Why call yourself a Demon?
Originally the Greek word ‘daimon’, or demon, had no negative connotations. It merely meant a spirit or a divine inspiration, and it was used to describe all sorts of personas or realizations imbued with holy or magical significance. When the armies of monarchy and empire (mainly under the banner of Christianity) began forcing their beliefs on the lands around them, they invented a doctrine that any non-Christian spiritual ideas were “evil” created by “Satan”. They intentionally turned the word demon from benign to malevolent, in a violent act of cultural manipulation of the people they wanted to subjugate. Demonkind claims this name back from them. First we signify our rejection of all authoritarian social constructs, and second we signify that we are the spirits, we live in the holy places, and we create and inspire ourselves.
The “Kind” part of our name refers both to our kinship with each other and to kindness as an ideal.
What exactly are you doing here?
Demonkind is a philosophy, a lifestyle, a method, a bit like a religion but without authoritarianism. It is not a cult, because we do not want your money, and we do not want to control you. It is a way of identifying something moral or spiritual about yourself that may not have had a fitting name before.
We who have darkness within often turn to the iconography of death and the occult: pentacles, grim reapers, upside down crosses, skulls, bats, and everything in black. We may pray to Santa Muerte, or we call ourselves gods, or we reject religion altogether. These dark raiments may comfort and please us, but honestly they just serve as a sort of armor. As good as it can feel to tell society and the church to go to hell, those good feelings do not last. This defense mechanism cannot sustain us, cannot heal us, and cannot help us grow. We need healing, we need to feel whole, and we need to become stronger and more beautiful. The purpose and philosophy of Demonkind is to develop our awareness and our practice of nurturing ourselves and each other, without letting go of the wonderfully rich aesthetic of the Dark.
Is Demonkind “original”?
The overarching premise comes from visions experienced by over many years. These visions grew more insistent until finally they needed outward expression. In that sense alone, Demonkind is an original inspiration, exactly in the same spirit as the Greek daimons. In terms of the actual text and logic in our articles, you will find broad overlap and obvious connections with “New Thought”, Buddhism, Sufism, Satanism, Gnosticism, witchcraft, and other previously existing systems of belief and practice. We assert that all of them got something right, but that they missed the mark in other ways, either in their original form or through reinterpretation across generations. The Demonkind vision seeks to provide a unifying principle and a core set of values that can bring any other philosophy closer to truth.
Are you Satanists?
We take great pleasure and power from the iconography of occultist and esoteric culture, including Satanism; but most self-professed Satanists worship the individual ego and have no interest in helping anyone but themselves — indeed many of them act disgusted by expressions of compassion or social justice. In recent years new Satanic groups have formed and begun to flip that around, using their interpretation of Satanism to defend the separation of church and state, or to deliver a positive social message; so we support Satanists doing that work in principle. But we find it problematic to use Satanism as an identity when so many people already attached to that name have beliefs so diametrically opposed to ours. Also, we seek an identity with more sincere, nourishing, and universal roots, not founded on a sectarian agenda of mischief, nor on any mere inversion of Christianity.
Also note that “Satan” is an individual character, while Demons are generally referred to in the plural; our name reflects our ideal of uplifting the community of spirits around us, instead of exclusively deifying our isolated selves.
Are you Atheists?
A Demon kneels before no gods and no masters. Click on this article for a more complete answer.
Do you worship Death?
We do not worship, but we celebrate and honor death, we are “death positive”. We distinguish between death and cruelty; for example we make choices around the foods we eat or the politics we support, specifically to diminish cruelty or suffering, not to avoid the natural fact that something must die so that others may thrive.
Are you liberals?
We reject oppression, love diversity, and support those who work to heal our wounded world.
Is this a joke or prank like the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
No, definitively NO. We appreciate and support the anti-theocratic work of such pranksters, and we enjoy a good laugh, but we founded Demonkind out of dissatisfaction with the inherent insincerity of using a joke identity to respond to cultural oppression. We reveal our Demon vision and message to you with utter sincerity and grave passion.
Who is?
You’ll find his back story in the article “On Visions”. Nekyia is pronounced neh-KA-ya and Közös is pronounced a bit like ku-zush. As hierophant of Demonkind, he only guides and interprets from his visions, and does not claim any authority or power over anyone. Nekyia welcomes you and hopes his work uplifts you like flames spiraling into the night sky!
