Annie Besant

“ Finally Ahriman himself shall become pure and holy, and eternal and universal happiness shall reign.
It is tolerably clear that the Christian Devil, inherited from the Jews, is a debased copy of Ahriman. Like God he is ubiquitous, tempting men simultaneously in all parts of the world. Like God he is immortal, as eternal in his hell as is God in his heaven. He quite holds his own in his long rivalry; when God creates man, the Devil mars him; he succeeds in so ravaging the world that was made "very good" that God is obliged to destroy it by water ”

“ The belief in a devil, in one evil spirit, is a result of partial civilisation. As Theism grows from Fetichism, through Polytheism, to Monotheism, so does Devilism grow from the same root of Fetichism, through Polydevilism, into Monodevilism. ”

“ The Christian Trinity shall take its place in the Pantheon beside the rescued and restored forms of the Gods of old, and Gods and Devils shall alike be regarded as the dream-fancies of a child-world, some fair, some ugly, but all unworthy of credence in maturer life. ”

“ The title of this paper suggests the mode in which the Devil is to be treated: he is to be studied as a natural product, and just as the place of an animal is settled by studying it in the light of comparative anatomy, and its descent is traced by the study of its embryology, of its rudimentary organs, etc., so will the place of the Christian Devil be settled by studying him in the light of comparative mythology, and his descent be traced by seeking his embryonic form, his many now rudimentary organs, his gradual development, in a word by studying his evolution. ”

“ Horns are ancient symbols of the rays of the sun, and hence of divine strength; the halo with which Christians decorate Christ and his saints is a solar symbol, and the horns of the despised Devil have exactly the same signification as the halo of the God. ”

“ The Fetich of the savage is both good and evil; if things go well with its worshipper, the Fetich is caressed; if things go evilly, it is soundly beaten to teach amendment of its ways. The Fetich is neither God nor Devil, though it has some of the features of both: it resembles the Protista, which are neither animal nor vegetable, but have something of either; in these lowest organisms there is no specialisation of function, no differentiation of organ. ”

“ If Satan is God's angel, not his foe, and acts merely as an intermediary, the tempting of David was equally God's act whether done by himself directly or by means of the angel whose special duty it was to test and try men. ”

“ The clubbed foot often given to the Devil, so that he goes limping, is a sign that he is fallen from his original high estate: as Hephaistos was flung from Olympus by Zeus and lamed for ever, so Satan is imaged as lame, having fallen from heaven. ”

“ The character of the Hebrew Satan changed entirely after the captivity. The Jews brought back from Babylon a Devil who was the rival, the enemy of God, a dwarfed and misshapen copy of the mighty Persian Ahriman. The story of the Fall, with its seducing serpent, and the various identifications of the Devil with the serpent, found in the Jewish Scriptures, especially in the New Testament, are purely Persian; Zahak, the Prometheus of Persia, was the king of the serpents, and Ahriman after his fall to earth turned into a serpent. ”

“ Strange and suggestive thought, that all Devils are dethroned Gods, and all reigning Gods Devils in embryo. As Zeus and Hermes, Isis and Osiris, Jupiter and Mercury, have passed first into Devils, and finally into acknowledged myths, so shall the Gods of the present in their turn fade away and dissolve into nonentity. But since men are wiser than of yore, the Christian Deities are likely to escape from being devilised as were their predecessors. ”

“ The evolution of demons and devils out of deities was made real to the popular imagination in every country where the new religion found art existing, and by alliance with it was enabled to shape the ideas of the people. ”

“ Thenceforward war raged between the brothers, and whenever Ormuzd created aught perfect, Ahriman made somewhat to oppose or mar it. When Ormuzd created, Ahriman slew, and when Ormuzd made man and woman pure and happy Ahriman tempted them to fall. This fraternal conflict is to endure for 12,000 years, at the end of which period Ahriman is to set the universe on fire; the good shall pass unscathed through the flames, while the wicked shall be purified in them for three days and three nights and shall then ascend to paradise. ”

“ As the peopling of the earth presented difficulties under these circumstances, God was obliged to create another woman, and he thereupon made her out of one of Adam's ribs, so that if she claimed equality he might be able to retort: "Well, you are nothing but a rib, and would never have existed at all if I had not lent a bone to make you out of."
Meanwhile Lilith had met Samaël, the head of the Devils, and had married him; these Devils were anxious that the human race should fall from purity, in order that they might be able to enter into them and live in their bodies. ”

“ Conway well points out in the book above quoted, every religion is inclined to transform into Devils the Gods of the religion that it supplants. The Persian Devil is a serpent, because the serpent was the symbol of Vishnu, the Hindu deity, and in the bitter conflict between Parsee and Hindu each party devilised the Gods of the other. ”

“ To the early Christians, the Pagan Gods were real beings, but beings of an evil kind. "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to Devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with Devils. ”

“ With such a God, a Devil was eminently superfluous, and we accordingly find that the Hebrew Satan was an "angel of the Lord", executing God's judgments on the wicked, and testing the worth of the pious. ”

“ The Devil being thus declared unnecessary to salvation, he was no longer readily received in good society, and he has gone from bad to worse until he only hangs about very low neighborhoods and that principally during the night. ”

“ The lineaments of the "Man of Sorrows" shall not be distorted into hideousness as were the fair faces of the elder Gods, for there will be no need to alienate the heart by ugliness when the brain has rejected all supernatural pretention. ”

“ Then the beneficent forces of Nature were deified, and the destructive devilised, till Gods and Devils innumerable filled the air. Of these, those who were most dreaded were most worshipped, and those whose wrath was feared were most propitiated with offerings and sacrifices. ”