Demonic Nature Research Articles

How to Cure a Horse, or, the Experience of Knowledge and the Knowledge of Experience

How to Cure a Horse, or, the Experience of Knowledge and the Knowledge of Experience

“The Demonic Nature of Privation and Lies in Gogol’s Dead Souls.”

“The Demonic Nature of Privation and Lies in Gogol’s Dead Souls.”

Феномен двойничества в лирике С.Есенина и А.Блока

This article examines the problem of duality, characteristic of the mentality of Russian culture, especially intensified at critical moments of cultural and historical development. The general decline of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, impermanence, and the aggravation of the mystical principle contribute to the strengthening of the phenomenon of duality in the cultural consciousness of the Russian spiritual and cultural Renaissance, primarily in the works of such poets as A.Blok and S.Yesenin. The purpose of the study is to determine the functions of the duality motif in the poetry of A.Blok and S.Yesenin, since the phenomenon of duality is an important feature of their artistic world. The authors pay special attention to the term «duality» itself, which is already emerging in folklore and developing in the subsequent cultural tradition. It is shown that in studies the double can be viewed both positively and negatively. The article pays considerable attention to the function of images and motives of duality in S.Yesenin's poetry. Based on the analysis of the poem «The Black Man», which is the most striking example of the embodiment of the theme of duality, as well as the involvement of a number of other lyrical works of the poet, where the duality of his inner world is also traced, it is established that the motive of the double in Yesenin has a demonic nature, therefore he often plays the role of the enemy of the lyrical hero. The author substantiates the idea that this is one of the most significant works, which can certainly be called the key to understanding the entire artistic world of Sergei Yesenin and his life as a whole. This article is also devoted to a comprehensive study of the problem of «duality» in the lyrics of A.Blok. In the artistic world of A.Blok, there is also a split of consciousness, a mental conflict of opposite sides, which causes the appearance of doubles. Duality in Blok's work is a phenomenon of the poet's personality formation. It is connected to a greater extent with the romantic orientation of the poet. His philosophy of the existence of «other worlds» is very similar to the idea of a romantic «two worlds» embodied in the works of A.Fet and V.Zhukovsky. As a result, the authors come to the conclusion that the embodiment of the duality motif in the poetry of S.Yesenin and A.Blok was much deeper and more contradictory than just the appearance of the image of a double in the text of the work. We can talk about the split consciousness of the personality of poets. In their work, there is a trace of the spiritual duality of the poets, generated by the painful need to understand themselves, the world around them, to find their place in this world.

The Emancipation from the Past: Bakhtin’s Carnival in the Mirror of Soviet Experience

In this article an attempt is made to place Bakhtin’s case in the context of the Soviet 1960s with their specific mental world. The study question is why this almost forgotten figure of the 1920s has become a proper man in a proper place in time of transition from Stalin’s Great Fear to Khrushchov’s liberalization with its continuation till 1968 and how this resurrection from the dead occured. The virtues and scientific significance of Bakhtin’s works are doubtless and undeniable. But there is something else that helps to explain Bakhtin’s phenomenon and its popularity. His readers mentality determines the fate of books and the spreading of ideas. The sixties witnessed the unprecedented success of Bakhtin’s books. They changed the vocabulary of humanities and the mode of thinking in the generation of so-called Thaw. Bakhtin became one of the most influential figures of the sixties and greatly stimulated the emergence of the new trend known as culturology. Bakhtin’s Rabelais was a special success. This text can be read on different levels and interpreted in many ways. Its content combines such genres as literary criticism, the history of culture, and philosophy. The readers of the sixties paid special attention to Bakhtin’s vision of popular culture with its central image of carnival and were especially sensitive and receptive for the concept of Laughing Renaissance as a spiritual twin of Thaw which had Marxist roots, not Bakhtin’s. Thanks to the complexity of the text’s possible interpretation, Bakhtin was mistakenly considered as an ideologist of Thaw, and his Rabelais – as an intellectual product of this historical moment full of optimism, great expectations and hopes. Bakhtin was read by the generation of the 1960s in accordance with its mentality, its pursuit of a new form of “Socialism with human face” when left and even Marxist ideas dominated in the non-conformist discourse. But all of that had little in common with authentic Bakhtin who could share neither this philosophical worldview nor the illusions of the 1960s. The view of laughter as a kind of social therapy and as a means of emancipation in society was far from Bakhtin’s. He fully realized the demonic nature of carnival and saw it as his ambivalent ally from hell hostile to every kind of ideocracy. His readers who had invented Renaissance as a prototype of their time and the first Thaw in history misunderstood the inner intentions of Bakhtin himself. But doing this quite unconsciously, they gave the first and triumphant life for the outstanding scientific and philosophical text on Rabelais written by the person of a damaged life from the past.

