![]() ![]() She is pictured with fish- or serpent-like attributes In Judaism she is identifies with Lilith, in Coptic Egypt with Alabasandria, and in Byzantine culture with Gylou, although she is said to have innumerable names. Motivated by envy as she herself is infertile. A female demon, blamed for miscarriages and infant mortality. His name contains the number 365, the number of the days in the year A mystical fellow, who is claimed to be both an Egyptian god and a demon. ![]() ![]() In Hell he commands sixty legions of devils. He is shown either in the form of a handsome knight bearing a lance and a standard, or as a ghostly specter riding a winged horse. A demon of the superior order, conjured for his power to foretell the future and to provide military aid and advice. In doing so, he drowned along with Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea and became trapped in a pillar of water. He also travelled to Egypt where he hardened the heart of Pharaoh and his advisors, convincing them to pursue the fleeing Israelites. A demon and fallen angel described in the Testament of Solomon, a book of the Old Testamnt purportedly writen by King Solomon. Abezethibou followed Beelzebub upon his fall from heaven and became an important demon in hell. Used as a protagonist in Eli Roth‘s film The Last Exorcism. Associated with the demon Paimon, not historically significant in any demonology text. King of the demon locusts sent to torment mankind and lord of the bottomless pit. He tells of all things past and future, procures love and reconciles controversies between friends and foes. He may appear as a fire breathing wolf with a snake's tail, as a man with dog's teeth situated inside of a raven, or as a raven-headed man. A Marquis of Hell and the seventh of the 72 Goetic demons who governs forty infernal legions. However its very complexity is fascinating to the modern reader and at the very least, provides us with a useful resource for naming heavy metal bands, populating fantasy RPG games and providing interesting characters for films about the Apocalypse. The result is an astoundingly long, and dare I say it, tedious list, with each demon appended characteristics, likes, dislikes, habits, powers and specific appearances, all the better to control them. At various times in Christian history, attempts have been made by the church to classify demonic beings according to various hierarchies. The existence of demons remains an important concept in many modern cultures and religions, for a variety of reasons: their supposed power to possess the living, their ability to alter future events through whim or fancy and (less fashionable in today’s modern world of technology) their ability to grant advantages and powers over fortune and destiny. As Judaism and Christianity came to the fore and absorbed the traditions of Greco-Roman magic, Hebrew demonology and Near Eastern pagan mythology, the list of demons grew to include many ordinary idols and gods re-evaluated as undesirable, evil, and ultimately, as competition for the One True God. And thus the modern definition of demon was born: a supernatural being with malevolent purpose, able to possess the living and interfere with their destinies. Almost simultaneously, popular Hebrew mythology encompassed by the Semitic tribes of the Middle East began to ascribe to the daimons a certain independence of will, at first both positive and negative, but then with increasingly malicious intention. During the time of the ancient Greeks a word was found to describe this entire class of characteristics defined as spirits: daimon, later to become daemon or demon. With its earliest roots in the ancient civilisations of Egypt, Arabia, Mesopotamia and Assyria, the idea of good versus evil was progressively quantified and refined by assigning names to positive characteristics such as happiness, inspiration and good fortune, and to negative characteristics such as sloth and greed, but also to ailments of the body and the mind such as depression, epilepsy, blindness and headache. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the continuum of civilisation collectively described as western. ![]() Since the dawn of human civilisation, mankind has attempted to rationalise its primeval fear of the unknown by creating order out of chaos and by categorising its understanding of the concept of death. Demons verses saints: detail of a painting by Andrea di Bonaiuto, Cappellone degli Spagnoli. ![]()
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