From the 1985 "Encyclopedia Britannica" ---------------------------------------------------- _Angels and demons_ ... CELESTIAL AND NONCELESTIAL FORMS: RELATIONSHIPS OF BELIEFS IN ANGELS AND DEMONS TO VIEWS OF THE COSMOS ... _Relationship to views of a tripartite cosmos._ In the biblical, Hellenistic (Greco-Roman cultural), and Islamic worlds of thought, the terrestrial realm was a world in which man was limited by factors of time, space, and cause and effect. The celestial realm, generally composed of seven heavens or spheres dominated by the seven then-known planets, was the realm of the divine and the spiritual. The subterrestrial realm was the area of chaos and the spiritual powers of darkness. At the highest level of the celestial sphere was the ultimate of the sacred or holy: *e.g.*, Yahweh, the God of Judaism, whose name was so holy it should not even be spoken; Bythos, the unknowable beginning beyond beginnings of Gnosticism; the heavenly Father of Christianity, known through his Logos (the divine Word, or Reason, Jesus Christ); and Allah, the powerful, the almighty, and the sublime God of Islam. In order to reveal the purpose and destiny of man -- the highest being of the terrestrial realm -- the ultimate of the celestial sphere enabled man, according to such views, to come to a knowledge of who he is, what is his origin, and what is his destiny through celestial messengers -- angels. The message, or revelation, was usually focussed on the identity of the source of the revelation -- *i.e.,* the ultimate being -- and on the destiny of man according to his response. Because of a cosmic rift in the heavenly sphere prior to the creation of the world or the annoucement of the revelation, angels, depending on their relationship to the Creator, might attempt to deceive man with a false revelation or to reveal the truth about man's true nature (or identity), origin, and destiny. Angels who attempted to pervert the message of the ultimate celestial being in order to confuse man's understanding of his present boundary situation as a terrestrial being or his destiny as a superterrestrial being -- though not always termed demons -- are malevolent in function. Included among such malevolent angels are the devil of Christianity and Judaism or Iblis (the Devil) of Islam, who, in the form of a serpent in the biblical story of the Garden of Eden -- according to later interpretations of the story -- attempted to disrupt man's understanding of his creaturely boundaries, or limitations. He did this by tempting man to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil so that he might become like God (or the divine beings of the heavenly court). In Zoroastrianism, the Evil Spirit (Angra Mainyu, later Ahriman) attempted -- through subservient spirits such as Evil Mind, the Lie, and Pride -- to deceive terrestrial man so that he would choose a destiny that was subterrestrial -- punishment in a chasm of fire. In the aftermath of the 16th-century Copernican revolution (based on the theories of the Polish astronomer Copernicus), in which man's view of the cosmos was radically altered -- *i.e.,* the Earth was no longer seen as the centre of the cosmos but, instead, merely as a planet of a solar system that is a very small part of a galaxy in an apparently infinite universe -- the concepts of angels and demons no longer seemed appropriate. The tripartite cosmos -- heaven above, Earth in the middle, and hell below -- appeared to be an anachronism. With the emergence of modern Western psychology and psycho- analytical studies in the 19th and 20th centuries, however, the underlying principles of beliefs in angels and demons have taken on new meanings. Many Christian theologians have found some of the concepts of psychoanalysis helpful in reinterpreting the meanings underlying primitive and traditional beliefs in angels and demons. The tripartite cosmos was re-mythologized into a tripartite structure of personality -- the superego (the restrictive social regulations that enable man to live as a social being), the ego (the conscious aspects of man), and the id, or libido (a "seething, boiling cauldron of desire that seeks to erupt from beneath the threshold of consciousness"). Thus, demons -- according to this reinterpretation -- might well be redefined as projections of the unregulated drives of man that force him to act only according to his own selfish desires, taking no account of their effects on other persons. From a social point of view, demons might also be defined as the environmental and hereditary forces that cause man to act, think, and speak in ways that are contrary to the well-being of himself and his community. A modern French writer, Denis de Rougeont, has mainted in his book "The Devil's Share" that the devil and the demonic forces that plague the modern world can be well documented in modern man's return to barbarism and man's inhumanity to man. In the 2nd century AD, Clement of Alexandria, a Christian philosophical theologian, pointed toward a psychological interpretation of demonic forces by stating that man was often captivated by the inner appetitive drives of his passions and bodily desires. The Freudian "myth" of the human personality and other psychological studies have thus initiated a new dimension in the study of angels and demons. Medieval iconography, which graphically depicted angels and demons as hybrid creatures that often defied even the most vivid imaginations of the persons who viewed them, has been supplanted by psychological, psychoanalytical, and modren mythological symbolism coupled with theological reflection. _Relationship to views of a dualistic cosmos._ In religious traditions that have viewed the cosmos in a dualistic fashion, such as Gnosticism, angels were believed to be celestial beings who controlled certain spheres through which a soul was to pass as it freed itself from the shackles of its material existence. Knowledge of these angels and their names was a necessary prerequisite for achieving eventual union with the ultimate spiritual reality. Included among various lists of the seven angels ruling the seven planetary spheres are Gabriel, Adonai (Lord), Aariel (lion of God), and others. The angel of creation of the world of matter, Yahweh (sometimes called the Demiurge, the Creator), was evil, in the Gnostic view, not only because he was the Creator but also because he tried to keep spiritual men from knowing their true origin, nature, and