Talk:Demon

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Contents 1 Other Demons? 2 Chaldean? 3 Quiji 4 Triage of recent anon. edits 5 "Chinese" demons 6 Art demons 7 In Islam 8 A correction and suggestions. 9 In modern mysticism 10 Someone, please, totally copyedit this.. 11 Silent Hill 12 Pharaonic demons 13 Sources?? 14 "according to Christianity" 15 Premillenialist Bias 16 Last part of introduction 17 Meaning of the verb "to Demonize" 18 Demons in science 19 Minor argument 20 Terminology

[edit] Other Demons?

Should we link to all other pages featuring other "types" of demons such as the Incubus (demon) and all?

208.60.233.179 19:02, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

nevermind, missed that daemon was already mentioned

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Do we really need the whole big list of demons at the end of the article? Can't we make a seperate page or something with this list? IMHO it just makes the article look like a list of links. The description at the top is pretty good, I think, but the list doesn't add any value. Just MHO. Anyone else? -Frecklefoot

It might be better if the demons list were classified by culture, origin, or (anti)religion rather than alphabetically. I'm not sure I'm competent to sort them, though. I also notied that Wall the demon links to a page describing a wall of bricks. Never heard of the demon Wall, but that probably needs to go to some different article. --Ihcoyc

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The 2nd para begins with a sentence that I can't even understand: "The (Job v. 23) "stones of the field"), with which the righteous are said to be in league, seem to be field-demons of the same nature."

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It looks like we have contradicting information on jinni/djinni/genies in this article and Jinn, Djinn, Genie articles - I wanted to merge the three, but is there anyone here who'd care to clarify on this contradiction? Ausir 03:24, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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General question and request for assistance: I want to add a reference to an aircraft called the Demon (Navy F3H). How is this done when a very long article is already present? Please look at elevator - a long article, with a short reference to aircraft elevator as a separate topic at the bottom. Should there be some kind of header with the various classifications at the top that then link to the bottom? I am a newbee, so some guidence as to the wiki way would be appreciated. Thanks. Leonard G.

A header isn't necessary, no. If the aircraft merits its own article, create a seperate article titled "Demon (aircraft)" or something along those lines and add a line like "For the aircraft, see Demon (aircraft)" at the bottom. If it would only merit a couple of sentences, you might include that info in this article, where the link would go. -Sean 09:10, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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"It has been rumored that demons communicate with humans through the Ouija game." Not by anyone at my dinner table, you can be sure! Does Wikipedia have to tiptoe around this stuff in the name of NPOV? Are we all idiots? Wetman 05:05, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Similarly, are all the references to Japanese Manga and Anime really appropriate? There is a difference, I hope, between demons of myth, superstition, and legend and TV shows!

[edit] Chaldean?

Chaldean is a very vague term, for which meanings you can look up the very Wikipedia article with that title. The sources for that section are at least one century out-of-date. Assyriology has progressed *a lot* in the in-between.

201.19.154.13 03:17, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quiji

This game is always fun. It's always fun until you're alone playing it by yourself and the lights in your house go out and stay that way forever. I couldn't ever see anything in my house from that point on...luckily I moved in with my dad. But since I have played with that godforsaken thing I haven't been exactly myself (or so ms. vandramoff said). The things or thing that made my lights go out forever more to me and me alone...for I stand alone in my walk through this cruel life. The things are menaces. They destroyed my life. They are after me. They're on my ass. There's some powerful cult magic at work...like an ancient spell or VooDoo or Santeria. (rocks too). How is a Quiji board actually made? If any teen boy or girl--guy or lady teen wants to talk demon...contact me at monstermike@ev1.net. If I do not answer for a long while...just keep waiting...I'm probably practicing VooDoo or Santeria, or my computers just being an ass. I do not have instant messenger...BUMMER.

[edit] Triage of recent anon. edits

A mix of modern "angelology, sermonizing, and confusion of sources with traditions made it hard to disentangle some good from the dross:

• "The "good" demon, or "angel" in recent use": Wikipedia is not a general repository of pop culture. This obscures the subject at hand.
• The following is babble, not germane to the subject "Demon":

See also the invasion and conquest of Canaan by the Israelites, who were led by Joshua, the son of Nunn. Before this invasion, the Israelites were told to cleanse and purify themselves, because "'the nefalim' ("fallen ones", or "demons") were in the land"), and when the time came to attack the accursed fortress-city of Jericho, the Israelites were forbidden to take any Canaanite possessions as booty from the city after winning the battle, because any loot from the city might have been tainted by demons, God told them (Achan the Israelite broke this taboo, and was stoned to death by the Israelites as a consequence). This example illustrates the difference between God's people, who are clean, and their opponents, who are unclean; an aspect of the uncleanliness of the goiim was demonic influences, which apparently extended even to their possessions. Consequently, the Hebrews were called to be separate, and traditionally, could not even mix with the gentile nations. Only a moron would miss the point that demons are capable of tainting objects, causing those objects to become "unholy", or "unclean". After all, this IS a "discussion" page, not the article itself. What are you afraid of, the truth? (Oct.)