Трансформация психосемантики цветолексем «белый» и “white” (на примере романов демонического характера)

The study aims to make an associative profile of the colour lexeme “white” in a literary text in Russian and English. The article considers the colour term “white” in attributive word combinations according to associative paradigms to identify contextual meaning of the colour lexeme. The work is novel in that it is the first to study transformation of psychosemantics of the colour term “white” owing to contextual semantic increments of this colour term, basing on the Russian and English novels of demonic nature and at the intersection of the history of colour and linguistics. As a result of redistribution of symbolic meanings of white, the colour term “white” metaphorically transformed symbolism of white (light, good) into symbolism of black (darkness, evil).

THE ELECTRONIC DICTIONARY “THE MYTHOLOGICAL VOCABULARY OF THE PERM REGION” AS A BASIS FOR LINGUO-GEOGRAPHIC RESEARCH: NOMINATIONS OF THE MERMAID IN ANAREAL PERSPECTIVE

The paper demonstrates the possibilities of using the electronic dictionary “The Mythological Vocabulary of the Perm Region” in linguo-geographical research: in the areal aspect, nominations of the mermaid that have been noted in the region are considered. A corresponding linguistic map has been created with the help of the dictionary. The analysis shows that the all-Russian unit rusalkais the most widespread one in the region and has been recorded in the majority of its districts. Someareasformspecial nominations (chertovka, leshachikha, vodianaia, shishiga, poludnitsa). The rest of the names are local. The absence of names for the mermaid, common to the entire Perm territory, and the presence of many local nominations indicate the graduallossof ideas about this character in the Permian mythological tradition. The commonality of the regional tradition is maintained only at the level of individual beliefs, not the language. Beliefs that are represented in the nominations of the mermaid andsupport the integrity of her image in the region include ideas about her demonic nature, her place of residence, the presence of her long hair, the prohibition to call her by her direct name and about the need toappease her. The advantage of the electronic dictionary “The Mythological Vocabulary of the PermRegion” when creating a linguistic map is the ability to go both from the vocabulary (through the section “Mythological character”) and from the geographical label (through the section “Geographic indexof lexical units”). Both approaches make it possible to compile a map faster than when working with a paper dictionary, since the dictionary makes it possible to automatically either get a list of all mapped units, or not to refer to dictionary entries atall, but to work only with geographical labels.

‘Does She Look Like the Innocent Flower but Become the Serpent Underneath?’: The Femme Fatal Lady Macbeth in the Misogynist Macbeth

