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[[Category:Definitions]]
[[Category:Deities, Spirits, and Mythic Beings‏‎]]
[[File:Draper-Lamia.jpg|thumb|A painting (Herbert James Draper, 1909) of [[Lamia]], the queen of Libya, who, according to Greek mythology, became a daemon]]
The words "'''dæmon'''" and "'''daimōn'''" are Latinized versions of the Greek "δαίμων" ("godlike power, fate, god"),<ref>From the Proto-Indo-European root ''deh<sub>2</sub>-(i-)'' "cut, divide"; see R. S. P. Beekes, ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, p. 297.</ref> a reference to the daemons of ancient Greek religion and mythology, as well as later Hellenistic religion and philosophy.<ref>[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Ddai%2Fmwn ''daimōn'' "δαίμων"]. ''A Greek–English Lexicon''.</ref>


The words '''daemon''', '''dæmon''', are Latinized spellings of the Greek '''δαίμων''' ('''daimôn'''),<ref>Daimons were the souls of men of the golden age acting as guardian deities. Entry [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2323243 δαίμων] at Liddell & Scott).</ref> 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.


In Hesiod Phaethon becomes a ''daimon'', de-materialized,<ref>Hesiod, ''Theogony'' 991.</ref> 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.<ref>Hesiod, ''Works and Days'' 122-26.</ref> 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.  
==Description==
Daemons are benevolent or benign nature spirits, beings of the same nature as both mortals and deities, similar to ghosts, chthonic heroes, spirit guides, forces of nature or the deities themselves (see Plato's ''Symposium''). Walter Burkert suggests that unlike the Christian use of ''[[demon]]'' in a strictly malignant sense, “[a] general belief in spirits is not expressed by the term ''daimon'' until the 5th century when a doctor asserts that neurotic women and girls can be driven to suicide by imaginary apparitions, ‘evil ''daimones''’. How far this is an expression of widespread popular superstition is not easy to judge… On the basis of Hesiod's myth, however, what did gain currency was for great and powerful figures to be honoured after death as a daimon…” <ref name="Burkert1985"/> ''Daimon'' is not so much a type of quasi-divine being, according to Burkert, but rather a non-personified “peculiar mode” of their activity.


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.<ref>[http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~james.p.burns/chroma/practices/demontill.html Maureen A. Tilley, "Exorcism in North Africa: Localizing the (Un)holy"]</ref>  
In Hesiod's ''Theogony'', Phaëton becomes an incorporeal ''daimon'' or a divine spirit,<ref>"ποιήσατο, δαίμονα δῖον"; Hesiod, ''Theogony'' [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text;jsessionid=ED319EE8D7A9AC490B9C44B7C684D2AB?doc=Hes.+Th.+980&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0129 991.]</ref> but, for example, the ills released by Pandora are deadly deities, ''keres'', not ''daimones''.<ref name="Burkert1985"/> From Hesiod also, the people of the Golden Age were transformed into ''daimones'' by the will of Zeus, to serve mortals benevolently as their guardian spirits; “good beings who dispense riches…[nevertheless], they remain invisible, known only by their acts”.<ref>Hesiod, ''Works and Days'' 122-26.</ref> The ''daimon'' of venerated heroes, were localized by the construction of shrines, so as not to restlessly wander, and were believed to confer protection and good fortune on those offering their respects.
Characterizations of the daemon as a dangerous, if not evil, lesser spirit were developed by Plato and his pupil Xenocrates,<ref name="Burkert1985"/> and later absorbed in Christian patristic writings along with Neo-Platonic elements.


