Watching this series extension of the original movie it struck me how similar the narratives should be for…

Watching this series extension of the original movie it struck me how similar the narratives should be for possession and infection. Infection literally aspires to and often does possess your body. But there are even more resonances. /1 https://t.co/oZZo4Z3cov

There’s an underlying sense of evil common to both. We’re very timid and tabloid in how we now think of evil, if we ever do at all. There are elements of life that are absolutely intent on (or oblivious to) causing us extreme harm. /2

And these resonances are likely not just analogies or accidental, plagues/infections are common in ancient religious texts. A person infected with a serious pathogen is literally possessed by that pathogen, using the body for its own ends. /3

I wouldn’t be surprised if the idea of demonic possession actually derives from infection, the harrowing experiences with pathogens throughout history. Some of those even lead to hallucogenic and other ‘demonic’ symptoms. /4

There’s also the understanding common to both narratives of the extreme difficulty in extricating the possessing entity from the body. And in fact infection is likely the greater foe there, it being almost impossible to free the body of some infections. /5

And both narratives recognise the cunning and charm of the opponent, the ways it seduces us into becoming its host. I often Tweet about the normalisation and trivialisation of infection, when in reality it’s one of humanity’s greatest evils to be confronted. /6

Ask those working in infectious disease, often on the same pathogen for an entire career, about the magnitude of the fight this is, how ‘evil’ these pathogens can be in their complexity and impact. Let alone those suffering terrible from ‘post-viral’ disease. /7

Post-viral disease may in fact be just viral disease, in its chronic form. The body ‘possessed’ by the pathogen, for life, ‘integrated’ as they say in The Exorcist series. I don’t trade in analogies, I suspect these connections are not historical accidents. /end

@CrabbBrendan does malaria sometimes seem an ‘evil’ foe? (My thread is about possible historical connections between infectious diseases and descriptions of possession.)