The Devil in the Machine: Is Your Computer Possessed by a Demon?

Do you have trouble with your computer? Does is freeze or shut down at the most inopportune times? Does it go haywire suddenly or arbitrarily erase important data for no reason? Does it vomit forth long dead languages in a deep, growling voice? If so, then you may have a serious problem. According to some reports, your computer or even your smartphone may actually be possessed by an evil spirit.

Demonic possession is a very well-documented phenomenon among human beings, and has been for centuries, but what of modern devices such as computers and smartphones? Can these machines serve as some sort of conduit for evil forces? One person who would say yes to that is a Reverend Jim Peasboro, of Savannah, Georgia, in the United States, who has spent a lot of time denouncing how computers are powerful tools of the Devil for corrupting our souls. So far, so standard, but Peasboro goes beyond just using the Devil working through computers as a metaphor for their bad influence on our youth, and rather seems to believe that demonic forces can literally possess computers.

Peasboro has written a whole book on this, called The Devil in the Machine: Is Your Computer Possessed by a Demon?, in which he outlines his belief that possession by demons can be experienced by anything with a mind, including humans, animals, and even the processor of your computer. According to Peasboro, “Any PC built after 1985 has the storage capacity to house an evil spirit,” with storage capacity seeming to make a difference, and he asserts that “one in 10 computers in America now houses some type of evil spirit.” He seems to take this all quite literally, and claims that these malicious spirits are responsible for seeping through our screens to exert their influence, which has led to much of the crime and gun violence among young people seen in the country. As to other effects of these malevolent cyber-demons he says:

“I learned that many members of my congregation became in touch with a dark force whenever they used their computers. Decent, happily married family men were drawn irresistibly to pornographic websites and forced to witness unspeakable abominations. Housewives who had never expressed an impure thought were entering Internet chat rooms and found themselves spewing foul, debasing language they would never use normally…One woman wept as she confessed to me, ‘I feel when I’m on the computer as if someone else or something else just takes over.’”

Surely this seems like it still must be just talking in metaphor. After all, the Internet can indeed be a scary, lawless badland where terrible people do terrible things, we get that, but Peasboro truly seems to think that it is not just the barrage of impure images and the limitless new opportunities to be exposed to violence and pornography online, but rather actual supernatural demons worming their way into our technology to reach out into us. The most bizarre story he tells is of coming face to face with one of these demons while inspecting a computer that was suspected of being possessed. He would say of the experience:

“The program began talking directly to me, openly mocked me. It typed out, ‘Preacher, you are a weakling and your God is a damn liar.’ Then the device went haywire and started printing out what looked like gobbledygook…I later had an expert in dead languages examine the text. It turned out to be a stream of obscenities written in a 2,800-year-old Mesopotamian dialect!”

Well, that seems like it’s definitely not your typical computer virus. If your computer starts berating you and spewing forth ancient Mesopotamian, then you probably have a bigger problem than just using Windows 10. You may be thinking about what you can do if that is the case, and Peasboro has the answer for you on that, saying that if you suspect that your computer is possessed by the Devil then all you have to do is consult a clergyman, or if that doesn’t work he says “Technicians can replace the hard drive and reinstall the software, getting rid of the wicked spirit permanently.” Hope you have that warranty handy.

Don’t just take Paesboro’s word for it all, though. There are some other pretty spooky cases out there that seem to point to real demons actually lashing out and pushing through our computer screens, and one weird account comes from a poster on the site dreamsofdunamis, who says that as she was surfing the net one evening she came across a car ad that was filled with what seemed to be sinister and cryptic Illuminati symbolism. As she scrolled down, she found more creepy symbols and a line of spectral black and white figures, and that at that point she claims to have actually felt a demon physically leap out from the screen and actually pass through her. This is all strange enough as it is, but whatever presence had come through the computer had apparently gone on to prowl around the house, as her son soon came into the room complaining of having been woken up and attacked by some sort of terrifying entity. She said of what happened next:

“It sounded just like the black and white ghostly picture that I had just seen on that web page just moments before. The symbols were the same, so I knew it had to have come from that site.

As I apologized to my child, I realized that I may have to stop surfing the web late at night, for I did not want to disturb my kids sleep like this any more.

I shared this with my child, and told him that as soon as I had sensed the demon come through the screen, I cast it out in the name of Jesus, exited the page, and closed up the computer. I was surprised that the demon did not leave once it had been cast out. I was also surprised (and a bit frustrated,) that the demon attacking him was almost instantaneous; there was no pause or time elapse from when it went through my computer screen to when it entered into my child’s bedroom to attack him.

My child then reminded me, that the demon that I had cast out had probably left, but there were numerous demons that could come through just one demonic doorway. And in this case, viewing the photo was the doorway into our house.”

