When Buffy was resurrected at the beginning of season six, a demon was created (unwittingly) to counteract the powerful spell (in 6.03 After Life). This is known as thaumogenesis. The demon has no form of its own, so it must borrow people’s bodies - temporarily possessing them. It can only become flesh if it kills the subject of the original spell. If unable to do so, the demon would eventually dissipate.
Willow: “Thaumogenesis!”
Anya: “She’s possessed!”
Willow: “Thaumogenesis.”
Dawn: (to Anya) “You’re right.”
Willow: “I’m not possessed. I-I think I figured it out. This demon, i-it’s not a demon we let out. It’s, it’s a demon that we made.”
Xander: “We made a demon? Bad us.”
Willow: “Thaumogenesis is when doing a spell actually creates a being. In this case it was like, a, a side-effect, I guess. Like a price.”
Dawn: “What?”
Willow: “Think of it like, the world doesn’t like you getting something for free, and we asked for this huge gift. Buffy. A-and so the world said, ‘fine, but if you have that, you have to take this too.’ And it made the demon.”
The concept of thaumogenesis is also used in 3.19 The Price:
Angel: “Start with thaumogenesis…”
Fred: “Thaumo–”
Angel: “Creatures manifested as a by-product of using dark magic.”
Related episodes: 3.19 The Price, 6.03 After Life
Comments on this trivia
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danb on July 5th, 2005 at 5:35 pm
The term “thaumogenesis” is also used later the same year in Angel’s third season episode “The Price”, in which the Fang Gang encounter supernatural beings created as a result of Angel’s abuse of dark magicks
Saintsaucey on August 18th, 2005 at 6:17 am
Good call, when i saw the listing for thaumogenesis i wondered why an angel word had a listing here. after life wasn’t my faveorite episode and i had forgotten that they used it in that episode
drewgoddardismyhero on February 23rd, 2007 at 5:46 am
After Life IS one of my favorite eps and it boils my blood that the demon can’t have form, but suddenly it does when kicking buffy’s ass as an incorporeal ghost!!!
hypersk on March 30th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Yeah, I found the intangible demon to be very cool, he could hurt people and not be hurt by anything (until it became corporeal anyway), pretty scary stuff indeed!