Satan: Then and Now

[Napoli]

“My names and manifestations on this plane are legion, I have been known to many, but understood by but a few.” -Liber Azazel

It makes sense to introduce this section with a simple question—who exactly is Satan? Most Neo-Pagans assume that they know the answer. For these Neo-Pagans, especially Neo-Wiccans, Satan is simply a Christian invention derived by the Church as a means of frightening Pagans into religious submission. While there is little doubt that Satan, as most know Him today, has Christianity to thank for His bad reputation, He is most assuredly not a “Christian invention”.

In order to better understand the evolution of the mythology behind the name, we will have to work our way backwards to the beginning of His story. Among Theistic Satanists today, Satan is a very real being. Something that is exceedingly common is to assume that Satanists worship “The Devil”—the embodiment of evil. For myself and others, Satan and “The Devil” are two different entities altogether.

The role and character of The Devil have been blown entirely out of proportion thanks to the Christian obsession with Satan’s perceived influence over humanity. According to fundamentalists, The Devil controls every aspect of daily life—it is constantly seeking to lure human beings into its snares through the pursuit of earthly pleasures such as rock music, dancing, sex and (of course) alternative religions. One would think, from listening to such claims, that The Devil’s power must surely rival that of the Almighty’s! With so much paranoia and obsession feeding such a concept, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Christians have, through their unfounded fears, created their own Devil.

Many of you may be familiar with what is commonly known as an egregore or thoughtform. The concept of an egregore revolves around the school of thought in which it is accepted that with enough belief and energy poured into a specific character or idea, such a thing may “come into being”—fiction essentially becomes reality. A similar concept drives many of the principles behind Chaos Magic. While there is substance to the system of creating and working with fantastical imagery, for the purposes of this book I will leave the topic at that. It is a commonly shared belief within Theistic Satanism that The Devil is, in fact, an egregore and should not be confused with Satan...

...In contrast, the image of The Devil in many cases seems to contradict the original role of Satan. The word devil is derived from the Greek word for “slanderer”—diabolos. The Book of Job sees the Hebrew term ha-Satan (Accuser) evolve into ho diabolos (Slanderer) within the Greek Septuagint translation of the Bible. It is not until the advent of The New Testament that the term diabolos becomes much more identifiable with Satan, being mentioned more than thirty times alongside His name. One note of historical curiosity is that some early Gnostic sects and the 11th century French Christian sect known as the Cathars denoted the Christian God of The Old Testament, not Satan, as “The Devil”, a malevolent entity which whose purpose was, through deception, to enslave humanity.

“For God to be free of responsibility for human evil, humanity must be capable of freely choosing to be diabolically evil. But if human beings can freely choose to be diabolically, purely, evil, Satan and his demons are redundant.” -Phillip Cole – The Myth of Evil

Mainstream Christianity has taken the original mythology behind the Biblical Satan and His role and has exaggerated it, embellished it and subsequently evolved it to such an extent that The Devil has become a character of its own...

...In addition to The Devil, Theistic Satanists do not generally consider Satan to be the same entity as the Christian depiction of Lucifer. I personally do not subscribe to the belief that Lucifer and Satan are one in the same.

It is commonly assumed that Lucifer was simply another name used in the Bible to denote Satan, but this is inaccurate. Lucifer means “morning star” in Latin and occurs in the Bible primarily as a translation of a metaphorical title given to a Babylonian King whose fall was detailed in a passage from Isaiah 14:12:

“How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!” -Isaiah 14:12 - King James Version of the Holy Bible

The Babylonian King was referred to as “day star” or “morning star” by Isaiah in reference to the fact that the King’s fall was comparable to the Canaanite myth in which the personified Morning Star, whose arrogance had inspired it to ascend the heavens and to establish itself on the mountain of the gods, is cast into the Underworld. This ancient myth would later be adopted in the second Book of Enoch. In this adaptation, the Grigori Prince, Satanael (replacing the Morning Star of the Canaanite myth), arrogantly aspires to establish his throne higher than the clouds over the earth, desiring to be all-powerful. He leads a rebellion of angels which ultimately fails to succeed, finding himself and his cohorts cast down for their transgressions.

Jerome, responsible for the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible, translated the original Hebrew passage as lucifer qui mane oriebaris which, in English, means “morning star that once rose early”. Erroneously, later Christian scholars decided that this entire passage referred to Satan and alluded to the myth of His fall from grace, thereafter the name of Lucifer becoming synonymous with Him. Many Neo-Wiccans and Neo-Pagans tend to believe that Lucifer is the name of a Roman God, a similar belief is found within the context of Gnosticism in which Lucifer is the son of the goddess Sophia...

...Many Theistic Satanists accept the depiction of Satan as the serpent responsible for tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden as well as the Gnostic interpretation of Him as being the entity responsible for giving Knowledge to humanity. Although I personally believe that this particular story is allegorical, it nevertheless speaks of Satan’s role as a being concerned with forcing us to question those things in our lives which bind or hinder us. In Hebraic traditions, the entity responsible for the temptation of Eve and her subsequent impregnation with Cain was known as Samael, or “poison of God”. Samael is often equated with Satan by both Hebraic and Christian scholars, but within Talmudic mythology, Samael is regarded as the angel of death and one of the principle Archangels. Jewish traditions do not consider Samael to be evil as His role, in addition to being the angel of death, is that of the accuser, acting upon the direction of God. In other mystical traditions such as those of Zoharistic Kabbalah, Samael becomes the “prince the demons”, a fallen angel, and consort of the four Demonesses of sacred prostitution—Naamah, Lilith, Eisheth Zenunim and Agrat bat Mahlat. In addition to Kabbalistic tradition, Samael’s role as a sinister entity emerged with the advent of Gnosticism in which He is considered to be the demiurge...

