The Left Hand of God: A History of Demons (Part 1)

In this episode we explore the origin of demons and the development of this concept throughout history, from Mesopotamia to medieval magicians. 

Transcript

The two fundamental modes of human experience are that of joy and sorrow. As human beings we naturally strive to bring ourselves into a state of the former and away from the latter. On an experiential level, we recognize these two as opposites, unable to coexist, and fighting for dominance in our lives. Throughout our existence, we have come to identify those forces in the world and within us which move us towards one or the other. These have come to be known broadly as good and evil. The ancient Jewish mystical text, the Kabbalah, asserts that there is no greater good than joy, and no greater evil than sorrow. (As the physical world was believed to be an extension of the spirit world, the agents of joy and sorrow were attributed to the supernatural and thus was conceived a host of spirits who presided over these respective domains.) Since man’s earliest religious notions, he has maintained the existence of two main classes of spirit beings, those who were good, who by their nature sought to aid humanity and facilitate joy, and those who were evil, and sought to harm and cause sorrow. They were regarded as immortal beings of a semi-divine race distinct from humans. Today they are most commonly referred to as angels and demons, and while they are most well-known and prominent within the Abrahamic religions, most cultures throughout human history have had some concept of them. While cross-cultural interpretations of their origin and nature significantly vary, we can nonetheless see a distinct pattern of the general belief in good and evil spirits. In this episode we will focus on what have come to be known as demons; dark, tempestuous beings which, from time immemorial, have struck fear and awe into the heart of humanity, tracing the origins and development of this concept through history.
 
 Despite the efforts of rationalists to ward away demons to the realm of superstition and religious fanaticism, they remain firmly embedded in our culture, in our collective psyche, and even in our experience. A 2016 Gallop poll revealed that more than 60 percent of Americans believe in the existence of hell and the devil, and a public policy polling survey from 2012 showed that 57 percent of Americans believe in demonic possession. Even for nonbelievers, demons continue to spark morbid fascination, as evidenced in their prevalence in pop culture. We also see spiritual practices centered around demons in the growing alternative religions of our time. At a minimum, the concept of demons remains a potent allegorical and rhetorical tool in framing human experience and constructing narrative, and at most, they continue to haunt us in the present day.
 
Welcome to the Hidden Passage.
 
 The ancient concept of demons was much different than the later interpretations that became prevalent in the Christian world. Rather than the biblical one-dimensional embodiments of evil, many of the world’s oldest civilizations' belief in what we might equate to demons, were depicted as morally ambivalent and varied in terms of their interactions with humans, more akin to the nature of fairies described in earlier episodes. In fact, the word demon itself originates from the Greek daimon, meaning lesser deity or guiding spirit. They were known to be helpful, benevolent guardian spirits. Christianity appropriated the word, and many of the gods and nature spirits of pagan religions were declared to be demons. This conflation can be illustrated by comparing the elementals and their kingdoms described by Paracelsus with a similar categorization of demons in their respective realms described by the Byzantine monk, Psellos. They are ordered according to their physical location from the highest to lowest, which also corresponds to their power. Leliouria, located beyond the moon, was the highest demonic realm where the most powerful demons dwelled. It was of an etheric essence, the invisible counterpart to matter. Aeria was the next realm just below it. This is where demons of the air lived. Chthonia was home to demons of the earth. Hyraia was the realm of water in which another order of demons resided. Bypochtbonia was a type of underworld where certain demons lived underground
Misophaes was a true hell which was below even the former, where blind and almost senseless demons existed.
 
In the initial period of Christianization, we see this literal demonization of pagan idols used as a rhetorical tool in the emerging narrative created to delegitimize pagandom. There are legends wherein the true identity of the so-called gods is exposed. In one story regarding St Patrick, the renowned saint ascends the hill of Crom Cruach, a pagan Irish god who was alleged to have been propitiated by human sacrifice, and in one instance had struck dead a group of worshippers. It is said that St Patrick destroyed the standing stone of the mound of Crom Cruach, and the demon emerged, drooping, and bowing at the feet of the saint. This is one of St. Patrick’s alleged feats in casting out the evil pagan spirits, metaphorically referred to as snakes, from Ireland.
 
A similar theme can be seen in the story of Simon Magus, the gnostic magician mentioned in the New Testament. In one instance, he was said to levitate into the air in an attempt to ascend to heaven and prove his spiritual superiority. St Peter, who had witnessed the event, ordered the evil spirits assisting Simon to release their hold, causing him to plummet to his death, exposing his power as inferior and merely the work of demons. These stories are not considered to have any basis in historical fact and were likely manufactured to establish the supremacy of Christendom in the hearts and minds of prospective converts.
 
Despite this fact, not all demons were simply mislabeled pagan gods, as the belief in evil spirits is shared among most pre-Christian religions going back to our earliest historical records. Since there is no universal concept of demons, the word itself does not directly translate across cultures, although there are terms used to describe approximately similar beings. For the purposes of simplicity, we will most often use the term demon to variously describe supernatural malicious entities. It is possible that many cultures were invariably describing the same thing.
 
The first known records of demons come from the Mesopotamians, an ancient civilization dating back to 4500 BC. “The Mesopotamian worldview included both harmful and benevolent demons and spirits who actively interfered with the everyday life of the Mesopotamian people.” Andras Bacskay. They were referred to as the Galla and resided in the underworld. The underworld was a common belief shared among many ancient religions, conceived as a dark and dreary realm where the souls of most human beings went after death, unique from most later concepts of heaven or hell. It was ambiguous in that it was not idyllic, nor was it inhospitable, and it was not associated with cosmic punishment or reward. The Mesopotamian underworld, however, was a particularly unpleasant place, and its human inhabitants subsisted on nothing but dust. The rites of offering libation by pouring it out onto the ground was done so that it might reach the parched ancestors below. The larger realm which demons occupied was called the Netherworld, positioned between human beings and the divine, and so demons were regarded as intermediary or “Zwischenwesen” creatures, allowed to move freely between the netherworld and the heavens. In moving between these two, they were able to influence Earth. These creatures lived outside the civilized world on the fringes of creation. It is traditionally held that in the world of spirit, things that are evil manifest as ugliness, and things that are good manifest as beauty. Demons, like gods, had human and animal characteristics, but were different in that they usually appeared more animalistic to represent their impulsive qualities. They were described as fearsome and often grotesque beings, anthropomorphic in nature, usually with the more menacing physical attributes of several animals combined to represent their chaotic and ferocious nature. The Mesopotamian Pazuzu was a demon portrayed with a canine-like face with bulging eyes, scaly skin, clawed talons, and a poisonous serpent headed penis. The inversion of the phallus, a sacred symbol of divine generation, to an instrument of death, speaks much to the nature of the demonic. In the same spirit, the demoness Lamashtu was said to feed on the blood of infants, which is an inversion of the divine mother archetype, who devours rather than nurtures.
 
The animals to whom their attributes belonged tended to represent the demon’s character as well, being those that lived in the deep, dark places of the world, in the ground and underwater. There are symbolic connotations here. Animals such as poisonous snakes and insects are lethal to humans and live in darkness. Poison symbolizes death, and darkness symbolizes ignorance, as it obscures from sight. Ignorance breeds spiritual death just as dangerous creatures breed in the dark. Low places are often synonymous with separation from the divine. Therefore, malevolent spirits are universally considered to exist in lower realms. Set, the evil Egyptian god who slayed Osiris, bore the head of the saltwater crocodile, an animal known for its aggressiveness and tendency to attack and kill human beings. In contrast, birds, the only animals that could fly, were seen as sacred and pure, a reflection of their elevated spirit, and so many gods and benevolent spirits are depicted with wings. Thoth, depicted with the head of an ibis, was a god of supreme wisdom, wisdom being a product of spiritual illumination.
 