Actually, the entire history of the nation of Israel, before the appearance of Jesus, was characterized by the conflict between "good" kings, who did what was right in the sight of God/Yah, and the "bad/evil" kings, who did what was evil in the sight of God/Yah, including idolatry, and failing to tear down the idols in the "high places". The "good" king Josiah tore down these idols, and destroyed them. Moses destroyed the idolatrous golden calf that the Israelites had worshipped while Moses was on the mountain communing with YHWH. And also, note the classic confrontation between Elijah, the servant of Yah, and the prophets of Baal, who were idolaters. "If Yah is God, then follow Him; if Baal is God, then follow him."

• a closed-minded person considers this to be, More babble: "One school of Christian thought believes that "the Angel of the Lord" was a pre-incarnation of Jesus. This would make Him not only the messenger, but also the message. Jesus said that Moses "spoke of Me"." This is not the theory of one, lone person, but a popular view among Christianity.

I also retained numerous useful edits by this same contributor, and removed a couple of tautologies: etymological origins are always "linguistic" etc. --Wetman 23:36, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Chinese" demons

I removed these bogus assertions here: "The Chinese believed very strongly in demons and omens. There are many types of Demons but only a few Omens. The Omens show what is going to happen next in your life such as the Omen for death is the Grim, this usually takes shape as a black dog. It is called this because whoever sees it has a little chance of surviving. In china in 200BC most black dogs were killed because they were believed to be a bad Omen. Some Omens are good, such as the Omen for happiness, Anthea, which usually takes the shape of a beautiful lady. Demons however are all bad. There are many different shapes and sizes of demons such as the water demon, the temple demon and the grass demon."

[edit] Art demons

Should we include ref to the Joss Whedon "demonology" of "BTVS" & "Angel", which holds demons are an older, superceded form of life on earth? Trekphiler 19:50, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] In Islam

Islam didn't have any distinguishing diffrence between Ifrits,Marids,Jinns and Shaitain. There was only Jinn. Shaitan simply refers to evil Jinn. Azreal is an angel and not a Jinn. And there is no demon and angel appointed to each person but rather 2 angles. One to record good deeds and other bad ones.Burning phoneix 10:21, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A correction and suggestions.

In the section, "war in heaven" it marks Satan as fitting the role of every Biblical Demon. But it never states that. There were multiple Demons in mention, some by name others not. (if you are going to quote a text, you might as well do it right) Most of these names have anthropological roots which can be applied to the concept of "Demonizing" - for example, although Bael was worshiped as a Nature God, because the Jews had this forced on them the word came to mean, "False God".

I also think culture crossing details should be mentioned. For example, some Demons were mentioned by name in a number of Religions. Bael, Baal, Bali, are all names which can be viewed to refer to the same while being respected in totally different cultures. Then there is the "& headed Dragon" which is mentioned in Revalations, and respect by the Japanese as "The 7 headed Demon Dragon, Yamata" and a similar name applied in Ugarit, being "The 7 Headed Demon God, Yam, who rules over the sea of chaos that threatens to swallow the world of order" (Ugarit applied the concept of a God as being either of Chaos and Order, rather than Good and Evil, and most "Gods" respected by them as chaotic eventually became respected as Evil in later cultures)

In other words, allot of interesting anthropology should be mentioned.

Gwaeraurond 11:44 PM EST, March 5 2006

The section on demons in movies and television is woefully inadequate. It should be greatly expanded on or eliminated altogether.

[edit] In modern mysticism

Please don't delete the section 'In Modern Mysticism', since it belongs very much to this article:

You forgot to insert an ÍMHO in your previous sentence.

