The Seba library treats Pandaemonium in 9 passages, across 3 authors (including Otto, Walter F, Hillman, James, Jung, C.G.).
The pandemonium in which Dionysus, himself, and his divine entourage make their entry — that pandemonium which the human horde, struck by his spirit, unleashes — is a genuine symbol of religious ecstasy.
Otto grounds pandemonium in classical religion as the authentic epiphanic atmosphere of Dionysus, distinguishing it as a sacred phenomenon inseparable from its polar opposite, deathly silence.
, Dionysus Myth and Cult (1965), 1965thesis
To the intellect, the daimons seem to appear as a pandaemonium, and the intellect’s reaction is to attempt an intellectual diakrisis (discernment, differentiation). Jung’s conversation with the images was a psychological diakrisis giving them the opportunity to present their own logos.
Hillman argues that pandaemonium is the intellect’s misperception of the daimonic imaginal realm, which yields to ordered differentiation through the psychological method Jung practiced.
, Healing Fiction, 1983thesis
For Jaspers, Barth, and Teilhard, the daimons are a pandaemonium
Hillman identifies pandaemonium as the reductive theological-philosophical label applied to the daimonic imaginal world by thinkers committed to a monotheistic or unifying ontology.
, Healing Fiction, 1983thesis
“The Pandaemonium of Images: C. G Jung’s Contribution to Know Thyself” was first presented at a conference at Notre Dame University
The titular essay of Healing Fiction frames pandaemonium as the central problematic through which Jung’s contribution to self-knowledge is approached by Hillman.
, Healing Fiction, 1983supporting
The supposed creative pandaemonium of the teeming imagination is limited to its phenomenal appearance in a particular image, that specific one which has come to me pregnant with significance and intention.
Hillman dissolves the fear of imaginal chaos by showing that each image, when genuinely engaged, manifests singular necessity rather than uncontrolled multiplicity.
, Healing Fiction, 1983supporting
2. The Pandaemonium of Images
The chapter heading marks the term as the organizing rubric for Hillman’s account of Jung’s daimonic psychology and the method of active imagination as a response to imaginal multiplicity.
, Healing Fiction, 1983supporting
Jung’s move which turned directly to the images and figures of the middle realm was a heretical, demonic move. His move into the imagination, which had been forced upon him by his fantasies and emotions, had already been prejudged in our religious language as demonic.
Hillman contextualizes the cultural prejudgment underlying the concept of pandaemonium, showing how the imaginal realm was pre-labeled dangerous before Jung entered it.
, Healing Fiction, 1983supporting
By throwing up persons, images and voices, the daimonic mode objectifies and claims emotional participation at the same time.
Hillman describes the mechanism by which the daimonic multiplicity associated with pandaemonium compels engagement rather than mere spectacle, transforming display into drama.
, Healing Fiction, 1983aside
Demonism (synonymous with daemonomania = possession) denotes a peculiar state of mind characterized by the fact that certain psychic contents, the so-called complexes, take over the control of the total personality.
Jung’s clinical definition of demonism provides the psychological substrate from which the concept of pandaemonium as imaginal possession draws its diagnostic legitimacy.
, Collected Works Volume 18: The Symbolic Life, 1976aside