Demons, Devils and Djinn by Olga Hoyt

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Demons, devils, and cijinn
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Demons, Devils, and Djinn
Demons,
and Djinn
Devils,
OLGA HOYT
ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS
ABELARD-SCHUMAN
y
An
^ H
V
New
XLibrary/ifeG
York
London
Intext Publisher
Vf /y
Horace Mann Middle

School
Denver, Colorado
For permission
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acknowledgment is made to the copyright holders

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or reproduced or utilized in any form
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NEW YORK
LONDON
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Published on the same day in Canada by
Longman Canada
Printed in the United States of America
Copyright
1974 by Olga Hoyt
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hoyt, Olga.
Demons,
devils,
and
djinn.
SUMMARY: Examines
the
many forms and appearances
demons throughout history and the world, the charms

which call them forth, and the spells that banish them.
of
Bibliography:
1.
p.
Demonology
^Juvenile literature.
Juvenile literature.
natural]
I.
[1.
Demonology.
Title.
BL480.H69
133.4'2
ISBN 0-200-00110-8
73-6190
2.
2.
Spirits
Super-
Limited.
Acknowledgments
The author and pubHsher wish
to thank the following for

permission to use the illustrations listed below:
Aldus Books Limited for the pictures from The Supernatural

by Douglas Hill and Pat Williams, which appear on pages 80
and 111. From the Aldus Archives.
The Trustees
of the British
Museum
for the picture
on page
136.
Crown
Publishers, Inc., for pictures on pages 40, 42, 54, 120,

and 131, taken from The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and
Demonology by Russell Hope Bobbins. 1959 by Crown
Publishers, Inc. Used by permission of Crown Publishers, Inc.
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., for the pictures from The Island of Bali
by Miguel Covarrubias, which appear on pages 96 and 99.
Copyright 1936, 1937 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., and renewed
in 1964, 1965 by Rosa Covarrubias. Reprinted by permission
of the publisher.
A Treasury of
Witchcraft by Harry E. Wedek, which appear on pages 20,
Philosophical Library for the pictures from

23, 36,
and 113.
Harald Schultz for the picture on page 144.

Singing Tree Press for the pictures from Devils by J. Charles
Wall, which appear on pages 26, 69, and 150.
University Books, Inc., for the pictures from The Book of
Ceremonial Magic by Arthur Edward Waite, which appear
on pages 61, 109, and 148, and
for the pictures
from The
Mystic Mandrakeby C. J. Thompson, which appear on pages

87 and 91. Reprinted by permission of University Books, Inc.,
Secaucus, New Jersey, 07094.
We
are grateful for the assistance of Hans L. Raum,

shooting the photographs for this book.
Jr.,
in
Special thanks to Diane DeVore for her rendering of the two

drawings that appear on pages 96 and 99.
Contents
Illustrations
Introduction
Demons and
11
13
Devils
2 Djinn
25
3 Spirits in Ancient Babylonia and Assyria
34
Modern
Spirits of the
Middle East
41
5 Chinese Kuei
50
Demons on
63
Demons
Demons and Djinn
of India
74
The Demon
Mandrake
85
in
10
The Malay
11
Demons
12
Some
13
The Nature
the Steppes of Asia
68
Japan
of the
Birth
Demon
90
93
of Bali
Tales of
of
Summoning
or Exorcising
Demons and
Witchcraft
14 Demons, Devils, and Djinn Today
Demons
101
130
143
Bibhography
154
Index
157
Illustrations
Satan
is
frequently represented as a goat or dragon
20
Reading the Black Book
23
The
26
devil as a serpent
36
Assyrian devil
drawing of the head of an
An early drawing
One of the lower
Hell
Mouth and
A Japanese
evil
demon
40
of a devil
42
order of demons
54
the Devil Chained
61
devil
The Temptation of St Anthony
69
80
10
Drawing of the mandrake female

Gathering of the mandrake with the
A demon face on the Pedjeng drum
Balinese
Title
The
demon
87
aid of a
dog
99
or buta
page of the Grimoire of Honorius

devil carrying
Demons
oflF
represented
111
113
animals
Demoniacal attack of hystero-epileptic

Nicholas
Remy
109
a witch
as
fit
of Lorraine
Witches and demons dancing
120
131
in a ring
Exu and his female counterpart

The devil struggling with Saint Peter
Sculpture of a devil on Notre
91
96
Dame
Cathedral
136
144
148
150
Introduction
Belief in the supernatural has been part of man from at least

the time of recorded history. Whether belief in evil spirits,
such as demons, devils, and djinn, is associated with religion
pagan.
Christian, or non-Christian
or
whether
stems
it
from the
folklore of various peoples of diflPerent lands, it is

interesting to study. For what people believed no matter
how
and extraordinary it may seem to us

us something of the moods, feelings, and customs of
unscientific
tells
their
times.
have made a random selection of these evil spirits accordI have cited those stories
that I hoped would give the reader a lively glimpse of the
creatures that many thousands of peoples have believed in
through the years.
To some, demons, devils, and djinn are still very real. Let
I
ing to no certain pattern. Rather,
the reader decide.
Olga Hoyt
11
1.
Demons and Devils
One sunny July afternoon in 1971, the telephone

rang in the office of the Reverend John J. Nicola,
assistant director of the National Shrine of the
Immaculate Conception, in Washington, D.C. The

call was from a Virginia parish priest who wanted
to consult Father Nicola "concerning a possible
infestation or obsession of a couple's
home by
the
devil."
Arrangements were made, and that evening Father Nicola and the parish priest drove down to a
13
14
little
Virginia
town near Washington, and arrived
at the house allegedly possessed by the devil.

There they heard the story of the bizarre events of
the past four months since the family had moved
into the house.
Night after night there were the sounds of

steps running
up and down the
foot-
stairs.
There were sounds of things moving about the

house, knocks on doors, voices calling out of nowhere voices identical to those of the family
members.
whole family thought these
phenomena must be in their imaginations. But
then one night as they came home late after visiting relatives, they saw every light in the house flash
on and oflF, as they drove into the driveway.
Another night the parents were watching television when they heard glass crashing in the kitchen.
There they discovered the clock, smashed, face
down on the floor. Lying beside it was the fourinch cement spike that had supported the clock on
the wall it was cleanly cut in two, but the nail
hole in the wall was undisturbed. One day the
maid was waxing the piano stool. The piano suddenly jumped away and made a sizable dent in the
oak mantel of the fireplace. All these events (the
maid quit in a hurry) were enough to convince the
family that the devil was in the house, and they
At
first
the
requested a formal exorcism.
Demons and Devils
15
For several days Father Nicola pondered the

matter of a formal exorcism, which would consist
of addressing the demon directly and commanding it to depart from the person he obsessed or the
place he infested. Such a formal exorcism would
require permission from the local bishop.

Father Nicola decided against such a course, but
instructed the parish pastor to bless the house, for
as Father Nicola wrote later to the bishop about
the case, the "blessing removed the anxiety which
was responsible," and
"if
perchance there was
some diabolical influence, the blessing and informal exorcism was sufficient to terminate it."
The pastor blessed the house, but when Father
Nicola visited it a week later, as a follow-up, the
family reported that there had been noises coming
from the cellar, a part of the house that the pastor
had forgotten to bless. The Father immediately
blessed the cellar, and the devil has not been heard
from in this place since.
The
idea of the devil
is
very, very old;
we know
from the beginning of recorded history people

have believed in evil supernatural beings, whether
they be called devils, demons, djinn, or by many
other names. Devils were associated with evil, the
gods and angels with the good; and even as people
worshiped their gods long before the Christian era,
they feared, revered, and placated their devils. Anthat
16
tells of Lilith, a winged demoness of Assyria with long disheveled hair, who
was created by God out of filth and mud over 5000
years ago. That legend says she was Adam's first
wife, and from their joining came hundreds of
lesser demons, closely related to human beings,
but inhumah. (Eve appeared on the scene much,
much later.)/ Fifty centuries of history show varied
and conflictmg views of such devils and demons.
cient religious legend
Some
say they are evil intelligences
who
wait to
pounce upon man, always scheming to overturn

the order established by the gods. These demons
have alarming power, but can be subdued by
strong magicians. Others hold that the devil is the
magician's associate, as in witchcraft, and that the
devil can be wooed to do one's bidding.
The ancient Greeks tell of heroic struggles be-
tween the gods and the demons and devils. They

believed a secret name controlled the whole universe, including the gods. He who spoke this fearsome name could be heard by the demons and,
when they heard it, the demons cowered; the sun
and the earth turned about; hell was troubled; rivers, seas, and lakes were frozen; rocks were shattered into hundreds of pieces. In the seventh century B.C. the great god Ea of the Assyrians knew
the magical name. He was called upon to fight
against seven horrible demons called maskim who
lay in wait to harm human beings, and as he went
Demons and Devils
17
he uttered the secret name. "This name

alone can subdue the maskim, " the Assyrian story
said, and it was written down on clay tablets.
"When it is uttered everything bows down in
heaven, on earth and in the infernal regions. The
gods themselves are bound by this name and they
obey it."
These maskim were the evil counterparts of the
gods. They were crafty devils, who lurked in amto battle
bush, preparing to spring
upon their victims just as

Arab ghul of the same part of the world
set traps and waited in hiding for unwary travelers.
In ancient times, there was a widespread belief
later the
in evil supernatural beings, but these beings could
assume many diflFerent shapes. Thus, in ancient art

and statuary we see the mingling of human and
animal forms, such as the man-faced bulls of Assyria and the various animal-headed gods of Egypt.
Probably from Egypt the Greeks and Romans acquired the centaurs (half-man, half-horse), minotaurs (half-man, half-bull) and the half-goats, halfmen that were satyrs and fauns. From these early
animal types came the representations of the devil,
during the Dark Ages, or Middle Ages. At that
time, the devil was pictured as a black naked
figure, half-man, half-goat, with a long tail, horns,
and cloven feet. From then on demons and devils
could be found in all forms, sometimes human,
sometimes not. The devil might be a tortoise with
18
cooking pot with arms

and legs. As the belief in devils spread in European
society and the devil was feared as the patron of
a man's face
and
feet, or a
Church began to portray

and evil being. Under
religious instruction the people became terrified of
the devil. The Church encouraged this attitude,
for the Christian devil was the archenemy of God
and the religious hierarchy. 'Even leaders of the
Church said they saw devils. The Christian historian and philosopher, St. Augustine, for example,
witches, the Christian
him
as a hideous, frightful,
did not believe that devils possessed fleshly bodies,

but he believed that they did exist in some form,
and were visible to mortals. St. Jerome, the church
scholar of the third century A.D., wrote of devils
with half-human bodies. He believed that these
beings, little men with curved nostrils, and horns
and feet of goats, came from the lower world. The
clergy in the seventeenth century told their parishioners that if they did not obey all the teachings of
the Church, they would be cast into blazing fires,
hung up by their tongues, to sizzle and roast as
devils pranced around.
In Europe the devil was often seen as a serpent,
a shape that seems to be the oldest attributed to
him. From this concept he developed to many
into a dragon, a sort of serpent with wings, sometimes having the head of a lion, sometimes that of
a man, and at other times that of a crocodile.
Demons and Devils
19
Some students of demonology believe that the

modern devil had his early roots in the great god
Pan of Greek-Roman times. Pan was the god of
nature, partly joyous, partly terrible. Gradually,
over the ages, the bright side of Pan was lost, and
the devil assumed more bestial and ferocious characteristics.
Just as there were many views about the devil's

appearance, there were many views as to what the
devil could do,, and how he could be threatened,
controlled, or exorcised (driven out). In
Europe
in
medieval times, images of cocks were placed atop

and around churches, because of the belief that the
devil could assume the shape of a lion. The lion and
the cock, the people said, were mortal enemies.
Goblins (malicious spirits) were carved in the
moldings of churches to scare oflF lesser demons,
but usually a cock was placed on a swivel, to turn
in all directions with the wind, and frighten away
the devil. The cock was gilded to shine out
brightly, so the devil could not miss seeing him.
This device has come down to us as the weather
vane.
In addition to the cock, there were several other
ways of frightening away demons and devils. Salt,

example, was considered "an antidemoniac"
for
because
Demons, being creashy away from salt.

In the same way the demons were supposed to fear
tures
it is
a preservative.
who corrupt and destroy,
a goat or
In medieval witchcraft, Satan is frequently represented as
black
the
of
practitioners
the
all
by
paid
is
dragon to whom homage
arts
Demons and Devils
21
which was beUeved to come from the sky and

thus was heavenly.
As the Middle Ages progressed, fears grew and
everything possible was done to keep the devil
iron,
away. Besides fearing for their souls, people came

to believe that the devil could possess human
bodies. It was thought there were two ways he
might do this. The devil could act as an independent agent; or he might be used by a magician, or
a witch. Actually the idea of demoniac possession
is ancient and universal. Skulls of aboriginal dwellers of Peru (from a time long before the discovery
of America) indicate trepanning, or cutting open
the skull. These ancient Peruvians believed that
demons could inhabit the head, and the only way
to get rid of them was to cut open the skull and let
the demons come out. Trepanning was later done
in Europe on epileptics. Europeans believed that
all epileptics were possessed and that the only cure
was to take the demons out of the head.
Throughout history, people have tried to sum-
mon
the devil to do their specific bidding, usually

to obtain riches, a lover, or for revenge on enemies. This liaison with the devil caused many innocent (and sometimes not-so-innocent) persons to
lose their lives during the witch-hunts in Europe,
starting in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and
culminating in dreadful trials and executions in the
fifteenth,
sixteenth,
and seventeenth
centuries.
22
Witches were tried because the authorities said

they had pacts with Satan the devil. These
witches were accused of anti-Church and antisocial activities, and the treatment meted out by the
witch-hunters was shocking. Yet it was not strange
that belief in demons and devils would be very
strong in Europe at the time, since it had existed
for centuries.
For example, grimoires (magical textbooks) have

been known for hundreds of years. One of the earliest and most complete grimoires, which dates
from about 100 to 400 A.D., was called the Testament of Solomon, after King Solomon of Israel in
the tenth century B.C. This grimoire was supposed
to represent Solomon's own ideas. It catalogued
demons and described the "princes of evil," the
"fallen angels," and the "great lords of darkness."
The most important aspect of this work was that it
proclaimed that Solomon had power over all
devils, a power he received through a magic ring
brought to him by an angel of God. This and later
who the devils were, what

and how they could be commanded, or brought under control. In the Testament of Solomon, Beelzebuth was the prince of
devils; Asmodeus was the devil of lust who was part
spirit and part man. (The names of the devils came
from Jewish, Greek, Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian sources.) All these demons had
grimoires spelled out
their functions were,
Reading the Black Book. The Black Book was a grimoire, a manual
commanding, and controlling demons and spirits of the
dead
for invoking,
and areas of operation. One

one wrecked ships, one set fire to
specific functions
strangled babies,
crops,
many brought
diseases (each
demon
repre-
sented a specific disease, such as fever, or migraine

headaches, or eye ailments, or inflammation of the
tonsils).
Later grimoires listed the three supreme powers
24
and Astaroth. When

by a magician to appear, Lucifer came as a
handsome boy, Beelzebuth as a huge fly, and Asof evil as Lucifer, Beelzebuth,
called
taroth as a black-and-white
human
figure.
By the end of the thirteenth century someone

cataloged 1,758,064,176 devils, and even so august
a personage as the Blessed Reichhelm of Schoengan, a German churchman of the same period,
claimed actually to see these devils as rain and as
the dust sometimes seen in a sunbeam. By the sixteenth century, Jean Wier, physician to the Duke
of Cleves, argued that there were only 7,409,127
devils. He went much further; he chronicled the
complete hierarchy of hell, listing the princes of
death, as well as the land of tears, fire, justice, hell,
and the infernal armies, one by one. He even
named the demons who were hellish ambassadors
to certain countries; they included Mammon (En-
Rimmon (Russia), and

These men who wrote so assuredly about the underworld were not eccentrics,
gland),
Thamuz
Belial
(Turkey),
(Spain).
They believed, just as almost

people of their times believed, in the real existence of demons and devils.
Perhaps it is the nature of man to believe in the
or mentally unstable.
all
supernatural and in the existence of evil beings.
2.
DjINN
The demons
a
name
of the Arabic world are called djinn,

which means "covert" or "darkness."
and destructive
were created out of fire thousands of years before Adam.
The Arabs believed in these demons long before
the time of Mohammed (around 600 A.D.). To them
the djinn (singular, djinnee) were usually invisible,
but they were capable of assuming various forms at
will, especially those of snakes, lizards, and scor-
These
fearful, crafty, mischievous,
beings, the Arabs say,
pions.
25
26
These djinn could be very dangerous to man. In

ancient Arabia a man named Harb, the grandfather of the supreme ruler, the Khalif Mu awiya,
and a companion began

for cultivation.
They
some marshland
to the marsh and
to clear
set fire
many white
serpents out of the burning

weeds. Immediately thereafter both men died,
flushed
The
devil as a serpent.
Demons and
shapes of many different creatures
djinn
were thought
to take the
DjiNN
27
and everyone believed that the snakes were djinn,

who had killed the men for disturbing their home.
Many other stories told of men who had been carried oflF or killed by these evil djinn, as they were
known to be physically very powerful. Sometimes
they rode upon ostriches in the desert; sometimes
they stayed near grazing lands, thus preventing
the cattle from drinking. Often they lurked in
lonely places.
An Arab
clan of
Mecca once
suflFered so
many
by the devil djinn (drinking

the water, killing the vegetation, pulling down
camels' feet) that they decided on revenge. The
men marched out and killed as many snakes, beetles, and other crawling things as they could. They
killed so many crawling things that the djinn were
forced to sue for peace and agreed to stop their
diabolical behavior.
The ancient Arabs believed that there were various classes of djinn; among these the most dangerous but inferior of all were the female ghul (or
ghool). These evil djinn ate men, and could appear
in the form of a human being, or in the shape of
various animals. Usually they were described as
hideous monsters. An ancient poet spoke of how a
ghul came one night to a fire which he had built.
The man, fearing danger, cut ofi'her frightful head,
a cat's head but with a forked tongue. This ghul
also had legs like those of a premature baby, all
disasters perpetrated
all
28
limp and skinny, and her skin was hairy
like a
dog's.
The ghul generally lay in wait at some place

where men would come. Sometimes she enticed
them to her lair; sometimes she even robbed
graves and fed on corpses.
Another type of demon in the ancient Arab
world was the sealdh (or saalah). This djinnee was
found in the forests, and when it captured a man
it made him dance, while the demon played with
him as a cat plays with a mouse.
In the islands of the Red Sea and the Persian
Gulf lived another demoniacal being, the delhdn,
which had the form of a man and rode an ostrich.
This creature ate the flesh of men who had been
cast ashore from shipwrecks. Many Arabs believed
that when a delhdn attacked a ship the mortals
might fight, but all the delhdn had to do was utter
a mighty cry which made the human beings fall on
their faces
then they were easy victims.
With the coming of Islam, the Moslem faith,

