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:''For the evil spirits of the Christian religion, see Demon''
The words 'daemon', 'dæmon', are Latinized spellings of 'daimon', Greek δαιμων, used purposely today to distinguish the daemons of Ancient Greek religion, good or malevolent "supernatural beings between mortals and gods, such as inferior divinities and ghosts of dead heroes" (see Plato's Symposium), from the Judeo-Christian usage ''demon'', "a malignant spirit that can seduce, afflict, or possess humans." This notion of the daemon as a spiritual being of a lowly order that is largely evil and certainly dangerous has its origin in Plato and his pupil Xenocrates;^[1] when the later connotation is read back into Homer, the result is distorting:^[2] "To emancipate oneself from Plato's manner of speech is no easy matter," Walter Burkert remarked.^[3] Daemons scarcely figure in Greek mythology or Greek art: like ''keres'' their felt but unseen presence was assumed. There was one exception, the "Good Daemon" ''Agathos Daemon'', who was honored first with a libation in ceremonial wine-drinking, and especially in the sanctuary of Dionysus, and whose numinous presence was signaled in iconography by a chthonic serpent.
In Hesiod Phaethon becomes a ''daimon'', de-materialized,^[4] but the ills of mankind released by Pandora are ''keres'' not ''daimones''. Hesiod connects the ''daimones'' of the deceased great and good in relating how the men of the Golden Age were transmuted into ''daimones'' by the will of Zeus, to serve as ineffable guardians of mortals, whom they might serve by their benevolence.^[5] In similar ways, the ''daimon'' of a venerated hero or a founder figure, located in one place by the construction of a shrine rather than left unburied to wander, would confer good fortune and protection on those who stopped to offer respect.
Thus ''daemones'' ("replete with knowledge", "divine power", "fate" or "god") were not necessarily evil. In Plato's Symposium, the priestess Diotima teaches Socrates that love is not a god, but rather a good daemon. In Plato's Trial of Socrates, Socrates claimed to have a ''daimonion'', a small daemon, that warned him against mistakes but never told him what to do or coerced him into following it. He claimed that his daemon exhibited greater accuracy than any of the forms of divination practised at the time. The Hellenistic Greeks divided daemons into good and evil categories: ''Eudaemons'' (also called ''Kalodaemons'') and ''Kakodaemons'', respectively. 'Eudaemons' resembled the Abrahamic idea of the guardian angel; they watched over mortals to help keep them out of trouble. (Thus ''eudaemonia'', originally the state of having a eudaemon, came to mean "well-being" or "happiness".) A comparable Roman genius accompanied a person or protected and haunted a place (''genius loci'').
After the time of Plato, in the Hellenistic ruler-cult that began with Alexander himself, it was not the ruler but his guiding ''daemon'' that was venerated, for in Hellenistic times, the ''daimon'' was external to the man whom it inspired and guided, who was "possessed" by this motivating spirit.^[6] Similarly, the first-century Romans began by venerating the ''genius'' of Augustus, a distinction that blurred in time.
The Greek translation of the Septuagint, made for the Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria, and the usage of ''daimon'' in the New Testament's original Greek text, caused the Greek word to be applied to a Judeo-Christian spirit by the early 2nd century AD. Then in late antiquity, pagan conceptions and exorcisms, part of the cultural atmosphere, became Christian beliefs and exorcism rituals. The transposition has recently been documented in detail, in North Africa, by Maureen Tilley.^[7]

Contents

In Neo-Platonic philosophy

In Early Christianity

In North Africa

In Hermeticism

In modern literature

In modern Psychology

Notes

External links

In Neo-Platonic philosophy

Daemons were important in Neo-Platonic philosophy. In Platonism daemon here being more in tune with demigod rather than an evil spirit. As Eros being described as in-between Gods and humankind. In the Christian reception of Platonism, the eudaemons were identified with the angels.
Cyprian was debunking the gods of the pagans as a euhemerist falsehood in his essay ''On the Vanity of Idols'', but he had this to say of ''daemons'':
The daemons are real enough — "the principle is the same, which misleads and deceives, and with tricks which darken the truth, leads away a credulous and foolish rabble" — it is relying upon them that is deceptive. In this way the ''daemons'' passed easily into Christian "demons."

