2.1 What Spirits Are
The Origin and Nature of Spirits
Spirits are the intelligent beings of creation.
They populate the universe beyond the material world. They are not the Divinity itself, nor fragments or emanations of God. They are created beings, brought into existence by the divine will. In this sense they may be called God’s children: not because they are portions of God, but because they are products of the divine work.
This distinction is essential. A created being cannot be identical with its Creator. If spirits had no beginning, they would be equal to God. But they are subject to the divine will and therefore belong to the order of creation, not to the divine essence.
Spirits and Creation
Spirits have a beginning, even though the time and manner of their creation remain unknown.
God exists from all eternity. Since the Creator is eternal, creation may also be understood as continuous rather than confined to a single moment in the distant past. Spirits are therefore not beings who have always existed in their own right, but beings whom God has never ceased creating.
Their origin is real, yet mysterious. It is possible to affirm that they are created without being able to explain when each spirit came into existence or how that individual creation occurred. The fact of their creation is known more clearly than its process.
The creation of spirits is continuous. They are not generated by one another, nor do they arise spontaneously. Like all creatures, they proceed from the divine will.
The Intelligent Principle and the Material Principle
The universe may be considered under two general elements: the intelligent principle and the material principle.
Inert bodies are individualizations of the material principle. Spirits are individualizations of the intelligent principle. This helps clarify their place in the order of things: they are neither abstract ideas nor divine fragments, but distinct beings whose nature corresponds to intelligence rather than matter.
Even here, however, an important limit remains. The time and manner in which this individualization occurs are not known. Human understanding can recognize the distinction without penetrating the full mystery of its origin.
Incorporeal, Not Nothing
It is common to call spirits immaterial, but that word is not entirely exact.
A more precise term is incorporeal. A spirit is not a material body like those perceived by the senses, yet it is not mere nothingness. Since it is a creation, it must be something. Its substance is so refined, so etherealized, that ordinary human senses cannot perceive it.
For that reason, language struggles here. Human vocabulary has been formed from the world of visible and tangible things, and so it offers few adequate comparisons. To describe spirits, one must often rely on approximations. Saying that they are immaterial points to the fact that their essence differs from what is ordinarily called matter, but this should not be taken to mean that they are nonexistent or empty abstractions.
Their nature may be thought of as a kind of quintessentialized matter: not matter in the common bodily sense, but a mode of being too subtle for direct sensory grasp.
The Limits of Human Language
The difficulty in defining spirits comes not only from the subject itself but from the limitations of human perception.
A person born blind cannot truly define light. Such a person may know the world through hearing, smell, taste, and touch, yet would lack any direct understanding of what vision reveals. In a similar way, human beings are limited when trying to conceive the essence of beings beyond material perception.
This is why every description remains imperfect. What is said about spirits is often expressed through analogy, comparison, or imaginative effort. These are useful, but they do not give full comprehension. Human beings are, in this respect, like those who are blind to an order of reality that exists beyond the reach of the senses.
The Duration of Spirits
Although spirits had a beginning, their individuality does not come to an end.
This may seem difficult to understand, since material bodies are formed, decay, and return to the elements from which they came. But spirits do not follow that pattern. Their individual existence is not dissolved back into some impersonal mass. Once created as individual beings, they remain so.
Many realities surpass the present limits of human intelligence. Not understanding how a being can have a beginning without having an end is not a reason to deny the possibility. What can be affirmed is that spirits do not lose their individuality. Their personal existence continues.
Their origin is mysterious, and much about their mode of being remains hidden, but their nature can still be stated in broad terms. Spirits are created, intelligent, incorporeal beings. They are distinct from God, they belong to the universe beyond the material world, and their individual existence endures.
The Primitive, Normal World
Beyond the visible world, there exists a world of spirits, or incorporeal intelligences.
This spiritual world is not secondary or accidental. In the order of things, it is the principal world. It existed before the corporeal world and will outlast it.
The material world and the spiritual world are distinct from one another. The corporeal world could cease to exist, or might never have existed at all, without changing the essence of the spiritual world. Yet they are not isolated. Their relationship is constant, and they continually act upon one another.
