Demons and the Demonic Divine

This article was published in… Let’s Talk Magazine!

The word “demon” oftentimes brings to mind images of torment and torture. We imagine Linda Blair in the Exorcist, tied to the bed, deteriorating and corroding at the mercy of her twisted inhabitant. We imagine the most deplorable of our society. The word demon in our society carries incredibly negative imagery and context, but for a moment I am going to ask you to step outside of the box.  For a moment, I am going to ask you to come with me and explore a new perspective on demons, darkness, and the demon divine.  

We start at the source, our language, and the evolution of the word. The word demon comes from the Latin word “daemon” and the Greek word “daimon”. Let’s take a look at their etymology. 

c. 1200, from Latin daemon “spirit,” from Greek daimon “deity, divine power; lesser god; guiding spirit, tutelary deity” (sometimes including souls of the dead); “one’s genius, lot, or fortune;” from PIE *dai-mon- “divider, provider” (of fortunes or destinies), from root *da- “to divide.”

https://www.etymonline.com/word/demon

The original definition of the word demon meant a divine being, a deity, a being who delivered messages from a divine source. Let’s not forget though, that the pagan gods and the deities of old, many of them were not faultless; they were a mixture of darkness and light.  Many of the demons of today had places in the ancient pantheons. They became dark and twisted beings with the rise of monotheism. Though I personally have nothing against monotheistic religions, there is an assimilation and dominating element to them where they will try to crush competing religions. They define and label gods and goddesses of those religions as villains.  Any being that was not of holy origin was labeled “demon”. This happened across our history, over many cultures. Many of the ancient religions were persecuted and crushed as a result of this.  Their spiritual myths and stories were reduced to heathenism and the spiritual beings that resided in them, all labeled as demons. 

Though this blanket category has merged most beings into demons, it is not the true nature of demons, just as it is not the true nature of the beings who have been so carelessly misdefined. Demons are of divinity, they are from the darkness of divinity.  Divinity is not just light, it is all spectrums. It is light, it is darkness, and everything in between. Demons are the darkness of divinity.  

I do believe that there are genuine demons out there which are different from the old pagan gods. Spiritual beings and creatures have been miscategorized for centuries. This is another reason why demons get the horrible name that they have today.  All beings of darkness, whether they be high-vibrational darkness or low-vibrational darkness, are seen as demons and dangerous.  

For centuries, the darkness has been seen as bad and the light promoted as good. This led to an imbalance in humans as a species, which led to the dark ages. Without balance in the human psyche or an understanding of the darkness that sleeps inside of us, we are doomed to regress into dark times.  When one does not balance their darkness with their light, light enters a low-vibrational state and becomes toxic and harmful. Righteousness, piety, and feelings of superiority rise, and ones who claim to side with the light, act with pure malice in an attempt to crush other paths and perspectives that do not align with their own.  The only result that can come from this is a corrupt, toxic light that leads to the death of thousands of people. The maturity of humans as a species comes from the understanding of our darkness.   

Darkness became bad because it was labeled as bad. It was a side of humanity that was labeled wrong and dangerous.  It was defined as something that needed to be fought against. However, when you fight against your own shadow, it grows. Eventually, it will consume you, until you become the very thing that you hate most. The concept of darkness and the shadow self was defined and researched by Dr. Carl Jung. He is the genius who developed the concept of the shadow self and Jungian shadow work, which is what current shadow work has evolved from. 

There is a fascinating difference between high-vibrational and low-vibrational darkness and light, which should be explored to better understand the energies of the demonic divine.    

Low-vibrational energies naturally pull people down.  On the dark spectrum, they are filth, rot, and decay and they sink people.  On the light spectrum, they are piety and righteousness.  Spiritual beings and beings that dwell in low-vibrational energies consume, damage, attack, and destroy.  They can fill one’s mind with troubling, intrusive thoughts and they can cause incredible harm and destruction to all those who cross their path.  

Low-vibrational beings are the ones I believe we read about in hauntings, possessions, and in cases of spiritual attack. Some of these spiritual beings attack humans with the intent of consuming their energies. Some just enjoy the carnage that their presence brings and thrive on the suffering of others. Others still, will attack from a place of righteousness, needing to destroy what does not conform to their definition of what is right. These are the traditional views of demons and though these creatures exist, they do not fit the archetype of demons that I have come to know.  

Many of these creatures who thrive in this energy, I categorize as energetic sludge and corrosive beings.  They are predatory in nature and will take actions that incite fear and pain in an attempt to weaken the individual’s natural defenses. This strips them of their true power.  This is another reason why I think demons have been mixed in with these creatures.  Many people who have religious backgrounds will become fearful when they are told that Satan and the demons are around them, tormenting them. As a result of this, these beings will project themselves as that archetype to incite fear in the individual.  This fear opens up more energy channels that the sludge creatures will take advantage of.  

Sludge energies can be removed through various energy techniques, including cleansing and banishing.  Simple daily rituals can keep these energies away. Many people are not educated on the spiritual forces that can be acting on them and so can fall victim to these creatures.  Humans are naturally spiritually powerful. Remembering the power that we have can help us to remove negative creatures from our surroundings and clear our space.  The darkness in us also reminds us of how powerful we really are.  

