Some years ago, Richard Cavendish, an eminent demonologist and student of the so-called black arts, observed that “belief in the existence of evil supernatural beings” is so widespread that it “seems to be instinctive”. Whether, as Cavendish suggests, these beliefs are in fact instinctive is still very much an open question. However, human beings do indeed appear to have a deep-seated penchant for explaining misfortune by attributing it to evil and malicious spirits and deities—that is, to demons. Such beliefs can be documented in virtually every known human society for which adequate information exists. This essay explores some of the more salient manifestations, modern as well as ancient, of this well-nigh universal component of several belief systems.

In the great majority of cases, demonic figures occur in conjunction with their opposites, that is, beneficent deities to whom worshipers turn for succor when misfortune strikes or when in need of assurance that crops will grow, illness will be avoided, and prosperity will continue. One of the earliest documented examples of such a pair can be found in ancient Egypt in Osiris and his demonic brother Seth.

Osiris and Seth

Dating from Old Kingdom times (2700–2200 B.C.E.), this pair of opposites was defined in the Pyramid Texts and other ancient Egyptian mythological texts as brothers. While Osiris— together with his sister/wife Isis—was the incarnation of fertility and, eventually, life everlasting, Seth was evil personified. He was also a reflection of the arid desert that presses in on either side of Osiris’s domain: the fertile Nile Valley. Seth was jealous of his brother and, through trickery, caused his death.

However, with the help of Isis and their son Horus, who was iconographically represented as a falcon-headed man, Osiris was resurrected and ascended to heaven to become the judge of the dead. Meanwhile, Horus and Seth struggled mightily.

It was one of the first examples of a supernatural conflict between good and evil, between a demon and his diametric opposite (Horus later became identified with the pharaoh, who was worshiped as a god incarnate). The falconheaded god finally prevailed, and Seth was killed and dismembered. But the latter remained a quintessential demon, the template, as it were, for a great many later Western demonic figures.

Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu

Another extremely important ancient demon can be found in the Iranian figure Angra Mainyu, or “Evil Spirit,” later known as Ahriman, who was paired in early Iranian mythology, especially as shaped by the prophet Zarathustra (or Zoroaster, as he was known to the ancient Greeks), with the beneficent deity Ahura Mazda, the “Wise Lord,” called Ormazd in Middle Persian.

Although they were not held to be siblings, Angra Mainyu and Ahura Mazda were believed to be engaged in an ongoing cosmic struggle, both for world hegemony and for each individual soul. Angra Mainyu/Ahriman was a true “Prince of Darkness,” the diametric opposite—and eternal opponent—of the light-filled Ahura Mazda / Ormazd.

The most extreme variant of this good-evil dichotomy was promulgated during the third-century C.E. by the Iranian religious reformer Mani (ca. 216–276 or 277 C.E.), founder of the Manichean sect, which, for a time, was a serious rival to nascent Christianity. According to the Manicheans, who emphasized free will, one could choose to follow the evil Ahriman, who might ultimately defeat Ormazd in their final, apocalyptic confrontation.

Satanism

The origins of Satan and related figures are complex. The word satan itself simply means “adversary” in Hebrew; in his earlier manifestations as Lucifer, the “Light-Bearer,” who rebelled against God and was cast out of heaven (cf. Isaiah 14: 12–15), he is not unlike the Greek figure Prometheus, albeit negatively valued. However, as the Zoroastrian theology of evil incarnate came to permeate post-exile Judaism, the Rebel evolved into a full-fledged evil adversary, in effect a malevolent twin of Yahweh who presided over the corrupt world of the senses.

Several centuries later, this evolution was greatly facilitated by the emergence of Gnosticism (from Greek gnosis, “knowledge”), a heretical movement that emerged in Alexandria and elsewhere in the early years of the common era. Gnosticism held that the mortal realm was created by a fool called the Demiurge, a corrupt if not totally malevolent pseudo-deity the Gnostics identified with the God of the Old Testament. This rejection of God linked Manichaeism to Gnosticism, but for the Gnostics the “real” world, that is, the world of the senses, was evil, and their goal in life was to escape it and return to the Pleroma, or “Fullness,” a light-filled spiritual realm that was the antithesis of corrupt mortality.

These ideas, although roundly condemned by the early church fathers, from Athanasius to Augustine, lingered on and reappeared in the twelfth century in southern France in the Cathay heresy, which was brutally suppressed during the infamous Albigensian Crusade (1208). It was out of this heretical crucible, which also came to include the “pagan” witchcraft beliefs that incited such intense persecutions between the mid-thirteenth century and the end of the seventeenth century, that Satanism as we know it today emerged.

