DEMONETIZATION, a term employed in monetary science in two different senses. (a) The depriving or divesting of a metal of its standard monetary value. From 1663 to 1717 silver was the standard of value in England and gold coins passed at their market value. The debasement and underrating of the silver coinage insensibly brought about the demonetization of silver in England as a standard of value and the substitution of gold. During the latter half of the 19th century, the tremendous depreciation of silver, owing to its continually increasing production, and consequently the impossibility of preserving any ratio of stability between it and gold, led to the abandonment or demonetization of the metal as a standard and to its use merely as token money. (b) The withdrawal of coin from circulation, as, for example, in England that of all pre-Victorian gold coins under the provisions of the Coinage Act 1889, and the royal proclamation of the 22nd of November 1890.
DEMONOLOGY (Δαίμων, demon, genius, spirit), the branch of the science of religions which relates to superhuman beings which are not gods. It deals both with benevolent beings which have no circle of worshippers or so limited a circle as to be below the rank of gods, and with malevolent beings of all kinds. It may be noted that the original sense of “demon” was a benevolent being; but in English the name now connotes malevolence; in German it has a neutral sense, e.g. Korndämonen. Demons, when they are regarded as spirits, may belong to either of the classes of spirits recognized by primitive [animism] (q.v.); that is to say, they may be human, or non-human, separable souls, or discarnate spirits which have never inhabited a body; a sharp distinction is often drawn between these two classes, notably by the Melanesians, the West Africans and others; the Arab jinn, for example, are not reducible to modified human souls; at the same time these classes are frequently conceived as producing identical results, e.g. diseases.
Under the head of demons are classified only such spirits as are believed to enter into relations with the human race; the term therefore includes (1) human souls regarded as genii or familiars, (2) such as receive a cult (for which see [Ancestor Worship]), and (3) ghosts or other malevolent revenants; excluded are souls conceived as inhabiting another world. But just as gods are not necessarily spiritual, demons may also be regarded as corporeal; vampires for example are sometimes described as human heads with appended entrails, which issue from the tomb to attack the living during the night watches. The so-called Spectre Huntsman of the Malay Peninsula is said to be a man who scours the firmament with his dogs, vainly seeking for what he could not find on earth—a buck mouse-deer pregnant with male offspring; but he seems to be a living man; there is no statement that he ever died, nor yet that he is a spirit. The incubus and succubus of the middle ages are sometimes regarded as spiritual beings; but they were held to give very real proof of their bodily existence. It should, however, be remembered that primitive peoples do not distinguish clearly between material and immaterial beings.
Prevalence of Demons.—According to a conception of the world frequently found among peoples of the lower cultures, all the affairs of life are supposed to be under the control of spirits, each ruling a certain element or even object, and themselves in subjection to a greater spirit. Thus, the Eskimo are said to believe in spirits of the sea, earth and sky, the winds, the clouds and everything in nature. Every cove of the seashore, every point, every island and prominent rock has its guardian spirit. All are of the malignant type, to be propitiated only by acceptable offerings from persons who desire to visit the locality where it is supposed to reside. A rise in culture often results in an increase in the number of spiritual beings with whom man surrounds himself. Thus, the Koreans go far beyond the Eskimo and number their demons by thousands of billions; they fill the chimney, the shed, the living-room, the kitchen, they are on every shelf and jar; in thousands they waylay the traveller as he leaves his home, beside him, behind him, dancing in front of him, whirring over his head, crying out upon him from air, earth and water.
Especially complicated was the ancient Babylonian demonology; all the petty annoyances of life—a sudden fall, a headache, a quarrel—were set down to the agency of fiends; all the stronger emotions—love, hate, jealousy and so on—were regarded as the work of demons; in fact so numerous were they, that there were special fiends for various parts of the human body—one for the head, another for the neck, and so on. Similarly in Egypt at the present day the jinn are believed to swarm so thickly that it is necessary to ask their permission before pouring water on the ground, lest one should accidentally be soused and vent his anger on the offending human being. But these beliefs are far from being confined to the uncivilized; Greek philosophers like Porphyry, no less than the fathers of the Church, held that the world was pervaded with spirits; side by side with the belief in witchcraft, we can trace through the middle ages the survival of primitive animistic views; and in our own day even these beliefs subsist in unsuspected vigour among the peasantry of the more uneducated European countries. In fact the ready acceptance of spiritualism testifies to the force with which the primitive animistic way of looking at things appealed to the white races in the middle of the last century.
