Where No Demons Thirst

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Why this essay matters

J.C. Howard examines belief, sleep paralysis, moral responsibility, and the Zōē Lattice, proposing Moral Display Substitution to question how courts and communities interpret emotion.

Opening lines

That is the question beneath ‘Where No Demons Thirst.’ The poem begins with two men committing what it calls the same sin. One experiences a haunted inner world. The other does not. Their different experiences trouble the assumption that terror reliably reveals moral or spiritual truth. If condemnation is felt differently across belief systems, the feeling alone cannot tell us whether a supernatural punishment has occurred.