Cosmology
One way to facilitate comparison is to place ‘demons' whatever their local designation within their respective cosmologies and see what position they occupy. This is what the editors refer to at the outset as the necessity of demons.
In almost all the cultures examined above, their position in the hierarchy is intermediate. They are lesser, or less than, deities, but are not objects of cult—with the cult of the devil in the supposed witches' sabbath being a possible exception. They are somehow above humanity. But we should be chary of describing them with that tired concept of liminality. They occupy a middle position, which is not the same thing at all. That relative position in the hierarchy offers a way of comparing across cultures. Apart from avoiding liminality, we should also be chary of assuming that demons are ‘supernatural'. Most of the origin myths or creation narratives cited above have them as fully part of the created order. They are to that extent represented as natural beings.
More on the topic Cosmology:
- Cosmology
- MYTHOLOGY AND COSMOLOGY
- COSMOLOGY AND THE POWER OF WORDS
- CHAPTER FIVE Cosmology in Roman Britain Sky, earth and water
- Creation and the Nature of the World
- THE COSMIC WOMB
- STRINGING THE COSMIC BOW
- THE CREATED AND UNCREATED ASPECTS OF THE COSMIC EGG
- THE SEVEN COSMIC SEERS
- THE STANDARD COSMOLOGICAL MODEL
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