The Devil, also referred to as Satan, is best known as the personification of evil and the nemesis of good people everywhere. His image and story have evolved over the years, and the Devil has been called many different names in various cultures: Beelzebub, Lucifer, Satan and Mephistopheles, to name a few, with various physical descriptions including horns and hooved feet. But this malevolent being—and his legion of demons—continue to strike fear in people from all walks of life as the antithesis of all things good.
The Devil in the Bible
Although the Devil is present in some form in many religions and can be compared to some mythological gods, he’s arguably best known for his role in Christianity. In modern biblical translations, the Devil is the adversary of God and God’s people.
It’s commonly thought that the Devil first showed up in the Bible in the book of Genesis as the serpent who convinced Eve—who then convinced Adam—to eat forbidden fruit from the “tree of the knowledge” in the Garden of Eden. As the story goes, after Eve fell for the Devil’s conniving ways, she and Adam were banished from the Garden of Eden and doomed to mortality.
Many Christians believe the Devil was once a beautiful angel named Lucifer who defied God and fell from grace. This assumption that he is a fallen angel is often based the book of Isaiah in the Bible which says, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations.”
Devil Names
Some biblical scholars, however, claim Lucifer isn’t a proper name but a descriptive phrase meaning “morning star.” Still, the name stuck and the Devil is often referred to as Lucifer.
Names for the Devil are numerous: Besides Lucifer, he may be referred to as the Prince of Darkness, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, Lord of the Flies, the Antichrist, Father of Lies, Moloch or simply Satan.
The book of Ezekiel includes another Biblical passage Christians refer to as proof of the Devil’s existence. It admonishes the greedy King of Tyre but also refers to the king as a cherub who was once in the Garden of Eden. As a result, some Bible translators believe the King of Tyre was a personification of the Devil.
The Devil make more appearances in the Bible, especially in the New Testament. Jesus and many of his apostles warned people to stay alert for the Devil’s cunning enticements that would lead them to ruin. And it was the Devil who tempted Jesus in the wilderness to “fall down and worship him” in exchange for riches and glory.
The Devil in Other Religions
Most other religions and cultures teach of an evil being who roams the earth wreaking havoc and fighting against the forces of good. In Islam, the devil is known as Shaytan and, like the Devil in Christianity, is also thought to have rebelled against God. In Judaism, Satan is a verb and generally refers to a difficulty or temptation to overcome instead of a literal being.
In Buddhism, Maara is the demon that tempted Buddha away from his path of enlightenment. Like Christianity’s Jesus resisted the Devil, Buddha also resisted temptation and defeated Maara.
In people of almost any religion or even in those who don’t follow a religion, the Devil is almost always synonymous with fear, punishment, negativity and immorality.
The Devil and Hell
Perhaps the most lasting images of the Devil are associated with Hell, which the Bible refers to as a place of everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels. Still, the Bible doesn’t state the Devil will reign over hell, just that he’ll eventually be banished there.
The idea that the Devil governs hell may have come from the poem by Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, published in the early fourteenth century. In it, God created hell when he threw the Devil and his demons out of Heaven with such power that they created an enormous hole in the center of the earth.
What Does The Devil Look Like?
In his poem, Dante portrayed the Devil as a grotesque, winged creature with three faces—each chewing on a devious sinner—whose wings blew freezing cold winds throughout Hell’s domain.
The Bible doesn’t describe the Devil in detail. Early artistic interpretations of The Divine Comedy featuring shocking images of the Devil and his demons inflicting almost unimaginable human suffering only emboldened people’s thoughts about Hell and the Devil.
And by the end of the Middle Ages, the Devil had taken on the appearance of the horned, trident-wielding figure with a tail that has endured to modern times.
The Devil and Witches
Fear of the Devil is at least partially responsible for the witchcraft hysteria of Europe and New England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Protestants and Catholics accused many people of practicing witchcraft and making deals with the Devil.
The Puritans living in New England’s early colonies were petrified of the Devil. They believed he gave powers to witches to those faithful to him. This fear gave rise to the infamous Salem Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts.
The Puritan’s strict lifestyle, their fear of outsiders and their terror of so-called “Devil’s magic” led them to accuse at least 200 people of witchcraft between 1692 and 1693—twenty of the accused were executed.
The Devil in Modern Times
Religious translations are often controversial. There’s usually some degree of dissent on how to interpret early texts, and texts about the Devil are no exception.
