ANGEL AND DEMON

demon also spelled daemon respectively, any benevolent or malevolent spiritual being that mediates between the transcendent and temporal realms. Throughout the history of religions, varying kinds and degrees of beliefs have existed in various spiritual beings, powers, and principles that mediate between the realm of the sacred or holyi.e., the transcendent realmand the profane realm of time, space, and cause and effect. Such spiritual beings when regarded as benevolent are usually called angels in Western religions; those viewed as malevolent are termed demons. In other religionsEastern, ancient, and those of nonliterate culturessuch intermediate beings are less categorical, for they may be benevolent in some circumstances and malevolent in others. Additional reading C. Jouco Bleeker and Geo Widengren (eds.), Historia Religionum: Handbook for the History of Religions, vol. 1, Religions of the Past (1969), and vol. 2, Religions of the Present (1971), contains helpful sections on the role of angels and demons in chapters on the various religions, as well as a very usable bibliography. J.B. Noss, Man's Religions, 4th ed. (1969), contains useful sections on angels and demons. Gustav Davidson, A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels (1967); and Rossell H. Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology (1959), are Western-oriented. R.C. Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (1961), has excellent sections on the role of angels and demons in Zoroastrianism and their relationship to Hindu spiritual beings. Robert M. Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity, 2nd ed. (1966), contains useful sections relating angelic and demonic figures of Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism to Gnostic speculation. See also Jeffrey B. Russell, Satan: the Early Christian Tradition (1981).