The word “daimon” has several possible meanings, but in relation to possession and exorcism it refers to a particular type of autonomous or autonomous-feeling force in the psyche that influences or, in some cases, dominates a person’s thoughts, actions, and feelings.
Category: Religion & Philosophy
How Google replaced God
NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway, writing for Esquire: Our brains are sophisticated enough to ask very complex questions but not sophisticated enough to answer them. Since Homo sapiens emerged from caves, weâve relied on prayer to address that gap: We lift our gaze to the heavens, send up a question, and wait for a response…
One Nation under Many Gods: In a Fractious and Fractured Political Age, New Age Mysticism Still Unites Americans
 A version of the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States printed in a 1909 U.S. Government booklet on the Great Seal. According to Henry A. Wallace, this was the version that caught his eye, causing him to suggest to President Franklin Roosevelt to put the design on a coin, at which point…
A fascinating and important re-visioning of God and religion: “God: An Autobiography”
It was around 2010 that I first became aware of Jerry Martin’s book in progress titled God: An Autobiography as Told to a Philosopher. I was deep into blogging at the (now-defunct) Demon Muse site at the time, and I was developing A Course in Demonic Creativity from those materials. So thoughts about the experience…
When mental illness is really demonic possession, according to a psychiatrist
The following two paragraphs are excerpted from what’s basically your everyday, run-of-the-mill article about the reality of demonic possession as distinct from mental illness. Written by a board-certified psychiatrist and professor of clinical psychiatry at New York Medical College. For The Washington Post. Move along. Nothing to see here. For the past two-and-a-half decades and over several…
Huston Smith and H. P. Lovecraft on transcendent longing and humanity’s fundamental dis-ease
From Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief by Huston Smith: The traditional worldview is preferable to the one that now encloses us because it allows for the fulfillment of the basic longing that lies in the depth of the human heart. . . . There is within…
What is real, anyhow? Erik Davis on visionary experiences and the high weirdness of the seventies counterculture
Last night I digitally stumbled across this: High Weirdness: Visionary Experience in the Seventies Counterculture It’s Erik Davis’s senior thesis, written as he was pursuing his Ph.D. in religious studies at Rice University, and submitted just last fall. You’ll recall that I mentioned Erik’s study of this same high weirdness last year (and that he…
Forthcoming from Richard Gavin: ‘The Benighted Path: Primeval Gnosis and the Monstrous Soul’
Teem member Richard Gavin has a new book coming out this summer from Theion Publishing — and it’s nonfiction. Richard, as you know, has built a major reputation in recent years as a writer of exquisite weird fiction in a darkly esoteric and philosophical vein, and this book promises to be a kind of nonfiction…
What if God is horrifying?
Yes, of course, this is a topic that I have broached many times before. But this recent — and fantastically brilliant — video from The Onion brought it roaring back to the forefront of my thoughts. (Hat tip to J. F. Martel for alerting me to it.) And of course that reminded me of —…
Matthew McConaughey and the Lincoln MKZ: Existential Crisis
A bizarre, surreal, hilarious, and strangely hypnotic remix parody of Matthew McConaughey’s commercial for the Lincoln MKZ.