Renaissance's society used to bring into play an ad nauseam cliche woman's place is the home. However, Lady Macbeth, one of William Shakespeare's dramatic characters, represents an image of the powerful woman. Because she enabled her husband Macbeth to ascend the throne of Scotland. This is when she urges him to commit a crime. Accordingly, Lady Macbeth was labeled as a femme fatale and a disastrous woman. However, when Macbeth becomes the king she switched to the role of the submissive wife. Contemporary readers would feel ambivalent toward Lady Macbeth's feminity; she is a mix of both a powerful woman and a formidable villain. Lady Macbeth's dilemma, in a nutshell, is that she is a disastrous wife to urge her husband to kill the king and she is a faint-hearted woman to feel guilty and let the pang of conscience destroy her mind. Thus, Lady Macbeth ends up marginalized, the same as her Renaissance counterparts. Correspondingly, this paper focuses on the connection of Lady Macbeth’s demonic nature with gender discrimination and the misogynist attitude of Shakespeare. Bias against Lady Macbeth, here, is not just a product of individual male thought but is the result of the pervasive social norm of early modern patriarchy. The main methodological approach of this paper is the cultural study of the sixteenth-century feminism. Thus, interdisciplinary theory of feminist perspective in Shakespeare’s Macbeth as well as the historical study of the marginalized Renaissance women are applied to probe into the reality of misogyny and negative representation of women in Shakespearean drama as alluring and evil figures. Therefore, the focused question within this none-thesis is why Shakespearean female characters, mainly including Lady Macbeth, are prejudicially undermined. In the end, the paper urges other researches to apply the sociological study of female power within Shakespeare’s other plays to find out how all of the Shakespearean heroines are subordinate; following the Elizabethan social norm of disempowering women.

“Does she look like the innocent flower but become the serpent underneath ?”: The Femme Fatal Lady Macbeth in the Misogynist Macbeth

Renaissance's society used to bring into play an ad nauseam cliche woman's place is the home. However, Lady Macbeth, one of William Shakespeare's dramatic characters, represents an image of the powerful woman. Because she enabled her husband Macbeth to ascend the throne of Scotland. This is when she urges him to commit a crime. Accordingly, Lady Macbeth was labeled as a femme fatale and a disastrous woman. However, when Macbeth becomes the king she switched to the role of the submissive wife. Contemporary readers would feel ambivalent toward Lady Macbeth's feminity; she is a mix of both a powerful woman and a formidable villain. Lady Macbeth's dilemma, in a nutshell, is that she is a disastrous wife to urge her husband to kill the king and she is a faint-hearted woman to feel guilty and let the pang of conscience destroy her mind. Thus, Lady Macbeth ends up marginalized, the same as her Renaissance counterparts. Correspondingly, this paper focuses on the connection of Lady Macbeth’s demonic nature with gender discrimination and the misogynist attitude of Shakespeare. Bias against Lady Macbeth, here, is not just a product of individual male thought but is the result of the pervasive social norm of early modern patriarchy. The main methodological approach of this paper is the cultural study of the sixteenth-century feminism. Thus, interdisciplinary theory of feminist perspective in Shakespeare’s Macbeth as well as the historical study of the marginalized Renaissance women are applied to probe into the reality of misogyny and negative representation of women in Shakespearean drama as alluring and evil figures. Therefore, the focused question within this none-thesis is why Shakespearean female characters, mainly including Lady Macbeth, are prejudicially undermined. In the end, the paper urges other researches to apply the sociological study of female power within Shakespeare’s other plays to find out how all of the Shakespearean heroines are subordinate; following the Elizabethan social norm of disempowering women.

