and then the demon leaves, immediately, without any religious ritual. Even without demanding that the demon leave, the presence of a very loving, kind, and courageous person, such as a gentle but determined woman, might prompt a demon to leave immediately. (Presumably, the person’s positive energy is too intense for the demon to bear.)
In some cases a conversation might persuade the demon to leave. Some religious forms of exorcism, including in Daoism, Judaism, and some African religions, include this option. This can mean asking the demon what it desires and, if that desire is reasonable, to provide it. (Since a demon can lie, a competent exorcist should perform the interview.) If that ghost inside of a person can be satisfied in this way, then the ghost may not deserve to be called a “demon”—but this is a matter of opinion.
At the other extreme, a demon might be so stubborn that multiple attempts at exorcism might be necessary. That means having to repeat the rituals and procedures of exorcism for weeks, months, or even years. Even invoking the name of a holy prophet, such as Jesus Christ, might not expel a demon immediately. Likewise, invoking the name of a holy prophet might not compel the demon to tell you the truth. The demon may have long practiced how to lie, shamelessly, for decades or even centuries. Such extremely stubborn resistance to Divine authority may surprise Christians in particular, especially if the demon claims to be a “fallen” angel or, supposedly, even Satan (“Lucifer”) himself. The problem with those claims is that they come from demons, who are skillful liars. A demon wants you to believe that it is more powerful than it really is, because it wants to terrify you. Terror is a negative emotion, creating the negative energy the demon wants to feed on. In the minds of many Christians, there is nothing more terrifying than the thought of meeting a supernatural accomplice of Satan or meeting Satan himself. So, the demon lies. Driven by its ego, it may have practiced lying for so long that it may even believe its own lies.
A demon may also express hatred for religious objects. Those objects may have positive energy attached to them. Regardless, those objects may remind the demon of everything the demon is not: righteous, faithful, loved, pleased by the joy of others, and not afraid to face God. The demon is in a pathetic situation on Earth, and the demon knows this. The only amusement the demon has is to torment people, especially the victim, and the demon knows that this involves committing more sins which, someday, the demon will be held accountable for. Despite the lies told by the demon’s ego, the demon knows that its behavior is evil and is only delaying the inevitable; it knows that Home is infinitely more wonderful than the pathetic situation the demon is in now. If confronted with this information and the demon ponders it, the demon may actually sob in great sadness and shame. Or the demon may react with outrage and hatred, still trying to provoke more fear and other negative emotions.
The exorcist is not a magician. For any exorcism to be successful, the victim must want the demon to leave. Most victims do want this, but some victims either want the demon to stay or they no longer care. The exorcist represents the alternative to demonic possession because the exorcist represents life, free will, faith, love. If the victim chooses what the exorcist represents, then the victim’s emotions can become very uncomfortable for the demon.
The demon will leave when it decides that exiting the victim is better for the demon than staying. To persuade the demon, performing an exorcism can become a battle between negative emotions and positive emotions. The demon wants to provoke negative emotions, such as fear and anger, to create negative energy for the demon to feed on. Opposing the demon are the positive emotions of the people performing the exorcism and supporting the victim; their positive emotions include courage, religious faith, and love for the victim, all creating positive energy. Positive energy can feel painful or even unbearable to a demon, especially if there is little or no negative energy to feed on. That is why the faith of the exorcist and love for the victim are crucially important. Even hatred of the demon itself is a negative emotion, and so a good exorcist stays calm and focuses on performing the exorcism instead of getting angry or scared.
To protect yourself against demons and demonic possession, many religions advise that you should become religiously devout, pray often, learn the religion’s sacred scriptures, perhaps carry one or more religious objects with you, such as a necklace or bracelet that display a religious symbol, and perhaps put some religious objects on display in your home, including a major religious scripture such as the Holy Bible or Holy Quran. If you are especially worried about demons, religions also advise that you talk to religious clergy about your concerns. Religious clergy will likely advise you to avoid anything involving dark magic and the occult.
That is all good advice, but perhaps not enough protection unless your religious faith transforms your spirit and calms your soul. More important than practicing religious rituals is to practice forgiveness. (If your religion does not practice forgiveness, then you might be practicing the wrong religion.) Forgiveness must be unconditional because “conditional forgiveness”—requiring something in exchange for being forgiven—is not really forgiveness, it is a bribe. Forgive others and forgive yourself. Forgiving yourself might be more difficult than forgiving others, but it is essential. This is because when unconditional forgiveness is practiced, unconditional love can flourish, joy can flourish, and likewise patience and peace. Have a positive and cheerful attitude. Feel empathy and compassion for others. All of that positive energy creates an environment that most demons would prefer to avoid. It also creates an environment less likely to create any demons in the future.
Throughout history are countless stories of demonic possession, but the extent should not be exaggerated. In actuality, the threat of demonic possession is rare. Some people get very worried about demons and other supernatural creatures, but most people live entire lifetimes without ever encountering a demon, or any ghost. Even among the people who have such encounters, the encounter might happen only once or twice in an entire lifetime. An exorcist might encounter plenty of demons because that is the job of an exorcist, but most of us are not exorcists.
Furthermore, while stories about angels, ghosts, and demons can be fascinating, beware of missing the point. Angels, ghosts, and demons are not the point of human existence. The purpose of life, especially of human life, is to enjoy the experience of living while also caring for and helping others, particularly those in need. You as a human can perform the mission of an angel by helping someone who desperately needs help, an activity far more important than learning about supernatural angels. If you want to combat demons, then help people in despair. There may not be any demons around, but that is not the point. Helping someone is the point, because helping someone encourages spiritual growth. Belief in the power of forgiveness and love is more important than a belief in angels, ghosts, or demons.