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Daemons are Forever: Contacts and Exchanges in the Eurasian Pandemonium
A richly illustrated tapestry of interwoven studies spanning some six thousand years of history, Dæmons Are Forever is at once a record of archaic contacts and transactions between humans and protean spirit beings—dæmons—and an account of exchanges, among human populations, of the science of spirit beings: dæmonology. Since the time of the Indo-European migrations, and especially following the opening of the Silk Road, a common dæmonological vernacular has been shared among populations ranging from East and South Asia to Northern Europe. In this virtuoso work of historical sleuthing, David Gordon White recovers the trajectories of both the “inner demons” cohabiting the bodies of their human hosts and the “outer dæmons” that those same humans recognized each time they encountered them in their enchanted haunts: sylvan pools, sites of geothermal eruptions, and dark forest groves. Along the way, he invites his readers to reconsider the potential and promise of the historical method in religious studies, suggesting that a “connected histories” approach to Eurasian dæmonology may serve as a model for restoring history to its proper place at the heart of the discipline of the history of religions.
360 pages, Paperback
Published July 13, 2020
About the author
David Gordon White
23 books54 followersDavid Gordon White received his Ph.D. (with Honors) from the Divinity School at the University of Chicago in 1988. He also studied Hinduism at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, France, between 1977-1980 and 1985-1986. A specialist of South Asian religions, he is the J. F. Rowny Professor of Comparative Religions at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he has been teaching since 1996. Prior to coming to Santa Barbara, he taught at the University of Virginia between 1986 and 1996. There, he founded the University of Virginia Study Abroad Program in Jodhpur, India in 1994. White is the sole foreign scholar to have ever been admitted to the Centre d’Études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud in Paris, France, where he has been an active Research Fellow since 1992.
He is the author of five monographs, four published by the University of Chicago Press: Myths of the Dog-Man (1991); The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India (1996); Kiss of the Yoginī: “Tantric Sex” in its South Asian Contexts (2003) and Sinister Yogis (2009). He also edited Tantra in Practice (Princeton University Press, 2000): his introduction to that volume is considered to be the most comprehensive definition of the multi-faceted tradition known as Tantra published to date. Myths of the Dog-Man was listed as one of the “Books of the Year” in the 1991 Times Literary Supplement’s end-of-year edition; Kiss of the Yoginī was on the cover of the same journal’s May 20, 2004 edition. Sinister Yogis received an honorable mention at the 2009 PROSE awards and was listed as a book of note by CHOICE in 2011. A Japanese edition of Myths of the Dog-Man was brought out by Kousakusha in 2001; Italian (Edizioni Mediteranee) and Indian (Munshiram Manoharlal) editions of The Alchemical Body appeared in 2004. His two most recent books are published with Princeton University Press: Yoga in Practice (November 2011) and The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali: A Biography (2013).
White has been the recipient of several research fellowships and grants, including a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2007-2008) and three Fulbright Research Fellowships for India and Nepal. A panel to honor his scholarship was part of the program of the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, held at Chicago on November 1, 2008.
He is the author of five monographs, four published by the University of Chicago Press: Myths of the Dog-Man (1991); The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India (1996); Kiss of the Yoginī: “Tantric Sex” in its South Asian Contexts (2003) and Sinister Yogis (2009). He also edited Tantra in Practice (Princeton University Press, 2000): his introduction to that volume is considered to be the most comprehensive definition of the multi-faceted tradition known as Tantra published to date. Myths of the Dog-Man was listed as one of the “Books of the Year” in the 1991 Times Literary Supplement’s end-of-year edition; Kiss of the Yoginī was on the cover of the same journal’s May 20, 2004 edition. Sinister Yogis received an honorable mention at the 2009 PROSE awards and was listed as a book of note by CHOICE in 2011. A Japanese edition of Myths of the Dog-Man was brought out by Kousakusha in 2001; Italian (Edizioni Mediteranee) and Indian (Munshiram Manoharlal) editions of The Alchemical Body appeared in 2004. His two most recent books are published with Princeton University Press: Yoga in Practice (November 2011) and The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali: A Biography (2013).
White has been the recipient of several research fellowships and grants, including a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2007-2008) and three Fulbright Research Fellowships for India and Nepal. A panel to honor his scholarship was part of the program of the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, held at Chicago on November 1, 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 6, 2022
Another great book from White.
December 5, 2023
In much if not most of the secondary yoga literature, yoga is presented as if arising in a hermetically sealed vacuum called ancient India. But on closer examination, we find that as with most cultures everywhere and across time, cultures are profoundly interconnected. Here David White gives us a paradigmatic presentation of paneurasian connected histories that helps in better understanding the development of yoga, including in India. It's a must read for anyone interested in learning about yoga's historical development – this in contrast to going with the seemingly infinite array of sources that assert without evidence that yoga is a purely Indian product (which the nationalist Hindutva folks, now led by Mr. Modi) would like us to believe.
