Demonic possession and the occult: Gen Z’s battle with darkness

If you imagine the occult, you might imagine caricatures of dark brooding witches and culty campfire sacrifices — and in some cases you might be right.

But with the takeover of social media, more and more young people are being attracted to the occult under the guise of enlightenment and beauty, rather than the stereotypical images of darkness and despair.

“I grew up in the '90s and early 2000s, and even some of this was alive and well then at such an early age, reading the magazines that tell you your astrological sign, the little power beads that were supposed to signify some kind of superpower,” Allie Beth Stuckey of “Relatable” tells author Rod Dreher.

“And of course with the rise of social media, all of the personality quizzes that told you who you really were and what you should be doing in your life, there’s a lot of God of self,” she continues, calling it “trendy narcissism that has manifested itself in a kind of spiritualism and witchcraft and satanism.”

Stuckey notes that those behind this movement usually use “pink and sparkly” themes to get their messages across.

“That’s just it, it’s not blatantly satanic,” Dreher says, noting that not just young people are embracing satanism but people at the top of the U.S. government, national security, and Silicon Valley who believe wholeheartedly in UFOs.

“I’ve laughed at this all my life,” Dreher says, “but they’re like, ‘No, no, no, you need to pay attention.’ They don’t believe that they are people or creatures from other planets, they believe these are extra dimensional beings who are trying to contact us.”

“Listening to all this in their language, their nonreligious language, I’m like, ‘They’re talking about demons,’” he continues. “I’ve confirmed this with several people who believe that ‘Oh yes, the aliens are really higher entities who are leading us to enlightenment,’ and they do seances to communicate with them.”

Stuckey has also recently interviewed an ex-occultist, who, like these men and women, believed she had been in contact with aliens her entire life.

“Eventually she was just so oppressed by these demonic forces, she was on a ton of drugs, she was doing sex sacrifice rituals, I mean this young woman, and then finally one day she called out ‘Jesus,’ and he saved her in a very dramatic way,” she tells Dreher.

“I’ve noticed that very often, the drastic testimonies involve either the person saying Jesus’ name and being delivered, or someone that they didn’t know, somehow knowing their name,” she continues, adding, “I see in so many of these testimonies of people who were completely lost, some random interaction, someone locked eyes with them and said, ‘This is your name, what are you doing?’”

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