Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

64 Demiurge
numerical value—a gematria—and is associated
with elemental, planetary, and tarot properties.
The Nineteen Calls, or Keys, of Enochian were
used by Dee and Kelly to conjure the angels. The
first two keys conjured the element Spirit, the next
sixteen conjured the four elements, whereas the
nineteenth Key invoked any of thirty aethyrs or
aires, probably representing levels of consciousness.
Kelly allegedly spoke Enochian when the
angels appeared in his crystal. One of the procedures
used during the communication consisted
of setting up charts, either filled with letters or left
blank, to which the angels would point with a rod
in order to spell out messages. These messages
were dictated backward, for dangerous forces
would have been released if the messages were
communicated directly. John Dee was less favored
by Elizabeth’s successor, James I, and ended his
days in poverty at Mortlake.
See also Enochian Magic; Magic and Magical
Groups
For Further Reading:
LaVey, Anton Szandor. The Satanic Bible. New York:
Avon, 1969.
Schueler, Gerald J. Enochian Magick: A Practical
Manual. St. Paul, MN: Llewelly, 1987.
Suster, Gerald, ed. John Dee: Essential Readings.
Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, UK:
Crucible, 1986.
Demiurge
The demiurge is the chief archon or evil spiritual
being who creates the world in the Gnostic
system. Gnosticism refers to a movement and
school of thought that was prominent in the
Hellenistic Mediterranean world that influenced
paganism, Judaism, and Christianity. According
to the Gnostic myth of creation, Sophia, one of
the good spiritual beings (one of the aeons) residing
in the pleroma (the pure spiritual realm),
inadvertently creates another entity—often called
Yaldabaoth—who creates our familiar world (e.g,
refer to The Apocryphon of John 2, in Robinson
1981, 9f. ). This evil deity, who is alternately designated
the demiurge (a term originally utilized by
Plato to refer to a demigod who creates the world
in the Timaeus), also creates the human body for
the purpose of trapping human spirits in the
physical world. Our true home is the absolute
spirit, the pleroma.
A standard tenet of Gnostic Christianity was
that Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, was
one and the same as this evil demiurge. Pointing to
the discrepancy between the jealous, vengeful god
of the Old Testament and the teachings of the
gentle Jesus, these Gnostics asserted that Jesus was
a teacher sent from the pleroma to guide us back
to our true home, and that the Father to which he
referred was different from Yahweh.
See also Archon; Gnosticism
For Further Reading:
Eliade, Mircea. A History of Religious Ideas. Vol. 1.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.
Robinson, James M. The Nag Hammadi Library.
1977. New York: Harper & Row, 1981.
Demons
The belief that malicious entities lie behind natural
disasters and other unpleasant aspects of human
life is very old and is still prevalent in many traditional
societies. Especially before the development
of scientific discoveries that proffered more neutral
explanations for the irregularities of nature, it was
not unreasonable to postulate that such beings
were responsible for unexplainable natural disasters
and diseases. Although scientific explanations
have gradually supplanted metaphysical explanations,
demons and devils presently survive in the
mythology of Jung’s collective unconscious and in
other schools of the study of the mind that interpret
evil forces as projections of human fear and/or
as hallucinations.
While often the two words are used interchangeably—devils
from Greek dia-ballo, to throw
across, that is, accuser; and demons from Greek
daimon, spirit—their meaning evolved through
the centuries and in different religious traditions.
Devils have always had a negative connotation as
evil forces whereas demons could be either good or
evil, depending on their individual nature.
Daimones in ancient Greece were tutelary semidivine
spirits of either good or bad nature.
In the early stages of Judaism, demons were
not a major aspect of the religious belief system.
During the first diaspora, when the Jews were in