== In classical and Hellenistic philosophy ==
In the Old Testament, evil spirits appear in the book of Judges and in Kings. In the Greek translation of the Septuagint, made for the Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria, the Greek ''ángelos'' (ἄγγελος "messenger") translates the Hebrew word ''mal'ak'', while ''daimon'' (or neuter ''daimonion'' (δαιμόνιον)) carries the meaning of a natural spirit that is less than divine and translates the Hebrew words for idols, foreign deities, certain beasts, and natural evils.<ref>{{cite book| url=http://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/view?docId=DicHist/uvaBook/tei/DicHist1.xml;chunk.id=dv1-79 | contribution = Demonology | title = Dictionary of the History of Ideas | accessdate=2009-12-02 | last = Trimpi | first = Helen P | editor-last = Wiener | editor-first = Philip P | year = 1973 | isbn = 0-684-13293-1}}</ref> The use of ''daimōn'' in the New Testament's original Greek text, caused the Greek word to be applied to the Judeo-Christian concept of an evil spirit by the early second century AD.
[[Image:SocratesCarnelianGemImprintRome1stBCE1stCE.jpg|left|thumb|250px|Carnelian gem imprint representing Socrates, Rome, 1st century BC-1st century AD.]]
Though in Homer the words ''θεοί'' (''gods'') and ''δαίμονες'' (''divinities'') were practically synonymous, later writers like Plato developed a distinction between the two.<ref>p. 115, John Burnet, ''Plato's Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito'', Clarendon 1924.</ref>  Plato in Cratylus (398 b) gives the etymology of ''δαίμονες'' (''daimones'') from ''δαήμονες'' (''daēmones'') (=knowing or wise), though in fact the root of the word is more probably ''daiō'' (=to distribute destinies).<ref>[http://archimedes.fas.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/dict?name=lsj&lang=el&word=dai%2fmwn&filter=GreekXlit "daimōn"], in Liddell, Henry and Robert Scott. 1996. ''A Greek-English Lexicon''.</ref>  In Plato's Symposium, the priestess Diotima teaches Socrates that love is not a god, but rather a "great daemon" (202d). She goes on to explain that "everything daemonic is between divine and mortal" (202d-e), and she describes daemons as "interpreting and transporting human things to the gods and divine things to men; entreaties and sacrifices from below, and ordinances and requitals from above..." (202e).  In Plato's ''Apology of Socrates'', Socrates claimed to have a ''daimonion'' (literally, a "divine something")<ref>Plato, ''Apology'' 31c-d, 40a; p. 16, Burnet, ''Plato's Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito''.</ref> that frequently warned him - in the form of a "voice" - against mistakes but never told him what to do.<ref>pp. 16-17, Burnet, ''Plato's Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito''; pp. 99-100, M. Joyal, "''To Daimonion'' and the Socratic Problem", ''Apeiron'' vol. 38 no. 2, 2005.</ref>  However, the Platonic Socrates never refers to the ''daimonion'' as a ''daimōn''; it was always an impersonal "something" or "sign".<ref>p. 16, Burnet, ''Plato's Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito''; p. 63, P. Destrée, "The ''Daimonion'' and the Philosophical Mission", ''Apeiron'' vol. 38 no. 2, 2005.</ref>


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 (Classical)|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'').
Satanists have used the word ''[[demon]]'' to define a knowledge that has been banned by the Church.


The 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;<ref>Walter Burkert, ''Greek Religion'' (Harvard University Press) 1985, pp 179-81. This article largely follows Burkert's characterization of ''daimones''.</ref> when the later connotation is read back anachronistically into Homer, the result is distorting:<ref>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.</ref> "To emancipate oneself from Plato's manner of speech is no easy matter", Walter Burkert remarked.<ref>Burkert 1985:180.</ref> 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.
 
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.<ref>W. W. Tarn, "The Hellenistic Ruler-Cult and the Daemon" ''The Journal of Hellenic Studies'' '''48'''.2 (1928), pp. 206-219.</ref> Similarly, the first-century Romans began by venerating the ''genius'' of Augustus, a distinction that blurred in time.


== In Neo-Platonic philosophy ==
== In Mythology and Philosophy ==
Daemons were important in Neo-Platonic philosophy. In Neoplatonism, a daemon was more like a demigod rather than an evil spirit, as Eros was described as in-between the gods and humankind. In the Christian reception of Platonism, the eudaemons were identified with the angels.
[[File:SocratesCarnelianGemImprintRome1stBCE1stCE.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Carnelian Gemstone|gem imprint representing Socrates, Rome, first century BC - first century AD.]]
Homer's use of the words ''theoí'' (θεοί "gods") and ''daímones'' (δαίμονες), suggests that while distinct, they are similar in kind.<ref>As par example in [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0217%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D222 Hom. Il. 1.222]: ἣ δ᾽ Οὔλυμπον δὲ βεβήκει δώματ᾽ ἐς αἰγιόχοιο Διὸς μετὰ δαίμονας ἄλλους: "Then she went back to Olympus among the other gods [daimones]".</ref> Later writers developed the distinction between the two.<ref>p. 115, John Burnet, ''Plato's Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito'', Clarendon 1924.</ref> Plato, in Cratylus<ref>''"Because they were wise and knowing (δαήμονες) he called them spirits (δαίμονες) and in the old form of our language the two words are the same"'' - Cratylus [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0172%3Atext%3DCrat.%3Asection%3D398b 398 b]</ref> speculates that the word ''daimōn'' (δαίμων "deity") is synonymous to ''daēmōn'' (δαήμων "knowing or wise"),<ref>Entry [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Ddah%2Fmwn δαήμων]) at LSJ</ref>  however, it is more probably ''daiō'' (δαίω "to divide, to distribute destinies, to allot").<ref>[http://archimedes.fas.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/dict?name=lsj&lang=el&word=dai%2fmwn&filter=GreekXlit "daimōn"], in Liddell, Henry and Robert Scott. 1996. ''A Greek-English Lexicon''.</ref>


