Category Archives: Modern Satanism

Few Americans took notice that in the last U.S. census of 2010, witchcraft had become the fourth largest religion in the United States. As shocking as that may be, Satanism has become just as popular. So says Zachary King, one of the most renowned former Satanists who converted to the Catholic Church, in an interview he gave to Crusade Magazine.

Does the Devil Exist?

When we speak of the occult and Satanism, many readers may have the impression that we are talking about the fabled bogeyman. The bogeyman is in everyones nightmares, but it doesnt really exist. According to a Gallup poll in 2003, only 70% of Catholics believe in the existence of the devil, which is only 2% higher than the average American.

Most Catholics do believe that the devil exists, but is largely absent from their lives. Or perhaps, for our peace of mind, we would like to think he is only distantly involved. Some would rather not talk about it. After all, one of the maxims of the American way of life is Live and let live. Let the devil be and hopefully, with a wing but no prayer, he will leave us be.

In a four-hour interview with former Satanist Zachary King, a lot was revealed about the activities and growing popularity of Satanism in America. The interview also showed that children are at a high risk of getting involved in the occult and how much the world is becoming more accepting of the devil. Far from sleeping, the devil has been awake and quite active.

A Former Satanist Converts

Zachary King converted to the Catholic Church in 2008. His conversion story, which involves the miraculous medal, is a fantastic story in itself, but it is not the focus of this article. He was a former Satanist who reached the degree of high wizard in the World Church of Satan. A high wizard is hand selected by the top leaders. If a satanic high priest is more or less equivalent to a Catholic priest, a high wizard is more or less equivalent to a mystic saint. In this position, he traveled extensively to perform satanic rituals for politicians, CEOs, TV producers and artists. His more than twenty-six years of deep involvement in Satanism has given him insight into this secretive world.

A Blurry Line

The occult and Satanism are nothing new. Many times the distinction between the two is blurred even by authorities who have studied both, since, by their very nature, both deal with the devil, though occultists may not always perceive it as such. This is evident in the book written by Mr. Luis Solimeo and Mr. Gustavo Solimeo, Angels and Demons. Mr. King himself first dabbled in the occult before being recruited into Satanism.

Defining the Occult

The occult is as old as the first temptation in the Garden of Eden when the serpent tempted Eve to become like God by merely eating a fruit. Mr. James R. Lewis, the second most prolific writer on the occult, has a long list of occult movements which includes Wicca, Druids, Voodoo, Brujeria/Santeria, the garden variety of New Age religions, astrologers, psychic readers, spirit mediums, among other less known sects. The terms witchcraft and the occult are synonymous. Occultism can be defined as the movement of people who believe in harnessing the power of spirits or nature through the use of herbs, crystals, amulets, incantations, symbols and spells for either good or bad effect.

The practice of the occult has always been popular and public throughout history. We see the practice in different forms like the priests of the Pharaoh whom Moses fought, Simon the Magus whom Saint Peter confronted, or the druids Saint Patrick challenged. Occultism was universally prevalent in pre-Christian times.

Defining Satanism

Satanism can be considered as ancient as the revolt of Lucifer and his angels against God. The former light bearer, as the name Lucifer signifies, deceived a third of the heavenly host and led a revolt against God. There are many variations of Satanism according to Alfred E. Waite, the most published authority on the occult and Satanism. In his book, Devil Worship in France, he defines Satanism as the movement of people who imitate the fallen angels and declare allegiance to Lucifer as a form of defiance to God.

Whereas the occult is an indirect, albeit sometimes unsuspecting, worship of the devil, Satanism is its unabashed counterpart. As Mr. King noted, the occult dabbles with the power of the devil many times not knowing it. Satanists, on the other hand, he continues, embrace it fully and openly.

The presence of Satanism has not been as obvious as that of the occult throughout history. All the gods of the gentiles are devils (Ps. 96:5), say the Scriptures. However, Satanism, per se, is the open worship of the devil, and, as such, if it did exist as a movement, was completely secretive in the past.

The Shift in the Soul of Western and Christian Man

The practice of the occult began to diminish markedly as Christianity spread, especially in the lands where it took root. Superstitions were replaced by the true Faith. Pagan rituals were replaced by prayers and the sacraments. The paranormal activities worked by invoking spirits were replaced by miracles wrought by novenas, prayers and devotion to Mary, the angels and the saints. Miracles abounded during the Middle Ages, a period when saints, imbibed by a true Christian spirit, walked the land.

Something changed in the lands where Christianity once flourished. Today, the influence of the Christian faith is much diminished in society. The appeal of witchcraft and, consequently, devil worship returned.

Bishop Fulton Sheen made the saying popular that the greatest trick the devil played on mankind was to make us believe he doesnt exist. The trick seems to have changed. The devil is now playing a new and improved trick on mankind.

The Resurgence of the Occult and Satanism

According to the above-mentioned 2010 census, there are more people involved in the occult in America than there are Muslims or Jehovahs Witness. Compare this to polls in 1980 when the people who affiliated themselves with the occult were so statistically small, no specific data was assigned to them. They were grouped with Muslims, Buddhists, Unitarians, and others, which altogether was only 2% of Americans.

The tally of the number of Satanists is harder to come by. According to Zachary King, his conservative estimate is about 4 million in the United States and about 10 million worldwide.

One reason why its impossible to have hard figures on the number of Satanists in America is because of the secrecy. The Church of Satan, founded by Anton La Vey, was the first of its kind to officially establish itself as a non-profit religious organization with the U.S. government on September 20, 1971 in California.

The Church of Satan ironically professes to be atheistic. In their belief system, the only god is oneself. The only sacraments are to pleasure oneself in any way imaginable. The only commandment is to do whatever makes you happy. Curiously, however, in their private rituals, they constantly invoke Satans name.

The Black Mass

Perhaps another mark of their increased popularity is the controversy they have generated in the news lately. The Satanists especially have been demanding public acceptance by trying to distribute books about the devil to school kids, putting up a public monument of Satan in Oklahoma City or setting up a holiday satanic display next to a nativity scene in the Florida state capitol.

The greatest controversy in 2014 was regarding the satanic black mass. On May 12, 2014, Harvard University scheduled a reenactment of a black mass. It was canceled by the school due to overwhelming protests. It would have been the first black mass offered to the public in the world.

In September of 2014, a satanic black mass was performed in Oklahoma Citys Civic Center where the admission was opened to the general public. In that sense, it was the first public satanic black mass celebrated in history. It was a public act in a public venue offered to the general public. It was the first time in history that Satan could be worshipped in broad daylight before the whole world. Previously, all satanic activities were done as privately as possible, in basements or in rooms with covered windows, and in the middle of the night.

Shockingly, Zachary King notes that a black mass is much more common than people think. Many high priests will perform it every night starting at midnight, the witching hour, and conclude at 3:00 a.m., the inverse time of Our Lord Jesus Christs death on the cross.

What is a satanic black mass? Mr. Alfred E. Waite, author of Devil Worship in France (1886), described it as a ritual based on the Catholic Mass. It is not based on Jewish or Muslim services, nor Buddhist or Hindu rituals, not even Protestant services.

The following is a list of rituals done in a satanic black mass compiled from the writings of Mr. Waite and confirmed by Mr. King.

Just as the Holy Mass is celebrated on top of an altar containing a relic of a martyr, Satanists perform theirs on top of an undressed woman of ill repute. Just as we humble ourselves repeatedly invoking Gods mercy, they offer their acts of constant revolt in imitation of the devil. Just as Jesus is offered as a sacrifice, they offer human or animal sacrifices. Just as we lift our hearts and minds to God asking His presence, Satanists repeatedly implore and demand the presence of demons. Just as we fill our naves with sacred music and chants, they fill theirs with weird music, a gong sounding every time the name of Satan is invoked. Just as we direct our prayers to God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the angels and saints, they direct theirs to Satan, the demons in hell and the damned souls in hell, especially those who committed particularly heinous sins on earth, like Cain and Judas. In addition, Mr. King added that he even witnessed some Satanists pray the rosary completely in reverse, starting from the last word, Amen, and ending with Hail.

Litmus Test: the Sacrilege with Consecrated Hosts

Here is the worst part and what seems to be the main point of their ritual. Just as we receive Holy Communion, believing the consecrated host to be the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ and are encouraged to offer acts of faith, adoration, love, thanksgiving, reparation and petition, the Satanists, too, receive communion. Real Satanists insist on using a real consecrated host. They then spit Our Lord on the ground, trample all over Him, all the while screaming blasphemies and profanities at Him.

In his book, Alfred E. Waite writes that in order to form a partnership with the lost angels one must please Satan. Since Christ is the enemy of Satan, the sorcerer must outrage Christ, especially in His sacraments. Because of this they insist on using a consecrated host and they obtain this by stealing It.

A priest in France wrote last year about a former Satanist who claimed he could tell a consecrated host from an unconsecrated one. This convert claimed that if you put a consecrated host on a table along with ten unconsecrated ones, he could pick out the consecrated one without hesitation. When the priest asked how that was possible since there is no physical difference, the former Satanist said he could do this because of the intense hatred he felt towards that one species.

Satanism and Abortion

Another shocking aspect of a black mass is the use of abortion. A common image used to portray abortion is that of the false god Moloch whose statues mouth is shaped like a burning furnace where babies are thrown in as a sacrifice.

Done completely under the protection of the law, satanic high priests today will assist in an abortion and offer the killing of the baby to the devil. Lawyers are consulted to make sure everything is done according to the law. In addition, many high priests dedicate all the abortions in the world to the devil every night during the witching hour.

Explaining the Shift in the Soul of Western and Christian Man

How did this shift happen? How can society today accept or be indifferent to such heinous acts?

In his masterful book, Revolution and Counter-Revolution, Prof. Plinio Corra de Oliveira analyzes the modern-day crisis and explains the changes in the soul of Western and Christian man.

Prof. Corra de Oliveira explains how society was transformed in five stages. The historical reference point of his analysis is the High Medieval Ages when the Gospel of Christ pervaded all of culture and society. During this time, the practice of the occult existed, but it was extremely unpopular and it was never public.

The first changes started with humanism and Protestantism in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. We see during that time the resurgence of the Greek and Roman deities. As Prof. Corra de Oliveira says, The thirst for earthly pleasures became a burning desire. Diversions became more and more frequent and sumptuous, increasingly engrossing men Hearts began to shy away from the love of sacrifice, from true devotion to the Cross, and from the aspiration to sanctity and eternal life. He called this the First Revolution.

The Second Revolution is the French Revolution. In this period we see the proclamation of the goddess of reason. Mr. Waite noted the growth of popularity of the occult and devil worship during this period.

The Third Revolution is the Communist Revolution. Though communism never promoted witchcraft and devil worship, it tried to abolish religion and establish materialism. In all the nations where the errors of communism spread, as predicted by Our Lady at Fatima, the role of God diminished and the role of atheistic materialism increased.

The Fourth Revolution, as defined by Prof. Corra de Oliveira, is the Cultural Revolution. During this phase we begin to see the rise of New Age religions and the occult.All the previous four stages progressed towards one finality: the end of Western and Christian civilization.

What shifted in the soul of Western and Christian man is the influence of Jesus Christ and His cross in the hearts of modern men. The whole revolutionary process attempts to reverse the fruit of Our Lords death on the cross which inspired and is the foundation for Christian civilization. We now live in a civilization where more and more Christian values are being eroded and persecuted, and anti-Christian values are being promoted.

Before the author of Revolution and Counter-Revolution died in 1995, he prognosticated that the Fifth Revolution would be the Satanic Revolution.

Hope in Face of the Advancing Satanic Revolution

Within the context of the struggle with the devil, sometimes we are tempted to think that God is an equal opportunity employer. God set an enmity between the woman and the serpent in the book of Genesis. There is a competition between the two factions. Sometimes we have the impression that God abides by the rule of fair play. There are rules in this competition and both sides are given equal opportunity to make their play. Or, so, some may think.

This is not the case. There is no parity between the devil and Our Lady. She was given a super abundance of graces, supernatural gifts and spiritual qualities. She is superior in every spiritual sense to the devil. She has proven this to us again and again.

This is one of the reasons why The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property always makes the effort to spread devotion to her Immaculate Heart through our America Needs Fatima campaign. It is also one of the main reasons why we promote the Public Square Rosary Rallies every year. Even as the occult and Satanism grow in popularity and Christianity is increasingly being persecuted, we are confident in the fulfillment of her prophecy at Fatima that her Immaculate Heart will triumph.

Where is the hope in face of the resurgence of the occult and the coming Fifth Revolution, the Satanic Revolution? Even though the media and Hollywood do not give it much notice, the signs of Our Ladys actions are out there.

A big sign is the 12,269 Public Square Rosary Rallies held in 2014. Crowds from 10 to 500 gathered in public squares all across the country praying the rosary for the conversion of America. This movement has grown from 2,000 rallies to over 12,000 within less than ten years. This is a big sign that Our Lady is active.

Another sign is the increasingly warm reception given to America Needs Fatima Custodians who take replicas of the most famous statue of Our Lady of Fatima to homes around the country. About 2,000 talks were scheduled in 2014. America Needs Fatima members host the statue in their homes, inviting family, friends, neighbors, parishioners and, sometimes, complete strangers for a presentation about the prophecies of Our Lady of Fatima and how to pray a rosary. Here, too, we see the Blessed Virgin Mary very active.

Other signs of hope are the conversions. Zachary King converted in 2008 by an extraordinary grace from Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. He and his wife now spend their time giving talks about the dangers of the occult and Satanism. His main devotions now are to the Blessed Sacrament and Our Lady.

Another prominent convert is Blessed Bartolo Longo (1841-1926) who became a model of piety. At his conversion from Satanism, he dedicated the rest of his life to expiating for his sins. At one point, he was tormented by doubts that the devil still owned his soul and that nothing he could do would save him from that.

At the height of this temptation, he heard in his ear a promise that said, One who propagates my rosary shall be saved. From then on, his mission became clear: to spread devotion to the Holy Rosary. He restored a painting of The Virgin of the Rosary which became the focus of this devotion in the region of Pompei. The church that houses this painting was raised to a minor basilica.

My Hope With This Article

I pray that this article acts as a warning siren to America. It is not meant to be sensational. It is meant to warn America that the storm is here. The Satanic Revolution, the fifth and final stage of the process of the Revolution, is here and attracting a following. We need to be aware of its dangers. We need to be spiritually prepared for it as best we can.

Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

I pray that America does not forget the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in this onslaught. As Mary said at Fatima, to convert the world, God wants to establish devotion to my Immaculate Heart.

See the rest here:

The Occult and Satanism in America - The American TFP

Figure in Abrahamic religions

Satan,[a] also known as the Devil,[b] and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehood. In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the yetzer hara, or "evil inclination." In Christianity and Islam, he is usually seen as a fallen angel or jinn who has rebelled against God, who nevertheless allows him temporary power over the fallen world and a host of demons. In the Quran, Shaitan, also known as Iblis, is an entity made of fire who was cast out of Heaven because he refused to bow before the newly created Adam and incites humans to sin by infecting their minds with wasws ("evil suggestions").

A figure known as ha-satan ("the satan") first appears in the Hebrew Bible as a heavenly prosecutor, subordinate to Yahweh (God), who prosecutes the nation of Judah in the heavenly court and tests the loyalty of Yahweh's followers.{{Citation needed}} During the intertestamental period, possibly due to influence from the Zoroastrian figure of Angra Mainyu, the satan developed into a malevolent entity with abhorrent qualities in dualistic opposition to God. In the apocryphal Book of Jubilees, Yahweh grants the satan (referred to as Mastema) authority over a group of fallen angels, or their offspring, to tempt humans to sin and punish them.

Although the Book of Genesis does not mention him, Christians often identify the serpent in the Garden of Eden as Satan. In the Synoptic Gospels, Satan tempts Jesus in the desert and is identified as the cause of illness and temptation. In the Book of Revelation, Satan appears as a Great Red Dragon, who is defeated by Michael the Archangel and cast down from Heaven. He is later bound for one thousand years, but is briefly set free before being ultimately defeated and cast into the Lake of Fire.

In the Middle Ages, Satan played a minimal role in Christian theology and was used as a comic relief figure in mystery plays. During the early modern period, Satan's significance greatly increased as beliefs such as demonic possession and witchcraft became more prevalent. During the Age of Enlightenment, belief in the existence of Satan was harshly criticized by thinkers such as Voltaire. Nonetheless, belief in Satan has persisted, particularly in the Americas.

Although Satan is generally viewed as evil, some groups have very different beliefs. In Theistic Satanism, Satan is considered a deity who is either worshipped or revered. In LaVeyan Satanism, Satan is a symbol of virtuous characteristics and liberty. Satan's appearance is never described in the Bible, but, since the ninth century, he has often been shown in Christian art with horns, cloven hooves, unusually hairy legs, and a tail, often naked and holding a pitchfork. These are an amalgam of traits derived from various pagan deities, including Pan, Poseidon, and Bes. Satan appears frequently in Christian literature, most notably in Dante Alighieri's Inferno, all variants of the classic Faust story, John Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, and the poems of William Blake. He continues to appear in film, television, and music.

The Hebrew term n (Hebrew: ) is a generic noun meaning "accuser" or "adversary", and is derived from a verb meaning primarily "to obstruct, oppose".[9] In the earlier biblical books, e.g. 1 Samuel 29:4, it refers to human adversaries, but in the later books, especially Job 1-2 and Zechariah 3, to a supernatural entity. When used without the definite article (simply satan), it can refer to any accuser, but when it is used with the definite article (ha-satan), it usually refers specifically to the heavenly accuser, literally, the satan.

The word with the definite article Ha-Satan (Hebrew: hasSn) occurs 17 times in the Masoretic Text, in two books of the Hebrew Bible: Job ch. 12 (14) and Zechariah 3:12 (3).[11][12] It is translated in English bibles mostly as 'Satan'.

The word without the definite article is used in 10 instances,[citation needed] of which two are translated diabolos in the Septuagint. It is generally translated in English Bibles as 'an accuser' (1x) or 'an adversary' (9x as in Book of Numbers, 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 Kings). In some cases, it is translated as 'Satan':

The word does not occur in the Book of Genesis, which mentions only a talking serpent and does not identify the serpent with any supernatural entity. The first occurrence of the word "satan" in the Hebrew Bible in reference to a supernatural figure comes from Numbers 22:22, which describes the Angel of Yahweh confronting Balaam on his donkey: "Balaam's departure aroused the wrath of Elohim, and the Angel of Yahweh stood in the road as a satan against him." In 2 Samuel 24, Yahweh sends the "Angel of Yahweh" to inflict a plague against Israel for three days, killing 70,000 people as punishment for David having taken a census without his approval. 1 Chronicles 21:1 repeats this story, but replaces the "Angel of Yahweh" with an entity referred to as "a satan".

Some passages clearly refer to the satan, without using the word itself. 1 Samuel 2:12 describes the sons of Eli as "sons of Belial"; the later usage of this word makes it clearly a synonym for "satan". In 1 Samuel 16:1423 Yahweh sends a "troubling spirit" to torment King Saul as a mechanism to ingratiate David with the king. In 1 Kings 22:1925, the prophet Micaiah describes to King Ahab a vision of Yahweh sitting on his throne surrounded by the Host of Heaven. Yahweh asks the Host which of them will lead Ahab astray. A "spirit", whose name is not specified, but who is analogous to the satan, volunteers to be "a Lying Spirit in the mouth of all his Prophets".

The satan appears in the Book of Job, a poetic dialogue set within a prose framework, which may have been written around the time of the Babylonian captivity. In the text, Job is a righteous man favored by Yahweh. Job 1:68 describes the "sons of God" (bn hlhm) presenting themselves before Yahweh. Yahweh asks one of them, "the satan", where he has been, to which he replies that he has been roaming around the earth. Yahweh asks, "Have you considered My servant Job?" The satan replies by urging Yahweh to let him torture Job, promising that Job will abandon his faith at the first tribulation. Yahweh consents; the satan destroys Job's servants and flocks, yet Job refuses to condemn Yahweh. The first scene repeats itself, with the satan presenting himself to Yahweh alongside the other "sons of God". Yahweh points out Job's continued faithfulness, to which the satan insists that more testing is necessary; Yahweh once again gives him permission to test Job. In the end, Job remains faithful and righteous, and it is implied that the satan is shamed in his defeat.[23]

Zechariah 3:17 contains a description of a vision dated to the middle of February of 519 BC, in which an angel shows Zechariah a scene of Joshua the High Priest dressed in filthy rags, representing the nation of Judah and its sins, on trial with Yahweh as the judge and the satan standing as the prosecutor. Yahweh rebukes the satan and orders for Joshua to be given clean clothes, representing Yahweh's forgiveness of Judah's sins.

During the Second Temple Period, when Jews were living in the Achaemenid Empire, Judaism was heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Achaemenids.[27] Jewish conceptions of Satan were impacted by Angra Mainyu,[28] the Zoroastrian god of evil, darkness, and ignorance. In the Septuagint, the Hebrew ha-Satan in Job and Zechariah is translated by the Greek word diabolos (slanderer), the same word in the Greek New Testament from which the English word "devil" is derived. Where satan is used to refer to human enemies in the Hebrew Bible, such as Hadad the Edomite and Rezon the Syrian, the word is left untranslated but transliterated in the Greek as satan, a neologism in Greek.