Spirits do not occupy a single limited region of space. They are everywhere, filling infinite space in infinite numbers.
Some remain constantly near human beings, observing them and acting upon them without being perceived. Spirits are among the powers of nature and serve as instruments through which the divine designs of providence are carried out.
This presence, however, does not mean that all spirits have equal freedom of movement. There are regions inaccessible to those who are less advanced. Their ability to go where they wish depends on their degree of progress.
The unseen world is therefore not distant from ordinary life. It surrounds the visible world, precedes it, survives it, and remains in uninterrupted relation with it.
The Form and Ubiquity of Spirits
Spirits do not present themselves to human perception with a fixed, clearly limited, and constant form.
To human eyes, they do not appear in a stable way. To other spirits, however, they do have a real form. It may be compared to a flame, a luminous glow, or an ethereal spark.
The appearance of that brightness varies according to a spirit’s purity. It may seem dark, like a deep ruby, or shine with a brilliant radiance. Differences in light correspond to differences in development.
The familiar image of a spirit marked by a flame or a star on the brow carries a symbolic truth. It points to the essential nature of spirit life. The light is placed at the brow because that image associates the sign of brightness with the seat of intelligence.
Movement Through Space
Spirits move through space with extraordinary speed, as swiftly as thought.
Thought is not something separate from the spirit. When thought reaches a place, the spirit is there as well, because the spirit is what thinks. Thought is one of its attributes.
When a spirit passes from one place to another, it may experience that movement in different ways. It can, if it wishes, be aware of the distance traveled and of the space crossed. In other cases, distance seems to vanish altogether, and arrival appears immediate. This depends on the spirit’s will and on the degree of purification it has attained.
Matter and Spirits
Matter does not obstruct spirits.
They can pass through everything. Air, earth, water, and even fire are equally accessible to them. What seems solid and impenetrable in bodily life offers no such barrier to a spirit.
The Meaning of Ubiquity
A spirit cannot be divided. One and the same being does not split itself into separate parts in order to be in many places.
Yet a spirit may appear to be present at several points at once. This is possible because each spirit is a center that radiates in different directions. Its thought extends outward, and its influence can be perceived far away without any division of its being.
The sun offers a fitting comparison. It is a single body, yet it sends its rays in every direction and over vast distances without ceasing to be one. So too with spirits: they remain indivisible while their action extends far beyond what would be possible for embodied beings.
This radiating power is not equal in all spirits. It depends on their purity. The more elevated the spirit, the greater the reach of its thought and influence.
A spirit may therefore be understood as an indivisible center of conscious action whose thought can project itself in many directions at once. In that sense alone can ubiquity be attributed to spirits. It is not a multiplication of the spirit’s substance, but an extension of its presence.
An image of a spark is helpful here: a single spark can cast its light far off and be seen from many points on the horizon. Another comparison is that of a person who, without leaving one place or dividing himself or herself, sends signals, gives instructions, or sets movements in motion at different points. The unity remains intact, even while the action extends widely.
The Perispirit
The spirit is not naked or isolated. It is surrounded by an envelope, a substance that may seem vaporous from a human point of view, though it is more substantial to spirits. Even so, it remains subtle enough to rise, move through space, and go wherever it wills.
A useful comparison is that of a seed enclosed by its outer covering. In a similar way, the spirit proper is enveloped by what may be called the perispirit.
The Origin of the Perispirit
This semi-material envelope is formed from the universal fluid of each world. Because of that, the perispirit is not identical everywhere. It varies from one world to another according to the nature of the environment.
When a spirit passes from one world to another, it changes its envelope as a person changes clothing. Spirits coming from more advanced worlds to a more material world must take on a denser perispirit suited to that world’s conditions.
Form and Visibility
The perispirit has a definite form, shaped according to the spirit’s will. Through it, a spirit can appear in ways that are perceptible.
This is how spirits may be seen in dreams or even during waking life. By means of the perispirit, they may assume a visible form and, in certain cases, even a tangible one.