Arabs began to believe that there could also be
good djinn (these were djinn who accepted the
Islamic religion) as well as the diabolical. The
primitive superstitions of the ancients were generally accepted by the Mohammedans, not only in
Arabia, but throughout the expanding Moslem
world, as that religion spread east across the Euphrates and west into Africa and the Caucasus.
DjiNN
The Moslems believed
that
29
God made diflFerent

who were
species of intelligent beings: angels
created of light, men who were created of the dust

of the earth, and the djinn. There were five orders
of djinn: the jann, the djinn, the sheytdns (or
devils), afreets, and marids.
The chief of the evil djinn was the fallen angel,
Iblis, the "Prince of Darkness," who had five sons:
Teer, who brought about calamities, losses, and
injuries; El-Aawar, who encouraged debauchery;
Sot, who suggested lies; Dasim, who caused hatred
between man and wife; and Zelemboor, who hovered over places of traffic, creating mischief of all
kinds. These wicked demons live in the lowest
firmanent of the heavens (in the air) and haunt
caves, wells, the woods, the hilltops, and the wilderness. They have the power of taking on any
shape they like, thus becoming visible to humans.
They can take the form of serpents, scorpions,
lions, wolves, jackals. They can even take possession of living people, from whom they then have
to be exorcised by charms and incantations.
It is believed that all djinn belong to one of three
areas: the land, the sea, and the air. In Arab legend
it has been stated that the djinn comprise 40 troops
of 600,000 djinn each. The djinn are of three basic
shapes. One kind have wings and fly; another are
snakes and dogs; and the third move about like
men from place to place. In human form, they may
30
assume the size of an ordinary manjj or they may

appear as giants. If they are good djinn, they are
extremely handsome; if they are evil spirits, they
are hideous. Djinn can become invisible at will,
suddenly disappearing into the earth or air or even
through a solid wall.
Good djinn are friendly to men, and they live all
over the earth and in the space above the earth.
They inhabit rivers, wells, ruined houses, even ovens; they can be found in baths, marketplaces,
crossroads, and the sea. Because the djinn are in
the waters, often when the Arabs pour water on
the ground, or enter a bath, or let down a bucket
they say
Destoor yd
mubarakeen ("Permission," or "Permission, ye
blessed"), so that the good djinn will not be
into
a well,
oflFended.
Destoor,
or
The good djinn are Moslems and the othThe good djinn assiduously per-
ers are infidels.
form
their religious
fasting,
tasks
prayers,
and the pilgrimage
they are generally invisible to
to
almsgiving,
Mecca
although
human beings at the
time.
The
evil djinn are
capable of almost anything,
from carrying oflF beautiful women to standing

playfully on roofs of houses and throwing down
bricks and stones on passers-by. Evil djinn often
take over uninhabited houses, and woe be it to the
human being who

These djinn
tries to
move
into such a house.
also steal provisions
from inhabited
DjINN
31
When
people lock their doors and cover

the breadbasket or anything containing food, they
sometimes appeal to the djinn: "In the name of
God, the Compassionate, the Merciful," and hope
that the demons will leave their household goods
houses.
alone.
Some
work hand-in-hand with

The djinn go up to the low
of the evil djinn
Arab fortune tellers.

heaven and listen to the conversation of the angels
which deals with the predestined actions of mankind (predestination is an Islamic belief) and then
report on future events to the fortune tellers. If the
angels detect these evil djinn, they hurl shooting

stars at them from heaven. That is why when an
Arab sees a shooting star (meteorite) he often
shouts out: May Go d t ransfi x the enemy of the
faith." Evil djimTê sometimes killed by other
^mn, and even sometimes by men. Since they
were created of fire, it circulates in their veins and
spews forth when they are fatally wounded, consuming them to ashes.
Man must always beware of the evil djinn, for
they can even manipulate natural phenomena.
''
The
zoba'ah, a huge, tall pillar of a whirlwind

which raises sand and dust across deserts and fields,
is believed to be caused by the flight of an evil
djinnee. When the zoba'ah is seen, an Arab can
only defend himself from the djinnee by exclaiming, "'Allahu
akbarr ("God
is
most
great!"), or call
32
out, ''Hadeed! Hadeedr
Clvonllvonr) or ''Hadeed!
yd mashoom!'* C^Tonl thou unlucky!"). As with the^
demons and
devils of other lands, the djinn are

suppossed to dread iron.
Evil djinn can work along with a superior devil
to perform satanic magic. They can help discover
treasure, and they can help possess people who are
then paralyzed, or die, or are afiFected with a great
passion for certain objects, or even transformed
into brutes
and
birds.
Men can summon djinn by means of talismans or

certain invocations,
and the mastery of these
is
an
art of the Arab world. In the lore of the occult, the

most renowned ruler of the djinn was King Solomon of Israel (973-933 B.C.), who, said the ancient
students of the occult, had absolute power over
these spirits after the angel from heaven gave him
a magical seal ring composed of brass and iron, and
engraved with *'the most great name" of God.
With the brass portion of the ring Solomon
stamped out orders to the good djinn; with the iron
portion he stamped out orders for the demons.
Solomon's power was supreme, not only over the
djinn whom it is said he ordered to help build the
temple of Jerusalem, but over the winds, over wild
beasts, and over birds. These stories come from
Arab sources, not Hebrew. Solomon was one of the
many biblical figures who loomed large in Moslem
religious history.
DjiNN
33
was a rare man like Solomon who could conthe djinn; most of the peoples of the early Arab
world, and the world which later embraced Mohammedanism, believed in and respected these
oflFspring of fire, placating the good and the evil
djinn who were ever present in their lives.
It
trol
3.
Spirits in
Ancient
Babylonia and Assyria
In ancient Babylonia and Assyria, the land be-
tween the two great
rivers, Euphrates and Tigris

(which now comprises parts of Iran and Iraq), the
people lived in constant fear of demons. Long
before the birth of Christ, gods and goddesses were
closely associated with the activities of demons.
Sickness and all bodily suflFering were attributed to

demons, and that belief was transmitted through
the ages to
much
The demons
34
later civilizations.
of the Fertile Crescent
had two
Spirits in
Ancient Babylonia and Assyria
35
methods of entering a human body: either they

in of their own accord, or they came because
they had been called by sorcerers who had the
power to bewitch. But no matter what method the
demons used to enter a body, gods and goddesses
could drive them out. The deities were very
touchy about demons. They were sometimes
ofiFended by individual human beings, or by the
very fact that human sorcerers had the power to
send the demons into human beings. Whatever the
case, to stay healthy one had to have the good will
and approval of the deities. If one became ill the
people believed it was surely because the gods had
came
been angered by some
mons
into the body.
sin
and had sent the de-
A headache,
a cramp, a shoot-
ing pain, a high fever all were attributed to demons. The pains were only symptoms; what had to
be done was to force the demon out of the body.
The demon must be
exorcised.
It was impossible to know just where and when

the demons lurked; they were ordinarily invisible,
but they could assume a human or animal shape, or
a mixture of the two. They could slide through
doors and hide in out-of-the-way places, waiting to
pounce upon victims. The people of these ancient
lands
knew
the
demons were
cruel, horrible-look-
ing, bloodthirsty, fearful, dreadful creatures.
poor
cally
human being who was

from other human beings had
Any
at all dijfferent physi-
to
beware, for
36
demon might well have asform. Giants and dwarfs, the

crippled and the deformed, and even human beings with a cast eye could be charged as demons.
A series of incantations, used to appeal to the
gods to drive out the demons, was found in the
library of Ashurbanapal, once King of Assyria (668626 B.C.). These formulas were important to the
people believed the
sumed
that
human
Assyrian devil. Symbolic representations of the devil were sometimes in the form of a known animal and sometimes in part human,
part animal form
Spirits in
37
people, for not only did they contain a systematic

classification of all the demons, but a large number
of them were used in rites to exorcise the demons.
These were not original with the Assyrians, but
adapted from peoples long dead, the Babylonians
and men of Ur, that most ancient of Fertile Cres-
cent cities.
In these incantations, demons were listed and
defined: there were many difi'erent types and they
had many difiêrent names, but they all had very
special functions. For example, labartu, a dreadful
monster with a swine sucking at her breasts, was
the demon who threatened the life of a mother at
A whole
group of demons were known

collectively as ashakku: they caused all kinds of
wasting diseases. Headache with fever was caused
by the demon tVu. (The demon and the disease
were considered to be one and the same.) Akh^
khqzu was the "seizer" (causing convulsions), and
his name was also the name for jaundice. Rabisu
was the "one lying in wait." Labasu was the "overthrower:^" etimmu was the gKost suggesting demon identification with the dead who returned to
plague the living, and namtar was pestilence.
In Babylonia and Assyria a group of seven demons had great renown. Mention of them frequently occurs in texts, and they are depicted on
monuments. They are described on one cuneiform
childbirth.
tablet as follows:
38
Seven, they are seven.
deep they are seven.

Settling in heaven they are seven.
In a section of the deep they were nurtured;
Neither male nor female are they,
In the
Destructive whirlwinds are they.
They have no wife, they produce no

Mercy and pity they know not.
ofiFspring.
Prayer and petition they hear not.
Horses raised in the mountains are they.

Hostile to Ea are they.
Throne bearers of the gods are
To hem
the
way they
set
they.
themselves up in the
streets.
Evil are they, they are seven, twice seven are

they.
(The Ea mentioned was the god of humanity and

was considered the friend of mankind.)
Here
demon
the description of the demon

of head troubles and fevers:
is
The head
like the
Flaming
disease
roams
ti'u,
in the wilderness, raging
wind.
like lightning, tearing
along 'above and
below.
Crushing him who fears not his god like a reed.
Cutting his sinews like a khinu-reed.
Maiming the limbs
of
protecting goddess,
the
him who has not
Spirits in
39
Glittering like a star of heaven, flowing like
water,
Besetting a
man
lik^ a
whirlwind, driving him
like a storm;
Killing that
man.
Piercing another as in a cramp.
So that he
been torn
out.
like
Attacking his
So
is
whose heart has
one thrown into the fire.

wild ass whose eyes are clouded.
Burning
Like a
slashed like one
is
Ti'u,
life,
who
is
in league with death.

like a
heavy storm whose
course no one can follow
Whose
final goal
no one knows.
These ashakku, the group of demons that

caused diseases, were invisible and could be found
anywhere:
He
stands at the side of a man, without anyone
seeing him.
He
sits at
the side of a man, without anyone
seeing him.
He
enters a house, without anyone seeing his
form,
Ha
leaves a house, without anyone observing
him.
Because demons were
so
ever present in these
40
it became important to know how to exorthem, and the ancients' literature is filled with
manuals and textbooks to guide the priests in their
difficult tasks. Always demons were a very real and
constant source of dailger to all mankind.
lands,
cise
A drawing of the head of an evil demon
4.
Modern
Spirits
OF THE Middle East
lands of the Middle East have always

been the home of hundreds of demons, genii,
ghuls, afreets, and other supernatural creatures.
The ancient
Who has
not heard of Aladdin and his magic lamp

many other tales of the Arabian
Nights? These are stories and legends, but in truth
the natives of these lands believed that magic was
a matter of everyday occurrence, and it has been
so right up to the present time. Early in this century a traveler, making his way through the deserts
or the genii of the
41
An
early drawing of a devil
Modern
of Egypt,
village
came
around
Spirits
to a
it,
of the Middle East
palm plantation with
near Qasr Dakhl. In
43
a small
this oasis,
the
traveler found a group of Arabs discussing the

story of a foreigner named Rohlfs, who was
remembered well by many of the natives. None of

the Arabs knew where the foreigner had come
from or where he later went; everyone knew the
tale,
however)
Rohlfs had visited the oasis
many
years before,
coming to Dakhl to dig for buried treasure in the

Der el Hagar, a stone temple near Qasr Dakhl.
Rohlfs had employed many men for the excavation, but since the treasure was guarded by an
afreet (a spirit) the Arabs were unable to find it.
They dug and dug, but still no riches. Rohlfs became very angry and very disappointed at spending so much time and eflFort without finding the
treasure. One day he decided to outwit the afreet.
the men out of the temple, who then
gathered together and sat on the ground a short
distance away. Rohlf took a black man into the
temple with him, and for some time the men waiting outside heard and saw nothing. Then there
were loud cries for help, and piercing, frightening
shrieks came from the temple. The men outside
smiled, knowing that the afreet was getting his due
from Rohlfs, who surely had a lucky talisman with
He
sent
all
him. There was a silence, then the men heard a

crackling sound, and dense clouds of black smoke
44
arose from the temple. This continued for some

time. Finally Rohlfs came out of the temple with
on his face. He told the assemthat he had at last found the treasure and
a smile of happiness
bled
men
them to come with him to see it. All the

men were very excited at last they would have
invited
the riches.
Entering the temple again, the
men saw
that
Rohlfs had found the opening to a chamber, a trap
door over a
flight of steps
was filled with

monds and jewels of all
vault that
which led down into a

and gold, and dia-
silver
kinds. The men looked

about for the black man who had gone into the
temple with Rohlfs, but they could not find him. In
their searches they found the glowing embers of a
great fire, and in the ashes was a charred skull.
Rohlfs had sacrificed the black
Those
loaded
ridden
in the oasis all
his
oflF
man
knew
to the afreet!
that Rohlfs
had
caravan of camels with the riches, had

into the desert, and was never seen
again.
In the desert lands in modern times the Arabs

believe so much in the supernatural that almost
every village has its sheykh el afreet ruler of spir-
debatable whether these sheykhs actually

believe in their own powers, but they have the
respect of the Arabs and are much sought after to
foretell the future or to guide people to buried
its. It is
treasure.
Modern
Spirits of
the Middle East
45
The future is foretold by magic, in which the

sheykhs call the spirits, the genii. This ceremony,
a mandal, is really the practice of clairvoyance by
the means of a pool of ink.
One traveler in the Libyan desert (William Joseph Harding King, who chronicled his adventures
in Mysteries of the Libyan Desert) witnessed such
a mandal, and although this aflFair was a total failure, the tale illustrates the firm
power
of magic
over these people.

First the sheykh el afreet, a burly man with tiny
eyes in a large flabby face, came to visit the house
where the mandal would be held. He climbed up
the stairs to the roof of the house, muttering incantations and carrying a stafi^ in one hand. He spoke
of the need for a bright sun, and no wind, conditions he said were necessary if he were to conduct
a proper mandal. He approved of the conditions,
but said that for the ceremony he would need a
young boy
to play the part of the tahdir, the
one
who
gazes into the magic mirror at the seance.

