EMERGENCE OF SATANIC CULTS
Is the Devil a living entity?
Although the opinion about the origins of Satan-worship varies, it has been traced back to prehistoric times, and paintings and carvings of horned creatures have been found in caves dating back 30,000 years. Greek mythology mentions horned creatures such as the satyrs who are male nature spirits while the early Christians had visions of a devil with horns. Satan as the adversary of Jehovah is cited in the Book of Job. Yet, according to some historians, the devil-worship did not enter the picture until the Christians began to persecute witches for heresy, with the first official recognition of the Devil by the Council of Toledo in present-day Spain in 447 A. D.
The polarity of good and evil has always been with us. Manichaeism was a major universal cult founded in the 3rd century A. D. by the Iranian prophet Mani in the Sasanian Empire which was the last empire in ancient Persia before the spread of Islam in the 7th-8th centuries A. D. Manichaean religion was based on the belief in two opposing forces in perpetual conflict. Its dualistic cosmology described the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light and an evil, material world of darkness. Gnosticism, a collection of religious ideas among Jewish and early Christian sects, also believed in the ‘evil principle’ and Gnostics often were drawn more to the power of Satan than to God. Their writings flourished among certain Christian groups in the Mediterranean world around the 2nd century when the Church Fathers denounced them as heresy and most of these writings were destroyed.
The ‘pact with Satan’ is a vital element in covens, which, according to traditions, were composed of twelve witches and a leader who took the name of Satan. The word ‘witch’ is derived from the Anglo-Saxon wicca. The word ‘coven’, a group or gathering of witches, comes from Latin conventum, meaning ‘convention’. When the witches had gathered, they paid homage to their presiding ‘devil’ and novices were initiated with the ‘devil’s mark’. After a banquet, wild dancing followed which ended in sexual orgies. The leader, often disguised as a goat, took a leading part in the ceremonies with his ‘demons’. During the frenzy of witch-hunting of the Middle Ages in Europe, any blemish of the skin-a mole, wen, scar, bunion, etc.-was regarded by the authorities as a devil’s mark, and the alleged witch was hanged or burned at the stake. Sometimes when no such mark was visible, the inquisitors would find an ‘invisible’ one by jabbing their victim with needles.
According to Judaic mythology, Lilith, a ferocious woman, is supposed to be Adam’s first wife and the primordial she-demon or the first witch in history. Before Adam came to his senses and took the more gentle Eve as his second wife, Lilith mothered hosts of demons. She was banished from the Garden of Eden and later was known as the ‘night visitor’ and a saying arose that it was ‘indiscreet’ for a man to sleep in a house as the sole occupant, for “Lilith will seize him”. Other famous witches or sorceresses were Circe and Medea of Greek mythology.
The last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century, but ongoing witch-hunts have been reported from Sub-Saharan Africa, Papua New Guinea, India, Assam and Nepal. Witchcraft or sorcery remains a criminal offence in the official legislation of Saudi Arabia, although the precise nature of the crime is undefined.
Explaining why most witches are women, author Herbert B. Greenhouse in his The Book of Psychic Knowledge contends that the battle of the sexes may be responsible for this. He writes that primitive man had a deep-seated fear and awe of women due to the mystery of their menstrual period and their ability for procreation. The earliest myth is that of the Great Mother and her influence on the growth of crops. Women in certain African tribes reinforced this fear by forming secret societies from which men were excluded. According to Greenhouse, the belief that women were in league with the dark powers found expression in the early Christian attitude that they were lustful, carnal creatures. He says that women enjoy power as witches that is denied them in other religions.
Founder of the Church of Satan
Probably the best-known Satanic leader in America is Anton Szandor LaVey (1930-1997), author of the Satanic Bible and High Priest and founder of the atheistic Church of Satan in 1966. Originally a wild-animal trainer with a circus, he later became a police photographer and was a good professional organ player. His old connection with the police department was helpful to stay unmolested while at the same time assuring him protection from idle curiosity seekers. Hans Holzer (1920-2009), an Austrian-American author and parapsychologist, in his book The Truth About Witchcraft, describes vividly how he met this Satanist at his San Francisco Temple in California. Holzer wrote that LaVey’s house was painted black from the top of the roof to the last window shutter while remarkably fine paintings of hell, haunted houses and devils adorned the walls. “The table was a marble slab which used to be a tombstone and still bore the inscription of the late gentleman whose earthly remains it once guarded. A skeleton leered at us from a glass cabinet … By midnight, the room was filled with fifteen or sixteen male congregation members, young and old. There was an altar occupied by the stretched-out body of a young woman covered by a leopardskin. A man completely covered with a black hooded robe with slits for the eyes entered the room and yanked the leopard skin off the girl who was nude. A group of black-robed fellows handed the man a small cup which contained a mixture of semen and urine, the Satanists’ answer to the holy water. He then sprinkled the congregation with this mixture with a dispenser in the shape of a human phallus (erect penis). A bell rang in short intervals to announce the opening of the service and entrance of the high priest. After the organ music, LaVey strode in with a showmanly stance, dressed in a tight-fitting black headpiece with red horns and wearing a black robe. Taking a sword from the High Priestess, he praised Satan in Latin and then commanded the four dark princes of hell to come forth: Satan, Lucifer, Belial and Leviathan. LaVey was handed a chalice from which he drank a toast to the Prince of Darkness and he then placed it right on top of the public area of the girl on the altar”.
