Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective In the way of a daimon; befitting a demon; fiendish.
  • adjective Motivated by a spiritual force or genius; inspired.
  • noun psychology The unrest that exists in us all which forces us into the unknown, leading to self-destruction and/or self-discovery.
  • noun psychology, spirituality, mythology, literature The journey and transition from innocence to experience; part of the process of individuation.
  • noun mythology, literature The place where light and dark meet.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From daimon + -ic; from Latin dæmon ("spirit"), originally from Ancient Greek δαίμων (daimon, "a god, goddess, divine power, genius, guardian spirit")

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Examples

  • But in my own case it's not so much fear of the unknown that drives me as it is a sense of numinous uncanniness, verging into Rudolf Otto's "daemonic dread," at the very fact of existence itself -- which, crucially, includes not just the disenchanted world of physical nature that's visible to empirical science but the world of immediate, first-person experience with all of its daimonic psychological oddities.

    Dark Awakenings and Cosmic Horror : The Lovecraft News Network 2010

  • On the other hand, in the past few years I've also grown increasingly attached to the daimonic theory of consciousness, which invokes in quasi-metaphorical fashion the ancient idea of the daimon or personal genius, the accompanying spirit that houses a person's deep character, life, pattern, and destiny.

    Dark Awakenings and Cosmic Horror : The Lovecraft News Network 2010

  • But in my own case it's not so much fear of the unknown that drives me as it is a sense of numinous uncanniness, verging into Rudolf Otto's "daemonic dread," at the very fact of existence itself -- which, crucially, includes not just the disenchanted world of physical nature that's visible to empirical science but the world of immediate, first-person experience with all of its daimonic psychological oddities.

    Archive 2010-03-01 2010

  • On the other hand, in the past few years I've also grown increasingly attached to the daimonic theory of consciousness, which invokes in quasi-metaphorical fashion the ancient idea of the daimon or personal genius, the accompanying spirit that houses a person's deep character, life, pattern, and destiny.

    Archive 2010-03-01 2010

  • Supposing, just for a second, that we take these metaphors literally; what we would basically be saying is that God -- that Supreme Being, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient -- is the real evil, while Lucifer and Christ were both good guys, both trying but failing to wake humanity up to its daimonic -- which is to say divine -- potential.

    THE HALLS OF PENTHEUS -- PART ONE Hal Duncan 2007

  • Embrace your unborn daimonic creativity -- no matter how young, primitive or ill-formed it is, let it speak, dance, cry, and spit up.

    Alison Rose Levy: Stressed this Political Season? 2008

  • The daimonic can be either creative or destructive and is normally both.

    Archive 2008-05-01 2008

  • In preparation for that decision the daimonic devotee repaired to the great shrine of his faith, at Bayreuth, in Northern Bavaria.

    ON THE EVE OF THE MILLENNIUM CONOR CRUISE O’BRIEN 1994

  • In preparation for that decision the daimonic devotee repaired to the great shrine of his faith, at Bayreuth, in Northern Bavaria.

    ON THE EVE OF THE MILLENNIUM CONOR CRUISE O’BRIEN 1994

  • In preparation for that decision the daimonic devotee repaired to the great shrine of his faith, at Bayreuth, in Northern Bavaria.

    ON THE EVE OF THE MILLENNIUM CONOR CRUISE O’BRIEN 1994

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