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art by Grok 4

This blogger has mentioned in some previous blog articles — The word ‘demon’ or ‘demonic’ connoting evil is a superstitious derivative of the Latin/Greek ‘daemon’/’daimon,’ perhaps reminding one of the account of the ‘daemon’ of Socrates with Socrates recognizable as being one of the chosen ones (not by men) to expand the spiritual understanding of others throughout the ages. The documentation of the communicators has been accumulating for decades, for centuries. (article)

Due to the current inane ‘Aliens Are Demons’ mainstream commercial news media spin blitz, this blogger asked Grok 4 — Throughout historical records and books, what is the earliest definition of the word ‘demon’ that may be found?

Grok 4 offered the following information.

The earliest known attestation (and thus the earliest implicit definition via usage) of the word that became “demon” is the Ancient Greek daimōn (δαίμων), appearing in Homer’s Iliad (composed orally around the 8th century BCE, the oldest extant Greek literature). en.wikipedia.org

No earlier records exist. It does not appear in Mycenaean Greek inscriptions (Linear B tablets, ca. 1400–1200 BCE), which predate Homeric Greek but use a different script and vocabulary focused on administrative records rather than literature or abstract religious terms. en.wikipedia.org

Context and Meaning in Homer

In the Iliad (Book 1, line ~222), the word first occurs when Athena returns to Olympus after intervening in the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon:

“Then she went back to Olympus among the other gods [daimones], and to the house of aegis-bearing Zeus.” (Translation based on standard editions, e.g., Murray or Lattimore; Greek: … ἐς δ’ Ὄλυμπον ἀφίκετο δώματα πατρὸς / αἰγίοχοιο Διὸς μετὰ δαίμονας ἄλλους.) uh.edu

Here (and in other early Homeric uses), daimōn (singular) or daimones (plural) refers to:

Gods or divine beings in general (often used interchangeably or near-synonymously with theoi / θεοί, “gods”).

An indistinct or impersonal supernatural/divine power or force, especially when the specific deity causing an event (e.g., sudden inspiration, fate, or misfortune) is unknown to mortals. encyclopedia.com, en.wikipedia.com

It does not carry the modern negative connotation of an evil spirit; that developed much later (primarily through the Septuagint, New Testament, and early Christian writers, who repurposed it for pagan deities or malevolent entities). In Homer, it is neutral-to-positive or simply descriptive of divine agency. en.wikipedia.com

Etymologically (reconstructed from Proto-Indo-European), daimōn derives from dai- (“to divide” or “distribute”), meaning something like “divider,” “allocator,” or “provider” (of fates, fortunes, or destinies)—a spirit or power that apportions outcomes in human life. etymonline.com

Slightly Later Early Uses

Hesiod (Works and Days, ca. 700 BCE) builds on this, describing the souls of the Golden Age as daimones who become benevolent guardian spirits (phylakes) watching over mortals after death. This adds the idea of tutelary or protective spirits. en.wikipedia.org

By the 5th–4th centuries BCE, the concept evolves further (e.g., in Plato’s Symposium, daimones are explicitly intermediaries between gods and humans; in Cratylus, Plato speculates the word relates to “knowing” or “wise”). teemingbrain.com

Later English and Modern Sense

The English “demon” (via Latin daemon from Greek) enters around 1200 CE with the negative Christian sense of an evil spirit. The neutral ancient sense re-enters English later (1560s onward) often spelled “daemon” or “daimon” to distinguish it. etymonline.com

In short, the oldest “definition” recoverable from historical texts is not a dictionary-style entry but the contextual usage in Homer: daimōn denotes a divine power, god, or supernatural force that influences human affairs—neutral, often impersonal, and tied to fate or the divine order. This is the foundational meaning before philosophical or religious reinterpretations. Scholarly sources (etymological dictionaries, classical encyclopedias, and analyses of Greek religion) consistently cite Homer as the earliest point. 177 web pages

This blogger next asked Grok 4 — Throughout historical records and books, what is the earliest use of the word ‘alien’ in reference to visitations of an extraterrestrial nature?

Grok 4 offered the following information.

1820, in a personal letter by Scottish essayist and historian Thomas Carlyle (published later in his Collected Letters). englishstackexchange.com, planetpailly.com

In the letter (to his brother, around the time he was moving to Edinburgh), Carlyle wrote: “I am like a being thrown from another planet on this dark terrestrial ball, an alien, a pilgrim among its possessors.” englishstackexchange.com, crookedtimber.org

This is the earliest documented use of “alien” (as a noun) to refer to an intelligent being from another planet or location in the universe (not Earth), according to Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction (Jeff Prucher). The dictionary explicitly defines the SF sense of “alien” as “an (intelligent) being from a location in the universe other than one’s own, especially one not from the earth” and cites this 1820 example as the first (noting it is figurative). englishstackexchange.com, sfrareview.org

Carlyle is using the term metaphorically—he feels alienated and out of place on Earth, comparing himself to a hypothetical extraterrestrial visitor “thrown” here. It directly references the idea of an extraterrestrial being (and its “visitation” or displacement to Earth), even if not a literal story about ET visitations. No earlier uses appear in historical records, literature, or etymological sources. planetpailly.com

Earlier sci-fi or speculative works (e.g., Lucian’s 2nd-century True History, Godwin’s 1638 The Man in the Moone, Voltaire’s 1752 Micromégas, or H.G. Wells’ 1898 The War of the Worlds) describe beings from other worlds but do not use the word “alien” for them; they use terms like “lunar people,” “Martians,” or “inhabitants of [planet].” history.stackexchange.com

General etymologies note “alien” (from Latin alienus, “belonging to another/foreign”) had long meant “stranger/foreigner” or “strange” since the 14th century, with the extraterrestrial sense emerging in the 19th–20th centuries. etymonline.com

Some general dictionaries (e.g., etymonline) date “not of this Earth” to 1920 and the full sci-fi noun sense (“being from another planet”) to 1953, likely treating Carlyle’s figurative use as preliminary rather than the core SF meaning. Later pulp examples (e.g., 1929 Jack Williamson’s “The Alien Intelligence” or 1930s–40s stories) popularized it literally for ET beings/invasions. etymonline.com, stackexchange.com

Carlyle’s 1820 usage is the earliest attested in books/historical records, even if metaphorical. The modern pop-culture sense (gray ET visitors, abductions, invasions) solidified much later with UFO lore and 1950s films. No pre-1820 examples of the word in an extraterrestrial context have been found despite extensive searches of literature and etymologies. 241 web pages