demon

demon supernatural being, generally malevolent in character. In general, the more civilized pagan societies came to consider demons as powerful, supernatural beings who lacked the dignity of gods and who, depending on the circumstance, might be either benevolent or malevolent in their dealings with men. Some demons, like the Greek Pan, were nature spirits; others were guardians of the home or fields or watchers over travelers; still others were spirits of disease and insanity or dream spirits. Some demons were considered to be intermediaries between men and the gods. It was not until the development of late Hebraic and Christian thinking that demons came to represent the unqualified malevolence so common in European demonology of the 16th and 17th cent. This period was a high point in the study of demons, in the speculation on their nature, number, and specific fiendishness. The list compiled in 1589 by a demonologist named Binsfield was considered to be highly authoritative; in it he listed the following major demons and their particular evils: Lucifer (pride), Mammon (avarice), Asmodeus or Ashmodai (lechery), Satan (anger), Beelzebub (gluttony), Leviathan (envy), and Belphegor (sloth). The widespread and ancient belief in demons is still a strong force in many regions of the world today. See spiritism ; witchcraft .

Bibliography: See R. H. Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology (1959); H. A. Relly, The Devil, Demonology, and Witchcraft (1968); F. Gettings, Dictionary of Demons (1988).

demon [GK. daimōn]. A Greek concept of an evil spirit, of second rank spiritually, borrowed by Christian commentators and applied subjectively to Celtic phenomena, such as the ‘demons’ driven from Ireland by St Patrick. Almost any pre-Christian personalities may be described as demons, especially the Fomorians and the Tuatha Dé Danann. A large number of mischievous or malevolent figures from oral tradition may be called demons; these include bocánach and the Cornu of Ireland; the ankou, nain, and youdik of Brittany. Bodb changes Aífe (2) into a ‘demon of the air’, a concept that appears in many translated texts although not expressed in an Irish phrase. See also DEVIL.