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Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway
Three Friars, says a legend, hid themselves near the Witch Sabbath orgies that they might count the devils; but the Chief of these, discovering the friars, said—‘Reverend Brothers, our army is such that if all the Alps, their rocks and glaciers, were equally divided among us, none would have a pound’s weight.’ This was in one Alpine valley. Any one who has caught but a glimpse of the world’s Walpurgis Night, as revealed in Mythology and Folklore, must agree that this courteous devil did not overstate the case. Any attempt to catalogue the evil spectres which have haunted mankind were like trying to count the shadows cast upon the earth by the rising sun. This conviction has grown upon the author of this work at every step in his studies of the subject.
In 1859 I contributed, as one of the American ‘Tracts for the Times,’ a pamphlet entitled ‘The Natural History of the Devil.’ Probably the chief value of that essay was to myself, and this in that its preparation had revealed to me how pregnant with interest and importance was the subject selected. Subsequent researches in the same direction, after I had come to reside in Europe, revealed how slight had been my conception of the vastness of the domain upon which that early venture was made. In 1872, while preparing a series of lectures for the Royal Institution on Demonology, it appeared to me that the best I could do was to print those lectures with some notes and additions; but after they were delivered there still remained with me unused the greater part of materials collected in many countries, and the phantasmal creatures which I had evoked would not permit me to rest from my labours until I had dealt with them more thoroughly.
In 1859 I contributed, as one of the American ‘Tracts for the Times,’ a pamphlet entitled ‘The Natural History of the Devil.’ Probably the chief value of that essay was to myself, and this in that its preparation had revealed to me how pregnant with interest and importance was the subject selected. Subsequent researches in the same direction, after I had come to reside in Europe, revealed how slight had been my conception of the vastness of the domain upon which that early venture was made. In 1872, while preparing a series of lectures for the Royal Institution on Demonology, it appeared to me that the best I could do was to print those lectures with some notes and additions; but after they were delivered there still remained with me unused the greater part of materials collected in many countries, and the phantasmal creatures which I had evoked would not permit me to rest from my labours until I had dealt with them more thoroughly.
899 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1990
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About the author
Moncure Daniel Conway
430 books11 followersMoncure Daniel Conway was an American abolitionist minister. At various times Methodist, Unitarian, and a Freethinker, the radical writer descended from patriotic and patrician families of Virginia and Maryland but spent most of the final four decades of his life abroad in England and France, where he wrote biographies of Edmund Randolph, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Thomas Paine and his own autobiography. He led freethinkers in London's South Place Chapel, now Conway Hall.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 30, 2018
I read the first volume of this book over a course of several months, a chapter here and there. It's quite fascinating and informative about beliefs across cultures, although I thought that some of the connections Conway makes can be a bit tenuous at times. Even if the author's own theories aren't always something you might accept, his survey of myths, folktales, superstitions and rituals across cultures is fascinating.
In each chapter he takes a topic like darkness, hunger, heat, cold, barrenness, enemies, de-throned gods, etc. and tells how this theme is found in demonic myths throughout the world.
I've been a "student" of folklore and folk belief for most of my reading life and I found a lot of things here I'd never read elsewhere.
This isn't exactly light reading, but considering both volumes comprise nearly 1,000 pages I doubt many people would consider it such. The prose is challenging at times, dense. Sometimes Conway would go off on a bit of a tangent mid-paragraph and I'd have to go back and recalibrate to see how it connects with what he's trying to say overall.
He also likes to talk in metaphor at times and poetically. Here's a sample, speaking about those who claim to have "second sight":
"It is not difficult in reading them to see that they are all substantially one and the same story, and that the sight in operation was indeed second; for man or woman, at once imaginative and illiterate, have a second and supernumerary pair of eyes inherited from the traditional superstitions and ghost stories which fill all the air they breathe from the cradle to the grave. While the mind is in this condition, that same nature whose apparitions and illusions originally evoked and fostered the glamoury, still moves on with her minglings of light and shade, cloud and mirage, giving no word of explanation. There are never wanting the shadowy forms without that cast their shuttles to the dark idols of the mental cave, together weaving subtle spells round the half-waking mind."
I've found that many of the older books on this topic (this was published in 1878) are often written from the point of view of a believer, but while Conway was a minister early in his life he would become a freethinker years before writing this book. So we get an objective view across cultures.
Many of the chapters later in the book were rather disappointing. He turns to the idea of the dragon as an intermediate idea which man imagined between nature demons and malevolent devils. But many of the chapters here didn't really cover a lot of detail. The chapter on the eye of the dragon which was believed capable of killing mostly talks about the form of the dragon through cultures, with a lot of poetry. The chapter here on the worm, which I expected to be quite interesting is almost entirely devoted to how cultures put a veil between the masses and the representations of the gods.
