Demons, toxins, autism, oh my!

Once upon a time, when a child behaved strangely, stared too long, spoke to no one in particular, or failed to respond to the ordinary rituals of social life, an explanation arrived quickly and with confidence. Something had possessed the child. Some demon, spirit, or malign influence that did not belong. This diagnosis was not subtle, but it was reassuring. The world was still intact. Normality existed. The problem was an intruder. Remove the intruder, and order would return. That story has never really gone away. It has only learned new words. Modernity congratulates itself on having banished demons, but it has not abandoned demonology. We have simply traded incense for instrumentation and exorcists for experts. Where possession once explained deviation, we now speak of toxins. Where curses once crept through bloodlines, we now trace exposure pathways. Where corruption once entered through sin, it now enters through plastics, preservatives, pesticides, vaccines, microplastics, endocrine disruptors, heavy metals, and any other unnamed residue detected at parts-per-billion levels by machines whose sensitivity outpaces our interpretive restraint. The form has changed. The function has not.