It was 1985, and I was sitting in a dimly lit, stuffy suburban Southern California living room with my parents, my older brother and sister, and a few other people I knew from church. Gordon, a leader in our Seventh-day Adventist congregation, had invited us to his home to help him pray for a young man named Mark*. Mark was tall and slim, with a pointy nose, blond hair, and blue eyes; in a vague, pre-adolescent way, I remember finding him handsome.My mother had explained our role beforehand: We were there to help Gordon cast out the demons tormenting Mark. She and my father had attended Gordon’s prayer sessions before and considered them to be important experiences, experiences that could lead to great spiritual growth for us. I was only nine, but we’d be perfectly safe, she assured us. While Mark might act strangely if demons “manifested”—or showed themselves to be present in his body, leading him to wiggle around, or appear to be in pain, or speak in a strange voice—we’d be protected by angels surrounding us, brandishing their sacred swords, and by the “armor of God.”