There had to be many diSêrent kinds of incense
and perfume used in this magic and it was of utmost importance to use the correct kind. The
sheykh said he must have just the right kind of
incense to use in the dawa the invocation for

otherwise the genii would become so angry that
they might kill the sheykh or even destroy the
whole house.
46
The sheykh
el afreet left
and returned the next
day, carrying his staflF and his rosary beads. He sat

down and drank a cup of tea, looked over the
young boy who had been provided for the mandal,
and approved of him. Then the sheykh called for
which to start a charcoal fire, and some

paper and ink. With these he went into a room
which had been cleared for him. Carefully he
closed the door and the shutters, so that the light
in the room was very dim, went over to the darkest
corner of the room, and sat down on a black sheepa brazier in
skin with the brazier placed beside him.
everyone
the
initial
He
asked
room while he carried out

ceremonies. For some time there was
to leave the
silence, and a faint smell of incense floated out

from the room. Then muttering could be heard
and an occasional shout as the sheykh invoked the
After about ten minutes the magician

called out that he was ready for the visitors to enter
and that the young boy should be brought in to
spirits.
him. The sheykh directed the youth to sit cross

legged on the sheepskin rug in front of him.
First, the boy was directed to hold out his right
hand, and the magician drew in ink the khatim
the seal on the palm of the boy's hand. Then he
placed a piece of paper on which there was writing
on the boy's forehead, licking the paper to make it
adhere to the skin. The paper slipped away, so the
sheykh tucked the top edge of the paper under the
Modern
Spirits
of the Middle East
47
rim of the boy's cap. Then the sheykh put a large

blot of ink in the center of the square khatim on
the boy's palm, and he directed the youth to gaze
into the pool of ink there and to fear nothing. Next
he began his incantations to the afreet. He repeated them over and over, his body swaying back
and forth. During his appeals to the spirit, sometimes his voice was almost a whisper, sometimes it
rose to a deafening shout, louder and then softer,
louder and softer, faster and faster. The magician
swayed back and forth, the perspiration now rolling down his face. From time to time as he chanted
he dropped pieces of incense into the earthenware
dish that he was using as a brazier. The smoke rose
around the boy, and the air was sickly sweet with
the smell of the burning perfumes.
The visitors at the mandal had not seen the slip
of paper on the boy's forehead, but on it was written the following: "We have set forth your propositions, and according to the Koran we beg our
Prophet Mohammed to answer our prayer."
The incantations the sheykh had chanted to
bring forth the
spirit
were: 'Toorsh, toorsh, Fiboos,
fiboos, Sheshel, sheshel, Koftel, koftel, Kofelsha."
Each of the four repeated names also formed

one side of the frame of the square khatim which
was drawn on the palm of the hand. Kofelsha was
a magic word.
The invocation which had been whispered and
48
shouted over and over could be translated
as fol-
lows:
Descend
here
with
he
this
this day.
desires.
Descend
very minute.
mon,
Oh! Celestial
Spirits, so that
he
may see you with his own eyes and talk to you
his own mouth and set before you that which
in the
cious, to
name
obey and
quickly,
call
on you
and without delay,

in the
name
of Allah the clement

to
submit yourselves
of Solo-
and
to
gra-
my
or-
ders for the love of Allah.
The
last
part of the incantation was untranslat-
able:
Zaagra zagiran Zaafiran hafayan nakeb, Zaagra

Zagiran Zaafiran hafayan nakeb, aaagra aagiran
zaagiran hafayan nakeb.
Interspersed throughout these incantations

were loud shouts of "Maimum," which was interpreted to be the particular spirit the sheykh was
calling upon.
From time to time the sheykh examined the boy
closely to see how efiFective the magic had been.
Finally deciding that the ceremony would soon
come to an end, the sheykh grew more excited,
chanting at an ever faster pace, suddenly dropping
his voice, then shouting. Finally, exhausted, he
leaned back against the wall and stopped the cere-
mony.
Modern
Spirits
of the Middle East
49
Wiping his damp face, he turned to the boy and

asked him to say the word atare.
''Atare," said the youth.
"Now,
tell
me what
manded the sheykh.

The boy stared and
you see
stared,
in the ink,"
and was
com-
silent.
Finally he spoke: "Nothing."

,^The sheykh had not been able to get the spirits
under his control when he summoned them. He
apologized to his audience, but was not dismayed.
He would try again another time. The important
point is that in the Middle East, belief in the
sheykh is so strong that the failure had in no way
diminished his power or the faith of the people in
the processes of the mandal.
Chinese Kuei
5.
For thousands of years the Chinese believed

yin and yang theory of nature.
The
yin
in the
encom-
evil: the earth, the moon, evil spirits

demons or kuei), darkness, and the female sex.
The yang were the good: the heaven, the sun, fire,
light, and the male sex. The kuei were every-
passed the
(the
where: in water,
They were
dogs, cats, tigers,
be
50
forest, soil, air,
and mountains.
in all kinds of animals: in wolves, foxes,

fish, birds,
and snakes. They could
in clothes, furniture, old trees, or stones.
leaf
Chinese Kuei
blowing in the wind could be a
kuei.
Some
51
of the
demons ate men; others were gigantic with horned

foreheads, long fangs, and fuzzy red hair. They
came
size, and could even be

Everywhere one turned a kuei
could be lurking. These demons were responsible
for evil and misfortune. They hid in ponds and
rivers to entice people in and drown them. They
could bring famine and poor crops, cause a mother
to die at childbirth, strike down a whole city of
people, and bring all kinds of disease.
Faced with such possible disaster from the kuei,
it was important to find methods to keep them
away or drive them out of the body. The customs
in
human
every shape and
in form.
that arose in dealing with the kuei afi'ected
all
of
Chinese life just as much as did the more formalized religions. Appeal could be made to the gods
by carrying images of the deities in a procession
through the streets. Firecrackers and gongs, which
were associated with the good, virile, yang could
be set ofi* and bonged. Since the kuei loved darkness and hated light, the blood and head of the
cock, which heralded the coming of morning sun,
was often used in rites to ward oS^ the kuei. Magic
characters and symbols written on paper were attached to the doors; charms and amulets were displayed. Mirrors were put on the foreheads of children so that when the demon saw the reflection of
his ugly
being he departed quickly.
52
These customs began thousands of years ago,

and many of them existed into the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries.
Justus Doolittle, a mid-nineteenth-century observer, noted
hundreds of rituals
Social Life of the Chinese
very complicated
in his
some
of
two-volume
them were
practiced by the Chinese peo-
ward oflF demons and evil spirits.

Take the question of the marriage ceremony:
one custom calls for the visit of the new bride to
her parents on the third day after the wedding.
ple to
She
is
carried along in a black sedan chair, ordinary
in all respects except that there
is
a special
charm
painted on the outside. This shows a grim-looking
man
on a tiger, a sword raised up in one

though to strike someone or something.
sitting
hand, as
This charm is considered a blessing to the bride, for
with it she need never fear those evil spirits lurking in wait to injure her or cause her to become ill.
Also there are the ceremonies accompanying
the impending birth of a child, which are important because two female demons who intend to kill
the mother are present at the time of childbirth.
These demons must be wooed so that they will not
destroy her but rather bear her good will. Just
before the time of birth a table is spread with eight
or ten plates of food, with incense, candles, flowers,
and mock money. A priest recites specific chants.

Then ten or twenty pieces of a certain kind of
Chinese Kuei
53
about an inch, and several

from ordinary paper, are
put into a censer (an ornamental incense burner
used in religious ceremonies) and burned. On
grass, cut into lengths of
likenesses of a crab, cut
some occasions several live crabs are produced for

the ceremony and then, after the paper crabs are
burned, the live crabs are put out to roam the
streets. All this is done both to frighten the bad
and to gain their good will.
Next, the food that was put on the table is
removed, and more plates of incense, candles,
seeds, wine, and a cup of clear water are brought
into the room and placed on the table. The husband, who is now present, is invited by the priest
to give worship to the ruler of the Bloody Pond of
hell, and to all the evil spirits of hell./ There are
more incantations by the priest. Some ashes from
spirits
the incense are put into red paper and hung up

near the censer. This ceremony is repeated twice
a day until childbirth. Each time after the ceremony, a stick of incense and one pair of candles are
burned before the red paper parcel, which remains hanging for thirty days after the birth. It is
then burned in a thanksgiving ceremony, honoring the ruler of the Bloody Pond who has harmed
neither mother nor child.
As in other lands, in China too, illness and disease are thought to be caused by the evil spirits. If
anyone who has been in good health is suddenly
One
of the lower order of
with disease
demons
that
was thought
to
plague
man
Chinese Kuei
55
attacked by dizziness, pain in the eyes, or paralysis

of the hands or feet, the illness is ascribed to the
malignant power of one of 72 evil beings. Immediately steps must be taken to get rid of this diabolical influence. A table is put in the lightest part of
the sick man's room. On the table are arranged
three cups of wine, a censer, a pair of candlesticks,
a platter holding five kinds of fruit, and a quantity
of mock money which is made ready for burning.
A priest is hired to perform the necessary formulas,

and sometimes this holy man calls upon a certain
demon
him out
in the ceremony.
which he rings as he
chants, and he holds a bowl of water, which he
sprinkles on the sick person and on the various
articles ofi'ered up to the evil spirits. During the
recitation the incense and candles are burned, and
headless
The
to help
priest has a small bell
times the priest strikes the table with a

small wooden stick and burns some of the mock
money. At the end of the ceremony one paper
charm is hung up over the door of the room, another is put on the body of the sick person, and a
third is burned. The ashes, mixed with hot water,
are given to the patient to drink. If the priest has
at certain
successful in judging which charm and which

chant to use, the evil spirits will leave the body and
the patient will regain perfect health.
Sometimes when a person is very ill, in the grip
of the evil spirits, a more dramatic move is used to
been
56
make
the demons depart. This is called the ascending a ladder of knives. A special ladder for the
occasion is made with swords or long knives, edge
upward, attached as rungs to vertical poles. At a
given time in the ceremonies, a barefooted priest
climbs the knives to the top of the ladder where he
recites certain spells. On witnessing this, the demons are so frightened by the swords that they do
not dare approach the sick man. The gods are impressed at the daring of this heroic act, and are
persuaded to act favorably toward the sick person.
Thus
be effected.
One of the most spectacular and widespread ceremonies for ridding whole communities of disease
was the idol procession. This was held to mollify
the "five emperors or rulers" who controlled epidemics and diseases in general. Many temples
were dedicated to these idols and their many attendants, most prominent of whom were the "tall
white devil" and the "short black devil."
In the summer of 1858 cholera swept Foochow
and hundreds of people were dying. Sick men
were carried in their sedan chairs to the burying
places, along with their coffins and grave-clothes,
so swift and sure was the coming death. The people of the city gathered together and raised sums
of money for a procession of idols, the main features of which were the images of the five emperors, borne along in large sedans by eight bearers,
a cure can
Chinese Kuei
57
and images of the servants of the emperors the

white and black devils. These devils were made as
ugly as possible. The white devil was about eight to
ten feet high; its body was made with a bamboo
frame, covered with a light-colored silk, and bluish
cotton cloth. The white devil had a head, arms, and
hands, but no feet of its own. The feet of the man
inside the frame could be seen below the idol's
dress, and there was a hole in the front where the
man could see out, so that he would not stumble.
The short black devil was only about four or five
feet high, very fat, and very black. Its frame was
also made of bamboo, and it was carried along by
a man or boy inside of it. A hat with a hole in it was
placed on top of the idol so the person inside could
see out. These emperor and devil idols, followed
by all the townspeople, were paraded through
both the narrow and the main streets to the music
of beating gongs and drums. Day and night they
marched through all the neighborhoods, driving
the evil spirits from one place to the next, then
from there farther and farther to the outskirts of
the city, and finally out of the city itself. This idol
procession was completed at the beginning of August, with a ceremony of burning huge (twenty to
thirty feet long) paper boats on the banks of the
river Min. These boats came from the various temples for the five emperors. Before they were carried to the river they were consecrated by the
58
priests in special ceremonies, with the
burning of
incense and candles, the beating of gongs and

drums. Then at night the boats, made of bamboo
covered with multicolored papers, were carried by
men with torches through the streets to the river
bank. Now, as the boats arrived, all the black and
white devils ran around them. Then everyone
knelt down in a row by the boats to watch them
burn to ashes. This procedure assured that the five
emperors were willing to banish to sea all the diseases
and
evil influences.
Unfortunately the idol processions did not cure

the cholera at Foochow, but this failure did not
shake the faith of the people in the need for these
ceremonies. Perhaps the processions failed because the boats were too small, or because the people did not have enough money to pay the expenses of an ocean voyage for the evil spirits. The
citizens of Foochow gathered courage and more
funds and planned more idol processions to rid the
city of the demons of disease.
The Chinese feared the devils, demons, and evil
spirits, and they believed that if they used spells
and charms, they could keep these sinister influences away. For example, the color red had magical properties to
often
sewn
keep away
evil.
into the pockets of
Red
little
them from being mutilated by the
cloth
was
boys to keep
devils.
Red
silk
thread was braided into the quieus of the children,

to keep the quieus from being cut ofi'by the spirits.
Chinese Kuei
59
To the Chinese of this period, the quieu or long

ybraid of hair worn down the back was a protection
of the soul.
Charms on yellow paper were also very common. Some houses might have ten or more of them
on the front side, or under the eaves. The paper
could be any length, from a few inches to two feet
long. Generally on the paper was a picture of an
idol, printed or drawn with red or black ink. These
papers would be pasted over a door, pinned on a
bed curtain, worn in the hair, or put in a red bag
and hung from a buttonhole. Often the paper was
burned, the ashes were mixed with tea or hot water, and the mixture was drunk specifically to keep
away the evil spirits.
Ancient coins were often used as charms. They
were put on red string and worn on the body;
many young children wore them on their wrists
soon after birth. Newly married couples often
placed several sets of five coins of the five emperors under their bed.
A knife that had been used to kill a person could
be hung from the top of a bedroom door frame, or
from one of the bedroom windows, and the wicked

spirits would keep away.
Iron nails which had been used in sealing up a
cofiin were considered excellent for keeping away
the evil. These nails could be carried in a pocket or
braided into the quieu.
In China it is believed that peach
wood and
60
peach stones have miraculous powers to ward oflF

evil. Often ceremonial padlocks are made from the
kernels of the peach, and the mother puts one of
the padlocks on the feet of her children, in the
belief that thus the evil will be kept away and the
child will have a long life. Branches of the peach
tree are sometimes taken into the room of a sick
person and used to beat the bed, driving away the
devils who are afraid of the supernatural powers of
the peach.
Old fishnets are feared by the evil spirits who

believe they were used by the ancient priests to
catch the demons. Thus strips of these nets are
often worn by children around the waist as girdles,
or are hung over the doors of chair sedans used by
pregnant women.
To keep the demons away from an only son, a
silver lock called a "hundred-families'-cash-lock"
is
name from the way in which it was

man who wants such a lock collects money from various families. With the money
used.
It
gets
its
procured, for the
he buys
silver,
which
is
then fashioned into a padThe father does not
lock about two inches long.
to be poor to ask his friends for money; even

the rich do so, for the Chinese say that with the
contributions of many there is a force of security
behind the padlock. This lock is put on a silver
Xihain or ring around the young boy's neck and is
worn until he is sixteen years old, when it is then
have
Hell
Mouth and the Devil Chained, representing the belief that evil
could be warded oflF by various charms
spirits
62
offered in thanksgiving to
sold for something to be
aptly caUed mother.
the goddess of children,
Chmese hterally
For thousands of years, the
of charms, amuhave had hundreds and hundreds
evi
against devils, demons, and
lets, and spells
s
in the modern Peop^
spirits, and although
are not acceptable,

Republic of China such ways
the
villages and even
they still die hard. In the
demons.
their
still beheve in
cities some Chinese
6.
Demons on the Steppes
OF Asia
The
Tartars, or Tatars,
were Mongols who overran
Europe and Asia in the thirteenth century

and then settled in Northwest China and Siberia.
They believe as do their Chinese neighbors that
illness is caused by the demon tchutgour entering
the body. But among the Tartars, it is believed that
parts of
way
demon
medicinal.
appropriate
The lama (priest-physician) seeks the
cure for the illness, and since the Tartars do not use
minerals in their medicines, the cure will consist
the best
to exorcise the
is
63
64
of ground-up vegetables which have

been put into water or made up into little
pills. If the lama does not have the necessary medicine with him on a visit to a patient, he merely
writes the names of the remedies on little pieces of
paper, wets the papers with his saliva, and rolls
these up into little pills for the patient to swallow.
entirely
either
The
Tartars believe that the
name
of the
pill is as
good as the pill itself.

However, medicines are not enough to bring
about a cure. The lama must also exorcise the demon, and his methods of doing this depend upon
the wealth of the patient. A poor man gets no consideration at all; only a tchutgour very low on the
scale of demons would bother such a human being,
and thus could not cause too much trouble. For
these poor people there is no prayer or pill; the
lama merely tells the family to await cure or death.
The ill health of the moderately poor man is caused
by an inferior tchutgour, and for this demon only
a pill, and an oflFhand prayer are oflFered. However,
the lama knows that only a very powerful devil
would presume to visit a wealthy man. The tchutgour must be one of the chiefs of the lower world,
and many preparations must be made by the
family for this demon to depart. A handsome suit
of clothes, a pair of fine boots, and an excellent
horse, saddled and bridled and ready to ride, must
be made
available, for otherwise the
demon would
Demons on the Steppes of
Asia
65
never think of leaving. For very rich men one

horse is not enough, for a powerful demon surely
is attended by many lesser demons, all of whom
would need a horse.