Nonetheless, the earth was thought to be the sacred womb of life. The seed, without the proper balance of sunlight and soil, does not grow. Each element in excess can destroy it, but in moderate balance, nurtures. The seed then sprouts, reaching up through the ground and blossoming into a flower. This was the path and the goal of the human spirit according to many of the mystery traditions, to ascend and meet the source, the eternal light of the world. Heaven was something that could only be reached through the great work of spiritual transformation.
 
Each principle has a creative or destructive aspect depending on the degree of its expression, which is dictated by context. For instance, the feminine earth nurtures life, but in its destructive form becomes the devouring mother. This is displayed in nature constantly. All things are eventually consumed by the earth that bore them.
 
The ancient demons were divided in purpose. Most acted in service to the gods, but there were others who did not. The Mesopotamian Namtarra, Gallu, and Rubisu demons were the messengers of the God Enlil, acting as proxies of divine wrath. The Uttuku and Assaku demons, however, were sovereign and acted on their own accord. In Egyptian mythology we see a similar distinction between two main groups of demons. The first, was known as the guardians. These beings were bound to a specific sacred place. Many were known to guard the hall of Osiris in the afterlife. The guardians would ferociously defend these places against the unworthy who attempted to enter. They were not motivated by malice, and were mostly under the direction of deities, tasked with carrying out their will. This concept is similar to the Baltic draugers and Celtic fairies who guarded the tombs and treasures within the Earth against grave robbers. To those who possessed the necessary moral character or secret knowledge and who had come to make a claim rightfully, the guardians would allow entry and appear benevolent. Again, we see context is key. The second main group of demons was known as the wanderers. In contrast to the guardians, these beings sought out humans and brought with them death, destruction, and corruption. Like the guardians, they could be instructed by the gods to punish the immoral and end the lives of those whose time had come. However, there were wanderers who acted on their own accord out of their own malice. In this form they were regarded as agents of chaos, the destructive, unraveling force in contradistinction to the creative, ordering force of the divine. Magic could be used to defend against and drive away the wanderers.
 
 A similar group of entities in Hinduism are known as the Asuras, and contrast with the Davas, or heavenly beings. Again, the Asuras do not appear to be outright evil, but have the potential to be good or bad like human beings. Both the Asuras and the Devas come from the same divine parentage. There are also cases of Asuras becoming very enlightened beings. Their negative aspect is born out of or drawn to the immoral thoughts and actions of people. Like the Egyptian wanderers, again we see this idea that evil spirits engagement with people is not arbitrarily malicious, but a consequence of ill-gotten thought and action, and often acting under the direction of a higher angelic being as karmic enforcers.
 
Demons from all cultures were known to cause misfortune, illness, and death. The Mesopotamian healing apotropaic text identifies them as the cause of a variety of diseases. There was a significant degree of specificity in these attributions. For instance, the Alu demon was believed to specifically cause strokes. Lamastu, the child eater, was thought to be the cause of what we now call sudden infant death syndrome. This belief remained prevalent into and throughout the Middle Ages in Europe. While medicine in the Middle Ages was experimental and therefore varied, attributing illnesses to a wide variety of causes from the terrestrial to the supernatural, demons were certainly a part of the dialogue, and were often connected to afflictions of the mind, or illnesses of a sudden, inexplicable nature. Recall the concept of elf shot from an earlier episode, which was later adapted by Christians and assigned to demons.
 
In the ancient world, demons, while they were acknowledged, were not nearly as prevalent, nor were they seen as the existential threat that later came to be the cultural zeitgeist of medieval Europe. Any problem they did pose appeared to have a relatively simple solution. Possibly the most consequential shift in humanity’s belief in demons came about with the rise of Catholicism. While these beings still existed in Judaism and early forms of Christianity, they were not articulated as the great existential threat that we think of today. This traces back to the pivotal distinction put forth by the Church that demons were fallen angels in open rebellion against God. This was a departure from ancient belief. Demons were now seen as powerful angels who were completely turned over to evil. Instead of acting on behalf of the deity, they were actively seeking to undermine him, to corrupt and destroy mankind out of spite. Their leader, the great adversary, was Satan. It is taught in Christianity that Satan was once the most glorious and exalted angel of heaven.
 