Character of Spiritual World.—The ascription of malevolence to the world of spirits is by no means universal. In West Africa the Mpongwe believe in local spirits, just as do the Eskimo; but they are regarded as inoffensive in the main; true, the passer-by must make some trifling offering as he nears their place of abode; but it is only occasionally that mischievous acts, such as the throwing down of a tree on a passer-by, are, in the view of the natives, perpetuated by the Ombuiri. So too, many of the spirits especially concerned with the operations of nature are conceived as neutral or even benevolent; the European peasant fears the corn-spirit only when he irritates him by trenching on his domain and taking his property by cutting the corn; similarly, there is no reason why the more insignificant personages of the pantheon should be conceived as malevolent, and we find that the Petara of the Dyaks are far from indiscriminating and malignant, though disease and death are laid at their door.
Classification.—Besides the distinctions of human and non-human, hostile and friendly, the demons in which the lower races believe are classified by them according to function, each class with a distinctive name, with extraordinary minuteness, the list in the case of the Malays running to several score. They have, for example, a demon of the waterfall, a demon of wild-beast tracks, a demon which interferes with snares for wild-fowl, a baboon demon, which takes possession of dancers and causes them to perform wonderful feats of climbing, &c. But it is impossible to do more than deal with a few types, which will illustrate the main features of the demonology of savage, barbarous and semi-civilized peoples.
(a) Natural causes, either of death or of disease, are hardly, if at all, recognized by the uncivilized; everything is attributed to spirits or magical influence of some sort. The spirits which cause disease may be human or non-human and their influence is shown in more than one way; they may enter the body of the victim (see [Possession]), and either dominate his mind as well as his body, inflict specific diseases, or cause pains of various sorts. Thus the Mintra of the Malay Peninsula have a demon corresponding to every kind of disease known to them; the Tasmanian ascribed a gnawing pain to the presence within him of the soul of a dead man, whom he had unwittingly summoned by mentioning his name and who was devouring his liver; the Samoan held that the violation of a food tabu would result in the animal being formed within the body of the offender and cause his death. The demon theory of disease is still attested by some of our medical terms; epilepsy (Gr. ἐπίληψις, seizure) points to the belief that the patient is possessed. As a logical consequence of this view of disease the mode of treatment among peoples in the lower stages of culture is mainly magical; they endeavour to propitiate the evil spirits by sacrifice, to expel them by spells, &c. (see [Exorcism]), to drive them away by blowing, &c.; conversely we find the Khonds attempt to keep away smallpox by placing thorns and brushwood in the paths leading to places decimated by that disease, in the hope of making the disease demon retrace his steps. This theory of disease disappeared sooner than did the belief in possession; the energumens (ἐνεργούμενοι) of the early Christian church, who were under the care of a special clerical order of exorcists, testify to a belief in possession; but the demon theory of disease receives no recognition; the energumens find their analogues in the converts of missionaries in China, Africa and elsewhere. Another way in which a demon is held to cause disease is by introducing itself into the patient’s body and sucking his blood; the Malays believe that a woman who dies in childbirth becomes a langsuir and sucks the blood of children; victims of the lycanthrope are sometimes said to be done to death in the same way; and it is commonly believed in Africa that the wizard has the power of killing people in this way, probably with the aid of a familiar.
(b) One of the primary meanings of δαίμων is that of genius or familiar, tutelary spirit; according to Hesiod the men of the golden race became after death guardians or watchers over mortals. The idea is found among the Romans also; they attributed to every man a genius who accompanied him through life. A Norse belief found in Iceland is that the fylgia, a genius in animal form, attends human beings; and these animal guardians may sometimes be seen fighting; in the same way the Siberian shamans send their animal familiars to do battle instead of deciding their quarrels in person. The animal guardian reappears in the nagual of Central America (see article [Totemism]), the yunbeai of some Australian tribes, the manitou of the Red Indian and the bush soul of some West African tribes; among the latter the link between animal and human being is said to be established by the ceremony of the blood bond. Corresponding to the animal guardian of the ordinary man, we have the familiar of the witch or wizard. All the world over it is held that such people can assume the form of animals; sometimes the power of the shaman is held to depend on his being able to summon his familiar; among the Ostiaks the shaman’s coat was covered with representations of birds and beasts; two bear’s claws were on his hands; his wand was covered with mouse-skin; when he wished to divine he beat his drum till a black bird appeared and perched on his hut; then the shaman swooned, the bird vanished, and the divination could begin. Similarly the Greenland angekok is said to summon his torngak (which may be an ancestral ghost or an animal) by drumming; he is heard by the bystanders to carry on a conversation and obtain advice as to how to treat diseases, the prospects of good weather and other matters of importance. The familiar, who is sometimes replaced by the devil, commonly figured in witchcraft trials; and a statute of James I. enacted that all persons invoking an evil spirit or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding or rewarding any evil spirit should be guilty of felony and suffer death. In modern spiritualism the familiar is represented by the “guide,” corresponding to which we have the theosophical “guru.”