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'':
In Plato's Symposium, the priestess Diotima teaches Socrates that love is not a deity, but rather a "great daemon" (202d). She goes on to explain that "everything daemonic is between divine and mortal" (202d–e), and she describes daemons as "interpreting and transporting human things to the gods and divine things to men; entreaties and sacrifices from below, and ordinances and requitals from above..." (202e). In Plato's ''Apology of Socrates'', Socrates claimed to have a ''daimonion'' (literally, a "divine something")<ref>Plato, ''Apology'' 31c–d, 40a; p. 16, Burnet, ''Plato's Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito''.</ref> that frequently warned him—in the form of a "voice"—against mistakes but never told him what to do.<ref>pp. 16–17, Burnet, ''Plato's Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito''; pp. 99–100, M. Joyal, "''To Daimonion'' and the Socratic Problem", ''Apeiron'' vol. 38 no. 2, 2005.</ref> The Platonic Socrates, however, never refers to the ''daimonion'' as a ''daimōn''; it was always an impersonal "something" or "sign".<ref>p. 16, Burnet, ''Plato's Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito''; p. 63, P. Destrée, "The ''Daimonion'' and the Philosophical Mission", ''Apeiron'' vol. 38 no. 2, 2005.</ref> By this term he seems to indicate the true nature of the human [[soul]], his newfound self-consciousness.<ref>Paolo De Bernardi, ''Socrate, il demone e il risveglio'', from «Sapienza», no. 45, ESD, Naples 1992, pp. 425-43.</ref>


:''They are impure and wandering spirits, who, after having been steeped in earthly vices, have departed from their celestial vigour by the contagion of earth, and do not cease, when ruined themselves, to seek the ruin of others; and when degraded themselves, to infuse into others the error of their own degradation. These demons the poets also acknowledge, and Socrates declared that he was instructed and ruled at the will of a demon; and thence the Magi have a power either for mischief or for mockery, of whom, however, the chief Hostanes both says that the form of the true God cannot be seen, and declares that true angels stand round about His throne.''
Regarding the charge brought against Socrates in 399, Plato surmised “Socrates does wrong because he does not believe in the gods in whom the city believes, but introduces other daemonic beings…” Burkert notes that “a special being watches over each individual, a ''daimon'' who has obtained the person at his birth by lot, is an idea which we find in Plato, undoubtedly from earlier tradition. The famous, paradoxical saying of Heraclitus is already directed against such a view: 'character is for man his daimon'”.<ref name="Burkert1985"/>


:''These spirits, therefore, are lurking under the statues and consecrated images: these inspire the breasts of their prophets with their afflatus, animate the fibres of the entrails, direct the flights of birds, rule the lots, give efficiency to oracles, are always mixing up falsehood with truth, for they are both deceived and they deceive; they disturb their life, they disquiet their slumbers; their spirits creeping also into their bodies, secretly terrify their minds, distort their limbs, break their health, excite diseases to force them to worship of themselves, so that when glutted with the steam of the altars and the piles of cattle, they may unloose what they had bound, and so appear to have effected a cure. The only remedy from them is when their own mischief ceases.''
'''Plato and Proclus'''
In the ancient Greek religion, daimon designates not a specific class of divine beings, but a peculiar mode of activity: it is an occult power that drives humans forward or acts against them: since daimon is the veiled countenance of divine activity, every deity can act as daimon; a special knowledge of daimones is claimed by Pythagoreans; for Plato, daimon, is a spiritual being who watches over each individual, and is tantamount to a higher self, or an angel; whereas Plato is called ‘divine’ by Neoplatonists, Aristotle is regarded as daimonios, meaning ‘an intermediary to deities' – therefore Aristotle stands to Plato as an angel to a deity; for Proclus, daimones are the intermediary beings located between the celestial objects and the terrestrial inhabitants.