The chief lama and a number of other lamas
from the monasteries nearby gather in the sick
man's tent and oflFer prayers, drink tea, and eat
week
sheep
for at least a
leave,
hoping that the
or ten days.
Then they
and that
cured. They are not dismayed if the
devil, too, has left
the patient is
patient dies, for then the lamas reason that the
prayers were so eflFective that not only did the
devil leave, but the patient has
gone on
to a better
world.
A western traveler saw one such Tartar exorcism

middle of the nineteenth century. While the
traveler was visiting a tribal chief named Tokoura,
in an encampment in the Valley of Dark Waters,
on the Russo-Chinese border, Tokoura's aunt was
stricken by an intermittent fever. Tokoura hesitated to call in the lama-doctor, for he feared that
if a very big tchutgour was present, the expenses
would ruin him. However, his aunt grew worse
with the passing days, and at last he called upon
the lama. It was as he had thought: the demon
present was said to be one of very high rank, and
in the
it
would require haste (and much expense)
him.
Eight other lamas
came
to expel
to the household.
Im-
66
mediately they began building, out of dried herbs,

a great puppet which they called the Demon of
Intermittent Fevers. When the figure was finished,
they put it on a stick in the sick woman's tent.
At eleven o'clock that night the lamas formed a
semicircle around one part of the tent, and the
family formed the other part of the circle, squatting on the ground close to one another. In the
center the patient crouched on her heels, opposite
the Demon of Intermittent Fevers, near a fire of
dung-fuel. Musicians played cymbals, bells, and
tambourines. When the lama gave a signal, the
musical instruments were played at the loudest
pitch, and the family clapped their hands in
rhythm with the music. Then the lama raised his
hand, everyone stopped, and there was total silence. The Grand Lama held a copper basin filled
with millet and some small images made of paste.
He put them down before him, opened the Book
of Exorcisms which was on his knees, and began to
chant. From time to time, he took a handful of
millet and threw it to the east, then the west, then
north and south. He chanted softly, then louder,
then softly again. Suddenly he stopped, and, feigning rage, he shouted and waved threateningly at
the herb puppet. Then quietly he stretched out his
arms, and the lamas began their noisy music again.
The family all ran out of the tent. One after the
other they ran around and around the outside of
Demons on the Steppes of
Asia
67
the tent, beating the tent with sticks, and yelling

at the top of their lungs. Three times they made
the circle around the tent, then they quietly filed
back in and resumed their places on the floor.
Everyone in the tent covered his eyes with his
hands, and the Grand Lama stood up and set fire
to the Demon of Intermittent Fevers. There were
loud cries, and the herb puppet was seized by
family members and taken out of the tent to a field
far away. There it was left to be consumed by the
flames. When the family returned to the tent the
lamas who had been chanting broke into joyous
chatter. Each person was now given a lighted
torch, and one by one they left the tent and formed
a procession outside. First came the laymen, then
the patient who was supported on each side by a
family member, and finally the nine lamas, playing
their instruments. The group marched to another
tent, where the lama had directed that Tokoura's
aunt would stay for a month. The demon was gone.
All
was
well.
7.
Demons
Long ago
in
Japan
Japan there existed a culture called

the Heian civilization, one of the brightest in Japanese history. The Heians presided over a period of
ascendance in the arts, at the same time that strong
emperors united the country. The civilization extended from the middle of the tenth century to the
middle of the eleventh, and it centered around
Heian, the capital of Japan at that time. Although
this was a very sophisticated court culture, it was
in
also a court in
which the nobles believed in goblins,
demons, and
spirits.
68
iim!i(\J,il][i]G
in;; v:
U^
A
Irro,
Japanese devil of the Heian civilization
70
Among the demons the
tengu were hideous redfaced creatures that lived in the hills and the forests; they could be recognized by the feather fans
that they carried. Other evil spirits lived and acted
like foxes who could turn into human beings at
will. Foxes were feared, for the fox demons had the
power to bewitch people.
One legendary demon, Rashomon, was famous
at the flowering of the court at Heian.
In the year 974, one person after another disappeared most mysteriously from the capital of Japan. The populace became alarmed, for people
knew a demon had been haunting the area of the
Rasho Gate at the southern end of the city. As the
disappearances continued, panic mounted among
the inhabitants until finally a brave man named
Watanabe no Tsuna declared that he would find
and get rid of the demon.
He stationed himself at night outside the Rasho
Gate, but he saw no strange creatures. One night,
however, as he was riding home from his vigil, he

saw a beautiful young girl wandering alone in the
rain. The maiden spoke to Tsuna, and after some
conversation she invited him to come home with
her. Tsuna remembered how she had waited by
the gate, and he remembered that the evil spirits
in foxes could turn into
human
beings.
He
hesi-
companion could be
other than what she seemed. However, the
tated, fearing this beautiful
Demons
in
Japan
71
maiden spoke reassuringly and told him that her

father was a fan-maker and other details of her life.
The more she spoke, the more Tsuna was beguiled
by her beauty and charm; he agreed to take her
home, and she mounted his horse behind him.
After they had ridden for some miles in comfortable silence, Tsuna turned around, and lo, what
should he see! The girl was in the very act of transforming herself into a horrible demon. As he
watched this transformation, he felt as though he
were being lifted into the air. Desperately trying
to free himself, he quickly drew out his famous
sword, higekiri, cut oflF one of the demon's arms,
and the evil creature shot into the sky to vanish
from sight.
When Tsuna came to his senses, he was lying on
the ground with the hateful arm beside him.
Shaken, he mounted his horse and rode home as
fast as he could. Carefully checking to see that no
one was about, he opened an old coflFer, put the
arm in it, and locked the box.
Tsuna became a hero in the capital. Everyone
knew of his vigil at the Rasho Gate, and that the
disappearances had stopped. Once again the city
was peaceful, and the people were sure that the
demon had been frightened away.
One day an old woman came to the city to visit
Tsuna, claiming to be his old nurse of many years
before. She amused him with familiar stories about
72
and soon Tsuna felt he had a true

he could unburden himself about
his horrifying experience. He worried lest he talk
too much, but the knowledge of the arm in the
coflFer weighed heavily on Tsuna, and finally he
his childhood,
friend to
spoke
whom
kind old nurse about it. The old

wanted to see the arm; he unlocked the
to this
woman
chest and lifted
up the
lid.
In a flash the
woman
beside him was gone; in her place stood the hideous demon of the Rasho Gate. The demon
snatched up the arm from the cofi'er; before Tsuna's eyes she disappeared up into the sky and was
never seen again.
The Heians and their successors in Japan knew

countless other demons invisible to humans. Many
had the power to cause misfortune; since no one
knew when they would strike, precautions were
taken to keep these evil
spirits away. Charms,

and incantations were popular to persuade
such demons to stay away from households. At spespells,
places such as sacred areas of the palace, extra

routine precautions were taken. The timekeepers
cial
who
patrolled the courtyard outside the emperor's
residence noted the time every half hour on a

board; then they strummed on their bowstrings to
warn the demons that they could do no harm in
the forthcoming half hour. In addition, a special
guard would announce the time, among loud
bong-bongs on a gong.
Demons
in
Japan
73
As with the early ancients of the Middle East, the

Japanese believed that illness was caused by evil
entering a human body. People spoke of
"catching an evil influence" rmono no ke'') just
as
today people speak of catching a cold. To become
spirits
free of disease, one had to drive out the

demons by
exorcism. The exorcist examined the striken
person to determine if he was possessed by demons.
If
the exorcist was convinced that the demon
was
there and
word was taken very seriously, for

most often the exorcists were members of the Buddhist clergy then he would recite spells
and inhis
cantations to persuade the
demon to leave and go

over into another person, who was the
official
"medium." If the transfer came to pass, the exorcist could eventually drive the evil
spirit out of the
medium, and both the patient and the medium
would be healthy again.
Japanese demons were much like those of other
peoples; that similarity across the globe
the fascinating aspects of demonology.
is
one of
8.
Demons and Djinn
OF India
One
of the notable
demons
was Mara, the

destroy the Gautama Budin India
Evil One, who tried to

dha, Prince Siddartha, the founder of the Buddhist
religion. Almost 2500 years ago, at Buddh Gaya,
Gautama sat in the shade of a spreading bo tree
and defied this evil demon. Thus he attained the
enlightenment he needed to go forth as Buddha to

the people. The legend of Buddha is well known,
but his defeat of demon Mara is not. Buddha came
down from the heavens to try to help the world,
74
Demons and Djinn of
India
75
and he was born on earth as the son of Mya, the

wife of the King of Kapelavastu. Here in his royal
home near the Himalayas, the young Prince grew
up a solemn thoughtful child; later visions that
showed his future came to him as he drove in his
chariot, and he decided to follow them, to renounce worldly afiFairs and seek in solitude the way
to a better life for mankind. Gautama set out from
his father's capital, but shortly the demon, Mara,
the Evil One, appeared in the sky and tried to
dissuade Gautama from completing his mission.
Gautama was determined. He moved on into the
hills where he studied for a time with hermits who
lived there in caves. With five disciples he went to
Buddh Gaya and began
six years'
penance,
sitting
cross-legged each day on the banks of the river

from dawn until dark. Summers and winters came
and went; the sun and the wind and the rain beat
upon the fasting Gautama. He became weak in
body, but not in spirit. Many evil beings surrounded him, day and night, trying to persuade
him to seek more earthly pleasures. Always he resisted. Finally
he realized that he was getting too
feeble to continue this course. Determinedly, he

bathed himself in the river, put on new clothes,
and took some food from a young girl in a nearby

village. His body became vigorous and beautiful
again, and he began a march, accompanied by
thousands of divine and semidivine beings, toward
76
the bo tree. Flowers rained down from heaven,

music filled the air, and finally Gautama reached
the tree and sat down on the grass to begin his
celebrated meditations.
The demon Mara had watched

had
also
seen
many
religious
and he
persons come to pay
all this,
homage to Gautama. Every day, every hour, every

moment, he became more furious, until finally he
made his presence known to Buddha. Suddenly,
the holy
man
ble flame, to
shot forth from his eyebrows a terriEvil One, that Buddha
warn Mara, the
would triumph in any struggle between them.

Mara was infuriated. He determined to challenge
Gautama to battle under the bo tree. He called in
hundreds of his lesser demons, all of them hideous,
some of them headless, and some with many heads.
These terrifying monsters, with poisonous serpents
tangled in their feet, swarmed around Gautama,
beating the air, spitting fire, with eyes blazing and
voices howling. Yet Gautama was undisturbed; the
demons' darts and arrows turned to flowers as they
touched him, and Gautama sat peacefully under
the bo tree.
Furious with this complacence, the demon Mara
decided on a new plan. He called for human maidens of overwhelming beauty; they came to
Gautama, made enticing gestures, and tried to divert him. But all their charms were useless;
Gautama remained steadfast. Mara decided to
Demons and Djinn of
India
77
make one last grandiose

tacked Gautama under
effort: he personally atthe bo tree with huge

superheated globes of fire, but even these were
powerless; Buddha only had to hold out one hand
to cast the globes harmlessly to the ground.
Gautama had triumphed. Mara, the demon, took
his hordes back to the underworld. The Buddha
had become enlightened and was now a true Buddha.
Another important demonic figure in India was
the demon Rakut Beij-Dana. He was to be responsible for a frightening system of murder, called
thuggee, which has been carried on down into
modern times and exists today.
Rakut Beij-Dana lived a very long time ago, and
no one knew when he was born or created. As he
grew to full size he became so huge that he could
stand at the very bottom of the ocean, and still his
body would rise high above the water. He was so
vicious a demon that all of India feared him. His
purpose was to destroy the whole human race. He

set out on this task, but the goddess Kali took pity
upon men and decided to save them from the evil
of Rakut Beij-Dana. Kali came and slashed the
dreaded demon in two with her mighty sword, but
alas, that did not destroy the creature, for from his
blood sprang up hundreds and hundreds more demons. The more the goddess Kali killed these demons, the more appeared. Finally, exhausted and
78
discouraged, Kali took a bead of the sweat which

ran down her arm and from this created two men.
For protection she gave them roomals (handkerchiefs) and told them to strangle the evil demons
with these, which they did. When the men had
strangled all the demons, they came to Kali to return the roomals. Kali, however, was so grateful
that she told them to keep these roomals and hand
them down from generation to generation so that
man would
always be protected from evil. Their

handkerchiefs to destroy all
men who were not of their own kind.
evil men
The two men went back to their homes and used
their roomals against strangers certain that these
were evildoers. These men became killers, but
they had the protection of Kali, who assured them
they would be safe and would always prosper if
they murdered strangers when the omens were
right, and with the proper ceremonies. Thus Kali
became the patron saint of the "thugs" who were
bound to murder outlanders unless they wanted to
suflFer the displeasure of their goddess.
From those early days, thuggee grew more formalized, and leaders changed its purpose; all types
sons
were
to use these
of men
from
all
segments of society became thugs,
carrying out cold-blooded premeditated assassinations for gain, under religious sanctions. The thugs
developed a secret language, secret signs, and secret plans. When a killing was to take place, the
Demons and Djinn of India
79
thugs would meet at a designated place along a

road and then, assuming various disguises, they
would fall in with the travelers to be murdered.
When a suitable opportunity came, the thugs
would suddenly set upon the innocent travelers.
They took everything of value they could find on
their victims, and then, using a "sacred" ax to dig,
buried the dead as fast as they could.
Accounts of British Indian government efl'orts to
capture the thugs began as early as the thirteenth
century, when over a thousand of these assassins
were seized, but it was really not until the early
part of the nineteenth century that the government made strenuous efforts to stamp out the system. With the capture of a handful of thugs who
had lost faith in the goddess Kali and turned King's
witness to save their
own
lives,
the government
secured its first really important information about

the secret rites, the superstitions, and the methods
of operation. Thus the British governors were able
to track down a sizable number of the thugs and
prosecute them.
One thug leader Durgga was captured and
accused of murdering a trader. Deciding he was
doomed, Durgga
told his story to the British.
when
He
group of thugs discovered that a certain important figure was to

travel to Oudh with an escort of 50 men, the assassins gathered together a group of 150 men and
told the judges that
his
The Temptation of
Dutch
painter,
St. Anthony, in which the fifteenth-century

Hieronymus Bosch, depicts the saint surrounded by
devils in the shape of grotesque monsters
Demons and Djinn of
India
81
waited for the trader to pass through a certain

jungle where there was a statue of Kali. One rule
of the thugs was that they could not engage in
armed combat. To be a proper sacrifice to Kali a
victim must be killed suddenly. The murderers
joined the travelers, and safe in numbers, accompanied them on their journey. Two thugs joined
with each traveler, and no one could have extended themselves more in conversation and helpfulness. After three days the travelers and thugs
were all fast friends. On the third evening when
they camped, the thug leader persuaded the whole
group to break camp two hours before dawn, ostensibly to avoid walking in the heat of the day. In
the fading darkness of early morning the leader
signaled his men; two thugs approached each victim. Silently, quickly,
innocent
one thug immobilized each
man by grabbing his legs while
the other
threw a lassoo around the unfortunate victim's
neck and strangled him. Each pair of thugs killed
in the same way. Then the whole group dragged
the bodies into a nearby riverbed and buried them.
Somehow one man escaped this fate, reported the
massacre to the authorities, and identified some
members of the gang, including the leader.
When the leader was apprehended he mourned
his situation, saying he was a "pearl taken: it will be
pierced and hung on a string, and it will float unhappily between heaven and earth." All he la-
82
merited, the murderer said, was that the goddess

Kali would punish him for not oflFering up to her
the number of bodies due her in his lifetime.
"Oh, black goddess!" he cried. *Thy promises
are never empty ones
thou who ceaselessly
drinkest the blood of demons and of mortal men!"
A twentieth-century traveler in India told how
one day a strange man came up to a holy man and
took a position at his feet, claiming that he had
come a thousand miles to this holy man to be a
.
disciple.
follower.
He was accepted and became a devoted

He had only one peculiarity: he wore a
green shade over his eyes, as though his eyes troubled him. One day in casual conversation the disciple asked the holy man if he knew who he, the
stranger, was. "No," said the guru.
"I
am
really a djinnee."
The holy man laughed, but one morning while

deep in prayer the noisy screeching of
overhead disturbed him, and he asked his
starlings
disciple,
the djinnee, to drive them away. To the guru's

surprise the djinnee stretched out his hand and
caught the birds, though they were far beyond the
reach of his hands. Showing oflF one day, the djinnee caught a young fox by merely putting out his
foot and placing it on the fox's neck.
The disciple continued to wear the green eyeshade, for it concealed the fact that he could not
wink, a trait of all djinn.
Demons and Djinn of India

The djinnee and
the holy
man were
83
constant
companions, and so the djinnee came
to
one of the many
pay homage.
visitors
who came
to
know well
Unfortunately, the djinnee had had a quarrel with

this particular visitor. Having no human
morals or
compassion, the djinnee walked through closed
doors into this man's household and strangled his
babies. Later the mother of the infants came to
the
holy man to tell the bitter, sad story. The guru said
she should take the case to the law courts. The
woman said this was impossible, for it was clearly
magic and not a matter for the judges.
The holy man was greatly distressed and threatened the djinnee with banishment. The spirit
promised better behavior. To show how sorry he

was for his misdeeds, he promised to give the father whatever he should desire. The father was not
mollified, but one day he was in sudden and great
need of four rupees and remembered the promise
of the djinnee. He held out a cloth, called to the
djinnee to keep his word, and there fell into his
cloth four rupees. After this success the father
his financial need to be great time and time
again, and called upon the djinnee, who kept his
found
word each
was going well until some prying member of the household discovered where
the money came from and bragged about it to
neighbors. The djinnee learned this and was furious that his trust had been betrayed; he killed two
time. All
84
of that family. The holy man,

equally furious now, told the djinnee to leave
more members
forever.
again.
The djinnee did
so
and never was seen
The Demon
OF THE Mandrake
9.
From
the earliest days of recorded history diflFerent peoples throughout the world have worshiped
or feared trees, believing that both good and evil
spirits dwell there. In British New Guinea certain
female devils are said to live in large trees, devils
so very dangerous to human beings that the trees
are never cut down lest the demons be loosed on
mankind. In Malaya, trees which have poisonous
sap are said to be the abodes of evil spirits, and
anyone who fells such a tree will die within a year.
85
86
The Chinese beUeve
that the spirits of plants often
take the form of other beings, so when a man cuts

a tree he is always careful, and fearful that
the tree spirit will rush out in the shape of a blue
bull to attack him. In Rotti, an island to the south
of Timor (southeast Indonesia), when a tree is cut
to make a cofiBn, a dog is sacrificed to the spirit that
down
lives in the tree.
The
Alfoors of Poso, in the central Celebes (In-
donesia), believe that certain trees are inhabited
by demons
trees,
in
human
but leave
form.
They do not
cut these
trunks in order to
people want to cut
oflFerings at their
placate the demons.
When
they call out to the demon in the tree,

asking him to leave and go elsewhere. Then they
put food under the tree for the demon's trip. Only
then do they dare fell the tree.
The Iroquois Indians in America believed that
each tree, plant, or herb had its own spirit. The
association of certain plants with demons and evil
spirits is as old as tree worship. One of the most
down a tree,
unusual mystical plants is the mandrake. It is dark

green, with fruit of a ruddy hue, but its most striking property is that the odd-shaped, long, forked
root has a marked resemblance to the human
body.
Through the years the mandrake has meant different things to difi'erent peoples. Some thought
that it would bring wealth and good luck. Some
Drawing of the mandrake female. The mandrake plant, which

human body, has always been associated with demons and evil spirits
resembles the
88
be a love stimulant and used it in love

potions. Sometimes, such as in ancient Rome, mandrake was used in surgical operations as an anesthetic. Modern man has found that mandrake does
indeed have medicinal qualities; although it is
poisonous and the berries are especially dangerous, a narcotic drug can be made from the root.
The mandrake is not found everywhere. It is
thought
it
to
native to the countries bordering the Mediter-
ranean Sea, and

