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The Epilogue 291a new avatar to run around in. But, hopefully, he will be more cautious andpolite the next time around. 9In a wild imaginative leap, Snow Crash unites neurolinguistics, culturaland religious history and virus engineering to create the ultimate demonictechnology. The myth of Babel was, according to this scenario, actuallybased on an actual case of neurolinguistic hacking in ancient Sumer; with thehelp of nam-shubs (holy words, or incantations) it could be possible to“program” the deep structures of human brains, and even write viruses thatwould spread such a program to unsuspecting victims. The demonic alternativeis represented in this scenario as the loss of self and individuality: theopponent of the novel’s (self-consciously named) hero, “Hiro Protagonist,”is spreading an information virus to make humans susceptible to his Pentecostalcult and control. 10 Language is a virus, but it is also a demonic power,taking possession of ourselves, inseparably intertwined in our “software”and “hardware,” or the mental and biological dimensions of our selves.The division lines between mainstream and different genre or subgenrefictions are continually shifting and mutating; influences travel fast in manydirections. Most of the grotesque and transgressive aspects of the demonicare still being exploited in the areas relating to horror, science fiction andfantasy. There have been experiments in such “sub-subgenres” as “cybergothfiction,” represented by Demon Download (1990) by Jack Yeovil. Thetrashy, post-apocalyptic setting of this piece of cybergothic is capable of accommodatingboth demons and hi-tech, the US Cavalry and Sister ChantalJuillerat, papal ninja agent and beautiful “cyber-exorcist” kick-fighting thepowers of evil. The fusion of fantasy and hi-tech have been approached alsowith much more style and artistic ambition, as in Hermetech (1991) byStorm Constantine. This novel presents the daimonic as “potentia,” orgasmicenergy that fills the universe and that can be tapped into with symbols(such as deities), in altered states of consciousness, through dance and song,or – as in this case – with extensive sexual experimentation and bodyalteration.11k0KI do not intend to repeat here everything I have already said in my conclusionsto the individual chapters. Instead, I want to discuss the outcome ofthis study in more general terms. What I have to say relates to the self doingresearch as much as to the textual demons and demonic texts as objects ofresearch.Contemporary demonic texts strive continuously to transgress limits,break boundaries and reach towards otherness. Their mutual diversity and9Stephenson 1992, 96.10 Ibid., 369-81.11Constantine 1991, 444-51.
292Demonic Texts and Textual Demonsinternal tendency to mix incompatible materials, even at the risk of becomingincoherent, soon makes coherent summaries or overviews appear to bedubious undertakings. I have adopted the pluralistic strategy: to quickly paralleland contrast different texts in order to convey also the sense of suchplurality and heterogeneity, not only my own theories of them. To this effect,I have also extensively quoted the original texts whenever I havedeemed this as a useful thing to do; in this I agree with Clive Barker’s abovequotedpoint that to “deny the creatures [or: texts] as individuals the rightto speak, to actually state their cause, is perverse.” A point of view can indeedbe made by the “dark side,” but that is not a single point of view. Inorder to establish a dialogue one should have at least two interlocutors: astudy of the demonic is necessarily also as an exploration of a particular self,revealing and researching itself while reading a text.Facing plurality does not mean that one ought to completely discardand deny the pursuit of knowledge, appeal to reason, evidence to supportone’s judgements or any such thing. On the contrary, I would claim thatdemonic texts teach us particularly the importance of listening carefullyeven to visions and voices that are uncomfortable and uncommon. RichardA. Shweder has made a similar argument in support of “postpositivist” scienceand epistemology in his Thinking through Cultures (1991):Postpositivists are no less concerned with what is real than are the positivists,and among sensible postpositivists it is understood that science isgood and successful. Yet in a postpositivist world it is also understoodthat it is possible for us to have important knowledge of the world even ifthe objective world is subject-dependent and multiplex and even if we giveup trying to describe the world independently of our involvement with itor reactions to it or conceptions of it. Hence, the continental chorus singingwith Kuhnian overtones that it is our prejudices and partialities thatmake it possible for us to see, if not everything, then at least something. 12Writing from my own – necessarily imperfect and partial – point ofview, I have chosen to focus on the borderline character of demons, and ondemonic discourses as cultural and textual articulations related to such aliminal position. This is not the truth about demons, I still want to emphasise,but a truth, one dimension or interpretation.I have supported my view with evidence, and in the process developedthe initial view into something more complex and diversified. The ancientdaimons, the supernatural beings inhabiting the interspace between men andgods, offered a suggestive model of both the psychological and cultural positionof the demonic. They were associated with the powers of Eros, madnessand uncontrollable rage – and, on the other hand, with supernatural knowledge,delivering messages from areas beyond human consciousness. Thefrightening forms they were capable of adopting pointed towards somethingthat was alien, unhuman, but not completely. It was the heterogeneity and12Shweder 1991, 66.
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TAMPERE STUDIES INLITERATURE AND TE
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Tampere Studies in Literature and T
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ments, and also such further lines
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IllustrationsCover: “Possessed Re
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The BeginningsAnd Jesus asked him,
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The Beginnings 3mons form an import
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The Beginnings 5negative, demonic a
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The Beginnings 7chapter four), but
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The Beginnings 9scious conflict, fo
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The Beginnings 11that is produced o
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The Beginnings 13The History of the
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The Beginnings 15emphasised that su
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The Beginnings 17turalism,” but i
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The Beginnings 19the materials I ha
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1. The Ancestry of the DemonicÑH.
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 25ness
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 41- in
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 43Chris
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 51tween
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2. The Demonic in the SelfBut ancie
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The Demonic in the Self 55Individua
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The Demonic in the Self 61A number
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The Demonic in the Self 67sciousnes
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The Demonic in the Self 69influence
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The Demonic in the Self 71LEADER:Yo
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The Demonic in the Self 73Particula
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The Demonic in the Self 75NIETZSCHE
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The Demonic in the Self 77ing into
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The Demonic in the Self 79Nietzsche
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3. Unravelling the Demonic TextThe
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 83in o
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PART II
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114Demonic Texts and Textual Demons
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