...In religions which view Knowledge as dangerous and threatening to the authority of God and the clergy, Satan would naturally be seen as the adversary to law and order. Perhaps it is because so many Satanists embrace a rather anarchic philosophy when it comes to religious and moral constraints that Satan is such an ideal champion for the human experience. In both Corinthians and the Book of John, Satan is described as the “god” or “prince” of this world. What this means is that Satan is concerned with the mundane, with the pursuit of pleasure and the importance of the enjoyment of incarnation. In Christian theology, worldliness and earthly pleasures are seen as devices through which Satan operates—instilling within human beings a desire to put themselves and their own wants ahead of their relationship with God. It is because of this belief that many Christian denominations shun modern conveniences such as televisions, computers and telephones. These things are seen as serving the interests of Satan.

The mythology of Satan also encompasses other religions such as Islam. Iblis, the angel of Islamic deity Allah, is given a very similar role and nature to that of Satan in the Qu’ranic tradition. In Islamic myth, Iblis refused Allah’s command for the angels, or Djinn, to bow before Adam. He saw Adam as being inferior to the angels—Adam was, after all, made from clay and the angels had been created from fire. Allah condemned Iblis and he was thereafter known as Shaitan, which translates loosely to “rebel”. Shaitan then roamed the earth, vowing to lead astray those human beings whose faith in Allah was questionable. Like the Judeo-Christian God, Allah condones Shaitan’s testing of Mankind...

...There is no consensus among Theistic Satanists as to who Satan actually is—because it is a highly individualistic religion and because it encompasses many unique paths and points of view, Theistic Satanism acknowledges many different interpretations of Satan’s identity and role within the lives of human beings...

There can be a great deal of confusion where Satan’s aliases are concerned—names such as Leviathan, Baphomet, Azazel, Samael, Mastema, Abaddon and the aforementioned Beelzebub are all names which have been applied to Satan. Beliefs will differ from individual to individual, but it is widely accepted that names such as Leviathan, Beelzebub and Abaddon refer to separate Demons and not to Satan Himself...


...Satan enjoys a much more welcoming reputation among Satanists in that He is embraced as the wellspring of Knowledge and as the true god of Man. Many Theistic Satanists and Demonolators work with Satan in a more transcendent manner—choosing to simply honour Him through prayer and ritual, but never experiencing a vision of Him outside of their own imaginations. For others, techniques such as Shamanic journeying, scrying and intense ritual work have afforded them the opportunity to experience His many manifestations. When I speak of manifestations, I must make it clear that I am not talking about Satan appearing in a puff of smoke. As most active practitioners of Neo-Paganism already know, deities manifest Themselves in a variety of ways—most often these encounters occur during altered states of consciousness.

Whatever His history, origins, nature or appearance, Satan has inarguably touched the lives of many people from many different walks of life. Perhaps in this awakening aeon a new destiny awaits the devils of old--or, perhaps, the world will finally see a new friend in an old enemy.

- TB Scott

http://infernaldialogues.blogspot.co.uk/

[ulvfdfgtmk]

Great post and great blog. I read almost everything on there and can only recommend it.

[WillowDarkWytch]

Motumbá Àse!

Liked it very very much!

Saravá
Idansinají

[Nahemah]

There may be an issue here.

Copyright and laws around it mean that we tend to use short clips from other sites only, with a linkback to the original site provided.

This saves us from potential future issues should we get a takedown order or other legal notices, upon the author finding their work copied and pasted here.

Did you seek permission to repost this in full Napoli?

[Napoli]

There may be an issue here.

Copyright and laws around it mean that we tend to use short clips from other sites only, with a linkback to the original site provided.

This saves us from potential future issues should we get a takedown order or other legal notices, upon the author finding their work copied and pasted here.

Did you seek permission to repost this in full Napoli?

No I haven't. Sorry Nahemah. Can you change it for me? I promise it won't happen again.

[Nahemah]

Sure can and I'm sorry about this, Torey [ username I remember] is a good writer and has been someone I've seen around at various forums online.

We would love to be able to fully share items like this and some authors don't mind, but it's best to play safe overall.

[Napoli]

Sure can and I'm sorry about this, Torey [ username I remember] is a good writer and has been someone I've seen around at various forums online.

We would love to be able to fully share items like this and some authors don't mind, but it's best to play safe overall.

It's OK Nahemah. I didn't remember the rules of this forum while writing this.

[Nahemah]

Hopefully we're ok now.

I tried to keep as many of the salient points as possible, but it's still a bit of a chop job, so I really do recommend anyone wanting to discuss the article contents should go and read the full item as originally posted first.

I hope the content I left in is short enough not to fall foul of fair use principles as I don't want to cut this up any further. I also really enjoyed the article and have read before from the blog, though not recently.

The laws can be restrictive, but please remember people, that this way with smallish excerpted content and linkbacks, the author doesn't lose traffic counts to their site, which can be very important for bloggers who don't have widespread mainstream reach already.