Jūzenji, ou l’enfance du divin

During the medieval period and till the Meiji Restoration, Jūzenji was one of the preeminent gods of the Hie Shrines (known today as Hiyoshi Taisha). The very name “Jūzenji” sounds rather strange for a kami, and it has received various Buddhist and “Shintō” interpretations. It points toward a Buddhist monastic institution, that of the “ten dhyāna masters” (jūzenji), which was important in the Nara and Heian periods but had declined by the time Jūzenji’s cult arose, toward the eleventh century. There are few representations of Jūzenji. He is usually represented as a young monk or as a youth (dōji or chigo). Indeed, youth is his most characteristic feature, and it links him not only with a category of more or less divine or demonic deities but also with an important figure often represented as a child or an adolescent, Shōtoku Taishi. The figure of Jūzenji is also intimately related to the image of the monkey, the emissary of Sannō Gongen, the main protector of Mount Hiei. Jūzenji was above all an oracular god. He delivered his oracles not only through incubatory dreams but also through children that he possessed. The sudden and violent nature of Jūzenji’s child possession, as reported in literary sources, reveals an unruly, demonic nature. Yet Jūzenji also came to be perceived as a deity watching over the destiny of humans. This transformation was made easier through his identification with the snake deity Ugajin, and, through him, with the so-called “wild gods of the placenta” (ena kōjin). This identification took place within a specific context, that of the beliefs concerning placenta deities. In his role as placenta deity, Jūzenji was mostly a nurturing deity that brings “longevity and happiness,” yet, as “wild deity” (kōjin), he remained essentially ambivalent—and potentially dangerous when not properly initiated. The ascension of Jūzenji into the medieval pantheon led to identifying him with the “god of destiny,” Shukujin. This identification derives logically from the nature and functions of that deity—a child-deity related to Jizō, but also an oracular deity and a deity of limits, and a violent deity of the kōjin type, perceived as the aramitama of the mountain god Sannō Gongen. This latent symbolic complex was brought to the forefront with the emergence of certain social groups (the artistic guilds of the sarugakusha and biwa hōshi, and the inhabitants of the shuku, way-stations). This complex symbolic network explains how, even within the orthodox circles of Enryakuji and Hie Shrine, Jūzenji eventually became a “god of the warp and woof of Heaven and Earth.”

МОТИВАЦИОННЫЙ АНАЛИЗ НАЗВАНИЙ ДУХОВ-«ХОЗЯЕВ» ЛОКУСОВ(на материале русских говоров Пермского края)

The article is devoted to the study of nominations of the “master” spirits of the loci (boggart of the bathhouse,boggart of the house, wood goblin) that function in the Russian dialects of the Perm region. The purpose of the work is to determine the motivational base for these units, which involves, firstly, identifying semantic donor spheres, units of which serve as the basis for the emergence of these nominations, and secondly, building motivational models for the formation of such names. Such analysis makes it possible to detectsigns of characters that are verbalized in their notation. To solve these problems, we use the method of ethnolinguistic interpretation of semantic fields proposed by E.L. Berezovich. The analysis made it possible to establish that the main motivational basis for the names of the “master” spirits of loci in Perm dialects are units of the semantic sphere “Man”; then, in terms of importance, the motivational spheres “Locus” and “Demons” follow, from the units of which a large number of nominations of these characters are also formed; the least important for the formation of the units under consideration are the spheres “Animal” and “Оbject”, as well as “Atmospheric phenomena”.The Perm motivations of the “master” spirits are based on the following motivational signs: the locus of the spirit; the demonic nature of the characters; transformation; the need to respect and appease the spirits of space.

Warding Off Evil: Apotropaic Tradition in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Synoptic Gospels

