“John came neither eating nor drinking and folks said, ‘He’s got a demon'” (Matthew 11.18).
It was, probably, the Stephen King blurb on its cover. That’s likely what made me click on the book in the library’s Overdrive app. But the description is what made me want to borrow it. A suburban family whose daughter is exhibiting signs of mental illness, who don’t have the money or insurance to get her the help she needs. So, they turn to a television crew who will pay them, and film them…and the exorcism of the demon dwelling in their daughter.
Head Full of Ghosts was published in 2015 and written by Paul Tremblay (who also wrote The Cabin at the End of the World amongst other stories). It won the Bram Stoker Award for best novel, and a film adaptation (as of April of this year) is in production.
The book is a homage to the work of Shirley Jackson, but it’s also wholly its own thing somehow entangling a supernatural story with a critique of reality television through the eyes of an unreliable narrator. It’s also really creepy.
The story centers on Marjorie Barrett, a fourteen-year-old girl suffering from severe mental illness that it’s determined is a case of demonic possession. Unfortunately, there’s nothing new about this kind of character. Before the advent of modern medicine and psychology, people were labeled as under the influence of demonic forces when they were truly suffering from physical or emotional illnesses.
Naming someone as possessed, consequently, names them as non-human or, at least, less-than-human. We see this throughout the Gospels. The Gerasene man is bound in chains, forced to live in the elements amongst the dead. The community having made itself distant from him. And in Tremblay’s novel, as you can imagine, Marjorie experiences more exploitation than care.
Whether you believe in the possibility of possession or not, it is apparent the danger that comes when such a diagnosis is proclaimed. Not to mention that religious and political tyrants have used such language to label their opponents this way for centuries, making it easier for their followers to not only hate but to act violently toward them.
And it can be tempting to use similar language, especially when we witness acts that are evil, seemingly committed for the pleasure of cruelty. Acts that treat people as something other than human. Yet while these policies and choices should be labeled as what they are—works born in darkness—we must guard our words in how we describe the people behind them.
Because, once we identify someone as under the sway of or inhabited by the demonic, our relationship with them changes. The gloves come off and spiritual warfare is declared. Both John and Jesus were said to be under the influence of evil spirits, and you know how it turned out for both of them.
Majorie’s story in A Head Full of Ghosts is not a happy one. It’s as miserable as it almost always is for those who have been labeled something other than human. Her story is a reminder of the suffering real people are enduring in communities and detention camps today.
It is also a warning. Because no one, not even Jesus, was immune from such accusation. We’re reminded what can happen if that diagnosis is laid upon us.
And what it can do to the accusers.
Jesus there are forces of darkness and hate that are in this world that resist the dream of the Realm you have. Yet even when we or others give into those forces, we are still your creation and your beloved. Teach us to treat everyone—healthy and sick—as an image of you.