Not to be confused with ."Evil spirit" redirects here. For the 1928 film, see . For the album by The Damned, see .Bronze statuette of the demon king , c. 800 – c. 700 BCE, (A demon from ) flying over , in a by .
A demon is a being, typically associated with , prevalent historically in , , , , , and ; as well as in such as , , , , and .
In and in the , including ancient and medieval , a demon is considered a harmful spiritual entity which may cause , calling for an . Large portions of the Jewish demonology, a key influence on and , originated from a later form of , and were transferred to Judaism during the .
In Western and , which grew out of an amalgamation of , Jewish and Christian demonology, a demon is believed to be a spiritual entity that may be and controlled. The supposed existence of demons remains an important concept in many modern religions and occultist traditions. Demons are still feared largely due to their alleged power to living creatures. In the contemporary Western occultist tradition (perhaps epitomized by the work of ), a demon (such as , which is Crowley's interpretation of the so-called 'Demon of the Abyss') is a useful metaphor for certain inner psychological processes (inner demons), though some may also regard it as an objectively real phenomenon.
The original Greek word did not carry negative connotations. The word δαίμων denotes a spirit or divine power. The Greek conception of a daimōn notably appears in the works of , where it describes the divine inspiration of . In Christianity morally ambivalent daimons were replaced by demons, forces of evil only striving for corruption. Such demons are not the Greek intermediary spirits, but hostile entities, already known in Irianian beliefs.
ContentsEtymology[]Further information: , , , , and
The word δαίμων denotes a spirit or divine power, much like the or . Daimōn most likely came from the Greek verb daiesthai (to divide, distribute). The Greek conception of a daimōn notably appears in the works of , where it describes the divine inspiration of . The original Greek word does not carry the negative connotation initially understood by implementation of the δαιμόνιον (daimonion), and later ascribed to any cognate words sharing the root.
The Greek terms do not have any connotations of evil or malevolence. In fact, εὐδαιμονία , (literally good-spiritedness) means . By the early , were seen, by and their Christian neighbors alike, as inhabited by the numinous presence of the gods: "Like pagans, Christians still sensed and saw the gods and their power, and as something, they had to assume, lay behind it, by an easy traditional shift of opinion they turned these pagan daimones into malevolent 'demons', the troupe of ..... Far into the Christians eyed their cities' old pagan statuary as a seat of the demons' presence. It was no longer beautiful, it was infested." The term had first acquired its negative connotations in the translation of the into Greek, which drew on the mythology of . This was then inherited by the Koine text of the . The Western medieval and neo-medieval conception of a demon derives seamlessly from the ambient of . The "daemon" eventually came to include many Semitic and Near Eastern gods as evaluated by Christianity.[]
The English use of demon as synonym for devils goes back at least as far as about 825. The German word (Dämon) however, is different from devil (Teufel) and demons as evil spirits.
Ancient Egypt[]Ram-headed demon. The hands probably outstretch to hold two snakes. From a royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Thebes, Egypt. End of the 18th Dynasty, around 1325 BCE
Both deities and demons can act as intermediaries to deliver messages to humans. Thus they share some resemblance to the Greek daimonion. The exact definition of "demon" in Egyptology posed a major problem for modern scholarship, since the borders between a deity and a demon are sometimes blurred and the ancient Egyptian language lacks a term for the modern English "demon". However, magical writings indicate that ancient Egyptians acknowledged the existence of malevolent demons by highlighting the demon names with red ink. Demons in this culture appeared to be subordinative and related to a specific deity, yet they may have occasionally acted independently of the divine will. The existence of demons can be related to the realm of chaos, beyond the created world. But even this negative connotation cannot be denied in light of the magical texts. The role of demons in relation to the human world remains ambivalent and largely depends on context.