The Different Orders of Spirits
Spirits are not all equal. They belong to different orders according to the degree of purification they have attained.
These orders are not fixed like rigid castes. The number of degrees is unlimited, because there is no absolute dividing line separating one level from another. Progress is continuous, and the boundaries between conditions are not sharp. Any classification serves only to gather broad characteristics into a form the mind can grasp.
Even so, spirits may be understood under three principal orders.
Third Order
At the lower end are imperfect spirits.
They are marked by ignorance, by tendencies that draw them away from the good, and by passions that delay their advancement. Here, evil must be understood in a relative sense: not always as complete depravity, but as whatever departs from the divine law.
Not all spirits in this order are alike. Some neither do good nor evil in any marked way. Some take pleasure in evil and are glad when an occasion presents itself. Others are frivolous and foolish rather than deeply malicious. These are more mischievous than wicked. They delight in teasing, provoking, and causing small disturbances and annoyances.
Second Order
Above them are spirits who have reached the middle range of advancement.
Their chief concern is the desire to do good. Yet this desire does not appear in all with the same strength or in the same form. Their actual ability depends on their degree of purification.
Some stand out especially for knowledge. Others are distinguished by wisdom and goodness. All, however, still have trials to undergo. They have progressed greatly, but have not yet reached perfection.
First Order
At the highest level are pure spirits.
These have already attained perfection. They stand at the summit of the scale, having completed the purification that frees them from the imperfections belonging to the lower orders.
Continuity of Development
The three orders provide a broad view of spiritual advancement, but they do not divide spirits into sealed and separate groups. Since there is no barrier between one degree and another, the divisions may be expanded or reduced according to the characteristics one wishes to emphasize.
What remains constant is the law of progress. Spirits advance by purification. As they rise, ignorance recedes, disordered passions lose their power, and the desire and capacity for good become clearer and stronger. At the summit of that progression are pure spirits, in whom perfection has been attained.
The Spirit Hierarchy
Spirits exist at different degrees of development.
These differences are based on the qualities they have acquired, the imperfections from which they have not yet freed themselves, and the extent to which spirit or matter predominates in them. Any classification of spirits is only a means of understanding these gradations. No class is absolute in a rigid sense, and the transition from one degree to another is often almost imperceptible. The boundaries blend, as in the kingdoms of nature, in the colors of the rainbow, or in the stages of human life.
For that reason, spirits themselves do not attach great importance to the conventional form of classifications. The essential reality is the condition of the spirit, not the labels used to describe it. Different arrangements may vary in detail without changing the truth behind them.
Another caution is necessary. Not every spirit possesses clear knowledge simply because it is a spirit. There are ignorant spirits just as there are ignorant human beings. Many understand only imperfectly the order of the spiritual world and may be unable to distinguish the finer differences among more advanced spirits. Careful judgment is therefore needed, based on what spirits say and do.
Three principal orders can nevertheless be recognized. At the bottom are the spirits in whom matter predominates over spirit and who incline toward evil. Above them are those in whom spirit predominates over matter and who desire the good. At the highest level are pure spirits, who have reached the greatest degree of purification.
These divisions help explain the striking inequalities found in spiritual communications. They also help indicate what degree of confidence or reserve is appropriate in dealing with different spirits. Yet no spirit remains forever fixed in one state. Progress is gradual, and it may occur more in one respect than another. A spirit may advance in knowledge more quickly than in morality, or the reverse, and so may display traits belonging to more than one class.
Third Order: Imperfect Spirits
In the Third Order, matter predominates over spirit. These spirits are inclined toward evil and are marked by ignorance, pride, selfishness, and the passions that arise from them.
They have an intuition of God, but they do not understand God.
Not all are equally corrupt. Some are merely frivolous, thoughtless, or mischievous rather than deeply wicked. Some do neither good nor evil, yet their failure to do good still reveals imperfection. Others take pleasure in wrongdoing itself and are gratified when they find opportunities to practice it.
Even when they possess intelligence, their ideas lack elevation and their sentiments remain more or less base. Their knowledge of the spiritual world is limited, and what little they know is often confused with the prejudices of bodily life. They can give only incomplete and faulty notions of that world, though an attentive observer may sometimes detect truths mixed in among their errors.
