The Babylonian Talmud says that a person who wanted to attract an impure spirit might fast and spend the night in a cemetery in the traditional religions of the Near East and Europe, one ritual mode for seeking a divinely inspired revelation or prophecy required incubation at the tomb of an ancestor or hero. The demonic figure Azazel, depicted with goat-like features and in one instance as an unclean bird, is consigned to desert places as impure. The se’irim or śa‘ir are goat-demons or "hairy demons" (sometimes translated as " satyrs") associated with other harmful supernatural beings and with ruins, i.e., human structures that threaten to revert to the wild. Other demonic entities are shedim, which appears only twice in the Tanakh originally a loan-word from Akkadian for a protective, benevolent spirit ( sedu), but from Jewish perspective were foreign gods and according to established Jewish lore own beings, created by Jahwe. Commonly the unclean spirit refers to Dybbuks, spirits of deceased persons who were not laid to rest and thus became demons. It can be difficult to distinguish between a demon and an unclean or evil spirit in Judaic theology or contemporary scholarship both entities like to inhabit wild or desolate places. References to a "spirit of impurity" or an "evil spirit" ( ruaḥ tum'ah) are found in the Hebrew Bible, in Rabbinic literature, and in Pseudepigrapha. See also: Demon § Hebrew Bible, and Jewish demonology The Hebrew se’irim, or "hairy demon," is sometimes translated " satyr," as depicted here in a Roman mosaic. The practice of insufflation and exsufflation, or the use of released breath in ritual, depends on conceptualizing a spiritual entity as air in motion, "invisible yet active": both Greek pneuma and Latin spiritus had an original meaning of "breath, mobile air." In early Christianity, the catechumen was routinely prepared for baptism by exorcism even when demonic possession was not suspected in the case of adult converts, the "unclean spirits" to be driven away might be identified with the gods of other religions. In the New Testament, the Greek modifier akatharton, although sometimes translated in context as "evil," means more precisely "impure, not purified," and reflects a concern for ritual purification shared with or derived from Judaism, though reinterpreted. New Testament usage of the words pneuma and daimonion in relation to demons follows that of later Judaism the two words are to be distinguished from daimon, which appears only once (at Matthew 8:31) and in classical antiquity has a neutral meaning of "spirit" or " god, demigod." For those who practiced the traditional religions of antiquity, possession by a pneuma could be a desired state of visionary trance. In the Christian scriptures, the word pneuma (plural pneumata) is used variously for the human soul, angelic or demonic spirits, and the Holy Spirit, depending on context or with a grammatical modifier. Some scholarship seeks to differentiate between "unclean spirit" and "evil spirit" ( pneuma ponêron) or "demon" ( daimonion). The association of physical and spiritual cleanliness is, if not universal, widespread and continues into the 21st century: "To be virtuous is to be physically clean and free from the impurity that is sin," notes an article in Scientific American published 10 March 2009. It is also translated into English as spirit of impurity or more loosely as "evil spirit." The Latin equivalent is spiritus immundus. The Greek term appears 21 times in the New Testament in the context of demonic possession. In English translations of the Bible, unclean spirit is a common rendering of Greek pneuma akatharton (πνεῦμα ἀκάθαρτον plural pneumata akatharta (πνεύματα ἀκάθαρτα)), which in its single occurrence in the Septuagint translates Hebrew ruaḥ tum'ah ( רוּחַ טוּמְאָה). Jesus drives out a demon or unclean spirit, from the 15th-century Très Riches Heures For related beliefs and practices, see Demonic possession and Exorcism.
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