Demons are an inseparable part of religious traditions and beliefs. They belong mostly to the sphere of the supernatural, and their main feature is their role. Basically, demons serve two main purposes. First of all, they serve as a way of explaining a wide range of phenomena that people were unable to understand in ancient times or rationalize later. Illnesses, personal tragedies, as well as natural disasters were often attributed to the influence of supernatural powers, like demons, and later similar forms of understanding are found, for example, in common folk beliefs which often have traces of earlier religious beliefs, like being responsible for ailments, and many other bad happenings in people's lives. Secondly, the threatening presence of evil supernatural powers forced people to establish a system of defense, based on rituals, religious beliefs, religious institutions, and, sometimes, fear of punishment in the afterlife. In most cases in which evidence regarding possession is under consideration, belief in possession plays a role, though people unfamiliar with and skeptical of such belief persistently ask whether the individual possessed by the demon is not indeed malingerer. Data from numerous historical sources indicate that people in most of the periods did not have the power to understand alternative interpretations and explanations different from possession of demons. However, only a few of these reports give biographical details for many of the possessed persons, and instead focus on more publicized public acts of their possession or exorcism.
The subject of possession has attracted the curiosity and frightened the imagination of believers and non-believers alike for thousands of years. Possession is a phenomenon consisting of a sudden change of behavior in an individual in which the personality and the normal self-controls no longer appear to be present. The signs are profound and shocking delusions, periodic loss of consciousness, attacks or altered states of consciousness. In many religious traditions, these characteristics are considered the work of supernatural beings, which include evil spirits, demons, and the devil, possessing man against his will. Psychiatry has also given these phenomena attention by establishing a diagnostic category, 'dissociative disorders', and in some countries even specifying it as a formal form of possession by a demon. The phenomenon of demonic possession is important not only for laypersons, but also for many experts on abnormal mental phenomena, because these altered personality states are commonly explained by lie as "possession" by the devil or some kind of evil spirit.
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