Demonicity and Western society

It is easy to imagine the demonic in retrospective religious perspectives, but in today's technologically advanced, scientifically hegemonic and religiously conservative Western societies there seems to be less and less room for such fictional things as demons. Elaborate constructs are left to cultural industries, where demons float around as characters in games or films, and scenes of exorcisms and possessions on screens seem to remind us that what we now attribute to mental illness or supernatural tales existed in earlier ages as part of the everyday, ordinary world and its perception. However, to think of the demonic in such a narrow context would not only frame the imagination, but would also deny the relevance of contemporary philosophy, experimental thought and the hauntological background that is undoubtedly very relevant to the unfolding cultural field of the present. Finally, there is no need to deny the existence of the demonic, and it is far more important to take into account the persistence of the figure of the demon, even if it is relegated to the fringes of the fantasy genre and horror. One way to do this is to abandon the mere association of the concept in the usual religious framework, in which the demon is the relationship between the supernatural and reality, and to try to understand the demonic in a contemporary cultural setting as a way of thinking about various human relationships and realities. In short, the figure of the demon, although it cannot be taken literally today, can be understood anthropologically, as a metaphor for the relationship between human nature and the human being, in terms of the boundary between the human and the non-human (42), the same boundary that was discussed in the last post, the three levels of world perception.

In fact, with this perspective in mind, it is possible to describe the demon's anthropology in mythological terms. We could start with daimōn, in the classical Greek works of Homer and also Plato. There, the demon is not a malevolent character, but rather a divine entity that can be a source of inspiration or a figure used for warning (43). When Socrates claims that there is always a "demon" (Greek: daimonion) by his side, which prevents him from doing wrong, he is referring to this elementary sense of demon. To conclude on the mythological interpretation of the demon, it should be noted that in mythology the interpretation of the demon is less by metaphor and more by allegory, where the story of our ability or inability to perceive the world is itself embedded in ritual acts of invasion, metamorphosis, and exorcism. Often in mythological contexts, demons manifest themselves as a kind of anxiety or distress. The Greek demon is, in a sense, very much in line with the classical themes of human free will and fate, as compared to the will of the gods. In the context of early Christianity, the demon is associated with malevolent forces, but it should be borne in mind that the concept of the demon also developed in early Judaism and Islamic theology. The archetypal example of this is the demon as tempter.

The motif of prayer against the temptations of the demon has become an iconographic image of the demon, also in Western art. One such example, quite extensively analysed by the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud in his 1923 work The Demonological Neurosis of the Seventeenth Century. Freud, analysing the diaries and paintings of the painter Christoph Haizmann, in which he depicts his encounters with the evil demon, concludes that the demon can be seen as a delusional motif in which the demon seems to act as a 'father substitute' and symbolises the crisis caused by the absence of the father figure. This modern clinical approach has given a new twist to the perception of the demonic in Western culture (44).

Thus, it is slowly becoming clear that the demon is not actually a supernatural creature, but rather, as already mentioned, an anthropological motif through which we humans project, externalise and represent the darker side of the individual or society. One way to understand the non-human aspect of the demon is less to understand the demon in a strictly theological sense, where the demon is an intermediate creature between the supernatural and the natural, but to understand it in terms of its ontological function, as a way of reflecting on the human relationship to the non-human. This vague, final "perception" - the relationship with the non-human - can of course have a wide range of meanings, from a rock or a chair to the black depths of space. As human beings, we have to find and are constantly looking for ways to engage with this non-humanity, whether it be science, technology, politics or religion. But make no mistake, it is not the human being that remains the essential limit, but what we are confronted with and what is eternally beyond our reach. This boundary is the unknown, and the unknown - as genre horror reminds us - is often the source of fears (45).

In the New Testament we can find numerous references to demons. Some of them are evil forces, demons, others are demonised angels. However, when we look at the principles of demonic activity, we can see that demons are quite ephemeral and capable of reincarnation, but always appearing in the reality around us through certain bodies or elements that are recognisable to us - the wind, the goats, the pigs, the people. Demons, in the theistic view, are always a form of literal absence. They are wandering spirits and their movement is by demonic contagion rather than divine inspiration.

If the ancient Greek mythological demon is an attempt to reveal man's inhumanity to man, then the anthropological demon, broadly speaking, is an attempt to reveal man's human nature to man. It is true that both interpretations face certain limitations in terms of human perception, but both are quite important for understanding the perspective of the demonic in contemporary culture. The individual is always related to himself or to the world, but as the sixth-century mystic Dionysius the Areopagite points out, commenting on the paradoxical existence of demons, evil is not a being, because if it were, it would not be completely evil; evil has no place among beings. Given that there is no simple "passage" to the non-human side for us humans, it would seem that the demon is an acceptable way of talking about the non-human viewpoint with all its contradictions. On the other hand, to think of being a demon is the same as thinking of non-being.

42 THACKER, Eugene. In the Dust of this Planet. Horror of Philosophy vol. 1. Winchester: Zero books. 2011. p.41. ISBN: 9781846946769

43 The figure of Daimon in Greek mythology can be seen as a deity of fate: a deity not acting spontaneously or appearing unexpectedly, but a deity responsible for unpleasant events, bad fate; Daimon as avenger: Daimon's revenge is related to the law. Those who do not obey the law or transgress it are subject to the Daimons' ruthlessness; Daimon as a dead soul and a guardian deity.

44 FREUD, Sigmund. Seventeenth Century Demonological Neurosis. t. 19. Standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. 1923. p. 72-105.

45 THACKER, Eugene. In the Dust of this Planet. Horror of Philosophy vol. 1. Winchester: Zero books. 2011. p.41. ISBN: 9781846946769