Ezekiel 28 reads:
 
Moreover, the word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord GOD: "You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. On the day that you were created they were prepared. You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you. In the abundance of your trade, you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.
 
Further basis for this interpretation can be found in Isaiah 14:
 
“You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit. Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: ‘Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble?’”
 
Taken in context, these passages appear to be referring to human kings of Tyre and Babylon, who in their hubris were struck down by God. But to the Catholic Church, these passages had a double meaning, also referring to a fall of Satan from heaven. They translated his original name as Lucifer, taken from the phrase morning star, both of which had their roots in the ancient names for Venus. From these passages, it was further extrapolated that Lucifer had become prideful and refused to bow to God, or that he became jealous that God favored man and refused to bow to him, or that he became enamored with his own magnificence, and desired to bring glory to himself instead of God. Whatever the case, the ultimate sin was pride, and for this, he and those angels who sided with him were cast down from heaven. From then on, Lucifer and his ilk became increasingly corrupted, until he assumed the form of Satan, and became the origin of all evil in the world.
 
Interestingly, the idea of a cosmic rebellion against God was not without historical precedence. In the Sumerian Lugal-e myth, the demon Assaku “opposes the word (do you mean world?) order created by Enlil and launches an attack against the gods with the help of a self-created “stone army.” (Van Dijk 1983). He achieves this by procreating with a mountain, and mounts an assault using his offspring, a host of stone giants. The account states that during this war, the sun and moon disappeared from the sky, and the day became blacker than night, and the surface of the earth was gashed with terrible wounds. This was the end of the first age in Mesopotamian myth. This bears resemblance to the catastrophic end of the first age in Greco-Roman myth we discussed in the lastepisode, also initiated by a cosmic rebellion.
 
This new concept of the demon meant that they were actively seeking to corrupt and destroy humanity, and that anyone, including the innocent, could unwittingly and without consent become a victim of demonic attack. The Christian worldview saw mankind in the midst of a titanic struggle between the forces of good and evil. This philosophy began to be developed in New Testament Judaism. The most dramatic illustration can be seen in the Dead Sea scrolls, which explain in great detail the apocalyptic conclusion of this struggle in a large-scale war between angels and demons at the end of days. The Catholic church later solidified this belief. Evil was always seeking to gain a foothold in the world, and so prayer, worship, and obedience to God had to be constantly maintained to counter it. This concept was coined spiritual warfare. The Catholic encyclopedia explains the complexity of mankind’s ambivalence in this battle. “Man is in various ways subject to the influence of evil spirits. By original sin he brought himself into “captivity under the power of him who thence [from the time of Adam‘s transgression] had the empire of death, which is to say, the Devil” (Council of Trent, Sess. V, de pecc. orig., 1), and was through the fear of death all his lifetime subject to servitude (Heb., ii, 15). Even though redeemed by Christ, he is subject to violent temptation: “for our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places” Here we see the greater spiritual war reflected within man himself, as without, so within.
 
This created fear and paranoia in the minds of medieval Christian Europeans. Fear kept the masses under the purview of the church, as any deviation from the orthodoxy removed their only protection against this evil force. The most likely way for demons to gain influence over a person was through temptation to sin. Just as the serpent had tempted Eve in the garden, a phenomenon in medieval Europe emerged of women allegedly being seduced by the devil. Because of this, it was believed that women more readily gave into temptation than men, and that the devil, knowing this, most often engaged with women. This belief formed the basis for accusations of witchcraft. Many confessions of a licentious nature were recorded in the 1640’s. Ellen Driver confessed that “‘after she was married [to the Devil] he had the carnal use of her but was cold…she further said that being in bed with him she felt his feet and they were cloven.’  Elizabeth Clarke allegedly had sex with Satan routinely, and Anne Boreham claimed to have seen two small demons fighting each other over her, and the winner then claimed the use of her body.
 
