From ghoulies and ghosties
and
long-leggety beasties
and things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!
(Scottish Prayer)
Who are these
demons and spirits of the dark that have been with us since the beginning of time -- passing through the
centuries in myth, art, literature . . . and in our dreams?
Victims of temptation and
sin, they are spirits fallen from Heaven's grace to emerge anew as servants of Darkness.
They are a low-level spirit, nature
spirit, or non-human intelligence that interacts with the material
world and is concerned with the direction of lower plane activities.
The term 'demon' is derived
ultimately from the Sanskrit root div ('to shine'), through the Greek
daimon
('divine power'). To the
Greeks daimons were intermediary spirits between humans and the Gods.
In Western religion and occult lore, demons are classified into
various elaborate systems, and hierarchies of hell, and have ascribed
to them various characters, forms, attributes and duties. The most
complex hierarchy was devised by Johann Weyer, who estimated that
there were 7,405,926 demons serving under seventy-two princes.
In Christianity,
demons are associated only with evil. They include those demons who
were cast out of heaven together with Lucifer,
as well as pagan deities
branded as demons by the church. Demons devote themselves to
tormenting human beings, assaulting them, sexually abusing them, and possessing
them. The possibility of sex with demons was denied before the twelfth
century, but by the later Middle Ages belief in sexually voracious
demons in alluring male or female form who preyed on sleeping men and
women (see Incubus,
Succubus)
become widely accepted. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in
Europe witches
were regularly accused of having sex with demons (see Sabbat).
It was held that demons could be expelled or kept at bay by the ritual
of exorcism,
or by the use of certain prayers, or a special charm,
or by wearing an amulet
or talisman.
See Grand
Grimoire, grimoires
and demonology.
The list is long, from
Lucifer
- the first angel to challenge God's will, to the fathomless legions of demons and night
creatures that haunt us today. Come, explore their world and discover the
myths and histories
of the demons who haunt your dreams.
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