Syria,
and
is
also
found in Mesopotamia,
Palestine, in Crete, Sicily, Spain,
and
northern Africa. In the tenth century it was

duced into England. Through the ages, in various
parts of the world, peoples believed and many
that a demon lives in each plant. In Swestill do
den, the root is considered the home of the demons; it is popularly known as "devil's food" or
intro-
"devil's candle,"
and
its
fruit
is
called "devil's ap-
ples." The Arabs, too, called the mandrake the "dev-
candle," for they noted its shining appearance

in the night, a brightness caused by glowworms
that usually covered the leaves. The Arabs also believed that the root was the home of an evil djinnee. When the plant was gathered, the demon
il's
would leave his abode just as the root was coming

from the ground and attack. Thus when digging
mandrake root the Arabs took along a dog, so that
as the mandrake root came above ground, the demon would pass into the dog and kill it immedi-
The Demon of the Mandrake

ately,
making
safe for the
it
89
person to touch the
root.
The idea that the plant was extremely dangerous

and could be removed from the ground only with
the aid of a dog is centuries old. In a manuscript
written in the fifth century A.D. an artist depicted
a dog writhing in agony as it was dying, having
mandrake root. The root was considered so fearful that if it were pulled out by a human
being, it would let out a horrible shriek in revenge
pulled out the
on the person who tried to drag it from the earth,

and thus the person would die from fright.
In 1121, an Anglo-Saxon poet wrote a description of the gathering of the mandrake, which conforms to the legends of the
The man who
is
to gather
it
past:
must
fly
round about
Must take care he does not touch it. Then let him
take a dog, bound. Let it be tied to it which has
been close shut up and has fasted three days and let
it be shown bread and called from afar
the dog
will draw it to him
the root will break it will
send forth a cry the dog will fall dead at the cry
which he will hear. Such virtue this herb has, that
no one can hear it but he must die and if the man
heard it he would directly die. Therefore, he must
stop his ears and take care that he hear not the cry,
lest he die as the dog will do which shall hear the
it.
cry.
10.
The Malay Birth Demon
Among
the most frightening demons of all places

and all times were the ancient birth demons of
Malaya, a country in Southeast Asia which is now
part of the Federation of Malaysia. These evil beings were called bajang, langsuir, pontianak, and
penanggalan, and their specialty was to attack
women and infants at childbirth. Some of these
demons took the shapes of animals. The bajang
appeared as a skunk and caused slight fevers and
convulsions in children. (It also made people quar-
90
thirteenth-century conception of the gathering of the
mandrake
with the aid of a dog
The bajang was male; his female equivalent

was the langsuir, which appeared as an owl, or
sometimes as a beautiful woman with a horrible
wound in the neck. This demon came from women
rel.)
92
who had
died in childbirth. If caught, a langsuir

could be tamed by cutting her nails and her long
hair, and stuffing the nails and hair into the hole in
her neck. The pontianak came from stillborn children and also took the form of an owl.
More horrifying to view was the penanggalan
which was a head without a body, with trailing
entrails. It flew about in the night and glowed in
the dark.
All of these demons needed blood from living
bodies, and when they caused a death, they incorporated part of the dead body into their own beings. Thus women or children who died in childbirth had to be treated carefully so that part of
them would not be taken over by the demons. To
prevent a dead
woman from becoming a
langsuir,
were put in the mouth of

the corpse, a hen's egg was put under each armpit,
and needles were placed in the palms of the hands
so that the poor victim could not open her mouth
to shriek or wave her arms as wings, or open or
number
of glass beads
shut her hands to help her in her
flight.
The penanggalan could be warded
ofi'
by
plac-
ing a barrier of thorns or bent nails about the

woman in childbirth, for this demon feared that its
trailing intestines might be caught on such a barrier.
11.
Demons of Bali
In the beautiful lush island of Bali in the East Indies

the Petanu River runs its course through a land of
mountains, volcanoes, lakes, and fertile valleys.

But not a drop of the river's water is used to irrigate the rice
The
accursed. If rice
were watered from Petanu the harvest would give
forth the blood of the mighty demon Maya
Danawa, wounded here in a battle with the gods.
fields.
Maya Danawa
is
river
is
real to the Balinese,
believe in a host of other
demons and
and they
devils
who
93
94
are constantly at war with the gods. The gods belong on high, in the mountains, with their lakes
and rivers;
evil
belongs below, to the sea where the
tenget, the evil spirits, lurk.
The legend of Maya Danawa relates the long

struggle between that demon and the gods, who
were once thoroughly vanquished by the evil spirit
and forced to drink from a spring which had been
poisoned by the demon. All the gods died but one,
who managed just in time to strike the ground and
bring forth a spring with which to revive the others. (This spring today is one of the holy springs of
Bali.) Restored to good health, the gods attacked
Maya Danawa again and wounded him, so that the
demon's blood flowed into the river Petanu, which
no longer could irrigate the rice fields.
The legend of Maya Danawa is hundreds of years

old, and tells of a time when this terrible demon
ruled over the land. He was a jealous demon who
did not want his subjects to give gifts to the gods.
In the inevitable conflict the gods rose up and defeated Maya Danawa in a terrible war in which
even the demon was killed. But Maya Danawa was
immortal, and he was able to live again, although
changed. The demon's
spirit migrated to a coconut

on the slopes of the great mountain Gunung Agung. Then, after the gods had blessed this
flower, twins arose from it, a boy and a girl. These
two married and had twins. The second generation
flower,
Demons of Bali
95
did the same. Finally there were seven generations

of royal twins who all became kings and queens.
The seventh-generation twin boy refused to marry
his ugly sister, choosing instead a girl dancer. This
break in the royal line brought turmoil. The
disobedient twin was gifted with magical powers:
he could have his head cut oflF, and he could pick
up and put it back on again. One fatal day when

he was practicing his magic, his head fell into the
river and was lost. To replace it the head was cut
from a pig and placed upon the king's shoulders.
No one seemed to notice the diflFerence, perhaps
because henceforth, the king lived in a high tower
and forbade his subjects to look upward. But a
small child saw him and spread the news about the
pigheaded king.
In a temple in Pedjeng, the home of Maya
Danawa, there is a great bronze drum which the
it
Here they bring oflFerings to

propitiate both the good and the evil, for they consider their world to be in harmony when these two
Balinese revere.
contending factors are in proper balance. Good,

which comes from the gods, brings health, cleanliness, luck, and fertility; evil beings bring ill health,
misfortune, and disharmony. The demons include
the harmless rakshasas, who are giants and ghuls,
and kalas and butas, huge, sometimes amorphous,
terrifying creatures; they haunt the low places
the seashore, the dark forests, cemeteries, and
One
of the
demon
faces
on the Pedjeng temple drum
in
Bah
Demons of Bali
crossroads.
creatures
97
The only aim of these vile, fearsome

is to make human beings miserable.
They cause illness and pollute everything they

touch. They can even go into people's bodies and
turn them into idiots.
To keep the gods happy, the Balinese oflFer
tempting gifts on beautiful altars; they give money,
chicken, fruitcakes, flowers, pigs, rice, and cakes.
For the devils, however, it is diff'erent: the people
ofi'er them only the foulest half-decayed food.
Where the common populace can eat or take
home leftovers of the ofiêrings to the gods, the
remnants given to the devils are eaten only by wild
animals and dogs.

So as not to displease the demons too much, however, certain days are set aside for special pleasant
ofi'erings. Trays of flowers, food, and money are set
out for them. The Balinese try to avoid angering
the butas, for when aroused these demons can
cause sickness, failing crops, and many other disasters to the people.
Once a year the Balinese celebrate at a festival
which purifies the whole island of Bali and cleanses
it from all evil spirits. This fete, the Nyepi, comes
in the spring, when the rains have quit pouring
from the skies, and when the Lord of Hell has
chased the devils from Hades, down to Bali. Nyepi
is a riotous, exciting time. During the morning of
the first day, the Balinese hold cockfights accom-
98
panied by gambling, for they believe that the land

is purified if blood is spilled. The cockfights are
raucous, tense afi'airs, with the winners taking all.
Having fought to the death, the poor cocks are
taken home to be cooked and eaten.
Before sunset the devils have to be lured to the
ofi'erings and then cast out by the priests of the
village. Tall altars are filled with offerings, one of
which is dedicated to the kalas, the evil gods. The
gifts are stacked in the center: samples of all the
seeds and fruits that grow on the island nestled in
banana leaves; pieces of flesh from every type of
domestic and wild animal; all kinds of food and
strong drink. These are carefully arranged in the
shape of a star, and certain magic colors a white
goose, a black goat, a yellow calf, a red dog are
placed at the points of the star. Colored rice and

chickens with five-colored feathers are carefully
arranged in patterns.
Opposite the ofi'erings the priests chant prayers
and ring bells to get rid of the devils who are attracted to the ofi'ering. Drums hollowed from tree
trunks beat out the rhythm; firecrackers explode
everywhere; the people mill about, their faces and

bodies painted. Carrying torches, they parade and
beat drums and tin cans and anything that will
clatter,'all the time shouting, ''Megedi! Megedi!"
(''Get out! Get out!") They do everything possible
to scare away the butas, until long past midnight.
J/
A Balinese demon or
become
ill
and crops
buta who,
to fail
when
aroused, will cause people to
100
The next
day, exhausted, but exalted at having

cleansed the island of the devils, all Balinese observe a day of silence. They go back to the serenity
who now
are again supreme over the

But the people are ever watchful, for
the butas and kalas and all the myriad other demons and devils are sure to return, little by little.
of their gods
island of Bali.
12.
Some Tales of Summoning
OR Exorcising Demons
For centuries men have summoned the spirits,

whether afreet's, djinn, or the devils of many lands.
Men have also tried to drive outexorcise all the

demons and
devils. In Assyria
and Babylonia, over
2000 years before the birth of Christ, the ancients

had devised systems and rituals for expelling the
evil.
The ashakku, the demons who caused
all
kinds of disease, for example, could be driven out
by two methods
but both had to be used.

101
102
was an appeal to the gods and goddesses (who had the power to make the demons
leave); second, there was the performance of certain magical rites, which would drive the demon
First there
out of a person's body,
The
mands
if
the gods willed
it.
exorcist appealed to the gods in his

for the
demon
com-
to depart:
Away, away, far away, far away.

Be ashamed, be ashamed! Fly, fly away!
Turn about, go away, far away.
May your evil like the smoke mount to heaven!
Out of my body away,
By Ea, the lord of the universe, be ye forsworn,
.
By the
fire-god,
who consumes you be
ye
forsworn.
From my body be ye
restrained!
The plea to the gods was accompanied by rites

involving water and fire. One method was to sprinbody of the victim with water taken from
the sacred Euphrates or the Tigris or from ground
springs. As the body was sprinkled the priest
chanted:
kle the
With pure, clear water,

With bright, shining water,
Seven times and again seven times.
Sprinkle, purify, cleanse!
103
May the evil Rabisyu depart!

May he step to one side!
.
demon was made of

bronze and put on a Uttle
boat, which was set afloat in water, with the plea
that as the image went, so might the evil spirit
depart. The boat was then capsized, and the image
sank or was thrown into the water.
The second element used in rituals to exorcise
the demon was fire. The priests made an image of
the demon and threw it into the fire, exhorting:
In other cases an image of a
pitch, clay, dough, or
images I burn,
The images of the Utukku, Shedu, Rabisu,
I
raise the torch, their
Etimmu
Of Labartu, Labasu, Akhkhazu,
Of Lilu, Lilit and maid of Lilu,
And all evil that seizes men.
Tremble, melt and dissolve,
Your smoke rise to heaven.
Your limbs may the sun-god destroy.
When
it was not considered necessary to make

images, palm cones, seeds, bits of wool, and dates
were thrown into the fire to the accompaniment of
a special
magic chant:
As the onion
peeled and thrown into the

Consumed in the flaming fire.
In a garden will never again be planted.
is
fire,
104
In furrow and ditch will never be imbedded,

Its
root will never again stick in the ground.
Its stalk
never grow, never see the
light of the
sun.
Will never
So
may
come on
the table of a god or king.
the curse, ban, pain and torture.
Sickness, aches, misdeed, sin,
wrong
transgression.
The
sickness in
my
body, in
my
flesh, in
my
muscles,
Be peeled
as this onion,
This day be burned in the flaming
May
the ban be removed,
The people
may
fire
see the light!
of these ancient lands
knew many
medicines and treatments for disease, but these

properties
mons
were directed
at driving out the de-
that caused the sickness. They made proper

medicinal use of herbs (along with religious and
magical incantations), but they did not believe the
herbs alone aflFected a cure; rather, they thought
that their demons did not like the smell or taste of
those particular herbs and thus left the body. If a
remedy for stomach trouble caused vomiting
that was how the demon escaped the body.
All kinds of noxious substances were given for
illness
rotten food, fat, earth, crushed bones,
urine, excrement of animals and human beings.
These vile potions were supposed to distress the
105
demons so that they would fly out of the bodies into

more pleasant surroundings.
Sometimes sweet, good substances were given
the patient, to appease the demons and coax them
Thus
to leave.
and milk were often

The exorcistpriest would rub a victim
with oil, at the same time chanting a special foroil,
butter,
used.
mula:
Pure oil, shining oil, brilliant oil.

which makes the god shine,
Oil which mollifies the muscles of man.
Oil
The
oil
of Ea's incantation
pour over thee; with the healing oil,

Granted by Ea for easing [pain] I rub thee;
I
Oil of
life I
give thee;
Through the incantation
of Ea, the lord of
Eridu,
I
will drive the sickness

aflflicted
with which thou art
out of thee.
These ancients used amulets to ward oflF the demons and persuade them to leave. The most common amulets in Babylonia and Assyria were stones
which were given magical powers. These were
strung on white, black, or red lengths of wool, tied
together, and hung about the neck, or fastened
around the hands, feet, or head.
By the time of King Solomon a whole litany of
incantations and suppHcations had been devel-
106
But King
Solomon's mastery of such magic captured the
imagination of the people so that tales of his control of the demons of the Infernal Regions and of
the elements became legendary for hundreds of
years after his death, especially during the Middle
Ages. His methods and his exploits were studied
throughout Europe. They became part of the folklore of China and were well known in India and in
the Arab-speaking lands. (The Koran tells that the
djinn worked under Solomon's supervision.)
oped throughout the
civilized world.
Solomon became known as the first lord of the

occult both in the Orient and in the West. Old men
told tales about his seal and lamp, and his magic
cauldron, and about how his throne was guarded
by sculptured lions that could shriek and howl.
They said he owned a magic carpet that could
transport huge armies through the air. They believed he knew the language of birds and beasts,
that he was master of the demons whom he subdued with his magic ring, and that he could seal
demons in urns, and bury them in the ground.
Solomon had subdued the djinn so that they
dined with him each day, seated at iron tables. But
even Solomon was wary and always drank out of
crystal cups so he could watch the demons even as
he drank. (If his view was obscured for a moment
the demons stuck out their tongues at him in
scorn.) These djinn, ordered by Solomon and work-
107
ing under the chief demon Asmodeus, built the

great temple at Jerusalem. Asmodeus brought Sha-
worm, to Solomon, and through the use

worm, which was no bigger than a barley
grain (and had been created in the twilight of the
Friday in the week of Creation), the temple was
mir, a tiny
of this
without the use of tools.

King Solomon's celebrated magic carpet was
sixty miles long and sixty miles wide. It was made
of green silk, interwoven with gold, and heavy
with rich and intricate designs. An entire army was
carried aloft on it, along with slaves and stables for
horses and camels. At the command of the King,
the carpet appeared at the city gates; Solomon
alighted, and the wind raised the carpet and carried it along to wherever King Solomon wanted to
go. Thousands of birds flew over the carpet to probuilt
King from the sun.