Even so, throughout history, the Devil’s reputation as an evildoer hasn’t changed much. Most Christians still believe he’s literally transformed the world and is responsible for much of the world’s corruption and chaos.
Not all religions shun the Devil, though. People of the Church of Satan, known as Satanists, don’t worship the Devil, but embrace him as a symbol of atheism, pride and liberty, among other things. Another type of Satanists, theistic Satanists, worship the Devil as a deity. They may practice Satanic rituals or even make Satanic pacts.
There’s no shortage of Hollywood films featuring the Devil. He’s been played by some of Hollywood’s elite such as Jack Nicholson, Vincent Price and Al Pacino. And after Mia Farrow’s character gave birth to Satan’s offspring in the horror-flick Rosemary’s Baby, expectant mothers who saw the film wished they hadn’t.
Given the draw of the battle between good and evil, it’s likely the Devil’s influence is here to stay, and he will continue to influence religion and pop culture.
Satanism
Satanism is a modern, largely non-theistic religion based on literary, artistic and philosophical interpretations of the central figure of evil. It wasn’t until the 1960s that an official Satanic church was formed by Anton LaVey.
Prior to the 20th Century, Satanism did not exist as a real organized religion but was commonly claimed as real by Christian churches. These claims surfaced particularly when persecuting other religious groups during events like the Inquisition, various witch hysterias in Europe and Colonial America and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s.
Satan as Anti-Hero
In his 14th-century poem “Inferno,” Dante captured centuries of Christian belief by portraying Satan as an evil monster. But the Romantics of the 17th century recast him as an admirable and magnetic rebel, an anti-hero defying God’s authoritarianism. John Milton’s epic 1667 poem “Paradise Lost” is the pivotal text for establishing this interpretation in creative works. William Godwin’s 1793 treatise “An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice” later gave Milton’s depiction political legitimacy.
The most enduring Satanic symbol was created by occult author Éliphas Lévi. Lévi describes him as the horned goat deity Baphomet, in his 1854 book Dogme et Rituel, which linked Baphomet with Satan.
Probably a French misinterpretation of “Muhammed,” Baphomet was the deity the Knights Templar were accused of worshipping in trials in the 14th century.
Satan in the 19th Century
The last half of the 19th century saw a resurgence in the view of Satan as anti-hero. This was thanks to works like Italian poet Giosuè Carducci’s anti-papal “Hymn To Satan” and William Blake’s illustrations for Paradise Lost in 1888.
In his own book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Blake presented Satan as a messiah. Around the same time, Theosophical Society founder Madame Blavatsky wrote about Satan as a commendable insurgent offering humans wisdom.
Artists in the Decadent movement like Félicien Rops placed Satanic imagery in paintings, influenced by writers like Baudelaire and Poe. Satan was also employed in writings from socialist leader like Mikhail Bakunin.
Polish author Stanisław Przybyszewski wrote two books about Satan in 1897, one fiction and one non-fiction. Przybyszewski’s Satan was an anarchist with a comprehensive philosophy that was similar to modern Satanism. Przybyszewski’s young acolytes called themselves Satan’s Kinder.
Aleister Crowley
Legendary occultist Aleister Crowley viewed Satan symbolically. His 1913 poem “A Hymn to Lucifer” celebrated the Devil as the provider of soul and rebellion to the universe. Crowley’s ideas were influential in Satanism.
One offshoot from Crowley’s crowd was the German group Fraternitas Saturni in 1926. Its founder Gregor A. Gregorius wrote Satanische Magie, which borrowed heavily from the Romantics and adopted Satan within the group’s astrological system. Fraternitas Saturni still exists and Gregorius’ writing has been used in Satanist practice.
Anton Lavey
Sometime between 1957 and 1960, Anton Lavey, a former carnival worker and musician, held night classes in the occult. Regular attendees eventually formed the Church of Satan.
These sessions were mostly discussion-based but on April 30, 1966, the group formalized as the Church of Satan and the meetings became more ritual-based, incorporating theatrics, costuming and music. Lavey became known as the Black Pope.
The Church’s early recruiting efforts included the short-lived Topless Witches Revue nightclub show, featuring Susan Atkins, who would later join the Manson Family.
The Satanic Bible
Lavey’s Satanic Bible was published in 1969, bringing together Lavey’s personal mix of black magic and occult concepts, secular philosophy and rationalism and anti-Christian ridicule into essays stressing human autonomy and self-determination in the face of an indifferent universe. The Satanic Bible gave the church a national reputation and served as a strong vehicle for its significant growth.
