Demon Pc Games

[Kusi Bertoldo]

Ademon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in folklore, mythology, religion, and literature; these beliefs are reflected in media including comics, fiction, film, television, and video games. Belief in demons probably goes back to the Paleolithic age, stemming from humanity's fear of the unknown, the strange and the horrific.[1] In ancient Near Eastern religions and in the Abrahamic religions, including early Judaism[2] and ancient-medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered a harmful spiritual entity that may cause demonic possession, calling for an exorcism. Large portions of Jewish demonology, a key influence on Christianity and Islam, originated from a later form of Zoroastrianism, and was transferred to Judaism during the Persian era.[3]

The original Ancient Greek word daimōn (δαίμων) did not carry negative connotations, as it denotes a spirit or divine power.[5] The Greek conception of a daimōn notably appears in the philosophical works of Plato, where it describes the divine inspiration of Socrates. In Christianity, morally ambivalent daimōn were replaced by demons, forces of evil only striving for corruption.[6] Such demons are not the Greek intermediary spirits, but hostile entities, already known in Iranian beliefs.[7] In Western esotericism and Renaissance magic, which grew out of an amalgamation of Greco-Roman magic, Jewish Aggadah, and Christian demonology, a demon is believed to be a spiritual entity that may be conjured and controlled.

Belief in demons remains an important part of many modern religions and occult traditions. Demons are still feared largely due to their alleged power to possess living creatures. In contemporary Western esoteric traditions, demons may be used as metaphors for inner psychological processes ("inner demons").

The Greek terms do not have any connotations of evil or malevolence. In fact, εὐδαιμονία (eudaimonia, which literally translates as "good-spiritedness") means happiness. By the early centuries of the Roman Empire, cult statues were seen, by Pagans and their Christian neighbors alike, as inhabited by the numinous presence of the Greco-Roman gods: "Like pagans, Christians still sensed and saw the gods and their power, and as something, they had to assume, lay behind it, by an easy traditional shift of opinion they turned these pagan daimones into malevolent 'demons', the troupe of Satan. Far into the Byzantine period, Christians eyed their cities' old pagan statuary as a seat of the demons' presence. It was no longer beautiful, it was infested."[9] The term had first acquired its negative connotations in the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, which drew on the mythology of ancient Semitic religions. This was then inherited by the Koine text of the New Testament.

The exact definition of "demon" in Egyptology posed a major problem for modern scholarship, since the borders between a deity and a demon are sometimes blurred and the ancient Egyptian language lacks a term for the modern English "demon".[11][12] Both deities and demons can act as intermediaries to deliver messages to humans.[13] By that, they share some resemblance to the Greek daimon. However, magical writings indicate that ancient Egyptians acknowledged the existence of malevolent demons by highlighting the demon names with red ink.[12] Demons in this culture appeared to be subordinative and related to a specific deity, yet they may have occasionally acted independently of the divine will. The existence of demons can be related to the realm of chaos, beyond the created world.[11] But even this negative connotation cannot be denied in light of the magical texts. The role of demons in relation to the human world remains ambivalent and largely depends on context.

Ancient Egyptian demons can be divided into two classes: "guardians" and "wanderers".[13][14] "Guardians" are tied to a specific place; their demonic activity is topographically defined and their function can be benevolent towards those who have the secret knowledge to face them.[15] Demons protecting the underworld may prevent human souls from entering paradise. Only by knowing the right charms is the deceased able to enter the Halls of Osiris.[16] Here, the aggressive nature of the guardian demons is motivated by the need to protect their abodes and not by their evil essence. Accordingly, demons guarded sacred places or the gates to the netherworld. During the Ptolemaic and Roman period, the guardians shifted towards the role of genius loci and they were the focus of local and private cults.

