Talk:Daemon (classical mythology)

Relation with iconoclasm

"The specific motivation for the rush of inspired destruction of Greek and Roman sculpture unleashed at the end of the 4th century, as soon as Christianity was in secure control, is revealed here: the images were inhabited by demons. As in all such destruction, the faces were especially attacked, literally "defaced."[citation needed]" This comment is unsubstantiated and seems odd, particularly the phrase "is revealed here". Sounds like original research at best. I've never heard of any justification for this viewpoint. Surely the reason for the iconoclasm was the destruction of all traces of the previous religion? Unless proof of this can be found, I think this piece of Dan Brown-calibre historical guesswork can be removed. 82.10.116.209 (talk) 12:53, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Eudaemons

"Eudaemons resembled the Abrahamic idea of the guardian angel; they watched over mortals to help keep them out of trouble. (Thus eudaemonia, originally the state of having a eudaemon, came to mean "well-being" or "happiness".)"

This is very interesting, can anyone give me a source for this etymology. I'd like to add a reference to this on the eudaimonia page. --Dast 16:18, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Article is inaccurate

I'll just quote part of the entry for daimōn in the Oxford Classical Dictionary:

Etymologically the term daimōn means 'divider' or 'allotter': from Homer onwards
it used mainly in the sense of operator of more or less unexpected, and intrusive,
events in human life. In Homer and other early authors, gods, even Olympians,
could be referred to as daimones...

This article's definition of daimōn as "supernatural beings between mortals and gods, such as inferior divinities and ghosts of dead heroes", is incorrect. The description of the term's transformation under Christianity is a bit better, but misses the incorporation of good daimones as angels. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:11, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Not incorrect, merely post-Homeric. Read Plutarch; to quote the same authority:

...Plato's concept (e.g. Symp. 202d–203a) of daimones as beings intermediate between god and men. This notion was adopted by all subsequent demonologies. A pupil of Plato, *Xenocrates (1) (frs. 23–5 Heinze), argued for the existence of good and evil daimones. This is essentially the picture accepted by the Stoa (see STOICISM) and in Middle and New Platonism (esp. *Plutarch, *Porphyry, and *Iamblichus (2) ). In later antiquity the existence of semi-divine beings helped to solve problems connected with the emergence of monotheistic ideas and the inherent problems of *theodicy.

Septentrionalis 21:43, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll stick with "incorrect". If this article is about *mythology*, Homer's usage is more important than that of Plato and subsequent philosophy.

If the article is a more general history of the term "daemon", (as in fact it seems to be) then it still needs to start with Homer, though it's probably true that Platonic ideas of daimones were more influential than Homer's in the development of Christianity. --Akhilleus (talk) 07:02, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Subsections

I broke this article into subsections today; there was little flow between the sections, the article is still very much cut-and-paste. Maybe this will encourage more depth.

This very large subject has worldwide analogs, and there are probably many other articles by now that address aspects of the same ideas (anywhere 'forces' were viewed as gods (+-) of various degrees ....). Alchemy has many interesting entities, for example. Twang 03:28, 22 July 2006 (UTC) Neo-Platonism until the end of the article needs citiations, so I added the tag at the top of the page, asking for references. - noname, 22:54, 25 November 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.236.224.145 (talk)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 14:49, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Daemon in Frankenstein

In Frankenstein, I do believe the monster was called "daemon" on a few occasions. If someone could verify this, we could add this to the article. -Yancyfry (talk) 22:51, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Demon

Quote from the article "demon":

In religion, folklore, and mythology a demon (or daemon, dæmon, daimon from Greek: δαίμων [ðaïmon])

Excuse-me, but what's the big difference with it ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tiphaine800 (talk • contribs) 17:21, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

A few things left out.

Hey, Chaosa here.

Ok to the above comment, I am an ecpert in daemonology. Do no confuse with Demonology, it is a made up term in medieval ages to help confirm someone worships the devil. The difference between Demon, Daemon and Daimon is very big. Who ever wrote the comparison is an idiot.

Demon = powerful evil supernatural being, a derictive of the word Daemon that was made to convince people if it not an angel and it is not human, it is evil. Dark ages at work again.

Daemon = A word that should not be linked to the greek Daimon. They are similar but different. In Daemonic lore there are 3 types of Daemon. Devine or comparable; Those of Higher planes for example the heavens of hells, the hells class as devione being it became Hell the moment of Azazael banishment from the mortal plane, and before then was no more then a daemonic spawn point, a next if you will. Mortal Daemons; mortal beings that reach a lvel beyond base mortality, it is said there children may keep amny of these traits but through many controlled generations they would fade and te bloodline would become normal again. Deities; Non godley or devine beings not linkable to either esistance that are beyond mortal, things such as grim reapers may sometimes count. An exampleof a non devine involved grim reaper is a Japanese Shinigami.

Daimon = A romanised version of a word the ancient greeks used to refer to gods and demigods.

In essence Daimon and Demon are types of Daemon. And Daemon has origins far older then greek mythology. It is similar to the word Devil. It is very modern but very few know the true origin, a name in modern methods would be "Deville". The family of that names final son in the myth gave his soul to hell to close its gate. In more recent times the word was altered and became more to do with Azazael (Satan "the Betrayer").

Although in many cultures there are some daemonic beings formed from the sprirts of the damned (i.e Japanese Onyrou or more famously Vampires, The wandering or moved on sprirts of the deceased (ghosts if you prefer) are not types of Daemon in anyway.

Please escuse my lassiness to set my IME for the correct charactors for romined term "Onyrou" in stead i prefer to spell it as a direct trasliterattion from the kanna "おりょう".

To the comment on Frankienstine. The creature is called "Demon" by the people. In complete modern english the two words sound very similar.

Final note: I have proof read this 3 times, I am very bad with a kyboard so please escuse any remaining errors, I am better at self correction When i am reading from paper.

Proposed merge and reorganisation

It's ridiculous to have two different articles for Demon and Daemon. Might as well have separate articles for Hemophilia and Haemophilia, or Archeology and Archaeology.

I realise that the spelling "Demon" is more common in Christian contexts, and "Daemon" is more common in Classical Greek contexts, but they're still the same word, and can be spelt either way in both contexts.

We should have one over-arching article for Demons/Daemons, and then can link to specific articles for "Demons in Christianity" (with redirect from the other spelling), and "Daemons in Greek Mythology" (with redirect from the other spelling). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.159.196.72 (talk) 18:46, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Durrell and Daimon

In Lawrence Durrell's Justine, she says, "Every man is made of both clay and daimon, and no woman can nourish both."Tomchicago 3656 (talk) 12:21, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

It's Greek to me...

Can someone transliterate the words written in the Greek alphabet? For example, "θεοί (gods) and δαίμονες (divinities)." For people who don't read Greek, such sentences are unreadable. DBlomgren (talk) 14:08, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Luke evidence from the book of Acts

Here we read in Acts 17:18: "Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods [demons]: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection." So it is still more certain that demons were considered ghosts of dead humans, rather than angels. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.53.64.83 (talk) 01:44, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Goethe

Couldn't this article be expanded to include some discussion of Goethe and the daemonic (see: https://boydellandbrewer.com/goethe-s-concept-of-the-daemonic-hb.html), as well as its relationship generally with Romanticism? Rwood128 (talk) 21:35, 20 April 2018 (UTC)