Satania

“ The great temple of light occupies a central place, but no one can be discerned therein. All beings of all the system worlds are welcomed as worshipers.
The seven satellites surrounding the Father's world are variously utilized in the different systems. In Satania they are now used as the detention spheres for the interned groups of the Lucifer rebellion. The constellation capital, Edentia, has no analogous prison worlds; the few seraphim and cherubim who went over to the rebels in the Satania rebellion have been long since confined on these isolation worlds of Jerusem. ”

“ You humans have begun an endless unfolding of an almost infinite panorama, a limitless expanding of never-ending, ever-widening spheres of opportunity for exhilarating service, matchless adventure, sublime uncertainty, and boundless attainment. When the clouds gather overhead, your faith should accept the fact of the presence of the indwelling Adjuster, and thus you should be able to look beyond the mists of mortal uncertainty into the clear shining of the sun of eternal righteousness on the beckoning heights of the mansion worlds of Satania. ”

“ These seraphim are also the evangels of the gospel of perfection attainment for the whole system as well as for the individual ascender. Even now in the young system of Satania their teachings and plans encompass provisions for the future ages when the mansion worlds will no longer serve the mortal ascenders as steppingstones to the spheres on high.
2. Racial Interpreters. All races of mortal beings are not alike. True, there is a planetary pattern running through the physical, mental, and spiritual natures and tendencies of the various races of a given world ”

“ Not Michael’s self hath dared, prince of the Seraphim.
Yet all now wail aloud. What ails ye, brethren? Speak!
Are ye too in rebellion? Angels Satan, no. But weak
With our long earthly toil, the unthankful care of Man. Satan Ye have in truth good cause. Angels And we would know God’s plan,
His true thought for the world, the wherefore and the why
Of His long patience mocked, His name in jeopardy.
We have no heart to serve without instructions new. Satan Ye have made a late discovery. ”

“ The Satan is introduced in the prologue, exercising his function as minister of God in heaven; but it is to misinterpret wholly the doctrine of evil in the Old Testament to assign to the Satan any such personal importance or independence of power as that he should be called before the curtain to receive the hisses that accompany his own discomfiture. The Satan, though he here appears with the beginnings of a malevolent will of his own, is but the instrument of the sifting providence of God. ”

“ In vain monks and nuns try to shut him out from their lives; he inspires Heloïse, he murmurs the verses of Ovid and Horace among David’s psalms and tears of repentance. But Satan often peoples the sleepless cell with images of a better age. He arouses, from the pages of Livy, eager tribunes, consuls, agitated shouting crowds. Wiclif and Huss, Savonarola, Luther secure the triumph of human thought: matter, rise again! Satan has conquered. ”

“ On the whole, however, what has been said under the heading of diabolos will apply to the word satan. Any person who is an opposer of right is a satan. Hence our Lord’s words to the Apostle Peter, "Get thee behind me, satan"; from which no reasonable person would infer that Peter was the being superstition supposes the devil to be.
When the grand mission of Christ is completed there will be no satan, diabolos nor demon, for he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet; the last enemy shall be destroyed--death.
Sin, the transgression of law, made man a satan--an adversary of right. ”

“ And since the demons assist the most wicked, the Saviour came for the destruction of evil men and of the demons, but for the salvation of the good. They declare also, that marriage and generation are from Satan. Many of those, too, who belong to his school, abstain from animal food, and draw away multitudes by a feigned temperance of this kind. They hold, moreover, that some of the prophecies were uttered by those angels who made the world, and some by Satan; whom Saturninus represents as being himself an angel, the enemy of the creators of the world, but especially of the God of the Jews. ”

“ When Satan heard these words from her, he changed his form, and he began to choke her, and she prayed to the glorious Saint Michael, and he came unto her forthwith and delivered her from him. And he seized Satan and began to punish him, and Satan entreated him, saying, “God will bear with us until the end of the world. Have mercy upon me and do not torture me”; and he gave her the salutation of peace and went up into heaven. ”

“ It is a marvel to me how some Christians who find the recognition of miracles inextricably involved in the life and even in the teaching of Christ, nevertheless fail to see, or at all events are most unwilling to confess, that the recognition of an evil one, or Satan, is an axiom that underlies all His doctrine. In the view of Jesus, it is Satan that causes some forms of disease and insanity; Satan is the author of temptation, the destroyer of the good seed, the sower of tares, the "evil one"—so at least the text of the Revisers tells us—from whom we must daily pray to be delivered. ”

“ And God said to Satan, Hast thou not considered my servant Job that there is no man like him in the earth, a man simple, rightful, dreading God, and going from evil, and yet retaining his innocency? Thou hast moved me against him that I should put him to affliction without cause. To whom Satan said: Skin for skin, and all that ever a man hath he shall give for his soul. Nevertheless, stretch thine hand and touch his mouth and his flesh, and thou shalt see that he shall not bless thee. Then said God to Satan: I will well that his body be in thine hand, but save his soul and his life. ”

“ To hear our orthodox friends declaim on the powers of Satan almost makes one ready to believe that God is dead and Satan rules supreme. Such is the blasphemy of demonic faith.
While Satan, as the arch-enemy, is somewhat similar to the Persian Ahriman, he is not alone in his wickedness. When Christianity came into power and supplanted paganism as the Roman state religion, it immediately debased all of the pagan gods, whom it did not appropriate to itself as saints, to devils and assigned them subordinate positions in hell, under command of the great Satan. ”