destiny. Manichaeism, a dualistic religion founded in the 3rd century AD by Mani, an Iranian prophet, like Gnosticism divided the world into two spheres -- Goodness (Light) and Evil (Darkness). These two principles are mixed in the world of matter, and the object of salvation is to unmix the material and the spiritual so that one may achieve a state of absolute goodness. Highest in the celestial hierarchy are the 12 light diadems of the Father of Greatness and the Twelve Aeons, the "firstborn" -- angelic figures that are divided into groups of threes, surrounding the Supreme Being in the four quarters of the heavens. Because the Devil, the Prince of Darkness, desires the advantages of the Kingdom of Light, in an ensuing battle between the celestial forces Light and Darkness are mixed, and the world of matter and spirit is created. Unaware of his spiritual nature and constantly tempted by the demons of the Prince of Darkness, man is evnetually led to understand his true nature through the activity of angelic beings called the Friends of the Lights and the Living Spirit and his five helpers: Holder of Splendour, King of Honour, Light of Man, King of Glory, and Supporter.... TYPES OF ANGELS AND DEMONS ... _Malevolent beings._ Malevolent beings -- demons, fallen angels, ghosts, goblins, evil spirits in nature, hybrid creatures, the *daevas* of Zoroastrianism, the *narakas* (creatures of hell) of Jainism, the *oni* (attendants of the gods of the underworld) in Japanese religions, and other such beings -- hinder man in achieving a proper relation with God, the spiritual realm, or man's life situations. Some angels are believed to have falled from a position of proximity to God -- such as Lucifer (after his fall called Satan by early Church Fathers) in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- because of pride or for attempts to usurp the position of the Supreme Being. In their fallen condition they then attempt to keep man from gaining a right relationship with God by provoking men to sin. Some medieval scholars of demonology ascribed to a hierarchy of seven archdemons the seven deadly sins: Lucifer (Pride); Mammon (Avarice); Asmodeus (Lechery); Satan (Anger); Beelzebub (Gluttony); Leviathan (Envy); and Belphegor (Sloth). Besides tempting men to sin, the fallen angels, or devils, were believed to cause various types of calamities, both natural and accidental. Like the demons and devil spirits of nature in primitive religions, the fallen angels were viewed as the agents of famine, disease, war, earthquakes, accidental deaths, and various mental or emotional disorders. Persons afflicted with mental diseases were considered to be "demon possessed." Though the functions of demonic figures, like those of fallen angels, is of major significance, the nature of demons has been of concern to theologians and persons infused with popular piety. Like angels, demons are regarded as spiritual, noncorporeal beings, but they have been depicted in religious iconography as hybrid creatures with horrifying characteristics or as caricatures of idols of an opposing religion. In the early church, for example, there was a belief that pagan idols were inhabited by demons. The horrifying aspects of demons have been represented in the woodcuts of medieval and Reform- ation artists and in the masks of shamans, medicine men, and priests of primitive religions -- either to frighten the believer into behaving according to accepted norms or to ward off ritualistically the power of the demonic forces loose in the terrestrial or profane realm.... VARIETIES OF ANGELS AND DEMONS IN THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD ... Over against the bounteous immortals, who helped to link the spiritual and the material worlds together, was the counterpart of the Holy Spirit, namely Angra Mainyu, the Evil Spirit, who later became the great adversary Ahriman (the prototype of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic Satan), and the daevas, who were most likely gods of early Indo-Iranian religion. Allied with Angra Mainyu against Ahura Mazda were Akoman (Evil Mind), Indra-vayu (Death), Saurva (a daeva of death and disease), Nanhaithya (a daeva related to the Vedic god Nasatya), Tauru (difficult to identify), and Zairi (the personifi- cation of both *ahuras* and daevas). Among the other demonic figures is Aeshma (violence, fury, or the aggressive impulse that consumes man) -- who may well be the demon Asmodeus of the book of Tobit, Az (Concupiscence or Lust), Mithrandruj (He Who Lies to Mithra or False Speech), Jeh (the demon Whore, created later by Ahriman to defile the human race), and many others.... Under the influence of Zoroastrianism, Satan, the adversary, probably evolved into the archdemon. Other demons included Azazel (the demon of the wilderness, incarnated in the scapegoat), Leviathan and Rahab (demons of chaos), Lilith (a female night demon), and others.... Demonology experienced a renewal in Christianity that probably would have been acceptable in Zoroastrianism. Satan, the archenemy of the Christ; Lucifer, the fallen Light Bearer; and the originally Canaanite Beelzebub, the Lord of Flies (or, perhaps, Beelzebul, the Lord of Dung), mentioned by Jesus, are all devils. The concept and term devil are derived from the Zoroastrian concept of *daevas* and the Greek word *daibolos* [sic] ("slanderer" or "accuser"), which is a translation of the Jewish concept of Satan. As a singular demonic force or personification of evil, the devil's chief activity was to tempt man to act in such a way that he would not achieve his supraterrestrial destiny. Because demons were believe to inhabit waterless wastelands, where hungry and tired persons often had visual and auditory hallucinations, early Christian monks went into the deserts to be the vanguard of God's army in joining battle with the tempting devils. They often recorded that the devil came to them in visions as a seductive woman, tempting them to violate their vows to keep themselves sexually pure, both physically and mentally.... Angelology and demonology in Islam are closely related to similar doctrines in Judaism and Christianity.... Demons... contend for control of men's lives, the most prominent being Iblis (the Devil), who tempts mortal man, or Shaytan, or Satan.... "Encyclopedia Britannica", by Encyclopedia Britannica Inc, 1995; pp. 408-12. _________________________________________________________________ EOF