Other-Worldly Beings?

Did Shadim (translated as "demons") Exist? (24 January 2017, 26 Tevet, 5777)

Question:

Is there anything written in Talmud or other writings about non human's possibly helping solomon build the temple or do anything like that?

Thx, Mike

Brit-Am Reply:
The only thing I can think of is shadim translated as demons but actually meaning beings that could be good or bad and that existed a half-physical half -spiritual type state.
My father spend about 5 years in WW2 in Military Intelligence in India and Burma. Much of his time was spent with the local peoples. He believed from what he saw that the magicians and holy men of India had contact with non-world powers that were mainly negative.

If you put Solomon and demons in the Google Search Engine you will find quite a lot of sources.

BUT it should be noted that word "shade" or "shadim" in the plural translated as demons does not usually mean that. "Shadim" could be good or bad and to call them demons gives a rather negative intonation that may not have always been pertinent.
Admittedly, Shadim are usually negative but sometimes they could be neutral or positive. "Good" shadim are sometimes mentioned though this is rare.
They were said to increase and multiply like humans and seem to have been similar to them though otherwise usually invisible.

First of all, there were Great Rabbis (such as Maimonides) who did not believe that shadim ever existed. They explained references to "shadim" in the bible and talmud as represented some kind of abstract spiritual phenomenon.

See:
Shedim
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shedim

Shadim are mentioned twice in the Bible:

Psalms 107:
37 They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the shadim [demons];

Deuteronomy 32:
17 They sacrificed to shadim [demons], not God, to deities they had never known, to new ones recently arrived, whom your ancestors had not feared.

Also the word seirim translated as shaggy goats in some opinions means shadim.
cf.

Isaiah 13:
21.....and shaggy goats [seirim] will frolic there.

Demons & Demonology
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/demons-and-demonology
Extract:
The Israelite conception of demons, as it existed in the popular mind or the literary imagination, resembled in some ways that held elsewhere. Demons live in deserts or ruins (Lev. 16:10; Isa. 13:21; 34:14). They inflict sickness on men (Ps. 91:5-6). They trouble men's minds (Saul; I Sam. 16:15, 23) and deceive them (I Kings 22:22-23), but nevertheless these evil spirits are sent by the Lord. The mysterious being who attacks Jacob in Genesis 32:25ff. exhibits a trait which a very widespread belief associated with certain demons, who are spirits of the night and must perish at dawn. Even in Israelite popular religion, however, there seems to have been relatively little fear of the spirits of the dead. The Bible often mentions the shades of the dead, but "the congregation of the shades" (Prov. 21:16) carries on a shadowy existence below, and does not seem to trouble the living.

See Also:
Demonology
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13523-shedim

Rabbi Shimeon ben Shatach (ca. 120 BCE to 40 BCE) is said to have expelled all the shadim from the Land of Israel but other sources record them as being present at a later date.

Shedim - do they exist? by Rabbi Ari Shvat
http://www.yeshiva.co/ask/?id=6615
Extract:
The Talmud mentions beings called sheidim, but also states, 'one who worries about them- they bother him, while he who doesn't worry about them, they don't bother him' (Psachim 110b). Similarly, among the rishonim [Early Authorities] there are different opinions.
The Rashba, for example, talks about them but the Rambam whenever he must, explains the concept in rational terms (e.g. Hil. Rotze'ach 12, 5). Nevertheless, all agree that man and God, and no other forces, run our lives. Only we and God have free will, and accordingly we're not allowed to believe in superstitions or the like. Many point out that certain powers that may have existed, aren't found any more today in our countries (e.g. Magen Avraham 173, 1), and Rav Kook adds from the kabbalists that in the Holy Land of Israel, all the more so, that one need not worry about sheidim.
With Love of Israel,
Rav Ari Shvat

Anyway, this is not our sphere of interest.
It is also not something we know much, if anything, about.

Note: The Irish Sidhe. The Irish and Scottish also had a belief in other wordly people. These were known as the Sidhe or "Mound-Dwelling" people. They were sometimes asociated with the Tuatha de Danaan or Tribe of the goddess Dana (or god Dan) whom we identify with the Tribe of Dan. The word "sidhe" means "mound-dwelling" but it could originally have been a form of the Hebrew word "shade" [demon]