The "wanderers" are associated with possession, mental illness, death and plagues. Many of them serve as executioners for the major deities, such as Ra or Osiris, when ordered to punish humans on earth or in the netherworld.[15] Wanderers can also be agents of chaos, arising from the world beyond creation to bring about misfortune and suffering without any divine instructions, led only by evil motivations. The influences of the wanderers can be warded off and kept at the borders of the human world by the use of magic, but they can never be destroyed. A sub-category of "wanderers" are nightmare demons, which were believed to cause nightmares by entering a human body.[11]

Chinese folktale, legend and literature are replete with malevolent supernatural creatures who are often rendered "demons" in English translations. These include categories of beings such as the yao 妖 - shapeshifters with the power to cause insanity, to inflict poison, and to bring about disease, and the mo 魔 - derived from Indian mythology and entering through the influence of Buddhism. In folk belief, these beings are responsible for misfortune, insanity, and illness, and any number of strange phenomena that could not easily be accounted for. Epilepsy and stroke, which led to either temporary or permanent contortions, were generally seen as the results of demonic possession and attacks (中邪).

In the imperial era, anxiety over unexplained serial murders, missing persons, accidents or diseases sometimes led to instances of mass panic requiring imperial intervention. Exorcism was a court function during the Zhou dynasty, led by ritual specialists known as fangshi. In later dynaties, roving Taoist sorcerers, Buddhist monks, as well as eccentric folk magicians, plied their services in warding off, exorcising, countering or defeating these demons through the use of amulets, charms, spells, and chants.

From the Tang dynasty onwards, belief in shapeshifting foxes, tigers and wolves, amongst other creatures, also featured in Chinese folk belief, partly due to the existence of outlawed fox-spirit cults. Fox Demons (狐妖)[22] are described as cunning and lustful, capable of clairvoyance, and of inflicting disease and poisoning at will. They are sometimes seen as beings requiring worship to be appeased or placated. Tiger Demons (虎妖)[23] and Wolf Demons (狼妖)[24] are ravening beings roaming large territories for prey, taking the form of humans to conveniently insert themselves into communities and settlements. Tiger demons are described as being enslave the souls of humans they have killed, turning them into minions. In the superstitious climate of the previous centuries, people mistaken as tigers and wolves in human disguise were often put to death or starved in their cells by magistrates.

One notable demon not in the above categories includes the Heisheng or Heiqi 黑气 ("Black Calamity" or "Black Air"), a kind of roving vapour demon that inflicts damage to persons and property wherever it roams, sometimes killing where it goes. Another are undefined Poltergeists, sometimes afflicting monasteries, causing serious nuisances, and unable to be exorcised.

Aside from recurring in Chinese superstition of the imperial era, they also appear as antagonists, and sometimes protagonists, in multiple genres of Chinese literature. These include mythic literature (Shen Mo Xiaoshuo (lit. "Gods and demons novels")), in records about paranormal or occult activity (Zhi Guai ("lit. Records of the Strange")), and in tales about cultivators of supernatural power and immortality (Xian Xia (lit. "Immortal Hero")) fiction. These demons are often examples or close variants of the type and kind that exist in folk belief. They also appear in entertainment designed for children and young adults, especially in comics (manhua), cartoons (anime), and computer games.

Both the indigenous Yao (妖) and the Indian-influenced Mo (魔) feature prominently in Chinese legends and folktales about the supernatural and the uncanny, and these days are staples of popular culture and fantasy fiction in games, movies and books.

Lamashtu was a demonic goddess with the "head of a lion, the teeth of a donkey, naked breasts, a hairy body, hands stained (with blood?), long fingers and fingernails, and the feet of Anz".[34] She was believed to feed on the blood of human infants[34] and was widely blamed as the cause of miscarriages and cot deaths.[34] Although Lamashtu has traditionally been identified as a demoness,[35] the fact that she could cause evil on her own without the permission of other deities strongly indicates that she was seen as a goddess in her own right.[34] Mesopotamian peoples protected against her using amulets and talismans.[34] She was believed to ride in her boat on the river of the underworld[34] and she was associated with donkeys.[34] She was believed to be the daughter of An.[34]

Pazuzu is a demonic god who was well known to the Babylonians and Assyrians throughout the first millennium BCE.[36] He is shown with "a rather canine face with abnormally bulging eyes, a scaly body, a snake-headed penis, the talons of a bird and usually wings".[36] He was believed to be the son of the god Hanbi.[37] He was usually regarded as evil,[36] but he could also sometimes be a beneficent entity who protected against winds bearing pestilence[36] and he was thought to be able to force Lamashtu back to the underworld.[38] Amulets bearing his image were positioned in dwellings to protect infants from Lamashtu[37] and pregnant women frequently wore amulets with his head on them as protection from her.[37]

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