In this monograph, Morris is interested in facets of demonology in the Synoptic Gospels with particular attention to human interaction with demonic evil. Morris notes there are two human responses to demonic evil. The first, exorcism, is a curative response. The second, apotropaism, is a preventative response, which is the particular focus of this study. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the extent of apotropaic features in the Synoptic Gospels and to examine the relationship between Jewish and early Christian demonic traditions.In ch. 1, Morris conducts a selective survey of recent scholarship on demonology in the Synoptic Gospels with a focus on three motifs: (1) the nature of demons, (2) the place of Satan and demons in the theologies of the Gospels, and (3) possession and exorcism. He concludes that the primary focus of scholarship has been on exorcism and possession. Hence, there is a need for further discussion about human interactions with demons in regard to apotropaic elements.In ch. 2, Morris sets out to examine anti-demonic traditions in early Judaism so as to provide some background for understanding demonology in the Synoptic Gospels. In the first part of the chapter, Morris is concerned about developing precise definitions for terminology, delineating demonic activity or influence, and producing suitable classifications for the types of Jewish anti-demonic prayers. For the latter concern, Morris is particularly influenced by the categories developed by Esther Eshel and Loren Stuckenbruck. In the second part of the chapter, Morris analyzes select passages in early Jewish literature that have been identified as anti-demonic in order to develop a system of classification for the study of the Gospels. After a meticulous and careful analysis of each passage, Morris groups these passages into the following categories: apotropaic petitions, apotropaic incantations, exorcistic incantations, and exorcistic narratives.In ch. 3, Morris aims to identify and evaluate any non-petitionary apotropaisms in the Synoptic Gospels. The bulk of the chapter attempts to ascertain the extent of apotropaic elements in the temptation of Jesus account. The narrative evinces a number of features that correspond to early Jewish apotropaic traditions. These include the evoking of Scripture and obedience to the torah as means of warding off the demonic. In addition, Jesus’s elevated status as a righteous figure enables him to resist the devil. The remainder of ch. 3 considers potential apotropaic elements in a few other passages (Mark 9:25; 16:18; and Luke 10:19).In ch. 4, Morris addresses whether the Synoptic Gospels contain any apotropaic petitions. He first gives attention to the Matthean version of the Lord’s Prayer. He finds a number of commonalities with deliverance pleas found in the Qumran literature. He then argues that the petition in Matt 6:13 to deliver τοῦ πονηροῦ is best understood as a request to be delivered from a personified evil, “the evil one.” Hence, the Lord’s Prayer contains an apotropaic petition. Morris then considers two other passages. Jesus’s entreaty for Peter in Luke 22:31–32 is not apotropaic but is a prayer for the strengthening of Peter’s faith. Jesus’ petition in John 17:15 is apotropaic because he asks God to protect the disciples from future Satanic influence.From the analyses in chs. 3 and 4, Morris draws a number of conclusions. First, the Synoptic Gospels do contain both non-petitionary and petitionary apotropaisms. Second, these apotropaisms find resemblances in early Jewish apotropaic traditions. Third, Jesus’s use of apotropaisms does not diminish the Gospels’ portrayal of Jesus as an authoritative figure. Fourth, the apotropaisms are compatible with the demonology exhibited in the remainder of the Synoptic Gospels. Chapter 5 summarizes the findings of the study and draws some final conclusions.Morris’s monograph is an informative and insightful study. He gives careful and meticulous attention to detail in the texts he is examining and he is often judicious in the conclusions that he draws. Morris’s study should prove to be an important contribution to the study of demonology in the Synoptic Gospels.

Role of various signalling mechanism in pathogenesis and therapeutics of obesity

This paper is a summary of appetite pathogenesis, therapy, and various mechanisms involved in obesity. Pathogenesis related to obesity deals with energy expenditure physiology and energy intake. The pathogenesis of obesity also contributes to energy regulation. Obesity usually happens when the consumption of energy is more than energy expenditure. It also includes relative research of monogenetic triggers contributing to deficiency of nutrition consumption and depression in key legislation. Obesity therapy involves the finding of hormones, neuropeptides, receptors, and transcription factors that involve the growth and regulation of eating behaviour, metabolic rate, and adipocyte. This paper also deals with various pathways which have a huge scientific basis in research in obesity. This review also focusses on the relation the pathways share by bringing them under one preview to understand their importance in the research area of obesity. It also includes comparative research and study work, which included the role and importance of various mediators like PYY, Ghrelin, Leptin, Adiponectin, along with inflammatory mediators like TNF Alpha and Interleukins. An insight into the role of oxidative stress highlighting its role and importance in obesity is also reviewed. Obesity therapy overview as well as newer strategies are also discussed. It also includes the methodology of exploration and obesity treatment in a novel way. Overall the review is a blend that incorporates major problems along with the latest treatment strategies to understand the demonic nature of this disease.