I believe many people who genuinely have negative experiences with “demons” are actually encountering sludge feeders. These beings can use one’s fear of demons to scare them and make them more vulnerable to attacks so that they can feed. We are curious of the spiritual world because it is a part of us, humans naturally are drawn to the mysteries of the unseen.  Many of the hauntings are because, whether we believe in it or not, the spiritual world is there.  Learning to work with the spirits, I believe, is a more proactive way of handling them than fearing them.  Understanding how to cleanse and shield, and protecting ourselves, knowing what is out there and what to do when these forces are encountered will go a long way to preventing spiritual attacks and empowering people to take back their spiritual authority.  

High-vibrational light is very peaceful and empowering. It is the traditional definition of light and what many have come to expect of light work.  What is unexpected, is the definition of high-vibrational darkness.  Darkness is beautiful. It is passionate. It is life, it is creation. It is beauty, it is inspiration, it is raw and primal, and something that is a natural part of our soul.  The night is not evil, it is just the night. Yet it is dark, full of incredible beauty and secrets waiting to be discovered.  It is in these energies that we find demons. It is the forgotten spectrum of the spiritual world in which they reside.  

Learning about demons and learning to work with them can align us with the other half of our souls.  It can align us with the shadow and darkness that has always slept in us. It can reconnect us with the sides of ourselves we must embrace and understand if we are to mature and gain a complete understanding of this world and our place in it.  They teach us to see through the eyes of the darkness that we all have.  This work, shadow work, and especially shadow work with demonic forces, can cause one to be faced with energies within themselves that will lead to situations that can appear as a spiritual attack. 

Demons are masters of shadow work and anyone who has done shadow work, knows how daunting and terrifying it can be.  Shadow work can be healing, but it takes a great deal of work and a willingness to accept sides of ourselves we might deny with complete conviction. In shadow work, we face parts of ourselves that are terrifying. We face the darkness in our soul, the monster that we all are capable of becoming.  There are wounds in the shadow that have not healed and horrors that remain locked away in the mind, which can haunt us. Our own mind can be an eternal source of damnation and a darkness that traps us.  

Some people are comfortable in their cages. When faced with the energies of the demons, which naturally are designed to balance our energies, they face that which they have tried to keep hidden. The result can be a very painful experience of resistance to these sides. This can lead to heightened states of panic, which from an outside perspective can resemble that of a “demonic” haunting.  It is not the demon causing the issue. It is the individual’s own unhealed pain that has come up as a result of being faced with the demonic energies, that puts them in this state.   

Demons are very balanced and very comfortable with darkness, it is their element and what they are.  As a result, they are comfortable with our shadows and can face the worst with calmness and guidance.  When people have shadows and old pains that are repressed, exposure to demonic energies can trigger the release of these pains and force the individual to face them.  This is one of the reasons why when one works with demons, they should have a good understanding of themselves. Or at the very least, be ready to begin a journey of understanding the darkness and the things that they hide.

This is not to say that upon meeting a demon one is suddenly going to have every childhood trauma and repressed energy open up. Over time though, working with them and being exposed to their energies, these sides will emerge and the individual will have to face them.  Though overall, those who work with demons from a place of respect and understanding of their true nature, have positive experiences with them. Shadow work yields positive results in the end. That is one way to tell an attack from a low-vibrational being to an encounter with a high-vibrational one.  The low-vibrational one will tear the person down and corrode them, destroying them from the inside out.  The high-vibrational one will strip them of their false shell and awaken their true self.   

Humans work well with demons and other high-vibrational dark beings because the darkness is within us.  We are not creatures of light, we are a balance of both darkness and light.  This is why it is very important to understand our individual energy balance on the demonic divine spectrum.  It is why many people when they begin working with demons feel a sense of fullness.  It is as if they were starving their whole lives and demons have brought them home and filled them with a meal their soul was craving.  

The demonic divine is something that is very beautiful. Demons are not how they have been portrayed, they are a forgotten piece of our soul. They remind us of the darkness that is in all of us, the darkness that is all around us.  Demons are the dark side of divinity. They are the dark half of everything and they are not evil, they just are. Good and evil are subjective and they have a great understanding of evil. They accept this and are not controlled by it. Those who understand the darkness are less likely to commit an evil act because they know what they are capable of.  They have faced those impulses and they can control them; this is balance.  

When people work with demons, they experience a calm, wise, and brilliant being who understands darkness and balance to such an extent that they are safe. Demons act as powerful protectors and spiritual guides.  They understand their darkness and are not controlled by it. This is a goal that we as humans should embrace and work towards.  

Remember that darkness is not bad, it is mysterious and full of secrets. Many of those secrets that the darkness reveals to us are lessons. They are lessons that help us grow. They help us to enter a place of energetic maturity where we are calm, balanced, and understand ourselves and the world around us. We can navigate the world from a place of intelligence and wisdom with this understanding. To surrender to one’s own darkness is to be humble to our true nature and know how fast it can act on us in unwanted ways. Those who walk with demons know that they are not here to torment or destroy us. They are here to help us remember our whole selves and the forgotten darkness that resides in all of us. The dark divine is something that has been shunned and feared, but we have to understand it along with the light to find our balance.