I'm not sure if I will read the second volume of this book, I felt it ended rather disappointingly, however there are many other books on the topic that cover it in such detail.
As a side note, I find it interesting that there are no books written so extensively on folklore anymore. I challenge anyone to find a book on demonology written in the last century that was even close to 1,000 pages. The same goes for books on folklore generally. I'm thinking of Edward Tylor's "Primitive Culture," (1871) or Edwin Hartland's "The Legend of Perseus; A Study of Tradition in Story, Custom and Belief," (1896) or Benjamin Thorpe's "Northern Mythology" (1852) -- all coming in at over 1,000 pages. Andrew Lang's "Myth, Ritual and Religion" (1899) is over 700 pages, as is Lady Wilde's "Ancient Legends of Ireland" (1887) and John Dalyell's "The Darker Superstitions of Scotland" (1834). In 1893 James Mackinlay managed to fill nearly 400 pages of a book entitled "The Folklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs" (!) Books on such topics today, if they're written at all resemble phamphlets by comparison. All of these books, including this one are available for free on archive.org.
In each chapter he takes a topic like darkness, hunger, heat, cold, barrenness, enemies, de-throned gods, etc. and tells how this theme is found in demonic myths throughout the world.
I've been a "student" of folklore and folk belief for most of my reading life and I found a lot of things here I'd never read elsewhere.
This isn't exactly light reading, but considering both volumes comprise nearly 1,000 pages I doubt many people would consider it such. The prose is challenging at times, dense. Sometimes Conway would go off on a bit of a tangent mid-paragraph and I'd have to go back and recalibrate to see how it connects with what he's trying to say overall.
He also likes to talk in metaphor at times and poetically. Here's a sample, speaking about those who claim to have "second sight":
"It is not difficult in reading them to see that they are all substantially one and the same story, and that the sight in operation was indeed second; for man or woman, at once imaginative and illiterate, have a second and supernumerary pair of eyes inherited from the traditional superstitions and ghost stories which fill all the air they breathe from the cradle to the grave. While the mind is in this condition, that same nature whose apparitions and illusions originally evoked and fostered the glamoury, still moves on with her minglings of light and shade, cloud and mirage, giving no word of explanation. There are never wanting the shadowy forms without that cast their shuttles to the dark idols of the mental cave, together weaving subtle spells round the half-waking mind."
I've found that many of the older books on this topic (this was published in 1878) are often written from the point of view of a believer, but while Conway was a minister early in his life he would become a freethinker years before writing this book. So we get an objective view across cultures.
Many of the chapters later in the book were rather disappointing. He turns to the idea of the dragon as an intermediate idea which man imagined between nature demons and malevolent devils. But many of the chapters here didn't really cover a lot of detail. The chapter on the eye of the dragon which was believed capable of killing mostly talks about the form of the dragon through cultures, with a lot of poetry. The chapter here on the worm, which I expected to be quite interesting is almost entirely devoted to how cultures put a veil between the masses and the representations of the gods.
I'm not sure if I will read the second volume of this book, I felt it ended rather disappointingly, however there are many other books on the topic that cover it in such detail.
As a side note, I find it interesting that there are no books written so extensively on folklore anymore. I challenge anyone to find a book on demonology written in the last century that was even close to 1,000 pages. The same goes for books on folklore generally. I'm thinking of Edward Tylor's "Primitive Culture," (1871) or Edwin Hartland's "The Legend of Perseus; A Study of Tradition in Story, Custom and Belief," (1896) or Benjamin Thorpe's "Northern Mythology" (1852) -- all coming in at over 1,000 pages. Andrew Lang's "Myth, Ritual and Religion" (1899) is over 700 pages, as is Lady Wilde's "Ancient Legends of Ireland" (1887) and John Dalyell's "The Darker Superstitions of Scotland" (1834). In 1893 James Mackinlay managed to fill nearly 400 pages of a book entitled "The Folklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs" (!) Books on such topics today, if they're written at all resemble phamphlets by comparison. All of these books, including this one are available for free on archive.org.
October 25, 2010
Vol. 2 was the only book I ever stole from a library (though I later returned it).
Written in the late 1870s when Conway was at Harvard (at the same time and place that Child was collecting his ballads), D and D is a brilliant piece of history and psychological study of evil – much of it the evil of those who persecuted witches, heretics and the other "others" who did not fit neatly into society.
Heavily footnoted, it's still a delight to read, even when at its most academic. It's been almost totally lost to time, in part because Conway became best known as an Abolitionist writer, and this work didn't resonate with his followers.
Why did I swipe vol. 2? Because when I found this work on the library shelf, where it had lain undisturbed for probably 80 years, it had been autographed to a friend - and the pages had never been cut. What a sad thing. I felt like I had rescued it from oblivion.
Now, fortunately, you can find it in pdf form online, free. You might like it, you might not, but you have nothing to lose. And you won't have to cut the pages.
Written in the late 1870s when Conway was at Harvard (at the same time and place that Child was collecting his ballads), D and D is a brilliant piece of history and psychological study of evil – much of it the evil of those who persecuted witches, heretics and the other "others" who did not fit neatly into society.
Heavily footnoted, it's still a delight to read, even when at its most academic. It's been almost totally lost to time, in part because Conway became best known as an Abolitionist writer, and this work didn't resonate with his followers.
Why did I swipe vol. 2? Because when I found this work on the library shelf, where it had lain undisturbed for probably 80 years, it had been autographed to a friend - and the pages had never been cut. What a sad thing. I felt like I had rescued it from oblivion.
Now, fortunately, you can find it in pdf form online, free. You might like it, you might not, but you have nothing to lose. And you won't have to cut the pages.
March 31, 2020
I haven’t worked out if this is the half version or the full version (as a Goodreads page) but I assuredly completed both volumes in my reading (blessed be the public domain). This is an interesting overview of so many facets of folklore it’s hard to keep up with them, however, I have to say I don’t subscribe to some of the interpretations.
A lot of the things in here were watered down which was disappointing, as I would have preferred a veritable bestiary of demons and the lore surrounding them as opposed to the parable-esque writings of the author. There’s also a lot missing- sure, you can’t cover every single facet of folklore, but this book shows it’s age easily. I feel like so many areas were neglected and the geographic predispositions led to an incomplete presentation of the knowledge. However, if you have any interest in folklore (specifically demonology) it’s worth picking up.
A lot of the things in here were watered down which was disappointing, as I would have preferred a veritable bestiary of demons and the lore surrounding them as opposed to the parable-esque writings of the author. There’s also a lot missing- sure, you can’t cover every single facet of folklore, but this book shows it’s age easily. I feel like so many areas were neglected and the geographic predispositions led to an incomplete presentation of the knowledge. However, if you have any interest in folklore (specifically demonology) it’s worth picking up.
October 21, 2017
Frustrated
This book is incomplete. I found the complete version online for free after paying for this version. Very disappointing overall.
This book is incomplete. I found the complete version online for free after paying for this version. Very disappointing overall.
June 2, 2019
I started reading this book in 2014 and interrupted my progress several times finding it tiresome and uninteresting.
The second volume caught my attention by this year’s Easter and it went smoothly from there.
Daniel Conway is better known for being an abolitionist minister.
As a treatise on the historical developments of the idea of Evil (which it was supposed to be), the book is really disappointing, especially, for Catholic readers with some intimacy with a more developed Angelology and a complex Celestial Hierarchy.
Daniel Conway was no Catholic. Actually, being a Protestant pastor by training, he ended up denying the divinity of Christ and becoming a Free Thinker. His religion was liberalism after all.
And that is what is truly interesting about these two extensive volumes on Demonology: not the mythological investigation but the liberal bullshit.
A wonderful picture of his time and its prejudices, the author is almost a stereotype. He got the whole package: materialism, excessive trust in the progress of science, atheism, anticlericalism, white guilt, even feminism (his chapter on Lilith would make any postmodern theologian proud).
If one reads the book as an ’Apologia pro vita sua’ it’s really worth it. An honest although unintentional psychological portrait and intellectual biography, written in a good Victorian English prose by a learned man, who read his classics.
The second volume caught my attention by this year’s Easter and it went smoothly from there.
Daniel Conway is better known for being an abolitionist minister.
As a treatise on the historical developments of the idea of Evil (which it was supposed to be), the book is really disappointing, especially, for Catholic readers with some intimacy with a more developed Angelology and a complex Celestial Hierarchy.
Daniel Conway was no Catholic. Actually, being a Protestant pastor by training, he ended up denying the divinity of Christ and becoming a Free Thinker. His religion was liberalism after all.
And that is what is truly interesting about these two extensive volumes on Demonology: not the mythological investigation but the liberal bullshit.
A wonderful picture of his time and its prejudices, the author is almost a stereotype. He got the whole package: materialism, excessive trust in the progress of science, atheism, anticlericalism, white guilt, even feminism (his chapter on Lilith would make any postmodern theologian proud).
If one reads the book as an ’Apologia pro vita sua’ it’s really worth it. An honest although unintentional psychological portrait and intellectual biography, written in a good Victorian English prose by a learned man, who read his classics.
