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Demonology

Space Aliens As Demons



In recent years, since accounts of UFOs and space aliens have become widespread in Europe and especially the United States, some fundamentalist Christians have asserted that these presumed extraterrestrial visitors are in fact manifestations of Satan and his demonic horde. Indeed, according to this contemporary "school" of demonology, those persons who claim to have been abducted by aliens and forced to have sex with them are believed to be victims of the same demonic possession that was reported in premodern times, which also frequently had a strong sexual component. In sum, demonology continues to persist in this otherwise secular age, just as it has since the dawn of human culture.



See also Evil; Syncretism; Witchcraft.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cavendish, Richard. The Black Arts. New York: Berkeley Publishing Group, 1967.

Duchesne-Guillemin, J. The Western Response to Zoroaster. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1959.

Fairman, H. W., ed. and trans. The Triumph of Horus: An Ancient Egyptian Sacred Drama. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.

Gettings, Fred. Dictionary of Demons: A Guide to Demons and Demonologists in Occult Lore. North Pomfret, Vt.: Trafalgar Square Publishers, 1988.

Littleton, C. Scott. "Japanese Religions." In Religion and Culture: An Anthropological Focus, edited by Raymond Scupin. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2000.

Marrs, Jim. Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence among Us. New York: Harper Paperbacks, 1997. See pp. 548–555.

Murphy, Joseph M. Santeria: An African Religion in America. Boston: Beacon Press, 1988.

Nash, June. "Devils, Witches, and Sudden Death." In Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion: An Anthropological Study of the Supernatural, edited by Arthur C. Lehmann and James E. Myers. 3rd ed. Mountain View, Calif.: Mayfield, 1993.

O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

The Ramayana of Valmiki. Translated by Hari Prasad Shastri. London: Shanti Sadan, 1962.

Russell, Jeffrey Burton. The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977.

——. Witchcraft in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1972.

Wilson, Colin. The Occult: A History. New York: Vintage, 1973.

C. Scott Littleton

Additional topics

Science EncyclopediaScience & Philosophy: Cyanohydrins to Departments of philosophy:Demonology - Osiris And Seth, Ahura Mazda And Angra Mainyu, Satanism, Non-western Demonology, She-devils And Female Demons