Their language reveals their condition. Any spirit whose communications betray evil thoughts belongs to this order, and every evil suggestion made to human beings comes from spirits of this type.
They see the happiness of good spirits, and that sight torments them. They experience the anguish of envy and jealousy. They also retain the memory and perception of the sufferings of bodily life, often with a pain greater than what they actually endured while incarnate. In this way, they suffer both from the wrongs done to them and from those they caused to others, and because this suffering may endure for a very long time, they believe it will never end.
Five principal classes may be distinguished within this order.
Tenth Class: Impure Spirits
These are inclined toward evil and make it the object of all their concerns. As spirits, they give unscrupulous advice, sow discord and distrust, and assume every kind of disguise in order to deceive more effectively.
They attach themselves to people whose weakness makes them likely to yield to harmful suggestions. They delight in delaying such persons’ progress by causing them to fail in the trials they must endure.
Their nature appears in their speech. Coarseness and vulgarity of expression always indicate moral inferiority, and often intellectual inferiority as well. Their communications reveal the baseness of their inclinations. Even when they attempt to deceive by speaking sensibly, they cannot maintain the pretense for long and eventually betray themselves.
Many traditions have regarded them as malevolent powers, demons, or evil spirits.
When incarnated, they incline toward the vices born of degrading passions: sensuality, cruelty, deceit, hypocrisy, greed, and sordid avarice. They do evil for the pleasure of it, often without motive, and out of hatred for the good they most often choose honest people as their victims. Whatever their social position, they are scourges of humanity, and no outward polish can conceal their dishonor.
Ninth Class: Frivolous Spirits
These are ignorant, mischievous, thoughtless, and mocking spirits. They meddle in everything and answer every question without much concern for truth.
They delight in causing small annoyances, stirring up little alarms, creating intrigues, and leading people into error through tricks and mischief. To this class belong the spirits often imagined under names such as hobgoblins, imps, gnomes, and pixies. They are subject to higher spirits, who often use them as human beings use servants.
Their language may be lively and witty, but it almost always lacks depth. They seize upon human oddities and absurdities and speak of them with sarcasm and satire. If they assume impressive names, it is usually more from mischief than from real malice.
Eighth Class: Pseudo-Learned Spirits
The knowledge of these spirits is fairly extensive, but they believe themselves to know more than they actually do. Because they have made some progress, their language often has a serious tone that can mislead others about their true capacity and enlightenment.
Yet what they say is frequently only a reflection of the prejudices and theories they held during earthly life. Their communications contain some truths mixed with absurd errors, and these betray the pride, presumption, envy, and stubbornness from which they have not yet been freed.
Seventh Class: Neutral Spirits
These are neither good enough to do good consistently nor bad enough to take pleasure in wickedness. They waver between the two.
They have not risen above the ordinary human condition either morally or intellectually. They remain attached to earthly things and long for coarse satisfactions.
Sixth Class: Boisterous and Disturbing Spirits
Strictly speaking, these do not form a separate class by their moral character, for they may belong to any of the classes of the Third Order.
They often make their presence known through physical and perceptible effects: knocks, movements, the displacement of solid objects, disturbances in the air, and similar phenomena. They seem more attached to matter than other imperfect spirits and are principal agents in disturbances affecting the elements of the globe, whether in the atmosphere, water, fire, solid bodies, or the depths of the earth.
Such effects can be recognized as spiritual rather than merely accidental or physical when they bear an intentional and intelligent character. All spirits can produce these phenomena, but higher spirits generally leave them to inferior agents better suited to material than intellectual operations. When more elevated spirits judge such manifestations useful, they employ these spirits as instruments.
Second Order: Good Spirits
In the Second Order, spirit predominates over matter, and there is a sincere desire to do good.
Their qualities and their power to do good are proportionate to the degree they have reached. Some are notable for knowledge, others for wisdom and benevolence, and the most advanced unite knowledge with moral excellence. Since they are not yet completely dematerialized, they still retain, according to their rank, traces of corporeal existence and may preserve certain former habits or peculiarities in language and manner. Without such traces, they would already be pure spirits.