December 27, 2019
[EN]
I've finished this book about demonology which analyze how different cultures and regilions have interpreted demons and devil along history. It has two volumes, 1st for #demons, relating it with entities that do harm to acomplish some greater objective and 2nd for #devil, who performs damage because they enjoy it.
I was caught with the 1st volume and some parts of 2nd (with topics such as Adam, Eve, Lucifer and Lilith), but it gets really difficult to reach the end of it. Termilogy used is very specific so one need to have patience because check on wikipedia is a must any time a new god or evil is mentioned.
To sum up, I liked the level information the author has included but at the end my mind was a little bit dizzy with so many terms. I think it's a good book for someone that already has some insight on this topic.
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.
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[ES]
He terminado este libro sobre demonologia, el cual analiza como las diferentes culturas y religiones han interpretado a los demonios y al diablo a lo largo de la historia. Este tiene dos volumenes, el 1ero sobre #demonios, relacionandolos con aquellas entidades que hacen daño para lograr un objetivo mayor y el 2do sobre #diablo, siendo aquellos que generan perjucio por el solo hecho de disfrutarlo.
El 1er volumen y algunas partes del 2do (con temas como Adán, Eva, Lucifer y Lilith) me atraparon bastante, pero me resultó realmente dificil terminarlo. La terminología utilizada es muy especifica por lo que uno tiene que ser paciente ya que se debe chequear en wikipedia cada vez que un nuevo dios o demonio es mencionado.
Para resumir, me gustó el nivel información que el autor ha incluido pero al final me sentí bastante mareado con tantos términos. Creo que es un buen libro para alguien que ya tiene algo de información previa sobre este tema.
I've finished this book about demonology which analyze how different cultures and regilions have interpreted demons and devil along history. It has two volumes, 1st for #demons, relating it with entities that do harm to acomplish some greater objective and 2nd for #devil, who performs damage because they enjoy it.
I was caught with the 1st volume and some parts of 2nd (with topics such as Adam, Eve, Lucifer and Lilith), but it gets really difficult to reach the end of it. Termilogy used is very specific so one need to have patience because check on wikipedia is a must any time a new god or evil is mentioned.
To sum up, I liked the level information the author has included but at the end my mind was a little bit dizzy with so many terms. I think it's a good book for someone that already has some insight on this topic.
.
.
.
[ES]
He terminado este libro sobre demonologia, el cual analiza como las diferentes culturas y religiones han interpretado a los demonios y al diablo a lo largo de la historia. Este tiene dos volumenes, el 1ero sobre #demonios, relacionandolos con aquellas entidades que hacen daño para lograr un objetivo mayor y el 2do sobre #diablo, siendo aquellos que generan perjucio por el solo hecho de disfrutarlo.
El 1er volumen y algunas partes del 2do (con temas como Adán, Eva, Lucifer y Lilith) me atraparon bastante, pero me resultó realmente dificil terminarlo. La terminología utilizada es muy especifica por lo que uno tiene que ser paciente ya que se debe chequear en wikipedia cada vez que un nuevo dios o demonio es mencionado.
Para resumir, me gustó el nivel información que el autor ha incluido pero al final me sentí bastante mareado con tantos términos. Creo que es un buen libro para alguien que ya tiene algo de información previa sobre este tema.
July 19, 2024
For many years I was 99% sure I had 2 Demons inside Me. I purchased this book and didn't open it for a few days after it was delivered. I randomly opened the book for the first time and the pages I opened were one of the Demons inhabiting Me, I read that section and put the book back in the bookshelf. About 1 week later I closed my eyes, opened the book randomly, and it was the section on the second Demon that inhabits Me. 😈🤘
May 16, 2025
Brainwashing Drivel
"Demonology and Devil-lore" is pure Christian whitewashing. The book is tiny bits of history and legends nearly lost in the overload of barely constrained Christianity being thrown at the reader along with it. In places, it's straight up insulting to those who aren't Christian - I'm VERY proud to say that I'm not; I'm Wiccan.
I have nothing good to say about this book. Don't buy "Demonology and Devil-lore"!
"Demonology and Devil-lore" is pure Christian whitewashing. The book is tiny bits of history and legends nearly lost in the overload of barely constrained Christianity being thrown at the reader along with it. In places, it's straight up insulting to those who aren't Christian - I'm VERY proud to say that I'm not; I'm Wiccan.
I have nothing good to say about this book. Don't buy "Demonology and Devil-lore"!
October 18, 2017
A fantastic read that is much more than the title suggests. A thorough breakdown of the who, what, where, why and how of a multitude of religious and superstitious beliefs. I can't praise this book enough. Highly recommended.
November 15, 2017
Research for my writing, this was an interesting read.
June 6, 2022
Very good Informative read
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews