Demons?!? Who are they?
§ The Gemara returns to discussing the heavenly beings. The Sages taught: Six statements were said with regard to demons: In three ways they are like ministering angels, and in three ways they are like humans. The baraita specifies: In three ways they are like ministering angels: They have wings like ministering angels; and they fly from one end of the world to the other like ministering angels; and they know what will be in the future like ministering angels.
What (fictional) creatures can we associate demons with?
At the beginning...there were demons
(ה) וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֗ים תּוֹצֵ֨א הָאָ֜רֶץ נֶ֤פֶשׁ חַיָּה֙ לְמִינָ֔הּ בְּהֵמָ֥ה וָרֶ֛מֶשׂ וְחַֽיְתוֹ־אֶ֖רֶץ לְמִינָ֑הּ וַֽיְהִי־כֵֽן (בראשית א, כד) וַיַּ֣עַשׂ אֱלֹהִים֩ אֶת־חַיַּ֨ת הָאָ֜רֶץ לְמִינָ֗הּ וְאֶת־הַבְּהֵמָה֙ לְמִינָ֔הּ וְאֵ֛ת כָּל־רֶ֥מֶשׂ הָֽאֲדָמָ֖ה לְמִינֵ֑הוּ... (בראשית א, כה)׃... אָמַר רַבִּי חָמָא בַּר הוֹשַׁעְיָא, בִּנְפָשׁוֹת אוֹמֵר אַרְבַּע, כְּשֶׁנִּבְרְאוּ הוּא אוֹמֵר: חַיַּת הָאָרֶץ לְמִינָהּ וְאֶת הַבְּהֵמָה וְאֵת כָּל רֶמֶשׂ הָאֲדָמָה, אֶתְמְהָא. רַבִּי אוֹמֵר, אֵלּוּ הַשֵּׁדִים, שֶׁבָּרָא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶת נִשְׁמָתָם וּבָא לִבְרֹאת אֶת גּוּפָן וְקָדַשׁ הַשַּׁבָּת וְלֹא בְרָאָן, לְלַמֶּדְךָ דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ מִן הַשֵּׁדִים, שֶׁאִם יִהְיֶה בְּיַד אָדָם חֵפֶץ טוֹב אוֹ מַרְגָּלִית עֶרֶב שַׁבָּת עִם חֲשֵׁכָה, אוֹמְרִים לוֹ הַשְּׁלֵךְ מִמְךָ, שֶׁמִּי שֶׁאָמַר וְהָיָה הָעוֹלָם הָיָה עָסוּק בִּבְרִיָּתוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם וּבָרָא אֶת נִשְׁמָתָן בָּא לִבְרֹאת אֶת גּוּפָן וְקָדַשׁ שַׁבָּת וְלֹא בְרָאָן.
"And God said: Let the earth bring forth the life (nefesh) of living creatures of all types, cattle, creeping things, and wild beasts of all types. And it was so. And God made wild beasts of all types, cattle of all types, and creeping things of all types…” (Genesis 1:24-25) …R. Hama bar Hoshaya said: Souls are spoken of 4 times, but when they are created, it says, “made wild beasts of all types, cattle of all types, and creeping things of all types.” Why 3 here and 4 there? Rabbi says: These are the demons. God created their souls, but when He came to create their bodies, He sanctified Shabbat and did not create them.
Together with which creatures had the demons been created?
How may this influence the way we imagine them?
Perceiving demons
Batteling demons
Should we and if yes, how should we combat demons?
Jewish and other demons
The Dybbuk
Ideally it returns to its source, but sometimes the process goes wrong. In such cases, a variety of ills may befall the soul. The most well-known of these is the phenomenon of the dybbuk, or possession, when one soul “sticks” onto another. Possession by a dybbuk can happen for a number of reasons. Perhaps the departed soul is sinister and the living person innocent. Or, conversely, the departed soul may have been saintly, but wronged by the living; in this case, possession by a dybbuk is essentially punishment (or revenge) for an improper act. Or, apparently, possession may happen almost at random.
The most popular dybbuk in Jewish cultural history is that of S. Ansky’s well-known play, The Dybbuk (1920), which describes how the soul of a betrayed man comes back to haunt the body of his betrothed.
The Golem
Perhaps the most well-known example of this phenomenon, as transmuted by a variety of European sources, is that of the golem, the artificial anthropoid animated by magic. The Talmud relates a tale of rabbis who grew hungry while on a journey–so they created a calf out of earth and ate it for dinner. The kabbalists determined that the rabbis did this magical act by means of permuting language, primarily utilizing the formulas set forth in the Sefer Yetzirah, or Book of Creation. Just as God speaks and creates, in the Genesis story, so too can the mystic. (The word Abracadabra, incidentally, derives from avra k’davra, Aramaic for “I create as I speak.”) Thus, under the rarest of circumstances, a human being may imbue lifeless matter with that intangible, but essential spark of life: the soul.
The kabbalists saw the creation of a golem as a kind of alchemical task, the accomplishment of which proved the adept’s skill and knowledge of Kabbalah. In popular legend, however, the golem became a kind of folk hero. Tales of mystical rabbis creating life from dust abounded, particularly in the Early Modern period, and inspired such tales as Frankenstein and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” Sometimes the golem saves the Jewish community from persecution or death, enacting the kind of heroism or revenge unavailable to powerless Jews. Often, however, Jewish folktales about the golem tell what happens when things go awry–when the power of life-force goes astray, often with tragic results.
Snippet from the golem`s creation story
In the city of Prague in the year 15 A.D., it was very difficult for the Jewish people. Soldiers attacked the Jewish community, night after night. Rabbi Loew, the chief rabbi of Prague, also known as the Maharal, knew he had to do something. The people couldn't fight back against the soldiers, so he needed to do something powerful, magical... something that had never been done before.
On a moonless night he went to the bank of the Vltava River, and he formed a giant man made of mud, and he began to whisper secret prayers and incantations that no one had ever said before. He carved three Hebrew letters: aleph, mem, and tav into the forehead of the creature. Aleph, mem, and tav spelled the Hebrew word emet -- truth -- and that's a very special word in Hebrew because aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, mem is the middle most letter, and tav is the last letter, showing that truth spans the world. And as he carved the final letter, the creature opened its eyes.
Vampires
There are almost as many different characteristics of vampires as there are vampire legends. But the main characteristic of vampires (or vampyres) is they drink human blood. They typically drain their victim’s blood using their sharp fangs, killing them and turning them into vampires.
In general, vampires hunt at night since sunlight weakens their powers. Some may have the ability to morph into a bat or a wolf. Vampires have super strength and often have a hypnotic, sensual effect on their victims. They can’t see their image in a mirror and cast no shadows.
They may be the best-known classic monsters of all. Most people associate vampires with Count Dracula, the legendary, blood-sucking subject of Bram Stoker’s epic novel, Dracula, which was published in 1897. But the history of vampires began long before Stoker was born.