Demon

demon, supernatural being, generally malevolent in character. In general, the more civilized pagan societies came to consider demons as powerful, supernatural beings who lacked the dignity of gods and who, depending on the circumstance, might be either benevolent or malevolent in their dealings with men. Some demons, like the Greek Pan, were nature spirits; others were guardians of the home or fields or watchers over travelers; still others were spirits of disease and insanity or dream spirits. Some demons were considered to be intermediaries between men and the gods. It was not until the development of late Hebraic and Christian thinking that demons came to represent the unqualified malevolence so common in European demonology of the 16th and 17th cent. This period was a high point in the study of demons, in the speculation on their nature, number, and specific fiendishness. The list compiled in 1589 by a demonologist named Binsfield was considered to be highly authoritative; in it he listed the following major demons and their particular evils: Lucifer (pride), Mammon (avarice), Asmodeus or Ashmodai (lechery), Satan (anger), Beelzebub (gluttony), Leviathan (envy), and Belphegor (sloth). The widespread and ancient belief in demons is still a strong force in many regions of the world today. See spiritism; witchcraft.

Bibliography

See R. H. Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology (1959); H. A. Relly, The Devil, Demonology, and Witchcraft (1968); F. Gettings, Dictionary of Demons (1988).

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demon

 or daemon

In religions worldwide, any of various evil spirits that mediate between the supernatural and human realms. The term comes from the Greek word daimon, a divine or semidivine power that determined a person's fate. Zoroastrianism had a hierarchy of demons, which were in constant battle with Ahura Mazda. In Judaism it was believed that demons inhabited desert wastes, ruins, and graves and inflicted physical and spiritual disorders on humankind. Christianity placed Satan or Beelzebub at the head of the ranks of demons, and Islam designated Iblis or Satan as the leader of a host of evil jinn. Hinduism has many demons, called asuras, who oppose the devas (gods). In Buddhism demons are seen as tempters who prevent the achievement of nirvana.

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See daemon.

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Demon

See also Devil.

Aello Harpy;

demon carrying people away, personifying a whirlwind. [Gk. Myth.: Jobes, 40]

afreet

or afrit gigantic jinn, powerful and malicious. [Muslim Myth.: Benét, 13]

Apophis

the snake god; most important of demons. [Ancient Egypt. Rel.: Parrinder, 24]

Ashmedai

king of fiends. [Hebrew Myth.: Leach, 83]

Asmodeus

king of the devils. [Talmudic Legend: Benét, 58]

bat

bird that is the devil incarnate. [Western Folklore: Mercatante, 181]

cat

evil being, demonic in nature. [Animal Symbolism: Mercatante, 46]

crocodile

feared as spirit of evil. [African Folklore: Jobes, 382; Mercatante, 9]

Demogorgon

mere mention of his name brings death and destruction. [Western Folklore: Benét, 263]

Dives

ferocious spirits under sovereignty of Eblis. [Persian Myth.: LLEI, I: 326]

Fideal

evil water spirit; dragged men under water. [Scot. Folklore: Briggs, 175]

Great Giant of Henllys

ghost of dead man turned demon. [Br. Folklore: Briggs, 199–200]

incubus

demon in the form of a man. [Western Folklore: Briggs, 232]

jinn

(genii) class of demon assuming animal/human form. [Arab. Myth.: Benét, 13, 521]

Old Bogy

nursery fiend invoked to frighten children. [Br. Folklore: Wheeler, 265]

succubus

demon in the form of a woman. [Western Folklore: Briggs, 232]

whale

former symbol of demonic evil. [Animal Symbolism: Mercatante, 26]

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1.	(operating system)	demon - (Often used equivalently to daemon, especially in the Unix world, where the latter spelling and pronunciation is considered mildly archaic). A program or part of a program which is not invoked explicitly, but that lies dormant waiting for some condition(s) to occur. At MIT they use "demon" for part of a program and "daemon" for an operating system process. Demons (parts of programs) are particularly common in AI programs. For example, a knowledge-manipulation program might implement inference rules as demons. Whenever a new piece of knowledge was added, various demons would activate (which demons depends on the particular piece of data) and would create additional pieces of knowledge by applying their respective inference rules to the original piece. These new pieces could in turn activate more demons as the inferences filtered down through chains of logic. Meanwhile, the main program could continue with whatever its primary task was. This is similar to the triggers used in relational databases. The use of this term may derive from "Maxwell's Demons" - minute beings which can reverse the normal flow of heat from a hot body to a cold body by only allowing fast moving molecules to go from the cold body to the hot one and slow molecules from hot to cold. The solution to this apparent thermodynamic paradox is that the demons would require an external supply of energy to do their work and it is only in the absence of such a supply that heat must necessarily flow from hot to cold. Walt Bunch believes the term comes from the demons in Oliver Selfridge's paper "Pandemonium", MIT 1958, which was named after the capital of Hell in Milton's "Paradise Lost". Selfridge likened neural cells firing in response to input patterns to the chaos of millions of demons shrieking in Pandemonium.
2.	(company)	demon - Demon Internet Ltd.
3.		demon - A program generator for differential equation problems. [N.W. Bennett, Australian AEC Research Establishment, AAEC/E142, Aug 1965].