A Seven-Headed Demon in the House of Study: Understanding a Rabbinic Demon in Light of Zoroastrian, Christian, and Babylonian Textual Traditions

This article examines a narrative about a seven-headed demon in Bavli Kiddushin 29b as an entry point into a much broader conversation about the Talmud's demonology. I first lay out the interpretive challenges of the story, then argue that B. Kiddushin's demonic discourse has more in common with ancient Near Eastern demonologies that it does with contemporaneous Zoroastrian materials. Two particular aspects of the rabbinic depiction of the demon in B. Kiddushin align with Mesopotamian characterizations of demons: (1) the physical description of the demon as a seven-headed serpent, and (2) his demonic nature. At the same time, the way that the rabbis describe the mode of the demon's defeat strongly parallels contemporaneous Syriac Christian modes of exorcism. This article demonstrates that the talmudic story exists at the intersection of more ancient and contemporary concerns and typifies rabbinic selectivity in adopting and adapting available discourses about demons. To conclude, I discuss some of the broader implications of this observation for our study of the Babylonian Talmud in its Sasanian cultural context.

The Danger of Romance: Truth, Fantasy, and Arthurian Fictions. Karen Sullivan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Pp. 299.

<i>The Danger of Romance: Truth, Fantasy, and Arthurian Fictions</i>. Karen Sullivan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Pp. 299.

The Concept of the Demonic in Herkus Kunčius’s Novella A Most Loyal Metaphysical Friend and Marius Ivaškevičius’s Drama The Mistr

There are two works of contemporary Lithuanian literature that effectively explore the theme of the demonic: Herkus Kunčius’s novella A Most Loyal Metaphysical Friend (Ištikimiausias metafizinis draugas, 2010) and the play The Mistr (Mistras, 2010), by Marius Ivaškevičius. The author of this article examines how these two works modify the traditional literary concept of the demonic – both works present the demonic not in classical, transcendental terms but as an immanent force. Considering the works from the perspective of literary theology, the author asks whether, and which kind of, theological thinking they develop.Herkus Kunčius’s novella is a postmodern metafiction (a fiction about a fiction): the central character of the narrative is the legendary Transylvanian vampire Count Dracula, the main character in Irish writer Bram Stoker’s gothic novel Dracula (1897). Kunčius’s Dracula is the creation of another character’s unhealthy consciousness – a “creation within a creation.” A parody of horror novels, films, etc. about vampires, the novella also parodies the language of psychiatrists, the characters who develop an idea about the demonic as an untreatable psychiatric illness: in the nihilistic reality of the work there simply is no one to treat it.Marius Ivaškevičius’s drama is a tragi-comical grotesque pasted together from Lithuanian historical and cultural symbols and analyzes the person of Adomas Mickevičius (1798–1855). In religious and cultural history, the prototype for Mistr in the play – Andrzej Towiański (1799–1878), a self-proclaimed prophet, “a mistr called by God” – represents the archetypical figure of the false prophet. The main meaning accorded to the demonic as represented in Ivaškevičius’s play is the demonic nature of political oppression: the work offers an original variation on the entanglement of political aggression and the demonic typically found in Lithuanian literature.

CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH GREEN TEA DRINKER: SHERIDAN LE FANU AND THE MEDICAL AND METAPHYSICAL DANGERS OF GREEN TEA

In Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872short story“Green Tea,”the Reverend Mr. Robert Lynder Jennings becomes obsessively engaged in a potentially subversive research project on ancient pagans, and finds himself experimenting with green tea as a stimulant to sharpen his mind, boost his productivity, and maintain his stamina through long, sleepless nights bent over books. One day, while riding an omnibus, Jennings sees two piercing deep red eyes staring at him, and gradually realises that they belong to a small black monkey, which was “pushing its face forward in mimicry to meet mine” (23). At first fancying the creature to be the “ugly pet” (23) of a fellow traveller, Jennings attempts to ascertain the monkey's mood, and “poked my umbrella softly towards it. It remained immovable – up to it –throughit!” (23–24). Gradually, he becomes convinced of the creature's demonic nature, and this grinning, screeching vision persecutes Jennings for the rest of his days, sitting on his books and interrupting him while he studies, shrieking curses and blasphemies to drown out his prayers, soliciting him to perform evil acts, and finally, commanding him to commit suicide, which he does, slitting his own throat with a single-edged razor. In the final analysis offered by Jennings's physician and confidant, the metaphysical doctor Martin Hesselius, a significant contributing cause to Jennings's nightmarish experience was his gradual self-poisoning by green tea.