“All through the Middle Ages councils continued to discuss the matter: laws were passed and penalties decreed against all who invited the influence of the Devil or utilized it to inflict injury on their fellowmen (cf. the Bulls of Innocent VIII, 1484; Julius II, 1504; and Adrian VI, 1523); and powers of exorcism were conferred on every priest of the Church. The phenomenon was accepted as real by all Christians. The records of criminal investigations alone in which charges of witchcraft or diabolical possession formed a prominent part would fill volumes.”
 
The Catholic Church formed a special order of exorcists in response to this perceived crisis. Exorcism, or the expulsion of a spirit from a person or place, is a religious rite which can be seen as far back as ancient Mesopotamia, where incantations designed to exorcise demons were recorded. Jesus Christ was known to have unprecedented authority over demons, performing a number of exorcisms for the demoniacally afflicted. In one famous account known as the Exorcism of Legion or the Miracle of the Swine, Jesus approaches a possessed man who had been known to exhibit strange abilities and behaviors. The man was too strong to be bound, and “night and day among the tombs and in the hills, he would cry and cut himself with stones.” Jesus calls upon the demon to leave the man, and asks the demon to give its name, to which it responds, “My name is legion, for we are many.” The demon begs Jesus not to send him back but rather into a herd of swine. Jesus agrees, and suddenly the swine stir into a frenzy, and run into the sea where they drown.
 
This account, along with other cases in the New Testament, formed the basis for Christian demoniacal theory. We will now turn to Catholicism in our investigation of the demonic, as it has provided undoubtedly the most extensive analysis of the subject due to its unprecedented concern with the threat of the demonic.
 
The Catholic Church has identified various means by which demons can influence human beings. “He may attack a man’s body from without or assume control from within.” One external method of assault is the infliction of physical pain, often resulting in the scratching or bruising of the victim. Another is known as infestation, or haunting of the victim’s home. The demon in this case will often vandalize objects and scare animals. Lastly is oppression, which is the causing of misfortune in matters of business, health, and relationships. Internal methods of attack are obsession and possession. Obsession describes the demon’s ability to implant foreign thoughts into the victim’s mind, usually of an irrational, obsessive, and/or sinful nature. This is the most common method implemented as part of their effort to tempt humanity to sin. They are also ascribed the ability to manipulate dreams, causing the victim to experience bizarre nightmares of a horrific and violent nature. This psychic attack culminates in causing suicidal ideation. It is thought that a demon will use a variety of these methods to slowly dominate their victim, breaking him or her down into a state of desperation. At this point their spiritual defenses are weakened, rendering them more susceptible to possession, which is often the demon’s ultimate goal. Father Jordan Aumann defines diabolical possession as “a phenomenon in which the devil invades the body of a living person and moves the faculties and organs as if he were manipulating a body of his own. The devil truly resides within the body of the unfortunate victim, and he operates in it and treats it as his own property.” (Spiritual Theology, 408) The belief in possession is a worldwide phenomenon. A study by the National Institute of Mental Health documented spirit possession beliefs in 74 percent of a sample of 488 societies in all parts of the world. Historically this could be seen as either beneficial or detrimental to the host. In many cases such as the Greek oracles, the individual was believed to be possessed by a God who would bestow wisdom. In other cases, an evil spirit would possess an individual for its own personal gain. Any type of spirit, be it human or non-human, could potentially do this, for good or for bad purposes. A notable example of an evil possessing spirit in a pre-Christian culture is the Native American wendigo, who was believed to impel its victims to engage in cannibalism.
 
