Afraid of Demons, Ashamed of Nothing

“Afraid of Demons, Ashamed of Nothing?”

Afraid of Demons, Ashamed of Nothing, well, we have to start with the first part to understand the second part. So first, let’s start with what demons are. So, just imagine if you were living in 3,000BC, no electricity, hospitals or police, plagues can kill you, an earthquake can kill you, a drought can kill you, anything can happen. The world is pretty scary, so our ancient ancestors were typically talking about the dangers around them when discussing demons. Demons were originally associated with famine, plague, disease, natural disasters, nightmares, misfortune and the list goes on. The Demon wasn’t necessarily evil; it was a force, something dangerous and unpredictable, literally beyond your control, so our ancient ancestors were looking outward at this point when thinking of demons as if something were attacking them. The demon was the embodiment of the unknown that lurked beyond the walls of civilization, beyond the campfire. Then humanity started to change, cities grew, civilization advanced, and we gained greater control over nature. The flooding became manageable along with harvesting and medicine improvements. Society became more organized, and that monster lurking in the dark outside of civilization became less frightening and a new monster appeared. The monster inside.

By the time we come to later religions, the focus shifts from what is destroying my crops or what is making me sick to what is destroying my soul. Now, demons become associated with pride, lust, envy, and temptation. “See, the war is never over; the battlefields just moved. There will always be a war, whether outward or within. You have to either fight it or flee for the rest of your life.” Now let's move to Ashamed of Nothing; this is where the second part comes in. See, even though it’s not necessarily good or needed, ancient cultures were literally built around shame, and it served a purpose. Reputation was everything; honor and keeping your word meant everything. You don’t just get disgraced, your whole dang on family line gets disgraced, all because you or your daughter lost her virginity, or you eat a grape without paying for it at the lil fruit stand. It wasn’t just an emotion; shame was a social survival mechanism made to hold themselves accountable. They couldn’t blame a demon or bad spirit for shameful actions like we do today because people feared disgrace. See, today most people don’t fear being seen as arrogant or greedy or dishonest or selfish as they did back then. Instead, we fear isolation, judgment, anxiety, rejection, failure, and losing status. The definition of what a demon is has changed, but the experience remains. Listen to how we speak; it literally mimics the ancient language of how our ancestors spoke about demons.

“I'm battling demons, my addiction is a demon, the demons of my past, depression the demon is eating me alive. All of these examples entail being attacked by a demon; the only difference is that these attacks are seen as controllable battles, unlike the ancients, who had an idea of uncontrollable attacks. The demon never vanished; it just changed form.

See, many of us today are willing to blame society, upbringing, politics, enemies and circumstances before asking what part of this belongs to me. Our ancient ancestors might have been wrong about many things; maybe storms and diseases were not demons. But they understood something that resonates today: human beings are constantly struggling against forces that consume them. You can call it demons, mental illness, sin, trauma, addiction, ego or whatever; the struggle remained. The name and battlefield changed, but the human condition did not. We no longer fear the shadows beyond the village, but the shadows within ourselves. The question is do we still possess the humility and awareness to admit that they are there? When we see evil as always outside of us, accountability becomes harder. Just to be fair, many religions do not teach shifting the blame to outside sources; even though demons are acknowledged, the notion of personal responsibility does not dissolve. A demon may tempt, but a person still chooses, so the idea was never supposed to be that you have no control, which I'm sure most of us do recognize, but we often use external explanations to protect ourselves from uncomfortable truths. If you think about children and toddlers, they naturally think this way, not because they are evil but because accepting responsibility is difficult. Human beings have a built-in tendency to externalise blame. Ancient cultures sometimes projected chaos onto demons. We often project onto society, politics, parents, corporations, technology or trauma. These factors do genuinely matter, but sometimes they become modern versions of demons. 

So, think about it like this: at first, the ancient people thought a storm destroyed my crops; a demon must have done it. Medieval people say I sinned; a demon tempted me and today we say, my circumstances made me do it. Different explanations, same human impulses, meaning the source of the problem is outside of me, when the truth is that the source of the problem always starts from the inside in some type of way. The question is are you intelligent enough, brave enough and courageous enough to confront the issues that you can control rather than fall to the circumstances? The fact that we have solved issues that have threatened our livelihoods proves that we are brave, intelligent and courageous enough to defeat the ancient demons. For example, we built more stable homes to fight the storms from destroying our property, or police and health departments to protect us from dangers outside and inside. Now we just have to figure out how to beat these modern demons. Humanity once feared demons because we thought evil was lurking outside of us. Today, we often explain our flaws through psychology, circumstance, or society. The language changed, but the temptation stayed the same: seeing ourselves as victims of forces beyond our control rather than participants in our own choices. That doesn't mean every problem is a choice or that people should feel guilt for everything. It means maturity begins when a person can say: "Something influenced me, but I still have a role in what happened.”