The section is being deleted from the article since it is off topic and does NOT cite any verifiable reviewed source and it does NOT say why it very much pertains to the article's topic . . . Jclerman 08:58, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm replacing the dump of Ndru01's debated text with the most recent version:

Following the pantheistic view, combined with recent theories like TechGnosticism (Erik Davis), Infomysticism (Steve Mizrach, [[1]]), Digital Philosophy, quantum physics and today's Information Science, demons and angels should be in fact regarded as Minds (manifestation of the essence that emanates from the Spirit, the manifestable essence) that interact with this physical universe, but unlike human and animal minds/souls, demons and angels 'drive' complex abstract forms (complex thoughts/ideas) as their 'vehicle'. Demons as ‘drivers’ of abstract forms, as Minds in interaction with Information represent a counter-consciousness. All of the physical universe is based on underlying information (nature's binary code, with two non-physical values for 0 and 1), so matter itself, as well as abstract/energetic forms, is just encoded ('bits' of) information in this 'program'. A human (or animal) mind/soul is 'driving' an organic form (individual material body on a level of a synergetic whole, including the brain as the most sophisticated organ) as a 'vehicle'. The brain is generating and using countless abstract forms/objects. An abstract form/object, although non-dimensional (shapeless), is energetically real (not imaginary), as material form is real (telekinesis, moving material objects/forms with thoughts, would be the best demonstration of that), and like any organic form, it also has its own associated morphic field. The elemental abstract forms are thoughts, the most complex are skills, sciences, languages etc. Many thoughts (abstract forms), as energy processed by the brain together with the data from their morphic fields, since brain is controlling the whole body, actually can cause some effects, through vibration (subconsciously sent by the brain), to different body-parts (organs, tissues). Often, a fear, urge, or some unpleasant feeling, are in fact caused by (usually some 'minor') demon, a mind driving some thought (that every brain can tune to, under certain condition).

Demons (counter-creation minds that together, in coordination, make what some religions call Satan), are, although not 'intelligent' (in a creative way like human minds are), however extremely skillful to attract/trap (a) human mind(s), with their vehicles easily regrouping and reorganizing (as abstract/energetic forms). Angels, of course are the opposite, they 'drive' positive abstract forms/objects (pure, noble and inspiring thoughts/ideas, that enable spiritual progress of humanity). According to Gnostics, demons (archons) rule this world (Demiurge's creation), being the main reason for the troubles the humankind goes through.

So, the awareness of thoughts being demons' vehicle, was probably the reason why quantum physicist David Bohm (Thought as a System) dedicated many of his efforts bringing up the importance of thoughts to humankind : "Thought runs you. Thought, however, gives false info that you are running it, that you are the one who controls thought. Whereas actually thought is the one which controls each one of us..."

Fuzzypeg 04:33, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

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But it does have a citing (Bohm). It has a reference to Gnostics, and I added now a reference to TechGnosis, Infomysticism, Digital Philosophy, and through link to morphic fields, Rupert Sheldrake is referenced as well. So the text is now definitely relevant and needs to be presented here. So please don't remove it.

greetings, Ndru01 17:10, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ndru01. Please sign all your comments by putting four tildes (~~~~) at the end. This will automatically turn into your user name and date.

Now the text is not definitely relevant, in fact it looks very likely that it is irrelevant. True, you refer to the works of well-known publised authors, but if I understand it correctly, you are not presenting their theories but your own, and saying that some of their ideas are similar in some ways to yours. To understand better what ideas can be presented on Wikipedia and what cannot, please read WP:NOR and WP:V. I have my own ideas about demons (which have some small similarity to yours, but also some major differences), but I haven't put any of my own observations in the article because a) that would impose an unnecessary level of dogma and b) it would breach Wikipedia policy. Fuzzypeg 03:55, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Someone, please, totally copyedit this..

"Scientists occasionally invent hypothetical entities with special abilities as part of a thought experiment. These "demons" have abilities that are nearly limitless, but they are still subject to the physical laws being theorized about.

For example, in Descartes' Second Meditation, it is argued, as a thought experiment, that it is at least possible that there is an all-powerful evil demon who is deceiving me, such that this demon causes me to have false beliefs, including the belief that there is an object before me and the belief that two plus three equals five. Note that the power of such a demon would be two-fold: both empirical and rational thinking can be completely compromised. This leads to a worrisome argument:

  1. One knows some fact or other only when one can rule out that there is such a demon.
  2. But one can never be in a position rule out that there is such a being, since we can never be sure that the demon isn't merely toying with our epistemic situation.
  3. Thus, we can never know any facts at all!

"

I hate it when people need to be slammed in the face; WIKIPEDIA IS AN ENCYCLOPEDIA, NOT A COLUMN. I was too lazy to understand what it reads there, so please, someone, if that is a joke or something (too lazy to think right now), then remove it, I guess...

