Southern Demonology
Southern Demonology is a podcast that explores angelology, demonology, ghosts, spirits, and monsters from antiquity to the modern day through an academic lens. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/southerndemonology. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
What happens when you say a demon's name?
Modern horror often treats supernatural names as invitations, as though speaking the wrong one aloud might attract the very thing you are trying to avoid. Ancient magical and exorcistic traditions, however, often understood names very differently.
In this episode of Southern Demonology, JJ traces the history of dangerous names through ancient Egypt, biblical and Jewish traditi...
What exactly is an angel?
Today, we tend to think of angels as a distinct class of spiritual beings, complete with wings, names, ranks, and an elaborate heavenly hierarchy. Yet the Hebrew word mal'akh and the Greek angelos originally mean something much simpler: messenger. A human being could be a mal'akh just as readily as a heavenly being could.
In this episode of Southern Demonology, JJ traces how that job descript...
For thousands of years, the demonic has refused to remain the same.
Ancient Zoroastrianism envisioned a cosmic struggle in which Ahriman and the daēvas invaded and corrupted the good creation. Centuries later, Second Temple Jewish writers described rebellious angels, hostile spirits, Mastema, Belial, and eventually Satan within an increasingly organized landscape of supernatural evil. Christianity inherited that worl...
What if Satan was not always the Devil?
In the final installment of Southern Demonology’s four-part exploration of the development of supernatural evil, JJ turns to the figure who would eventually overshadow nearly every other adversary in Western demonology: Satan.
But the story does not begin with a fallen angel ruling a kingdom of demons. The Hebrew word satan originally described an adversary or opponent, an...
What happens when supernatural evil acquires more than a leader? What happens when wickedness acquires a kingdom?
In the third installment of Southern Demonology’s four-part exploration of the development of supernatural evil during the Second Temple period, JJ turns to Belial and the remarkable demonology preserved among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Belial did not begin as the proper name of a demon. The Hebrew term b...
What happens when supernatural hostility stops being just a force and becomes a prince?
In the second episode of Southern Demonology’s four-part arc on the development of evil in Second Temple Judaism, JJ turns to Mastema, one of the most fascinating and misunderstood figures in ancient Jewish demonology.
We begin with the word itself. Mastema originally means hostility or enmity, but over time that abstract ide...
What exactly is a demon?
It sounds like a simple question, especially for a podcast called Southern Demonology. But the further back we travel into the ancient world, the harder that question becomes to answer.
In this episode, JJ traces the concept of the demon from the dangerous spirits and numinous powers of ancient Mesopotamia through the Hebrew Bible and into the dramatically changing supernatural landscape of Se...
Azazel is one of the most recognizable names in demonology. Yet the earliest text to mention him never clearly tells us that he is a demon at all.
In this episode of Southern Demonology, we trace Azazel from the strange ritual of Leviticus 16, where one goat is designated “for Azazel” and sent into the wilderness, into the much darker world of 1 Enoch, where Azazel becomes one of the great corrupters of h...
In this deeply unsettling episode of Southern Demonology, JJ is joined by Amanda to discuss a lifetime of traumatic and deeply disturbing experiences that appear to move far beyond ordinary paranormal activity. What begins with a terrifying childhood encounter and an entity described as a black mass with no eyes and a grotesque, impossible smile develops into a larger conversation about trauma, attachment, spiritual...
In Part 2 of this special conversation, Doug Bradley moves beyond horror cinema and into the deeper waters of the paranormal. The discussion turns toward haunted houses, family ghost stories, religious belief, folk practice, Ouija experiences, and the strange tension between skepticism and personal encounter. Along the way, Doug reflects on whether ghost experiences are truly the dead, whether some phenomena may be ...
In Part 1 of this special two-part conversation, The Wandering Road Podcast and Southern Demonology Podcast sit down with horror legend Doug Bradley for a wide-ranging discussion that goes far beyond Hellraiser.
Doug reflects on his lifelong fascination with ghosts, horror, mythology, and the paranormal, and explains why he describes himself as a “religious atheist.” From there, the conversation moves int...
The Nephilim are often remembered as giants, but 1 Enoch presents them as something far more terrifying. In this episode, JJ explores the Nephilim as the product of a rebellion that begins when the Watchers bind themselves in a curse, descend from their proper estate, and force together spirit and flesh in a way that should never have happened. The result is not merely violence on the earth, but a profound violation...
Where did the idea of archangels actually come from, and why do so many traditions speak of seven of them? In this episode, JJ traces the development of the archangels from the Hebrew Bible through Second Temple Jewish literature, Tobit, 1 Enoch, and later Christian tradition. Along the way, he explains why only a few names—especially Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael—became widely recognized, while others s...
Lilith is one of the oldest, most controversial, and most misunderstood names in all of demonology. In this first episode of the named demons series, JJ examines Lilith through the lens of language, history, and reception rather than modern mythmaking. Beginning with her Mesopotamian roots and moving through Isaiah 34, Psalm 91’s allusive “arrow that flieth by day,” the Dead Sea Scrolls, and later ...
In this crossover-style conversation with Chris from The Wandering Road, JJ dives into one of theology’s oldest and most stubborn questions: do human beings truly have free will, or are we simply moving through a script already known by God?
What begins with a discussion of UFO disclosure, alien life, and the theological panic such revelations might cause quickly turns toward much deeper ground: divine omniscie...
In this episode, JJ is joined by Chris and Dean from the Wandering Road for a conversation centered around the world of demonic sigils. Together, they explore where these symbols actually originated, how they became tied to demons and occult practices, and whether there’s any real historical or theological basis behind them at all.
The discussion takes a closer look at the validity of demonic sigils themsel...
In this episode of Southern Demonology, JJ takes a brief pause from the ongoing demonology series for a conversation with Tommy from the Let’s Get Freaky podcast.
Tommy shares the personal encounters that first drew him into the world of paranormal investigation and podcasting, beginning with a childhood home marked by unexplained footsteps, oppressive atmospheres, and a terrifying full-bodied apparition seated...
Demonic sigils are everywhere: in grimoires, in horror shows, and plastered across thumbnails any time someone says the word “infernal.” In this episode of southern demonology, we slow everything down and ask harder questions: what are these sigils actually supposed to be, where did they come from, and how do they relate to older ideas like angelic script and heavenly writing?
We trace the path from ancie...
In this episode of the Demonology classroom series, JJ is joined again by Chris and Dean from The Wandering Road for a deep dive into one of the most uncomfortable and misunderstood questions in religion and the paranormal: what do we do with ghosts, spirits of the dead, and the unseen afterlife? From ancient Judaism and necromancy laws to the concept of She’ol and the persistence of the dead in antiquity, thi...
Before we begin a full series on named demons, we need to ask a more basic question: what are these names, really? Are they ancient and original, or are they titles, translations, corruptions, polemics, and borrowed labels that changed over time?
In this episode, JJ lays the groundwork for thinking carefully about demon names by exploring the differences between Semitic, Greek, and Latin traditions, how names shift a...
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