Tales of King Solomon's relationship with the
demons came down in the grimoires (magic manutect the
which were purported to be the testaments of

Solomon. These writings of magical lore explained
how Solomon controlled the demons, and his Key
of Solomon became the source book for all medieval magic. It was used by sorcerers and, as recently as the seventeenth century, by scholars and
als)
physicians, too.
The grimoire, for example, told of the "great

invocation of the spirits with whom you wish to
108
make a Pact," which threatened, cajoled, and commanded the demons:

Obey promptly, or you will be tortured eternally. ... So come forth instanter! Or I shall torture
.
you endlessly by the force of these powerful words

of the Key: Agion, Telagram, vacheon stimulamaton y ezpares retragrammaton oryoram irion esytion existion eryona onera brasim moym messias
soter Emanuel Saboot Adonai, te adoro et invoco.
To banish a demon attempting to extract human

hearts, King Solomon used the following incantation:
Lofaham,
Solomon,
lyouel,
lyosenaoui.
Many
other grimoires were written through the

is a record of the incantations to
invoke demons and to send them away.
The Greeks called the demons thus:
ages, so there
invoke you, holy ones, mighty, majestic, glorious
and earth-born, mighty archdeguardians of secrets, captains of the hosts
luminaries, holy
mons:
of hell
omnipotent, holy, invincible, perform
my commands.
Mystic figures from the

book of magical lore
title
page of the Grimoire of Honorius, a
no
The ancient Hebrews used
demon
these lines to have a
shrink away:
Shabriri
Briri
Riri
Iri
Ri
ancient times until the present, summoning the devil was an integral part of witchcraft.
Witches were common early in the Christian era,
From
but the height of the persecution and punishment

of witches in Europe was not reached until the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the furor
lasted until the seventeenth century. In proving
witchcraft at the thousands of trials held then, the
authorities always looked for signs of the pact with
the devil, a necessary part of being a witch. As far
back as the grimoire of King Solomon, there were
directions for making the pact with demons:
When you want

principal
to
demons
make your
.
pact with one of the

you will begin, on the evening
before the pact, by cutting, with a
new
knife that
has never been used, a wild nut-tree twig that has
never borne fruit and that is like the thundering

rod ... at the exact moment that the sun appears
on our horizon.
This being done, you will fortify yourself with a
This sixteenth-century ItaHan illustration shows the devil carrying

oflF a witch to help him in his evil enterprises
blood stone and consecrated candles, and you will
then choose a spot for the operation where nobody

can disturb you. You may even make the pact in a
secluded chamber or in a hut of some old ruined
castle, because the demon has the power of transporting whatever treasure he pleases to that spot.
After which, you will trace a triangle with your
blood stone, and that only the first time that you
make your
on the
pact.
Then you
side, placing
will set the
two candles
name
of Jesus be-
the sacred
hind, to prevent the
spirits
from
inflicting
any
harm on you.
Then you will stand in the middle of the triangle,
with the mystic wand in your hand, with the great
112
invocation to the demon,
the request that you
want to make, with the pact and the dismissal of

the demon.
Having performed scrupulously all that is indicated, you will begin to recite the
invoca.
tion.
Demons were very real to the peoples of all ages,

including those times closely associated with Christianity. A popular story during the Middle Ages
shows how deeply even the devout were convinced of demonic reality. One saint, in all seriousness, was called upon to expel a devil from the
interior of a nun. She had inadvertently swallowed
the devil while eating her salad, for who could
know the demon would be resting on

leaf? The devil, when questioned about
a lettuce
his inges-
complained churHshly. "What

have done?" he asked. "I was sitting on the
and she ate me."
tion into the nun,
could
leaf,
The
early Christian Fathers described in detail
devils who appeared in human form, and as Rons,

leopards, bulls, bears, horses, wolves, snakes, and
scorpions. Their grimoires described each devil's
appearance, so that a magician would know when

the one right for a specific purpose appeared.
There was some confusion of course, because not
all the authorities agreed. This has always been so
in history the magician or exorcist had to make
and follow
his choices.
In medieval demonology, demons were frequently represented as

animals or as part human, part animal creatures
During the Middle Ages, people in various counfound literally hundreds of methods for summoning the devil. The devils were almost always
summoned for specific purposes, among the most
popular of which was the finding of treasure. Some
devils were irascible by nature, but they could be
cooperative, given their price. For curiosity-seekers, however, they were reputed to be deadly.
Here is one recipe (from the grimoire Red
Dragon) for summoning the devil:
tries
114
Take
a black
hen and
seize
not emit a sound. Carry
by the throat
so
to a crossroads
it
can
and at
draw a
[when the clock strikes]

on the ground with a rod of cypress. [The
cypress is an emblem of death.] Stand in the circle
you have made, and willing your magical powers to
work to the utmost, tear the live bird in two with
your hands, at the same time saying, Euphas Meta-
exactly midnight
^.
it
it
circle
Then turn to the east,

to come to you, and he will
him, frugativi et apellavi.
and command the devil

come.
The
sorcerers
in
Greek and Roman times
chanted a strange rhythm, the sounds going up

and down like the howling of a hungry wolf. The
magicians spoke strange words, now roaring them,
now recessing them, but never speaking flatly
always with that same definite rhythm.
In the Grimoire of Pope Honorius (falsely attributed to either Pope Honorius II, in the twelfth
century, or Pope Honorius III, in the thirteenth
century, but authored in the fourteenth century
by a master of black magic named Honorius) there
is an evocation for a recalcitrant demo n:
^
you do not obey promptly and without tarrying, I will shortly increase your torments for a thousand years in hell. I constrain you therefore to appear here in comely human shape, by the Most
High Names of God, Hain, Lon, Hilay, Sabaoth,
If
Some Tales -OF -Summoning
115
Helim, Radisha, Ledieha, Adonay, Jehova, Yah,
Tetragrammaton, Sadai, Messias, Agios, Ischyros,

Emmanuel, Agla, Jesus Who is Alpha and Omega,
the Beginning and the End, that you be justly established in the fire, having no power to reside,
habit or abide in this place henceforth; and I require your doom by the virtue of the said names,
to wit, that St. Michael drive you to the uttermost
of the infernal abyss, in the
Name
of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. So be
it.
one had trouble conjuring up a demon, there^

were solutions to the problem. A manuscript in the
If
British
Museum gives a conjuration for compelling

demon to appear. First, build a fire of
an obstinate
brimstone, dried manure, and any other stinking

material; then write the demon's name on clean
parchment and burn it in the fire, while praying to
God to curse the disobedient demon. The magician must turn to the powers of hell and speak
forcefully:
Oh, thou most puissant prince Rhadamanthus,

which dost punish in thy prison of perpetual perplexity the disobedient devils of hell, and also the
men
dying in dreadful despair, I

conjure, bind and charge thee by Lucifer, Belsabub, Santhanas, Jauconill and by their power,
grisly ghosts of
and by the homage thou owest unto them, and also

I charge thee by the triple crown of Cerberus his
116
head, by Stix and Phlegiton, by your fellow and

private devil Baranter, that you do torment and
punish
this
disobedient N. until you
make him
my sight and obey my will and
come corporally to
commandments in whatsoever I shall charge
command him to do fiat. fiat. fiat. Amen.
or
Greek mythology Rhadamanthus was one of

the judges of the lower regions. Cerberus was the
three-headed dog which guarded the gate of
Hades (hell). The underworld's main river was the
Styx, which flowed around it seven times. Phlegethon was another lower region river, but it was
made of flames instead of water. Fiat and amen
meant "let it be so."
In
In a celebrated court case in fifteenth-century
England, a jury was called to decide a case in

which two men were charged with summoning an
evil spirit and promising to sacrifice a Christian to
demon
if it led them to buried treasure. The

did as instructed, and the men found the
treasure more than 100 shillings; but they were
this
spirit
unwilling to keep their bargain with the devil, and

they cheated. They took a cock, baptized it with a
Christian name, and then burned the bird as an
oflFering to the devil. The case did not record what
punishment the devil wrought upon the men, but
they were tried and convicted by their peers.
similar case occurred in 1841,
when
treasure-
117
hunters in Italy murdered a boy and sacrificed him

to a demon who had promised to find buried treasure for them. As recently as 1865 in England, the
Manchester police came across a very practical incantation to the devil, when searching the house of
John Rhodes, a known astrologer and magician
who was also suspected by the authorities of telling

^^
fortunes.
/
I adjure and command you, yet strong,

mighty
and most powerful spirits who are rulers of this day
and hour, that ye obey me in this my cause of
placing
my
husband
former situation under

I adjure you to
^banish all his enemies out of his way, and to make
them crouch in humiliation unto him and acknowl(edge all the wrongs they have done unto him, and
T bind you by the Name of Almighty God, and by
our Lord Jesus Christ and by His Precious Blood,
and on pain of everlasting damnation, that your
the Trent Brewery
labour for
in his
Company, and
him and complete and accomplish the
my will and desire, and not depart

whole of this my will and desire be
fulfilled, and when you have accomplished the
whole of these my commands you shall be released
from all these bonds and demands, and this I guarantee through the Blood of the Redeemer and on
pain of my future happiness. Let all Angels praise
whole of
this
until the
Lord.
Amen.
118
The Magistrate, Mr.
TaflFord, sent John
Rhodes
to
prison for seven days.
A demon
or devil could act in
two ways
first,
through the commands of the sorcerer or witch

who had pledged himself (or herself) to him with
a pact; second, as an independent creature who
desired to cause disease, death, and harm, or who
decided to invade a human body. What is called
demoniac possession was the result in either case.

Hundreds of cases of demoniac possession were
reported during the height of the antiwitchcraft
persecutions in Europe and New England. One of
the earliest cases of possession in a convent occurred in France in 1491, among the Augustinian
nuns at Quesnoy-le-comte, near Cambrai. One
young nun, Jeanne Potier, a gentle, quiet girl, was
suddenly overtaken by a great passion for the
confessor, who was understandably upset by the
new situation. He withdrew in confusion,

and an elderly priest took over for him. But things
grew worse. Jeanne Potier began to rave wildly, to
shriek blasphemies and obscenities, to sing bawdy
songs, which she could not have learned in her
secluded life. When anyone sought to restrain her,
she showed tremendous strength in resisting. Soon
other nuns became similarly afflicted, and there
was panic and pandemonium in the cloister. Obviously, said the learned fathers, the nuns were possessed by demons. Someone discovered that the
demons afflicting the nuns were Tahu, Gron, and
strange

Gorgias.
Monks and
119
came from all over the

countryside to try to exorcise these demons, but to
no avail. The rantings and ravings and bawdy songs
echoed through the halls until finally the Bishop of
friars
Cambrai, Monsignor Henry de Bughes, was called,

and he came to the convent amid much pomp and
ceremony. On the second Sunday after Easter he
assisted at High Mass and blessed the whole cloister. Then he sought out the possessed
nuns and
exorcised them with prayer and exhortation, and
managed to rid all the nuns of demons except Sister Jeanne Potier, whom he directed to be kept
in
strict seclusion until she too showed signs of
recovery. Order, at last, was restored to the convent.
In New England, a strange case occurred at Groton in 1671, when a young girl, Elizabeth Knap,
began acting very peculiarly. Sometimes she wept,
sometimes she laughed, sometimes she even

made violent motions, and her body
writhed as she called out "Money, money." That
was in October. One day in November her tongue
roared. She
got stuck to the roof of her mouth in a semicircle,

and no one could bring it down. They took her to
doctors. It was no help. Disheveled, she skipped
about the house yeUing like a wild girl. In December the demon in her began to speak up. Although
she did not move her lips, the words could be
heard: the demon was speaking, ranting against

the good pastor and shouting blasphemies against
the Church. Then Elizabeth was speechless for a
Demoniacal attack of hystero-epiliptic fit, showing classic symptoms

of contortion, tearing of the garments, lacerating the body, and
extending the tongue

while, but the
121
came
again, only this time the

declared that one of her neighbors was the
cause of her behavior. No one could believe it, for
this neighbor was a very holy and good woman,
who often came to visit Elizabeth and prayed for
her in her affliction. After this outburst Elizabeth
suddenly had a turn for the better and told her
confessor that Satan had tricked her into accusing
her good neighbor. The neighbor was absolved,
and the priest prayed over Elizabeth. With this,
the torments of the devil ceased, and the girl
resumed her normal behavior.
fits
girl
Missionaries in China in the nineteenth century

reported many cases of demon possession. One
such case occurred in the village of Sa-wo in June,
1882. In this village lived a family of the clan of
Chu, who had two sons, Wen-heng and Wen-fa.

The father arranged with the family Li that Wen-fa
would marry one of their daughters, and he
brought the girl into the Chu household to Hve.
But the future mother-in-law Chu treated the Li
girl shamefully, and the Li girl grew so unhappy
that after a few weeks she drowned herself. The Li
family was ashamed, and little was heard of them
for a long time. Then another wife was secured for
Wen-fa some years later, from a family named
Yang. But this time the young woman remained in
her own household until time for the marriage.
A few days before the marriage this girl became
122
wondered if her illness was

They soon found out. On
the night after the wedding ceremony when the
guests had left and the happy couple were taken to
sick,
and the
families
caused by an evil
spirit.
their quarters to drink wine together, as was the

custom, the bride was seized by a fit of rage. In the
voice of the dead Li girl, she began to berate Wenfa. Then in a fury she seized him by the throat,
shouting, "You never treated me in this fashion;

you never gave me wine to drink. My life in this
family was very wretched."
The new husband cried out for help; the family
came running to his assistance and quieted the
new wife. After a few days' rest she seemed to
recover.
Shortly afterward, however, the wife of the
elder brother, Wen-heng, was similarly afi'ected

and also assumed the voice of the dead girl. Wen-
heng,
who was
a Christian,
was distraught.
He
to another Christian, Chu wen yuen, and

asked him to come and cast out the demon in the
name of Christ. Chu wen yuen agreed, and in the
went
middle of one afternoon, accompanied by a number of other Christians, he went to the house
where he was greeted by a large crowd. News of
the strange occurrences had spread through the
village.
Chu wen yuen met with the women of the

family and began to address the devil: "You have
123
no right to come here to trouble this family, and

we have come here to insist on your leaving."
The
devil replied: "I will leave,
will leave."
But it did not. So the Christians knelt down and

prayed for God's help, and when they arose both
women were well and normal. The Christians then
went away.
Suddenly that same day, Wen-heng came running into the room to announce that Wen-fa was
now possessed by the demon and had lost consciousness. This posed a difficult problem, for Wenfa was not a Christian, and the friends of Chu wen
yuen had departed. However, he had promised he
would come back later if necessary, and Wen-fa
did need help.
So Chu wen yuen returned to the house that

evening. Again a great crowd surrounded the
house, and the people questioned the devil, who
stated that he was a friend of Wen-fa and had come
to visit him.
"Where do you come from?" they asked the
devil.
"My home
southwest of here."
The people continued: "It seems that you are a
friend of Wen-fa. How do you like these Christians? Are they your friends, too?"
"No," the devil answered, "they are far from
being my friends."
is
124
Wen-fa's mother then asked: "Why do you not

take possession of me instead of Wen-fa?"
The devil replied: "Oh, everyone has his afiBnities and preferences; we do as we please."
On entering the house Chu wen yuen found that
Wen-fa was truly possessed, rolling and tossing

about on his bed, and, worse, the two women were
again possessed. Now came a long prayer session,
and when the three arose, they were normal again
and had absolutely no recollection of
their actions
while possessed.
The next day when Wen-fa went to the village
square, he again fell unconscious, and his friends
feared he was dead. They ran to get guns and
swords (Chinese demons hate and fear swords) and
shouted and waved the weapons about to frighten
the demon away. Fearing that Wen-fa would die,
his friends dragged him to the chapel in the village. Again he fell down, but this time, in the
chapel. Wen-fa arose, perfectly himself again, and
asked what had happened.
After this Wen-fa remained well and healthy,
and all the villagers, including Wen-fa, acknowledged the power of Christianity to cast out evil
spirits.
Demons not only have
the power to possess people, but they can also persecute them. One such
case that received wide attention occurred in the
seventeenth century in France, concerning S. Jean

Baptiste
125
Vianney, an honored and holy cure
(priest).
Father Jean Baptiste was preparing to retire for

the night around nine o'clock when he heard three
loud knocks on the door of the house, as though
someone was beating on it with a club. He opened
the window.
"Who is there?" he called.

