Demons are scary entities for some people. Fantasy characters populate TV shows and games for others. But how are demons conceptualized by contemporary religious practitioners? Are they acknowledged, worshipped, or exorcised? Stay tuned to find out.
Hello everyone. I am Angela and welcome back to my channel. In case you’re new here, I’m a doctoral researcher and a graduate teaching assistant at Leeds Trinity University and this video is a really exciting one for me because it’s part of a collaboration “Demons Then and Now” with the amazingly talented YouTuber and fellow Religious Studies scholar, at Boston University, Andrew Henry from Religion for Breakfast. On his channel, Andrew has tackled the Greek or Roman daimon as well as the conceptualization of demons in Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. So go watch his video first, if you haven’t already, and do check out his channel in case you are not already familiar with it because he produces amazing, amazing content.
In this video, I will be talking about demons in modern, Pagan Polytheistic religions. There is hardly any academic literature on demonology in the context of contemporary paganism. But I will do my best here by combining some of the existing scholarships with fieldwork data drawn from my anthropological research among Pagans in Italy. So let’s move on to it, shall we?
Defining what a demon is and which kind of metaphysical entity may in fact constitute a demon is a tricky task. Different religions in the world may encompass, in their belief system, entities which have been translated as demons like Māra in Buddhism and the Yokai in Japanese folklore. But all these supernatural beings, populating different religious cultures around the world, are embedded in their own cultures and may not be that easily translatable into our Western terminology. As Manfred Lurker highlights, it’s essential to acknowledge that the concepts of God and demons are by no means evenly weighted across different religions. The innumerable deities in Hinduism and Buddhism carry about as much significance as angels or saints do in monotheistic religions. There are mortal Gods, Gods who died like Balder and Osiris and demonic beings whom death cannot touch, for example, the Devas. Thus the borderline between Gods and demons is very fluid, as we see for example with the Asura and the Nymphs and with the Christianization of a people, its former deities get often devalued to the status of devils, as in the case of Pan or Dabog or alternatively accepted into the corpus of Christian saints, for example, with Brigit Köndös.
The contemporary understanding of demons across the various Western countries seems, in fact, to be heavily influenced, to various degrees, by a Christian interpretation of the term specifically rooted in the dichotomy between good versus evil. Such an ethical dichotomy is mirrored in their conceptualization of spiritual entities which are either purely good as with the Angels or purely evil as with demons. As for pagans, it is essential to highlight that how demons are understood varies significantly, depending on the tradition we are referring to. For example, Wiccans tend to leave demons completely out of their frame of reference, deeming them part of the Christian belief system. Whereas other kinds of polytheists will include them in their magical practices.
This is very common in Ceremonial Magic and Western esotericism where demon evocation, aided by the notorious grimoire “Goetia” is very common. The Goetia, also known as the “Lesser Key of Solomon”, in Latin Clavicula Salomonis Regis or Lemegeton in Greek, is in fact treatise of demonology attributed to King Solomon where demons, their attributes and mode of evocation are listed.
Actually, maybe I shall make a video dedicated to this one in the future. Let me know if you’d like it in the comments.
In the latter case demons, names and traits are still rooted in an Abrahamic background and yet they are engaged by means of a pagan approach through the use of sympathetic magic and ritual evocation.
As my field data shows, there are in fact two main trends among Pagans: those who deem demons to belong to a Christian and Abrahamic belief system and have preferred to leave them completely out of their practice. And those who do include demons in their spiritual and magical practice; reshaping and to some extent tailoring their conceptualization upon their individual belief system and ritual practice. But how can some Pagans believe in demons you may ask? Well, pagans can believe in anything. As the French anthropologist Marc Augé highlighted in his “Genie Du Paganisme”: paganism, being a polytheistic set of religions, shows an inclusivist approach as opposed to the exclusivist one endorsed by monotheistic religions. The idea of one God gets translated into one truth and one religion whilst the idea of multiple Gods leaves space for foreign, new deities to be previously existing Pantheon – merging instead of excluding. As a consequence, Isis was not considered the false Goddess, when Romans conquered Egypt but a new goddess to be incorporated among the ones people could have worshipped. In the contemporary world, this view translates into a strong eclecticism adopted by pagans whose religious belief system is heavily tailored to their individual inclinations and personal worldview.
There are pagans who perform rituals borrowed from Ceremonial Magic which do include some Christian elements such as Christian prayers, the names of God, and all those of the angels and archangels. An example of this is the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. Designed by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and become a staple for many of those who engage with the occult. Such a ritual associates the four names of the Abrahamic God to the four corners or the four elements: air, fire, water, and earth; to call upon them in a ritualistic manner. This may be seen as a validation of the Christian theological framework only if the pagan construction of belief is completely disregarded. As I explained in my video “What is Paganism”, pagans don’t conceptualize Gods, spirits not even demons as transcendental beings but rather as entities with whom they can cooperate in their practice and that are seen as beings in a constant state of interaction with the mundane realm of reality embedded within the network, whereby experienced phenomena unfold.
As a result, these entities may be seen by pagans as ontologically real, as in existing in and of themselves or even be interpreted as archetypes. An interesting example of how demons get interpreted as archetypes of a sort is found in the re-appropriation of Lilith. Lilith, once a demon, is now being reinterpreted and re-appropriated by numerous pagans as a goddess. Not only that but also Lilith has become a symbol of rebellion against the patriarchy as well as the hegemony of the dominant religious system in Western society. This is evidenced in pop culture as well. For instance, in the popular TV show “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”, Lilith is portrayed in that light as a rebel fighting against the patriarchal structure whereby the Church of the Night is organized.
To sum it up: the two main trends found among pagans are either to dismiss demons as part of an Abrahamic belief system or to include them, re-conceptualizing both their perception and how to engage with them in a ritualistic setting. In any case on average, pagans don’t see demons as evil because the dichotomy of good versus evil is not really part of the Pagan ethics. In paganism, there is instead the idea that good and evil are intermingled in every single person, entity, choice, experience, and religious endeavour. As a consequence, no entity, not even demons, can be seen as pure evil. But just, perhaps, more connected to earthly desires; more earthbound we may say.
This is it for today’s video. Before wrapping it up, I’d like to thank again Andrew for doing this collaboration with me and my friend and fellow scholar Dr Jonathan O’Donnell for helping me out in finding resources on demonology in the contemporary world. If you like this video smash the like button, subscribe to the channel, do leave me a comment down below because I want to know what you think about my video and about Andrew’s, as well and as per usual, stay tuned for all the academic fun.
Bye for now.
First uploaded 11 Jun 2020