When I was once a young and impressionable Evangelical Christian, Satan and his demons and the Hell whence they all came were considered as real as Jesus was considered alive again after being properly dead.

Satan was always there, lurking in the shadows of our minds, in the interstices between us, and upon the words of our discourse. Satan was in our midst. Unseeable, but there, like a repulsive miasma about to envelop and absorb us. Satan and his demons were not abstract ideas. Hell no. They were real and resident with insidious impulse, always ready to attach to the slightest susceptibility.

You see, a war was being waged in the spiritual realm between Powers and Principalities for the conquest of the souls of us good people, that we may become bad people—evil people.

And sometimes Satan or his demons possessed someone and twisted them. Or made them sick, like giving them arthritis or echsema or anxiety. Sometimes Satan or his demons possessed objects, like books and vinyl records. And so we had book and record burning ceremonies. Some raised their hands in worship, praying in tongues, while the evil forces whisped away in the rising synthetic smoke.

Yes, Satan and demons and Hell were very real, invisible but utterly literal…

…until I said, No! Enough!

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