They understand God and the infinite, and they already enjoy the happiness proper to moral goodness. They are happy in doing good and in preventing evil. The love that unites them is a source of ineffable happiness, untouched by envy, remorse, or the passions that torment imperfect spirits. Yet they still must undergo trials until perfection is attained.
As spirits, they inspire good thoughts, turn people away from evil, watch over those who have made themselves worthy of such help, and neutralize the influence of imperfect spirits upon those who resist it.
When incarnate, they are kind and benevolent. They do good for its own sake and are not ruled by pride, selfishness, ambition, hatred, bitterness, envy, or jealousy.
This order includes what are commonly called good spirits, guardian spirits, and spirits of benevolence. In earlier times they were often regarded as beneficent deities.
Four principal groups may be distinguished.
Fifth Class: Benevolent Spirits
Their dominant quality is kindness. They take pleasure in serving and protecting human beings.
Their knowledge, however, is limited. Their progress has advanced more in the moral sense than in the intellectual.
Fourth Class: Learned Spirits
These are distinguished especially by the breadth of their knowledge. They are less concerned with moral questions because they are more particularly fitted for scientific matters, but they pursue knowledge with usefulness in view.
They are also free from the passions that characterize imperfect spirits.
Third Class: Wise Spirits
These are marked by moral qualities of the highest order. Even if their knowledge is not universal, they possess an intellectual capacity that enables them to judge people and things with accuracy.
Second Class: High-Order Spirits
These unite knowledge, wisdom, and goodness. Their language is invariably benevolent, noble, elevated, and often sublime.
Their superiority makes them more capable than others of conveying the most accurate ideas possible, within the limits allowed to human understanding, concerning the incorporeal world. They communicate willingly with those who sincerely seek truth and whose souls are sufficiently detached from earthly ties to understand it. They withdraw from those moved only by curiosity or from those whose attachment to matter turns them away from the practice of the good.
When they incarnate on earth under exceptional circumstances, they fulfill a mission of progress and offer an image of the perfection to which humanity may aspire in this world.
First Order: Pure Spirits
Pure spirits are no longer under the influence of matter. They possess absolute intellectual and moral superiority in relation to spirits of the lower orders.
First and Only Class
These spirits have passed through all degrees of the hierarchy and freed themselves from every impurity of matter. Having attained the highest perfection possible for created beings, they have no more trials or expiations to undergo. Since they are no longer subject to reincarnation in perishable bodies, they live an eternal life in God.
Their bliss is unalterable, yet it is not a life of idle contemplation. They are the messengers and ministers of God and carry out the divine will in maintaining universal harmony. They direct the spirits below them, help them advance toward perfection, and assign their missions. They aid human beings in distress, inspire them toward the good, and help them repair the faults that still keep them from supreme happiness.
These are the beings sometimes called angels, archangels, or seraphim.
Human beings may communicate with them, but anyone who imagines having them constantly at command is under a serious illusion.
Progress and Discernment
No spirit remains perpetually and exclusively in one class. Progress is continuous and gradual. Because development may proceed more in one direction than another, a spirit may show traits belonging to several categories at once.
For that reason, discernment is always necessary. The true measure of a spirit is found in its language, sentiments, moral character, and the quality of the influence it exerts. Classification is useful, but the reality behind it is living movement toward greater light, greater purity, and greater good.
The Progression of Spirits
Spirits are not good or evil by nature in any fixed or absolute sense. They improve themselves, and through that improvement they rise from a lower order to a higher one.
All spirits are created simple and ignorant. They are not created with knowledge already formed, nor are some made good while others are made evil. Each is given a mission directed toward enlightenment and gradual progress. Through growing knowledge of truth, each is led toward perfection and drawn nearer to God. In that perfected state lies lasting happiness, free from trouble.
Knowledge is acquired through experience and through the trials of existence. Some accept these trials with humility and advance more quickly. Others resist, complain, or refuse to learn, and by their own choice remain farther from perfection and the happiness that accompanies it.
