Welcome to Gaia! ::

All my info is coming from sites online, none of this is personal beliefs, so if you think it is wrong, post it but don't yell at me.


Introduction

The term "demons" was not always understood to have the absolutely negative connotation that it does today. Homer used the terms "demons" and "gods" more or less interchangeably. Another opinion was that demons were intermediaries between men and gods, and that demons had once been men. Plutarch speaks of "human souls as commencing, first heroes, then demons, and afterward as advancing to a more sublime degree." Philo of Byblus seems to draw on this same tradition when he states that, "The most ancient of the barbarians, especially the Phoenicians and Egyptians, from whom other people derived this custom, accounted those the greatest gods who had found out things most necessary and useful in life -- and had been benefactors to mankind."

Our current use of the term "demon" is to denote a malignant spirit, and comes to us primarily form New Testament writers. However, there is still uncertainty as to whether or not demons are considered to be distinct and separate from the Devil and his fallen angels.

Demoniacal Prophesy

Ancients also had a sort of faith in the prophetic words spoken by those whom they believed to be possessed by demons, and this was sometimes a component of ancient oracles. In connection with this, it is worth pointing out that a respected modern-day professor of psychology once witnessed a friend, who was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia make a specific and surprising prophecy that turned out to be perfectly accurate. The professor had no explanation for this event. although one is tempted to hypothesize that there is a link between altered mental states and psychic ability. Some also associate the ouija board with demoniacal prophesy, and those who have seen Linda Blair in The Exorcist will recall that this was how her character's problems began.

On that note Dante, you might want to note that it has been suggested that various demons could traverse time. Would they not know the future then?

Though the time paradox theory is plausible you have to take into account that though supposedly chaos is a demon's domain even demons are usually ether too cautious or too lazy to actually do more than observe the flow of time, not actually alter it for fear of altering their own power negatively in the process.

And I concede that traveling into the future could cause a flaw in the demon's vision, but traveling into the past shouldn't change anything as long they remain an impartial observer.

Do you believe in human prophesy? Also, simply believing in something happening can unconsciously cause you to take action to make it happen?

May I inquire about your basis of that generalization? Most visions I have heard, or so called prophesy about events that involve something or someone within the individual's area. Such as the soothsayer in Julius Cesar, he warned to "Beware the ides of March." What do you make of that type of so called clairvoyance?

I think we have beaten this argument to death over something petty. I don't see this as a problem we should make a big deal out of anyway.

Hai Hai.

((Edit: What the heck, it ate my post))

Nothing really could be much to argue about... demonwise I suppose.