Demonic possession, according to the clergy, often occurs intermittently, in that the demon is always attached to the victim but only takes control of the body at certain times. “During the course of the diabolical possession and even the exorcism, the person has not only periods of crisis when the struggle with evil is most apparent, but also periods of calm when one thinks the possession has ended. Interestingly, after the exorcism, the person does not remember what transpired while being possessed,” William Saunders. When control over the body is being taken, the victim will suffer seizures resembling epilepsy and loss of consciousness.
 
In some cases, like the man who Jesus exorcized, a person can be possessed by more than one entity. The most extreme form of possession is known as perfect possession. This is when the demon assumes full and permanent control of a person, and the two become fully integrated with one another in a symbiotic, shared commitment to evil. This can only happen if the individual has willingly accepted the demon into them and agrees to cooperate in a desire to become evil. Notable exorcist Father Malachi Martin stated that in cases of perfect possession, there is nothing that he can do to save the person.
 
A possessed individual is thought to exhibit a variety of preternatural abilities, such as abnormal strength, telekinesis, and levitation. The possessed person will reveal hidden knowledge that he or she could not possibly know, and speak in archaic languages, specifically Aramaic or Latin. Lastly, a possessed person is thought to take on a vulgar and rageful personality, expressing blasphemous sentiments and an aversion to biblical iconography and sacrament.
 

The Catholic Church has trained exorcists to look for these phenomena in diagnosing a true case of possession. In the modern scientific age, extra caution is allegedly taken in distinguishing possession from mental illness. According to the church, such evidence must first be observed which cannot be explained by any rational means. Only when psychiatric and medical assessments have ruled out illness and all conventional treatments are exhausted, does the church move forward with an exorcism. This perquisite is known as moral certainty.
 
The practice is alive and well today, with leading Catholic figures claiming that the number of required exorcisms is on the rise. This is attributed to the rise of new age spiritualism, neo-paganism, satanism, and an increasing interest in the occult. Father James Lebar, archdiocese of New York claims he has seen an explosion of cases since the 1990’s.
 
The following passage detailing the process of exorcism is taken from Father Martin’s biography, The Jesuits.
 
“Attending the priest are at least six laymen, usually selected more for their physical prowess than for their theological knowledge. “Exorcism can be extremely violent,” says Father Martin. “It is often disturbing, and always exhausting. I have seen objects hurled around rooms by the powers of evil. I have smelt the breath of Satan and heard the demons’ voices, – cold, scratchy, dead voices carrying messages of hatred. I’ve watched men writhing, screaming, vomiting, defecating, as we fought for their souls.”
 
Like a mongoose playing a cobra, the priest will attempt to work the demon into a position first of disadvantage, then of vulnerability. He begins by demanding, with the authority of prayer, to know its name. The demons, says Father Martin, are not always willing to play this game. They lie silent, sullen, and hidden. When this happens, the exorcist must provoke them into breaking cover. “You have to tease them out,” he says. “The demon does not physically inhabit the body; it possesses the person’s will. We have to compel the thing to reveal itself and its purpose. It can be slow and difficult, with the demon taunting, scorning, abusing you – speaking through the mouth of the possessed, but not in his or her voice.
In the end, though, it does come out – and when that happens you experience the sensation we call ‘presence‘. At that moment you know you are in the company of the purest evil. I have felt the claws of invisible animals tearing at my face. I have been knocked off my feet, blinded and winded. But it is then, when you’ve sensed the ‘presence,’ that the real attack on the demon can begin.”

The theory of exorcism holds that once the demon has been drawn out of the body it can be vanquished by the power of prayer. “The whole nature of the thing changes,” says Father Martin. “The demon knows it’s losing. Instead of screaming abuse, it begins to plead for mercy. It says it’s sorry, it begs to be spared. It promises to go home. But the Bible says that only on the last day can the followers of Satan return to Hell. Where they go, I do not know. We do not destroy them, we drive them out. Sometimes I encounter the same ones again. As the demon disappears, the person it has possessed is ‘cleared,’ and a wondrous wave of peace comes over them.”
 
