ON ANGELS, DEMONS AND EGREGORES

And now for something entirely different to sink your teeth into this weekend. But it comes with a discretionary warning. It's only for mature minds that can handle such matters. We have been pondering for a few days now if we should even touch the issue. But we're not in the habit of running away from anything if it is not directly related to liberalism. So there it is. Matter at hand is a recent video released by Jonathan Pageau. You may well know him by now. He has become a fixture in present blog. Pageau is a Canadian artist who was initially engaged in Orthodox icon carving, but has since diversified and set for himself the goal of re-enchanting Christianity. He is certainly doing that. We urge the reader not to jump to conclusions just yet, as there is a lot of nuance here and much to explain about language and definitions. 


May 31, 2024 Jonathan Pageau: Medieval People Believed That All the Gods Exist.

As Richard Rohlin explains there is this beautiful continuation in Orthodoxy, from the moment that the Christ changed the very substance of metaphysics with his victory over death in Hades, upto and including the present day without the ruptures and fissures that have plagued Western Christianity from the moment the Roman Church split from the Orthodox Mother Church in the Great Schism in 1054.

Pageau has been on the subject of "the gods" as is the term used throughout the Old Testament. No one ever mentions it. In his earlier investigations Pageau had a less controversial term that nobody really understood: egregores, a word on loan from French alluding to ancient Greek origin in ἐγρήγορος, the stem of which ἐγείρω means 'awaken'. Let's have a listen and see if his story now comes more into focus.


June 28, 2022 Jonathan Pageau: What Are Egregores? Understanding the Demonic with Jordan Hall and John Vervaeke. More. As related to AI. 

It's obvious from the discussion that different kinds of entities are caught up in this catch all word, egregores. A similar thing has happened with the origin of the word demon. This is what Etymology Online has to say on that word.

"c. 1200, "an evil spirit, malignant supernatural being, an incubus, a devil," from Latin daemon "spirit," from Greek daimōn "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"  (more on Etymology Online).

The Greek version of Wiktionary gives the following etymology: δαίμων < (διαχρονικό δάνειο) αρχαία ελληνική δαίμων (θεός, μοίρα) (source). The latter meaning god, fate. So interestingly enough we're back to Pageau's gods from ancient scripture.

Conclusion: It is very easy to get lost in confusion over meanings and definitions. The roots of these words are lost in the fog of time and were used by people with a entirely different consciousness than ours today. However, how we call these manifestations are quite immaterial. The importance is awareness of their existence. This is what happened recently in an interview with Tucker Carlson.


April 19, 2024 JRE Clips: When Tucker Carlson Changed His Mind on Aliens.

Recently the English language translators of the Homilies of the Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphy published a video on how modern Orthodox Saint Paisios the Athonite dealt with a manifestation. Generally the advice given is to ignore such visitations. I'd say, if you have one, speed yourself to your spiritual father or the nearest church.


June 4, 2024 Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphy Homilies: The visit of Saint Euphemia to Saint Paisios and the Maccabees.

Two years ago the Fathers on the Lord of Spirits podcast dedicated episode 36 to the question, are the gods of the nations, demons? They have the last word on the subject. 


Feb. 11, 2022 Lord of Spirits: The Gods of the Nations [Ep. 36].

Byzarchtect recently posted on X Vladimir Lossky's chapter on Original Sin in 'Orthodox Theology,' which does a great job of explaining the Orthodox position on the Fall, the nature of evil, angels and demons. We are posting the entire thread in a Threadreader page for easy reading, or jump straight into it on this link.



Comments

Post a Comment