Demon
A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in folklore, mythology, religion, and literature; these beliefs are reflected in media including comics, fiction, film, television, and video games. Belief in demons probably goes back to the Paleolithic age, stemming from humanity's fear of the unknown, the strange and the horrific.[1] In ancient Near Eastern religions and in the Abrahamic religions, including early Judaism[2] and ancient-medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered a harmful spiritual entity that may cause demonic possession, calling for an exorcism. Large portions of Jewish demonology, a key influence on Christianity and Islam, originated from a later form of Zoroastrianism, and was transferred to Judaism during the Persian era.[3]
For other uses, see Demon (disambiguation). Not to be confused with Daimon.
Demons may or may not also be considered to be devils: minions of the Devil.[1] In many traditions, demons are independent operators, with different demons causing different types of evils (destructive natural phenomena, specific diseases, etc.). In religions featuring a principal Devil (e.g. Satan) locked in an eternal struggle with God, demons are often also thought to be subordinates of the principal Devil. As lesser spirits doing the Devil's work, they have additional duties— causing humans to have sinful thoughts and tempting humans to commit sinful actions.[4]
The original Ancient Greek word daimōn (δαίμων) did not carry negative connotations, as it denotes a spirit or divine power.[5] The Greek conception of a daimōn notably appears in the philosophical works of Plato, where it describes the divine inspiration of Socrates. In Christianity, morally ambivalent daimōn were replaced by demons, forces of evil only striving for corruption.[6] Such demons are not the Greek intermediary spirits, but hostile entities, already known in Iranian beliefs.[7] In Western esotericism and Renaissance magic, which grew out of an amalgamation of Greco-Roman magic, Jewish Aggadah, and Christian demonology, a demon is believed to be a spiritual entity that may be conjured and controlled.
Belief in demons remains an important part of many modern religions and occult traditions. Demons are still feared largely due to their alleged power to possess living creatures. In contemporary Western esoteric traditions, demons may be used as metaphors for inner psychological processes ("inner demons").
Christianity
Old Testament
The existence of demons as inherently malicious spirits within Old Testamental texts is absent.[86][87]: 447 Though there are evil spirits sent by YHWH, they can hardly be called demons, since they serve and do not oppose the governing deity.[87]: 448 First then the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, the "gods of other nations" were merged into a single category of demons (daimones) with implied negativity.[88]
The Greek Daimons were associated with demi-divine entities, deities, illnesses and fortune-telling. The Jewish translators rendered them all as demons, depicting their power as nullified comparable to the description of shedim in the Tanakh. Although all these supernatural powers were translated, none were angels, despite sharing a similar function to that of the Greek Daimon. This established a dualism between the angels on God's side and negatively evaluated demons of pagan origin.[89] Their relationship to the God-head became the main difference between angels and demons, not their degree of benevolence. Both angels and demons might be fierce and terrifying. However, the angels act always at service of the high god of the Israelites, differing from the pagan demons, who represent the powers of foreign deities.[90] The Septuagint refers to evil spirits as demons (daimon).
Gnosticism
Gnosticism largely relies on Greek and Persian dualism, especially on Platonism. In accordance with Platonism, they regarded the idea as good while considering the material and conscious world to be inherently evil.[112] The demonized star-deities of late Persian religion became associated with a demon, thus identifying the seven observable planets with an Archon (demonic ruler).[112] These demons rule over the earth and the realm of planets, representing different desires and passions.[113] According to Origen, the Ophites depicted the world as surrounded by the demonic Leviathan.[113]
Like in Christianity, the term daimons was used for demons and refers to both the Archons as well as to their demonic assistants. Judas Iscariot is, in the Gospel of Judas, portrayed as the thirtheenth daimon for betraying Jesus and a supporter of the Archons.[114]
Examples of Gnostic portrayals of demons can be found in the Apocryphon of John in which they are said to have helped construct the physical Adam[115] and in Pistis Sophia which states they are ruled over by Hekate and punish corrupt souls.[116]
Bahá'í Faith
In the Bahá'í Faith, demons are not regarded as independent evil spirits as they are in some faiths. Rather, evil spirits described in various faiths' traditions, such as Satan, fallen angels, demons and jinn, are metaphors for the base character traits a human being may acquire and manifest when he turns away from God and follows his lower nature. Belief in the existence of ghosts and earthbound spirits is rejected and considered to be the product of superstition.[137]
Psychological approach
Islamic world
A minority of Muslim scholars in the Medieval Age, often associated with the Muʿtazila and the Jahmītes, denied that demons (jinn, devils, divs etc.) have physicality and asserted, they could only affect the mind by waswās (Arabic: وَسْوَاس, 'demonic whisperings in the mind').[127](p 73)[143] Some scholars, like ibn Sina,[144](p 89) rejected the reality of jinn altogether. Al-Jāḥiẓ and al-Masʿūdī, explained jinn and demons as merely psychological phenomena.
In his Kitāb al-Hayawān, al-Jāḥiẓ states that jinn and demons are the product of loneliness. Such a state induces people to mind-games, causing waswās.[129](p36) Al-Masʿūdī is similarly critical regarding the reality of demons. He states that alleged demonic encounters are the result of fear and "wrong thinking". Alleged encounters are then told to other generations in bedtime stories and poems. When they grow up, they remember such stories in a state of fear or loneliness. This encourages their imaginations, resulting in another alleged demonic encounter.[129](p37)
Western world
Psychologist Wilhelm Wundt remarked that "among the activities attributed by myths all over the world to demons, the harmful predominate, so that in popular belief bad demons are clearly older than good ones."[145] Sigmund Freud developed this idea and claimed that the concept of demons was derived from the important relation of the living to the dead: "The fact that demons are always regarded as the spirits of those who have died recently shows better than anything the influence of mourning on the origin of the belief in demons."[146]
M. Scott Peck, an American psychiatrist, wrote two books on the subject, People of the Lie: The Hope For Healing Human Evil[147] and Glimpses of the Devil: A Psychiatrist's Personal Accounts of Possession, Exorcism, and Redemption.[148] Peck describes in some detail several cases involving his patients. In People of the Lie he provides identifying characteristics of an evil person, whom he classified as having a character disorder. In Glimpses of the Devil Peck goes into significant detail describing how he became interested in exorcism in order to debunk the myth of possession by evil spirits – only to be convinced otherwise after encountering two cases which did not fit into any category known to psychology or psychiatry. Peck came to the conclusion that possession was a rare phenomenon related to evil and that possessed people are not actually evil; rather, they are doing battle with the forces of evil.[149]
Although Peck's earlier work was met with widespread popular acceptance, his work on the topics of evil and possession has generated significant debate and derision. Much was made of his association with (and admiration for) the controversial Malachi Martin, a Roman Catholic priest and a former Jesuit, despite the fact that Peck consistently called Martin a liar and a manipulator.[150]