Demonology
.jpg)
Demonology is the branch of theology that studies demons and their relationships, making allusions to their origins and nature.
Origins
Demonology makes lists that try to name and establish a hierarchy of evil spirits. Thus, demonology is the opposite of angelology, which tries to collect the same information about good spirits.
In Christianity, demons are fallen angel, fallen angels, so demonology can be considered a branch of angelology. In Luke 8,1-3 he mentions that some of his followers (such as Mary Magdalene) had been possessed by demons.
However, many demonological databases are knowledgeable of those supposedly capable of summoning such entities, including instructions on how to summon them and, ideally, bend them to the caster's will.
The occult magic grimoires are those volumes that contain knowledge about this facet of demonology, more than once studied by those who had to persecute and judge diabolists and witches.
The most notable historical manifestation of Western Christian demonology was the Malleus maleficarum (1486) (from Latin: Hammer of the Witches), of the Dominican inquisitors Jakob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer, who upheld the existence and power of witchcraft as an integral part of the Catholic faith and a real danger to the faithful, apart from offering in his treatise all kinds of ways to recognize and prosecute a witch, thus becoming the inspiration for the subsequent witch hunts carried out by Catholics and Protestants during the 16th and 17th centuries.
It is the first source to consult for any understanding of the history and nature of Satanism's witchcraft.
Demonology and religion
The existence of an evil supernatural entity that acts contrary to the will of a benevolent God is one of the central axes in both Christianity and Islam. These creeds adopt the figure of Satan from Judaism, which for Islam is Shaitán or Iblís.
Such a contrast is also seen in Zoroastrianism, in which a benevolent god known as Ahura Mazda finds himself locked in a cosmic battle with an evil deity named Angra Mainyu. This dualistic confrontation, in true equality of conditions, remains intact in the corpus of Manichaeism and the doctrines of various heretical groups such as the Bulgarian Bogomils.
The New Testament explicitly affirms the existence of lesser adverse spirits, as does the Quran, although the latter makes mention of a third created race (nor angels or demons), the yinnūn (plural of yinn), of an amoral character and known in the West as geniuses, although they are not always evil.
The Old Testament presents Satan as an angel under the authority of God, who acts as a tempter, seeking doubt about the virtue of Job, and causing all evil. This is because the very concept of monotheism as well as Judaism comes from the same realm of cultural influence with other Semitic cultures and the polytheism they shared until they became known as the chosen people and embraced the cult. only.
The territory called Sheol, analogous to hell, is, in fact, quite modern in rabbinic systematics. Strictly speaking, Sheol must be understood more in the sense of the grave (as the last resting place than as hell).
Some branches of Buddhism postulate the existence of demon-inhabited hells that torment sinners and tempt mortals, or act to disturb their enlightenment. Hinduism also contains narratives of combat between gods and a series of adversaries, such as that of the god Indra and the asura Vritra.
In both cases cited there is no special attention to the organization of the hosts that embody evil, so one cannot speak of demonology as such, although its sacred history is as rich or richer than the three great religions monotheists.
In anthroposophy, its founder Rudolf Steiner describes the power of Lucifer as something that incites humans to all exaltations, false mysticisms, the pride of rising without borders and that of his opposite Ahriman (equivalent of Satan) as something that incites the human to materialistic superstitions.
Contenido relacionado
First epistle to the corinthians
Philolaus
Jerusalem