Baal demon: Encyclopedia - Baal demon

Baal (demon)

Baal is a Christian demon. His name also refers to various gods and goddesses who are not demons. This is a potential source of confusion. In this article the name Baal is used only to refer to the demon Baal, unless stated otherwise.

Other spellings: Bael, Baël (French), Baell.

The idea of Baal as a demon was created when Christianity turned ancient gods into demons and demonology divided the demonic population of Hell in several hierarchies. Baal, the Semitic god, did not escape, becoming a separate entity from Beelzebub.

Originally, Baal was a Semitic god worshipped by the Canaanites and Phoenicians, who brought his worship to other parts of the Mediterranean. His name means "Lord". Baal was mainly a god of the sun, rain, thunder, fertility and agriculture. The myths surrounding Baal are mainly of the common mythological pattern of the fertility god who is slain and resurrected, thereby creating the change in the seasons. Baal's father is Dagan or Dagon, another Semitic god.

According to demonology, Baal (usually spelt "Bael" in this context; there is a possibility that the two figures aren't connected) was ranked as the first and principal king in Hell, ruling over the East. According to some authors Baal is a Duke, with sixty-six legions of demons under his command.

During the English Puritan period Baal was either compared to Satan or considered his main assistant. According to Francis Barrett he has the power to make those who invoke him invisible, and to some other demonologists his power is stronger in October. According to some sources, he can make people wise, and speaks hoarsely.

While his Semitic predecessor was depicted as a human or a bull, the demon Baal was in grimoire tradition said to appear in the forms of a man, cat, toad, or combinations thereof. An illustration in Collin de Plancy's 1818 book Dictionnaire Infernal rather curiously placed the heads of the three creatures onto a set of spider legs.

Baal demon - Baal in popular culture

Baal has made a number of appearences in video games. He is an end boss in Diablo II: Lord of Destruction; a hidden boss in Shadow Hearts 2, La Pucelle: Tactics and Disgaea: Hour of Darkness; a demon in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne; a general and main enemy for much of the time in Grandia; an ancient demon-worshipping vampire in the roleplaying game Vampire: the Masquerade; a boss in the second installment of the Blair Witch video games; a race of familiar spirits - resembling spiders with three human-like faces - in the GameBoy Color version of Azure Dreams, your father in the Black Isle PC RPG series "Baldur's Gate" where he is refered to as "The Lord of Murder" (in this context he was an evil mortal who ascended to godhood along with his allies Bane and Myrkul before eventually being slain in the Time of Troubles) and a race of monsters in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, in which his name is spelt "Bael" and his appearence is based loosely around the Dictionnaire Infernal's depiction of the demon Buer, who also appears in the game.

Outside of video games, a German-based industrial metal music band was named after him.

"Stargate SG-1" television series features a character named Baal, who is a memeber of the evil Goa'uld.

Baal is also the name given to the "MARK 13", a combat droid designed to function as an efficient means of population control. The droid serves as the main protaganist in the movie Hardware, a stark film which depicts the hard life humanity faces while surviving in a post apocolyptic Earth. Pieces of the droid are recovered from the "Zone" by a "Zone Tripper", a desolate place inhospitable to life due to the lingering toxic radiation from some previous cataclysmic war. It is apparent that the "Zone", in addition to possibly encompassing one of the war's battlefields, was also utilized as a test range for weapons and associated government projects. The droid pieces eventually find their way to the main character, Jill, through her on/off again boyfriend, Moses. Jill, who is an artist that works in sculpture, incorporates the droid components into a piece she is working on. The droid is capable of self repair and soon begins assimilation of what household materials and power sources it can find. Soon after regaining operational status the droid commences wrecking death and destruction among the denizens of Jill's apartment complex.

It is curious that the droid designation also aludes to a passage in the Bible that refers to the end times, the times of tribulation when, ominously, "no flesh shall be spared".

See also

• The Lesser Key of Solomon
• Ars Goetia

Categories: Christian demons | Jewish demons

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Baal demon", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki