authentic christianity prior to platonism didn't have separate souls from the body. things like demons being disembodied nephilim are later changes
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@sun is that later? i thought purely spiritual beings like angels and demons were always understood
@pernia @sun
Angel is from Angelos (daughter of Zeus and Hera) and means "messenger". Demon is from daimon/daemon (divider/allotter) which referred to all kinds of spirits and Gods (eg. Agathodaemon, the Good God) without necessarily implying any moral quality. The moral connotation was a later addition from Abrahamic moral dualism. Angels in the BuyBull are typically references to Mesopotamian astronomy. For example the Cherub in Isaiah, which represents the 4 fixed signs of the zodiac (lion: leo; bull: taurus; man: aquarius; eagle: scorpio), where the zodiac is featured as the throne/wheel/palace of God. or Lucifer (originally Shahar [Dawn] and Shalim [Dusk], then Phosphoros and Hesperos, then Lucifer) which represents the planet Venus (same as the star and crescent, the Byzantine emblem of Hecate). Often the idea of daemons in the negative sense was related to illness, particularly mental illness, which is particularly evident in the writings of Michael Psellos (11th century Byzantine monk) which kicked off the fad of Christian demonology. That's mirrored in other cultures, particularly Shamanism, such as the Maras of Buddhism (eg. Bön/Chöd) which represent things like depression, addiction, anger, and so on. Even Jewish demonology in 1 Enoch can be interpreted (rightly) in this context. So exorcism in that sense is basically a way of helping people achieve a psychological transformation (aka: soul retrieval), and in the Chöd rite specifically involves evoking the demons into manifestation in order to make friends with them. Medieval and Middle Ages demonology like the Abramelin Rite and the Lemegeton does essentially the same thing albeit via a much more convoluted processes, with the goal of ultimately uniting the magician with their Holy Guardian Angel (ie. their divine self, or Freudian/Jungian superego).
Angel is from Angelos (daughter of Zeus and Hera) and means "messenger". Demon is from daimon/daemon (divider/allotter) which referred to all kinds of spirits and Gods (eg. Agathodaemon, the Good God) without necessarily implying any moral quality. The moral connotation was a later addition from Abrahamic moral dualism. Angels in the BuyBull are typically references to Mesopotamian astronomy. For example the Cherub in Isaiah, which represents the 4 fixed signs of the zodiac (lion: leo; bull: taurus; man: aquarius; eagle: scorpio), where the zodiac is featured as the throne/wheel/palace of God. or Lucifer (originally Shahar [Dawn] and Shalim [Dusk], then Phosphoros and Hesperos, then Lucifer) which represents the planet Venus (same as the star and crescent, the Byzantine emblem of Hecate). Often the idea of daemons in the negative sense was related to illness, particularly mental illness, which is particularly evident in the writings of Michael Psellos (11th century Byzantine monk) which kicked off the fad of Christian demonology. That's mirrored in other cultures, particularly Shamanism, such as the Maras of Buddhism (eg. Bön/Chöd) which represent things like depression, addiction, anger, and so on. Even Jewish demonology in 1 Enoch can be interpreted (rightly) in this context. So exorcism in that sense is basically a way of helping people achieve a psychological transformation (aka: soul retrieval), and in the Chöd rite specifically involves evoking the demons into manifestation in order to make friends with them. Medieval and Middle Ages demonology like the Abramelin Rite and the Lemegeton does essentially the same thing albeit via a much more convoluted processes, with the goal of ultimately uniting the magician with their Holy Guardian Angel (ie. their divine self, or Freudian/Jungian superego).
@toiletpaper @pernia they weren't spirits though there was a hierarchy of anthropomorphic races
@toiletpaper @pernia it is implied before enoch, there was no implication of incorporeal until after enoch iirc
@toiletpaper @pernia I just mean there's nothing indicating they're incorporeal at all. that's the implication
@sun @pernia
Sure. Same could be said of any/every mythological character. But then there's philosophy...
