She had always, she said, been somewhat nervous, but in the previous six or seven years it had become really extreme: a terrible existential dread accompanied by fiery thoughts she could not control, and a quite severe obsessive compulsive disorder. She explained the attacks as being the equivalent of being beaten up by a more powerful force against which she could do nothing. After it had passed, she felt physically exhausted. Because she was already taking medicine for epilepsy, she preferred not to treat it with medication, but she tried every non-medical treatment to no effect. Not only that, but since she was a child she used to get a voice in her head creating a negative monologue against her. She used to call it the Shadow. This sounds like schizophrenia, but she lacked any of the other symptoms of that disorder.
Then, in May 2022, in a moment of extreme frustration, she asked herself, “What if the voice is real?” She had never believed in demons, the Devil, or hell, but she now googled “symptoms of demonic possession”, and came across a lot of purported information on the internet. She also read Demonic Foes by Dr. Richard Gallagher (about which more later) and it “terrified the living daylights out of” her. Fortunately, conditions improved, but in the first half of 2023 she took a downward spiral. She felt that the anxiety attacks would destroy her, she had suicide ideation, and had already been admitted to an emergency room. Finally, her doctor suggested she be referred to a hypnotherapist for past life regression. For various reasons, I consider “past life regressions” to be essentially bogus. Daisy herself didn’t believe in reincarnation, but she decided to take the chance. At the first session, when she was describing the Shadow to her hypnotherapist, she felt her forehead involuntarily contract into an intense frown. “Daisy,” said the hypnotherapist, “are you aware your face changed?” She then added: “The Shadow is on your face and looking at me.” She then put her into an hypnotic trance to find out during which past life she initially encountered the Shadow. Only it didn’t turn out that way.Daisy described her trance as being almost like sleep paralysis, and with her eyes closed, but her mind extremely alert. A voice came into her head - a nice voice - announcing, “God is in this room and He is going to help you.” Instead of past lives, she encountered angels, and she spoke to the Shadow. It told it fed on people’s negative emotions - of fear, pain, and the like. It had been doing this for a long time, with many victims before her. It had been cast out from hell because it was not “bad enough”. (You should, of course, remember that the Devil is a liar, and his minions are unlikely to be more truthful.)
A couple of such sessions sufficed to produce a major improvement. She eventually did take a very low dose of an antidepressant for a few months, but she had already improved before she started, and she did not relapse once she discontinued it. Nevertheless, she did emphasize to viewers that, in the case of any mental disorder, their first port of call must be their doctor.
How are we to interpret all this? To be sure, there is nothing here which is unequivocally paranormal - no poltergeist phenomena, no xenoglossia, or such. But if we look at it purely from a psychological perspective, it is still weird. This negative monologue in her head - the Shadow - is not uncommon in schizophrenia, but none of her other symptoms match that illness. (And you might note some of the comments on the YouTube page; a number of readers claim the same experience.) Likewise, anxiety disorder, with or without panic attacks, is a very common mental illness, but it seldom comes with an internal monologue. And what about the cure? Is it possible that her subconscious mind somehow invented an explanation, and that this somehow cured the disorder. Is this a recognized form of cure?
Just as Americans probably haven't heard of Daisy Cousens, I doubt if many Australians have heard of Tucker Carlson. I certainly hadn't. I see from a web search that he is a political commentator which, I suppose, means that half the population disagrees with him. However, whether his views on current affairs are any good, his statements about his personal life should carry more weight, and he has nothing to gain by telling a wild story - as in this interview.
Here the paranormal really was present. Not only that, it sounds eerily similar to this story by an anonymous Texan. You will note that, in this case, the victim was too young to understand the ritual that released him.
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