In the abyss with Thomas Sheridan

"Demons" is a documentary about demonic beings available free at YouTube. It´s made and narrated by Thomas Sheridan, an Irish occultist and chaos magician. To be honest, I wouldn´t call it a "documentary" in the strict sense. It comes across more like a weird work of art, with pictures of various hideous and monstrous creatures set to scary music and sounds. The narration feels very "stream of consciousness" and jumps from topic to topic in fast progression. I´m not *entirely* sure how much I really learned about the subject matter after having watched it twice...

Sheridan argues that demons are real beings, which surprised me, since in his other content, he argues that gods are *not* real, rather being archetypes of energies present in the human psyche. Demons are identical or similar to the Irish fairy, live in other dimensions of reality, or at certain places in the landscape, or even at ancient monuments. Summoned, they can be forced to serve the magician and reveal certain secrets, but the process is extremely dangerous. The demons often taken the form of children or beautiful youth to dazzle the magician. They habitually lie to flatter the magician, with the purpose of disrupting the ritual and drive him literally insane. Demon possesion is a real thing. Sheridan doesn´t believe that exorcists can kill demons - rather, they simply release them into the world, making the demon free to attack other people! 

Demons come from "the Abyss", where everything is meaningless and malignant. The demons therefore want to enter our world, where they can get form but continue to wreak havoc. The most powerful demon is named Choronzon 333 or C333. The Abyss can also be interpreted as the deepest reaches of the human mind. The magician can become a living god by tapping its powers, but only if he can pass Choronzon and remain sane. 

The documentary references Richard Gallagher, a psychiatrist who believes in the reality of demonic possesion, the magician David Conway, and Aleister Crowley, the notorious founder of the Thelema "religion". Crowley was presumably on a first name basis with both Choronzon and another entity, known as Aiwass. In general, Sheridan seems relatively positive towards Crowley. He connects Aiwass to the Grey Aliens. Finally, the narrator also tells us about his own demonic encounter, similar to "sleep paralysis", except that Sheridan claims he was wide awake, not paralyzed and it wasn´t dark in the room. 

Perhaps the evocative character of this production is in itself some kind of ritual. For the best, we hope...