The idea of Satan as an opponent of God and a purely evil figure seems to have taken root in Jewish pseudepigrapha during the Second Temple Period,[30] particularly in the apocalypses.[31] The Book of Enoch, which the Dead Sea Scrolls have revealed to have been nearly as popular as the Torah, describes a group of 200 angels known as the "Watchers", who are assigned to supervise the earth, but instead abandon their duties and have sexual intercourse with human women. The leader of the Watchers is Semjz and another member of the group, known as Azazel, spreads sin and corruption among humankind. The Watchers are ultimately sequestered in isolated caves across the earth and are condemned to face judgement at the end of time. The Book of Jubilees, written in around 150 BC, retells the story of the Watchers' defeat, but, in deviation from the Book of Enoch, Mastema, the "Chief of Spirits", intervenes before all of their demon offspring are sealed away, requesting for Yahweh to let him keep some of them to become his workers. Yahweh acquiesces this request and Mastema uses them to tempt humans into committing more sins, so that he may punish them for their wickedness. Later, Mastema induces Yahweh to test Abraham by ordering him to sacrifice Isaac.[39]

The Second Book of Enoch, also called the Slavonic Book of Enoch, contains references to a Watcher called Satanael.[40] It is a pseudepigraphic text of an uncertain date and unknown authorship. The text describes Satanael as being the prince of the Grigori who was cast out of heaven[41] and an evil spirit who knew the difference between what was "righteous" and "sinful".[42] In the Book of Wisdom, the devil is taken to be the being who brought death into the world, but originally the culprit was recognized as Cain.[43] The name Samael, which is used in reference to one of the fallen angels, later became a common name for Satan in Jewish Midrash and Kabbalah.[46]

Most Jews do not believe in the existence of a supernatural omnimalevolent figure. Traditionalists and philosophers in medieval Judaism adhered to rational theology, rejecting any belief in rebel or fallen angels, and viewing evil as abstract.[48] The rabbis usually interpreted the word satan lacking the article ha- as it is used in the Tanakh as referring strictly to human adversaries.[49] Nonetheless, the word satan has occasionally been metaphorically applied to evil influences, such as the Jewish exegesis of the yetzer hara ("evil inclination") mentioned in Genesis 6:5.[51] The Talmudic image of Satan is contradictory. While Satan's identification with the abstract yetzer hara remains uniform over the sages' teachings, he is generally identified as an entity with divine agency. For instance, the sages considered Satan to be an angel of death that would later be called Samael, since God's prohibition on Satan killing Job implied he was even capable of doing so,[52] yet despite this syncretization with a known heavenly body, Satan is identified as the yetzer hara in the very same passage. Satan's status as a 'physical' entity is strengthened by numerous other rabbinical anecdotes: one tale describes two separate incidents where Satan appeared as a woman in order to tempt Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Akiva into sin.[53] Another passage describes Satan taking the form of an ill-mannered, diseased beggar in order to tempt the sage Peleimu into breaking the mitzvah of hospitality.[54]

Rabbinical scholarship on the Book of Job generally follows the Talmud and Maimonides in identifying "the satan" from the prologue as a metaphor for the yetzer hara and not an actual entity.[55] Satan is rarely mentioned in Tannaitic literature, but is found in Babylonian aggadah.[31] According to a narration, the sound of the shofar, which is primarily intended to remind Jews of the importance of teshuva, is also intended symbolically to "confuse the accuser" (Satan) and prevent him from rendering any litigation to God against the Jews.[56] Kabbalah presents Satan as an agent of God whose function is to tempt humans into sinning so that he may accuse them in the heavenly court.[57] The Hasidic Jews of the eighteenth century associated ha-Satan with Baal Davar.[58]

Each modern sect of Judaism has its own interpretation of Satan's identity. Conservative Judaism generally rejects the Talmudic interpretation of Satan as a metaphor for the yetzer hara, and regard him as a literal agent of God.[citation needed] Orthodox Judaism, on the other hand, outwardly embraces Talmudic teachings on Satan, and involves Satan in religious life far more inclusively than other sects. Satan is mentioned explicitly in some daily prayers, including during Shacharit and certain post-meal benedictions, as described in the Talmud[59] and the Jewish Code of Law.[60] In Reform Judaism, Satan is generally seen in his Talmudic role as a metaphor for the yetzer hara and the symbolic representation of innate human qualities such as selfishness.[61]

The most common English synonym for "Satan" is "devil", which descends from Middle English devel, from Old English dofol, that in turn represents an early Germanic borrowing of Latin diabolus (also the source of "diabolical"). This in turn was borrowed from Greek diabolos "slanderer", from diaballein "to slander": dia- "across, through" + ballein "to hurl".[62] In the New Testament, the words Satan and diabolos are used interchangeably as synonyms.[64] Beelzebub, meaning "Lord of Flies", is the contemptuous name given in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament to a Philistine god whose original name has been reconstructed as most probably "Ba'al Zabul", meaning "Baal the Prince". The Synoptic Gospels identify Satan and Beelzebub as the same. The name Abaddon (meaning "place of destruction") is used six times in the Old Testament, mainly as a name for one of the regions of Sheol. Revelation 9:11 describes Abaddon, whose name is translated into Greek as Apollyon, meaning "the destroyer", as an angel who rules the Abyss.[67] In modern usage, Abaddon is sometimes equated with Satan.

The three Synoptic Gospels all describe the temptation of Christ by Satan in the desert (Matthew 4:111, Mark 1:1213, and Luke 4:113). Satan first shows Jesus a stone and tells him to turn it into bread. He also takes him to the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem and commands Jesus to throw himself down so that the angels will catch him. Satan takes Jesus to the top of a tall mountain as well; there, he shows him the kingdoms of the earth and promises to give them all to him if he will bow down and worship him. Each time Jesus rebukes Satan and, after the third temptation, he is administered by the angels. Satan's promise in Matthew 4:89 and Luke 4:67 to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth implies that all those kingdoms belong to him. The fact that Jesus does not dispute Satan's promise indicates that the authors of those gospels believed this to be true.

Satan plays a role in some of the parables of Jesus, namely the Parable of the Sower, the Parable of the Weeds, Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, and the Parable of the Strong Man. According to the Parable of the Sower, Satan "profoundly influences" those who fail to understand the gospel. The latter two parables say that Satan's followers will be punished on Judgement Day, with the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats stating that the Devil, his angels, and the people who follow him will be consigned to "eternal fire". When the Pharisees accused Jesus of exorcising demons through the power of Beelzebub, Jesus responds by telling the Parable of the Strong Man, saying: "how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house" (Matthew 12:29). The strong man in this parable represents Satan.

The Synoptic Gospels identify Satan and his demons as the causes of illness, including fever (Luke 4:39), leprosy (Luke 5:13), and arthritis (Luke 13:1116), while the Epistle to the Hebrews describes the Devil as "him who holds the power of death" (Hebrews 2:14). The author of Luke-Acts attributes more power to Satan than both Matthew and Mark. In Luke 22:31, Jesus grants Satan the authority to test Peter and the other apostles. Luke 22:36 states that Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus because "Satan entered" him and, in Acts 5:3, Peter describes Satan as "filling" Ananias's heart and causing him to sin. The Gospel of John only uses the name Satan three times. In John 8:44, Jesus says that his Jewish or Judean enemies are the children of the Devil rather than the children of Abraham. The same verse describes the Devil as "a man-killer from the beginning" and "a liar and the father of lying." John 13:2 describes the Devil as inspiring Judas to betray Jesus and John 12:3132 identifies Satan as "the Archon of this Cosmos", who is destined to be overthrown through Jesus's death and resurrection. John 16:78 promises that the Holy Spirit will "accuse the World concerning sin, justice, and judgement", a role resembling that of the satan in the Old Testament.

Jude 9 refers to a dispute between Michael the Archangel and the Devil over the body of Moses.[85][86] Some interpreters understand this reference to be an allusion to the events described in Zechariah 3:12.[85][86] The classical theologian Origen attributes this reference to the non-canonical Assumption of Moses.[87] According to James H. Charlesworth, there is no evidence the surviving book of this name ever contained any such content.[89] Others believe it to be in the lost ending of the book.[89][90] The second chapter of the Second Epistle of Peter, a pseudepigraphical letter which falsely claims to have been written by Peter, copies much of the content of the Epistle of Jude, but omits the specifics of the example regarding Michael and Satan, with 2 Peter 2:1011 instead mentioning only an ambiguous dispute between "Angels" and "Glories". Throughout the New Testament, Satan is referred to as a "tempter" (Matthew 4:3), "the ruler of the demons" (Matthew 12:24), "the God of this Age" (2 Corinthians 4:4), "the evil one" (1 John 5:18), and "a roaring lion" (1 Peter 5:8).

The Book of Revelation represents Satan as the supernatural ruler of the Roman Empire and the ultimate cause of all evil in the world. In Revelation 2:910, as part of the letter to the church at Smyrna, John of Patmos refers to the Jews of Smyrna as "a synagogue of Satan" and warns that "the Devil is about to cast some of you into prison as a test [peirasmos], and for ten days you will have affliction." In Revelation 2:1314, in the letter to the church of Pergamum, John warns that Satan lives among the members of the congregation and declares that "Satan's throne" is in their midst. Pergamum was the capital of the Roman Province of Asia and "Satan's throne" may be referring to the monumental Pergamon Altar in the city, which was dedicated to the Greek god Zeus, or to a temple dedicated to the Roman emperor Augustus.

Revelation 12:3 describes a vision of a Great Red Dragon with seven heads, ten horns, seven crowns, and a massive tail, an image which is likely inspired by the vision of the four beasts from the sea in the Book of Daniel and the Leviathan described in various Old Testament passages. The Great Red Dragon knocks "a third of the sun... a third of the moon, and a third of the stars" out the sky and pursues the Woman of the Apocalypse. Revelation 12:79 declares: "And war broke out in Heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon. The Dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in Heaven. Dragon the Great was thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called Devil and Satan, the one deceiving the whole inhabited World he was thrown down to earth and his angels were thrown down with him." Then a voice booms down from Heaven heralding the defeat of "the Accuser" (ho Kantegor), identifying the Satan of Revelation with the satan of the Old Testament.

In Revelation 20:13, Satan is bound with a chain and hurled into the Abyss,[103] where he is imprisoned for one thousand years.[103] In Revelation 20:710, he is set free and gathers his armies along with Gog and Magog to wage war against the righteous,[103] but is defeated with fire from Heaven, and cast into the lake of fire.[103] Some Christians associate Satan with the number 666, which Revelation 13:18 describes as the Number of the Beast.[104] However, the beast mentioned in Revelation 13 is not Satan,[105] and the use of 666 in the Book of Revelation has been interpreted as a reference to the Roman Emperor Nero, as 666 is the numeric value of his name in Hebrew.[104]

Despite the fact that the Book of Genesis never mentions Satan, Christians have traditionally interpreted the serpent in the Garden of Eden as Satan due to Revelation 12:7, which calls Satan "that ancient serpent". This verse, however, is probably intended to identify Satan with the Leviathan, a monstrous sea-serpent whose destruction by Yahweh is prophesied in Isaiah 27:1. The first recorded individual to identify Satan with the serpent from the Garden of Eden was the second-century AD Christian apologist Justin Martyr, in chapters 45 and 79 of his Dialogue with Trypho. Other early church fathers to mention this identification include Theophilus and Tertullian. The early Christian Church, however, encountered opposition from pagans such as Celsus, who claimed in his treatise The True Word that "it is blasphemy... to say that the greatest God... has an adversary who constrains his capacity to do good" and said that Christians "impiously divide the kingdom of God, creating a rebellion in it, as if there were opposing factions within the divine, including one that is hostile to God".[109]

The name Heylel, meaning "morning star" (or, in Latin, Lucifer),[c] was a name for Attar, the god of the planet Venus in Canaanite mythology, who attempted to scale the walls of the heavenly city, but was vanquished by the god of the sun. The name is used in Isaiah 14:12 in metaphorical reference to the king of Babylon. Ezekiel 28:1215 uses a description of a cherub in Eden as a polemic against Ithobaal II, the king of Tyre.

The Church Father Origen of Alexandria (c. 184 c. 253), who was only aware of the actual text of these passages and not the original myths to which they refer, concluded in his treatise On the First Principles, which is preserved in a Latin translation by Tyrannius Rufinus, that neither of these verses could literally refer to a human being. He concluded that Isaiah 14:12 is an allegory for Satan and that Ezekiel 28:1215 is an allusion to "a certain Angel who had received the office of governing the nation of the Tyrians," but was hurled down to Earth after he was found to be corrupt.[117] In his apologetic treatise Contra Celsum, however, Origen interprets both Isaiah 14:12 and Ezekiel 28:1215 as referring to Satan. According to Henry Ansgar Kelly, Origen seems to have adopted this new interpretation to refute unnamed persons who, perhaps under the influence of Zoroastrian radical dualism, believed "that Satan's original nature was Darkness." The later Church Father Jerome (c. 347 420), translator of the Latin Vulgate, accepted Origen's theory of Satan as a fallen angel and wrote about it in his commentary on the Book of Isaiah. In Christian tradition ever since, both Isaiah 14:12 and Ezekiel 28:1215 have been understood as allegorically referring to Satan. For most Christians, Satan has been regarded as an angel who rebelled against God.

According to the ransom theory of atonement, which was popular among early Christian theologians, Satan gained power over humanity through Adam and Eve's sin and Christ's death on the cross was a ransom to Satan in exchange for humanity's liberation. This theory holds that Satan was tricked by God because Christ was not only free of sin, but also the incarnate Deity, whom Satan lacked the ability to enslave. Irenaeus of Lyons described a prototypical form of the ransom theory, but Origen was the first to propose it in its fully developed form. The theory was later expanded by theologians such as Gregory of Nyssa and Rufinus of Aquileia. In the eleventh century, Anselm of Canterbury criticized the ransom theory, along with the associated Christus Victor theory, resulting in the theory's decline in western Europe. The theory has nonetheless retained some of its popularity in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Most early Christians firmly believed that Satan and his demons had the power to possess humans and exorcisms were widely practiced by Jews, Christians, and pagans alike. Belief in demonic possession continued through the Middle Ages into the early modern period. Exorcisms were seen as a display of God's power over Satan. The vast majority of people who thought they were possessed by the Devil did not suffer from hallucinations or other "spectacular symptoms", but "complained of anxiety, religious fears, and evil thoughts."

Satan had minimal role in medieval Christian theology, but he frequently appeared as a recurring comedic stock character in late medieval mystery plays, in which he was portrayed as a comic relief figure who "frolicked, fell, and farted in the background". Jeffrey Burton Russell describes the medieval conception of Satan as "more pathetic and repulsive than terrifying" and he was seen as little more than a nuisance to God's overarching plan. The Golden Legend, a collection of saints' lives compiled in around 1260 by the Dominican Friar Jacobus de Voragine, contains numerous stories about encounters between saints and Satan, in which Satan is constantly duped by the saints' cleverness and by the power of God. Henry Ansgar Kelly remarks that Satan "comes across as the opposite of fearsome." The Golden Legend was the most popular book during the High and Late Middle Ages and more manuscripts of it have survived from the period than for any other book, including even the Bible itself.

The Canon Episcopi, written in the eleventh century AD, condemns belief in witchcraft as heretical, but also documents that many people at the time apparently believed in it. Witches were believed to fly through the air on broomsticks, consort with demons, perform in "lurid sexual rituals" in the forests, murder human infants and eat them as part of Satanic rites, and engage in conjugal relations with demons. In 1326, Pope John XXII issued the papal bull Super illius Specula, which condemned folk divination practices as consultation with Satan. By the 1430s, the Catholic Church began to regard witchcraft as part of a vast conspiracy led by Satan himself.

During the Early Modern Period, Christians gradually began to regard Satan as increasingly powerful and the fear of Satan's power became a dominant aspect of the worldview of Christians across Europe. During the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther taught that, rather than trying to argue with Satan, Christians should avoid temptation altogether by seeking out pleasant company; Luther especially recommended music as a safeguard against temptation, since the Devil "cannot endure gaiety." John Calvin repeated a maxim from Saint Augustine that "Man is like a horse, with either God or the devil as rider."

In the late fifteenth century, a series of witchcraft panics erupted in France and Germany. The German Inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger argued in their book Malleus Maleficarum, published in 1487, that all maleficia ("sorcery") was rooted in the work of Satan. In the mid-sixteenth century, the panic spread to England and Switzerland. Both Protestants and Catholics alike firmly believed in witchcraft as a real phenomenon and supported its prosecution. In the late 1500s, the Dutch demonologist Johann Weyer argued in his treatise De praestigiis daemonum that witchcraft did not exist, but that Satan promoted belief in it to lead Christians astray. The panic over witchcraft intensified in the 1620s and continued until the end of the 1600s. Brian Levack estimates that around 60,000 people were executed for witchcraft during the entire span of the witchcraft hysteria.

The early English settlers of North America, especially the Puritans of New England, believed that Satan "visibly and palpably" reigned in the New World. John Winthrop claimed that the Devil made rebellious Puritan women give birth to stillborn monsters with claws, sharp horns, and "on each foot three claws, like a young fowl."[155] Cotton Mather wrote that devils swarmed around Puritan settlements "like the frogs of Egypt". The Puritans believed that the Native Americans were worshippers of Satan and described them as "children of the Devil". Some settlers claimed to have seen Satan himself appear in the flesh at native ceremonies. During the First Great Awakening, the "new light" preachers portrayed their "old light" critics as ministers of Satan. By the time of the Second Great Awakening, Satan's primary role in American evangelicalism was as the opponent of the evangelical movement itself, who spent most of his time trying to hinder the ministries of evangelical preachers, a role he has largely retained among present-day American fundamentalists.

By the early 1600s, skeptics in Europe, including the English author Reginald Scot and the Anglican bishop John Bancroft, had begun to criticize the belief that demons still had the power to possess people. This skepticism was bolstered by the belief that miracles only occurred during the Apostolic Age, which had long since ended. Later, Enlightenment thinkers, such as David Hume, Denis Diderot, and Voltaire, attacked the notion of Satan's existence altogether. Voltaire labelled John Milton's Paradise Lost a "disgusting fantasy" and declared that belief in Hell and Satan were among the many lies propagated by the Catholic Church to keep humanity enslaved. By the eighteenth century, trials for witchcraft had ceased in most western countries, with the notable exceptions of Poland and Hungary, where they continued. Belief in the power of Satan, however, remained strong among traditional Christians.

Mormonism developed its own views on Satan. According to the Book of Moses, the Devil offered to be the redeemer of mankind for the sake of his own glory. Conversely, Jesus offered to be the redeemer of mankind so that his father's will would be done. After his offer was rejected, Satan became rebellious and was subsequently cast out of heaven. In the Book of Moses, Cain is said to have "loved Satan more than God"[166] and conspired with Satan to kill Abel. It was through this pact that Cain became a Master Mahan.[167] The Book of Moses also says that Moses was tempted by Satan before calling upon the name of the "Only Begotten", which caused Satan to depart. Douglas Davies asserts that this text "reflects" the temptation of Jesus in the Bible.

Belief in Satan and demonic possession remains strong among Christians in the United States and Latin America. According to a 2013 poll conducted by YouGov, fifty-seven percent of people in the United States believe in a literal Devil, compared to eighteen percent of people in Britain. Fifty-one percent of Americans believe that Satan has the power to possess people. W. Scott Poole, author of Satan in America: The Devil We Know, has opined that "In the United States over the last forty to fifty years, a composite image of Satan has emerged that borrows from both popular culture and theological sources" and that most American Christians do not "separate what they know [about Satan] from the movies from what they know from various ecclesiastical and theological traditions."[155] The Catholic Church generally played down Satan and exorcism during late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, but Pope Francis brought renewed focus on the Devil in the early 2010s, stating, among many other pronouncements, that "The devil is intelligent, he knows more theology than all the theologians together." According to the Encyclopdia Britannica, liberal Christianity tends to view Satan "as a [figurative] mythological attempt to express the reality and extent of evil in the universe, existing outside and apart from humanity but profoundly influencing the human sphere."[174]

Bernard McGinn describes multiple traditions detailing the relationship between the Antichrist and Satan. In the dualist approach, Satan will become incarnate in the Antichrist, just as God became incarnate in Jesus. However, in Orthodox Christian thought, this view is problematic because it is too similar to Christ's incarnation. Instead, the "indwelling" view has become more accepted, which stipulates that the Antichrist is a human figure inhabited by Satan, since the latter's power is not to be seen as equivalent to God's.

The Arabic equivalent of the word Satan is Shaitan (, from the triliteral root --n ). The word itself is an adjective (meaning "astray" or "distant", sometimes translated as "devil") that can be applied to both man ("al-ins", ) and al-jinn (), but it is also used in reference to Satan in particular. In the Quran, Satan's name is Iblis (Arabic pronunciation:[iblis]), probably a derivative of the Greek word diabolos. Muslims do not regard Satan as the cause of evil, but as a tempter, who takes advantage of humans' inclinations toward self-centeredness.[177]

The Temptation of Christ (1854) by Ary SchefferSeven suras in the Quran describe how God ordered all the angels and Iblis to bow before the newly created Adam. All the angels bowed, but Iblis refused, claiming to be superior to Adam because he was made from fire; whereas Adam was made from clay (7:12). Consequently, God expelled him from Paradise and condemned him to Jahannam. Iblis thereafter became a kafir, "an ungrateful disbeliever", whose sole mission is to lead humanity astray. (Q17:62)[180] God allows Iblis to do this,[181] because he knows that the righteous will be able to resist Iblis's attempts to misguide them. On Judgement Day, while the lot of Satan remains in question,[182] those who followed him will be thrown into the fires of Jahannam. After his banishment from Paradise, Iblis, who thereafter became known as Al-Shaitan ("the Demon"), lured Adam and Eve into eating the forbidden fruit.[183]

The primary characteristic of Satan, aside from his hubris and despair, is his ability to cast evil suggestions (wasws) into men and women.[184] 15:45 states that Satan has no influence over the righteous, but that those who fall in error are under his power. 7:156 implies that those who obey God's laws are immune to the temptations of Satan. 56:79 warns that Satan tries to keep Muslims from reading the Quran and 16:98100 recommends reciting the Quran as an antidote against Satan. 35:6 refers to Satan as the enemy of humanity and 36:60 forbids humans from worshipping him. In the Quranic retelling of the story of Job, Job knows that Satan is the one tormenting him.

