Turning spirits, including ancestral gods and ancestors themselves, into “evil demons” (in the worst meaning of that word) was phase one of the great bamboozle, back when the Church commanded people’s fears and imaginations, then when that started to slip away, and the old control structures that keep people as obedient sheep to one shephard fell apart, what next - why, let’s make them into sinister beings, and use a method people actually pay for themselves, to indoctrinate people!
I don’t mind the odd horror movie but, well, I covered my doubts about them in that thread, see also Carrie, any movie (or book) where someone has advanced psychic abilities.
It’s funny lefties/liberals don’t get a lot of love on this forum, and Stephen King is a prime example of the kind of champagne socialist (even though the man’s a fucking entertaining author at times) that preaches that crap while living in one of his THREE plush houses, denouncing guns (but I bet has private security), and shunning inner-city “vibrancy” for HIS wife and kids - a LOT of his books have the subtle message “Don’t mess with forces you don’t understand, and if you have a gift, it will destroy you, and everything you love.”
Pet Semetary, for example - don’t mess with necromancy, Carrie, The Shining, Firestarter, and The Dead Zone, all about having powers and how that gift brings terrible outcomes to that person, their loved ones, and society, then in 11/22/63 he’s on about not trying to tamper with time, and reality, which IS the logical next step for magicians really once we get to grips with spirit interactions.
I can’t be too hard on him because his books have given me a lot of fun and I think he’s sincere, and plain naïve for the most part (though his occasional lurches into writing feminist horror, in which the monsters are men, is a bit putrid) - it just ties into that whole mentality of holding everyone back to attain not equality of opportunity, which is fine, but equality of outcome, so of course he’d have a subconscious fear of the naturally-gifted who rock that little apple cart.
I still read his stuff and like a lot of it, he has indeed got that gift of the gotta (gotta keep reading one more page!) but, he mostly purveys a very dodgy message, when you really analyse it as a practicing magician seeking ascent, and not a regular person looking for thrills.