Posting the full text from a recent article on my Substack, about Internal Family Systems, the idea of integrating different parts of ourselves, and the classical Christian conception of demonic influence. Can't figure out how to paste images so... might be a tad confusing. Sorry!
I made a post on twitter about how the negative voice in the head can be considered “demonic” and man, it was polarizing!
(text): When I first started realizing that the "negative voice in my head" was demonic in origin, it was pretty terrifying
As I've gotten more used to the idea though, it's actually extremely helpful! Not identifying with that voice is crucial to positive growth
Ultimately a lot of people just said the basic “yup” but quite a few folks that I respected chimed in to tell me that no actually, this voice was “me.” Thinking it’s demonic is stupid and wrong:
And most of the language used to rebut me was, of course psychological in nature:
I'm sorry but this is a terrible idea. Firstly because it isn't true. Secondly you're doing the same thing that people do when they set up some kind of discrimination between their ego and their heart or their thoughts and their feelings or whatever mental apartheid; all of these will from then on impede their thoughts from thinking together as a team. Because all that is neuronal activities, mental events, all of the same type and they can work together better if they realize this. And I didn't see how an extra helping of manichean supernaturalism is going to do anything except make it worse.
It’s fascinating to me because I do think modern psychology has made great strides. Personally I’ve benefited quite a bit from various psychological frameworks, especially a focus on loving emotions, not shaming them, and learning to feel the things we shove down.
loving those voices vs demonising them may be more effective.
you can lovingly release them into light . vs struggle of resistance
Which is why I’m frustrated that Delia here is basically telling me that I’m wrong because I’m not loving myself enough!
Perhaps the best way to frame this issue is that there are two major religious worldviews clashing here: that of the Christian, and that of the Psychological.
The ‘Self’ as a Recent Invention
The modern idea of the ‘Self’ as we currently understand it is likely quite new, historically speaking. Threading back to the Greek polymaths Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, there’s a line often drawn between their ideas, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment, where the rational part of humanity slowly grows larger, and the individual, rational, atomized self becomes ascendant in the modern world.
If you want to look into this further, I recommend The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy by Anthony Gottlieb.
Of course given that this change in worldviews all happened in Western Europe, it means that the Psychological view has many elements that are quite reminiscent of (Western) Christianity, such as dividing everything into ‘good’ versus ‘sinful’, especially people!
In the psychological worldview, the valence is just switched where ‘good’ becomes ‘healthy’ or ‘functional’ and ‘sinful’ becomes ‘unhealthy’ or ‘dysfunctional.’
When you have this framework, anything that turns you ‘against yourself’ is ‘unhealthy.’ We should strive to be fully integrated beings, loving every part of ourselves.
Except this sort of mental exercise requires a LOT of gymnastics to get it to actually work. Like, for instance, let’s say there’s a part of me that wants to smack a friend in the face. I could take the approach of saying “oh ok, that’s just a part of me that is hurt and it lashing out, I should love that anger because it just wants to protect me.”
On the flip side, I could say “no this is an evil temptation, striking my brother in anger is wrong, and I will refuse the call of the Evil One.”
Both of these paths are valid, and in my opinion useful in different scenarios. Sometimes you will find it useful to go down the path of your past trauma, analyze why your emotions are reacting the way they are, and try and “solve” whatever part of you is triggered.
Other times, this process will just lead you through a funhouse hall of mirrors, where you constantly analyze and re-analyze every tiny change in emotion, sift through all your memories for anything with the slightest hint of similarity, and drive yourself mad trying to cobble together some just-so story that explains your “trauma.”
In the latter case, it’s better to just say it’s demonic, and move on. If anything, it’s a far more practical way to live your life.
Part of the problem with the Psychological mindset is that, similar to the Protestant mindset, every new generation feels the need to reinvent the wheel. You can’t just use the concepts Freud, Jung, Reich, and the other early psychologists did, you have to create an entirely new paradigm!
Seriously - mainstream psychology has, just in my lifetime, gone from Cognitive Behavior Therapy being flavor of the month, to Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, to Exposure Therapy, to Emotion-Focused Therapy, to Internal Family Systems… etc etc.
To put it more succinctly:
When you’re constantly reinventing words and concepts like this, it stalls out overall progress in the field. Not only that, it makes it hard for different generations to relate to each other because their terminology is changed.
I can read a Saint from over a thousand years ago talking about the temptations of demons, and understand what he or she means, at least to some degree. I highly doubt psychologists that far out will make any sense whatsoever.
So Why Demons?
Well, let me link you a great book review from Scott Alexander on the IFS book, The Others Within Us. The TL;DR is:
What I gather from the manuals: IFS is about working with “parts”. You treat your mind as containing a Self - a sort of perfect angelic intellect without any flaws or mental illnesses - and various Parts - little sub-minds with their own agendas who can sometimes occlude or overwhelm the Self. During therapy, you talk to the Parts, learn their motives, and bargain with them.
…The second assumption is that everything inside your mind is part of you, and everything inside your mind is good. You might think of [a negative part] as some kind of hostile interloper, ruining your relationships with people you love. But actually she’s a part of your unconscious, which you have in some sense willed into existence, looking out for your best interests. You neither can nor should fight her. If you try to excise her, you will psychically wound yourself. Instead, you should bargain with her the same way you would with any other friend or loved one, until either she convinces you that relationships are bad, or you and the therapist together convince her that they aren’t. This is one of the pillars of classical IFS.
The secret is: no, actually some of these things are literal demons.
Now ironically, I actually think this framing is TOO strong! The Orthodox Christian framing doesn’t tend to see demons as this extremely powerful, terrifying force that must be avoided at all costs. In fact, as St. Porphyrios says:
Show contempt for the devil. Don’t meet him head on. When you struggle against the devil with obstinacy, he flies at you like a tiger or a wild cat... Don’t look at evil. Turn your eyes to God’s embrace and fall into His arms and continue on your way.
Just because demons are real, doesn’t mean we should focus on them and fear them. Doing so is a mistake. At the same time, the psychological worldview is not sufficient for all the strange things that can go on in our minds. Sometimes the thing whispering in your ear really isn’t you. And pretending it is can make you crazy.
Not every impulse needs to be analyzed, integrated, or lovingly massaged into wholeness. Some things you’re safe to look at, say “this isn’t Good,” and promptly ignore them.
That’s the thing, calling these thoughts demonic ideally isn’t about fear or hatred, towards yourself or even the demon. It’s about clarity & practicality. It’s about denying evil the ability to worm its way inside your head, and pretend to be you.
Again, the core problem critics of this view of inner voices as demons seem to have is that you’ll be “turning against yourself.” I just want to clarify strongly, that is NOT my position. We should not be afraid of the depths of our souls, or feel we are turning against and having to crush a part of us. Living in fear is not the way, and hating ourselves is not the way either.
I’ll leave you with the words of a beautifully pious holy man, St. John Chrysostom, who says it better than I ever could myself:
Why do you fear the Devil, O Christians? He cannot force you to do anything. The Devil should, rather, fear you, not you the Devil, for you are clad in the armor and panoply of God; you have as a sling the sign of the Precious Cross, with which, and from a distance, you can smite all of the demons; you wield, as a two-edged sword, the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the demons fear and at which they tremble.
Thanks for reading me ramble about demons. If you want more, you know what to do.
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Notes -
I appreciate this post as it aligns with some of my own experience. I grew up in a Christian household so I also adopted a Christian-ese framing regarding some of my mental health issues. I had crippling depression and anxiety and low self esteem. I constantly had this voice in my head saying I wasn't worthy, I was a failure, everything I did was wrong, everyone was secretly laughing at me, yadda-yadda. I mean it was nonstop. I was mired in this sticky fog of self-hate and doubt that I couldn't see past and it was making me suicidal.
Looking back on it now, I have some thoughts about where all that stuff came from. But at the time, the way that I got out of it was when I started thinking of it as the Devil's voice or a demon's voice. Well, from what I read in the Bible I should be able to have power over demons. There's this old movie Labyrinth I watched as a kid, and the protagonist gives her speech against the goblin king at the end and she says "You have no power over me." A lot of people think it's cheesy, I guess, but it was exactly like that for me. Giving that voice a name, an identity that was NOT myself, and calling it out and saying, "you are not welcome here" - that was a real turning point for me. I developed my "real" internal voice, someone who could argue against the demon voice, mock it even, provide a counterpoint to the hateful things it said. And eventually I was able to banish it. I mean, of course I still have self-doubt and low points but it's never crippling or oppressive the way it used to be.
I don't think honestly that my experience is all that uncommon either. I've heard other reports from people who give that "evil" voice a name and personify it. Not necessarily with the demon framing, but I think it's just a way to split off that stuff from your core identity, give you a way to grapple with it while building an intact self apart from it.
I can relate to this voice. I think many in the modern world can. While there are definitely "psychological" components based on family history, social situations, etc, as you say later on I don't think that necessarily rules out the frame of demonic influence as a useful view.
In terms of it being not uncommon, totally agreed! I think the majority of people will experience something like this at one point or another in their lives. And perhaps for some tail of people, working through it purely on an emotional level and tracing back the trauma or whatever is the best way. This is actually now reminding me of @FtttG's recent post on polyamory and such, where he claims that a lot of alternative lifestyles promoted work well for a small subset, not so well for everyone.
I wonder if, all else being equal, most people nowadays would be better just labeling a suicidal voice in their head as Evil and being convinced via religion that they have the power to overcome it. That's why I love that quote at the end, from St. John Chrysostom.
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Came here expecting a lecture on measure theory and Lebesgue integrals. Enjoyed this post regardless.
I expected something about racial integration.
I expected the second and was planning to joke about the first.
Foiled again. ;P
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LOL haven’t heard this one yet. Good stuff.
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Hah yes I've had a few math nerds tell me they thought it would be mathy. Alas. Maybe in another lifetime I'll study up and get something out.
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