--84.249.252.211 13:31, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Silent Hill

Until a less disrespectful reason than, "revert obnoxiously long section on trivial game, completely freaking irrelevant for this article," is offered, I am slotting my addition of Silent Hill into the Games references once more. Though I am curious as to why it was deleted; is the games section irrelevant to begin with? Maybe pop culture references in novels, films, games, and such forth would be better suited to an entry all their own? If any video game is relevant to this entry, I would imagine it to be Silent Hill.

As to how my entry is irrelevant to its surroundings, I am unsure. I can see how it might be seen as "NPOV" (a concept I abhor already, but will tolerate within reason). While I'm sure going on about the allegorical natures of the demons seems irrelevant, I thought it interesting and valuable to add a pop culture reference of demons as beings of skewed salvation, rather than torment and damnation. Several religions present similar ideas, what little is known of the Yezidi, I believe. Though Melek Taus is certainly not the best example, he is the first at the top of my head. I felt that this peculiar presentation was relevant to this article specifically. If anyone would like actual references by Toyama and the other designers to this nature, feel free to ask. I'll have to dig a bit, but this is not exactly "Original Research" (another distasteful concept, but one I'm much more willing to tolerate). Much of the games' plots are convoluted and obscured, but these ideas are presented officially both within and without the works themselves. (Although it is not the reference I was looking for, I believe that this is acceptable and confirms the information in my edit: [2]. Source is The Book of Lost Memories, a silly fan book slightly more useful than other silly fan books, though not offering much that isn't obvious, publisher unknown to me. For what it's worth, it is, however, "official.")

Feel free to edit the entry to comply with "NPOV," though I would like to in some way leave the idea I stated above intact. I apologize if my post in some way violates Wikipedia etiquette and comes across as aggressive. I edit very little, and the rudeness of many people does nothing to alleviate that. Thanks to any able to examine others' viewpoints, even if those viewpoints dislike the concept of a neutral point of view. Please choose words with respect, and others are likely to do the same.

Yes, if someone is going to delete a section, they can do a little better than claim "freaking irrelevant" in the summary line. I'm not going to make any judgement on the value of mentioning this game in the article, however I will say that a neutral point of view and avoiding original research are fundamentally important in making Wikipedia what it is. Without these policies this would be a blog with a couple of hundred articles, not an encyclopedia with over a million. Material added to an article is much more convincing if it actually comes from reliable sources rather than from the mouth of Thomas Jeffrey Anderson. (Who's Thomas Jeffrey Anderson, I hear you ask? - my point exactly). Fuzzypeg 10:37, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

One thing about Lost Memories, is that it's a officially released book(in Japan), but the translation is from fans. Xuchilbara 13:16, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pharaonic demons

The following text could be improved: "Ancient Egyptians also believed in demonic like monsters that devoured the human soul, while it traveled towards afterlife, although, certainly demons per se did not exist specifically in Ancient Egypt.' As it stands it has an air of defining "demon' so as to exclude a soul-eating Egyptian demon. Why? Why "demonic-like"? What is the submerged issue here that results in such contortions on the textual surface? --Wetman 08:22, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources??

What is with the whole second paragraph of "In Christian myth and legend?" I have never heard these kind of ideas before in my life: Angels first rebelling, then angels falling, but only the rebelling angels becoming demons? Then Lucifer being "second in command" to Satan? (I looked this up and it's under New Age Beliefs in the Lucifer article, which, last time I checked, was NOT Christian theology). Lucifer was the name of the angel on God's left hand, while Jesus was on God's right. Lucifer rebelled and took one-third of the angels with him. Now Lucifer's name became Satan and the fallen angels became demons. That is what it says in the Bible, what is in this article are New Age beliefs, masquerading as scripture. --Padishar 01:58, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree entirely. The article should represent mainstream Christian myth here. Fuzzypeg☻ 04:09, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "according to Christianity"

"According to Christianity, when God created angels, he offered them the same choice he was to offer humanity: follow, or be cast apart from him. Some angels chose not to follow God, instead choosing the path of evil. These are not the fallen angels, but are the pre-human entities known as demons. The fallen angels are the host of angels who later rebelled against God, headed by Lucifer (who is often confused with his second in command, Satan). And later the 200 angels known as the Grigori, led by Semyazza, Azazel and other angelic chiefs, some of whom became the demons that were conjured by King Solomon and imprisoned in the brass vessel, the Goetia demons, descended to Earth and cohabited with the daughters of men." There's no way that this can be said to be "according to Christianity." I mean, there's almost nothing of which you can say, "According to Christianity," as if Christianity were a monolith. Is this "according to [the previously mentioned] apocryphal Christian writings"? That's my guess. Jonathan Tweet 04:42, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Premillenialist Bias

"Due to man's failure, as part of the punishment, the permission granted to Satan and his demons to tempt the first humans away from their Creator will now last until the end of this age when Christ shall return for the battle of Armageddon. Satan and his host will be confined and Christ shall reign and establish 1000 years of peace upon the earth. At the end of the 1000 years Satan will again be unleashed for a final battle after which the earth shall be renewed by fire."