In the Quran, Satan is apparently an angel, but, in 18:50, he is described as "from the jinns". This, combined with the fact that he describes himself as having been made from fire, posed a major problem for Muslims exegetes of the Quran, who disagree on whether Satan is a fallen angel or the leader of a group of evil jinn. According to a hadith from Ibn Abbas, Iblis was actually an angel whom God created out of fire. Ibn Abbas asserts that the word jinn could be applied to earthly jinn, but also to "fiery angels" like Satan.[188]

Hasan of Basra, an eminent Muslim theologian who lived in the seventh century AD, was quoted as saying: "Iblis was not an angel even for the time of an eye wink. He is the origin of Jinn as Adam is of Mankind."[189] The medieval Persian scholar Abu Al-Zamakhshari states that the words angels and jinn are synonyms. Another Persian scholar, Al-Baydawi, instead argues that Satan hoped to be an angel, but that his actions made him a jinn. Abu Mansur al-Maturidi who is reverred as the founder of Maturidiyya sunni orthodoxy (kalam) argued that, since angels can be blessed by God, they are also put to a test and can be punished, accordingly Satan became a devil after he declined to obey.[191] Other Islamic scholars argue that Satan was a jinn who was admitted into Paradise as a reward for his righteousness and, unlike the angels, was given the choice to obey or disobey God. When he was expelled from Paradise, Satan blamed humanity for his punishment.[192] Concerning the fiery origin of Iblis, Zakariya al-Qazwini and Muhammad ibn Ahmad Ibshihi[193] state that all supernatural creatures originated from fire but the angels from its light and the jinn from its blaze, thus fire denotes a disembodiment origin of all spiritual entities.[194] Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi argued that only the angels of mercy are created from light, but angels of punishment have been created from fire.[195]

The Muslim historian Al-Tabari, who died in around 923 AD, writes that, before Adam was created, earthly jinn made of smokeless fire roamed the earth and spread corruption. He further relates that Iblis was originally an angel named Azazil or Al-Harith, from a group of angels, created from the fires of simoom,[198] sent by God to confront the earthly jinn. Azazil defeated the jinn in battle and drove them into the mountains, but he became convinced that he was superior to humans and all the other angels, leading to his downfall. In this account, Azazil's group of angels were called jinn because they guarded Jannah (Paradise). In another tradition recorded by Al-Tabari, Satan was one of the earthly jinn, who was taken captive by the angels and brought to Heaven as a prisoner. God appointed him as judge over the other jinn and he became known as Al-Hakam. He fulfilled his duty for a thousand years before growing negligent, but was rehabilitated again and resumed his position until his refusal to bow before Adam.

During the first two centuries of Islam, Muslims almost unanimously accepted the traditional story known as the Satanic Verses as true. According to this narrative, Muhammad was told by Satan to add words to the Quran which would allow Muslims to pray for the intercession of pagan goddesses.[202] He mistook the words of Satan for divine inspiration. Modern Muslims almost universally reject this story as heretical, as it calls the integrity of the Quran into question.

On the third day of the Hajj, Muslim pilgrims to Mecca throw seven stones at a pillar known as the Jamrah al-Aqabah, symbolizing the stoning of the Devil. This ritual is based on the Islamic tradition that, when God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael, Satan tempted him three times not to do it, and, each time, Abraham responded by throwing seven stones at him.[205]

The hadith teach that newborn babies cry because Satan touches them while they are being born, and that this touch causes people to have an aptitude for sin. This doctrine bears some similarities to the doctrine of original sin. Muslim tradition holds that only Jesus and Mary were not touched by Satan at birth. However, when he was a boy, Muhammad's heart was literally opened by an angel, who removed a black clot that symbolized sin.

Muslim tradition preserves a number of stories involving dialogues between Jesus and Iblis, all of which are intended to demonstrate Jesus's virtue and Satan's depravity. Ahmad ibn Hanbal records an Islamic retelling of Jesus's temptation by Satan in the desert from the Synoptic Gospels. Ahmad quotes Jesus as saying, "The greatest sin is love of the world. Women are the ropes of Satan. Wine is the key to every evil." Abu Uthman al-Jahiz credits Jesus with saying, "The world is Satan's farm, and its people are his plowmen." Al-Ghazali tells an anecdote about how Jesus went out one day and saw Satan carrying ashes and honey; when he asked what they were for, Satan replied, "The honey I put on the lips of backbiters so that they achieve their aim. The ashes I put on the faces of orphans, so that people come to dislike them." The thirteenth-century scholar Sibt ibn al-Jawzi states that, when Jesus asked him what truly broke his back, Satan replied, "The neighing of horses in the cause of Allah."

Muslims believe that Satan is also the cause of deceptions originating from the mind and desires for evil. He is regarded as a cosmic force for separation, despair and spiritual envelopment. Muslims do distinguish between the satanic temptations and the murmurings of the bodily lower self (Nafs). The lower self commands the person to do a specific task or to fulfill a specific desire; whereas the inspirations of Satan tempt the person to do evil in general and, after a person successfully resists his first suggestion, Satan returns with new ones.[209] If a Muslim feels that Satan is inciting him to sin, he is advised to seek refuge with God by reciting: "In the name of Allah, I seek refuge in you, from Satan the outcast." Muslims are also obliged to "seek refuge" before reciting the Quran.[210]

According to Sufi mysticism, Iblis refused to bow to Adam because he was fully devoted to God alone and refused to bow to anyone else. For this reason, Sufi masters regard Satan and Muhammad as the two most perfect monotheists. Sufis reject the concept of dualism and instead believe in the unity of existence. In the same way that Muhammad was the instrument of God's mercy, Sufis regard Satan as the instrument of God's wrath. For the Muslim Sufi scholar Ahmad Ghazali, Iblis was the paragon of lovers in self sacrifice for refusing to bow down to Adam out of pure devotion to God [213] Ahmad Ghazali's student Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir was among the Sunni Muslim mystics who defended Iblis, asserted that evil was also God's creation, Sheikh Adi argued that if evil existed without the will of God, then God would be powerless and powerlessness can't be attributed to God.[214] Some Sufis assert, since Iblis was destined by God to become a devil, God will also restore him to his former angelic nature. Attar compares Iblis's damnation to the Biblical Benjamin: Both were accused injustly, but their punishment had a greater meaning. In the end, Iblis will be released from hell.[215]

However, not all Muslim Sufi mystics are in agreement with a positive depiction of Iblis. Rumi's viewpoint on Iblis is much more in tune with Islamic orthodoxy. Rumi views Iblis as the manifestation of the great sins of haughtiness and envy. He states: "(Cunning) intelligence is from Iblis, and love from Adam."[216]

In the Bah Faith, Satan is not regarded as an independent evil power as he is in some faiths, but signifies the lower nature of humans. `Abdu'l-Bah explains: "This lower nature in man is symbolized as Satanthe evil ego within us, not an evil personality outside." All other evil spirits described in various faith traditionssuch as fallen angels, demons, and jinnsare also metaphors for the base character traits a human being may acquire and manifest when he turns away from God. Actions, that are described as "satanic" in some Bah writings, denote humans deeds caused by selfish desires.[220]

Theistic Satanism, commonly referred to as "devil worship",[222] views Satan as a deity, whom individuals may supplicate to.[223][224] It consists of loosely affiliated or independent groups and cabals, which all agree that Satan is a real entity.[225] It consider Satan the Devil, or Lucifer worthy of worship and supplication, whom individuals may contact, convene with, and even praise.

Atheistic Satanism, as practiced by the Satanic Temple and by followers of LaVeyan Satanism, holds that Satan does not exist as a literal anthropomorphic entity, but rather as a symbol of a cosmos which Satanists perceive to be permeated and motivated by a force that has been given many names by humans over the course of time. In this religion, "Satan" is not viewed or depicted as a hubristic, irrational, and fraudulent creature, but rather is revered with Prometheus-like attributes, symbolizing liberty and individual empowerment. To adherents, he also serves as a conceptual framework and an external metaphorical projection of the Satanist's highest personal potential.[226] In his essay "Satanism: The Feared Religion", the current High Priest of the Church of Satan, Peter H. Gilmore, further expounds that "...Satan is a symbol of Man living as his prideful, carnal nature dictates. The reality behind Satan is simply the dark evolutionary force of entropy that permeates all of nature and provides the drive for survival and propagation inherent in all living things. Satan is not a conscious entity to be worshiped, rather a reservoir of power inside each human to be tapped at will".[227]

LaVeyan Satanists embrace the original etymological meaning of the word "Satan" (Hebrew: satan, meaning "adversary"). According to Peter H. Gilmore, "The Church of Satan has chosen Satan as its primary symbol because in Hebrew it means adversary, opposer, one to accuse or question. We see ourselves as being these Satans; the adversaries, opposers and accusers of all spiritual belief systems that would try to hamper enjoyment of our life as a human being."[228]

Post-LaVeyan Satanists, like the adherents of The Satanic Temple, argue that the human animal has a natural altruistic and communal tendency, and frame Satan as a figure of struggle against injustice and activism. They also believe in bodily autonomy, that personal beliefs should conform to science and inspire nobility, and that people should atone for their mistakes.[229]

The main deity in the tentatively Indo-European pantheon of the Yazidis, Melek Taus, is similar to the devil in Christian and Islamic traditions, as he refused to bow down before humanity.[230] Therefore, Christians and Muslims often consider Melek Taus to be Satan.[230] However, rather than being Satanic, Yazidism can be understood as a remnant of a pre-Islamic Middle Eastern Indo-European religion, and/or a ghulat Sufi movement founded by Shaykh Adi. In fact, there is no entity in Yazidism which represents evil in opposition to God; such dualism is rejected by Yazidis.[232]

In the Middle Ages, the Cathars, practitioners of a dualistic religion, were accused of worshipping Satan by the Catholic Church. Pope Gregory IX stated in his work Vox in Rama that the Cathars believed that God had erred in casting Lucifer out of heaven and that Lucifer would return to reward his faithful. On the other hand, according to Catharism, the creator god of the material world worshipped by the Catholic Church is actually Satan.[233]

Wicca is a modern, syncretic Neopagan religion, whose practitioners many Christians have incorrectly assumed to worship Satan. In actuality, Wiccans do not believe in the existence of Satan or any analogous figure and have repeatedly and emphatically rejected the notion that they venerate such an entity. The cult of the skeletal figure of Santa Muerte, which has grown exponentially in Mexico,[235][236] has been denounced by the Catholic Church as Devil-worship.[237] However, devotees of Santa Muerte view her as an angel of death created by God,[238] and many of them identify as Catholic.[239]

Much modern folklore about Satanism does not originate from the actual beliefs or practices of theistic or atheistic Satanists, but rather from a mixture of medieval Christian folk beliefs, political or sociological conspiracy theories, and contemporary urban legends.[240][241][242] An example is the Satanic ritual abuse scare of the 1980sbeginning with the memoir Michelle Rememberswhich depicted Satanism as a vast conspiracy of elites with a predilection for child abuse and human sacrifice.[241][242] This genre frequently describes Satan as physically incarnating in order to receive worship.

If he was once as handsome as he now is ugly and, despite that, raised his brows against his Maker, one can understand,how every sorrow has its source in him!

Here we may reign secure, and in my choiceto reign is worth ambition though in Hell:Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

In Dante Alighieri's Inferno, Satan appears as a giant demon, frozen mid-breast in ice at the center of the Ninth Circle of Hell. Satan has three faces and a pair of bat-like wings affixed under each chin. In his three mouths, Satan gnaws on Brutus, Judas Iscariot, and Cassius, whom Dante regarded as having betrayed the "two greatest heroes of the human race": Julius Caesar, the founder of the new order of government, and Jesus, the founder of the new order of religion. As Satan beats his wings, he creates a cold wind that continues to freeze the ice surrounding him and the other sinners in the Ninth Circle. Dante and Virgil climb up Satan's shaggy legs until gravity is reversed and they fall through the earth into the southern hemisphere.

Satan appears in several stories from The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, including "The Summoner's Prologue", in which a friar arrives in Hell and sees no other friars, but is told there are millions. Then Satan lifts his tail to reveal that all of the friars live inside his anus. Chaucer's description of Satan's appearance is clearly based on Dante's. The legend of Faust, recorded in the 1589 chapbook The History of the Damnable Life and the Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus, concerns a pact allegedly made by the German scholar Johann Georg Faust with a demon named Mephistopheles agreeing to sell his soul to Satan in exchange for twenty-four years of earthly pleasure. This chapbook became the source for Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus.

John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost features Satan as its main protagonist. Milton portrays Satan as a tragic antihero destroyed by his own hubris. The poem, which draws extensive inspiration from Greek tragedy, recreates Satan as a complex literary character, who dares to rebel against the "tyranny" of God, in spite of God's own omnipotence. The English poet and painter William Blake famously quipped that "The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devils party without knowing it." Paradise Regained, the sequel to Paradise Lost, is a retelling of Satan's temptation of Jesus in the desert.

William Blake regarded Satan as a model of rebellion against unjust authority and features him in many of his poems and illustrations, including his 1780 book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in which Satan is celebrated as the ultimate rebel, the incarnation of human emotion and the epitome of freedom from all forms of reason and orthodoxy. Based on the Biblical passages portraying Satan as the accuser of sin, Blake interpreted Satan as "a promulgator of moral laws."

Satan's appearance does not appear in the Bible or in early Christian writings, though Paul the Apostle does write that "Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14). The Devil was never shown in early Christian artwork and may have first appeared in the sixth century in one of the mosaics of the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo. The mosaic "Christ the Good Sheppard" features a blue-violet angel at the left hand side of Christ behind three goats; opposite to a red angel on the right hand side and in front of sheep. Depictions of the devil became more common in the ninth century, where he is shown with cloven hooves, hairy legs, the tail of a goat, pointed ears, a beard, a flat nose, and a set of horns. Satan may have first become associated with goats through the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, recorded in Matthew 25:3146, in which Jesus separates sheep (representing the saved) from goats (representing the damned); the damned are thrown into an "everlasting fire" along with Satan and his angels.

Medieval Christians were known to adapt previously existing pagan iconography to suit depictions of Christian figures. Much of Satan's traditional iconography in Christianity appears to be derived from Pan, a rustic, goat-legged fertility god in ancient Greek religion. Early Christian writers such as Saint Jerome equated the Greek satyrs and the Roman fauns, whom Pan resembled, with demons. The Devil's pitchfork appears to have been adapted from the trident wielded by the Greek god Poseidon and Satan's flame-like hair seems to have originated from the Egyptian god Bes. By the High Middle Ages, Satan and devils appear in all works of Christian art: in paintings, sculptures, and on cathedrals. Satan is usually depicted naked, but his genitals are rarely shown and are often covered by animal furs. The goat-like portrayal of Satan was especially closely associated with him in his role as the object of worship by sorcerers and as the incubus, a demon believed to rape human women in their sleep.

Italian frescoes from the late Middle Ages onward frequently show Satan chained in Hell, feeding on the bodies of the perpetually damned. These frescoes are early enough to have inspired Dante's portrayal in his Inferno. As the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Satan is often shown as a snake with arms and legs as well the head and full-breasted upper torso of a woman. Satan and his demons could take any form in medieval art, but, when appearing in their true form, they were often shown as short, hairy, black-skinned humanoids with clawed and bird feet and extra faces on their chests, bellies, genitals, buttocks, and tails. The modern popular culture image of Satan as a well-dressed gentleman with small horns and a tail originates from portrayals of Mephistopheles in the operas La damnation de Faust (1846) by Hector Berlioz, Mefistofele (1868) by Arrigo Boito, and Faust by Charles Gounod.

Illustrations of Satan/Iblis in Islamic paintings often depict him black-faced, a feature which would later symbolize any satanic figure or heretic, and with a black body, to symbolize his corrupted nature. Another common depiction of Iblis shows him wearing a special head covering, clearly different from the traditional Islamic turban. In one painting, however, Iblis wears a traditional Islamic head covering.[275] The turban probably refers to a narration of Iblis' fall: there he wore a turban, then he was sent down from heaven.[276] Many other pictures show and describe Iblis at the moment, when the angels prostrate themselves before Adam. Here, he is usually seen beyond the outcrop, his face transformed with his wings burned, to the envious countenance of a devil.[277] Iblis and his cohorts (div or shayatin) are often portrayed in Turko-Persian art as bangled creatures with flaming eyes, only covered by a short skirt. Similar to European arts, who took traits of pagan deities to depict devils, they depicted such demons often in a similar fashion to that of Hindu deities.[278]

The Devil is depicted as a vampire bat in Georges Mlis' The Haunted Castle (1896), which is often considered the first horror film. So-called "Black Masses" have been portrayed in sensationalist B-movies since the 1960s. One of the first films to portray such a ritual was the 1965 film Eye of the Devil, also known as 13. Alex Sanders, a former black magician, served as a consultant on the film to ensure that the rituals portrayed in it were depicted accurately. Over the next thirty years, the novels of Dennis Wheatley and the films of Hammer Film Productions both played a major role in shaping the popular image of Satanism.

The film version of Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby established made Satanic themes a staple of mainstream horror fiction. Later films such as The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976), Angel Heart (1987) and The Devil's Advocate (1997) feature Satan as an antagonist.[284]

References to Satan in music can be dated back to the Middle Ages. Giuseppe Tartini was inspired to write his most famous work, the Violin Sonata in G minor, also known as "The Devil's Trill", after dreaming of the Devil playing the violin. Tartini claimed that the sonata was a lesser imitation of what the Devil had played in his dream.[285] Niccol Paganini was believed to have derived his musical talent from a deal with the Devil. Charles Gounod's Faust features a narrative that involves Satan.[287]

In the early 1900s, jazz and blues became known as the "Devil's Music" as they were considered "dangerous and unholy".[287] According to legend, blues musician Tommy Johnson was a terrible guitarist before exchanging his soul to the Devil for a guitar. Later, Robert Johnson claimed that he had sold his soul in return for becoming a great blues guitarist.[288] Satanic symbolism appears in rock music from the 1960s. Mick Jagger assumes the role of Lucifer in the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" (1968),[287] while Black Sabbath portrayed the Devil in numerous songs, including "War Pigs" (1970) and "N.I.B." (1970).[289]

Note: Names are sorted alphabetically. Standard form: Islamic name / Biblical name (title or relationship)

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Satan - Wikipedia

Prosecutions for witchcraft in Europe

Witch trials in the early modern period saw that between 1400 to 1782, around 40,000 to 60,000[1][2] were killed due to suspicion that they were practicing witchcraft, with some other sources estimating that a total of 100,000 deaths occurred at its maximum for a similar period.[3] Groundwork on the concept of witchcraft (a person's collaboration with the devil through the use of magic) was developed by Christian theologians as early as the 13th century. However, prosecutions for the practice of witchcraft would only reach a highpoint from 1560 to 1630[4][5] during the Counter-Reformation and the European wars of religion, with some regions burning those who were convicted at the stake, of whom roughly 80% were women,[6] and most often, they were over the age of 40.[7][8][9]

Throughout the medieval era, mainstream Christian doctrine had denied the belief in the existence of witches and witchcraft, condemning it as a pagan superstition.[10] Some have argued that the work of the Dominican Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century helped lay the groundwork for a shift in Christian doctrine, by which certain Christian theologians eventually began to accept the possibility of collaboration with devil(s), resulting in a person obtaining certain real supernatural powers.[11]

In 1233, a papal bull by Gregory IX established a new branch of the inquisition in Toulouse, France, to be led by the Dominicans. It was intended to prosecute Christian groups considered heretical, such as the Cathars and the Waldensians.[12] The Dominicans eventually evolved into the most zealous prosecutors of persons accused of witchcraft in the years leading up to the Reformation.

Records were usually kept by the French inquisitors but the majority of these records did not survive, and one historian who was working in 1880, Charles Molinier, refers to the surviving records as only scanty debris.[13] Molinier notes that the inquisitors themselves describe their attempts to carefully safeguard their records, especially when they were moving from town to town. The inquisitors were widely hated and they would be ambushed on the road, but their records were more often the target than the inquisitors themselves [plus dsireux encore de ravir les papiers que porte le juge que de le faire prir lui-mme] (better to take the papers the judge carries than to make the judge himself perish). The records seem to have often been targeted by the accused or their friends and family, wishing to thereby sabotage the proceedings or failing that, to spare their reputations and the reputations of their descendants.[14] This would be all the more true for those who were accused of practicing witchcraft. Difficulty in understanding the larger witchcraft trials which were to come in later centuries is deciding how much can be extrapolated from what remains.

In 1329, with the papacy in nearby Avignon, the inquisitor of Carcassonne sentenced a monk to the dungeon for life and the sentence refers to... multas et diversas daemonum conjurationes et invocationes... and it frequently uses the same Latin synonym as a word for witchcraft, sortilegiafound on the title page of Nicolas Rmy's work from 1595, where it is claimed that 900 persons were executed for sortilegii crimen.[15]

Witch trials were still uncommon in the 15th century when the concept of diabolical witchcraft began to emerge. The study of four chronicles concerning events in Valais, the Bernese Alps and the nearby region of Dauphin has supported the scholarly proposal that some ideas concerning witchcraft were taking hold in the region around western Switzerland during the 1430s, recasting the practice of witchcraft as an alliance between a person and the devil that would undermine and threaten the Christian foundation of society.[16]The Perrissona Gappit case tried in Switzerland in 1465 is noted for the thoroughness of the surviving record.[17][18]

The skeptical Canon Episcopi retained many supporters, and still seems to have been supported by the theological faculty at the University of Paris in their decree from 1398, and was never officially repudiated by a majority of bishops within the papal lands, nor even by the Council of Trent, which immediately preceded the peak of the trials. But in 1428, the Valais witch trials, lasting six to eight years, started in the French-speaking lower Valais and eventually spread to German-speaking regions. This time period also coincided with the Council of Basel (14311437) and some scholars have suggested a new anti-witchcraft doctrinal view may have spread among certain theologians and inquisitors in attendance at this council, as the Valais trials were discussed.[19] Not long after, a cluster of powerful opponents of the Canon Episcopi emerged: a Dominican inquisitor in Carcassonne named Jean Vinet, the Bishop of Avila Alfonso Tostado, and another Dominican Inquisitor named Nicholas Jacquier. It is unclear whether the three men were aware of each other's work. The coevolution of their shared view centres around "a common challenge: disbelief in the reality of demonic activity in the world."[20]

Nicholas Jacquier's lengthy and complex argument against the Canon Episcopi was written in Latin. It began as a tract in 1452 and was expanded into a fuller monograph in 1458. Many copies seem to have been made by hand (nine manuscript copies still exist), but it was not printed until 1561.[21][22][23] Jacquier describes a number of trials he personally witnessed, including one of a man named Guillaume Edelin, against whom the main charge seems to have been that he had preached a sermon in support of the Canon Episcopi claiming that witchcraft was merely an illusion. Edeline eventually recanted this view, most likely under torture.

