A Midsummer Night’s Scream:
(Fighting Fiendish Foes!)
MAD: www.nwowatcher.com
6/01/06

“Not necessity, not desire - no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything - health, food, a place to live, entertainment - they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

“Demonology is the shadow of Theology”.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Throughout history man has sought to explain those things which he did not understand through the inventive tools of mythology and folklore. Hence, the sun and moon would be eaten by a giant serpent or dragon when they disappeared from sight, the earth moved through the cosmos on the back of an enormous turtle, or we were said to take our voyage into the afterlife while riding on a boat through the netherworld, or become like birds and simply fly away into the great beyond. Mythology itself, rich in allegory, symbolism, and secret teachings of world folklore, is a method by which humanity might come to easier conclusions mass marketed for a more widespread appeal. Organized religion, like most things, is filled with equal parts divinity and deception, truth and manipulation of these truths. For every teaching of love and forgiveness, there is a bloody battlefield and headless martyr. Perhaps those things in life that are most important are also the things most worth fighting for. However, history shows us that religion on the whole has ultimately become deceptive mind control; mass murder at it’s worse, counterproductive at best, offering temporary solutions to those who prefer easy answers and the comfort of bearded gods and shapely goddesses who promise us reprise if we hand over our worldly wares, our minds and even our very souls.

Because we live in a world of polarity and duality, which is broken apart by day and night, with shades of grey and prismatic, rainbow fragments in the spaces between, sometimes things can hide between the cracks. They sprout forth in the abundant imagination of human myth and folklore. For every angelic entity there is a demon in its mirror, for every demon causing havoc, there is an angel establishing order, and a wide myriad of reflections in between these two extremes. Undoubtedly, for as long as man has been calculating the cycles and perfecting his agricultural and seasonal understanding, there have been tales of demons and supernatural creatures that hunt in the shadows. Spectral apparitions who were thought to cause complications in our tidy march towards order, coming forth in plagues, famine, drought, death and decay if we didn’t live in constant appeasement to these primitive deities. “Demons” have been around for as long as man has had the ability to communicate thoughts, be it through grunts, sounds, music and words, or symbols and written language. They are as old as myth itself, and as some would believe, even more ancient still.

In their book “A Field Guide to Demons: Fairies, Fallen Angels, and Other Subversive Spirits”, authors Carol K. Mack and Dinah Mack embark on a journey through the many ages of demonology. Their work highlights some of the most prominent demonic species, the territories in which they commonly reside, as well as the various means by which these beasts were said to be defeated, according to tradition. I recently had the privilege of speaking to Carol and Dinah about their informative work, getting further details about their research on the topics of Demonology and related material.

Interview Article Continued At:
http://nwowatcher.com/smf/index.php?topic=5819.0