Medieval Visual Metaphors and Beasts Noble and Savage

D. I. Antonov and M. R. Maizul's, Demony i greshniki v drevnerusskoi ikonografii: Semiotika obraza (Demons and Sinners in Old Russian Iconography: The Semiotics of the Image). 384 pp. Moscow: Indrik, 2011. ISBN-13 978-5916741490. Aleksandr E. Makhov, Srednevekovyi obraz: Mezhdu teologiei i ritorikoi. Opyt tolkovaniia vizual 'noi demonologii (The Medieval Image: Between Teleology and Rhetoric. An Attempt at an Interpretation ofVisual Demonology) .256 pp. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Kulaginoi--Intrada, 2011. ISBN-13 978-5903955053. E. V. Pchelov, Bestiarii Moskovskogo tsarstva: Zhivotnye v emblematike Moskovskoi Rusi kontsa XV-XVII vv. (A Bestiary of the Muscovite Tsardom: Animals in the Emblems of Muscovite Russia from the Late 15th through the 17th Centuries). 202 pp. Moscow: Staraia Basmannaia, 2011. ISBN-13 978-5904043476. The authors of these three volumes closely examine how medieval European and Muscovite artists used bestiary images in attempting to capture the liminal moment that revealed the true nature of demons and sinners, on the one hand, and reinforced the majesty of the state, on the other. Both the monograph by Makhov and that by Antonov and Maizul's focus on visual animal imagery that reflects the darker side of liminality to represent the dark mirror of the soul. Pchelov, in contrast, investigates the Muscovites' transformation of many of these same creatures into noble emblems of state power. All three studies explore symbolic worlds characterized by an underlying duality that is especially evident in allegorical representations of beasts meant to illustrate noble or ignoble aspects of humanity. (1) A. E. Makhov focuses on the changing image of demons in the emerging Christian culture of the West. He sees the development of West European medieval visual demonology as a reflection of both theological and rhetorical concepts. Just as writers of the period interwove contradictory elements to produce literary works simultaneously concealing and revealing truth, so artists transformed the visual image into a theologically significant narration uniting disparate elements that characterized the medieval epitome of beauty. He finds this multifaceted approach reflected especially clearly in the development of the iconography of the devil, whose image was required to embody recognizable scriptural and liturgical elements symbolizing the demonic nature. Drawing upon an impressive body of representations of demons in paintings, frescoes, architectural details, and manuscript illustrations gathered from churches, museums, and libraries throughout Western Europe and the United States, Makhov skillfully interleaves visual and textual evidence into his analysis of this medieval image's construction. One or more black-and white illustrations accompany almost every page of text, and a central insert contains 32 pages of full-color plates, most with multiple images, all referenced clearly in the text. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Makhov focuses most extensively on the theology of the demonic image, beginning with the devil's origins in Lucifer's pride. The fallen angel's rebellion upset the peaceful foundation upon which creation was based. Having caused this imbalance, the devil is literally out of order. His disordered essence fragmented into innumerable variations, reflecting a state of diminishment (umalenie) that transformed the devil into the king of the material world. In the end, however, the devil plays an essential role in the fulfillment of God's plan, serving as the tempter and punisher, without whom the righteous would not win their reward. The first part of the monograph (15-187) juxtaposes texts and images to demonstrate the theological meaning of demonic poses, gestures, and guises. For example, by raising a foot or dancing over die mouth of Hades to celebrate power over sinners, the devil contrasts demonic disorder with angelic stillness. He can even assume the form of an angel. …