The most important and influential book which promoted the new heterodox view was the Malleus Maleficarum by Heinrich Kramer. Kramer begins his work in opposition to the Canon Episcopi, but oddly, he does not cite Jacquier, and he may not have been aware of his work.[25] Like most witch-phobic writers, Kramer had met strong resistance by those who opposed his heterodox view; this inspired him to write his work as both propaganda and a manual for like-minded zealots. The Gutenberg printing press had only recently been invented along the Rhine River, and Kramer fully utilized it to shepherd his work into print and spread the ideas that had been developed by inquisitors and theologians in France into the Rhineland.[26] The theological views espoused by Kramer were influential but remained contested, and an early edition of the book even appeared on a list of those banned by the Church in 1490.[27] Nonetheless Malleus Maleficarum was printed 13 times between 1486 and 1520, and following a 50-year pause that coincided with the height of the Protestant reformations it was printed again another 16 times (15741669) in the decades following the important Council of Trent which had remained silent with regard to Kramer's theological views. It inspired many similar works, such as an influential work by Jean Bodin, and was cited as late as 1692 by Increase Mather, then president of Harvard College.[28][29][30]

It is unknown if a degree of alarm at the extreme superstition and anti-witchcraft views expressed by Kramer in the Malleus Maleficarum may have been one of the numerous factors that helped prepare the ground for the Protestant Reformation.

The period of the European witch trials, with the most active phase and which saw the largest number of fatalities seems to have occurred between 1560 and 1630.[31][5] The period between 1560 and 1670 saw more than 40,000 deaths.[32]

Authors have debated whether witch trials were more intense in Catholic or Protestant regions. However, the intensity had not so much to do with Catholicism or Protestantism as both regions experienced a varied intensity of witchcraft persecutions. In Catholic Spain and Portugal for example, the numbers of witch trials were few because the Spanish and the Portuguese Inquisition preferred to focus on the crime of public heresy rather than the crime of witchcraft, whereas Protestant Scotland had a much larger number of witchcraft trials. In contrast, the witch trials in the Protestant Netherlands stopped earlier and they were among the least numerous in Europe, while the large-scale mass witch trials which took place in the autonomous territories of the Catholic prince-bishops in Southern Germany were infamous in all of the Western world, and the contemporary writer Herman Lher described how they affected the population within them:[33]

The Roman Catholic subjects, farmers, winegrowers, and artisans in the episcopal lands are the most terrified people on earth, since the false witch trials affect the German episcopal lands incomparably more than France, Spain, Italy or Protestants.[33]

The mass witch trials which took place in Southern Catholic Germany in waves between the 1560s and the 1620s. Some trials went on to continue for years and would result in hundreds of executions of all sexes, ages and classes. These included the Trier witch trials (15811593), the Fulda witch trials (16031606), the Eichsttt witch trials (16131630), the Wrzburg witch trials (16261631), and the Bamberg witch trials (16261631).

In 1590, the North Berwick witch trials occurred in Scotland, and were of particular note as the king, James VI, became involved himself. James had developed a fear that witches planned to kill him after he suffered from storms while traveling to Denmark in order to claim his bride, Anne, earlier that year. Returning to Scotland, the king heard of trials that were occurring in North Berwick, and ordered the suspects to be brought to himhe subsequently believed that a nobleman, Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell, was a witch, and after the latter fled in fear of his life, he was outlawed as a traitor. The king subsequently set up royal commissions to hunt down witches in his realm, recommending torture in dealing with suspects, and in 1597, he wrote a book about the menace that witches posed to society, entitled Daemonologie.[34]

The Pendle witch trials of 1612 are some of the most prominent in English history, resulting in the hanging of ten of the eleven who were tried.

The witch-panic phenomenon reached the more remote parts of Europe, as well as North America later in the 17th century, among them being the Salzburg witch trials, the Swedish Torsker witch trials and, somewhat later, in 1692, the Salem witch trials in Colonial New England.

There had never been a lack of skepticism regarding the trials. In 1635, the authorities of the Roman Inquisition acknowledged its own trials had "found scarcely one trial conducted legally".[35] In the middle of the 17th century, the difficulty in proving witchcraft according to the legal process contributed Rothenburg (German) following advice to treat witchcraft cases with caution.[36]

Although the witch trials had begun to fade out across much of Europe by the mid-17th century, they continued on the fringes of Europe and in the American Colonies. In the Nordic countries, the late 17th century saw the peak of the trials in a number of areas: the Torsker witch trials of Sweden (1674), where 71 people were executed for witchcraft in a single day, the peak of witch hunting in Swedish Finland,[31] and the Salzburg witch trials in Austria (where 139 people were executed from 1675 to 1690).

The 1692 Salem witch trials were a brief outburst of witch-phobia which occurred in the New World when the practice was waning in Europe. In the 1690s, Winifred King Benham and her daughter Winifred were thrice tried for witchcraft in Wallingford, Connecticut, the last of such trials in New England. Even though they were found innocent, they were compelled to leave Wallingford and settle in Staten Island, New York.[37] In 1706, Grace Sherwood of Virginia was tried by ducking and jailed for allegedly being a witch.[38]

Rationalist historians in the 18th century came to the opinion that the use of torture had resulted in erroneous testimony.

In France, scholars have found that with increased fiscal capacity and a stronger central government, the witchcraft accusations began to decline.[40] The witch trials that occurred there were symptomatic of a weak legal system and "witches were most likely to be tried and convicted in regions where magistrates departed from established legal statutes".[41]

During the early 18th century, the practice subsided. Jane Wenham was among the last subjects of a typical witch trial in England in 1712, but was pardoned after her conviction and set free. The last execution for witchcraft in England took place in 1716, when Mary Hicks and her daughter Elizabeth were hanged. Janet Horne was executed for witchcraft in Scotland in 1727. The Witchcraft Act of 1735 put an end to the traditional form of witchcraft as a legal offense in Britain.[42] Those accused under the new act were restricted to those that pretended to be able to conjure spirits (generally being the most dubious professional fortune tellers and mediums), and punishment was light.[43]

In Austria, Maria Theresa outlawed witch-burning and torture in 1768. The last capital trial, that of Maria Pauer occurred in 1750 in Salzburg, which was then outside the Austrian domain.[44]

In the late 18th century, the practice of witchcraft had ceased to be considered a criminal offense throughout Europe, but there are a number of cases which were technically not witch trials, but they are suspected to have involved a belief in witches, at least, they may have involved a belief in it behind the scenes. Thus, in 1782, Anna Gldi was executed in Glarus, Switzerland, officially, she was executed for "poisoning" (her employer, who believed that she had practiced witchcraft on his daughter[45])a ruling at the time widely denounced throughout Switzerland and Germany as judicial murder. Like Anna Gldi, Barbara Zdunk was executed in 1811 in Prussia, not technically for witchcraft, but for arson.[citation needed] In Poland, the Doruchw witch trials occurred in 1783, and the execution of two additional women for sorcery in 1793, tried by a legal court, but with dubious legitimacy.[citation needed]

Despite the official ending of the trials for witchcraft, there would still be occasional and unofficial witch-hunts and killings of those who were accused of practicing witchcraft in parts of Europe, such as the killings of Anna Klemens in Denmark (1800), Krystyna Ceynowa in Poland (1836), and Dummy, the Witch of Sible Hedingham in England (1863). In France, there was sporadic violence and there was even murder in the 1830s, with one woman reportedly burnt in a village square in Nord.[46]In the 1830s, a prosecution for witchcraft was commenced against a man in Fentress County, Tennessee, either named Joseph or William Stout, based upon his alleged influence over the health of a young woman. The case against the supposed witch was dismissed upon the failure of the alleged victim, who had sworn out a warrant against him, to appear for the trial. However, some of his other accusers were convicted on criminal charges for their part in the matter, and various libel actions were brought.[47][48][49]

In 1895, Bridget Cleary was beaten and burned to death by her husband in Ireland because he suspected that fairies had taken the real Bridget and replaced her with a witch.

The killing of people who were suspected of performing malevolent sorcery against their neighbors continued into the 20th and 21st centuries. In 1997, two Russian farmers killed a woman and injured five members of her family because they believed that the woman and her relatives had used folk magic against them.[31] It has been reported that between 2005 and 2011, more than 3,000 people were killed for allegedly being witches by lynch mobs in Tanzania.[50]

Peculiar standards applied to witchcraft allowing certain types of evidence "that are now ways relating Fact, and done many Years before." There was no possibility to offer alibi as a defense because witchcraft did not require the presence of the accused at the scene. Witnesses were called to testify to motives and effects because it was believed that witnessing the invisible force of witchcraft was impossible: "half proofes are to be allowed, and are good causes of suspicion".[51]

Various acts of torture were used against accused witches to coerce confessions and cause them to provide names of alleged co-conspirators. Most historians agree that the majority of those persecuted in these witch trials were innocent of any involvement in Devil worship. The torture of witches began to increase in frequency after 1468, when the Pope declared witchcraft to be "crimen exceptum" and thereby removed all legal limits on the application of torture in cases where evidence was difficult to find.[53]

In Italy, an accused witch was deprived of sleep for periods up to forty hours. This technique was also used in England, but without a limitation on time.[54] Sexual humiliation was used, such as forced sitting on red-hot stools with the claim that the accused woman would not perform sexual acts with the devil.[55] In most cases, those who endured the torture without confessing were released.

The use of torture has been identified as a key factor in converting the trial of one accused witch into a wider social panic, as those being tortured were more likely to accuse a wide array of other local individuals of also being witches.

A variety of different punishments were employed for those found guilty of witchcraft, including imprisonment, flogging, fines, or exile. Non capital punishments, especially for a first offence, was most common in England. Prior to 1542 Church courts dealt with most cases in England and most sanctions were directed more to penance and atonement than harsh punishments. Often the guilty party was ordered to attend the parish church, wearing a white sheet and carrying a wand, and swear to lead a reformed life.[58] The Old Testament's book of Exodus (22:18) states, "Thou shalt not permit a sorceress to live". Many faced capital punishment for witchcraft, either by burning at the stake, hanging, or beheading. Similarly, in New England, people convicted of witchcraft were hanged.[61]

The scholarly consensus on the total number of executions for witchcraft ranges from 40,000 to 60,000[1][2] (not including unofficial lynchings of accused witches, which went unrecorded but are nevertheless believed to have been somewhat rare in the Early Modern period). It would also have been the case that various individuals would have died as a result of the unsanitary conditions of their imprisonment, but again this is not recorded within the number of executions.

Attempts at estimating the total number of executions for witchcraft have a history going back to the end of the period of witch-hunts in the 18th century. A scholarly consensus only emerges in the second half of the 20th century, and historical estimates vary wildly depending on the method used. Early estimates tend to be highly exaggerated, as they were still part of rhetorical arguments against the persecution of witches rather than purely historical scholarship.

Notably, a figure of nine million victims was given by Gottfried Christian Voigt in 1784 in an argument criticizing Voltaire's estimate of "several hundred thousand" as too low. Voigt's number has shown remarkably resilient as an influential popular myth, surviving well into the 20th century, especially in feminist and neo-pagan literature.[64] In the 19th century, some scholars were agnostic, for instance, Jacob Grimm (1844) talked of "countless" victims[65] and Charles Mackay (1841) named "thousands upon thousands".[66] By contrast, a popular news report of 1832 cited a number of 3,192 victims "in Great Britain alone".[67] In the early 20th century, some scholarly estimates on the number of executions still ranged in the hundreds of thousands. The estimate was only reliably placed below 100,000 in scholarship of the 1970s.[68][8]

There were many regional differences in the manner in which the witch trials occurred. The trials themselves emerged sporadically, flaring up in some areas but neighbouring areas remaining largely unaffected. In general, there seems to have been less witch-phobia in Spain and the papal lands of Italy in comparison to France and the Holy Roman Empire.[70]

There was much regional variation within the British Isles. In Ireland, for example, there were few trials.

There are particularly important differences between the English and continental witch-hunting traditions. In England the use of torture was rare and the methods far more restrained. The country formally permitted it only when authorized by the monarch, and no more than 81 torture warrants were issued (for all offenses) throughout English history.[71] The death toll in Scotland dwarfed that of England.[72] It is also apparent from an episode of English history, that during the civil war in the early 1640s, witch-hunters emerged, the most notorious of whom was Matthew Hopkins from East Anglia and proclaimed himself the "Witchfinder General".[73]

Italy has had fewer witchcraft accusations, and even fewer cases where witch trials ended in execution. In 1542, the establishment of the Roman Catholic Inquisition effectively restrained secular courts under its influence from liberal application of torture and execution.[74] The methodological Instructio, which served as an "appropriate" manual for witch hunting, cautioned against hasty convictions and careless executions of the accused. In contrast with other parts of Europe, trials by the Venetian Holy Office never saw conviction for the crime of malevolent witchcraft, or "maleficio".[75] Because the notion of diabolical cults was not credible to either popular culture or Catholic inquisitorial theology, mass accusations and belief in Witches' Sabbath never took root in areas under such inquisitorial influence.[76]

The number of people tried for witchcraft between the years of 15001700 (by region) include: Holy Roman Empire: 50,000 Poland: 15,000 Switzerland: 9,000 French Speaking Europe: 10,000 Spanish and Italian peninsulas: 10,000 Scandinavia: 4,000.[citation needed]

Various suggestions have been made that the witch trials emerged as a response to socio-political turmoil in the Early Modern world. One form of this is that the prosecution of witches was a reaction to a disaster that had befallen the community, such as crop failure, war, or disease. For instance, Midelfort suggested that in southwestern Germany, war and famine destabilised local communities, resulting in the witch prosecutions of the 1620s. Behringer also suggests an increase in witch prosecutions due to socio-political destabilization, stressing the Little Ice Age's effects on food shortages, and the subsequent use of witches as scapegoats for consequences of climatic changes.[79]

The Little Ice Age, lasting from about 1300 to 1850,[80] is characterized by temperatures and precipitation levels lower than the 19011960 average.[81] Historians such as Wolfgang Behringer, Emily Oster, and Hartmut Lehmann argue that these cooling temperatures brought about crop failure, war, and disease, and that witches were subsequently blamed for this turmoil.[82][83][84] Historical temperature indexes and witch trial data indicate that, generally, as temperature decreased during this period, witch trials increased.[84] Additionally, the peaks of witchcraft persecutions overlap with hunger crises that occurred in 1570 and 1580, the latter lasting a decade.[83] Problematically for these theories, it has been highlighted that, in that region, the witch hunts declined during the 1630s, at a time when the communities living there were facing increased disaster as a result of plague, famine, economic collapse, and the Thirty Years' War. Furthermore, this scenario would clearly not offer a universal explanation, for trials also took place in areas which were free from war, famine, or pestilence. Additionally, these theoriesparticularly Behringer's have been labeled as oversimplified.[87] Although there is evidence that the Little Ice Age and subsequent famine and disease was likely a contributing factor to increase in witch persecution, Durrant argues that one cannot make a direct link between these problems and witch persecutions in all contexts.[87]

Moreover, the average age at first marriage had gradually risen by the late sixteenth century; the population had stabilized after a period of growth, and availability of jobs and land had lessened. In the last decades of the century, the age at marriage had climbed to averages of 25 for women and 27 for men in England and the Low Countries, as more people married later or remained unmarried due to lack of money or resources and a decline in living standards, and these averages remained high for nearly two centuries and averages across Northwestern Europe had done likewise.[88] The convents were closed during the Protestant Reformation, which displaced many nuns. Many communities saw the proportion of unmarried women climb from less than 10% to 20% and in some cases as high as 30%, whom few communities knew how to accommodate economically.[89] Miguel (2003) argues that witch killings may be a process of eliminating the financial burdens of a family or society, via elimination of the older women that need to be fed,[90] and an increase in unmarried women would enhance this process.

The English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper advocated the idea that the witch trials emerged as part of the conflicts between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Early Modern Europe. A 2017 study in the Economic Journal, examining "more than 43,000 people tried for witchcraft across 21 European countries over a period of five-and-a-half centuries", found that "more intense religious-market contestation led to more intense witch-trial activity. And, compared to religious-market contestation, the factors that existing hypotheses claim were important for witch-trial activityweather, income, and state capacitywere not."[92]

Until recently, this theory received limited support from other experts in the subject. This is because there is little evidence that either Roman Catholics were accusing Protestants of witchcraft, or that Protestants were accusing Roman Catholics. Furthermore, the witch trials regularly occurred in regions with little or no inter-denominational strife, and which were largely religiously homogenous, such as Essex, Lowland Scotland, Geneva, Venice, and the Spanish Basque Country. There is also some evidence, particularly from the Holy Roman Empire, in which adjacent Roman Catholic and Protestant territories were exchanging information on alleged local witches, viewing them as a common threat to both. Additionally, many prosecutions were instigated not by the religious or secular authorities, but by popular demands from within the population, thus making it less likely that there were specific inter-denominational reasons behind the accusations.

The more recent research from the 2017 study in the Economic Journal argues that both Catholics and Protestants used the hunt for witches, regardless of the witch's denomination, in competitive efforts to expand power and influence.

In south-western Germany, between 1561 and 1670, there were 480 witch trials. Of the 480 trials that took place in southwestern Germany, 317 occurred in Catholic areas and 163 in Protestant territories. During the period from 1561 to 1670, at least 3,229 persons were executed for witchcraft in the German Southwest. Of this number, 702 were tried and executed in Protestant territories and 2,527 in Catholic territories.

It has been argued that a translation choice in the King James Bible justified "horrific human rights violations and fuel[ed] the epidemic of witchcraft accusations and persecution across the globe".[98] The translation issue concerned Exodus 22:18, "do not suffer a ...[either 1) poisoner or 2) witch] ...to live." Both the King James and the Geneva Bible, which precedes the King James version by 51 years, chose the word "witch" for this verse. The proper translation and definition of the Hebrew word in Exodus 22:18 was much debated during the time of the trials and witch-phobia.[99]

From the 1970s onward, there was a "massive explosion of scholarly enthusiasm" for the study of the Early Modern witch trials. This was partly because scholars from a variety of different disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, philosophy, philosophy of science, criminology, literary theory, and feminist theory, all began to investigate the phenomenon and brought different insights to the subject. This was accompanied by analysis of the trial records and the socio-cultural contexts on which they emerged, allowing for varied understanding of the trials.

Inspired by ethnographically recorded witch trials that anthropologists observed happening in non-European parts of the world, various historians have sought a functional explanation for the Early Modern witch trials, thereby suggesting the social functions that the trials played within their communities. These studies have illustrated how accusations of witchcraft have played a role in releasing social tensions or in facilitating the termination of personal relationships that have become undesirable to one party.

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, various feminist interpretations of the witch trials have been offered and published. One of the earliest individuals to do so was the American Matilda Joslyn Gage, a writer who was deeply involved in the first-wave feminist movement for women's suffrage. In 1893, she published the book Woman, Church and State, which was criticized as "written in a tearing hurry and in time snatched from a political activism which left no space for original research".[103] Likely influenced by the works of Jules Michelet about the Witch-Cult, she claimed that the witches persecuted in the Early Modern period were pagan priestesses adhering to an ancient religion venerating a Great Goddess. She also repeated the erroneous statement, taken from the works of several German authors, that nine million people had been killed in the witch hunt.[103] The United States has become the centre of development for these feminist interpretations.

In 1973, two American second-wave feminists, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, published an extended pamphlet in which they put forward the idea that the women persecuted had been the traditional healers and midwives of the community, who were being deliberately eliminated by the male medical establishment. This theory disregarded the fact that the majority of those persecuted were neither healers nor midwives, and that in various parts of Europe these individuals were commonly among those encouraging the persecutions. In 1994, Anne Llewellyn Barstow published her book Witchcraze, which was later described by Scarre and Callow as "perhaps the most successful" attempt to portray the trials as a systematic male attack on women.

Other feminist historians have rejected this interpretation of events; historian Diane Purkiss described it as "not politically helpful" because it constantly portrays women as "helpless victims of patriarchy" and thus does not aid them in contemporary feminist struggles. She also condemned it for factual inaccuracy by highlighting that radical feminists adhering to it ignore the historicity of their claims, instead promoting it because it is perceived as authorising the continued struggle against patriarchal society. She asserted that many radical feminists nonetheless clung to it because of its "mythic significance" and firmly delineated structure between the oppressor and the oppressed.

An estimated 75% to 85% of those accused in the early modern witch trials were women,[6][111][112][113] and there is certainly evidence of misogyny on the part of those persecuting witches, evident from quotes such as "[It is] not unreasonable that this scum of humanity, [witches], should be drawn chiefly from the feminine sex" (Nicholas Rmy, c. 1595) or "The Devil uses them so, because he knows that women love carnal pleasures, and he means to bind them to his allegiance by such agreeable provocations."[114] Scholar Kurt Baschwitz, in his first monography on the subject (in Dutch, 1948), mentions this aspect of the witch trials even as "a war against old women".

