No, I know what you mean, it’s just that I would call them “traits and tendencies that make you behave badly’. Everyone’s got them, Satan has nothing to do with it. The thought that he does degrades the human experience. I own my actions, even the bad ones.

Hey, I don’t deny this stuff isn’t real to the people it’s happening to, you included. The game changes once it is claimed to be something outside. Then it gets silly. Satan? Gimme a break.

 
It bothered me that the pastor made the focus of the casting out of demons himself and not Jesus. (I know you don’t believe this stuff, but) all believers are empowered to cast out demons, especially their own. The fact that he would not let them pray and he was the one that saved them from the demons made him the focus. It was kind of cultish. One should not worship one’s pastor in such a way.
 
Really, I went to a conference that dealt with spiritual warfare and we prayed our own demons out. No pomp and circumstance. No tongues. No puking. No hero-worship of a self-aggrandizing pastor. The transformation happened in the quiet of our own hearts. There was no need to put on a show.
 
 
It’s a shame that Taibbi went to a church that only reinforced what he already thought - that it is all a sham. There is authenticity still left in some churches in America, where the pastors do not tell you to fake speaking in tongues. (Which, by the way, that everyone should be able to do that is not biblical. There are different gifts and people have different ones.)
 
 
And it is possible to be into all that stuff and not have “left behind the mental process that a person would need to form an independent opinion.” We form independent opinions all the time. In fact, right now, we are trying to decide whether or not we should go to a new church because we disagree with something. So there.