This assumes the premillenialist position to be held universally by Christians, and doesn't mention the alternative Amillenial and Postmillenial views. Either add them, or remove this. Mordac 16:41, 05 october 2006

[edit] Last part of introduction

Although some scholars presumptuously suppose that Christianity derived its demonology from other sources such as Zoroastrianism, this opinion is non-sequitur. It doesn't follow logically that an idea is automatically borrowed from another culture or religion simply because the other culture is older and had a similar concept beforehand. Zoroastrianism is worlds apart from Christianity in its theology, and just because some of it's theology has Christian parallels does not mean that Christianity borrowed from Zoroastrianism. A more careful comparison of the two religions and a more in-depth study of Christian, and in particular, Catholic Theology will show this to be the case in, not only in Demonology, but scripture studies and other aspects of the faith as well.

Do wikipedia really have to be this NPOV? Connections between old christian and Zoroastianism is quite obvious. I want to see the sources. And even if the sources are right, and that all some similareties are superficial, this article should have more exact information about wheter or not the demons are borrowed from the Zoroastianism and leave the rest of the defence for Christianity on the page about Zoroastianism or Christianity. I think the qoute should be removed or revised with sources.Rsverdrup 20:46, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the quote is at all NPOV. WP:NPOV should provide a balanced view noting the prominent theories and their supporting evidence; the above quote is simply some anonymous person's assertion that Christian theology has no strong influences from non-Jewish religions, which according to scholarly evidence is far from true. If someone wants to cite an influential theologian who holds this view, then an attributed statement would be welcome, but as it stands, this is purely original research and should be removed. Fuzzypeg☻ 23:56, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Meaning of the verb "to Demonize"

The beginning of this article contains the sentence "to "demonize" a person means to cast aspersions on them" but to my understanding, and accord to the OED, its meaning is rather stronger: it means "to render demoniacal", and "demoniacal" in turn means "devilish, fiendish". I think a better way of putting it would be "to "demonize" a person means to portray as evil." Perhaps someone more involved with this article might want to consider making this or a similiar change. Hi There 05:51, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I changed it conformably to my preceding comment. Hi There 16:47, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Demons in science

Out of all the classifications of demons listed, this one is the only type that does not refer to literal demons, but rather an arguement in epistemology. This page, however, seems to be meant to refer to literal demons which appear in various mythologies. Perhaps this section of the article should be moved to the disambiguation page? 66.24.236.62 05:57, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Minor argument

Hi. This article is interesting and reasonably sourced. I removed some words that may be construed as argument according to policy. If those arguments are actually sourced then please reinstate them with quotes and citations. I think its only a minor problem but its a good idea to nip argumentation or possible editorializing in the bud before it blooms:) AlanBarnet 06:11, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Terminology

To the best of my knowledge the word series demon -- daemon -- dæmon and daimon -- daimōn both share ancestry in δαίμων. They are all closely related. However over some millenniums these words have, as most other words, subtly changed their meaning. Though the choice of word does reveal differences in context and maybe what time period it was written, they are still so close that I'm questioning the need for two separate articles. Currently there are two articles: Demon and Daemon (mythology). I think this should be one article that properly explains the evolution of demons through the ages. Can someone explain me the rationale of two articles? --Tunheim 15:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• So let's propose a merge and see what the discussion regarding such yields. Lord Metroid 14:54, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

My only concern would be the length of a merged article. If it would not be too long, I'm all for it. Aleta 00:57, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

From my experience the difference between demons and daemon is their usefulness to humans. Demons get their usual reputation as evil and hating humanity. Whereas, daemons usually are support and familiar roles with humanity (such as in the series His Dark Materials) DisgurntleDevil 19:58, 20 March 2007

Could this be due to demon being a more modern term while daemon being more archaic. Thus when using daemon, you indirectly refer to "the way demons were seen as a long time ago". And I've been given the impression that for the last two millennia the negative connotation of the term has increased. Could this explain your point?

Please be aware that all this is my gut feeling. I'm on thin ice here, so please don't take my musings as facts. --Tunheim 07:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC)