Friday, September 08, 2006 . 9/08/2006

Demons. When this word is mentioned, most think of Christianity, but the truth is that demons have played a role in pretty much every culture. Demons were not always viewed as malevolent beings, however.

The Romans and Greeks did not see demons as being particularly evil. These were daemons, daimonions (a small daemon), and the Hellenistic Greeks divided daemons into good and evil categories: eudaemons (which are also called kalodaemons), and kakodaemons. Eudaemons are like guardian angels, watching over mortals. The word eudaemon came from eudaemonia, the state of having a eudaemon, which came to mean "happiness" or "well-being".

Ancient Egyptians also had demons of sorts, who would prevent spirits from entering the afterlife. However, they did not actually acknowledge these beings as demons.

From my understanding, it was not until Christianity took hold that the term "demon" directly implied an evil being. And, being that Christianity is the most dominant of religions (atleast in America, and from what I have both heard and experienced), most people would beleive that demons are simply that: evil.

It is from this that demonic possesion has been confused with mental illness. When a person would act strange, people simple thought (and some still do) that they were possesed. In some cases it MAY be true, but not all, given that actual demonic possesion is extremely rare and may even be nonexistant.

As in the case of Emily Rose, it was debated that she suffered from mental illness and not possesion. Her family made the mistake of not taking to her a hospital to see whether or not it was an illness, jumping immediately to the conclusion that she was possesed. Both they and the exorcists killed her as a failure to rule out other possibilities. Not all exorcists are so quick to judge this type of "possesed" behavior as actual demonic possesion these days, and if medication were to fail, would perform an exorcism.

If we were to assume demonic possesion really does exist, then it is with my opinion that it is not that these demons are evil, but rather are trying to communicate with us mortals that the "Holy Bible" is a lie but can't as a result of the person's, and the people around the person's, faith. In some instances the demon would talk, but the people would view their words as false in turn.

Another, more plausible theory is that demonic possesion does not exist at all, and that people are simply mistaking mental illness as possesion due to their false religion, and faith.

Please feel free to comment, and let me know if any of these historical facts are in some way false or a misunderstanding in my part. 0 Comments - Post/view comments