The comparison with children is useful, though only up to a point. As children grow, they learn little by little, and their progress depends partly on their disposition. A rebellious child may remain ignorant and undeveloped longer than an obedient one. Yet human life is brief, while the life of spirits extends without limit. What is delayed is not therefore lost.
No spirit remains forever in the lower orders. All are destined to become perfect. Progress may be slow, and a spirit may remain stationary for a time, but no one is abandoned forever. Divine justice and mercy do not condemn any being to endless exclusion.
Advancement can also be hastened. The speed of progress depends on a spirit’s desire to improve and on its willing submission to the divine order. Just as a teachable child learns faster than an obstinate one, so a spirit that accepts discipline and truth rises more readily.
There is, however, no regression in the true sense. Once a spirit has genuinely advanced and acquired understanding through experience, that gain is never lost. A spirit may delay, resist, or linger at a stage, but it does not return to ignorance as though nothing had been learned.
Perfection cannot simply be granted without effort. If spirits had been created already perfect, they would not have earned the joys of perfection. Without struggle, there would be no merit in victory. Differences of degree also serve a purpose. Variety in development allows for distinct missions and functions within the universal order, contributing to the harmony of creation.
In earthly society, not everyone reaches the highest rank because circumstances are limited and unequal. In the life of spirits, the horizon is unlimited. Although spirits advance at different speeds and by different paths, all may eventually attain the highest degree.
The trial through which spirits pass is not a necessary passage through evil itself, but through ignorance. Evil is not an original condition. It arises when freedom is misused.
Spirits follow different paths because they possess free will. God creates none of them evil. They are created simple and ignorant, capable of turning toward either good or evil. Those who become evil do so by their own choice.
Free will unfolds as self-awareness develops. A true choice cannot be imposed from outside the will. The determining cause is not an evil principle placed within the spirit at its creation. Rather, it lies in the influences to which the spirit consents or resists. Some yield to temptation; others withstand it.
These harmful influences come from imperfect spirits who try to dominate others and draw them into error. They take satisfaction in seeing others fall. Their action is not limited to the beginning of a spirit’s existence. It may continue as long as the spirit remains vulnerable, until sufficient self-mastery has been gained and lower influences can no longer prevail.
Why such freedom is allowed belongs to the wisdom of divine order. Yet one thing is clear: freedom gives value to moral action. Without freedom of choice, there would be no personal merit in choosing the good.
Between absolute good and absolute evil there are many gradations. Most spirits are found somewhere along that broad range rather than at either extreme. Even those who have long followed the path of evil can eventually attain the same elevation as those who chose better from the start, though the journey is far longer for them.
The long duration of suffering should not be understood as endless condemnation. For imperfect spirits, suffering seems indefinite because they cannot yet foresee its end. Each failure renews the impression of perpetuity. But the future remains open.
Those who went astray are not loved less. Before choosing badly, they were simply undeveloped spirits. Divine regard does not diminish because of their mistakes. They are called evil only because they yielded to evil, not because they were made so in their origin.
All spirits are created equal with respect to their fundamental capacity. Yet they advance in intelligence and morality at different rates. One may develop understanding more quickly, another moral strength. Equality at the beginning does not mean uniformity in the path.
Those who choose the good from early on are not perfect merely because they have avoided great falls. They still need experience, growth, and knowledge. A naturally well-disposed child is not instantly an adult. In the same way, a spirit inclined toward good still has much to learn before reaching perfection.
A spirit at its origin is neither fully good nor fully evil. It bears the possibility of both directions and takes one path or the other through the exercise of freedom. Progress consists in learning, choosing, struggling, and gradually rising toward truth, purity, and union with the good.
Angels and Demons
The beings commonly called angels, archangels, and seraphim are not a separate order of creation, different in nature from other spirits. They are pure spirits, having reached the highest degree of the hierarchy and attained inward perfection.
