Demons
The original concept of demon appears to be that of a spirit
of some divine nature, other than those, which are classed as angels.
It was not necessarily evil.
The whole idea of a demon of evil comes out of the idea of fallen angels,
A race of angels that were thrown out of heaven for
fraternising with humans.
In the book of Enoch, although it's by no means clearly expressed,
this fraternisation resulted in children, who were called "giants".
When i was studying at art college, i came across the use of the term
Daemon to describe the creative impulse, in the artist,
as a feature of inanimate objects,as well, which is to say
their personality. The idea is very clearly expressed in surrealist art
where an object taken out of context shows its true nature.
I think that about sums up the demon as an angel with
other than holy intentions.
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| Ezekiel's vision? |
This is a different creature from the elemental spirits, or
gods of other cultures, which are called "demons"
probably by comparison with the Western idea of a demon.
Perhaps, when Christianity swept through Europe,
ancient Celtic gods became demonised,
to fit them into the belief system.
It's made harder to trace these changes as the church
chose to delete from its library ancient works, gospels,
which it didn't feel fitted with the world view,
that it was adopting.
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