Not to be the voice of dissent here, but why is it evil (EVIL! EVIL! EVIL!) for Sam to exorcise demons the way he was? He got rid of demons, which is good. The host remained alive, which is good.
Honestly, I was thinking the same thing throughout the episode. Dean kept talking about a slippery slope, but...what slope? He's exorcising demons in a way that keeps hosts alive. Deliberately. How does that lead to a path of doom? Where does that logically lead to anything bad? Because he'll get high on his superpower and stop caring whether he leaves his host alive?
Is it because he was using psychic powers? Are psychic powers inherently EVIL?
I suppose they are if they come from demon blood.
Are psychic powers inherently EVIL?
I think it's about the source of the power and what use of that power could develop into. He's dipping a toe into the the dark side of the force.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Or so they say.
Well, the A-team seems to have wrapped that latest assignment up quite definitively.
ooh ... a thought ... someone mentioned something about maybe Ruby takes the exorcised hosts off and kills them. What if she takes them off and gets them possessed by another demon, one on her side? (she has an agenda - you just know she has an agenda)
I think that it's the source of the power.
I wonder which Jethro Tul song was on their wish list. . .
I also think that Sam is going to be in a situation where fear/desperation/instinct causes him to use that power.
Also, there is a strong: "road to hell paved with good intentions" thing attached to Sam and his powers.
Do you think that the YED killed Jessie to get Sam to start using his powers? (If Dean hadn't come to get Sam. . . would he have been there when YED came in - did Jessie just stumble upon the demon?)
I think if Ruby's doing anything to undermine what Sam's trying to do, comes the revolution, she'll be the first against the wall on her way back to Hell.
Latin works, too. Especially when they're all tied up and can't do anything anyway.
This was my thought. Has Sam forgotten that he used exorcisms, not demonic-granted abilities, to save all those possessed people in "Jus in Bello"? I guess his method could be more practical if it incapacitates strong demons and keeps them from flinging him around psychokinetically when he's going solo, but it's not the only non-lethal option.
The fact that Sam's said repeatedly that using his power "feels good" makes me suspicious that it's having a drug-like conditioning effect on him, which the Roman Ritual of Exorcism clearly doesn't. If he gets to the point where he needs to feel that rush and there aren't any demons handy, what other sorts of magic might he be willing to use in pursuit of a fix?
I have not rewatched, but didn't Ruby ask him if his headache was better post-exorcism. As if using his powers minimized the pain.
