I wouldn’t wish to inflict board game drama on anybody who wasn’t already saturated in the stuff, so I’ll keep the details sparse, but the past couple of weeks saw a minor authority figure on BoardGameGeek sharing his views on demonic possession with a potential customer. I try to stay away from such dust-ups, but I found myself compelled to weigh in. My resultant post discussed the textual development of an adversarial spirit in Judaism and Christianity and made an impassioned plea to anyone basing their decisions on the existence of otherworldly beings.

Over the coming days, I heard from a number of people. Some had been touched by what I’d written. Others were just glad to have encountered something informative on the internet. One or two were offended.

But what stood out to me the most were those who had, like me, encountered “demonic possession” in the wild. Not the real thing. Not actual demons clawing their way through the cracks in the world. I’m talking about the excuses, usually offered by pastors, who couldn’t explain some phenomenon, but who needed to be the authority figure on everything. The undiagnosed illnesses. The non-mainstream gender orientations. The people who wanted nothing to do with the good news.

Playing Martha McGill’s Witch Hunt 1649, it was impossible to not mull over those thoughts all over again. It was impossible not to think back on the time I met a witch.

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