But, in the opinion of the American TV writer, producer and director Alan William Landsburg (1933-2014), Satanists are not materialists either, for they do believe in a life hereafter. He says in In Search of Magic and Witchcraft, that these cultists claim that using life forcefully while still in the flesh is the proper thing to do. Landsburg writes that LaVey took pains to point out that the First Satanist Church of San Francisco should not be confused with mediaeval superstitions, as no baptised babies were killed in the rites, no ritual murder took place, and no Black Mass was held. “This is a cult dedicated to the enjoyment of worldly pleasures free from all restrictions or guilt feelings. Their devil is the ‘devil within every man’, that part of his nature that longs for full enjoyment of worldly pleasures…”.
Australian-born writer Gordon Wellesley (1894-1980) in Sex and the Occult, which looks closely at some of the world’s most bizarre practices and beliefs, quotes another unusual experience of a distinguished journalist who managed to penetrate such a group of devil-worshippers and get himself initiated into a coven with another man. He described the ordeal in these words: “…We were told to take off all our clothes and we were then blindfolded… My hands were bound tightly behind my back… my fellow initiate and I were asked to make various responses to commands spoken by other members of the coven. I frequently felt naked flesh brushing against my body… A little while later the blindfold was removed … we were fed bread and wine … First my companion, then I was made to lie on our backs on the white sheet with our heads towards the altar. Olive oil was smeared on my body. Then one of the young girls who had introduced me and who was figuring as the “Queen” came forward, bent over me, kissed my lips, my navel and touched my penis with her lips. She was completely naked. Then a knife was pressed against my chest and I was told it would be better to fall on it now than to reveal ever the secrets of witchcraft. I had to swear fidelity to the Great God of Evil. Then we all got dressed and went out to the local pub for a drink…”
What is the Black Mass?
The Black Mass is a ceremony typically celebrated by Satanic groups and it has supposedly existed for centuries in various forms. This is a sacrilegious mockery of a Catholic Mass: the crucifix was placed upside down, the altar was covered in black instead of white, the Lord’s Prayer and the hymns were chanted backwards, the sign of the cross was made in the wrong direction, and black candles were burned. There is evidence that Catherine de’ Medici (1519-1589), wife of King Henry II of France, practised this parody of a Church rite and that a Black Mass was performed during the reign of Louis XIV. Many priests were executed for committing this blasphemous act. The Black Mass is part of the ritual in many American and British witch cults today. In 2014 and 2016 a Black Mass was held in public at the Oklahoma City Civic Centre by a Satanist group. An ecumenical protest by Catholics and Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal and Pentecostal denominations was held to oppose it. There exists a huge amount of French literature discussing this ritual that burlesques the Christian liturgy. The French call it La Messe Noire. Some researchers opine that the Black Mass was invented by witch-hunters while others assert that sexual frustrations-“celibacy never did anyone any good”- were also an incentive to this ritual.
Devil: the negative force
Pope Paul VI, who was head of the Catholic Church from 1963 to 1978, in an address about evil and the devil, said that devil was a real person to him and, of course, the antagonist of the Roman Catholic Church. He assured his listeners that he was convinced of “an intervention in us and in our world of an obscure agent, the devil. Evil is not merely a lack of something, but an effective agent, a living, spiritual being, perverted and perverting. A terrible reality. Mysterious and frightening.” It can be accepted, in all probability, that the devil represents ‘the negative force’.
Eldred Gregory Peck (1916-2003), the veteran Hollywood actor, after starring in the horror movie The Omen (1978), said that he cannot believe the devil is a person. Andrew M. Greely (1928-2013), an American Catholic priest, sociologist and novelist, in an article in the New York Times magazine, concluded that evil in man is really the kind of devil one should worry about. The author left unresolved the question of a personal devil, but pointed to the continued existence of evil in this world as certain proof that the forces of darkness do prevail at times.
According to Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis, the devil is a father substitute for those who have no luck, are too poorly gifted, or are too ineffective to make a living. The Exorcist (1971), the novel of American writer, producer and director William Peter Blatty (1928-2017), allegedly based upon a real case in St. Louis in 1959, gave new impetus to the reality of the devil. Catholic priests are divided on the acceptance of a personal devil and consider that demonic possession may be more properly treated by the psychiatrist.
The Hebrew term Satan means ‘accuser’ or ‘adversary’, whereas the word Devil comes from the Greek Diabolos. But there is also a gypsy term Divil, meaning ‘stranger’. Another name given the devil by the ancient Hebrews is Samiel.
Revival of black magic
Rollo Ahmed, in Black Art, traces black magic back to antediluvian times when the continent of Atlantis was submerged by a great cataclysm, to which the Bible refers as the Flood. The inhabitants of this legendary land had reached a high state of evolution, physically, mentally and spiritually, and had attained a vast knowledge to harness psychic powers. They also became adepts at the black art, the author says.
According to Greenhouse, this ‘evil principle’ in man, recognised from prehistoric times and dramatised in the Bible, is never far away. The rise of science and rationality, particularly in Western countries, pushed the dark side of man out of sight for a time, but it has now surfaced with a vengeance, and witchcraft is one expression of it. For the most part, the rituals in modern witch covens-nudity, chanting, etc.-may act as a safety valve for what Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) called the ‘shadow side’.
John Taylor, brilliant British mathematician, physicist and author, says in Black Holes: The End of the Universe? that despite the many scientific wonders, the first item of news that the average person turns to in the newspaper is not the latest scientific discoveries, but the column of astrology for which there is absolutely no scientific basis. “This growing support for astrology is only one of many pointers to a general disenchantment with science and all that it stands for”, he says, adding that there is greater interest everywhere in anti-scientific activities. “An alternative fantasy is the world beyond the senses … and other powers of the mind. This activity merges into witchcraft, which is still practised by a surprisingly large number of educated people in the world”.***