Метаморфозы еврейской мистики в «Белой гвардии» Михаила Булгакова

The article analyzes the elements of Jewish mysticism employed by Mikhail Bulgakov in his The White Guard and aims to trace the sources of motifs used to create a sense of mystery in the novel. The author enumerates multiple uses of Jewish mystical elements in the depiction of the characters. Mikhail Shpolyansky is both an image of the evil and refers to the Messiah. According to Jewish beliefs, the Messiah must suffer from disgusting open fester wounds. Likewise, Shpolyansky suffers from a repugnant disease but his ailment is unknown to the public unlike that of the Jewish Messiah. The disgust caused by the Messiah’s wounds is meant to verify the scale of humaneness and the capacity for mercy in the ones for whose sake the Messiah must descend to this world. If Jews can overcome the disgust they feel when looking at the Messiah’s wounds and help him, demonstrating benevolence and compassion, God will heal the Messiah’s imaginary diseases and send him to people where he will rule in God’s name and usher in a time of peace and eliminate all suffering. The author questions whether the use of Jewish sources was a conscious decision made by Bulgakov, when he interpreted the Messiah’s diseases and gave gory details of them. The question is that if Bulgakov emphasizes disgust caused by the patient and by his demonic nature, why he did not consider the motif of the repugnant wounds of the Jewish Messiah then. The author describes the writer’s digression from the traditional Jewish interpretation of Abaddon used by Bulgakov to refer to Antichrist who symbolizes the Demon of Darkness and Destruction. The elements of Old Jewish sources extensively used by Bulgakov when describing the supernatural, mystical and demonic quite often possess a meaning uncharacteristic of the one used in the Jewish original and are quite often presented inaccurately. It is likely to have been caused by the fact that while creating the mystical background of the novel, Bulgakov relied on the data on Jewish mythology he could find in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary. However, it does not reflect the original meaning of Jewish mythology but gives a distorted picture of it. Despite the discrepancies, Bulgakov managed to create an atmosphere filled with Old Jewish mystical beliefs and do it convincingly for the reader.

Dealing with Metaphysical Evil: The Banker as Evil Genius in the British Game ShowDeal or No Deal

It would appear that evil is becoming more, not less, conspicuous in contemporary social discourses as a conceptual resource for explaining the derivation of social harms emanating from human (in)action and exculpating the failures of institutional or regulatory agencies to prevent them. Metaphysical evil is increasingly cited in a range of popular and official explanations of social harms resulting from moral failures at the individual and collective level. By ‘metaphysical evil’ I mean evil of a transcendent, demonic nature reflecting the seductive, cruel and wicked aspects of pure malice directed at ‘innocent’, unsuspecting or hapless humans that has been traditionally personified in a monstrous or Satanic figure of myth and/or the presence of a seducer implied by the Gnostic traditions and the theodicy, as well as within rationalist Cartesian epistemology. This type of evil is to be distinguished from the physical evil unleashed by, for instance, disease or natural disasters, or the humanist designation of moral evil delimited to the observation of socio-ethical-legal codes of behaviour as represented in the deontological ethics of Kant, specifically his concept of ‘radical evil’ ([1793] 1960). Kant’s reconceptualisation of evil as ‘radical’, that is as ‘rooted’ in the human character and the result of the failure of all human beings to live up to their duties according to the norms of moral law, was intended among other things to do away with what he considered the failure of theodicy in general and its notional acceptance of evil as a metaphysical reality in particular. In his view, evil as a metaphysical entity encouraged a

The Devil’s Lying Wonders

That demonic agents can work wonders is a staple of much Judeo-Christian theology. Believers have proposed various means by which the Devil's work can be distinguished from the miracles wrought by God, primarily so that no one is led astray by the Devil's 'lying wonders. I consider the likelihood of our using the suggested criteria with any success. Given certain claims about the demonic nature and certain facts about the way theists often handle the problem of inscrutable evil, it seems unlikely that any of the criteria I examine can be relied upon.