D is for Demons

We saw a program the other evening which featured a segment on three teenage exorcists. They specialised in casting out demons and while the whole notion of these young things doing this was far-fetched, the segment did raise an interesting point. One of the young women exorcised during the segment said that she felt her demons had been cast out - and then went on to talk about her teen pregnancy, her abusive parents and other things which had troubled her and were now "gone". Hmmmm - that made some sense - thinking about demons not as supernatural beings that had invaded someone's body but as negative talk, experiences and criticism that had invaded a soul, built a nest there and started to fester and eat it away from the inside. And this isn't a new thought - although people in the past may not have viewed it exactly in those terms - because it isn't that long ago that people with a mental illness were thought to be "possessed". So what demons are each of us harbouring? What skeletons are in our closets, what secrets do we keep, things of which we are ashamed, things we prefer we hadn't said or done that we can't let go of, forgive ourselves, forget and move on?

[The devil is in the detail: isn't it amazing that we have a language in which a demon can be either a "cruel wicked and inhuman person", "an evil supernatural being" or "someone extremely diligent or skillful"? Me, I'm going with the Ancient Greek origin - δαίμων (god, goddess, divine power).] (Thanks WordNet.)