Can people who do not cultivate spiritually also “fall under demonic influence”?

Yes. People who do not practice can also fall under demonic influence when desires or emotions become uncontrolled. Used this way, I mean being carried away by desire or negative emotions, losing reason, and doing something even the person cannot understand afterwards. However, I have used this term in somewhat different contexts across episodes, which I distinguish below.

I previously followed religious accounts in understanding demonic tests as something only practitioners encounter. Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva told me that an ordinary nonpractitioner basically does not meet demonic tests, because demons do not test ordinary people. From a demon’s perspective, humans naturally move downward unless trying to climb upward, so it leaves them alone. Common Buddhist accounts likewise locate demonic tests and heavenly demons’ trials among practitioners. Yet while discussing this in one episode, I corrected myself on air: ordinary people do not encounter demonic tests, but can encounter attacks of negative energy, which can also lead them into demonic influence. I said we might need to revise the older religious statement that this affects only practitioners. Ordinary people can also fall under demonic influence when emotions arise beyond their control. Negative energy is truly frightening and can affect practitioners and nonpractitioners alike.

I gave two examples. In one, two close friends drank together at night. One suddenly remembered an unpaid debt of two thousand and asked for it. The other replied that it was only two thousand and questioned the urgency. An argument while drunk became a fight and even caused a death. Sober afterwards, the amount seemed insignificant, and the person could not understand the murderous rage. I then added that my memory was unclear: the news I had previously seen might actually have involved six hundred rather than two thousand. I described such extreme negativity, reaching the point of killing, as demonic influence. The other example was a road dispute in the news: a front car failed to move at a green light, the driver behind honked once, and the offended driver later repeatedly rammed the other car and was being prosecuted on suspicion of murder. One honk had escalated this far. I said this should not be called a demonic test but rather demonic force, since the person might not practice spiritually.

Excessive greed, anger, and delusion can also lead nonpractitioners astray. I have discussed people simply pursuing money in society, without practicing, whose excessive greed leads to wrongdoing, or whose excessive desire leads to sexual harassment of women. They were not practitioners. Going astray therefore does not arise only because someone practices: failing to control desires, greed, anger, and delusion can lead to it too. Life already contains many temptations, and we need to clarify our minds and understand our nature. In plain terms, I identified excessive greed, anger, and delusion as the greatest cause of going astray. My hypothetical example was someone earning a hundred thousand monthly, already living comfortably but remaining dissatisfied. Seeing a friend earn more selling drugs, they join in, eventually breaking the law and being caught. This illustrates risking the law to satisfy desire.

Another form begins with the first abandonment of reason. Discussing news of harm to children, I said my first religious reaction was that it might involve spirit attachment or demonic influence. But I also said I did not believe anyone was born a demon: many things must have happened to make someone that way. In my understanding of energy, a major difference between humans and beasts is reason and the capacity for self-control. Abandoning reason at the outset can eventually produce behavior worse than a beast’s. Once judgment is loosened, the person may keep doing those things. When someone abandons reason and harms people or their lives, rising negative energy can become addictive. They think that since it has happened once, a second or third time makes no difference. This is what I meant: after one bad act committed by releasing reason, the person feels repetition changes nothing and continues.

I therefore remind people not to allow even the first opportunity for harmful acts. With drugs, thinking one use will be enough may lead to a lifetime’s involvement. Borrowing from loan sharks “just once” for an emergency can bring ever-growing interest that becomes difficult to repay. When desire brings a harmful feeling or view in a moment, do not act on it. Some actions make return impossible. I also distinguished this carefully: some mistakes still leave time to turn back, while others may make it too late after a single occurrence.

In other episodes, my use of demonic influence was not identical. In discussing three levels of spirit attachment, I said negative energy entering consciousness could change personality and thinking. Older cultivation terminology called this “demonic spirit attachment” or “demon attachment.” Many who go astray in this way become adept at twisted reasoning. Discussing an overseas random attack, we described it from human or metaphysical perspectives as a momentary descent into negativity: inner emotions accumulated beyond digestion and caused casualties. Discussing historical massacres, I said demonic desires filled those people at the time, preventing clear judgment of right and wrong; this illustrated the demonic aspect of going astray. But I also said not everyone was intrinsically that bad. Under certain circumstances and negativity, people really can become beastlike. These different contexts must not be directly conflated with the separate question of spiritual cultivation going astray.

Facing such negativity, I said in the episode on demonic tests that negativity is negativity: responding to it may mean falling into its trap. If someone honks to remind you the light is green or to pay attention to safety, of course respond appropriately. If it seems inexplicable, do not make a special response. Heaven and hell can lie in a single thought. Whether negativity draws us into demonic influence in that moment is important and deserves everyone’s attention.