Geoff W. Sutton Blog

In Christian texts, people may be possessed by demons. When possessed they act in ways that scare others and cause harm. The demons speak to other humans. And in response to Jesus Christ, or the apostles, the demons may be “cast out” of a person. In contemporary Christianity, the “casting out” has been known as deliverance or exorcism. Some groups believe that a place may be possessed by evil spirits thus, deliverance or exorcism may apply to both people and places. In general, protestant Christians use the term deliverance and Catholics use the term exorcism and follow a particular process (a rite) of exorcism. The term possessionists has been used to refer to people who believe in the phenomenon of people possessed by evil spirits even if they are not possessed ( Giordan & Possamai, 2016 ). About Devils and Demons A 2016 Gallup poll report indicated that 89% of Americans believe in God, but this is lowered by 10% if given the option that they are not s...

In  Living Well   chapter 7, I wrote about the importance of finding rest. Rest is more than sleep, but sleep is clearly a part of feeling well-rested and new research links sleep to brain processes important to thinking. According to the National Sleep Foundation , recommendations for sleep vary with age. For example, teens need 8-10 hours and older adults need 7-8 hours. But, not all sleep is quality sleep. A research summary in Scientific American  led me to the 11 October 2019 article in Science by Cirelli and Tononi. Here's a quote: Sleep is essential for the brain: Learning and memory benefit from sleep, whereas sleep loss causes cognitive impairment that can only be reversed by sleep (1, 2). The pressure for sleep increases with time spent awake, and sleep need also depends on the richness of the waking experience and the amount of learning (1, 3).  As Emily Willingham summarized in the Scientific American article, the link between sleep and brain f...