July 23, 2023
Excellent!
Well written book covering indo European and indo Aryan demonology in a balanced and scholarly fashion. Well worth reading. You will make Nanyang intellectual connexions.
Well written book covering indo European and indo Aryan demonology in a balanced and scholarly fashion. Well worth reading. You will make Nanyang intellectual connexions.
February 5, 2026
I picked it up mostly because of the title, but it was a bait and switch. Literary inspiration failed the author once he'd named the book -- it really could have been called "Lower-Level Indo-European Supernatural Entities in Mythology and Ritual Practice." Either way, it's a detailed study of beings who sometimes get overlooked in the study of IE religions.
Daemons with an "ae" were minor gods and other sub-pantheon notables, like the nature spirits inhabiting forests and springs, although as monotheism did its work many of them were declared to be demons in the usual sense, while others were co-opted as Christian saints. They're worth investigating, in part, because the classical authors who left us accounts of, say, the Germanic tribes' religion focused on the high gods and goddesses and inevitably brought a frame of reference based on Greek and Roman deities; what they set down about the supernatural rank and file may be less contaminated by preconceptions. Also cited: late-antique and medieval accounts of Western Europe's rural religion, written with the contempt urbane churchmen held for yokels, but which offer clues about the bits of paganism that survived the coming of Christianity. And then there's an array of ancient Indian texts.
White goes into great detail (a little too great for my taste) recounting stories about the spirits inhabiting wild places, who could be dangerous if not treated with due respect, with strikingly similar examples from as far afield as Rajasthan, France, and Ireland. He cites the similarities between Homer's Circe and tales written down farther east. He even reports, with photos, on rituals in rural France and northwestern India involving pieces of cloth hung on trees to seek the return of children believed to have been abducted by spirits and replaced by changelings. He also denounces the Hindutva movement, which denies that India's Vedic religion owes anything to outsiders; the "religious studies" academics who treat their subject as ahistorical; Bruce Lincoln, who apparently dropped Indo-Europeanism for dialectical materialism, arguing that a society's myths simply reflect its economic development; and the "diffusionists" who say that myths have spread in only one direction, ignoring the effects of back-and-forth travel, trade, and other contact over the centuries.
Problematic assertion corner: White says twice that the Proto Indo-European homeland was Anatolia, which can't have gone over very well with the Pontic Steppe crowd. It doesn't seem important to the rest of his case one way or the other, though.
Happy to be corrected by "actually know what they're talking about"-tier reviewers. In the meantime, if you read only one book this year explaining the Indo-European roots of St. Guinefort, a 13-century French greyhound martyred despite being a very good boy indeed, make it this one.
Daemons with an "ae" were minor gods and other sub-pantheon notables, like the nature spirits inhabiting forests and springs, although as monotheism did its work many of them were declared to be demons in the usual sense, while others were co-opted as Christian saints. They're worth investigating, in part, because the classical authors who left us accounts of, say, the Germanic tribes' religion focused on the high gods and goddesses and inevitably brought a frame of reference based on Greek and Roman deities; what they set down about the supernatural rank and file may be less contaminated by preconceptions. Also cited: late-antique and medieval accounts of Western Europe's rural religion, written with the contempt urbane churchmen held for yokels, but which offer clues about the bits of paganism that survived the coming of Christianity. And then there's an array of ancient Indian texts.
White goes into great detail (a little too great for my taste) recounting stories about the spirits inhabiting wild places, who could be dangerous if not treated with due respect, with strikingly similar examples from as far afield as Rajasthan, France, and Ireland. He cites the similarities between Homer's Circe and tales written down farther east. He even reports, with photos, on rituals in rural France and northwestern India involving pieces of cloth hung on trees to seek the return of children believed to have been abducted by spirits and replaced by changelings. He also denounces the Hindutva movement, which denies that India's Vedic religion owes anything to outsiders; the "religious studies" academics who treat their subject as ahistorical; Bruce Lincoln, who apparently dropped Indo-Europeanism for dialectical materialism, arguing that a society's myths simply reflect its economic development; and the "diffusionists" who say that myths have spread in only one direction, ignoring the effects of back-and-forth travel, trade, and other contact over the centuries.
Problematic assertion corner: White says twice that the Proto Indo-European homeland was Anatolia, which can't have gone over very well with the Pontic Steppe crowd. It doesn't seem important to the rest of his case one way or the other, though.
Happy to be corrected by "actually know what they're talking about"-tier reviewers. In the meantime, if you read only one book this year explaining the Indo-European roots of St. Guinefort, a 13-century French greyhound martyred despite being a very good boy indeed, make it this one.
May 2, 2023
Welcome to the world of Gordon White; where Abrahamic alternatives flourish and thrive.
This book is included with the few dozen I keep in a go-bag for The Great Seeding after the coming apocalypse.
You're welcome.
This book is included with the few dozen I keep in a go-bag for The Great Seeding after the coming apocalypse.
You're welcome.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews