Demonolatry - Types

Types

See also: Classification of demons

Under the heading of demons are classified only such spirits as are believed to enter into relations with the human race; the term therefore includes:

  1. angels in the Judeo-Christian tradition that fell from grace,
  2. human souls regarded as genii or familiars,
  3. such as receive a cult (e.g., ancestor worship),
  4. ghosts or other malevolent revenants.

Excluded are souls conceived as inhabiting another world. Yet just as gods are not necessarily spiritual, demons may also be regarded as corporeal; vampires for example are sometimes described as human heads with appended entrails, which issue from the tomb to attack the living during the night watches. The so-called Spectre Huntsman of the Malay Peninsula is said to be a man who scours the firmament with his dogs, vainly seeking for what he could not find on Earth -a buck mouse-deer pregnant with male offspring; but he seems to be a living man; there is no statement that he ever died, nor yet that he is a spirit. The incubi and Succubi of the Middle Ages are sometimes regarded as spiritual beings; but they were held to give proof of their bodily existence, such as offspring (though often deformed). Belief in demons goes back many millennia. The Zoroastrian faith teaches that there are 3,333 Demons, some with specific dark responsibilities such as war, starvation, sickness, etc.

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