Demonic possession: the theory that sees the possessed in power

A demonic possession doesn't have to involve green vomit or rotating heads. The more unsettling variant is another one: the kind that settles into power and merges with the possessed. In a conversation that has been gaining intensity, the theory of central and peripheral possessions is being used to explain why the world works the way it does, and who is pulling the strings from within.

A taxonomy of evil: peripheral and central

According to this line of thought, peripheral possessions are the movie kind: spectacular, recognizable, almost grotesque. Central possessions, on the other hand, show no external signs: the "critter" and the person share a life, a body, thoughts and emotions. The possessed person may be unaware of their condition or come to an arrangement with their tenant, and each gets something out of the deal. The world's rulers and leaders would fall into this second category, and that, according to this reading, is why reality is the way it is.

It is not a classic conspiracy with witches' sabbaths and pentagrams: it is an accepted hybridization, a silent possession that needs no rituals. The thesis has the advantage of requiring no proof: the centrally possessed doesn't even know they are possessed, so they cannot deny it.

From Pazuzu to Torquemada: the iconography of antiestéticar

The cultural references orbit around the great myths of exorcism. Pazuzu, the demon from 'The Exorcist', appears both as a joke and as a signal. Emily Rose, whose case inspired a trial and a film, is invoked to compare the judicial harassment of a private individual with two ongoing court cases. And Tomás de Torquemada is cited as a warning: when suspicion of heresy prevails, someone eventually lights the pyre. Demonology has always been a political weapon; what is new is that it is now being aimed at those at the top.

Drugs as a contemporary demon fit into the same bag: it describes how girls with no prospects are pushed into addiction in order to control them, and cocaine appears as an entity that corrodes noses and wills. It is not witchcraft, but the pattern is identical: there is an external agent taking control.

Skepticism and apocalypse: closing the circle

Against the theory, there are those who dismiss it as an article of faith, on the same level as astrology or witches. There are also those who see it as the reflection of a society that has lost its bearings, and there is no shortage of those predicting the end: "there is little time left before this hell is over," they write. The two court cases mentioned and the number 666 complete a symbolic code in which the religious, the judicial and the political blend together.

The curious thing about the matter is that nobody proposes a collective exorcism. The remedies suggested involve weapons, cleansing or simply enduring, but the centrally possessed never shows up. Perhaps because, as the theory itself says, they don't know they are possessed. Or perhaps because the diagnosis has inhabited the same body for so many centuries that it is now impossible to tell the patient from the demon.