DEMONOLOGY, the doctrine that re lates to demons, a body of spiritual be ings inferior in rank to deities proper, but yet capable of influencing human affairs. The earlier and more widely spread conception of the demon was merely that of a more or less powerful and intermediate agent between gods and men at one time resolving himself into a kind of special guardian or pa tron-spirit, at another acting as the minister of the divine displeasure.
To primitive man the demon was but one of the thousand spiritual beings who controlled every one of the causes of nature, and whose favor must be pur chased by constant tributes of respect and worship. It was perfectly consist ent with primitive philosophy that the manes or ghosts of the dead should con tinue after death the influence they en joyed in life, and thus should pass into the higher class of deities. It is not merely family affection, but actual fear and considerations of prudence, that lead to the worship of ancestors and of the dead; and the good or bad fortune of living men is attributed to the direct interference of the invisible spirits with which the whole air around is swarming. These spirits may not only affect the fortune of the individual, but may even enter into his body, and cause internal diseases and such other inexplicable phenomena as frenzy, wild ravings, hys terical epilepsy, and the like.
The very etymology of such words as catalepsy and ecstasy points plainly to a time when there was no metaphor in their meaning. Such is the explanation of disease offered at the present day by savage man all over the world, and sub was also the belief of the semi-civilized ancient Egyptians and Babylonians. In deed, it disappeared but slowly before the progress of scientific medicine, and continued to reappear in survivals strangely perplexing on any other ex planation. Hence the function of the exorcist arises naturally as a means of effecting a cure by expelling the demon, and we find him daily exercising his skill in Africa, and even in China and India. In early Christian times those demoniacally possessed, or energumens, were grouped into a class under the care of a special order of clerical exorcists, and after the time of St. Augustine the rite of exorcism came to be applied to all infants before baptism.