“ The weird women, with their incantations and their broomsticks, their magic spells and their diabolical trysts, are but the slaves of the Demon, who, whether as their lover or their torturer, is ever their master, whose name they whisper with fear, and whose commands they obey with instant alacrity. For the Master of Ceremonies in the Infernal revels, the Lord of the Witches’ Sabbat, is none other than Satan himself, the incarnate principle of Evil, the Boss of Hell! ”

“ Satan is constantly engaged in doing all in his power to entice men away from God, and to have himself worshipped instead of the Creator. The introduction, establishment, persistence, and power of the various cruel, revolting superstitions of the ancient heathen world, or of pagan nations in modern times, are nothing but the work of the devil. They reveal a more than human power. God permitted Satan to operate upon man’s morbid nature, as a deserved punishment upon the Gentiles for their hatred of truth and their apostasy from the primitive religion. ”

“ The cult had now reached a further stage in its development, and it was not the mere propitiation of Satanael as the prince of this world practised by the Luciferians, but actual Satanism--the love of evil for the sake of evil--which formed the doctrine of the sect known in Italy as la vecchia religione or the "old religion." Sorcery was adopted as a profession, and witches, not, as is popularly supposed, sporadic growths, were trained in schools of magic to practise their art. ”

“ And our Lord Jesus Christ appeared unto them, and encouraged them, and gave them strength to endure patiently. And when God willed that their virtues should become manifest, Satan seized the daughter of the king, and tortured her with so many tortures that her father and her mother sorrowed greatly. Now there were in the city many Satans, who manifested themselves boldly, and who cried out and said, “What have we to do with thee, O Marcarius, and thy companion whom they have exiled from their country?” ”

“ No, priest, Satan turns not back. See, rust eats away Michael’s mystic brand; and the faithful archangel, plucked of his feathers, falls into space. Cold is the thunderbolt in Jehovah’s hand. Like pallid meteors, extinguished planets, do the angels rain down from the firmaments. In never-sleeping matter, king of phenomena, king of forms, Satan lives alone.”
Satan lurks in beauty, love, and wine, so the poem goes on; and Satan breathes “from my verse if, bursting forth from my breast and defying the god of guilty priests, of bloody kings, it shakes the minds of men like a thunderbolt.” ”

“ To understand the first of these facts I must explain that the attempt to form a partnership with the lost angels of orthodox theology, which attempt constitutes Black Magic, has, in Europe at least, been invariably connected with sacrilege. By the hypothesis of demonology, Satan is the enemy of Christ, and to please Satan the sorcerer must outrage Christ, especially in his sacraments. ”

“ Many individuals define satanism from a totally Christian perspective, using this word to describe the power of evil in the world. With this definition, any crimes, especially those which are particularly bizarre, repulsive, or cruel, can be viewed as satanic in nature. Yet, it is just as difficult to precisely define satanism as it is to precisely define Christianity or any complex spiritual belief system. ”

“ Tell me: is it not ridiculously funny when Satan, even in human form, bends his knee in prayer to a prostitute and is stripped naked by the very first man he meets? Yes, this is extremely ridiculous and shameful of Satan, who bears with him the breath of eternity. But what would you say of Satan when he turned into a powerless and pitiful liar and pasted upon his head with a great flourish the paper crown of a theatrical czar? I am ashamed, old man. Give me one of your blows, the kind on which you feed your friends and hired clowns. ”

“ Satan tempts men to evil, and they have power to resist the temptation. The more sin is cultivated, the stronger it grows, until it binds down men with strong chains.
Satan whispers in the ears of those who list to obey him, "Lie a little; deceive a little, take the advantage of your neighbour a little, drink whisky a little: it will not harm you;"—leading them along, as it were, with silken cords, until he binds them with his strong chains, and readily leads them down to destruction. ”

“ And this is the object which Satan seeks to accomplish. There is nothing that he desires more than to destroy confidence in God and in His word. Satan stands at the head of the great army of doubters, and he works to the utmost of his power to beguile souls into his ranks. It is becoming fashionable to doubt. There is a large class by whom the word of God is looked upon with distrust for the same reason as was its Author,—because it reproves and condemns sin. ”

“ This Christian devil-worship, for it can be called little else, crept into Judaism during the Babylonian captivity, and was originally a recognition of the dual powers of good and evil, seemingly coequal. By placing Satan in opposition to God, in giving him eternal life, and endowing him with miraculous powers, and even allowing him to upset and vanquish the plans of God, Christians have made Satan equal, if not superior, to the Deity. ”

“ Omnipresent, and well-nigh omnipotent and omniscient, Satan and his demons were ever and everywhere at work to obtain, by cunning arts, control over the souls of men, to cross their purposes, and to vex their bodies. The{380} food of these beings was the suffering of the damned, and human salvation their most exquisite torment. To effect their objects human agents were indispensable, and Satan was always ready to impart a portion of his power, or to consign a subordinate demon, to any one who would serve him. ”

“ He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.
23 [66] And he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan?
24 And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
25 And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
26 And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.
27 [67] No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house. ”

“ Above the great main entrance, the most common of all representations still shows Satan and his imps scowling, jeering, grinning, while taking possession of the souls of men and scourging them with serpents, or driving them with tridents, or dragging them with chains into the flaming mouth of hell. Even in the most hidden and sacred places of the medieval cathedral we still find representations of Satanic power in which profanity and obscenity run riot. ”

“ The term Modern Satanism is not intended to signify the development of some new aspect of old doctrine concerning demonology, or some new argument for the personification of the evil principle in universal nature. It is intended to signify the alleged revival, or, at least, the reappearance to some extent in public, of a cultus diabolicus, or formal religion of the devil, the existence of which, in the middle ages, is registered by the known facts of the Black Sabbath, a department, however, of historical research, to which full justice yet remains to be done. ”