No answer came, and in the moonlight
the snow
had fallen, not a footprint to be
seen. The cure went to bed, but then heard noises
on the staircase that led to his room. His first
thought was that a burglar was trying to steal some
was
as
pure
as
of the church's
it
new vestments
or the rich gilded
more happened, and the

frightened priest went to sleep. However, on following nights he took the precaution of having the
village blacksmith come and sleep in the room adjoining his own. The village blacksmith was a
strong man, and for their protection he brought a
gun with him. At midnight on the first night of the
blacksmith's stay suddenly all the furniture flew
about the room, there was the sound of crashing
candlesticks, but nothing
and wailing, and the blacksmith felt sure the whole

building would tumble. He and the priest lit the
rooms and searched, but they found nothing.
The
devilish noises continued night after night.

chairs were pulled across the bare
Sometimes
floorboards,
and the dishes
in the kitchen
thrown
126
about. At other times the sounds were apparently

those of a carpenter: sawing, hammering, planing
of boards. By now S. Jean Baptiste was convinced
that the devil was persecuting him, and he gave
the devil a name: Grappin. He prayed, and said
nothing about his troubles. Yet soon the village

people were gossiping, especially after the night
the curtains of the priest's canopy bed burst into
flame when no candle or fire had been near them.
A few months later the time came for a meeting
of local clergymen held regularly at the parish;
they had heard of the "hauntings" of the demon,
and teased the cure about them, pointing out that
they were in reality just the result of "hallucinations, dreamings, and delusions." The other clergymen laughed and chided the priest for believing in
Grappin. 'The presbytery [priest's house] is nothing but an old barn without order or arrangement.
The doors slam, the boards creak, the rats hold
high carnival there, for they play their pranks
night and day and you think you are persecuted by
the devil."
"Come, dear friend," they urged him, "behave
like other people, eat more and all this Satanic
phantasmagoria will stop soon enough."
After dinner all the priests went to bed; then
came midnight. As the clock struck twelve, enormous noises shook the house. Windows rattled,
shutters flew back, doors opened, the walls trembled, and footsteps sounded up and down the stair-

case. All of the
doubting
visitor-priests
were
127
fright-
ened. They dressed hastily and ran from their

rooms. Father Jean Baptiste was calm. He assured
his friends that the occurrence was nothing
more
than usual the demon Grappin. From that time
forth, the clergymen did not jest about persecution
by the devil.
The good cure was plagued during
the next
by these noisy activities, but never

again was he doubted about the visitations of the
demon. He endured them stoically as a penance
levied by God for his sins, without complaint or
thirty years
fear. Finally,
the torments ended and he was at

peace with himself. Six months later Father Jean
Baptiste died, a happy man.
Across the Atlantic Ocean at this time, the

colony in Massachusetts knew about many cases of
evil spirits infesting houses. One of the
most
flagrant attacks by the demons occurred in the
house of William Morse of Newberry in 1679. William Morse kept a diary of the strange happenings.
On December 3, during the night he and his wife
heard a sound like the beating of sticks and throwing of stones on the roof of the house. Morse got
out
of bed, but could find nothing. A short time later,
at midnight, the Morses heard a hog grunting
and
squealing. This time when Morse got up he actually saw a hog in the house. No door was
open, and
when he opened the front door the hog ran out.
In days following, the Morses encountered the
128
bizarre time and again. Bedsteads rose from the

floor; a long staS* danced around the room; chairs
flew about. When the family sat down to supper,

ashes from the hearth blew into their food
thrown by demons, they said. A three-pound stone

landed on William Morse's stomach while he was
in bed. On January 26, as Morse was writing, his
inkhorn was snatched away from the table and
dropped out of the air down by the fire. Ashes blew
up in his face and on his clothes; he was hit on the

head with a shoe. In bed the next night he was
pulled by the hair of his head and by his beard.
Another night Morse and his wife both felt something pricking their shins and found that someone
had put knitting needles and sharp-pointed sticks
in their bed. When Mrs. Morse went to milk the
cow, something struck her on the head; at that
moment an iron hammer flew up at Morse and hit
him on the back. A grandson who was staying with
them was thrown about the room and on three
difi'erent occasions was thrown into the fire; he was
pricked by knives and forks and was struck dumb
for awhile. Soon the boy could only make noises
like a dog and a hen. The grandson went from bad
to worse. He began to roar, and he ate ashes, sticks,
and wood.
During all this time of persecution the devil did
not appear to the Morses in any visible shape;
sometimes the Morses thought they had him as
129
they struck out, but the devil pulled away. The

did not speak, but one night the Morses
heard a scraping on the floor and then a drumming, followed by a voice, singing, "Revenge! Revenge! Sweet is Revenge!" The frightened Morses
called upon God and prayed. Then, suddenly they
heard the words: "Alas! me knock no more! me
knock no more!" These phrases were repeated six
times, and therewith the devil departed. Peace
returned to the household, and the family was free
again from persecution.
demon
The Nature of Demons

AND Witchcraft
13.
One of the greatest experts on demons was Nicolas

Remy, who,
Duke
as
Privy Councillor to the French
of Lorraine in the sixteenth century,
exam-
ined every case and trial for sorcery in the duchy.

He was called the "scourge of witches," an apt
epithet, for over nine hundred persons were put to
death for witchcraft as a result of trials he conducted. By interrogating the witches, he became
very familiar with the nature and habits of the
demons who were responsible for the dreadful activities
130
of these sorcerers,
and he grew
so
famous
The Nature of Demons and Witchcraft

that his book, Demonolatry,
became
131
a respected
classic in the field.
Remy's accounts showed that demons can make

for themselves any kind of body they wish, according to their particular purpose; the difi'erent shapes
and appearances are limitless. They make their
bodies sometimes from fire and sometimes from
air;
they can compress themselves into the smallest
ît
Nicholas
trials in
Remy of Lorraine, who presided at over 900 witchcraft

the sixteenth century
132
of shapes or
expand
into those of
tremendous
size.
They can appear as women, as men, or as any kind

of animal. They can make any kind of sound they
wish: they can roar like lions or bark like dogs.
woman
One
when her "little Master"

sometimes he came in the
shape of a bird flying in the window, and at other
times as a mouse. Another woman said he appeared to her in the shape of a black dog, and still
another that he was in the likeness of a crab. Often
he was in the form of a cat, but he most readily took
the shape of a man, for that made conversations
and meetings with women less conspicuous. But
these were not the shapes of normal men; the demon in human form either had an ugly face, or the
hands and feet were distorted and hooked with
claws, or the opening of the mouth was wide and
deep and always gave ofi* a sulphurous smell. One
woman claimed that she had sometimes seen her
demon appear without a head, or with one foot
testified
that
visited her in prison,
missing.
Remy, whatever shape the demons

never successfully quite match
the human form, so as to be undetected. The same
According
to
took, they could
true about their speech: they could not perfectly

imitate the human voice. One demon spoke as if
is
his voice
came from
a jar or a cracked pitcher;
another in a voice so confused, muffled, and feeble

that it was hard to understand; and another in
The Nature er Demons and Witchcraft
1^
Some demons gave utterances that

sounded like harsh, thin hissing.
In Remy's time it was acknowledged by the
Church that when demons attacked men on earth
they were not mere empty phantoms of fancy, but
they assumed tangible bodies and appeared
openly. On first approach to a man or woman the
whispers.
demons preferred
to converse, not to cause terror
by any unusual appearance. Therefore they often

took the shape of a man of substance, and wore
long black cloaks, as did honored men. (The cloak
could also serve to conceal clawed feet and a tail.)
At the Remy witch trials the demon was vari-
man in all proportions, saving that he had cloven feet," "a man apparelled in
a suit of black, tied with silk,'' a man "clad in a
ously described: "like a
gown with
upon
head." Black
seemed to be the favorite color, a symbol for black
deeds. It was after the initial meetings, when the
demons felt they had gained the human beings'
confidence, that they changed themselves into
diS'erent animals. When they went traveling with
anyone, they most often took the form of a dog, for
a dog would not be likely to arouse suspicion. Such
was the case of an Italian named Andrea, tried in
1548, who led a blind red dog about wherever he
went. The dog would tell him everyone's secrets.
In France, a man named Didier Finance kept his
dog curled around his feet whenever he sat down
black
a black hat
his
134
He
used to reach down secretly with his hand and take poison from the dog's
collar, which he sprinkled on the food of anyone he
chose to kill.
When one of the demons described by Remy
had to transport a witch to a meeting of witches,
he would change into a horse, for that was the
at a
meal with
fastest
way
others.
of getting there.
When
the
demon had
witch and there were

other people present, he took the form of a little
fly and buzzed around the witch's ear, whispering.
Claudine Simonette, convicted of witchcraft in
September, 1588, said she saw the demon in the
shape of a fly as she was being led to prison, and he
warned her not to confess to any guilt no matter
what the tortures were. If she did, she would receive the cruelest of punishments, while if she held
her tongue she would soon escape unharmed.
The demon could be summoned in the shape of
a wolf when a man wanted to harm his neighbor's
flocks of sheep. Two Germans, Petrone Armentarious of Dalheim and Joannes Malrisius of Bad Sulze,
confessed to calling demons, and explained their
to give information to a
method. They tore up some grass and threw
it
against the trunk of a tree, saying certain words,
and immediately there came out of the tree a wolf
who
attacked the flocks.

Sometimes the demons took the shape of a bear.
(This was especially true when they were causing
135
storms.) Barbeline Rayel, convicted at Blainville,
France, in January, 1587, said she saw the demons

as monstrous howling bears who dragged behind
them chains with cymbals and bells.
One of the most familiar shapes the demons assumed was that of a goat. They took on this form,
not when they did specific tasks for anyone, but
rather when they attended meetings or celebrations and wanted to be worshiped. The demon is
sure to be acknowledged as present when he has
the foul smell of the goat. Goats are protective and
like to attack and so do demons. Goats have a fierce
look and horns and seem to be the form most pleasing for the demon to assume when he wants some
honor from
his disciples.
The demon by nature
likes filth
and uncleanli-
ness and thus relishes the stench of the goat, just as

he enjoys being inside a dead body. If he is in a
living body, the
same
foul
odor emanates from
The demon also likes to give gifts that smell,

made from manure and dung, and at banquets he
him.
serves the decayed flesh of dead beasts. For the

most part, the demons have filthy old hags for ser-
Hands should never be washed, they

makes incantations inefi'ective.
vants.
this
Demons
say, for
promise their disciple anything,

and it is well known that they have great treasures
that have been dug out of the earth, or lie hidden
there. Yet they use their wealth only to lure people
will
Witches and demons, assuming various forms, dancing in a ring
be their followers; they never fulfill their promof riches. There was a man in Nuremberg,
Germany, in 1530 who was told by the demon
where a great treasure was hidden. The man dug
at the spot, and he found a vault, in which there
was a chest guarded by a black dog. When the man
to
ises

went
137
grab the chest, the vault collapsed and the

man was crushed to death. This was all seen by the
man's servants, who fled in terror.
to
Remy documents the fact that on September 30,

1586, a
woman, Sennel
of Armentieres, France,
was given a gift of money by the demon; when she
arrived home and opened her purse to count the
money, she found only bits and pieces of coal. The

same deception happened to Catharine of Metingow, only she found swine's dung in her purse.
Claude Morele (tried at Serre, Italy, December 3,
1586) found only the leaves of trees. Jeanne le Ban
(tried at Masmiinster,
the
demon
wrapped
in
France, 1585) testified that

had told her of a certain gold coin
paper
to
be found on a
specific road.
She found the paper, but when she got home
show the coin
to
to
her husband, she discovered not
gold, but a rust-colored stone which crumbled to

powder when she touched it.
Not only can the demons take any shape, talk in
a strange manner, lure with money, but they are
capable of branding those that they claim as

own. The devil's mark was often made on
witches by the talons of the demon, and on the spot
where the witch was so marked, no pain no matter how great could be felt. These marks played
an important part in the witch trials. Alexee (at
Blainville, France, January 16, 1587) said her mark
was on her forehead; Quirina Xallaea (Blainville,
also
their
138
February 25, 1587), on the back of her head; Dominique Euraea (Charmes, France, November 27,
1584), on the hip. The devil marked them at the
time that the witches were renouncing the Christian faith. The marks left scars on the skin, and the
proof of witchcraft guilt was given when a needle
was thrust into such a scar and no pain was felt, nor
a bit of blood seen. At Porrentruy, Germany, on
October 30, 1590, Claude Bogart was about to be
tortured, and her head had been shaved in preparation. Suddenly the torturer noticed a scar on the
top of her forehead. The judge ordered a pin to be
stuck deeply into the spot, and when it was, there
was no pain and no blood. The woman denied her
guilt in spite of the devil's mark, but after torture,
she admitted that the devil had scarred her.
Once the demons win over their converts, they
teach them the arts of witchcraft and provide
them with the material to carry out their evildoings.
The demon first gives them a fine powder, which

mild form (ashen or reddish color) can cause
sickness, and in potent form (black) can cause
death. The powder need not be put in food or
drink, but merely dusted on the intended victim.
The witches are also given a powder of a third
color (white) which they can use, if for some reason
(usually pity) they would like to undo the harm
they have done.
in

Claude
Fellet
139
Mazieres,
France,
November 9, 1584), Jeanne le Ban (Masmlinster,
France, January 3, 1585), and Colette Fischer (Gerbeviller, France, May 7, 1585) all testified as to the
properties and uses of such powders given to them
by the demons. The witches also have their wands
filled with the powder, for it is not always convenient to carry handfuls of it, and they use their
wands to strike down men or cattle that they wish
to
harm.
was said by
It
(tried
many
at
that the
demon was
responsible for the dreadful plague that scourged Milan,

Italy, in 1629-30. The disease was known as La
Pestedegli Untori, after the untori evildoers who
claimed that they had, at the devil's instigation,

collected the pus from the sores of plague-stricken
corpses and kept it in phials. The demon promised
them their own safety, but any person they
touched with the vile matter would be infected
and
die.
In Milan, Italy, one warm April morning when

the disease was at its height, it was discovered that
many of the doors and walls of houses were
smeared with thick matter from the pustules and
sores of the sick. The populace became frightened,
for the pestilence increased rapidly. The people
believed that witches were going about the city
smearing benches, handles of doors,
fruits, flowers,
and food with the deadly material. Hundreds of
140
witches (untori) were seized and condemned. After being tortured on the rack, one
barber named Mora confessed that he was in
league with the devil to infect all of Milan and that
he had smeared houses and various kinds of articles
in the city with the poisonous substance of the
plague. Whatever the cause, the plague ravaged
Milan, and many of the untori, rightly or wrongly,
were accused and killed for their deadly liaison
with the devil.
Not only did the demons cause harm to human
beings, or cause the witches to do such harm, but
they were violently opposed to nature itself. They
were the ones who caused hail and snow and whirling windstorms. Alexia Violaea at her trial told how
the demon gave her a fine powder for destroying
nature, and she sprinkled it over the fields. From
the powder arose so many caterpillars, locusts, and
other eating creatures that all the crops were
these
ruined. Another group of women tried in 1585-86

said that they had sprinkled the powder and that a
whole army of mice came forth and ate all the roots
of the crops.
The arrangements for evildoing are reciprocal

between witch and demon. In some cases the de-
mon
helps the witch accomplish an odious task,

such as in the case of Alexee Drigie (tried Haraucourt, France, 1586). Alexee was very jealous of a
shepherd's daughter and she wished to have her
die. Alexee's demon gave her a handful of fern to
141
on the path that the shepherd's daughter

most frequently used and assured her that though
others might travel the same path, only the shepherd's daughter would be harmed. It turned out
just as the demon had said. Out of all who passed
that way, only the shepherd's daughter died.
Sometimes, however, the witches do not dare to
commit a particular crime, and then they call upon
their demon with whom they have made a pact to
do the grisly deed for them. Nicole Morele (tried
scatter
Serre, Italy, January, 1587) said that at her request
the demon had sprinkled a black powder over the

horses of Nicolas Dominique as he was driving
them to a nearby spring and that the horses became suddenly and violently ill and soon afterward
died.
There were
which witches
hundreds of cases in
testified to wrongdoing, either to
their own misdeeds or those done at the instigation of the demons. As Nicolas Remy commented:
Away
with them, then, away with
that the talk of a pact
literally
all
who
say
between witches and de-
mere nonsense; for the facts themselves

give them the lie, and are attested and proved
mens
is
by the legitimate complaints of many men. But

some are so obstinate as to be unable to perceive this; they are such double fools that no
misfortune can bring them wisdom.
142
For Remy there was "no question but that there

are demons," and his detailed observations of their
habits and powers and their liaisons with witches
were instrumental in the continuation of the witch
purge and executions in Europe.
As Remy said of the witches in conclusion:
... I shall
not fear to proclaim freely and openly
my
all in my power to bring

namely, that their lives are
so notoriously befouled and polluted by so many
opinion of them, and to do

the very truth to
light:
prodigious lusts and

have no hesitation in saying
that they are justly to be subjected to every torture
and put to death in the flames; both that they may
expiate their crimes with a fitting punishment and
that its very awfulness may serve as an example
and a warning to others.
blasphemies,
sorceries,
flagrant crimes, that
14.
Demons, Devils,
AND DjiNN Today
full-leafed tree
towered
starkly over the corner
of a crossroads outside a village in Brazil, its outline

black against the night. Quietly a woman approached the tree, stared at it for minutes, then
broke into prayer.

"Oh, Exii. Exii of the crossroads! Exii of the
I need your help."
So began a supplication to the devil.
trees!
In spite of deep Christian religious belief, Brazilians for hundreds of years have been believers in
143
144
Church and belief

have long gone hand-in-hand. Exii
the devil is respected, feared, endured, exhorted,
and revered by thousands of Brazilians.
On this particular black night the woman had
come to ask Exu to save her home. Her landlady
had served her with eviction papers for no obvious
reason. Now the woman sought help from Exu. She
spoke softly to Exii at the tree by the crossroads
spiritualism. Here, the Catholic
in the devil
Left, a clay figure of Exii

the evil spirit of the macumba pantheon
and, right, his female counterpart modeled in iron
Demons, Devils, and Djinn Today

and
told
145
him the landlady was wrong and asked
make her
take back the papers.

I need you," she said. Then she
continued to speak, describing to Exii the present
she had for him a bottle of cachaga assuring
him that it was the very best sugarcane alcohol.
She opened the bottle and poured some of the
liquid into the ground at the base of the tree, still
talking to Exu. She urged him to drink. Slowly, she
erected six white candles in a circle around the
tree and lit one after the other, circling, telling Exii
that the papers she had with her were copies of the
landlady's legal papers. She placed the packet in
Exii to
"I believe in you.
the center of the burning circle and asked Exii to

read it and tell her what to do. She placed another
present for Exii an expensive cigar on top of
the legal papers, opened a box of matches, and put
them down beside it.