The dæmons are real enough &mdash; "the principle is the same, which misleads and deceives, and with tricks which darken the truth, leads away a credulous and foolish rabble" &mdash; it is relying upon them that is deceptive. In this way the ''dæmons'' passed easily into Christian "demons."


== In Early Christianity ==
==Categories==
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, literally "defaced."
The Hellenistic Greeks divided daemons into good and evil categories: ''agathodaimōn'' (ἀγαθοδαιμων "noble spirit"), from ''agathós'' (ἀγαθός "good, brave, noble, moral, lucky, useful"), and ''kakódaimōn'' (κακοδαίμων "malevolent spirit"), from ''kakós'' (κακός "bad, evil"). They resemble the jinn (or genie) of Arab folklore, and in their humble efforts to help mediate the good and ill fortunes of human life, they resemble the Judeo-Christian guardian angel and adversarial [[demon]], respectively, the state of having a eudaemon, came to mean "well-being" or "happiness". The comparable Roman concept is the ''genius'' who accompanies and protects a person or presides over a place.


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 heretical as it did from the literature accepted as canonical.
A distorted view of Homer's daemon results from an anachronistic reading in light of later characterizations by Plato and Xenocrates, his successor as head of the Academy, of the daemon as a potentially dangerous lesser spirit:<ref name="Burkert1985">{{cite book |first=Walter |last=Burkert |year=1985 |title=Greek Religion |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-36281-9 |lccn=84025209 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=sxurBtx6shoC&lpg=PA179 |pages=179–181, 317, 331, 335}}</ref><ref>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.</ref> Burkert states that in the ''Symposium'', Plato has “laid the foundation” that would make it all but impossible to imagine the ''daimon'' in any other way with Eros, who is neither god nor mortal but a mediator in between, and his metaphysical doctrine of an “incorporeal, pure actuality, ''energeia''… identical to its performance: ‘thinking of thinking’, ''noesis noeseas''… the most blessed existence, the highest origin of everything. ‘This is the god. On such a principle heaven depends, and the cosmos.' The highest, the best is one; but for the movement of the planets a plurality of unmoved movers must further be assumed… In the monotheism of the mind, philosophical speculation has reached an end-point. That even this is a self-projection of a human, of the thinking philosopher, was not reflected on in ancient philosophy.


== In North Africa ==
In Plato there is an incipient tendency toward the apotheosis of ''nous''. He needs a closeness and availability of the divine that is offered neither by the stars nor by metaphysical principles. Here a name emerged to fill the gap, a name which had always designated the incomprehensible yet present activity of a higher power, ''daimon''”. Daemons scarcely figure in Greek mythology or Greek art: they are felt, but their unseen presence can only be presumed, with the exception of the ''agathodaemon'', honored first with a libation in ceremonial wine-drinking, especially at the sanctuary of Dionysus, and represented in iconography by the chthonic serpent.
The North African Apuleius summed up their character in the ''On The God of Socrates'' (2nd century AD): "For, to encompass them by a definition, dæmones are living beings in kind, rational creatures in mind, susceptible to emotion in spirit, in body composed of the ær, everlasting in time. Of these five points I have listed, the first three are shared with us, the fourth is their own, the last they have in common with the immortal gods; but they differ from them in their capacity to suffer" 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 ''dæmones'' 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 dæmons and gave them oversight in various areas of concern to people: oracles, animals, and, interestingly, as "patron dæmons" of nations or occupations (compare Principalities and Patron saint).


== In Hermeticism ==
Burkert suggests that, for Plato, theology rests on two Forms: the Good and the Simple; which “Xenocrates unequivocally called the unity god” in sharp contrast to the poet's gods of epic and tragedy.<ref name="Burkert1985"/> Although much like the deities, these figures were not always depicted without considerable moral ambiguity: <blockquote>“On this account, the other traditional notion of the daemon as related to the souls of the dead is elided in favour of a spatial scenario which evidently also graduated in moral terms; though [Plato] says nothing of that here, it is a necessary inference from her account, just as Eros is midway between deficiency and plenitude… Indeed, Xencrates… explicitly understood ''daemones'' as ranged along a scale from good to bad… [Plutarch] speaks of ‘great and strong beings in the atmosphere, malevolent and morose, who rejoice in [unlucky days, religious festivals involving violence against the self, etc.], and after gaining them as their lot, they turn to nothing worse.’… The use of such malign daemones by human beings seems not to be even remotely imagined here:
The lore of Hermes Trismegistus is a source both for pagan and Christian conceptions of dæmons, 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 St. Gall sacramentary testifies to the continuity of this belief of ''dæmones'' 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==
Xenocrates' intention was to provide an explanation for the sheer variety of polytheistic religious worship; but it is the potential for moral descrimination offered by the notion of ''daemones'' which later… became one further means of conceptualizing what distinguishes dominated practice from civic religion, and furthering the transformation of that practice into intentional profanation… Quite when the point was first made remains unanswerable. Much the same thought as [Plato's] is to be found in an explicitly Pythagorean context of probably late Hellenistic composition, the ''Pythagorean Commentaries'', which evidently draws on older popular representations: ‘The whole air is full of souls. We call them ''daemones'' and heros, and it is they who send dreams, signs and illnesses to men; and not only men, but also to sheep and other domestic animals. It is towards these ''daemones'' that we direct purifications and apotropaic rites, all kinds of divination, the art of reading chance utterances, and so on’… This account differs from that of the early Academy in reaching back to the other, Archaic, view of ''daemones'' as souls, and thus anticipates the views of Plutarch and Apuleius in the Principate… It clearly implies that ''daemones'' can cause illness to livestock: this traditional dominated view has now reached the intellectuals”.<ref name="AnkarlooClark1999">{{cite book |first=Bengt |last=Ankarloo |first2=Stuart |last2=Clark |year=1999 |title=Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome |series=Witchcraft and magic in Europe |volume=vol. 2 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-1705-6 |lccn=99002682 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=C80ooPNa0nEC&pg=PA226 |page=226}}</ref></blockquote>
[[Image:Pantalaimon123.jpg|thumb|250px|One form of Lyra's dæmon Pantalaimon, in the 2007 film ''The Golden Compass.'']]
 
Dæmons are a key element in Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy
In the Hellenistic ruler cult that began with Alexander the Great, it was not the ruler, but his guiding ''daemon'' that was venerated. In the Archaic or early Classical period, the ''daimon'' had been democratized and internalized for each person, whom it served to guide, motivate, and inspire, as one possessed of such good spirits.<ref>W. W. Tarn, "The Hellenistic Ruler-Cult and the Daemon" ''The Journal of Hellenic Studies'' '''48'''.2 (1928), pp. 206-219.</ref> Similarly, the first-century Roman imperial cult began by venerating the ''genius'' or ''numen'' of Augustus, a distinction that blurred in time.


In Neal Stephenson's 1992 cyberpunk novel ''Snow Crash'', daemons are computer-controlled avatars that perform simple tasks in the Metaverse such as bouncing.


==In computer terminology==
==See Also==
In Unix and other computer multitasking operating systems, a daemon is a computer program that runs in the background, rather than under the direct control of a user. This is related to the mythological concept of a daemon being an intermediary between the gods (the Computer) and humans (the User).
*[[Demon]]


==In modern parapsychology==
In his book ''Is There Life After Death, The Extraordinary Science of What Happens When You Die'', British writer Anthony Peake suggests that the dæmon 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 dæmonic presence may explain the 'voices' experienced by creative individuals such as writers, poets and artists and, in extreme cases, schizophrenics. In the Freudian sense, The Dæmon is a powerful network of the Id and Superego together.
==In modern fiction==
In the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop wargame, Dæmons are formless beings that inhabit The Warp. They can be summoned by a player for a variety of purposes. Storywise, these Daemons are actually much more similar to the malign spirits from Christian lore than to the Daimons of Greek myth.
==See also==
*[[Demon]]


==Notes==
==Notes==
{{reflist|2}}
{{reflist|2}}
==External links==
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(mythology) The original source of this page on Wikipedia]




