Notes on Satan

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Satan in History

Satan is not present in classical Jewish sources (and scarcely present in traditional Judaism to this day). The Old Testament sources have nothing to say about Satan, apart from the fictional book of Job, where he appears not as a fiendish character, but simply as an "adversary" to provide a character in the story to ask God awkward questions about suffering in the world. He is not the cause of evil, simply a character device for asking questions.

The inter-testamental apocryphal writings developed the notion of angels, and also the idea of dark angels, and Satan, also known as Lucifer, or the Devil, became more sharply focused. The New Testament bears witness to a society where demon possession was believed in as a cause of madness, and demons (fallen angels) could spread disease and suffering. There is no idea of a creature with horns at all; if anything, the link is with the Serpent, and the Eden myth in the second Genesis creation narrative.

Later Gnostic movements, and purity movements (like the Cathars) took this further, and saw the world as under the sway of dark demonic forces. The official church teaching actually tried to pull people back from this kind of belief, as it tended towards a dualism of good and evil, where Christianity taught that good would triumph over evil. But remember the context of the times - wars, plagues sweeping the land, times of poor harvests and famine. In such a climate, people looked for solutions to the problem of suffering. But this also lead to absurdities, with the idea that Jesus died to pay a ransom to Satan, an idea well destroyed by Anselm of Canterbury.

The figure of the horned god came in from opposition to Greek culture, and the cult of Pan. By identifying the image of the horned god with Satan, any association with pagan beliefs was seen as evil. But this is a late development in the Middle Ages. The early Celtic Christians have no mention of horned figure in their literature, yet they were familiar with the Celtic horned god; instead, stories of dragons (which is code for paganism and/or the devil) feature strongly.

There was never a Satanic movement in the Middle Ages, despite the so-called evidence (under torture) at Witch Trials. The modern revival can be traced largely to Aleister Crowley, a self-seeking publicist who wanted to give the impression that he could work black magic, and of course, to the novels of once very popular Dennis Wheatley, such as "Strange Conflict", "The Devil Rides Out", "Gateway to Hell", "The Haunting of Toby Jugg", and of course "The Satanist", in which sacrifices and orgies abound.

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Satanism Today

A wide variety of phenomena are subsumed under the rubric of Satanism, including worship of Satan, the seeking of pacts with the devil, the cult of violence and evil, and superficial fashion statements better understood as "pop Satanism." . Most Satanism is a relatively modern phenomena, although its adherents, as always the case, often purport bogus historical antecedents.

But what are Satanists? Consider Polish society in the late 1980, and we see a huge diversity. There are Satanists who worshipped the devil without belittling the importance of God and who used either red wine or animal blood in their rituals; there are those who viewed God as nominally supreme but weak, and who advocated a gentle disposition, respecting nature and using red wine in rituals; Luciferians, who claimed that Satan was the Supreme Deity and that God is a usurper and requiring the use of fresh blood in their rituals; and lastly the Church of Satan, which had a magic-occultist slant. By 1991 about 20,000 Satanists were reported in Poland.

Today, formal Satanist Churches function in at least three countries of the region. The Polish Province of the Church of Satan is affiliated with the San Francisco-based Church of Satan, founded by Anton Sandor La Vey, the so-called Black Pope.

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There are two dangers inherent in Satanism:

The Spotty Satanist

One is the appeal to the young rebel, in which case it can be linked to crime, and acts of vandalism against religious places. "These hypocrite Christian pigs," said one Satanist (who identified himself only by his cult name, "Grass") told the Warsaw Voice. "We need more freedom, more violence in this world.". This kind of approach can lead to desecration of graves, obscene graffiti spray painted on church walls, and uses Satanism as an excuse for jettisoning any kind of morality. It can also be associated with drug culture, and sexual promiscuity. Satanism is here "a legitimation rather than a motivation" as a recent study put it.

Satanic Ritual Abuse Hysteria

The other, which is far more dangerous, comes from the idea of Satanic ritual abuse. It is, as I said, the idea of Satanism that gives rise to this, and just as in the Witch Trials, there is in fact no evidence at all of Satanism. But this did not stop a period of dawn raids, children snatched from families, certain pediatricians seen child abuse and satanic cult everywhere; no family was safe from this kind of accusation. As Professor Bill Ellis notes: "The disruption to families, and the pain and injustice to individuals, has been horrendous; the cliché of the 'witch-hunt' has often been all too accurate."

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References:

"Nihil Obstat: Religion, Politics, and Social Change in East-Central Europe and Russia" by Sabrina P. Ramet, 1998

"Adolescent Satanism: A Research Note on Exploratory Survey Data" by William H. Swatos Jr,Review of Religious Research. Volume: 34. Issue: 2, 1992.

"The Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media" by Jacqueline Simpson - author. , Folklore. Volume: 114. Issue: 1, 2003

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_sat2.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horned_God

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