In Early Christianity

The specific motivation for the rush of inspired destruction of Greek and Roman sculpture unleashed at the end of the 4th century, as soon as Christianity was in secure control, is revealed here: the images were inhabited by demons. As in all such destruction, the faces were especially attacked: "defaced."
In the process of Christianizing Roman populations in the official Christianity from the late 4th century, theologians, hermits and monks, and the bishops and presbyters who influenced individuals, had their own repertoire of ideas, which were derived from Scripture and from the ambient culture of Late Antiquity. Within the Christian tradition, ideas of "demons" derived as much from the literature that came to be regarded as apocryphal and even heretical as it did from the literature accepted as canonical.

In North Africa

The North African Apuleius summed up their character in the ''Golden Ass'' (2nd century AD): "The daemones have an animal nature, a rational mind, a soul subject to passions, an aetherial body and they are immortal." The Hellenic and Roman gods were increasingly seen as immovable, untouched by human sorrows and suffering, existing in a perfect heavenly sphere (compare Epicurus, Lucretius). The ''daemones'' were earthbound, passion-tormented, and in Late Antiquity, loremasters were separating them into the noble kinds and troublemaking kinds. The gnostic followers of Valentinus multiplied the circles of daemons and gave them oversight in various areas of concern to people: oracles, animals, and, interestingly, as "patron daemons" of nations or occupations (compare Principalities and Patron saint).

In Hermeticism

The lore of Hermes Trismegistus is a source both for pagan and Christian conceptions of daemons, for in the ''Corpus Hermeticum'', they functioned as the gatekeepers of the spheres through which souls passed on their way to the highest heaven, the Empyrean. The Early Medieval St. Gall sacramentary testifies to the continuity of this belief of ''daemones'' in the oldest extant prayer for anointing the dying:
:"I anoint you with sanctified oil that in the manner of a warrior prepared through anointing for battle you will be able to prevail over the aery hordes."

In modern literature

Dæmons, pronounced like the English word "demons", are a key element in Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy (The Golden Compass (a.k.a The Northern Lights), The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass). The Golden Compass will soon be released as a movie. In the books, those dæmons are shape-shifting (mostly animals) alter egos of the books' characters during puberty, which finally settle into their true form upon the characters adulthood. The form in which the dæmon settles upon is representative of the human's personality.

In modern Psychology

In his book "is There Life After Death, The Extraordinary Science of What Happens When You Die, British writer Anthony Peake suggests that the Daemon is a very real aspect of human consciousness and suggests that this being is directly involved in the phenomenon known as Near-Death Experience. He also argues that this Daemonic presence may explain the 'voices' experienced by creative individuals such as writers, poets and artists and, in extreme cases, schizophrenia.

Notes

1. Walter Burkert, ''Greek Religion'' (Harvard University Press) 1985, pp 179-81. This article largely follows Burkert's characterization of ''daimones''.
2. Samuel E. Bassett, "ΔΑΙΜΩΝ in Homer" ''The Classical Review'' '33'.7/8 (November 1919), pp. 134-136, correcting an interpretation in Finsler, ''Homer'' 1914; the subject was taken up again by F.A. Wilford, "DAIMON in Homer" ''Numen'''12' (1965) pp. 217-32.
3. Burkert 1985:180.
4. Hesiod, ''Theogony'' 991.
5. Hesiod, ''Works and Days'' 122-26.
6. W. W. Tarn, "The Hellenistic Ruler-Cult and the Daemon" ''The Journal of Hellenic Studies'' '48'.2 (1928), pp. 206-219.
7. Maureen A. Tilley, "Exorcism in North Africa: Localizing the (Un)holy"

External links

★ Maureen A. Tilley, "Exorcism in North Africa: Localizing the (Un)holy" explores the meanings of ''daimon'' among Christians in Roman Africa and exorcism practices that passed seamlessly into Christian ritual.

★ Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol V: Cyprian, "On the Vanity of Idols" e-text Daemons inhabiting the images of gods

★ http://www.anthonypeake.com - Applies the concept of the Daemon to Near-Death Experience, Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and Schizophrenia.

★ Kakodaemons on Theoi.com (listed under 'demon'; no mention of eudaemones)

★ Demonology.co.uk