Indeed, the idea that a divine adversary who governs the sensate world is the “true” god still persists in cults such as the late Anton Szandor LaVey’s (1930–1997) Church of Satan, founded in San Francisco in 1966, and the Temple of Set, founded in 1975 by Michael Acquino. The idea that people are susceptible to possession by demons persists in the Roman Catholic ritual of exorcism, so graphically depicted in the film The Exorcist (1973).

Non-Western Demonology

Such beliefs are, of course, by no means limited to the West. Islam conceives of the demon Iblis as Allah’s prime adversary, aided by a host of malevolent spirits called jinn (the English word “genie” derives from this Arabic word), who are capable of all manner of mischief. Moreover, a great many non-Western cultures also share a belief in demonic figures. In Japan, demonic figures that have the ability to possess human beings and cause them great harm are called oni.

There are a great many varieties of oni, not all of whom are really evil; however, most of them are at least mischievous. Among the more dangerous oni are animal spirits, including fox spirits, who are believed to be especially malevolent and are held responsible for a wide variety of personal misfortunes. Moreover, they are extremely difficult to exorcise. Similar folk beliefs can be found throughout East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Africa, the Caribbean, and Oceania, as well as the Americas.

Hindu mythology is replete with demonic figures, the most famous of whom is the evil raksha, or demon, Ravanna, king of Sri Lanka, and abductor of Sita, the devoted wife of the demigod Rama. Indeed, the plot of the ancient Indian epic known as the Ramayana, which spread throughout much of Southeast Asia during the early centuries of the common era, turns on Rama’s conflict with Ravanna and Sita’s eventual rescue—once again, an account of an epic struggle between good and evil, although Ravanna and Rama are not conceived as siblings.

In the high Andean plateau, or altiplano, of Bolivia, as June Nash reports, the local miners believe that the mountains are haunted by a demon called Huari, whom they refer to as Tio, or “Uncle,” and who must be propitiated to avoid cave-ins and other calamities. This reflects another important dimension of demonology: the propitiation of evil forces and beings so as to preclude disaster and misfortune.

A further example of this ambiguous attitude toward evil figures can be found in Afro-Caribbean religions such as Santeria and Voodoo, where the orishas, or deities, are considered both evil and beneficent, depending on the context. Both good and evil manifestations of the gods are found in the pantheon and are regularly the recipients of sacrifices. Although for the most part absent in fully evolved Judeo-Christian demonology, this ambiguous attitude toward evil and the propitiation of what we might consider demons is an integral element of folk religious beliefs in a great many parts of the non-Western world—as well as in classical antiquity, where, for example, the ancient Greek god Pan was both benevolent and capable of creating havoc, whence the English word panic.

She-Devils and Female Demons

Although the majority of demons in most cultures tend to be male, female demons, she-devils, and the like are also common. One of the oldest examples of such a figure can be found in the Sumero-Babylonian demon Tiamat, wife of the primordial being Apsu. The supreme Babylonian god Marduk engaged in an epic struggle with Tiamat and, after finally defeating her, created the world from her corpse.

Ancient Greek mythology abounds with evil female creatures, from the Gorgons, the most famous of whom was snaky-locked Medusa, whose glance could turn a mortal into stone, to the monster Python, whom Apollo killed at the site of Delphi, to the equally bloodthirsty female Sphinx, whose riddle Oedipus managed to solve, causing her to drop dead.

In Shinto mythology, Izanami-no-Mikoto, the wife of the primeval male figure Izanagi-no-Mikoto, changed into a raging demon after she died giving birth to the Fire-god, Kagu- Tsuchi, and descended into Yomi, the land of the dead. When Izanagi visited Yomi in order to bring her back to life, she led a band of female demons, the so-called Hags of Yomi, against him and almost succeeded in killing him. More recently, medieval European folklore knew the succubus, a demon or evil spirit who seduced unwitting mortal men and produced demonic offspring.

Space Aliens as Demons

In recent years, since accounts of UFOs and space aliens have become widespread in Europe and especially the United States, some fundamentalist Christians have asserted that these presumed extraterrestrial visitors are in fact manifestations of Satan and his demonic horde.

Indeed, according to this contemporary “school” of demonology, those persons who claim to have been abducted by aliens and forced to have sex with them are believed to be victims of the same demonic possession that was reported in premodern times, which also frequently had a strong sexual component. In sum, demonology continues to persist in this otherwise secular age, just as it has since the dawn of human culture.