*[http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~james.p.burns/chroma/practices/demontill.html Maureen A. Tilley, "Exorcism in North Africa: Localizing the (Un)holy"] explores the meanings of ''daimon'' among Christians in Roman [[Africa (province)|Africa]] and exorcism practices that passed seamlessly into Christian ritual.
==External Links==
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_%28classical_mythology%29 The original source of this article at Wikipedia]
*[http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~james.p.burns/chroma/practices/demontill.html 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.
*[http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-05/anf05-116.htm Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol V:] Cyprian, "On the Vanity of Idols" e-text Daemons inhabiting the images of gods
*[http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-05/anf05-116.htm Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol V:] Cyprian, "On the Vanity of Idols" e-text Daemons inhabiting the images of gods
*[http://www.theoi.com/Bestiary.html Kakodaemons on Theoi.com (listed under 'demon'; no mention of eudaemones)]
*[http://www.theoi.com/Bestiary.html Kakodaemons on Theoi.com (This Bestiary list pertains to minor gods and monsters of the Underworld and not to daemons in general.)]
*[http://www.daemonpage.com/enter.html The Daemon Page]
*[http://www.theoi.com/greek-mythology/personifications.html Abstract Personifications (a list of daimones of Greek mythology)]
*[http://www.daemonpage.com/ The Daemon Page]

Latest revision as of 12:54, 31 October 2014

A painting (Herbert James Draper, 1909) of Lamia, the queen of Libya, who, according to Greek mythology, became a daemon

The words "dæmon" and "daimōn" are Latinized versions of the Greek "δαίμων" ("godlike power, fate, god"),[1] a reference to the daemons of ancient Greek religion and mythology, as well as later Hellenistic religion and philosophy.[2]


Description

Daemons are benevolent or benign nature spirits, beings of the same nature as both mortals and deities, similar to ghosts, chthonic heroes, spirit guides, forces of nature or the deities themselves (see Plato's Symposium). Walter Burkert suggests that unlike the Christian use of demon in a strictly malignant sense, “[a] general belief in spirits is not expressed by the term daimon until the 5th century when a doctor asserts that neurotic women and girls can be driven to suicide by imaginary apparitions, ‘evil daimones’. How far this is an expression of widespread popular superstition is not easy to judge… On the basis of Hesiod's myth, however, what did gain currency was for great and powerful figures to be honoured after death as a daimon…” [3] Daimon is not so much a type of quasi-divine being, according to Burkert, but rather a non-personified “peculiar mode” of their activity.

In Hesiod's Theogony, Phaëton becomes an incorporeal daimon or a divine spirit,[4] but, for example, the ills released by Pandora are deadly deities, keres, not daimones.[3] From Hesiod also, the people of the Golden Age were transformed into daimones by the will of Zeus, to serve mortals benevolently as their guardian spirits; “good beings who dispense riches…[nevertheless], they remain invisible, known only by their acts”.[5] The daimon of venerated heroes, were localized by the construction of shrines, so as not to restlessly wander, and were believed to confer protection and good fortune on those offering their respects.

Characterizations of the daemon as a dangerous, if not evil, lesser spirit were developed by Plato and his pupil Xenocrates,[3] and later absorbed in Christian patristic writings along with Neo-Platonic elements.

In the Old Testament, evil spirits appear in the book of Judges and in Kings. In the Greek translation of the Septuagint, made for the Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria, the Greek ángelos (ἄγγελος "messenger") translates the Hebrew word mal'ak, while daimon (or neuter daimonion (δαιμόνιον)) carries the meaning of a natural spirit that is less than divine and translates the Hebrew words for idols, foreign deities, certain beasts, and natural evils.[6] The use of daimōn in the New Testament's original Greek text, caused the Greek word to be applied to the Judeo-Christian concept of an evil spirit by the early second century AD.

Satanists have used the word demon to define a knowledge that has been banned by the Church.


In Mythology and Philosophy

gem imprint representing Socrates, Rome, first century BC - first century AD.

