I think the semantic difference between theory and hypothesis is the least of this movie's scientific problems.
I mean (SPOILERS ahead maybe?) as I recall, the idea was that summoning the spirit required "belief" which can apparently be quantified as brain waves. So they made a brainwave amplifier to turn 4 believers into the equivalent of 4000 believers in order to summon the spirit better. But let's repeat the important part: They used a "brainwave amplifier" to amplify "belief energy". (Seriously, movie?) And then later, in order to try to undo what they had done, they played back the EEG recording from the first session, amplified even more, in reverse (which apparently also involved replaying the audio recording of the session in reverse?), because naturally the "belief energy" captured in brain waves will turn into, what, disbelief energy(?) if you just transmit the energy backwards? Or something?
Plus the other jibberjabber. This entity is older than any ghost or demon? How the hell does he know how old demons are? How would he have any way of quantifying how long this entity has been in purgatory, or even knowing that's where it's been? By what empirical process did he determine that this entity was not in fact a ghost but something different? And with a sample size of 2 dead, 1 suicide, 3 disappearances, and 1 sucked into a wall, how did he gather enough information to chart its "attack patterns" and compare its MO to other supernatural entities?
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