Are All Ghosts Demons? Navigating the Unseen World

Written and Reviewed by: Dr. Rita Louise, PhD, ND

Lately, it seems like you can’t turn on the news or scroll through social media without hearing the word “demonic.” It has become the catch-all phrase for anything we don’t understand, anything that scares us, or anything that doesn’t fit into a neat, comfortable box. I find this trend incredibly interesting, particularly in how it has moved from the fringes of religious circles into the mainstream cultural and political dialogue.

Back in March, for instance, Vice President JD Vance was asked about UFOs and extraterrestrials. His response was telling: “I don’t think they’re aliens. I think they’re demons.” It was a comment that made me shake my head. Why is it that our default mindset has become so narrow? Why is there such a rush to categorize every non-corporeal experience as a direct manifestation of ultimate evil?

This isn’t a new phenomenon. Years ago, I was a guest on a radio show hosted by a group of ghost hunters. About halfway through the interview, one of the moderators casually mentioned that all ghosts are demons. I stopped him right there. I asked, “So, what you’re saying is that when we die, we either go straight to heaven or straight to hell, and anything else we might interact with on this planet is a demon?” Without hesitation, they said, “Yes.“

I was speechless. How do you have a meaningful conversation about the paranormal, about ghosts, or about the human soul’s journey if your entire worldview is restricted to that kind of binary thinking? If everything is a demon, then the study of the unseen becomes a very short, very boring book. It left me watching the clock for the rest of the night, realizing that a lack of vocabulary for the unseen world often leads to a very distorted reality.

The Diversity of the Unseen World

If we take a moment to truly explore the world around us, we find that it is inhabited by multiple kinds of beings that exist just outside the range of our five senses. They come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes I refer to them as entities, sometimes as beings, or non-corporeal “dead people.” The label often depends on the story and the specific energy they carry.

The first thing we have to understand is that not all spirits are stuck in a binary destination of heaven or hell. From my experience, spirits move around. They don’t inhabit time and space the way we do; they can be here one moment and gone the next. Have you ever had a moment where you felt your mother’s presence so strongly that you could practically smell her perfume? Was that just your imagination, or had she come to visit?

I remember a time when my husband and I were moving into a new house. We were only moving a block away, so we took our time, packing boxes and shuttling them back and forth over the course of a month. I was in the new kitchen, unpacking dishes and placing them into cabinets, when I suddenly saw a man sitting at our kitchen table.

My immediate impression was that this was my husband’s father. He had passed away years prior, but there he was, sitting in the corner of my eye. I asked my husband, “If your dad was in the house right now, would he be sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette?” My husband, coming from a family of ranchers, started explaining how his dad would probably be out working with the cattle. I stopped him. “No, I mean if he was inside the house.” He paused and said, “Well, yeah, he’d be right at the table.”

I knew then that he was there with us. Was his father a demon? Of course not. He was a father who was excited for his son, joining us in the celebration of a new home. These visitations are common, and they are rooted in love, not narcissism or evil.

The Support System of the Transition

Years later, I had another experience that reinforced the idea that the unseen world is often a place of support rather than threat. My husband at the time was dying, and we had set up a hospital bed in our living room. My little poodle, Bitsy was a very low-energy dog. She slept most of the time, even as a puppy. Usually, she wouldn’t even lift her head when someone came to the door.

However, over the course of two days, she started getting up and barking incessantly at the front door. I would look outside, see no one, and tell her to sit down. By the third time it happened, I felt a shift in the room. I opened the front door and looked out. While I couldn’t see them with my physical eyes, I could sense a crowd of non-corporeal people standing on my porch.

I propped the screen door open and said, “Come on in.” As I looked around my living room, it felt jam-packed. It was filled with invisible, dead people who had come to support my husband in his transition to the other side. They weren’t there to haunt or to harm; they were a welcoming committee. To call those beings demons would be a disservice to the profound compassion they showed during a very difficult time.

Earthbound Spirits and the “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”

Of course, not every spirit encounter is a heartwarming reunion. There are earthbound spirits: individuals who have died but, for one reason or another, did not “go to the light.” Often, these spirits are trapped by their own fears. Perhaps they lived a life they aren’t proud of, and they are terrified of what awaits them on the other side.

These are the spirits most commonly associated with specific locations or haunted houses. While they aren’t necessarily demons, they can be wolves in sheep’s clothing. Their fear often manifests as a need to control or manipulate the living because they are desperate for the energy they can no longer generate for themselves. They are stuck in a loop of their own making, and while they can be nasty, they are still fundamentally human in their origin.

The Challenge of Non-Human and Alien Entities

The conversation gets even more complex when we move beyond human ghosts. If we assume that humanity is the only life form in this vast universe, we are being incredibly arrogant. There are other beings, some corporeal and some living in dimensions we can barely perceive.

I have encountered what I call “alien ghosts.” These beings don’t “speak human.” Regardless of our culture or language, humans share a universal emotional vocabulary. We understand a smile, a cry of pain, or a gesture of joy. But when you interact with a non-human species, those cues don’t exist. We don’t have the vocabulary to translate their emotional space, and they don’t have the cues to understand ours.

Are they demons? Again, I don’t think so. They are simply non-human. However, because we cannot communicate with them effectively, they can feel predatory or cold. They are often narcissistic in their intentions because they don’t value human autonomy in the same way we do. They aren’t following our rules because they aren’t from our world.

Interdimensional Travelers and the Vortex

Beyond the alien entities, we have interdimensional beings. These are fascinating because they don’t just “walk” into a room; they travel through vortexes. I once had a client who was experiencing an incessant, driving distraction in her energy field. When I looked at her, I saw what looked like dozens of dragonfly-like “bugs” flying around her space.

I watched as little portals—vortexes—would pop open in her auric field. A “bug” would fly in, buzz around her for a while, and then fly back out. It was driving her crazy. Usually, when I work with people who have a vortex, it’s just one, and it stays open. Her field was like a piece of Swiss cheese, with portals opening and closing constantly. I tried to “kill” the bugs, but they just kept coming back because I wasn’t addressing the portals. These beings weren’t demons in the biblical sense, but they were parasites, feeding off the energy of her field.

Drawing the Hard Line: What is a True Demon?

So, if all of these things aren’t demons, what is? In my work, I draw a very hard line when it comes to the “demon” category. I reserve that label for the most narcissistic, sociopathic entities that have one goal: to discount your autonomy and take over.

Most entities are attachments. They hang out in your auric field, influencing your thoughts or feeding off your emotions. They might make you feel cranky or encourage an addictive behavior because that behavior drops your vibration to a level where they can feed. You might be a perfectly nice person until that entity gets active, and then you become a jerk. But you are still in the driver’s seat.

A true demon, in my vocabulary, is an entity that seeks to enter and possess the physical body. This is the realm of exorcisms. These beings don’t just want to influence you; they want to be you. They want to shove your consciousness aside and take control of the vessel. This is actually quite rare. In all my years of doing this work, I’ve only encountered a handful of cases where I felt the entity had achieved that level of control.

The Case of the Frail Woman and the Demonologist

I have a good friend who is a professional demonologist. He’s like the character Russell Crowe played in The Pope’s Exorcist, he just has this “get out of here” energy that doesn’t let the entities affect him.

I once worked with a woman who was terrified. She was older, frail, and felt like she was disappearing. She told me that when she looked in the mirror, the reflection didn’t look like her. At first, you might think she was dealing with a mental health crisis, until the entity presented itself to me. It was “nasty.” It was so sociopathic and predatory that I knew I couldn’t handle it alone. I referred her to my demonologist friend.

Three weeks later, I got a phone call. When I picked up, a voice that sounded nothing like that frail woman said, “He never called me.” I knew exactly who—or what—was on the other end of that line. I didn’t engage. I just said, “I’m going to hang up and call him right now.” When I got my friend on the phone, I told him, “Her entity just called me to complain that you haven’t checked in.” We laughed, but it was a chilling reminder of how these beings can use a human voice to maintain their grip.

Angela: Seduction, Ego, and Missing Time

Perhaps the most unsettling case I ever encountered involved a man who believed he was working with a helpful spirit. This spirit was giving him psychic tools and information. However, he was frustrated because whenever he talked to his friends about these tools, the friends would end up with the psychic gifts, and he wouldn’t. He was caught in a cycle of ego and competition.

During our second session, the spirit finally presented itself to me. She called herself “Angela,” and she looked quite nice—angelic, even. But she was using a very specific kind of energy to control him. She was projecting a sexual, seductive image to keep him lured in and engaged. When I asked him if this was happening, he confirmed it. He was convinced he was in a partnership, even telling me, “Our contract ends on July 16th.”

By our third session, things had taken a dark turn. He told me he had gone to the mall for eight hours but could only remember four of them. He had “missing time.” While we were talking, his voice suddenly shifted. I was no longer talking to my client; I was talking to Angela. She referred to him in the third person, discussing his life as if he were a piece of furniture.

When the client eventually “came back,” he was standing in front of his mirror, confused about how he got there. He had no memory of the conversation I had just had with Angela. She had taken the pilot’s seat, and he was just a passenger in his own body. That is the predatory, evil energy that I categorize as demonic.

Sovereignty and the Power of Knowledge

So, to answer the question: Are all ghosts demons? No. Not even close.

The rush to label everything as demonic comes from a place of fear and a lack of understanding. When we don’t have the vocabulary to describe the diverse array of beings that inhabit the unseen dimensions, we default to the scariest word we know. But when we educate ourselves, when we learn to discern the difference between a visiting ancestor, a confused earthbound spirit, and a predatory entity, we reclaim our sovereignty.

We don’t have to live in a world where everything “unseen” is out to get us. By understanding the hierarchy of the spirit world, we can set better boundaries, protect our energy, and navigate our lives with confidence rather than fear. The more we know, the less power these “demons have over us.

About The Author

Dr. Rita Louise is a Naturopathic Physician and the founder of the Institute Of Applied Energetics. Featured on NBC, Fox, and Gaia, she specializes in uncovering the root cause of chronic illness. Read her full journey here or discover all of her Medical Intuitive Services.

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