Nevertheless, it has been argued that the supposedly misogynistic agenda of works on witchcraft has been greatly exaggerated, based on the selective repetition of a few relevant passages of the Malleus maleficarum.[115][116] There are various reasons as to why this was the case. In Early Modern Europe, it was widely believed that women were less intelligent than men and more susceptible to sin.Many modern scholars argue that the witch hunts cannot be explained simplistically as an expression of male misogyny, as indeed women were frequently accused by other women,[118][119] to the point that witch-hunts, at least at the local level of villages, have been described as having been driven primarily by "women's quarrels".[120] Especially at the margins of Europe, in Iceland, Finland, Estonia, and Russia, the majority of those accused were male.[121]

Barstow (1994) claimed that a combination of factors, including the greater value placed on men as workers in the increasingly wage-oriented economy, and a greater fear of women as inherently evil, loaded the scales against women, even when the charges against them were identical to those against men.[122]Thurston (2001) saw this as a part of the general misogyny of the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods, which had increased during what he described as "the persecuting culture" from which it had been in the Early Medieval.[123] Gunnar Heinsohn and Otto Steiger, in a 1982 publication, speculated that witch-hunts targeted women skilled in midwifery specifically in an attempt to extinguish knowledge about birth control and "repopulate Europe" after the population catastrophe of the Black Death; this view has been rejected by mainstream historians.[124] The historian of medicine David Harley criticised the notion of the midwife-witch as a prevalent type of victim of witch hunts and commented on Heinsohn and Steiger as belonging to a set of polemicists who misportrayed the history of midwifery.[125]

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the common belief among the educated sectors of the European populace was that there had never been any genuine cult of witches and all of those people who were persecuted and executed as such were innocent of the crime of witchcraft. However, at this time, various scholars suggested that there had been a real cult that had been persecuted by the Christian authorities, and it had pre-Christian origins. The first person to advance this theory was the German Professor of Criminal Law Karl Ernst Jarcke of the University of Berlin, who put forward the idea in 1828; he suggested that witchcraft had been a pre-Christian German religion that had degenerated into Satanism. Jarcke's ideas were picked up by the German historian Franz Josef Mone in 1839, although he argued that the cult's origins were Greek rather than Germanic.

In 1862, the Frenchman Jules Michelet published La Sorciere, in which he put forth the idea that the witches had been following a pagan religion. The theory achieved greater attention when it was taken up by the Egyptologist Margaret Murray, who published both The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921) and The God of the Witches (1931) in which she claimed that the witches had been following a pre-Christian religion which she termed "the Witch-Cult" and "Ritual Witchcraft".

Murray claimed that this faith was devoted to a pagan Horned God and involved the celebration of four Witches' Sabbaths each year: Halloween, Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasadh. However, the majority of scholarly reviews of Murray's work produced at the time were largely critical, and her books never received support from experts in the Early Modern witch trials. Instead, from her early publications onward many of her ideas were challenged by those who highlighted her "factual errors and methodological failings".

We Neopagans now face a crisis. As new data appeared, historians altered their theories to account for it. We have not. Therefore an enormous gap has opened between the academic and the 'average' Pagan view of witchcraft. We continue to use of out-dated and poor writers, like Margaret Murray, Montague Summers, Gerald Gardner, and Jules Michelet. We avoid the somewhat dull academic texts that present solid research, preferring sensational writers who play to our emotions.

Jenny Gibbons (1998)[119]

However, the publication of the Murray thesis in the Encyclopaedia Britannica made it accessible to "journalists, film-makers popular novelists and thriller writers", who adopted it "enthusiastically". Influencing works of literature, it inspired writings by Aldous Huxley and Robert Graves.Subsequently, in 1939, an English occultist named Gerald Gardner claimed to have been initiated into a surviving group of the pagan Witch-Cult known as the New Forest Coven, although modern historical investigation has led scholars to believe that this coven was not ancient as Gardner believed, but was instead founded in the 1920s or 1930s by occultists wishing to fashion a revived Witch-Cult based upon Murray's theories.[134] Taking this New Forest Coven's beliefs and practices as a basis, Gardner went on to found Gardnerian Wicca, one of the most prominent traditions in the contemporary pagan religion now known as Wicca, which revolves around the worship of a Horned God and Goddess, the celebration of festivals known as Sabbats, and the practice of ritual magic. He also went on to write several books about the historical Witch-Cult, Witchcraft Today (1954) and The Meaning of Witchcraft (1959), and in these books, Gardner used the phrase "the burning times" in reference to the European and North American witch trials.[135]

In the early 20th century, a number of individuals and groups emerged in Europe, primarily Britain, and subsequently the United States as well, claiming to be the surviving remnants of the pagan Witch-Cult described in the works of Margaret Murray. The first of these actually appeared in the last few years of the 19th century, being a manuscript that American folklorist Charles Leland claimed he had been given by a woman who was a member of a group of witches worshipping the god Lucifer and goddess Diana in Tuscany, Italy. He published the work in 1899 as Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches. Whilst historians and folklorists have accepted that there are folkloric elements to the gospel, none have accepted it as being the text of a genuine Tuscan religious group, and believe it to be of late-nineteenth-century composition.[136]

Wiccans extended claims regarding the witch-cult in various ways, for instance by utilising the British folklore associating witches with prehistoric sites to assert that the witch-cult used to use such locations for religious rites, in doing so legitimising contemporary Wiccan use of them.By the 1990s, many Wiccans had come to recognise the inaccuracy of the witch-cult theory and had accepted it as a mythological origin story.

Excerpt from:

Witch trials in the early modern period - Wikipedia

Dichotomy between two opposing approaches to magic

In Western esotericism the Left-Hand Path and Right-Hand Path are the dichotomy between two opposing approaches to magic. This terminology is used in various groups involved in the occult and ceremonial magic. In some definitions, the Left-Hand Path is equated with malicious black magic or black shamanism, while the Right-Hand Path with benevolent white magic.[1]:152 Other occultists have criticised this definition, believing that the LeftRight dichotomy refers merely to different kinds of working and does not necessarily connote good or bad magical actions.[1]:176 Other practitioners state the difference between the two is that the desired outcome of the right is to be beside "God" and to serve him, while the left believe in self deification and bow to no one.

In more recent definitions, which base themselves on the terms' origins in Indian Tantra, the Right-Hand Path (RHP, or Dakshinachara), is seen as a definition for those magical groups that follow specific ethical codes and adopt social convention, while the Left-Hand Path (LHP, or Vamamarga) adopts the opposite attitude, espousing the breaking of taboo and the abandoning of set morality. Some contemporary occultists, such as Peter J. Carroll, have stressed that both paths can be followed by a magical practitioner, as essentially they have the same goals.[2]

Another distinguishing characteristic separating the two is based upon the aim of the practitioner. Right-handed path practitioners tend to work towards ascending their soul towards ultimate union (or reunion) with the divine source, returning to heaven, allegorically alluded to as restoration or climbing back up the ladder after the "great fall". In Solomon's lesser key, they embrace the light and try to annihilate anything they regard as "dark" or "evil". On the other hand, left-handed path practitioners do not see this as the ultimate aim but a step towards their goal. Left-handed path practitioners embrace the dark as well as the light in order to invoke the alchemical formula solve et coagula ("dissolve and precipitate"), confronting the negative in order to transmute it into desirable qualities.[3] Left-handed path practitioners descend towards union with the divine to obtain Godhood status, with God-like powers of their own, having reunited with the ultimate divine source-energy; then once there, taking one more step separating from that divinity, out of this creation into a new creation of their own making, with themselves as the sole divinity of the new universe, apart from the previous creation. The godhood self sought by Left Hand Path followers is represented by the Qlipha Thaumiel in the Tree of Knowledge.[4]

The Right-Hand Path is commonly thought to refer to magical or religious groups which adhere to a certain set of characteristics:

The occultist Dion Fortune[6][7] considered Abrahamic religions to be RHP.

The historian Dave Evans studied self-professed followers of the Left-Hand Path in the early 21st century, making several observations about their practices:

Criticism of both terms has come from various occultists. The Magister of the Cultus Sabbati, Andrew D. Chumbley, stated that they were simply "theoretical constructs" that were "without definitive objectivity", and that nonetheless, both forms could be employed by the magician. He used the analogy of a person having two hands, a right and a left, both of which served the same master.[9] Similar sentiments were expressed by the Wiccan High Priest John Belham-Payne, who stated that "For me, magic is magic."[10]

Vmcra is a Sanskrit term meaning "left-handed attainment" and is synonymous with Left-Hand Path or Left-path (Sanskrit: Vmamrga).[11][12] It is used to describe a particular mode of worship or spiritual practice (Sanskrit: sadhana) that is not only heterodox (Sanskrit: Nstika) to standard Vedic injunction, but extreme in comparison to prevailing cultural norms. These practices are often generally considered to be Tantric in orientation. The converse term Dakshinachara (glossed "Right-Hand Path") is used to refer not only to orthodox (stika) sects, but to modes of spirituality that engage in practices that accord with Vedic injunction, and are generally agreeable to prevailing cultural norms. Modes of practice aligned with left-handed and right-handed paths are evident across orthodox and heterodox schools of Dharmic religions such as Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Buddhism and are a matter of taste, culture, proclivity, initiation, sadhana, and dharmic lineage (parampara).

The Western use of the terms Left-Hand Path and Right Hand-Path originated with Madame Blavatsky, a 19th-century occultist who founded the Theosophical Society. She had travelled across parts of southern Asia and claimed to have met with many mystics and magical practitioners in India and Tibet. She developed the term Left-Hand Path as a translation of the term Vamachara, an Indian Tantric practice that emphasised the breaking of Hindu societal taboos by having sexual intercourse in ritual, drinking alcohol, eating meat and assembling in graveyards, as a part of the spiritual practice. The term Vamachara literally meant "the left-hand way" in Sanskrit, and it was from this that Blavatsky first coined the term.[1]:178

Returning to Europe, Blavatsky began using the term. It was relatively easy for her to associate left with evil in many European countries, where it already has had an association with evil and bad luck since the Classical Latin era. As the historian Dave Evans noted, homosexuals were referred to as "left-handed", and while in Protestant nations Roman Catholics were called "left-footers".[1]:177

In New York, Madame Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society with several other people in 1875. She set about writing several books, including Isis Unveiled (1877) in which she introduced the terms Left-Hand Path and Right-Hand Path, firmly stating that she herself followed the RHP, and that followers of the LHP were practitioners of Black Magic who were a threat to society. The occult community soon picked up on her newly introduced duality, which, according to historian Dave Evans, "had not been known before" in the Western Esoteric Tradition.[1]:181182 For instance, Dion Fortune, the founder of an esoteric magical group (the Society of the Inner Light) also took the side of the RHP, making the claim that "black magicians", or followers of the LHP, were homosexuals and that Indian servants might use malicious magical rites devoted to the goddess Kali against their European masters.[1]:183184

Aleister Crowley further altered and popularized the term in certain occult circles, referring to a "Brother of the Left-Hand Path", or a "Black Brother", as one who failed to attain the grade of Magister Templi in Crowley's system of ceremonial magic.[13] Crowley also referred to the Left-Hand Path when describing the point at which the Adeptus Exemptus (such as his old Christian mentor, MacGregor Mathers) chooses to cross the Abyss, which is the location of Choronzon and the illusory eleventh Sephira, which is Da'ath or Knowledge. In this example, the adept must surrender all, including the guidance of his Holy Guardian Angel, and leap into the Abyss. If his accumulated Karma is sufficient, and if he has been utterly thorough in his own self-destruction, he becomes a "babe of the abyss", arising as a Star in the Crowleyan system. On the other hand, if he retains some fragment of ego, or if he fears to cross, he then becomes encysted. The layers of his self, which he could have shed in the Abyss, ossify around him. He is then titled a "Brother of the Left-Hand Path", who will eventually be broken up and disintegrated against his will, since he failed to choose voluntary disintegration.[13] Crowley associated all this with "Mary, a blasphemy against BABALON", and with the celibacy of Christian clergy.[13]

Another of those figures that Fortune considered to be a follower of the LHP was Arthur Edward Waite, who did not recognise these terms, and acknowledged that they were newly introduced and that in any case he believed the terms LHP and RHP to be distinct from black and white magic.[1]:182183 However, despite Waite's attempts to distinguish the two, the equation of the LHP with Black Magic was propagated more widely in the fiction of Dennis Wheatley; Wheatley also conflated the two with Satanism and also the political ideology of communism, which he viewed as a threat to traditional British society.[1]:189190 In one of his novels, Strange Conflict (1941), he stated that:

In the latter half of the 20th century various groups arose that self-professedly described themselves as LHP, but did not consider themselves as following Black Magic. In 1975, Kenneth Grant, a student of Aleister Crowley, explained in Cults of the Shadow that he and his group, the Typhonian Order, practiced the LHP. Grant's usage takes meaning from its roots in eastern Tantra; Grant states that it is about challenging taboos, but that it should be used in conjunction with the RHP to achieve balance.[1]:193

While Anton Szandor LaVey developed his form of Satanism during the 1960s, he emphasized the rejection of traditional Christian morality, and explicitly labelled his new philosophy a form of the Left-Hand Path. In The Satanic Bible LaVey wrote that "Satanism is not a white light religion; it is a religion of the flesh, the mundane, the carnalall of which are ruled by Satan, the personification of the Left-Hand Path."[15]

In Russia there is a tradition of Left-Hand Path practices within the Rodnover community under the influence of Volhv Veleslav,[16] and within the Odinist community with Askr Svarte,[17] and in England with Nikarev Leshy. Veleslav has also written numerous books on Tantra and the Left-Hand Path.[18]

Stephen E. Flowers of the Temple of Set writes of two criteria to be considered a true Lord of the Left-Hand Path: self-deification and antinomianism.[19]

Tantra is a set of esoteric Indian traditions with roots in Hinduism and Buddhism. Tantra is often divided by its practitioners into two different paths: dakshinachara and vamachara, translated as Right-Hand Path and Left-Hand Path respectively. Dakshinachara consists of traditional Hindu practices such as asceticism and meditation, while vamachara also includes ritual practices that conflict with mainstream Hinduism, such as sexual rituals, consumption of alcohol and other intoxicants. The two paths are viewed by Tantrists as equally valid approaches to enlightenment. Vamachara, however, is often considered to be the faster[20][21] and more dangerous of the two paths, and is not suitable for all practitioners. The usage of the terms Left-Hand Path and Right-Hand Path is still current in modern Indian and Buddhist Tantra.

Robert Ber's Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs clarifies widespread taboos and deprecation that associate the left hand as dark, female, inferior and 'not right':

"In Buddhist tantra, the right hand symbolises the male aspect of compassion or skilful means, and the left hand represents the female aspect of wisdom or emptiness. Ritual hand-held attributes, such as the vajra and bell, vajra and lotus, damaru and bell, damaru and khatvanga, arrow and bow, curved knife and skull-cup, sword and shield, hook and rope snare, etc., placed in the right and left hands respectively, symbolise the union of the active male aspect of skilful means with the contemplative female aspect of wisdom.

In both Hinduism and Buddhism the goddess is always placed on the left side of the male deity, where she 'sits on his left thigh, while her lord places his left arm over her left shoulder and dallies with her left breast'.

In representations of the Buddha image, the right hand often makes an active mudra of skilful meansthe earth-touching, protection, fearlessness, wish-granting or teaching mudra; while the left hand often remains in the passive mudra of meditative equipoise, resting in the lap and symbolising meditation on emptiness or wisdom."[22]

Ber's preceding explanations correspond to Yab-Yum (father-mother) symbolism and contemplation on or practice of sexual rituals associated with Vajrayogini and Anuttarayoga Tantra. Yab-yum is generally understood to represent the primordial (or mystical) union of wisdom and compassion. The metaphorical union of bliss and emptiness is commonly represented within Thangka paintings of the Cakrasavara Tantra depicting the sexual union of the deity Savara and his consort Dorje Pakmo.

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Left-hand path and right-hand path - Wikipedia

Image: Russian TV screengrab

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the Kremlin today where he announced the annexation of portions of Ukraine in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. In his speech he accused the West of being satanists and said that Russia wants to lead an anti-colonial movement to smash the West. He then formally announced the annexation of territory that Russia invaded and took by force. After the speech was over, the Associated Press reported that Ukraine had officially applied for membership to NATO. U.S. President Biden called the annexation illegitimate, promised to continue to support Ukraine, and announced new sanctions on Russia.

Putins speech and the annexation of these territories is the culmination of a war that began in 2014 when Kremlin-backed forces seized Crimea and pieces of eastern Ukraine.

"I want the Kyiv authorities and their real masters in the West to hear me, so that they remember this. People living in Luhansk and Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are becoming our citizens. Forever, Putin said in his speech, according to a translation from Reuters. We call on the Kyiv regime to immediately end hostilities, end the war that they unleashed back in 2014 and return to the negotiating table. We are ready for this ... But we will not discuss the choice of the people in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. That has been made. Russia will not betray them."

In a 2005 speech, Putin told the world that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. It was a theme he returned to in his speech announcing the annexation of the territories seized from Ukraine.

"As once before, after the Revolution, the borders of the Union republics were carved up from behind the scenes, he said. So the last leaders of the Soviet Union, contrary to the direct expression of the will of the majority of people in the referendum of 1991, destroyed our great country, confronting the people with a fait accompli. I admit that they did not fully understand what they were doing, and what consequences this would inevitably lead to in the end. But this is no longer important. There is no Soviet Union, the past cannot be brought back. And Russia today does not need it anymore. We are not striving for this."

Putins speech was ostensibly about the annexation of new territory into Russia, but he kept returning to the West. He blamed Anglo-Saxons for the destruction of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines without blaming a specific country. "Sanctions were not enough for the Anglo-Saxons: they moved on to sabotage, he said, according to the Reuters translation. It is hard to believe but it is a fact that they organized the blasts on the Nord Stream international gas pipelines, which run along the bottom of the Baltic Sea. In fact, they began to destroy the pan-European energy infrastructure. It is clear to everyone who benefits from this. Of course, he who benefits did it."

Putin also also made a veiled homophobic joke and talked about sex change operations during his speech, according to Financial Times Moscow Bureau Chief Max Seddon. He then accused the West of Outright Satanism.

Putin [said] Russia wants to lead an anti-colonial movement to liberate the world. We need to turn this disgraceful page. Western hegemony will be smashed. This is inevitable. We must do this for our people, the great historical Russia, Putin said, according to Seddon.

The speech included one reference to nuclear weapons, typical for Putins recent public statements. During several speeches in February, after the invasion, he made direct nuclear threats and put Russias nuclear forces on high alert. In his speech announcing the partial mobilization of the Russian people on September 21, Putin accused NATO of using nuclear blackmail and said he would not hesitate to use his own nukes.

"To those who allow themselves to make such statements about Russia, I would like to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction, and for some components more modern than those of the NATO countries," he said in September. "And if the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. This is not a bluff."

With this referendum Putin has expanded the territory which he has threatened to protect with nuclear weapons. He used the threat of nuclear war to do it. But he was quick, in his speech today, to point to America. "The U.S. is the only country in history that has ever used nuclear weapons. Creating a precedent, by the way, he said.

The speech ended with Putin and the four Moscow-backed leaders of the territory Russia forcibly seized holding hands and chanting Russia! Russia! Minutes after the speech concluded, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy released a video where he announced Ukraine would be applying for membership to NATO.

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Putin Accuses West of Satanism and Announces Annexations in ...

With his armys situation in Ukraine increasingly desperate, Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent weeks has been doing his best to adopt the guise of an evil madman, bordering on the style of a cinematic villain. With his over-the-top performance on Friday, when he railed against Western imperialism, engaged in whataboutism about the U.S. use of atomic weapons against Japan in World War II, and accused the United States of engaging in satanism, I found it hard to put aside thoughts of old James Bond villains who constantly try to hold the world to ransomor perhaps, given the preposterously strained quality of his language, the even more colorful bad guys in the Austin Powers movies.

Putins recent brandishing of the threat to employ nuclear weapons is not meant to make people laugh, of course, but rather to shudder in fear. And while there is plenty of reason to worry about the prospect of his resorting to weapons of mass destruction, the common nervous response to the Russian leaders escalatory rhetoric makes it hard to think clearly about whether there is, in fact, anything truly new to Putins threats.

News coverage of Russias debacle in Ukraine last week focused on two details: that Putin was speaking very loosely about using nuclear weapons and that he was claiming to have legitimately annexed a portion of his neighbors territory roughly the size of Portugal following a referendum exercise in those territories regarded as so dubious that most mentions of it in the international media appended the term so-called to the vote. As Carl Bildt, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, tweeted after the faux referendum, it flew in the face of the results of the 1991 referendum on Ukrainian independence, in which every single region of the country, including those where Russian speakers predominate, voted in favor of independence, most of them overwhelmingly.

With his armys situation in Ukraine increasingly desperate, Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent weeks has been doing his best to adopt the guise of an evil madman, bordering on the style of a cinematic villain. With his over-the-top performance on Friday, when he railed against Western imperialism, engaged in whataboutism about the U.S. use of atomic weapons against Japan in World War II, and accused the United States of engaging in satanism, I found it hard to put aside thoughts of old James Bond villains who constantly try to hold the world to ransomor perhaps, given the preposterously strained quality of his language, the even more colorful bad guys in the Austin Powers movies.

Putins recent brandishing of the threat to employ nuclear weapons is not meant to make people laugh, of course, but rather to shudder in fear. And while there is plenty of reason to worry about the prospect of his resorting to weapons of mass destruction, the common nervous response to the Russian leaders escalatory rhetoric makes it hard to think clearly about whether there is, in fact, anything truly new to Putins threats.

News coverage of Russias debacle in Ukraine last week focused on two details: that Putin was speaking very loosely about using nuclear weapons and that he was claiming to have legitimately annexed a portion of his neighbors territory roughly the size of Portugal following a referendum exercise in those territories regarded as so dubious that most mentions of it in the international media appended the term so-called to the vote. As Carl Bildt, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, tweeted after the faux referendum, it flew in the face of the results of the 1991 referendum on Ukrainian independence, in which every single region of the country, including those where Russian speakers predominate, voted in favor of independence, most of them overwhelmingly.

Yet little of what Putin did last week was newrevealing just how bankrupt the thinking of a man long regarded by some as a master strategist has become. Putins nuclear threats have been a constant in this war, by turns implicit and explicit. Early in the conflict, for example, he warned darkly about the consequences for Ukraine and NATO of any attempt to attack his forces on Russian territory, even as his forces used Russian borderlands for logistical support and the staging of missile attacks on Ukraine. Washingtons early caution in publicly acknowledging that it was helping to arm and support Ukraine through the sharing of intelligence and other means was based, at least in part, on a fear of a direct, escalatory conflict between the United States and Russia on this basis. All along, Russias targeting of nuclear plants in Ukraine also clearly seems to have been designed to raise nuclear anxiety in Europe and beyond.

Nor is the attempted annexation new. Indeed, this war began with Russias bold and straightforward attempt to seize the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. And, of course, Russia has already had experience annexing Ukrainian territorymost famously Crimea, which it took over outright in 2014, after a creeping special operations infiltration involving Russian troops wearing generic uniforms that masked their provenance. Ever since, Russias goal has been maximalist: either swallowing Ukraine whole or forcing it into abject vassaldom, which would itself likely be a first step toward the reabsorption of its neighbor.

Putins most recent claim to have annexed Ukraines far east not only was made amid a messy and humiliating retreat on the battlefield but was also, in fact, an inadvertent admission of futility. Moscow is seeking through bogus legalism to achieve what it could not win by arms and is hopingI believe vainlythat this will dispirit the Ukrainians and soften European support for Ukraine enough to drive it to the negotiating table, where it would have to concede sufficient amounts of territory, thus allowing Putin to claim victory before domestic audiences and save face.

Among all of the things he has said recently, Putins strained references to Western imperialism are among the most interestingbut not because they should be understood in the way he intended. In his speech Friday, Putin denounced a long list of Western imperial sins, including the global slave trade, the genocide of Indian tribes in America, the plunder of India, Africa, the wars of England and France against China, as a result of which it was forced to open its ports for trade of opium.

It is true, of course, that Western history in the modern era and Western wealth, too, have been driven by empire, a story that begins in the era of slave labor used to produced lucrative commodities such as sugar in the Caribbean.

This is the history I document in my book Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War. It is also true that although Americans tend to have a gigantic blind spot toward their countrys imperial history, the United States has very much constituted an empire. This history began no later than the conquest of territories west of the Allegheny Mountains, at the expense of native populations that were victims of settler violence and repeated military campaigns.

As Daniel Immerwahr details in his excellent book How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States, Americas push for imperium accelerated in the late 19th century, with the defeat of Spain and the acquisition of colonies in the Philippines and Caribbean, as well as the takeover of Hawaii. Albeit often more quietly, Americas global imprint has continued to grow ever since, to the point where the U.S. military now has scores of bases, large and small, in countries and territories all over the world.

Yet the problems with Putins denunciation are numerousstarting with the fact that Russia itself is very obviously among the worlds most ambitious imperial nations. In fact, as Dominic Ziegler notes in his 2015 book, Black Dragon River: A Journey Down the Amur River at the Borderlands of Empire, Russia pursued its own empire-building over a series of centuries but accelerated this campaign in the 19th century, very much with America envy in mind.

This meant subduing, displacing, and assimilating its own native populations as ethnic Russians pushed deeper and deeper into the countrys vast eastern hinterlands. There, the sable, a small weasel-like mammal hunted for its fur, played the role of the American bison, both nearly driven to extinction in the search for profits. To make the comparison yet more compelling, Russians, just like Americans, were driven by a gold rush in their newly seized territories. And as with the United States, the story of Russian empire continued well into the 20th century, with the formation of the Soviet Unionan imperial construct par excellenceas well as with the establishment of a bloc of subordinate countries in Eastern Europe that often had little choice but to follow Moscows dictates in matters of ideology, trade, economics, diplomacy, and geopolitics.

Isnt this, at last, what has brought Ukraine to grief? Even though the Soviet Union is a fading memory barely known to young people today, Putin, who was a spymaster late in the Soviet era, has never gotten over the way that empire cracked up.

The current crisis doesnt just take us back to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the demise of the Soviet Union two years later, though. It also brings to mind a much more obscure date but one that everyone concerned by events in Ukraine should be thinking about: 1648. That year, a pact among European nations called the Treaty of Westphalia ended a seemingly endless period of continental conflict that encompassed both the Eighty Years War and the Thirty Years War. Most importantly, this was also the beginning of the end of old-fashioned empire via territorial aggrandizement.

This was, in effect, a before-and-after moment in history. Prior to Westphalia, empires were mostly understood to be borderless affairs: Their dimensions were limited only by the sheer territorial reach of their rulers. Since Westphalia, sovereignty has been understood in an entirely different way. It reflects a collective understanding among nations about one anothers territory and legitimacy within those boundaries.

The 1991 Ukrainian independence referendumuncontested by Russia at the timespoke eloquently about the desire of the Ukrainian people to govern their own affairs. Since then, the world has ratified this desire in the most Westphalian of ways, by recognizing Ukraine, establishing relations with it, and recently even helping it to defend itself.

For all his recent anti-imperial rhetoric, Putin would like to take the world back several centuries, to a time when nations were like amoeba, with borders that mutated, expanded, and shrank according to the will, whims, and power of their leaders. That was the old imperial way, and however difficult the situation in Ukraine might look today, who could wish to revisit the conflict and suffering that this would unleash?

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Putin Annexation Speech: The Russian Leader's Denunciations of Western Imperialism Are Hypocritical - Foreign Policy

Earth-centered religion or nature worship is a system of religion based on the veneration of natural phenomena.[1] It covers any religion that worships the earth, nature, or fertility deity, such as the various forms of goddess worship or matriarchal religion. Some find a connection between earth-worship and the Gaia hypothesis. Earth religions are also formulated to allow one to utilize the knowledge of preserving the earth.

According to Marija Gimbutas, pre-Indo-European societies lived in small-scale, family-based communities that practiced matrilineal succession and goddess-centered religion[2] where creation comes from the woman. She is the Divine Mother who can give life and take it away. In Irish mythology she is Danu, in Slavic mythology she is Mat Zemlya, and in other cultures she is Pachamama, Ninsun, Terra Mater, Nwa, Matres or Shakti.

In the late 1800s, James Weir wrote an article describing the beginnings and aspects of early religious feeling. According to Boyer, early human was forced to locate food and shelter in order to survive, while constantly being directed by his instincts and senses. Because human's existence depended on nature, men began to form their religion and beliefs on and around nature itself. It is evident that human's first religion would have had to develop from the material world, he argues, because humans relied heavily on his or her senses and what s/he could see, touch, and feel. In this sense, the worship of nature formed, allowing humans to further depend on nature for survival.[3]

Neopagans have tried to make claims that religion started in ways that correspond to earth religion. In one of their published works, The Urantia Book, another reason for this worship of nature came from a fear of the world around primitive man.[4] His mind lacked the complex function of processing and sifting through complex ideas. As a result, man worshiped the very entity that surrounded him every day. That entity was nature. Humans experienced the different natural phenomena around him, such as storms, vast deserts, and immense mountains. Among the first parts of nature to be worshiped were rocks and hills, plants and trees, animals, the elements, heavenly bodies, and even man himself. As primitive man worked his way through nature worship, he eventually moved on to incorporate spirits into his worship.[4]

The origins of religion can be looked at through the lens of the function and processing of the human mind. Pascal Boyer suggests that, for the longest period of time, the brain was thought of as a simple organ of the body. However, he claims that the more information collected about the brain indicates that the brain is indeed not a "blank slate."[5] Humans do not just learn any information from the environment and surroundings around them. They have acquired sophisticated cognitive equipment that prepares them to analyze information in their culture and determine which information is relevant and how to apply it. Boyer states that "having a normal human brain does not imply that you have religion. All it implies is that people can acquire it, which is very different."[5] He suggests that religions started for the reasons of providing answers to humans, giving comfort, providing social order to society, and satisfying the need of the illusion-prone nature of the human mind.[5] Ultimately, religion came into existence because of our need to answer questions and hold together our societal order.

An additional idea on the origins of religion comes not from man's cognitive development, but from the ape. Barbara J. King argues that human beings have an emotional connection with those around them, and that that desire for a connection came from their evolution from apes. The closest relative to the human species is the African ape.[6] At birth, the ape begins negotiating with its mother about what it wants and needs in order to survive. The world the ape is born into is saturated with close family and friends. Because of this, emotions and relationships play a huge role in the ape's life. Its reactions and responses to one another are rooted and grounded in a sense of belongingness, which is derived from its dependence on the ape's mother and family. Belongingness is defined as "mattering to someone who matters to you ... getting positive feelings from our relationships."[6] This sense and desire for belongingness, which started in apes, only grew as the hominid (a human ancestor) diverged from the lineage of the ape, which occurred roughly six to seven million years ago.[6]

As severe changes in the environment, physical evolutions in the human body (especially in the development of the human brain), and changes in social actions occurred, humans went beyond trying to simply form bonds and relationships of empathy with others. As their culture and society became more complex, they began using practices and various symbols to make sense of the natural and spiritual world around them. Instead of simply trying to find belongingness and empathy from the relationships with others, humans created and evolved God and spirits in order to fulfil that need and exploration. King argued that "an earthly need for belonging led to human religious imagination and thus to the otherworldly realm of relating to God, gods, and spirits."[6]

The term earth religion encompasses any religion that worships the earth, nature or fertility gods or goddesses. There is an array of groups and beliefs that fall under earth religion, such as paganism, which is a polytheistic, nature based religion; animism, which is the worldview that all living entities (plants, animals, and humans) possess a spirit; Wicca, which hold the concept of an earth mother goddess as well as practice ritual magic; and druidism, which equates divinity with the natural world.

Another perspective of earth religion to consider is pantheism, which takes a varied approach to the importance and purpose of the earth and to the relationship of humans with the planet. Several of their core statements deal with the connectivity humans share with the planet, declaring that "all matter, energy, and life are an interconnected unity of which we are an inseparable part" and "we are an integral part of Nature, which we should cherish, revere and preserve in all its magnificent beauty and diversity. We should strive to live in harmony with Nature locally and globally".[7]

The earth also plays a vital role to many Voltaic peoples, many of whom "consider the Earth to be Heavens wife",[8] such as the Konkomba of northern Ghana, whose economic, social and religious life is heavily influenced by the earth. It is also important to consider various Native American religions, such as Peyote Religion, Longhouse Religion, and Earth Lodge Religion.

April 22 was established as International Mother Earth Day by the United Nations in 2009,[9] but many cultures around the world have been celebrating the Earth for thousands of years. Winter solstice and Summer solstice are celebrated with holidays like Yule and Dongzhi in the winter and Tiregn and Kupala in the summer.

Animism is practiced among the Bantu peoples[10] of Sub-Saharan Africa. The Dahomey mythology has deities like Nana Buluku, Gleti, Mawu, Asase Yaa, Naa Nyonmo and Xevioso.

In Baltic mythology, the sun is a female deity, Saul, a mother or a bride, and Mness is the moon, father or husband, their children being the stars. In Slavic mythology Mokosh and Mat Zemlya together with Perun head up the pantheon. Celebrations and rituals are centered on nature and harvest seasons. Dragobete is a traditional Romanian spring holiday that celebrates "the day when the birds are betrothed."

In Hindu philosophy, the yoni is the creative power of nature and the origin of life. In Shaktism, the yoni is celebrated and worshipped during the Ambubachi Mela, an annual fertility festival which celebrates the Earth's menstruation.[11]

Although the idea of earth religion has been around for thousands of years, it did not fully show up in popular culture until the early 1990s. The X-Files was one of the first nationally broadcast television programs to air witchcraft and Wicca (types of earth religion) content. On average, Wiccans - those who practice Wicca - were more or less pleased with the way the show had portrayed their ideals and beliefs. However, they still found it to be a little "sensationalistic". That same year, the movie The Craft was released - also depicting the art of Wicca. Unfortunately, this cinematic feature was not as happily accepted as The X-Files had been.[12]

A few years later, programs showcasing the aforementioned religious practices - such as Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer - became widely popular. Although Charmed focused mostly on witchcraft, the magic they practiced very closely resembled Wicca. Meanwhile, Buffy was one of the first shows to actually cast a Wiccan character. However, since the shows focus was primarily on vampires, the Wiccan was depicted as having supernatural powers, rather than being in-tuned with the Earth.[12]

Other movies and shows throughout the last few decades have also been placed under the genre of Earth Religion. Among them are two of director Hayao Miyazaki's most well known films - Princess Mononoke and My Neighbor Totoro. Both movies present human interaction with land, animal, and other nature spirits. Speakers for Earth Religion have said that these interactions suggest overtones of Earth Religion themes.[13]

Some popular Disney movies have also been viewed as Earth Religion films. Among them are The Lion King and Brother Bear. Those who practice Earth Religion view The Lion King as an Earth Religion film mainly for the "interconnectedness" and "Circle of Life" it shows between the animals, plants, and life in general. When that link is broken, viewers see chaos and despair spread throughout the once bountiful land. Congruently, Brother Bear portrays interactions and consequences when humans disobey or go against the animal and Earth spirits.[13]

Other earth religion movies include The 13th Warrior, The Deceivers (film), Sorceress (1982 film), Anchoress (film), Eye of the Devil, Agora (film), and The Wicker Man (1973 film). These movies all contain various aspects of earth religion and nature worship in general.[13]

Many religions have negative stereotypes of earth religion and neo-paganism in general. A common critique of the worship of nature and resources of "Mother Earth" is that the rights of nature and anti-ecocide movements are inhibitors of human progress and development.[14] This argument is fueled by the fact that those people socialized into 'western' world views believe the earth itself is not a living being. Wesley Smith (of the conservative Discovery Institute which advocates for Intelligent Design ) believes this is "anti-humanism with the potential to do real harm to the human family".[14] According to Smith, earth worshipers are hindering large-scale development, and they are viewed as inhibitors of advancement.

A lot of criticism of earth religion comes from the negative actions of a few people who have been chastised for their actions. One such negative representative of earth religion is Aleister Crowley. He is believed to be "too preoccupied with awakening magical powers"[15] instead of putting the well-being of others in his coven. Crowley allegedly looked up to "Old George" Pickingill, who was another worshipper of nature who was viewed negatively. Critics regarded Pickingill as a Satanist and "Englands most notorious Witch".[15]

Crowley himself was "allegedly expelled from the Craft because he was a pervert."[15] He became aroused by torture and pain, and enjoyed being "punished" by women.[16] This dramatically damaged Crowleys public image, because of his lifestyle and actions. Many people regarded all followers of earth religion as perverted Satanists.[15]

Followers of earth religion have suffered major opprobrium over the years for allegedly being Satanists. Some religious adherents can be prone to viewing religions other than their religion as being wrong sometimes because they perceive those religions as characteristic of their concept of Satan worship. To wit, Witchcraft, a common practice of Wiccans, is sometimes misinterpreted as Satan worship by members of these groups, as well as less-informed persons who may not be specifically religious but who may reside within the sphere-of-influence of pagan-critical religious adherents. From the Wiccan perspective, however, earth religion and Wicca lie outside of the phenomenological world that encompasses Satanism.[17][18] An all-evil being does not exist within the religious perspective of western earth religions. Devotees worship and celebrate earth resources and earth-centric deities. Satanism and Wicca "have entirely different beliefs about deity, different rules for ethical behavior, different expectations from their membership, different views of the universe, different seasonal days of celebration, etc."[17]

Neo-pagans, or earth religion followers, often claim to be unaffiliated with Satanism.[19] Neo-pagans, Wiccans, and earth religion believers do not acknowledge the existence of a deity that conforms to the common Semitic sect religious concept of Satan. Satanism stems from Christianity, while earth religion stems from older religious concepts.[20]

Some earth religion adherents take issue with the religious harassment that is inherent in the social pressure that necessitates their having to distance themselves from the often non-uniform, Semitic sect religious concept of Satan worship. Having to define themselves as "other" from a religious concept that is not within their worldview implies a certain degree of outsider-facilitated, informal, but functional religious restriction that is based solely on the metaphysical and mythological religious beliefs of those outsiders. This is problematic because outsider initiated comparisons to Satanism with the intent of condemnation, even when easily refuted, can have the effect of social pressure on earth religion adherents to conform to outsider perception of acceptable customs, beliefs, and modes of religious behavior.

To illustrate, a problem could arise with the "other" than Satanism argument if an earth centered belief system adopted a holiday that a critic considered to be similar or identical to a holiday that Satanists celebrate. Satanists have historically been prone to adopting holidays that have origins in various pagan traditions, ostensibly because these traditional holidays are amongst the last known vestiges of traditional pre-Semitic religious practice in the west. Satanists are, perhaps irrationally, prone to interpreting non-Semitic holidays as anti-Christian and therefore as implicitly representative of their worldview. This is not surprising given the fact that this is, in fact, how many Christians interpret holidays such as Samhain. In spite of any flawed perceptions or rationale held by any other group, earth centered religion adherents do not recognize misinterpretation of their customs made by outside religious adherents or critics inclusive of Satan worshippers.

Organized Satan worship, as defined by and anchored in the Semitic worldview, is characterized by a relatively disorganized and often disparate series of movements and groups that mostly emerged in the mid-20th century. Thus, their adopted customs have varied, continue to vary, and therefore this moving target of beliefs and customs can not be justifiably nor continuously accounted for by earth centered religious adherents. Once a Satanist group adopts a holiday, social stigma may unjustifiably taint the holiday and anyone who observes it without discrimination as to whence and for what purpose it was originally celebrated. Given these facts, many earth centered religion devotees find comparisons to Satanism intrinsically oppressive in nature. This logic transfers to any and all religious customs to include prayer, magic, ceremony, and any unintentional similarity in deity characteristics (an example is the horned traditional entity Pan having similar physical characteristics to common horned depictions of Satan).

The issue is further complicated by the theory that the intra and extra-biblical mythology of Satan that is present throughout various Semitic sects may have originally evolved to figuratively demonize the heathen religions of other groups. Thus, the concept of Satan, or "the adversary", would have been representative of all non-Semitic religions and, by extension, the people who believed in them. Although, at times, the concept of the "other" as demonic has also been used to characterize competing Semitic sects. Amongst other purposes, such belief would have been extraordinarily useful during the psychological and physical process of cleansing Europe of traditional tribal beliefs in favor of Christianity. This possibility would account for the historical tendency of Christian authorities, for example, to deem most pagan customs carried out in the pagan religious context as demonic. By any modern standard, such current beliefs would violate western concepts of religious tolerance as well as be inimical to the preservation of what remains of the culture of long-persecuted religious groups.

Because of the vast diversity of religions that fall under the title of earth religion there is no consensus of beliefs.[21][22] However, the ethical beliefs of most religions overlap. The most well-known ethical code is the Wiccan Rede. Many of those who practice an earth religion choose to be environmentally active. Some perform activities such as recycling or composting while others feel it to be more productive to try and support the earth spiritually.[21] These six beliefs about ethics seem to be universal.

"An [if] it harm none, do what ye will."[21] Commonly worded in modern English as "if it doesn't harm anyone, do what you want."[24] This maxim was first printed in 1964, after being spoken by the priestess Doreen Valiente in the mid-20th century, and governs most ethical belief of Wiccans and some Pagans. There is no consensus of beliefs but this rede provides a starting point for most people's interpretation of what is ethical.[21][29] The rede clearly states to do no harm but what constitutes as harm and what level of self-interest is acceptable is negotiable.[21][23] Many Wiccans reverse the phrase into "Do what ye will an it harm none," meaning "Do what you want if it doesn't harm anyone."[24] The difference may not seem significant but it is. The first implies that it is good to do no harm but does not say that it is necessarily unethical to do so, the second implies that all forms of harm are unethical. The second phrase is nearly impossible to follow. This shift occurred when trying to better adapt the phrase into modern English as well as to stress the "harmlessness" of Wiccans. The true nature of the rede simply implies that there is personal responsibility for your actions. You may do as you wish but there is a karma reaction from every action.[24] Even though this is the most well-known rede of practice, it does not mean that those that choose not to follow it are unethical. There are many other laws of practice that other groups follow.[22]

The Threefold Law is the belief that for all actions there is always a cause and effect. For every action taken either the good or ill intention will be returned to the action taker threefold. This is why the Wiccan Rede is typically followed because of fear of the threefold return from that harmful action.[31]

This term is what Emma Restall Orr calls reverence for the earth in her book Living with Honour: A Pagan Ethics. She separates the term into three sections: courage, generosity and loyalty, or honesty, respect and responsibility. There is no evil force in Nature.[28][32] Nothing exists beyond the natural, therefore it is up to the individual to choose to be ethical not because of divine judgment. All beings are connected by the earth and so all should be treated fairly.[28] There is a responsibility toward the environment and a harmony should be found with nature.[29][33]

The following was written by the Church of All Worlds in 1988 and was affirmed by the Pagan Ecumenical Conferences of Ancient Ways (California, May 2730) and Pagan Spirit Gathering (Wisconsin, June 17).[30][34] The Pagan Community Council of Ohio then presented it to the Northeast Council of W.I.C.C.A.[30]

"We, the undersigned, as adherents of Pagan and Old and Neo-Pagan Earth Religions, including Wicca or Witchcraft, practice a variety of positive, life affirming faiths that are dedicated to healing, both of ourselves and of the Earth. As such, we do not advocate or condone any acts that victimize others, including those proscribed by law. As one of our most widely accepted precepts is the Wiccan Rede's injunction to "harm none," we absolutely condemn the practices of child abuse, sexual abuse and any other form of abuse that does harm to the bodies, minds or spirits of the victims of such abuses. We recognize and revere the divinity of Nature in our Mother the Earth, and we conduct our rites of worship in a manner that is ethical, compassionate and constitutionally protected. We neither acknowledge or worship the Christian devil, "Satan," who is not in our Pagan pantheons. We will not tolerate slander or libel against our Temples, clergy or Temple Assemblers and we are prepared to defend our civil rights with such legal action as we deem necessary and appropriate."[30][32][34][35]

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Earth religion - Wikipedia

Why do Satanists worship The Devil?

We dont. Satanists are atheists. We see the universe as being indifferent to us, and so all morals and values are subjective human constructions.

Our position is to be self-centered, with ourselves being the most important person (the God) of our subjective universe, so we are sometimes said to worship ourselves. Our current High Priest Gilmore calls this the step moving from being an atheist to being an I-Theist.

Satan to us is a symbol of pride, liberty and individualism, and it serves as an external metaphorical projection of our highest personal potential. We do not believe in Satan as a being or person.

No. We are atheists. The only people who perform sacrifices are those who believe in supernatural beings who would consider a sacrifice to be some form of payment for a request or form of worship. Since we do not believe in supernatural beings there is no reason for a Satanist to make a sacrifice of any sort.

Satanism has strong rules prohibiting sexual activity with children and non-human animals. In fact, if a Church of Satan member abuses children sexually or otherwise, his membership is automatically terminated without possibility for re-instatement. The Church of Satan also does not accept anyone who is not legally adult as an Active Member. In Satanism, sexual activity is only advocated between consenting adults.

No. Our ritual is basically a form of self-therapy and is most often done in private. The three basic rituals are presented in The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey and these do not demonstrate any type of abusive behavior.

There is no such thing. People who believe in some Devilish supernatural being and worship him are Devil-worshippers, not Satanists. Anton LaVey was the first to define Satanism as a philosophy, and it is an atheist perspective. Theistic Satanism is an oxymoronic term and thus absurd. In Satanism each individual is his or her own godthere is no room for any other god and that includes Satan, Lucifer, Cthulhu or whatever other name one might select or take from history or fiction.

When LaVey refers to an idea, concept, or quote derived or taken from someone else, he often cites the author, either in the paragraph or in the indexes of his books. If anything LaVey wrote seems similar to past concepts, oftentimes, he augmented it with modern circumstances as well as his own thoughts. Seeing that Satanism is a work in progress, an attempt for melding science with philosophy, we are fully justified in choosing the concepts of old, working with them in our context and taking them into the future. (If we didnt, who else would?) This is the same process used by scientists, doctors, psychologists, and many other professionals. Nothing would get done if individuals merely went along with established thought and never added to it. Its evolution, pure and simple.

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F.A.Q. Fundamental Beliefs - Church of Satan

In this article, the first of an ongoing series, we present a dossier of some of the principal institutions and individuals behind this evil New Age movement. The reader will learn, how behind the oh-so-nice U.N. brochures and talk about peace, some of the leading figures of this grouping have been exposed as practicing the most obscene homosexual and child pornography rituals imaginable. Take the notorious case of Canon Edward West, the coordinator of the American association of the Most Venerable Order of St. John. Eyewitness accounts indicate that during the 1980s, he was a frequent participant in obscene sexual rituals at homosexual S&M clubs in Manhattan, including the Mineshaft and the Hellfire Club (named after an 18th-century English secret Satanic society). Favorite entertainment at the Mineshaft included having children urinate on the patrons. In the mid-1980s, the club was shut down, following an investigation by the New York Police Department, which found links to organized crime circles, including those of John Zaccaro, the husband of 1984 Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro.

The evil friends of Bishop Moore

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the medieval temple of the Episcopalian Archdiocese of New York, has become the mother institution of the New Age movement in the United States, whose goal is to eclipse the Age of Pisces (Christianity) with an Age of Aquarius ( Lucifer). The presiding bishop of the cathedral, Bishop Paul Moore, whose family is heir to the Nabisco company fortune, has been in the forefront of creating this Satanic new world order, since at least the late 1950s, when, as a priest in Indianapolis, Indiana, he gave the Peoples Temple cult of Jim Jones its start.

Later in 1977, Bishop Moore rocked the Christian world, when he ordained a militant lesbian, Ellen Marie Barrett, who told Time magazine that it was her lesbian love affair that gave her strength to serve God. Bishop Moore claims that the ordination of lesbians, and his other Gnostic heresies, are merely part of the ongoing revelation of Gods truth to man by the Holy Spirit, which had been prophesied by the Disciple John.

With this dissembling rationale, Bishop Moore has transformed the Cathedral of St. John the Divine into a Gnostic stronghold for such organizations as: The Lucis Trust, founded in 1922 by Alice Bailey, a disciple of Theosophist Madame Helena Blavatsky. Originally named the Lucifer Trust, it became a mother institution of the modern New Age movement; The Temple of Understanding, which is headquartered at the cathedral under its president, the Very Reverend Dean James Parks Morton, dean of the cathedral. It has turned the cathedral into a harbor for Gnostic religions ranging from Tibetan Buddhism to Sufi Freemasonry; The medieval village of Lindesfarne, New York, which is to be the model for a New Age lifestyle, once the Earth has been purified of its billions of non-white souls; A special ministry to Sufi Freemasons who were a historical deployment against Ibn Sina and the Arab Renaissance, and whose modern-day cathedral affiliates have been linked to the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat; The Zen Center, which teaches meditation to the elite of the Liberal Establishment; gay and lesbian organizations, which seek to legitimize their sin by arguing that the beloved disciple John had a homosexual affair with Christ, or else by creating Mother Goddess religions in the cathedrals crypts; a medieval chivalric order known as the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John, which, under the direction of the Duke of Gloucester of the British Royal Family, has inculcated the Episcopagan American Establishment in such Gnostic evil as the necessity to spread Shiite fundamentalism under the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, because the Shah had sinned by trying to industrialize his nation.

The serried ranks of the dead among Jim Joness Peoples Temple cult, who had consumed cyanide-laced Kool-Aid on orders from Jones, are merely the more public casualties of the Age of Aquarius, when those bearing the Mark of the Beast (666) are to be unleashed upon the Earth once again. Throughout the United States, the Satanic New Age movement has grown to become a major threat to the Judeo-Christian tradition upon which our republic was founded. Among the more recent signs of this upsurge are the Atlanta child murders, the case of New York child-beater Joel Steinberg, and the mass murder of school children in Stockton, California by a drug addict wearing a Satan T-shirt.

The Soviet connection

There is a national security dimension to the growth of the New Age movement. Starting in 1982, Bishop Moore returned from the Soviet Union to warn that unless the Anglo-American Establishment carried out appeasement of the Soviets, the Russians would launch a thermonuclear first strike. Moore, who entered the 1970s peace movement by visiting with the Vietcong-controlled, underground peace movement in Vietnam, had by 1983 joined with the pro-terrorist Institute for Policy Studies and the U.S.A.-Canada Institute of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, to mobilize the American peace movement to stop the Strategic Defense Initiative. Thirty top Soviet intelligence officers, who were joined by Bishop Moore, gave marching orders to the American peace leadership to this effect in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1983.

Last February, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine hosted a February Fling, sponsored by the Temple of Understanding, which brought together top Soviet officials to meet with their counterparts in the West. Through Fr. Luis Dolan, who travels to the U.S.S.R. every six weeks to get marching orders from officials of the CPSU International Department-controlled Soviet Peace Center, the Temple of Understanding overlaps the Center for Soviet-American Dialogue, which is involved in extensive exchanges, whose purpose is to remove the enemy image of the U.S.S.R. being an evil empire. Father Dolan also works with Wainwright House, which has several programs along the same lines and which hosted a U.S.-U.S.S.R. Citizens Summit. Spokesmen for the Lucis Trust believe that Mikhail Gorbachov may be the premier world leader in their Externalized Hierarchy, giving impetus to a Plan for a new world order of Luciferian values and behavior. The Lucis Trust also carries out exchanges with the Soviet Union, where they believe Triangle Cells pray the Great Invocation for the coming Age of Aquarius. These Luciferians welcome Gorbachov, who bears the Mark of the Beast on his forehead.

Isis priestess of the Aquarian Age

The New Age movements enthusiasm for Gorbachov is really no surprise. The roots of this movement date back to the 1870s, when Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (nee Princess Hahn in 1831 in Ekaterinoslav, Georgia) was deployed by a combination of Black Hundreds forces that included the Okhrana (Czarist secret service) and the Russian Orthodox Church, to destroy Augustinian Christianity in the West, through the creation of a Satanic ideology known as Theosophy, which was a syncretism of Eastern religions. As one Theosophical Society brochure made clear, its goal was to oppose the materialism of science and every form of dogmatic theology, especially the Christian, which the Chiefs of the Society regard as particularly pernicious.

The deployment of Madame Blavatsky into the West had been part of the same effortcalled the Dostoevsky Project by the Theosophically-inspired Frankfurt Schoolwhich led the Okhrana to unleash the Scottish Freemasonic forces of the liberal Alexander Kerensky, then the dark forces of the Bolsheviks (many of whom, including V.I. Lenin, had been trained on the Isle of Capri in the cult beliefs of the Emperor Tiberius, who murdered Christ), for an assault upon the Petrine state. Among those principally responsible for deploying the hashish-addicted Blavatsky into the West were: Count Alexander Ignatiev, one-time head of the Okhrana as interior minister, whose family later joined with the Bolshevik Revolution; Imperial Privy Councilor Prince Aksakov, whose correspondence with Blavatsky reveals him to be a key controller; Fyodor Dostoevsky, whose writings have regained popularity under Gorbachov, because they were a19th-century revival of the Russian Orthodox Churchs blood-and-soil doctrine [a Luciferic throwback to previous evolutionary epochs] that Moscow would become the Third and Final Rome; and, Mikhail, Vladimir, and Vsevelod Soloviev, who, from such bases as the St. Petersburg Ecclesiastical Academy, propounded the doctrines of Spiritualism that are being revived in Russia today, and who profiled Blavatsky as Tentacles of the Blavatsky deployment extended quickly through the West:

United States In 1873, Blavatsky traveled to the U.S., where with the Spiritualist Colonel Olcott, she founded the American Theosophical Society, whose headquarters became Pasadena, California. Colonel Olcott had been involved in seances at this time on a farm in Chittenden, Vermont, with Mary Baker Eddy, who founded Christian Science as co-extensive with Theosophy. Later, Olcott accompanied Blavatsky to Adyar, India, which became the spiritual center of the cult.

Great Britain In 1883, Blavatskys disciple Annie Besant, who later assumed Blavatskys mantle as High Priestess of Theosophy, was a co-founder of the British Fabian Society (predecessor of the Labour Party) together with Gnostic Christians and Spiritualists, including the Spiritualist Frank Podmore, later British Prime Minister J. Ramsay Macdonald, Soviet agent Lord Haldane, Lord and Lady Passfield, the Freemason William Clarke, Earl Bertrand Russell, Viscount and Viscountess Snowden, Lord Sidney Oliver, Lord Thomson, and others. In the same year, Scottish noble Douglas Dunglas Home, who had sponsored Blavatsky as early as 1858 and given seances for the Czar, returned to Great Britain, where with support of the Cecil family, he founded the Society for Psychical Research, whose members included Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Balfour, Lord Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, and William James.

Another excrescence of Theosophy was the explicitly Satanist Edward Aleister Crowleys Order of the Golden Dawn (or, Stella Matutina), which overlapped the predominantly Anglo-American Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) and the Thule Society in Munich, which gave birth to the Nazi Party through the good offices of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Karl Haushofer, Rudolf Hess, and the Wagner Kreis.

Germany Blavatskys co-controller, Count Aksakov, established in Leipzig, Germany a Theosophical magazine, Psychische Studien, which was influential upon the careers of Sigmund Freud and especially Carl Jung. It also influenced the schismatic Theosophist Rudolf Steiner, who founded in 1913 the Dornach, Switzerland-based Anthroposophy sect, which has lately been a leading influence within West Germanys Free Democratic Party, and also the seed-crystal in southern Germany of the fascist Green party. [2] Meanwhile, in the 1920s, a Berlin-based Theosophist, Graf von Reventlow, founded a European network of the Cominterns Baku Conference of Oppressed Peoples, which sought to merge Marxism with Sufism.

Switzerland The Ascona, Switzerland secret base of Theosophycentered around a cult of Astartewas the spiritual center of the Frankfurt School, which overlapped the Soviet GRU (military intelligence) through such founders as Hede Massing, Richard Sorge, and Max Horkheimer, who developed the Authoritarian Personality dogma to target and destroy those who based their behavior upon natural law. Ascona was also a spiritual center of the Children of the Sun gay and lesbian networks, which overlapped the Philby, Burgess, Maclean spy network in Great Britain. Finally, Ascona was the religious center for the Theosophical psychiatrist Carl Jung, popularizer of the Gnostic Bible. Among Jungs disciple-patients were: Mary Bancroft, the mistress-secretary of Allen Dulles, who was OSS chief in Switzerland during World War II; and Mary and Paul Mellon, who, on their return to the U.S. in 1939, founded the Bollingen Foundation to propagate Gnosticism and a study center on witchcraft at Princeton University. Also, Lenin himself participated in cult dances on Monte Verita in Ascona.

Alice Bailey and the Lucis ( Lucifer) Trust

Alice La Trobe Bateman was the founder in 1920 of the Lucifer Trust, which represented a syncretism of Gnostic Christianity with Blavatskys Theosophy. Baileys Gnostic doctrine transformed God into Nietzschean Will, while Christ is considered merely a lowly part of the many Ascended Masters, who form a Hierarchy, that is eventually to be externalized to carry out a Plan for a new world order that is otherwise known to Baileys disciples as the Age of Aquarius or Age of Maitreya. The Lucis Trust, which today has Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) status at the United Nations and has been given legitimacy by the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, has spawned an array of New Age fronts, including the Temple of Understanding.

Born in Britain, Alice was raised an Episcopalian, before separating from her first husband, a drunken missionary to the United States, who beat her frequently. Relocated from Britain to the West Coast, she was recruited into the Pacific Grove Lodge of Theosophy in 1915. By 1920, she became editor of the American Theosophists newspaper, The Messenger. In this same year she married Foster Bailey (a Scottish Rite Freemason and Co-Mason), and she launched a fight with Annie Besant for control of Theosophy, which Alice Bailey lost, when Besants man, Louis Roger, was elected president. Immediately after the dust settled, Alice and Foster Bailey founded their own Tibetan Lodge, then the Lucifer Trust, whose name was abridged in 1922 to its present Lucis Trust.

By the 1930s, Bailey claimed 200,000 members, and her faction of Theosophy grew even more rapidly after Krishnamurti in 1939 denounced Besants scheme to promote him as the Messiah. Throughout these years, Bailey spent her summers in Ascona, Switzerland, where along with Mary and Paul Mellon, she attended Jungs Eranos Conferences. Bailey established a series of fronts, which include:

The Arcane School Founded in 1923, the school gives correspondence courses in meditation from its branches in New York, Geneva, London, and Buenos Aires. A brochure states: The presentation of the teaching adapted to the rapidly emerging new civilization stresses the training of disciples in group formation, a technique which will characterize the discipleship service in the Aquarian Age.

World Goodwill Founded in 1932, the organization is recognized by the United Nations today as an NGO. Ever since the dropping of the atomic bomb (which is seen by these kooks as a spiritual manifestation of Luciferian light), Lucis Trust has sought to give the U.N. a monopoly over nuclear weapons with which to impose a one world federalist empire upon sovereign nations. World Goodwill works directly with the world federalists, and is part of the work to Externalize the Hierarchy of Illumined Minds, which will usher in an Age of Maitreya, otherwise interpreted by Bailey to be the return of Christ prophesied in the biblical book of Revelations.

Triangles Founded in 1937, Triangles is the name for a global network of cells, whose members pray a Great Invocation, especially on the night of the full moon, when members of the Triangle can be influenced by the astrological signs of the zodiac. Findhorn This is the sacred community of the New Age movement, based in Great Britain. Bailey disciple David Spangler, another explicit Luciferian, became co-director of the Findhorn Foundation, when he formed the Lorian Association. He sits on the boards of directors of Planetary Citizens, the secretariat of Planetary Initiative for the World We Choose (launched at the Cathedral of St. John in 1982), and is a contributing editor to New Age Magazine.

But, Lucis is not limited to low-level Satanists. When he was Secretary of Defense in the early-1960s, Robert McNamara prayed to the full moon along the Potomac River, according to journalist Edith Roosevelt. The Lucis Trust endorsed McNamaras tenure as head of the World Bankwhich is hardly surprising, since Lucis believes in the Blavatskyian Great White Brotherhood, which is consistent with the neo-malthusian aim of the International Monetary Fund to exterminate darker-skinned races. [3] Not only does Bailey explicitly seek to destroy the nation state, which she equates with the idealism of the Age of Pisces, but in her 1954 work Education in the New Age, she also endorses Nazi eugenics and sex hygiene to purify the race. Apart from U.N. Secretary General Javier Parez de Cuellar, spokesmen for Lucis view Mikhail Gorbachov as the greatest world leader externalizing their Plan today.

The Temple of Understanding

The Lucis Trust in 1963 founded a more distanced front group, the Temple of Understanding, which also has NGO status and worked out of the U.N. premises directly, until in 1984 it shifted headquarters to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The Lucis Trust and the Temple remain covertly entwined to this day.

While the chairman of the Temple is Judith Dickerson Hollister, those involved with its founding were: the late Isis Priestess of anthropology, Dame Margaret Mead of the Order of St. John; Order of St. Johns Canon Edward West; U.N. deputy secretary general Robert Muellar, who had been involved as well with the Lucis Trust; and one Winifred McCulloch, leader of the New York-based Teilhard de Chardin Society.

Dormant for several years after a major expose by Edith Roosevelt, the Temple was revived at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in 1984 at a ceremony presided over by Bishop Paul Moore and the Dalai Lama. According to the past executive director, Priscilla Pedersen, its present board overlaps that of David Rockefellers Trilateral Commission. Recent activities of the Temple include:

Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders on Human Survival. Held in Oxford, England April 11-15, 1988, its luminaries included the Dalai Lama, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Carl Sagan. Co-organizers of the Global Forum were the Temple of Understanding and the Global Committee of Parliamentarians on Population and Development, which latter advocates neo-malthusian population reduction as the solution to the worlds ills. Present also at the conference were four Soviet Communist Party Central Committee members, including Dr. Evgenii Velikhov, Vice President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. At the Global Forum, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, founder-director of the Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications, agreed with Velikhov to set up an institute to gather the Judaica of Russia.

In January 1990, the Oxford Global Forum will be followed by a Temple of Understanding event in Moscow, which is being sponsored by the Russian Orthodox Church, the Supreme Soviet, and the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The main thrust of the follow-on conference will be to get world religious and political leaders working together on such neo-malthusian ecological schemes as the greenhouse effect hoax. This is merely a global replay, which has the backing of the Soviet Union, which agreed to a Dartmouth Conference proposal in the 1960s to promote ecology in exchange for unilateral Western arms control deals.

The North American Interfaith Network It was established last year to bring together the major religions in a theocratic institutional network. Its director is Rev. Daniel Anderson, a Lutheran, who was recently coopted to be executive director of the Temple, working out of the Cathedral of St. John. The Wichita North American Assisi Conference This conference, held Oct. 30-Nov. 1, 1988 in Wichita, Kansas, was in preparation for the 1993 celebration of the centennial of the launching of the New Religions movement by Chicago Round Tabler William T. Stead. Like the Global Forum, the Wichita conference brought together American Indians, Sikhs, Sufis, Buddhists, Islamic fundamentalists, and Jews.

February Fling This was a two-week celebration at the Cathedral of St. John in 1988, to promote 100 prominent Soviets. It was co-sponsored by the Temple of Understanding and the Center for Soviet-American Dialogue. Catholic priest Fr. Luis Dolan, who sits on the board of both institutions, was the organizer of the tour. Father Dolan is head of the Citizens Diplomacy Center of Wainwright House, which sponsors a multitude of East-West exchange programs oriented toward removing the enemy image of the U.S.S.R. as an evil empire.

Wainwright Houses Institute for Spiritual Development was directed by Judith Hollister, the founding chairman of the Temple of Understanding. Through Father Dolan, Wainwright House has pledged to work on four East-West projects in 1989 with the Temple. Among these is a project on ecology, for which Wainwright House has received funding from Lawrence Rockefeller to promote.

Another board member of the Temple is the Rabbi Arthur Schneier, self-described as the Jewish Armand Hammer. Rabbi Schneier controls the question of emigration of Jewish Refuseniks, and a colleague states that he has lined up with Edgar Bronfman to call for repeal of the Jackson-Vanik trade amendment, because under Gorbachov, Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union has increased.

Center for Soviet-American Dialogue

The Center is a major back channel between the New Age movement and the U.S.S.R., and has been taken over by New Age leaders including:

Barbara Marx Hubbard. She is a founding member and co-director of the Soviet-American Council for Joint Projects. She co-founded Win-Win-World and is President of the Foundation for Co-Creation. Her name was placed in nomination for the vice presidency on the Democratic ticket in 1984. Hubbard, who entered the New Age movement under the influence of Teilhard de Chardin, created a human front in 1967 of those sharing a belief in transcendent consciousness, which became the Committee for the Future. Hubbard called this transcendent consciousness supra-sex, and she has an extensive network of congressmen involved in the process of haruspication.

Willis Harman, president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and Senior Social Scientist at the Stanford Research Institute International. The Institute for Noetic Sciences has worked closely with the Temple of Understanding, while SRI has had among its trainees such figures as former Secretary of State George Shultz, who believes not only in global-power sharing New Yalta arrangements with the U.S.S.R., but also in convergence through a New Age based upon cybernetics. Harman is the brains behind Marilyn Ferguson, whose book The Aquarian Conspiracy sought to popularize Luciferian Gnosticism. Harman is also a founding member of Hubbards Soviet-American Council for Joint Projects, and he is chairman of the Independent Commission for a Viable Future. Harmans own 1974 The Changing Image of Man coined the phrase paradigm shift to describe the sought-after transformation from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius.

James A. Garrison, executive director of the Soviet-American Exchange Program at the Esalen Institute, which has been linked directly to Soviet psychic espionage activities of the KGB and GRU, penetrating the U.S. military and intelligence communities. This is the modern work of the Blavatsky-Okhrana intelligence deployment, which works today through the likes of Soviet spoonbender Yuri Geller.

Notes (not in original article)

[1] Posted version revised 11/18/01. The version previously posted contained errors due to the fact that I obtained it from http://www.omphalos.net/files/anti/EI R_SAT1.html, which is missing quite a bit of information. I did the best I could at filling in the missing information, but I left some of it blank, and some of what I filled in turned out to be wrong. By sheer luck, I downloaded it again from the aforementioned source on impulse, and again on impulse opened it with Corel Wordperfect 8.0. To my amazement, the missing information appeared highlighted in red, although somewhat garbled. With a little work, I was able to reconstruct it.