Homer's use of the words theoí (θεοί "gods") and daímones (δαίμονες), suggests that while distinct, they are similar in kind.[7] Later writers developed the distinction between the two.[8] Plato, in Cratylus[9] speculates that the word daimōn (δαίμων "deity") is synonymous to daēmōn (δαήμων "knowing or wise"),[10] however, it is more probably daiō (δαίω "to divide, to distribute destinies, to allot").[11]

In Plato's Symposium, the priestess Diotima teaches Socrates that love is not a deity, but rather a "great daemon" (202d). She goes on to explain that "everything daemonic is between divine and mortal" (202d–e), and she describes daemons as "interpreting and transporting human things to the gods and divine things to men; entreaties and sacrifices from below, and ordinances and requitals from above..." (202e). In Plato's Apology of Socrates, Socrates claimed to have a daimonion (literally, a "divine something")[12] that frequently warned him—in the form of a "voice"—against mistakes but never told him what to do.[13] The Platonic Socrates, however, never refers to the daimonion as a daimōn; it was always an impersonal "something" or "sign".[14] By this term he seems to indicate the true nature of the human soul, his newfound self-consciousness.[15]

Regarding the charge brought against Socrates in 399, Plato surmised “Socrates does wrong because he does not believe in the gods in whom the city believes, but introduces other daemonic beings…” Burkert notes that “a special being watches over each individual, a daimon who has obtained the person at his birth by lot, is an idea which we find in Plato, undoubtedly from earlier tradition. The famous, paradoxical saying of Heraclitus is already directed against such a view: 'character is for man his daimon'”.[3]

Plato and Proclus In the ancient Greek religion, daimon designates not a specific class of divine beings, but a peculiar mode of activity: it is an occult power that drives humans forward or acts against them: since daimon is the veiled countenance of divine activity, every deity can act as daimon; a special knowledge of daimones is claimed by Pythagoreans; for Plato, daimon, is a spiritual being who watches over each individual, and is tantamount to a higher self, or an angel; whereas Plato is called ‘divine’ by Neoplatonists, Aristotle is regarded as daimonios, meaning ‘an intermediary to deities' – therefore Aristotle stands to Plato as an angel to a deity; for Proclus, daimones are the intermediary beings located between the celestial objects and the terrestrial inhabitants.


Categories

The Hellenistic Greeks divided daemons into good and evil categories: agathodaimōn (ἀγαθοδαιμων "noble spirit"), from agathós (ἀγαθός "good, brave, noble, moral, lucky, useful"), and kakódaimōn (κακοδαίμων "malevolent spirit"), from kakós (κακός "bad, evil"). They resemble the jinn (or genie) of Arab folklore, and in their humble efforts to help mediate the good and ill fortunes of human life, they resemble the Judeo-Christian guardian angel and adversarial demon, respectively, the state of having a eudaemon, came to mean "well-being" or "happiness". The comparable Roman concept is the genius who accompanies and protects a person or presides over a place.

A distorted view of Homer's daemon results from an anachronistic reading in light of later characterizations by Plato and Xenocrates, his successor as head of the Academy, of the daemon as a potentially dangerous lesser spirit:[3][16] Burkert states that in the Symposium, Plato has “laid the foundation” that would make it all but impossible to imagine the daimon in any other way with Eros, who is neither god nor mortal but a mediator in between, and his metaphysical doctrine of an “incorporeal, pure actuality, energeia… identical to its performance: ‘thinking of thinking’, noesis noeseas… the most blessed existence, the highest origin of everything. ‘This is the god. On such a principle heaven depends, and the cosmos.' The highest, the best is one; but for the movement of the planets a plurality of unmoved movers must further be assumed… In the monotheism of the mind, philosophical speculation has reached an end-point. That even this is a self-projection of a human, of the thinking philosopher, was not reflected on in ancient philosophy.

In Plato there is an incipient tendency toward the apotheosis of nous. He needs a closeness and availability of the divine that is offered neither by the stars nor by metaphysical principles. Here a name emerged to fill the gap, a name which had always designated the incomprehensible yet present activity of a higher power, daimon”. Daemons scarcely figure in Greek mythology or Greek art: they are felt, but their unseen presence can only be presumed, with the exception of the agathodaemon, honored first with a libation in ceremonial wine-drinking, especially at the sanctuary of Dionysus, and represented in iconography by the chthonic serpent.

