Demon

“ The hero of this strange and solemn romance, inheriting a melancholy and superstitious mental constitution, becomes in middle age the victim of a deep, and tranquil because deep, fanaticism. A demon in human form, perceiving his state of mind, wantonly experiments upon it, deepening and intensifying it by a fearful series of illusions of sight and sound. Tricks of jugglery and ventriloquism seem to his feverish fancies miracles and omens—the eye and the voice of the Almighty piercing the atmosphere of supernatural mystery in which he has long dwelt. ”

“ I once knew a man possessed of a demon. He became so vicious that he had to be confined in a cell in jail. When he heard any one swear or blaspheme, he would go into convulsions of laughter. When any one used the name of God or Christ, he would curse everything good, and foam at the mouth. ”

“ The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. ”

“ But those who bend around inflammatory tables, nourishing their own diseases, are ruled by a most lickerish demon, whom I shall not blush to call the Belly-demon, and the worst and most abandoned of demons. ”

“ Only that intensest light could cast so black a shadow athwart the world as the belief in a purely malignant spirit. To such a conception—love of evil for its own sake—the word Devil is limited in this work; Demon is applied to beings whose harmfulness is not gratuitous, but incidental to their own satisfactions. ”

“ A spiritual being, whose home is heaven, who rides on the winds, whose wrath is dreaded, who sanctions the oath, is only called "a demon" by the prejudice of the worthy father who, at the same time, admits that the savages have a conception of God—and that God, so conceived, is this demon! ”

“ Such of the shadows as succeed in eluding the evil spirit and effecting an entrance are for ever happy; on the other hand, those whom the malicious female demon succeeds in precipitating into the abyss sink into the region of endless woe and torture. ”

“ A demon—a fallen angel—evil spirit, an imp. Literally, a shade—a dark spot, moving as noiselessly and rapidly as a shadow. The many references in the New Testament to “devil,” and “devils,” should always be demons; the great multitude, so often found in one place, come from the innumerable concourse which constitute the “powers of darkness.” Shadow spirits, men and women who are controlled by these dark, shadowy imps, “love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.” ”

“ Begone from my sight, thou demon of hell!
Boys, here they come! [1463] there they go! Ah, the spell
Is o’er. I’m afire! [1464] See! It shoots [1465] from my eyes!
I am burning within! [1466] There [1467] the red demon lies.
What angel is this? [1468] ’Tis my Bessie to see
If my word has been kept about ending this spree—
No, no, it is black! [1469] ’Tis the devil’s device—
He’s claiming a soul as a sacrifice. ”

“ But should it be allowed that the demon could reanimate these bodies, and give them the power of motion for a time, could he also lengthen, diminish, rarefy, subtilize the bodies of these ghosts, and give them the faculty of penetrating through the ground, the doors and windows? ”

“ From the cloud on which Eve stands, Satan is seen falling head-long, wound round by the tail of the serpent, whose bulk, nailed to the cross round which he wreathes, is falling into the abyss. Sin is also represented as a female bound in one of the serpent's folds, surrounded by her fiends. Death is chained to the cross, and Time falls together with Death, dragged down by a demon crowned with laurel. ”

“ Knifegrinder, Blacksmith, Carpenter.—In the vernacular sânwâlâ, lohár, tarkhân. The first in the East, like his brother in the West, is an itinerant journeyman, who wanders about with a wheel for grinding.
Demon.—Here bhût, a malignant ghost or vampire, but as his doings in the tale correspond more to those of a deo, demon, than of a bhût, the word has been translated by 'demon.'
Pîpal.—Constantly occurring in folk-tales, is the Ficus religiosa of botanists, and a large fig-tree much valued for its shade. It is sacred to Hindus, and never cut by them. ”

“ I therefore, having heard this, glorified the Lord God, and again I questioned the demon, saying: " Tell me how ye can ascend into heaven, being demons, and amidst the stars and holy angels intermingle." And he answered: "Just as things are fulfilled in heaven, so also on earth (are fulfilled) the types * of all of them. For there are principalities, authorities, world -rulers', and we demons fly about in the air; and we hear the voices of the heavenly beings, and survey all the powers. ”

“ For every demon, when exorcised in the name of this very Son of God—who is the First-born of every creature, who became man by the Virgin, who suffered, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate by your nation, who died, who rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven—is overcome and subdued. But though you exorcise any demon in the name of any of those who were amongst you—either kings, or righteous men, or prophets, or patriarchs—it will not be subject to you. ”

“ There is a wonderful blending of good and evil in this demon, and, while the magnitude of his crimes makes us shudder, his wrongs and his loneliness awaken our pity. "The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. ”

“ A demon, in the attire of a mourning widow, used, in the Eastern Russia, to go through the fields at noon in harvest-time, and break the legs and arms of the workmen, who failed, when they saw her, to fall on their faces. ”

“ Several stories, both ancient and modern, are related which inform us that the demon has appeared to those whom he wished to seduce, or who have been so unhappy as to invoke his aid, or make a compact with him, as a man taller than the common stature, dressed in black, and with a rough ungracious manner ”

“ The main characteristic of a demon—that which distinguishes it from a devil—is, as we have seen, that it has a real and human-like motive for whatever evil it causes. If it afflict or consume man, it is not from mere malignancy, but because impelled by the pangs of hunger, lust, or other suffering, like the famished wolf or shark. ”

“ That although what appears miraculous is not so always, we must at least usually perceive in it some illusion and operation of the demon; consequently, that the demon can, with the permission of God, do many things which surpass our knowledge, and the natural power which we suppose him to have.
8. That those who wish to explain them by fascination of the eyes and other senses, do not resolve the difficulty, and throw themselves into still greater embarrassment than those who admit simply that apparitions appear by the order or the permission of God. ”

“ The apostle, however, supposed that this demon was the same which was driven out from that woman.
76. And the demon said, "I beseech thee, suffer me to go and to dwell where thou wishest, and command me for that purpose, then I shall not fear him who has power over me. For as thou hast come to preach, so have I come to destroy. As he who sent thee punishes thee for not fulfilling his will, so, unless I do the will of him who has sent me, I am sent before the time and appointed season into my nature (exist no more as an individual) . ”

“ In every man, of course, a demon lies hidden- the demon of rage, the demon of lustful heat at the screams of the tortured victim, the demon of lawlessness let off the chain, the demon of diseases that follow on vice, gout, kidney disease, and so on. ”

“ One of his essential functions, temptation, is destroyed by his hideousness. To do the work of temptation a demon might be expected to approach his intended victim in the most fascinating form he could command. ”

“ Epileptic fits and insanity were signs that the demon had taken possession of unfortunate wretches, who were either tormented or put to death. Satan, with his legions of devils, continually harassed mankind. ”

“ As to the nature of these demons, it has been generally believed, that they were spirits of a higher origin than the human race; and, in support of this opinion, it has been alleged, that the supreme deity of the Pagans is called the greatest demon; that demons are described as beings placed between the gods and men; and that demons are expressly distinguished from heroes, who were the departed souls of men. ”

“ As soon as we admit it as a principle that angels and demons are purely spiritual substances, we must consider, not only as chimerical but also as impossible, all personal intercourse between a demon and a man, or a woman, and consequently regard as the effect of a depraved or deranged imagination all that is related of demons, whether incubi or succubi, and of the ephialtes of which such strange tales are told. ”

“ The complexity of their symptoms produced what we call dedoublement, or a dual personality. Those possessed, claimed to be in the power of a demon, who entered their body by one of the natural passages, sporting with their person, placing itself in apposition with any place in their organism, proposing all sorts of erotic acts, natural and unnatural, whispering shameless propositions in their ears, blasphemy against God, forcing them to sign a contract with the Devil in their own blood. ”

“ He adhered at last to the confession that on five occasions, to obtain possession of women, he had made wax figurines with invocations of demons, mixing with them the blood{456} of toads and his own blood and saliva, as a sacrifice to Satan. He would then place the image under the threshold of the woman, and if she did not yield to him she would be tormented by a demon. ”