[2] Steiner broke from the Blavatsky-Besant-Bailey brand of Theosophy because it had been hijacked by various forces with selfish and evil agendas. He indicated that his mission was to purify Theosophy. It appears to me that his teachings are being misused to convey an aura of authority on certain movements which take them out of context.

[3] The term white in this case refers to a class of initiates, not skin color, although I share Thompsons mistrust of Baileys guides and doubt that they were members of this benevolent class.

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Lucis (Lucifer) Trust Exposing Satanism and Witchcraft

Article ID: JAW188 | By: Richard G. Howe

This article first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume 28, number 1 (2005). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org

SYNOPSIS

The term witchcraft evokes different images for different people. Many Westerners would be surprised to know that more and more of their contemporaries are embracing witchcraft as a viable expression of their own spirituality. However marginal or far out it may have seemed in the past, it is clear that witchcraft is becoming progressively more mainstream throughout the world.

Witches are people who revere both the God and the Goddess. They seek a more friendly relationship with their natural environment, endeavoring to recognize the sacredness of all of nature. Witches, further, seek to utilize cosmic or psychic forces to do their bidding. To this end, the practice of witchcraft involves knowledge and skill in appropriating the rituals that are believed to harness and focus these energies. Seeing themselves in stark contrast to other occult religions such as Satanism, witches seek to work these forces in order to enhance their own experience of life and to promote healing and community.

Do these rituals work? Is this even the important question to ask? What could possibly be wrong with such a seemingly benevolent religion? Witchcraft has something to say about who we are as humans, about what our relationship to our fellow humans and to the rest of the universe ought to be, and about how we should relate to the divine. Some Christians may be surprised to learn of the comparisons and contrasts that can be drawn from witchcraft with their own Christianity.

What kind of images does the term witchcraft provoke? To many it brings thoughts of dark, secret rituals with sinister intent, curses being cast on the unwary designed to bring about their undoing. Others are reminded about witchcraft only one time a year. For them it brings images of children dressed in their pointed hats enjoying candy; of cutouts of witches surrounded by broomsticks, pumpkins, and dry leaves. This creates a problem in trying to understand witchcraft. The subject is either too frightening or too silly to consider. Perhaps many people, Christians included, would be surprised to discover that what goes by the name of witchcraft is often quite a bit more sophisticated and thoughtful than they expected. A Christian analysis must resoundingly condemn witchcraft, but that analysis must be based on a fair assessment of the phenomenon as a whole.

Why Bother?

Some may wonder why there is any need to take a look at witchcraft. After all, there is seemingly no end to which people will go in their eccentric beliefs or practices. The reason a topic such as this merits examination is precisely because witchcraft is becoming less eccentric and more mainstream. For example, in the summer of 2004 the Parliament of the Worlds Religions convened in Barcelona, Spain. Representatives from many of the worlds religions were present to seek peace, justice and sustainability and commit to work for a better world as well as to deepen spirituality and experience personal transformation.1 Present at the 2004 conference (as well as the 1993 and 1999 conferences) were representatives of the Covenant of the Goddess, the worlds largest religious organization for Neo-Pagan Witches, as described by an elder of the organization.2 A common theme that comes up in the context of such conferences is the increasing emphasis on interfaith.

In contrast, one group that is often conspicuous by its near absence at such conferences is evangelical Christianity. Why might this be so? Without jumping ahead to my critique, it should be pointed out that the worldview of many who would attend such conferences would vehemently reject the religious exclusivism that characterizes historic, orthodox Christianity. In a very serious way, therefore, many of the worlds religions, including witchcraft, either explicitly or implicitly see themselves aligned against evangelical Christianity; nevertheless, Jesus command to preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations invariably includes witches. In order to do so, it is necessary that we understand who they are and what they believe. Knowing what we are up against is a primary element in being prepared to carry out His Great Commission.

What Witchcraft Is

Definitions can either facilitate or impede understanding. A helpful definition is one that is not overly simplistic, and one that mentions important distinctions as well as similarities between familiar and unfamiliar terms where they exist. In our current age of ecumenical enthusiasm, there is the danger of Christians overlooking the most important aspect of a given religion, namely, the difference between it and their own Christian faith.

There are similarities between flour and ricin. They both are made from plants; they both are white powders; but it is not their similarities that are interesting or important, it is their differences. One is a food and the other is a poison. One promotes life and the other effects death. Dont be misled by my metaphorI am not at this point likening witchcraft to ricin. I am only trying to show that with some issues the differences can be just as important, if not more so, than the similarities. With this in mind let me now delineate the main tenets of modern witchcraft and then contrast those with the main tenets of evangelical Christianity.

Witchcraft Is Known by Many Names

When one begins to investigate the phenomenon of modern witchcraft, it does not take long to notice a range of terms associated with the practice: The Craft, Wicca, paganism, Neo-Paganism, and so on. Brooks Alexander, a Christian researcher who is an expert on the occult and counterculture, gives a helpful summary of certain distinctions between the terms Wicca, witchcraft, and Neo-Paganism. Neo-Paganism is the broadest category, encompassing a wide range of groups that try to reconstruct ancient, pre- and non-Christian religious systemssuch as the Norse, Celtic, Greek, Roman, and Egyptian religionsas well asvarious obscure, forgotten, and neglected occult teachings from around the world.3 He goes on to distinguish witchcraft from Wicca (with Wicca being the narrowest category) along the lines of how closely one follows the specific teachings and practices of the English Wiccan Gerald Gardner, who more or less gave the term Wica (with one c) to his practice.4

There may be subtle distinctions that some prefer to maintain when opting for one term over another, but for the most part these terms are used interchangeably. The term witchcraft is certainly the most familiar within and without the practice, but it is also the term that carries with it the most unwanted baggage. It often has sinister or evil connotations, and for those reasons many within the craft prefer the term Wicca (for the practice) and Wiccan (for the practitioner). The prefix Neo in Neo-Paganism usually indicates an emphasis on ones practice in its contemporary manifestation while still hinting that it is perhaps a revival of, or connected to, something ancient.

Witchcraft Is a Religion

As Americans, this is an important point to remember. We cherish our heritage of religious freedom, but in their enthusiasm to refute the beliefs of witchcraft, some Christians have overstated the case. They rightly claim that the United States was founded on the ethical concept of natural law (where morality is grounded in the nature of the creator God),5 but they wrongly conclude that witches do not have constitutional rights, since witches reject the traditional Christian notion of the creator God. Without getting into the tricky issue of how and whether religion should interact with government or public life, we should recognize that, within the limits of law, all Americans have the right to exercise their own religion in accordance with the dictates of their conscience. Our contention, such as it is, with witchcraft is one of truth. It is a battle of ideas.

Witchcraft Is a Worldview

A worldview is the sum total of ones view of the nature of reality. Everyone has a worldview even if only a few reflect on their own. Ones worldview encompasses ones views of how reality is composed, how it works, and how we as humans fit in or relate to our universe. It can entail ones views about the purpose of life and the origin and destiny of us all.

Naturalism. Starting at the broadest level and working down, it is fair to say that the worldview of witchcraft is naturalism. Naturalism is the view that there is no transcendent reality such as God that can intervene in the natural world. Naturalism maintains that all of reality is interrelated and operates according to laws. Other expressions of naturalism would include materialism, which sees all of reality as being made up of matter that operates according to material laws.

Witchcraft, though an expression of naturalism, is not materialism. Witches recognize that reality extends beyond the realm of the material. This is sometimes confusing. A worldview can be naturalistic even if it accepts the reality of an immaterial realm; indeed, even acknowledging the existence of gods and goddesses does not preclude a worldview from being naturalistic. What stands in stark contrast to naturalism is a worldview that says that the natural realm (whether material, immaterial, or both) is the creation of a transcendent God. This is supernaturalism. This is what historic, orthodox Christianity is.

Occultism. Sharpening the focus, not only can we say that witchcraft is a worldview of naturalism, it is also a worldview of occultism. The term occult is from the Latin occultus meaning hidden, or secret. The category covers a wide range of beliefs and practices that are characterized by two main points that are often thought to be hidden from the average person. First, the occult maintains that there is force or energy into which one can tap or with which one can negotiate to do ones own bidding. The familiar term spell is applied to the technique of harnessing and focusing this power. The late witchcraft practitioner Scott Cunningham explains, The spell issimply a ritual in which various tools are purposefully used, the goal is fully stated (in words, pictures or within the mind), and energy is moved to bring about the needed result.6 Exactly what is the nature of this force or energy, according to the occultist, and what is the best way to work with it is what makes some of the main differences between the major occult groups such as shamanism, witchcraft, Satanism, New Age, and others.

Second, the occult maintains that human beings are divine. The practice of the occult arts is thus an endeavor to actualize ones own divinity. As witchcraft practitioner Margot Adler claims, A spiritual path that is not stagnant ultimately leads one to the understanding of ones own divine nature. Thou art Goddess. Thou are God. Divinity is imminent in all Nature. It is as much within you as without.7

Humanism. Witchcraft sees itself as a celebration of all life. This celebration involves the denial that there is anything wrong with the human race. The practicing witch Starhawk rejoices that we can open new eyes and see that there is nothing to be saved from, no struggle of life against the universe, no God outside the world to be feared and obeyed8 (emphasis in original). Pagan Elder Donald Frew of the Covenant of the Goddess explains, How can we achieve salvation, then? Were not even trying to. We dont understand what there is to be saved from. The idea of salvation presupposes a Fall of some kind, a fundamental flaw in Creation as it exists today. Witches look at the world [around] us and see wonder, we see mystery.9

Witchcraft Is a Practice

Notice that the term practice is often used with the term witchcraft. What this tells us is that, for many, Wicca is as much what someone does as it is what someone believes. While it is certainly true that what one does is invariably a product of what one believes, for witchcraft the emphasis is on what the practice can do to enhance ones own well-being as well as the well-being of others. Witches do not simply adhere to a list of dogmas; indeed, in many ways witches like to think that they eschew dogmas. As Adler describes it, If you go far enough back, all our ancestors practiced religions that had neither creeds nor dogmas, neither prophets nor holy books. These religions were based on the celebrations of the seasonal cycles of nature. They were based on what people did, as opposed to what people believed. It is these polytheistic religions of imminence that are being revived and re-created by Neo-Pagans today.10

A look through witchcraft material at the local bookstore will reveal that much of it deals with various rituals and activities that can be perfected in order to manipulate and utilize this cosmic or psychic force to do ones bidding. One will find chapters on the various items of clothing to wear (robes; jewelry; horned helmet, when one is not working naked, or skyclad); the tools to use (candles, herbs, tarot cards, talismans, fetishes); and rituals to perform (spells, incantations, chanting, music, dancing)all of which enables the practitioner to become open to these forces (if they exist outside) or to conjure up these forces (if they originate from within). One will learn how to interpret dreams, meditate, have out-of-body experiences, speak with the dead, heal, and read auras. One can seek to develop ones own powers within the context of other witches (in a coven) or alone (in solitary practice). There are no obligations to follow any previously prescribed method. If what others have done before works, that is fine. If one sees the need to change the ritual or tools to get better results, then that is fine as well. All of these activities are designed to do two things: to enhance the well-being of ones self or those around him or her and to actualize ones own divinity.

What Witchcraft Is Not

Witchcraft Is Not Satanism

It might be surprising to some to know that witchcraft is not Satanism. Not only do the two have different histories (even if they are short histories), they also have, at a certain level, different views of the world and ones place in it. I add the qualification at a certain level because there is a shared occult perspective between witchcraft and Satanism. Satanism and witchcraft are both occult religions; because of this, they both see reality as entirely natural. There is no transcendent God in the truest sense of the term. Further, they both see all of reality, material and immaterial, as interconnected and working according to laws that can be mastered in such a way as to make not only material but also immaterial reality work according to ones own bidding. Satanism and witchcraft both stand in stark contrast to Christianity in their repudiation not only of God but also of the role of Jesus in effecting the salvation of mankind; indeed, there is a sense in which both Satanism and witchcraft deny that mankind is in any need of salvation.

These similarities are not trivial, but neither are the differences. Any criminal activity that can be associated with occultism is usually associated with some form of Satanism (usually some form of self-styled Satanism). As a matter of principle and practice, witchcraft lives by the creed, An it harm none, do what you will.11

Satanism is more often associated with an attitude of self-aggrandizement rather than the sense of community that characterizes most witchcraft. Further, Satanism and witchcraft differ somewhat in their respective views of nature and humanity. As researchers Shelley Rabinovitch and James Lewis observe, To the neo-Pagan practitioner, nature is viewed as somewhere on a scale from benign to overtly positive, if not outright friendly toward humanity. The ideal in most neo-Pagan practice is to become as one with the natural worldto live in harmony with nature.In contrast, neo-Satanists view the natural world as somewhere between benign and openly hostile to humans.12

Witchcraft Is Not Christianity

Some witches suggest that the practice of witchcraft can be compatible with Christianity,13 but virtually everyone realizes that witchcraft is not Christianity. Some may accuse me of having an uncanny grasp of the obvious for asserting this. Who would possibly confuse the two? In making this claim, however, I mean to do two things.

First, I want to emphasize that one must be careful that various subtle aspects of the practice of witchcraft do not influence ones own Christian view of the world in a way that is incompatible with the Christian faith. What I have in mind here is how easy it can be for Christians to assume that certain practices that characterize the occult in general or witchcraft in particular are sufficiently neutral that one may safely dabble in their use. Some Christians see no problem with experimenting with sances or tarot cards, not realizing that they could be eroding their own view of the nature of reality, not to mention the danger of encountering demonic activity. Even if these practices worked, pragmatism is not a criterion for truth (Jer.44: 1718).

My second reason for pointing out that witchcraft is not Christianity is to try to summarize exactly where witchcraft and Christianity compare and contrast in their respective worldviews. Before I outline those areas of contrast (i.e., where the flour and ricin are different) let me acknowledge those areas where witches and Christians might share common concerns.

Witchcraft and Christianity: Common Concerns. First, because of their view of the nature of the world, witches often have a sense of environmental concern. Now, the motivations of witches and Christians are widely disparatewitches are environmentally conscientious because of their view that the Earth is sacred, whereas Christians should be environmentally conscientious as a matter of stewardship of the creation before the Creatorbut Christians can agree with Wiccans that there is a duty to be environmentally responsible. How that environmental responsibility translates into public policy and individual actions may vary along the political and personal spectrum; nevertheless, we can all agree that there is an environmental responsibility that each of us shares.

Second, witches tend to have a conscientious sense of global concerns. Again, exactly how these concerns translate into public policy and individual actions may vary along the political and personal spectrum, but our common interests stem from the fact that we are all human beings living on the same planet.

Third, witches tend to be benevolently disposed toward their fellow human beings. The stereotype of witches being people with sinister intent wielding spells of black magic needs to be abandoned. As Christians we can share in their concern for the well being of others though we will obviously disagree as to what exactly constitutes that well being.

Witchcraft and Christianity: Mortal Foes in What Ultimately Counts. Our enthusiasm to establish rapport with those around us who may embrace witchcraft as a way of expressing their own spirituality must not keep us from recognizing that, when it comes to what ultimately counts, witchcraft and Christianity (but not witches and Christians14) are mortal foes. What ultimately counts is the objective truth about who God is, who we are as humans, and how we relate.

Christianity is monotheistic. Christianity claims that there is a God and no one of us is He. Witchcraft claims the opposite: We are of the nature of the Gods, and a fully realized man or woman is a channel for that divinity, a manifestation of the God or the Goddess.15 Adler favorably quotes historian James Breasted who said, Monotheism is but imperialism in religion.16 In place of the strict monotheism of Christianity, witchcraft not only deifies the self, but it ostensibly reveres the pagan God and Goddess.17

Christianity is exclusivistic. Remember Jesus words in John14:6: I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. Contrast that with what Adler proclaims: The belief that there is one word, one truth, one path to the light, makes it easy to destroy ideas, institutions, and human beingsyour own spiritual path is not necessarily mine.18

Christianity is authoritarian. Usually this term authoritarian has negative associations, but if authoritarian means recognizing authority then Christianity certainly does that. Not only has God revealed Himself through the things He has made (see, e.g., Ps.19:1 and Rom.1:20), but He has also revealed Himself finally and fully through Jesus Christ and the Bible. In contrast, Frew says, To grant a traditional text such authority would be to say that this is it, the truth for all time. But we are a nature religion, and a fundamental truth of nature is that everything changes.19 Christians recognize the authority of Gods word in such matters, and so we have to face the fact that the Bible unequivocally condemns the practice of witchcraft, along with all forms of the occult (see Deut.18:1012; Acts13:611;16:1618; Gal.5:1921).

Christianity recognizes everyones need for salvation. The most important message we have to give to the world is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Without the sacrifice of Christ to wash away our sins and reconcile us to our Maker, there is no hope in the world to come. Witchcraft teaches that our destiny is to return again to this world through reincarnation. Cunningham comments, While reincarnation isnt an exclusive Wiccan concept, it is happily embraced by most Wiccans because it answers many questions about daily life and offers explanations for more mystical phenomena such as death, birth and karma.20 Frew expounds, While many of us believe in reincarnation, we do not seek to escape the wheel of rebirth. We cant imagine anything more wonderful than to come back to this bounteous and beautiful Earth.21 In contrast to this spiritually fatal illusion, the Bible warns, And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment (Heb.9:27 NKJV).

WHAT ARE WE TO DO?

There is a sense in which the job before us as Christians never changes, no matter who our audience is. Tactics and strategies may vary depending on the task at handwhether apologetics, evangelism, or discipleshipbut the commission never varies. It behooves us as Christians to maximize our effectiveness in reaching the lost by being informed and sensitive to the beliefs and practices of others while paying close attention to the subtle differences between various worldviews and our own Christian faith. This is true no less of witches than anyone else who may be living right next door.

notes

1. Parliament of the Worlds Religions, http://www.cpwr.org/ 2004Parliament/welcome/index.htm.

2. Donald H. Frew, Pagans in Interfaith Dialogue: New Faiths, New Challenges, CoGWeb, http://www.cog.org/pwr/ don.htm. On the significance of the presence of pagan witchcraft at the conference, Frew commented, The 2004 Parliamentcemented our position as an established religion on the world stage. (Donald Frew, e-mail interview by author, October31,2004.)

3. Brooks Alexander, Witchcraft Goes Mainstream: Uncovering Its Alarming Impact on You and Your Family (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2004), 23.

4. The question of the origin and history of modern witchcraft is complicated. According to some researchers, Gerald Gardner (18841964) is almost single-handedly responsible for the modern phenomenon we now know as witchcraft. Whether Gardner invented or rediscovered the religion is disputed. For discussions on the matter, see Brooks Alexanders work cited in endnote 3; Ronald Hutton, Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Jenny Gibbons, Recent Developments in the Study of The Great European Witch Hunt, CoGWeb, http://www.cog/org/witch_hunt.html. For a response to earlier versions of Huttons arguments, see D. H. Frew, Methodological Flaws in Recent Studies of Historical and Modern Witchcraft, Ethnologies 1 (1998): 3365. For Huttons rejoinder to Frew, see Ronald Hutton, Paganism and Polemic: The Debate over the Origins of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, Folklore (April 2000), http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2386/is_1_111/ai_62685559. I agree with Alexanders conclusion: There has been no passing down of any tradition from medieval witches to anyone in our own time. There is no identifiable continuity between the witchcraft of the Middle Ages and the modern-day religious movement that bears the same name. (Alexander, Witchcraft Goes Mainstream, 127.) This is not to say, however, that there is no continuity between some of the concepts of modern witchcraft and ancient religions. As Donald Frew observes, There is a genuine antiquity to many of the core theological concepts and linked liturgical practices, andthere is a traceable path of transmission from Classical antiquity down to the modern movement, butthis is not the same thing as a continually practicing group. (Donald Frew, e-mail interview by author, October31,2004.)

5. For a defense of the role of natural law in the birth of the United States of America see Gary T. Amos, Defending the Declaration: How the Bible and Christianity Influenced the Writing of the Declaration of Independence (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth and Hyatt Publishers, 1989). For an examination of natural law theory in pluralistic America see Norman Geisler and Frank Turek, Legislating Morality: Is It Wise? Is It Legal? Is It Possible? (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1998) and Carl Horn, ed., Whose Values? The Battle for Morality in Pluralistic America (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Books, 1985).

6. Scott Cunningham, The Truth about Witchcraft Today (St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1988), 17.

7. Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today, rev. and exp. ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986), ix.

8. Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1979), 14.

9. Frew, Pagans in Interfaith Dialogue.

10. Adler, ix.

11. Janet and Stewart Farrar, A Witches Bible Compleat: Principles, Rituals and Beliefs of Modern Witchcraft, rev. ed. (New York: Magickal Childe, 1987), 2:135.

12. Shelley Rabinovitch and James Lewis, The Encyclopedia of Modern Witchcraft and Neo-Paganism (New York: Citadel Press, 2002), s.v. Neo-Satanism Compared and Contrasted with Neo-Paganism, 18586, emphasis in original.

13. See, e.g., Gavin Frost and Yvonne Frost, The Magic Power of Witchcraft (West Nyack, NY: Parker Publishing, 1976), 130.

14. The belief systems of Christianity and witchcraft are mutually exclusive, but Christians are called to love all human beings and consider as their true enemy the evil spiritual force that lies behind the worlds anti-Christian belief systems (Eph.6:12; cf. Matt.5:4347).

15. Farrar, 2:33.

16. Adler, vii.

17. The emphasis on the God and the Goddess stems from witchcrafts worldview of the interplay in reality of opposites that seek balance. The Farrars explain, All activity, all manifestation arises [sic] from (and is inconceivable without) the interaction of pairs and complementary opposites. (A Witches Bible Compleat,2:107.)

18. Adler, viii.

19. Frew, Pagans in Interfaith Dialogue.

20. Cunningham, 65.

21. Frew, Pagans in Interfaith Dialogue.

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Modern Witchcraft: It May Not Be What You Think