Burkert suggests that, for Plato, theology rests on two Forms: the Good and the Simple; which “Xenocrates unequivocally called the unity god” in sharp contrast to the poet's gods of epic and tragedy.[3] Although much like the deities, these figures were not always depicted without considerable moral ambiguity:

“On this account, the other traditional notion of the daemon as related to the souls of the dead is elided in favour of a spatial scenario which evidently also graduated in moral terms; though [Plato] says nothing of that here, it is a necessary inference from her account, just as Eros is midway between deficiency and plenitude… Indeed, Xencrates… explicitly understood daemones as ranged along a scale from good to bad… [Plutarch] speaks of ‘great and strong beings in the atmosphere, malevolent and morose, who rejoice in [unlucky days, religious festivals involving violence against the self, etc.], and after gaining them as their lot, they turn to nothing worse.’… The use of such malign daemones by human beings seems not to be even remotely imagined here: Xenocrates' intention was to provide an explanation for the sheer variety of polytheistic religious worship; but it is the potential for moral descrimination offered by the notion of daemones which later… became one further means of conceptualizing what distinguishes dominated practice from civic religion, and furthering the transformation of that practice into intentional profanation… Quite when the point was first made remains unanswerable. Much the same thought as [Plato's] is to be found in an explicitly Pythagorean context of probably late Hellenistic composition, the Pythagorean Commentaries, which evidently draws on older popular representations: ‘The whole air is full of souls. We call them daemones and heros, and it is they who send dreams, signs and illnesses to men; and not only men, but also to sheep and other domestic animals. It is towards these daemones that we direct purifications and apotropaic rites, all kinds of divination, the art of reading chance utterances, and so on’… This account differs from that of the early Academy in reaching back to the other, Archaic, view of daemones as souls, and thus anticipates the views of Plutarch and Apuleius in the Principate… It clearly implies that daemones can cause illness to livestock: this traditional dominated view has now reached the intellectuals”.[17]

In the Hellenistic ruler cult that began with Alexander the Great, it was not the ruler, but his guiding daemon that was venerated. In the Archaic or early Classical period, the daimon had been democratized and internalized for each person, whom it served to guide, motivate, and inspire, as one possessed of such good spirits.[18] Similarly, the first-century Roman imperial cult began by venerating the genius or numen of Augustus, a distinction that blurred in time.


See Also


Notes

  1. ↑ From the Proto-Indo-European root deh2-(i-) "cut, divide"; see R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 297.
  2. ↑ daimōn "δαίμων". A Greek–English Lexicon.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Burkert, Walter (1985). Greek Religion, 179–181, 317, 331, 335, Harvard University Press.
  4. ↑ "ποιήσατο, δαίμονα δῖον"; Hesiod, Theogony 991.
  5. ↑ Hesiod, Works and Days 122-26.
  6. ↑ Trimpi, Helen P (1973). Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Retrieved on 2009-12-02.
  7. ↑ As par example in Hom. Il. 1.222: ἣ δ᾽ Οὔλυμπον δὲ βεβήκει δώματ᾽ ἐς αἰγιόχοιο Διὸς μετὰ δαίμονας ἄλλους: "Then she went back to Olympus among the other gods [daimones]".
  8. ↑ p. 115, John Burnet, Plato's Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito, Clarendon 1924.
  9. ↑ "Because they were wise and knowing (δαήμονες) he called them spirits (δαίμονες) and in the old form of our language the two words are the same" - Cratylus 398 b
  10. ↑ Entry δαήμων) at LSJ
  11. ↑ "daimōn", in Liddell, Henry and Robert Scott. 1996. A Greek-English Lexicon.
  12. ↑ Plato, Apology 31c–d, 40a; p. 16, Burnet, Plato's Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito.
  13. ↑ pp. 16–17, Burnet, Plato's Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito; pp. 99–100, M. Joyal, "To Daimonion and the Socratic Problem", Apeiron vol. 38 no. 2, 2005.
  14. ↑ p. 16, Burnet, Plato's Euthyprho, Apology of Socrates, and Crito; p. 63, P. Destrée, "The Daimonion and the Philosophical Mission", Apeiron vol. 38 no. 2, 2005.
  15. ↑ Paolo De Bernardi, Socrate, il demone e il risveglio, from «Sapienza», no. 45, ESD, Naples 1992, pp. 425-43.
  16. ↑ 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" Numen12 (1965) pp. 217-32.
  17. ↑ Ankarloo, Bengt (1999). Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome. University of Pennsylvania Press.
  18. ↑ W. W. Tarn, "The Hellenistic Ruler-Cult and the Daemon" The Journal of Hellenic Studies 48.2 (1928), pp. 206-219.


External Links

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