“ So that it is very foolish and absurd to bring in a Demon from Hell, or an Angel from Heaven, or a Soul from above, to solve a thing that seems strange and uncouth by, when the craft and cunning of Men (if duely considered and examined) are sufficient to perform the same, and much more. ”

“ The fallen angels disclosed to the world unknown material substances, and various arts, such as metallurgy, the properties of herbs, incantations, and interpretation of the stars; and to women specially they revealed all the secrets of personal adornment. (5) There is scarcely any man who is not attended by a demon; and it is well known that untimely and violent deaths, which are attributed to accidents, are really caused by demons. (6) Those who go to theatres may become specially accessible to demons. ”

“ They have, for example, a demon of the waterfall, a demon of wild-beast tracks, a demon which interferes with snares for wild-fowl, a baboon demon, which takes possession of dancers and causes them to perform wonderful feats of climbing, &c. But it is impossible to do more than deal with a few types, which will illustrate the main features of the demonology of savage, barbarous and semi-civilized peoples. ”

“ In illustrating the doctrine by typical examples from the enormous mass of available details, it will hardly be possible to discriminate among the operating spirits, between those which are souls and those which are demons, nor to draw an exact line between obsession by a demon outside and possession by a demon inside, nor between the condition of the demon-tormented patient and the demon-actuated doctor, seer, or priest. ”

“ For this I would have you know for certain, that every one who has at any time worshipped idols, and has adored those whom the pagans call gods, or has eaten of the things sacrificed to them, is not without an unclean spirit; for he has become a guest of demons, and has been partaker with that demon of which he has formed the image in his mind, either through fear or love. ”

“ But for the Gentiles it is no wonder, because diseases and health, vices and virtues, and many natural accidents, were with them termed, and worshipped as demons. So that a man was to understand by demon, as well, sometimes an ague, as a devil. ”

“ But the demon of certainty—an excellent demon, whatever the orthodox may say—is present, to stimulate us all. You may have just formed your theories, you may cite your traditional authorities, but these will not satisfy our awakened curiosity. We ask for demonstrations, for irrefragable proofs drawn from the Bible of Nature. ”

“ They then begin to sing the names of various demons, as though they were chanting a litany, until suddenly they perceive that the Devil has appeared in the midst of them in the shape of some animal or other. As he would seem to be visible to them all in some mysterious way they immediately extinguish the lights, and each one of them as quickly as he can seizes upon the woman, who chances to be nearest at hand. ”

“ They believed in obsession and deemed all sick, insane and diseased persons as possessed of demon spirits or devils, and their restoration to health or their right minds was called "the casting out of devils." ”

“ Demon was a term applied by the Greeks and Romans to certain genii or spirits who made themselves visible to men, with the intention of doing them either good or harm. The Jews and early Christians ascribed a malignant nature to demons, the former endeavouring to trace their origin to intercourse between man and supernatural beings, and the latter maintaining that they were the souls of departed human beings, permitted to visit the earth to assist those they favoured, and punish persons against whom they or their favourites had a grudge. ”

“ My adepts stand upright; their head above the heavens, their feet below the hells.
41. But since one is naturally attracted to the Angel, another to the Demon, let the first strengthen the lower link, the last attach more firmly to the higher. ”

“ The devils, who are as beasts of prey or loathsome reptiles, fight for souls; the angels rise to heaven with the saved; the demons drag their victims to a burning mountain and throw them into the flames. ”

“ To take away or escort the blood demon 送血鬼 sung hsŭeh kuei, or demon of birth-pangs ch‘an-nan kuei 產難鬼, is the work of a sorcerer, and many incantations are practised and charms used to assist the birth ”

“ That is the parable teaching. Now a look at a plain out word from the Master's lips. It is in the story of the demonized boy, the distressed father, and the defeated disciples, at the foot of the transfiguration mountain.29 Extremes meet here surely. The mountain peak is in sharpest contrast with the valley. The demon seems to be of the superlative degree. His treatment of the possessed boy is malicious to an extreme. His purpose is "to destroy" him. Yet there is a limit to his power, for what he would do he has not yet been able to do. He shows extreme tenacity. ”