The word angel ordinarily suggests moral perfection, yet it has often been used more broadly for any being beyond the human condition, whether good or evil. In common speech people have spoken of good angels and bad angels, angels of light and angels of darkness. In that wider sense, the term simply means spirit. When used more precisely, it refers to the good and elevated beings who have reached purity.
Angels and Progress
Angels have not been created perfect from the beginning. They have advanced through all degrees of development. Some accepted their mission without resistance and therefore progressed more quickly. Others took longer to reach perfection. Their superiority is the result of growth, fidelity, and purification, not of a different origin.
This explains why nearly every culture has preserved the idea of beings of the highest order. Worlds have not existed from eternity in their present form, and long before the present human condition there were already spirits who had attained great elevation. Seeing such beings, people naturally supposed that they had always been perfect.
Demons and the Nature of Evil
In the ordinary sense of the word, demons are imagined as essentially malevolent beings, created for evil and fixed in it forever. Such a belief cannot be reconciled with divine justice and goodness.
If demons existed as beings made evil by nature and eternally condemned to evil, they would still have to be God’s work. But a just and good God could not create unfortunate beings destined from the outset to wrongdoing without end. If, on the other hand, they were not created by God, they would have to exist eternally alongside God, which would imply more than one ultimate power. Neither idea is reasonable.
A doctrine must be logical. The absolute notion of demons fails this test. Among less developed beliefs, where the divine attributes are imperfectly understood, it is understandable that people imagine evil powers opposing good ones. But once divine goodness is recognized as essential, it becomes contradictory to suppose that God would create beings dedicated forever to evil.
The Meaning of the Word Demon
The modern meaning of demon suggests evil spirits, but the older Greek word daimon originally meant genius or intelligence and could be applied to incorporeal beings of either kind, good or bad. Much confusion has come from taking the later meaning as if it were absolute.
What are commonly called demons are better understood as impure spirits. They are morally imperfect spirits, often malicious, hypocritical, rebellious, or deceitful, and at times no better than the beings usually imagined under that name. Yet their condition is not eternal. Their imperfection is temporary.
These spirits resist their trials and protest against the discipline needed for their improvement. For that reason they prolong their own suffering and remain in lower states for a long time. But they are not excluded forever from progress. Once they choose amendment and advancement, they too move toward perfection.
Because the word demon is now so strongly tied to the idea of beings created exclusively for evil, it can easily mislead. Used without care, it may strengthen a false belief. If it is used at all, it should be understood only in the limited sense of impure and still undeveloped spirits.
Satan as Allegory
Satan is not a real being rivaling the Divinity or struggling against God as an equal power. Such an idea is incompatible with the sovereignty of God. Satan is the allegorical personification of evil.
Human beings naturally use images and figures to impress ideas on the imagination. For this reason incorporeal realities are often represented in material forms that express their qualities or defects. Time was pictured by the ancients as an old man with a scythe and an hourglass. Fortune, Truth, and other abstractions were also personified.
In the same way, pure spirits have been imagined as radiant beings clothed in white wings, symbols of purity and elevation. Satan, by contrast, has been represented with horns, claws, and other animal features, symbols of the lower passions. These images are meaningful as symbols. Error begins when symbols are taken as literal descriptions of actual beings.
Figurative Language and Religious Expression
Many expressions inherited from religious tradition use figurative language. This is especially true in teachings given to people according to the time, place, and habits of understanding available to them. Not every image is meant to be read literally.
When certain sayings appear to conflict with reason, the difficulty need not lie in truth itself, but in human interpretation. The presence of allegory in sacred language calls for discernment. A figurative expression about demons or Satan should not be used to support the idea of an eternal kingdom of evil set against God.
Moral Consequence
Evil does not come from a class of beings created for wickedness. It comes from spirits who are still imperfect and attached to lower passions. Some human beings, through hypocrisy, cruelty, and vindictiveness practiced in the name of religion, make themselves more demonic in conduct than the symbolic demons they fear.
No spirit is created for evil, and none is condemned to remain evil forever. Even the darkest states belong to beings capable of transformation. The pure spirits called angels and the impure spirits called demons belong to the same great family of spirits at different stages of advancement. One has reached perfection; the other still struggles toward it.