Then the woman turned from the
tree,
never
looking back, and walked along the dirt road home

to her village. Three days later the woman's landlady called to tell her she could stay in the house
as long as she liked.
Magic? Chance?
"Thank Exii!" shouted the woman.
Brazilians believe in spirits, both bad and good,
and they do not hesitate to call on them if they feel
the need. One popular belief about Exii holds that
when the two right-hand archangels of God were
146
odds and one of them was cast out of heaven into

hell, this archangel became the devil (Satan, or
Exu). The other archangel, who stayed with God,
was Jesus, or Oxala. At this time hell was full, for
many who had claimed allegiance to Exii had been
sent there. The remaining fallen angels, who could
only achieve forgiveness by doing good, and thus
earn their way back into heaven, were sent to
earth. All human beings, according to this belief,
were such fallen angels, and the score of their good
and bad deeds would be reckoned when they left
earth. After death, they could come back to earth
as spirits and mingle with living human beings.
at
The way
these spirits behaved depended on

whether they could ascend to heaven, or were
slated to stay on earth. So two forces were embattled, those of God (fesus/ Oxala) and those of the
devil (Satan/ Exu). The spirits of both existed on
earth to be called upon to do good or evil.
According to this scheme, Exu has many workers, but he is Lucifer, or chief, or King Exu.
Although Brazil is the largest Catholic nation in
the world (80,000,000 inhabitants all born Catholic), the thread of pagan spiritualism runs through
the daily lives of its people, as
it
does in other South
American countries. Under this mixed religion,

called macumba, the same worshipers who extol
Jesus and the Virgin Mary on Sundays appeal to the
pagan gods for cures, and even exhort the devil,

whether
it
147
be King Exii or one of
his minions. So
great are the legions of devils that can be summoned that a regular lore of rules exists.
Exu of the Closed Paths is a very popular devil
in Brazil.
To
close the paths for someone is to be

sure that everything goes wrong for him. He could
lose his job, or become ill; his wife could leave him,
or nothing will prosper for him. He will be un-
happy, but he
will
not
die.
Such was the case recently when a foreigner

who was residing in Brazil and having bad luck
witnessed an eerie, wild, night service where the
curse of the closed paths was to be lifted from him.
His description of the drum-beating, the candles,
the gyrating dancers, the shouting women, and the
cries to Exii are spine-tingling. Exu was represented by a woman dressed in a tattered blood-red
blouse and filthy red skirt. Her feet were bare. A
polished child's skull with a dead snake tied between the eye sockets hung from a gold chain
around her neck. She laughed loudly, spat out

food, and drank bottle after bottle of cachaga. She
smoked cigars and called out commands to the
who seemed possessed. Shouting to the

"Do you know what my name
is?
My name is Exii. I am the God of Evil! I can
kill you if I wish! Does that make you afraid?" Then
dancers
foreigner she asked:

.
she laughed and spat some of the whiskey in the

To the beating of drums and the
foreigner's face.
devil struggling with Saint Peter. Devils have always played a

part in man's religions
The
chanting of Exii, two mediums held the foreigner

between them. The exorcising was in process.
For ten minutes Exu chanted and sang, the
dancers danced, the drummers beat; then Exu announced the curse had been lifted and that it
would return twofold to the person who originated
149
it. The occurrences of the next days and weeks

proved to the foreigner that there was truth in
what Exu had foretold, and now, in the twentieth
century, he does indeed believe in the pagan spir-
its
of Brazil.
From
the beginning of recorded history,
man
has always believed in the supernatural, whether

pagan or Christian or non-Christian. The devil has
played an important role in religions of the world,

and though the intensity of the belief in him has
wavered through the centuries within various cultures, it is perhaps not surprising to find that now
in the 1970's there is a resurgence of interest in the
occult,
lief in
and more particularly a reaffirmation of bethe devil.
Only recently Pope Paul

of
all
VI, the religious leader
Catholics, publicly stated his concern that
Satan is very active these days, especially within

the Roman Catholic Church. From St. Peter's in
Rome, the Pope spoke out forcefully about this
devil, the "Prince of Darkness," arguing that "this
obscure and disturbing being really exists." He
called the devil "a perfidious and astute charmer
who manages to insinuate himself into us by the
way of the senses, of fantasy, of concupiscence, of
Utopian logic, of disorderly social contacts."
There were those within the Church, and those
outside of it who scofi'ed at the Pope's concern.
Someone foretold that this emphasis on the devil
sculpture of a devil on Notre
Dame
Cathedral in Paris
151
would bring only "bright and
profitable days for

the occult scientists, magicians and witches all celebrating the unexpected but authoritative return,
after many years, of His Highness, the Prince of
Darkness."
But there are many who would agree with the

Pope that the devil is "the tempter par excellence
... the secret sower of errors and misfortunes," and
even today churchmen everywhere are vitally
concerned with demonic works.
One famous case of possession by the devil (the
true story later
became the
basis
for
the im-
mensely popular novel, The Exorcist) occurred
in
1949, in Mount Ranier, Maryland. Here a fourteen-year-old boy was so possessed by the devil
that when sleeping his mattress slid across the
when
floor;
While these
mystifying events took place, strange noises were
heard.
priest
sitting, his chair tilted.
was called
in
by the
family.
He
confirmed the diagnosis of "possession" and sought

permission from his bishop to exorcise the devil.
The bishop granted permission, and the priest set
to work. He commanded the demon to depart
from the
I
b(
command
and
all
God
... I
you,
whoever you
are,
unclean
spirit,
of your associates obsessing this friend of
command
thee to obey in
all
these things
152
nor ever again in any manner to offend

ture of God. ...
this
crea/
DuringtKe exorcism the boy broke into a great

tantrum of cursing and screaming and he used
Latin phrases, a strange occurrence since he had
never studied Latin. These rites of exorcism were
performed repeatedly by the priest for a period of
two months. The devil was driven out, and the boy
never again suffered from "possession."
According to the Reverend Edmund G. Ryan,
S.J., a highly placed Catholic official at Georgetown
University in Washington, D.C., there can be
possession by the devil. In an interview which appeared in the Washington Post late in 1972, Fa-
Ryan said that "a demon or an evil force can

possess a body but cannot take over the soul, and
destroy free will." Symptoms of possession show
themselves as "spastic movements or hysterical
convulsions, loss of memory, occasional levitation,
ther
speaking in strange
strength,
tongues and understanding foreign languages."
extraordinary
However, the true sign of possession "would be

speaking against God, would be reviling God,
reviling things that are good."
Father Ryan accepts the fact that exorcism
is
acknowledged and approved by the Catholic

Church, and he describes exorcism as "the act of
driving out or warding off demons or evil spirits
153
from persons, places or things, that are believed

be possessed or infested by them, or are liable
become
to
to
victims or instruments of their malice.
nothing more than a prayer

to God, is sometimes made publicly, but always in
the name of the Church, and in the name of Christ,
to restrain the power of the demons over men and
.
Exorcism, really
is
things."
Demons, according
to Father Ryan, are "subject

the Catholic Church does not perform
exorcisms in its own name but in the name of
Christ." Demons are "spirits who have rejected
to
God and
God and remain in a state of alienation from Him

because they have made an irrevocable choice." In
non-Christian countries. Father Ryan said, "the
witch doctor will exorcise the demoil in the name
of a greater
demon."
Father Ryan believes that the incidence of actual possession has lessened through the years. Today, exorcisms in the United States are rare, according to the author of The Exorcist, William
Blatty. "You have to be in the climate of belief," he
said. "In Asia being possessed by a demon is like
having a headache. You go to an exorcist like you
would take an aspirin."
And so in the world of the supernatural, for
some, what they cannot see, cannot exist; for others there have been, and there still are, demons
and
devils
and djinn.
Bibliography
Cavendish, Richard. The Black Arts.
New York:
Capricorn
Books, 1968
Christian, Paul. The History and Practice of Magic.

York: Citadel Press, 1969
COVARRUBIAS, MlQUEL. Island of Bali.
New York:
New
Alfred A.
Knopf, 1937
Crow, W.B. A
History of Magic, Witchcraft and Occultism.

California: Wilshire Book Company,
North Hollywood,
1968
DooLiTTLE, Justus. Social Life of the Chinese. Vol. I and

Vol. II. New York: Harper & Bros., 1865
Elworthy, Frederick Thomas. Horns of Honour and
154
Bibliography
155
Other Studies in the By- Ways of Archaeology. London:

John Murray, 1900
Endicott, Kirk Michael. An Analysis of Malay Magic.

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970
Hill, Douglas, and Williams, Pat. The Supernatural.
New York: The New American Library, 1967
Hughes, Pennethorne.
Witchcraft. Baltimore, Maryland:
Penguin Books, 1963
Jastrow, Morris,
Assyria.
New
The Civilization of Babylonia and
Jr.
York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1915; reissued
1971
King, William Joseph Harding. Mysteries of The Libyan

Desert. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1925
Lane,
Edward William.
Arabian Society
in the
Middle
Ages. London: Chatto and Windus. Piccadilly, 1883
Latourette, Kenneth Scott. The Chinese. Their History

and Culture. New York: Macmillan, 1964
Morgan, Harry T. Chinese Symbols and Superstitions.
South Pasadena, California:
1942
P.
D.
and lone Perkins,
Morris, Ivan. The World of the Shining Prince, Court Life

in Ancient Japan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964
Nevius, John L. Demon Possession and Allied Themes.
Chicago and New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1894
Cults, Customs and Superstitions
of India. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1889
Remy, Nicolas. Demonolatry. London: John Rodker, 1930
Oman, John Campbell.
St.
Clair, David.
York: Doubleday
Drum and
&
Candle. Garden City,
New
Co., 1971
Summers, Montague. The Geography of Witchcraft. Evanston, Illinois
and
New
York: University Books, 1958 (origi-
nally published in 1927)
156

Witchcraft
Ltd.,
and Black Magic. London: Arrow Books,
1964
Thompson,
New
CJ.S. The Mystic Mandrake.

York: University Books, 1968
New Hyde
Park,
Waite, Arthur Edward. The Book of Ceremonial Magic.
New Hyde Park, New York: University Books, 1961

Wedeck, Harry E. A Treasury of Witchcraft. New York:
Citadel Press, 1970
Williams, Charles. Witchcraft Cleveland and

World Publishing Co., 1959
New York:
Index
Afreets, 29, 43
New Guinea, 85
Buddha, Gautama, 74-77
Akhkhazu, 37
Butas, 95, 97, 100
Adam,
16,
25
British
Aladdin, 41
Alexee, 137
Alfoors of Poso, 86
Amulets, 105
Andrea, 133
Antidemoniacs, 19
Arabian Nights, 41
fiP., 88
Armentarious, Petrone, 134
Ashakku, 37, 39, 101-4
Ashurbanapal, 36
Arabs, 25-33, 43
Asia,
demons
Asmodeus,
in,
16-17,
Dark Ages, 17-23

34-40,
101, 105
Astaroth, 24
Babylonia, 34-40, 101, 105

Bajang, 90-91
Bali,
demons
of,
93-100
Beelzebuth, 22, 24
Belial, 24
Bogart, Claude, 138
Brazil 143
fiF.
Clairvoyance, 45-47
63-67
22, 107
Assyria(ns),
Catharine of Metingow, 137

Censer, 53
Cerberus, 116
Charms, 58, 59, 62
China, 86, 121-24
Chu, Wen-fa, 121-24
Chu, Wen-heng, 121, 123
Church, 18, 143flF.
Chu wen yuen, 122-24
Dasim, 29
Dawa, 45
Delhdn, 28
Demonolatry, 131
Demon(s), 13-24
in ancient Babylonia and
Assyria, 34-40
in Asia, 63-67
of Bali, 93-100
in China, 50-62
exorcising,
19-22, 35-37,
157
Index
158
54-56, 63-65, 73, 101-
29
history of, 15-24
in India, 74-84
in Japan, 68-73
Malay birth, 90-92
of the Mandrake, 85-89
in Middle East, 41-49
nature of, 130-42
pacts with, 110-12
and sickness, 63-67, 104-5
summoning, 101-29
today, 143-53
in trees and plants, 85 ff.
warding
60-61
ofiF,
51-52, 58-59,
Hagar, 43
Devil(s), 13-24
Der
el
in animal forms, 17-21
19-22
exorcising, 19-22
control
of,
hell, 24
15-24
invocations, 45-49
numbers of, 24
hierarchy in
history
summoning, 32
today, 143-53
Dominique, Nicolas, 141
Doolittle, Justus, 52
Drigie, Alexee, 140-41
Durgga, 79
Ea, 16-17, 38, 105
El-Aawar, 29
Etimmu, 37
Euraea, Dominique, 138
Europe, 18-23, 118-24
Eve, 16
Exorcism, 19-22, 35-37, 54-
101-29
Exorcist, The, 151, 153
Exii, 143-49
56, 63-67, 73,
Claude, 139
Finance, Didier, 133-34
Fischer, Colette, 139
Fellet,
Foochow, 56-58
of,
possession, 21
summoning, 21-22
today, 143-53
Djinn, 25-33, 106 S.

classes of, 27-28, 29
32-33
and fortune tellers, 30
in India, 74-84
shapes, 29-30
stories of, 26-27
controlling,
Genii, 41, 45-46

Ghul(s), 17, 27-28, 95
Goblins, 19
Gorgias, 119
Grappin, 126-27
Greeks, 16, 17, 108
Grimoire of Pope Honorius,
114
107-8,
22-24,
Grimoires,
110, 112-14
Gron, 118
Index
Macumba, 146
Malaya, 85, 90
Harb, 26
Hebrew
invocations, 110
Honorius
Honorius
159
Malay birth demon, 90-92
114
III, 114
II,
Malrisius, Joannes, 134
Mammon,
29
Iblis,
Idol processions,
56-58
Incantations, 36-37, 108

India,
demons and
djinn
in,
74-84
Iroquois Indians, 86
Islamic religion, 28
Jann, 29
Japan, demons in, 68-73

Jesus /Oxala, 146
Kalas, 95, 98, 100
Kali,
77-82
Key of Solomon,
Khalif
Mu
107, 110
awiya, 26
Khatim, 46-47
King, William, 45
Knap, Elizabeth, 119, 121

Koran, 106
24
Mandal, 45, 47
Mandrake, demon of, 85-89
Mara, 74-77
Marids, 29
Maskim, 16-17
Maya Danawa,. legend of,
93-95
Middle Ages, 17-23
Middle East, 41-49
Milan, 139-40
Mohammed, 25, 47
Morele, Nicole, 141
Morse, William, 127-29
Moslems, 28-29, 30, 32-33
Mya, 75
Mysteries of the Libyan Desert (King), 45
Nam tar, 37
New England,
Nicola, Rev.
Kuei, 50-62
Nyepi, 97
Labartu, 37
Labasu, 37
Pan,
Lama, 63-67
Paul VI, 149

Pedjeng, 95
Langsuir, 90, 91, 92

Le Ban, Jeanne, 137, 139
Lilith,
16
Lucifer, 24
118, 119, 121
John
J.,
13-15
and origin of
devil,
19
Penanggalan, 90, 92
Peste degli Untori, La, 139
Pontianak 90, 92
160
Index
cr
Possession, 21, 150-53

Potier, Jeanne,
Sot,
29
Summoning,
118-19
tales
of,
101-
29
Sweden, 88
Qasr Dakhl, 43
Quieu, 58-59
TaflFord, Mr.,
118
Rashomon, 70
Tahdir, 45
Tahu, 118
Tartars, 63-65
Tchutgour, 63-65
Rayel, Barbeline, 135
Teer, 29
Red Dragon, 113
Tenget, 94
Reichhelm of Schoengan, 24
Tengu, 70
Rabisu, 37
<
oOy^
Rakshasas, 95
Rakut Beij-Dana, 77
Remy,
Nicolas, 130-34, 137,
141-42
Rhadamanthus, 115-16
Rhodes, John, 117-18
Rimmon, 24
Rohlfs, 43-44
Roomals, 78
Rotti, 87
Ryan, Rev.
152-53
Edmund
Testament of Solomon, 22
Thamuz, 24
Tin, 37, 38-39
Tokoura, 65-67
Trepanning, 21
Tsuna, Watanabe no, 70-72
Untori,
G.,
139-40
Ur, 37
Vianney, Jean
St.
124-27
Augustine, 18
Jerome, 18
Sealdh, 28
Sennel of Armentieres, 137
Shamir, 107
Sheykh el afreet, 44-49
Sheytdns, 29
Siddartha, Prince, 74
Simonette, Claudine, 134
Social Life of the Chinese, 52
Solomon, 22, 32-33, 105-10
St.
B.,
Wier, Jean, 24
Witchcraft, 21-22,
110
130-42
Xallaea, Quirina, 137
Yin and-y^ng, 50
Zelemboor, 29
Zoba'ah, 31
fiF.,

Demons, Devils and Djinn by Olga Hoyt

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-.

Demons, Devils, and Djinn

Horace Mann Middle

acknowledgment is made to the copyright holders

a part of this copyright page.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reprinted,

Published on the same day in Canada by

Printed in the United States of America

1974 by Olga Hoyt

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

many forms and appearances

demons throughout history and the world, the charms

The author and pubHsher wish

to thank the following for

Aldus Books Limited for the pictures from The Supernatural

for the picture

Publishers, Inc., for pictures on pages 40, 42, 54, 120,

Demons, Devils, and Djinn

Philosophical Library for the pictures from

Harald Schultz for the picture on page 144.

on pages 61, 109, and 148, and

for the pictures

Mystic Mandrakeby C. J. Thompson, which appear on pages

are grateful for the assistance of Hans L. Raum,

Special thanks to Diane DeVore for her rendering of the two

3 Spirits in Ancient Babylonia and Assyria

Demons, Devils, and Djinn

Demons and Djinn

the Steppes of Asia

14 Demons, Devils, and Djinn Today

frequently represented as a goat or dragon

Reading the Black Book

drawing of the head of an

the Devil Chained

The Temptation of St Anthony

Demons, Devils, and Djinn

Drawing of the mandrake female

page of the Grimoire of Honorius

Demoniacal attack of hystero-epileptic

Witches and demons dancing

Exu and his female counterpart

Belief in the supernatural has been part of man from at least

folklore of various peoples of diflPerent lands, it is

and extraordinary it may seem to us

ing to no certain pattern. Rather,

the reader decide.

Demons and Devils

One sunny July afternoon in 1971, the telephone

Immaculate Conception, in Washington, D.C. The

Demons, Devils, and Djinn

town near Washington, and arrived

at the house allegedly possessed by the devil.

into the house.

Night after night there were the sounds of

up and down the

There were sounds of things moving about the

requested a formal exorcism.

Demons and Devils

For several days Father Nicola pondered the

require permission from the local bishop.

was responsible," and

perchance there was

idea of the devil