Research source

Mental darkness, even more moral darkness within, supply the phantasmagoria in which unknown things shape…

Date of account: Published 1879
Source: Demonology and Devil-lore
Reference: Demonology and Devil-lore · selected passage 151
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Mental darkness, even more moral darkness within, supply the phantasmagoria in which unknown things shape themselves as demons

Published source text

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Source passage

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Mental darkness, even more moral darkness within, supply the phantasmagoria in which unknown things shape themselves as demons. Esau is already reconciled, but guilty Jacob must still wrestle with him as a phantom of Fear till daybreak. A work has already been written on 'The Night-side of Nature,' but it would require many volumes to tell the story of what monsters have been conjured out of the kind protecting darkness. How great is the darkness which man makes for himself out of the imagination which should be his light and vision! Much of the so-called 'religion' of our time is but elaborate demoniculture and artificial preservation of mental Walpurgis-nights. Nott (Night) says the Edda rides first on her horse called Hrimfaxi (frost-maned), which every morning as he ends his course bedews the earth with the foam that falls from his bit. Though the horse of Day--Skinfaxi, or Shining-mane--follows hard after her, yet the foam is by no means drunk up by his fires.

Historical context

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Modern context

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