In the 1400’s, Europeans felt a calling to develop a more active spirituality and explore beyond the boundaries of the church. With the renaissance came a renewed interest in the wisdom of antiquity. While the mystery schools as institutions were long defunct, some of their secret esoteric philosophy was preserved, and its rediscovery spurred a revival of the magical arts based on the traditions of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Judea. The ideas contained therein had a profound impact on western philosophy, science, and art, influencing the works of some of the greatest minds of the age. Among the ancient practices which were revived was the invocation and controlling of spirits. The act of bringing the spirit under the magician’s control is known as binding. This was done for a variety of purposes, including gaining knowledge or power, spiritual transformation, and exerting influence over the physical world. Through exhaustive experimentation, these medieval magical practitioners developed a complex system of ritualistic formulas designed for this purpose, which they believed had to be followed with a scientific precision to ensure successful results and the protection of the practitioner. These methods were recorded in grimoires, magical textbooks which lay out the steps and tools needed to conduct the rituals. As inheritors of the Christian tradition, the two main classes of spirits invoked were the angels and demons of the Bible. For a time, the practice of invoking demons was not seen as evil. In fact, many of the Christian priests engaged in such practices, seeking to bring evil powers under their control in order to do good. Undoubtedly the greatest influence on this philosophy was the legacy of Solomon, the renowned king of Israel featured in the Old Testament. He was considered to be the wisest man who ever lived. As the legend goes, Solomon summoned seventy-two evil spirits, commanding them to reveal their identities and trapping them within a brass vessel, which he later cast into the sea to prevent them from wreaking havoc on earth. It is said, however, that the vessel was eventually found by fishermen, who opened it and unwittingly released the spirits back into the world. This story is the basis for the common tale of the genie, or djinn, in a bottle.
 
 
 Along with each spirit’s name was revealed their signifying symbol, or seal, which could be used to summon them at will. Allegedly Solomon used these spirits to aid in the construction of Solomon’s Temple, one of the original wonders of the world. In the mid-16th century, a grimoire known as the Lemegeton, or Lesser Key of Solomon was anonymously published purporting to contain the original seals and invocations of Solomon. This text was foundational in the development of the goetia school of magic, which dealt exclusively with the conjuration of angels and demons. Goetia would come to be seen as an ignoble practice in society and heretical in the eyes of the church.
 
 
Of the most notorious magicians of the Middle Ages known to have practiced the goetic arts, otherwise known as diabolism, was the German doctor Johannes Faust, who is undoubtedly most well-known for the revelation of the spirit contract. Through his writings, it is explained that to bind the spirit to the magician most effectively, a pact is made between the spirit and the practitioner, which guarantees the spirit’s subservience for the duration of the magician’s life, in exchange for his or her soul at death, at which point he or she becomes the property said spirit. Dr Faust famously made such a deal.
 
The following quote is taken from his personal account of this exchange. “At first, I had little faith that what was promised would take place. But at the very first invocation which I attempted, a mighty spirit manifested to me, desiring to know why I had invoked him. His coming so amazed me that I scarcely knew what to say, but finally asked him if he would serve me in my magical investigations. He replied that if certain conditions were agreed upon, he would. The conditions were that I should make a pact with him. This I did not desire to do, but as in my ignorance I had not protected myself with a circle and was actually at the mercy of the spirit, I did not dare refuse his request and resigned myself to the inevitable, considering it wisest to turn my mantle according to the wind.” “I then told him that if he would be serviceable to me according to my desires and needs for a certain length of time, I would sign myself over to him.”
 
 
The goetic spirits were often invoked for worldly gratification. Being closest to the physical realm of all the spirits, they were believed to have the most direct influence over it. They were considered masters of this domain and possessed uncanny knowledge of all the sciences and could be called upon to impart this knowledge. Among the abilities in their purview was the ability to bestow riches and power, and to exert control over anything from the weather to the thoughts and behaviors of others. Aside from the moral contempt for such practices, Goetia also became considered to be a dangerous, and ultimately self-defeating pursuit. Cautionary tales have been recorded of the foolhardy magician who is inevitably swallowed up by the forces of chaos he unleashes. A common motif is that the spirit fulfills the request of the sorcerer, but the lack of his precision and/or foresight causes the result to manifest in such a way that the unintended consequences outweigh any possible benefit. The spirit has no real interest in serving the magician, and if anything seeks to undermine him. The magician, while aware of this fact, believes he can use his inherent spiritual authority and occult knowledge to effectively conform the spirit to his will and succeed in the gambit unscathed. A battle of wits ensues. Cunning by nature, the spirit invariably finds a proverbial chink in the magician’s armor, eventually causing his undoing. The most extreme example of this is the struggle for the magician’s very soul. Having bartered his eternity for temporal power, the magician goes to drastic lengths to prolong his mortal life to avoid his fate.
 
An interesting aspect of the demons with whom the medieval magicians dealt was that of indifference towards human beings. By most accounts including those of Faust, demons had no real interest in human beings and only engaged with the sorcerer because it was forced to. This was a departure from Christian belief that they were actively seeking to harm people. The practice of diabolism rather creates the image of a sophisticated being from some distant realm, with greater concerns than trifling with mankind. The demon did not tempt the magician to do anything. It was the magician’s own evil ambitions that drove the process. In fact, the demon Mephisto, who worked with Faust, allegedly petitioned against some of the evil things he had desired to do. 
 
 A more nuanced view of demons that strayed from the predominant Christian perspective was put forth by Paracelsus. Paracelsus, the chosen moniker of the Swiss, Theophrastus von Hohenheim, who lived in Germany at the turn of the 16th century, was not only a mystic philosopher, schooled by the Greeks and the Egyptians in the mystery teachings, but was also a renowned physician, who blended science and spiritualism in a truly innovative approach to medicine. Though maligned by his colleagues of the time, his ability to heal where others failed to do so spoke for itself. In his view, demonic oppression was initiated by the oppressed individual. These creatures, referred to by Paracelsus as larvae, were either attracted to or literally created out of the person’s own degeneracy. This included all forms of extreme action and thought, which were considered to be a misuse of physio psychological powers. This misuse in all its forms invariably drained and or dis-regulated one’s invisible, metaphysical energies, which then caused the visible, physical disease. Sin and vice fall into this category, but here the emphasis is on the damaging effect rather than the moral implications. These entities were believed to be parasitic by nature, feeding off the energy that was discharged as a result of such behavior. For this reason, they were thought to linger around dive bars, brothels, and drug dens, waiting for easy prey. Paracelsus also acknowledged their ability to incite their targets through psychic manipulation, creating a vicious cycle that drove the victim further into depravity and hindered their ability to recover without intervention. They could also seek out a person in their sleep, igniting their passions through dreams. A notorious example of such a being is the succubus and incubus, female and male respectively, which were demons that visited people at night and drained their energy through sexual contact.
 
 This description of demons as spiritual larvae is significant in that it presents them as relatively insignificant entities trying to survive and feed as any animal would. He wrote that “A healthy and pure person cannot become obsessed by them, because such larvae can only act upon men if the latter make room for them in their minds. A healthy mind is a castle that cannot be invaded without the will of its master; but if they are allowed to enter, they excite the passions of men and women, they create cravings in them, they produce bad thoughts which act injuriously upon the brain, they sharpen the animal intellect and suffocate the moral sense. Evil spirits only obsess those human beings in whom the animal nature is predominant. Minds that are illuminated by the spirit of truth cannot be possessed; only those who are habitually guided by their lower impulses may become subjected to their influences.” Here we see the belief expressed that demonic assault was only a threat to those who overtly opened themselves up to it.