[dsc]

Well, no, I certainly wouldn't seek anything from a malign spirit. I was just wondering...well, how they might have looked if they appeared to anyone.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

dsc, many of the Saints saw demons, were harassed by them and described the demons in their writings. It is certainly possible that artists created paintings based on those descriptions.

[Aliska]

The bible says the devil can appear as an angel of light. It also says to test the spirits "This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world." (1 John 4:2).

Obviusly discernment is called for, but I don't fully understand the process nor do I have that gift (sometimes I can tell and sometimes I can't). There are other passages in the bible that blur the issue.

Catholics depend on the church to discern these spirits or manifestations. I used to, but there are a couple that have been approved that I serioualy question, so it's back to square one for me.

I still want to believe that Lourdes and Fatima are true and worthy of belief. Certainly there have been any number of healings at Lourdes and I've also read of one at Fatima. What perplexes me is that evidently even these kinds of healings used to happen in the ancient pagan temples, as evidenced by ex-voto offerings found by archeologists (don't know where I read that, but I did).