Discussion Notes - Week 11 - Demonology

Thursday 2-3 - Week 11

Divisions of the universe

Fire

Air

Water

Earth

Earth is most dense and sluggish. Fire is the lightest

Applying a higher level to a lower level can make on substance turn into

another. Fire & Water = Air

Fire & Earth = Water

Moon - not Earth or star - combination

In Plutarch's scheme moon is dividing line between earth and heaven -

solid body like earch but luminous like sun - in between the two

Plutarch claims moon as way station for souls

demons die because they are in between gods and humans - they are sort of

immortal in that they live for a very long time.

-explains why oracles lose their effectiveness

Mortality and immortality were ideas which fluctuated over time.

What makes a person a person? Plutarch divisions:

Mind (Nous) - immortal

Soul (psyche) - middle

Soma (body) - mortal

Mind with abstract reasoning and thinking is divine part of body and therefore

highest.

Soul is in between - soul gives passion -soul is connected with the mind and

reflects light from the mind.

Connection of mind and soul gives rational impulses.

Platonists - how can gods interact with inferior beings such as ourselves?

Came up with demons to explain. The One - the perfect god made a group of

perfect flawless gods who created demons and humans and world.

One >>>gods>>>demons>>>humans

Response to why the Perfect One would create inferior world or be interested

in what happens there. One did not create it. Gods under the One did.

Synthesis of one supreme being with traditional, fickle petty Greco/Roman

gods. Since the essense of Eros for example is desire, Eros cannot be perfect

if he is desiring. But Eros not human - must be something in between -

demons.

Demons often simply identified as your mind - the rational part of you.

There were cases of atheism but were not taken seriously - proof of gods all

around you.

People were resisting idea that gods don't care. Looked for other solutions -

magical papyri gives alternative.

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-Earth = most sluggish element

-Fire = lightest

-Fire + Water = Air

-Fire + Earth = Water

-Moon as dividing line between Earth & Heaven

Waystation for souls

-Moon in demonology

-Loss of faith in Delphic Oracles

tied to semi-mortality of daimons

-Mortality tied to corporeal being

-Plutarch's parts of person:

body (lowest)

soul (center)

mind (highest)

-How does the soul connect them?

soul as waystation?

reflector for mind?

-Mind + Soul = rationality

-Soul + Body = passion

-Discrepancy between philosophy and theology

Epicurians vs. Stoics vs. (neo)Platonists

-Emotions of the Gods --> questions of divinity

-Mysteries of divinity relating to the One

-Imperfection due to imperfect creator

-Atheism as willful blindness

-Anti-Epicurean thought:

If the gods are uncaring, why behave?

-Gods required for morality?

-Holy because the gods like it, or gods like it because it's holy?

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Friday 3-4 Week 11

What were daimons?

Were daimons always good or bad?

One explanations is that a lot of things that you can't explain are bad,

but you can't blame that on the gods. So there must be some other kind of

being.

In earlier accounts (like Pre-Plato), daimons were not always bad, like

the daimon who fought in battles to help the Greeks win.

The shift from good to bad could be attributed to the Christians. They

wanted to convince people that pagan gods were evil so that they would

convert.

According to Plato:

The gods were good and perfect.

Demons had passions, so they were messed up.

Humans were just a messed and also had passions.

The gods were too perfect and needed intermediates to communicate with

humans.

But what about all those passionate stories of the gods?

The people who wrote them were lying. Perhaps a demon pretended to be a

god, and the story is really about them.

The composition of beings according to Plutarch:

The gods are mind. The demons are soul. Mind mixed with soul makes

reason. Humans are body. Body mixed with soul makes passion.

Souls look like points of light. Some go up with the stars, and others go

down into the darkness.

When a person dies, the body goes back to the earth. The mind and soul go

to the moon. Then the mind is separated from the soul and goes to the sun

(where the gods are).

So demons are souls that don't have a mind.

According to Iamblicus, demons only have one passion. This causes and

imbalance and causes evil.

Things according to Plato:

There is the One, who created the lesser gods. These lesser gods create

the material universe. The craetion of an imperfect world was a mistake. A

goddess created demons, who in turn created humans. This made the mind get

trapped in a body, and it will try to escape and go back to being

mind. Demons act as a barrier to prevent humans from acheiving this.

In PGM demons act as go betweens for humans and the gods, but you have to

pretend to be a god to get a demon to help you. The demon is usually

associated with a dead person.

In PGM 1-42 the demon is called an angelos. You have to purify yourself to

contact it. It comes as a falcon, and a blazing star will descend.

Apuleius describes beings as elements:

The gods are fire, as are the stars.

The demons are air (bird have to perch on land, so they don't count).

Fish live in the water.

Humans live on the earth.