Is religious talk about angels and devils part of a serious mental illness?

*** Who Are the Demons?

“Angels That Sinned”

When God created spirit creatures, he made them free moral agents, able to choose for themselves whether to do good or bad. Sadly, after the creation of humankind, an undisclosed number of angels chose to do bad by rebelling against God.

The first and most infamous spirit to rebel became Satan. “He did not stand fast in the truth,” said Jesus Christ. (John 8:44) What moved Satan to turn against God? He began to covet the worship that belongs exclusively to the Creator, and then he acted on that desire by setting himself up as a rival god. In this way he made himself “Satan,” a word that means “resister.” Centuries later, prior to the Flood of Noah’s day, other angels joined Satan, forsaking their heavenly position to materialize in human form and dwell on earth. (Genesis 6:1-4; James 1:13-15) When the Flood occurred, the materialized “angels that sinned” apparently returned to the spirit realm. (2 Peter 2:4; Genesis 7:17-24) In time, they came to be called demons.—Deuteronomy 32:17; Mark 1:34.

The disobedient angels now found themselves in a very different situation from the one they had enjoyed before rebelling. Jude 6 reads: “The angels that did not keep their original position but forsook their own proper dwelling place [God] has reserved with eternal bonds under dense darkness for the judgment of the great day.” Yes, God did not allow the demons to enjoy their former privileges in heaven but consigned them to figurative “pits of dense darkness,” cut off from all spiritual enlightenment.