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In the Presence of Evil: Demonic Perception Narratives Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU All Graduate Plan B and other Reports Graduate Studies 8-2021 In the Presence of Evil: Demonic Perception Narratives Victoria Jaye Utah State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/gradreports Part of the Folklore Commons Recommended Citation Jaye, Victoria, "In the Presence of Evil: Demonic Perception Narratives" (2021). All Graduate Plan B and other Reports. 1563. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/gradreports/1563 This Report is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Graduate Plan B and other Reports by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. IN THE PRESENCE OF EVIL: DEMONIC PERCEPTION NARRATIVES by Victoria Jaye A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in English Approved: ___________________________ ___________________________ Lisa Gabbert, Ph.D. Christine Cooper-Rompato, Ph.D. Major Professor Committee Member ___________________________ Afsane Rezaeisahraei, Ph.D. Committee Member UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY Logan, Utah 2021 ii Copyright © Victoria Jaye 2021 All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT In the Presence of Evil: Demonic Perception Narratives by Victoria Jaye, Master of Science Utah State University, 2021 Major Professor: Dr. Lisa Gabbert Department: English I offer a new classification system for organizing, understanding, and validating the inhuman demonic encounter by organizing it through the senses the experience is activating. A demonic or inhuman spirit, which can be used interchangeably, is a spirit in that they exist without bodies, possess abilities greater than that of humans (rendering them inhuman), are hyperintelligent, react negatively to Christian religious iconography, and are malevolent in their behavior towards humans. The system I have created is organized by the sensory perceptions of the narrative (i.e. sight, sound, smell, and feeling of the demonic presence) then is divided further by the types of perceptions reported in narratives about contact with inhuman spirits. My system encompasses the phenomena described during the encroachment, infestation, and oppression phases. Encroachment is when a demon is looking for a foothold to enter a person’s life (they cannot just enter on their own). Infestation is when strange phenomena begins because a demon has moved into people’s lives. Oppression is where a person’s mind begins to be broken down by an entity in order to crush their will. iv For this part of the project, I am using memorates described in interviews done by the paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, in the books In A Dark Place (1992) and The Haunting (1989) along with other related experiences from Satan’s Harvest (1990). I am using these instances of contemporary literature on the subject to widen the understanding for my system. This way, the patterns of demonic activity emerge and then can be organized by the sense they are activating. My classification system could also be applied to other types of supernatural folklore to look for patterns, especially with negative supernatural narratives. (62 pages) v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Lisa Gabbert for her tireless efforts to help me improve in all aspects of this thesis, and for reminding me that what I had created was impressive. I would also like to thank my other committee members, Afsane Rezaeisahraei for listening, and for Christine Cooper-Rompato's enthusiasm. I also wish to thank my mom, who believed me first and for all the continual support from her, my dad, and my sister through this process. I thank my husband, who helped me heal from who I was to be stronger in who I am now. Victoria Jaye CONTENTS Abstract ...........................................................................................................................iii Acknowledgments............................................................................................................v Introduction ......................................................................................................................1 “Demon and “Devil” Translations ...................................................................................7 Demonic Origins ..............................................................................................................9 Scriptural Interpretation of Demonic Ability ...................................................................11 Occult & Demonology Understanding ............................................................................12 Literature Review.............................................................................................................13 Methods............................................................................................................................21 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................24 References ........................................................................................................................27 Legend/Classification System ..........................................................................................32 1 INTRODUCTION I openly believe in the supernatural and by extension, demons. I had a terrifying experience with what I interpret as a demonic presence when I was nineteen years old, in 2014, for about two weeks over Valentine’s Day. I don’t know why it happened. Strange phenomena happened around me and to me. For example, bruises mysteriously appeared up and down my arms as if I had been grabbed; they did not fade in intensity for many weeks. I also had horrific visual and tactile hallucinations of being beaten that weren’t real, although bruises occurred as if I had been hit repeatedly. I saw figures in shadow staring at me. An evil-sounding voice spoke out loud in a mysterious language and drawers opened then closed by themselves; these two events were witnessed by my sister and by others in my family. I had horrific dreams about demons that caused insomnia, I threw up food, and I was deeply unstable. I woke up in the hospital but something else was looking out through my eyes, talking through me. I was there, but silent, unable to do anything except watch. I was dormant and believe I was possessed. Then I was put to sleep (my adrenaline was so high that the physicians caring for me had to give me “enough sedative to put down a horse” about three times the normal amount according to the nurse who spoke to my mother). I also don’t remember three entire days during that period. People said I spoke to them, created things, and I had no idea who they were. I didn’t know where I was and when I woke up, I had with a cigarette in my mouth (I don’t smoke and never did again). I put it out and tried to figure out where I was and what had happened to me. 2 Afterwards, I was a mess, and it took a very long time to resume normal life because I was afraid of everything and everyone. I have wondered if this event was brought on by extreme anxiety/stress and then exacerbated by a psychotic break. It is much easier to believe a person had a psychotic break with reality than to believe they had an encounter with a demon, even for the person it happened to. However, phenomena happened that I can’t reconcile or explain away rationally and were witnessed by more than one person. This bizarre and horrific experience underlies my scholarly interest in perceived demonic narratives and experiences. Most people generally know what a demon is thanks to horror movies, broad Christian-based religion, and television that focuses on the paranormal. It is understood emically by American culture that a demon is not something a person would want to have around. Popular books are published every year on people’s experiences with demons since there is a public interest in this macabre subject. The available information about perceived demonic phenomena, however, is disorganized and choppy. In this thesis, I seek to systematically organize demonic phenomena by identifying common motifs found in published memorates and creating a preliminary classificatory system. According to Carl von Sydow, a memorate is a firsthand experience with the supernatural (Von Sydow 1948: 60). Folklore studies was one of the first disciplines to take supernatural belief and memorates seriously as an area of study. However, demonic memorates have not been as extensively explored as compared to other types of supernatural phenomena that have been studied. Ghosts were covered by Diane Goldstein, Jeannie Thomas, and Sylvia Grider in Haunting Experiences: Ghosts in 3 Contemporary Folklore (2007); Gillian Bennett has also looked at ghost-related memorates in Alas, Poor Ghost!: Traditions of Belief in Stories and Discourse (1999). UFO-related memorates have been studied by Thomas Bullard in The Myth and Mystery of UFOs (2010) and the Old Hag/Mara tradition was investigated by David Hufford in The Terror that Comes in the Night: An Experience-Centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions (1982). The folkloristic literature on demons however, is incomplete. Bill Ellis has written about Satan in Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media (2000); Ellis also looked at the occult in general along with demonic possession. Demonic possession is the unwilling relinquishment of one’s
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