Herbert Sloane
Ohio barber and part-time spiritual medium Herbert Sloan claimed in 1969 that he started the first Satanist organization, the Our Lady of Endor Coven of the Ophite Cultus Sathanas, in 1948. Sloane described his group as focused on the metaphysical aspects of Satan and offered service, communion and coffee and donuts socializing afterward. To compete with Lavey’s offerings, he added naked women to the meetings.
Order of the Nine Angles
The Order of Nine Angles formed in England in the 1970s to practice an occult-focused Satanism and the more recent Joy of Satan which wraps UFO conspiracies and anti-Semitism into their Satanism.
Satanic Schisms
As the Church of Satan grew in size, internal rifts developed, leading some members split off to start their own branches.
One expelled church member, Wayne West, formed the First Occultic Church of Man in 1971. Newsletter editor Michael Aquino left to form the Temple of Set in 1975, and plenty others followed. As proof of Satanism’s growth, the U.S. Army included the faith in its manual for chaplains “Religious Requirements and Practices” beginning in 1978.
The next decade brought in newer denominations like the Luciferian Children of Satan, founded by Marco Dimitri in Italy in 1982. Dimitri was convicted of child abuse but was later cleared.
Later Satanic groups include the Order of the Left-Hand Path, a New Zealand group founded in1990 that mixed Satanism with Nietzschean philosophy, and the Satanic Reds. The Satanic Reds formed in 1997 in New York, and combined Satanism with socialism and Lovecraftian concepts—a subgenre of horror fiction.
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Satanic Panic
The 1980s Satanic Panic saw Christian fundamentalists push the idea that Satanic cults were systematically abusing children in rituals and committing widespread murder, and successfully convince the general public through sensational news coverage. Christian groups typically misrepresented the Church’s beliefs and practices in order to fabricate a real-world villain behind the conspiracy for the media.
Serial killer Richard Ramirez, when finally captured in 1985, claimed to be a Satanist, employing Satanic symbolism to his look and claiming to know Lavey, adding fuel to the fire of the panic. Lavey claimed they had briefly met in the streets in the 1970s, but Ramirez had never set foot in the church.
The panic escalated, with Satanic Ritual Abuse becoming a standard aspect of high profile cases like the McMartin School in California. These criminal cases featured a consistent lack of evidence and alleged coercion on the part of child psychologists pushing the conspiracy theory. The zeal of the fundamentalists led to few if any investigations or prosecutions of actual Satanists. Most of the victims of the frenzy were other Christians.
Post-Lavey Church of Satan
The Church of Satan weathered the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and ‘90s, with Lavey keeping a calm and low profile despite media attention. But the group faced challenges after Lavey’s death in 1997. Leadership went to Lavey’s partner Blanche Barton after a legal battle with his children. In 2001 Barton appointed author and Church member Peter H. Gilmore as high priest and his wife, church administrator Peggy Nadramia, as high priestess. Gilmore’s controversial claims that Church of Satan members were the only true Satanists led to a new wave of exoduses that saw departing church members creating their own offshoots.
Luciferanism
Former Order of the Nine Angles member and heavy metal musician Michael Ford formed the Greater Church of Lucifer in 2013, opening the first public Satanic Temple in Houston two years later. The GCL follows many LaVeyan principles with touches of the occult and has chapters in other countries.
The Satanic Temple
The most successful result of church divisions is The Satanic Temple. It first gained attention in 2013 with a satirical rally against Florida Governor Rick Scott, but grew into a more organized group quickly.
Cofounders Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jarry characterized the Temple’s creation as a reaction to the Church of Satan’s inability to “manifest itself into a real-world relevant organization.”
Calling itself a non-theistic religion embracing the Devil as a symbolic form of rebellion in the tradition of Milton, the Temple devoted itself to political action focused on the separation of church and state, religious equality and reproductive rights.
The Satanic Temple gained notoriety through two attempts to have a statue of Baphomet legally placed on two state capitol grounds—Oklahoma in 2015 and in Arkansas in 2018—in reaction to government-sanctioned 10 Commandments monuments.
The Temple launched a physical location in Salem, Massachusetts, in 2016 and was recognized as a religion by the U.S. government in 2019, receiving tax-free status. It has grown to include about 20 temples across North America and was the focus of Penny Lane’s acclaimed 2019 documentary, “Hail Satan?” which is credited for giving Satanism its highest profile yet.
Sources:
https://www.history.com/topics/folklore/history-of-the-devil
https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/satanism