She then goes on to speculate that the demon had come through the image on her computer, and that others might have entered her house as well. This caused her to go about praying to cast out any residual demonic forces lurking within the home. As they did this she claims to have heard a startling, loud noise like something wet hitting the floor nearby, and they looked to see a shadowy figure about 4 feet in height and possessing wings, which crouched there for a moment before screaming as if in pain and falling backwards to seemingly phase right through the wall. She goes on to claim that her family has been attacked on several occasions by such supernatural forces coming through their computer screen or even TV. She says of this:

“Our first encounter with demons coming out of computer and TV screens, happened several years ago, when one of my kids had clicked on a video that promised the viewer a glimpse of a real alien. We were all sitting there at the kitchen table, with the kids doing their school work, and this one kid had finished early, so as a reward, I told him he could use the computer while he waited for the rest of the kids to finish.

Well, most of the youtube video that he had decided to view, was silent and dark, which caused one to lean in closer to the computer screen, to see if you could see anything. Suddenly, a drawing of an alien’s face flashed upon the screen, and a loud roar came from the speakers, and as everyone there at the table turned to look at the computer screen, a large black ghost-like hook, (reminiscent of Peter Pan’s Captain Hook, but very very black and wraith-like,) reached out through the computer screen and tried to stab itself into my child’s forehead. It glanced off the surface of his skin, and then gave an even louder roar of frustration, once it realized it had failed in its attack. The claw then evaporated back into the computer screen. Laughter was then heard coming from the video, as the perps laughed out loud at their supposed joke.

As you can imagine, we were all left quite shaken, after seeing such a thing. It was a lesson none of us have forgotten!”

She blames this on Satanists posting images and videos with magical spells attached to them to facilitate the entry of demons into our world, and claims these show up on any site that attempts to cast light into the world of the unknown (like, say, the one you are reading right now). She goes on to give this warning:

“So I share this testimony with you, in the hopes that those among you who have children, especially young ones, will be extra careful in what you watch or view, especially in the nighttime hours. Keep in mind the doorways that can be formed through the viewing of evil photos, pictures, or videos. Cast out all the demons that may have come through the TV or computer screen, after viewing those questionable items. If you have someone who refuses to curtail their nighttime viewing, then increase your prayers to our God, that your children would be protected, and then still continue to cast out the demons as the Holy Spirit advises.

Even if you can not see them, those demons still can come in and attack you and your family. Possible signs of this, is an inability to get that picture of the demon out of your mind, or if you can’t seem to forget the show you were just watching, nightmares once you go back to sleep, (or if others in your house wake up from them,) or if you find you are fearful or depressed, or getting hit with any other negatively strong emotion. (Demons love to take our normal negative emotions and turn the volume way up!)”

It is a completely bonkers testimony to be sure, and one wonders if this person is for real or not. It does not even seem to be just desktop computers that are prone to this sort of spiritual invasion, but also smartphones as well. After all, what is a smartphone but a tiny portable computer? One very odd report of demons and smartphones comes from Lima, Peru in 2015, when a young woman reportedly became actually possessed after using a Ouija Board smartphone app for “talking to the dead,” as part of the ‘CharlieCharlie’ challenge, a supposed ‘ancient Mexican ritual to summon spirits’ that has become a popular smartphone app. According to the urban legend, if you make a mistake you can open a portal through which demons and other nefarious spirits can creep through into our world, so no pressure.

Eighteen-year-old Patricia Quispe was using the infamous app with her friends in an attempt to contact the spirit world when this got real weird real fast. That very same evening Patricia fell violently ill, and her parents began to worry. The following day the girl began to have strange seizures and convulsions, foaming at the mouth and apparently trying to commit suicide as well, and when she was brought to a hospital the wildly writhing young lady was reportedly barely able to be restrained by medics, who claimed that she was almost superhumanly strong.

According to witnesses she was shouting and screaming in a deep voice unlike her own, and that much of it was gobbledygook but some of it was intelligible. Some of the things she reportedly blurted out in her eerie demon voice were “666,” “let me go, let me go,” “Please give me my phone,” as well as “Mum, these doctors don’t know what they’re doing, take me home.” Friends and family have claimed that Patricia had unwillingly let loose evil spirits through her phone and that they had possessed her. The young woman has since been admitted to a psychiatric hospital and footage of the alleged possession can be seen here. Is this real at all or some sort of a hoax?

When looking at these sorts of stories it is interesting to note that even as our technology has changed and advanced, the same mysteries and superstitions that have plagued humankind for centuries still manage to adapt into our world. Evil spirits and demonic possession have found a way to hold on, stay relevant, and get with the times. Instead of arcane rituals, spells, and speaking through Ouija boards, we now have these forces supposedly popping through our computer and smartphone screens, reaching out from the beyond by way of the very technology that seems as though it should have made these phenomena obsolete. Whether any of these stories are true or not, the next time your computer is on the fritz perhaps you don’t need a repairman, but an exorcist.