Dæmons Are Forever: Contacts and Exchanges in the Eurasian Pandemonium by David Gordon White (review)

David Gordon White's Dæmons Are Forever: Contacts and Exchanges in the Eurasian Pandaemonium fittingly begins by citing Paul Mus's "contrarian 1934 publication" on "medieval Indian civilizations" (1). This article, which attributes to India religious traditions thought unique to South Asia, does similar work to White's project. Like Mus, White seeks to muddy the waters of long-established religious scholarship to argue that "ancient and medieval dæmon-ology of Europe [is] the Western extension of … traditions [across] … Eurasi[a]" (1). He considers this intervention to religious studies necessary and timely, in that it responds to postmodern concerns about cross-cultural scholarship and its relationship with ethically suspect attempts to represent or engage with the subaltern subject. White believes these objections "contribut[e] to the perceived irrelevance of the humanities and social science[s]," "exacerbat[e] … a … neglect of … contacts and exchange between world areas," and "leav[e] the way open for religious ideologues, bigots, dilettantes, and journalists to define critical discourse" (11, 12). Motivated to redress this damage, and to reinvigorate a more comprehensive, historical approach to religious studies, White's project takes a second look at dæmons in medieval Eurasia, and brings into view their shared ritual and mythic ancestry.

While setting these stakes, White also clarifies the nature of what he refers to as dæmons, and why they are indispensable to Eurasia's many "connected histories" (21). Most distinct "in their ambiguity," White explains, members of this "protean grouping of spirit beings" exist "somewhere between … generally benevolent high gods and … generally malevolent demons" (1). To make intelligible these amorphous beings, White examines the demonologies, or "vernacular[s]," of their culture's "scriptural and literary traditions, ritual observances, material cultures, and iconographic programs" (1). Evident in these demonologies, White claims, is that seemingly distinct dæmons and their evil demon counterparts share "common myths … ritual theories, and technologies" due to "verifiable or … inferable contacts and exchanges" (21). These common demonological histories have largely gone unnoticed, White elaborates, due to centuries of "demoniz[ation], domesticat[ion], … appropriat[ion], … [and] transformat[ion]" of daemons (2).

In chapter 2, "On Filth and Phylacteries," White attempts to bring to light the first of these contacts and exchanges when discussing the pervasiveness of "apotropaic rituals" in Indian demonologies (23). Rituals meant to honor Hindu dæmons in southeastern Rajasthan, White explains, share with rituals in Kathmandu meant to honor the Hindu god Ānand Bhairab a belief in and use of "divine bodily secretions" (26, 30). These secretions, known as mail, are composed of the detritus of worship offerings to dæmons and gods for the purpose of averting or treating illness. Although these rituals take place thousands of miles apart and appeal to different socioeconomic classes, White makes sense of this similarity through a rigorous analysis of ayurvedic literature and suggests that both traditions were "sanctioned by the same sorts of scriptural sources as the 'scientific' procedures of the Indian medical tradition and the 'religious' practices of … mainstream devotional Hinduism" (35).

Although the chapter compellingly traces these dæmons' shared genealogies, White rightfully acknowledges that its "purview [is] … limited to the Indian subcontinent" (44). In chapter 3, "The Demons Are in the Details: Demonological Sciences and Technologies, East and West," he accordingly invites into the conversation demonologies from throughout Inner Asia, the lower Indian subcontinent, and the Mediterranean world. Rather than merely describing their common rituals, however, White here is also interested in tracing their contributions to the "the Sanskrit-language dæmonical lexicon" (46). He ultimately suggests that the "origins of [their shared] … theories, practices—and, in certain cases, terminology" can be "trac[ed] to Sasanian Iran and the Hellenistic world," and were later disseminated through Silk Road trade (83).

White continues to probe correspondences between Indo-European demonologies in chapter 4, "Medieval and Modern Child Abductions." He again focuses on rituals and explores their histories related to child abduction and...