(Part 1)
Well, yeah, that dude is likely wrestling with a lot of demons, but I highly doubt that they are actual entities, nevermind ones capable of manifesting in the physical world.
Also, I’ve been thinking about stuff like this a lot lately, since there are now reports that the demand for exorcism has been soaring lately because of the pandemic. I can’t help but ask, how exactly could it even be soaring, considering the numbers that there were before? Even well before the pandemic, there were half a million cases of demonic possession reported annually in Italy alone. Add to that the fact that Italy is actually likely to be below the world average when it comes to this kind of stuff, as, contrary to what their reputation might be, the Catholic Church is one of the most skeptical religious organizations when it comes to reports of supernatural activity requiring an exorcism, as this article, reporting on research comparing exorcism in Italy, Austria and Japan notes. While in Italy the Church dismisses most alleged possessions as simply mental illness and so on, and only intervenes in a specific, tiny number of cases, most temples in Japan, such as the inugami-exorcising one mentioned in that article, are much looser with their requirements of classifying something to be demonic activity, and simply perform exorcisms to cleanse people from mundane ailments such as headache and so on.
That would heavily imply there to be more supposed demonic/youkai activity in Japan than in Italy. Add to that the fact that Japan, being a highly-developed, mostly-atheistic society, very likely has much less supposed supernatural activity than underdeveloped countries where animistic and shamanistic rituals are widespread. All in all, it’s probably pretty save to say that, even before this supposed pandemic-related boost in paranormal activity, there were millions of supposed cases of harmful supernatural activity so bad that they needed an exorcist to deal with them annually.