For instance there's nothing indicating that the Cat in the Hat or Spiderman are incorporeal either, but I don't think too many people will make the mistake of confusing an allegorical/metaphorical story for objective reality (the gullible/superstitious notwithstanding).
Sure. Same could be said of any/every mythological character. But then there's philosophy...
For instance there's nothing indicating that the Cat in the Hat or Spiderman are incorporeal either, but I don't think too many people will make the mistake of confusing an allegorical/metaphorical story for objective reality (the gullible/superstitious notwithstanding).
@toiletpaper @pernia maybe we disagree but as soon as you get one degree of separation away from whomever invented these stories, they were taken literally even if they also functioned as metaphor
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@sun @pernia
Absolutely. Personally though, my agenda is to bring people back to a more nuanced and historically grounded understanding so they can shed the pervasive delusions which occur when sacred narratives like that end up in the hands of the uninitiated and then virally promoted to/by the gullible and superstitious on behalf of `spiritual` grifters. That's why in my view Christinanity is and arguably (according to Tacitus, Suetonius, Porphyry, Julian, etc) always was far more a superstition than a legitimate religion.
Absolutely. Personally though, my agenda is to bring people back to a more nuanced and historically grounded understanding so they can shed the pervasive delusions which occur when sacred narratives like that end up in the hands of the uninitiated and then virally promoted to/by the gullible and superstitious on behalf of `spiritual` grifters. That's why in my view Christinanity is and arguably (according to Tacitus, Suetonius, Porphyry, Julian, etc) always was far more a superstition than a legitimate religion.
@toiletpaper @pernia I tried to get as far back as we can go and figure out what the documents actually said, is where I got here from
@sun @pernia
Same, albeit from a different perspective. But it's pretty difficult unless you understand the original languages and have a broader historical cultural context to go by. I tend to just wade through modern scholarship and hope for the best (referencing translations when available). But I'm also aware that even in historical times a lot of this stuff was really heavily bastardised, misunderstood, and written/edited with a political agenda, often by total grifters. You certainly don't need to take my word for that.
One thing I really love about this kinda stuff is how flexible mythology was (and arguably still is), with syncretism, complete fabrications, and so on. One of the earliest examples would be Enheduanna (daughter of Sargon of Akkad) who merged the mythologies of Inanna and Ishtar in order to facilitate the political and social merger between Akkad and Sumer. But you see this over and over and over, both for the benefit of the given peoples, and as a means of demonising them by vilifying their deities. That's why when you have demons depicted as humans, or human-demon hybrids, I tend to view it as metaphor for this kind of political agenda rather than as something people were meant to literally believe as objective fact, regardless of how it evolved and took root in the popular mind. That aside from the context of sacred/initiatory folk healing practices where demons/Gods more often represent psychological states.
Same, albeit from a different perspective. But it's pretty difficult unless you understand the original languages and have a broader historical cultural context to go by. I tend to just wade through modern scholarship and hope for the best (referencing translations when available). But I'm also aware that even in historical times a lot of this stuff was really heavily bastardised, misunderstood, and written/edited with a political agenda, often by total grifters. You certainly don't need to take my word for that.
One thing I really love about this kinda stuff is how flexible mythology was (and arguably still is), with syncretism, complete fabrications, and so on. One of the earliest examples would be Enheduanna (daughter of Sargon of Akkad) who merged the mythologies of Inanna and Ishtar in order to facilitate the political and social merger between Akkad and Sumer. But you see this over and over and over, both for the benefit of the given peoples, and as a means of demonising them by vilifying their deities. That's why when you have demons depicted as humans, or human-demon hybrids, I tend to view it as metaphor for this kind of political agenda rather than as something people were meant to literally believe as objective fact, regardless of how it evolved and took root in the popular mind. That aside from the context of sacred/initiatory folk healing practices where demons/Gods more often represent psychological states.