Demon worship

“ For this I would have you know for certain, that every one who has at any time worshipped idols, and has adored those whom the pagans call gods, or has eaten of the things sacrificed to them, is not without an unclean spirit; for he has become a guest of demons, and has been partaker with that demon of which he has formed the image in his mind, either through fear or love. ”

“ Some are rubbing their eyes as if startled from a deep sleep, but not yet aware of the cause of alarm; others are utterly bewildered, and hesitate to leave their resting-place; some leap out in mad excitement, and others hurry off as if fearing to be again consigned to the tomb. An angel is leading a cheerful company of popes, bishops, and kings toward the Saviour, while a hideous demon, with a mouth stretching from ear to ear, is dragging off a number of the condemned toward the devil, who is seen stirring up a huge caldron boiling and bubbling with naked babies, dead before baptism. ”

“ A spiritual being, whose home is heaven, who rides on the winds, whose wrath is dreaded, who sanctions the oath, is only called "a demon" by the prejudice of the worthy father who, at the same time, admits that the savages have a conception of God—and that God, so conceived, is this demon! ”

“ Well pleased, however, that the young man had been freed from the evil spirit, they returned the eye to its place as well as they could, and bound it up with a handkerchief, praying fervently, and one of his relatives said: "God who drove out the demon at the prayer of his saints can also restore the sight." ”

“ He adhered at last to the confession that on five occasions, to obtain possession of women, he had made wax figurines with invocations of demons, mixing with them the blood{456} of toads and his own blood and saliva, as a sacrifice to Satan. He would then place the image under the threshold of the woman, and if she did not yield to him she would be tormented by a demon. ”

“ From the cloud on which Eve stands, Satan is seen falling head-long, wound round by the tail of the serpent, whose bulk, nailed to the cross round which he wreathes, is falling into the abyss. Sin is also represented as a female bound in one of the serpent's folds, surrounded by her fiends. Death is chained to the cross, and Time falls together with Death, dragged down by a demon crowned with laurel. ”

“ For every demon, when exorcised in the name of this very Son of God—who is the First-born of every creature, who became man by the Virgin, who suffered, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate by your nation, who died, who rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven—is overcome and subdued. But though you exorcise any demon in the name of any of those who were amongst you—either kings, or righteous men, or prophets, or patriarchs—it will not be subject to you. ”

“ Devils have feared the saints, and have fled from their shadow. The shadow is an image, and I make an image that I may scare demons. If you say that only intellectual worship befits God, take away all corporeal things, light, and fragrance, prayer itself through the physical voice, the very divine mysteries which are offered through matter, bread, and wine, the oil of chrism, the sign of the Cross, for all this is matter. ”

“ We should love and embrace them with hand and heart as reminders of the incarnate God, or His Mother, or of the saints, the participators in the sufferings and the glory of Christ, the conquerors and overthrowers of Satan, and diabolical fraud. If any one should dare to make an image of Almighty God, who is pure Spirit, invisible, uncircumscribed, we reject it as a falsehood. If any one make images for the honour and worship of the Devil and his angels, we abhor them and deliver them to the flames. ”

“ Once I saw a Devil in a flame of fire, who arose before an Angel that sat on a cloud, and the Devil uttered these words: “The worship of God is, honouring His gifts in other men each according to his genius, and loving the greatest men best. Those who envy or calumniate great men hate God, for there is no other God.” ”

“ For this salutary purpose processions parade the streets by night; images of the gods are borne in them, torches waved, gongs beaten, guns fired, crackers popped, swords brandished, demon-dispelling trumpets blown, and priests in full canonicals trot up and down jingling hand-bells, winding blasts on buffalo horns, and reciting exorcisms. Sometimes the deities are represented in these processions by living men, who are believed to be possessed by the divine spirit. Such a man-god may be seen naked to the waist with his dishevelled hair streaming down his back ”

“ What maintained the use of the spell-prayer in full vigour throughout the earlier and medieval epochs of Christendom, even in the orthodox ritual, was chiefly the practice of exorcism and the belief in demons and demoniac possession; and the legal institution of the ordeal contributed also to its maintenance. As modern society has abandoned such institutions, and the modern mind is no longer possessed with demonology, so in the modern worship prayer has become more and more purified from the associations of the spell ”

“ Then there came each one of the demon host that was waiting for the poor soul, and a roll of dark black parchment in the hand of each of them, in which was written all that the dead man had done in the service of the devil. On the Saviour Jesus Christ perceiving that, it was what He said, "Take with you this damned soul to hell, to pain it till the day of the general judgment, and from that out ye shall have the body as well as the soul, enduring eternal pains." ”

“ The miraculous powers of the church wonderfully multiplied; but implicit belief in miracles was equivocal, unless the act of faith was accompanied by liberal contributions at the altar. The purchase of pardons for sin, and the worship of the relics exhibited in sumptuous shrines, were effectual ways of warring with the powers of darkness, and the coffers overflowed with contributions. These active hostilities against Satan occasioned him to ascend upon earth, and, to terrify the devout, he often appeared to them in the natural ugliness of his own proper person. ”

“ In earlier ages, these demons were often deemed to be intermediate messengers and links facilitating intercourse between mortals on earth and most eminent gods above. That idea, somewhat qualified, is having revival now in the minds of those who are receiving from their departed friends instructions and influences which allure humans heavenward. In the olden faith, demon was used to designate a spirit who might be good ”

“ I therefore, having heard this, glorified the Lord God, and again I questioned the demon, saying: " Tell me how ye can ascend into heaven, being demons, and amidst the stars and holy angels intermingle." And he answered: "Just as things are fulfilled in heaven, so also on earth (are fulfilled) the types * of all of them. For there are principalities, authorities, world -rulers', and we demons fly about in the air; and we hear the voices of the heavenly beings, and survey all the powers. ”

“ And this usage has become so universal, that, even among those who are called pagans, and who maintain that demons as well as gods should be worshipped, there is scarcely a man, no matter how well read and learned, who would dare to say by way of praise to his slave, You have a demon, or who could doubt that the man to whom he said this would consider it a curse? ”

“ Hear, O Christians, continued the devils, this mother of Christ is too powerful in preserving all her servants from hell; it is she that, as a sun, dissipates all our darkness, and enervates and brings to nought all our machinations. We are forced to confess that nobody is damned who perseveres in her holy worship, and is devoted to her. ”

“ The truth is, as I have often said, and as Scripture informs us, and as the facts themselves sufficiently indicate, the demons are found to look after their own ends only, that they may be regarded and worshipped as gods, and that men may be induced to offer to them a worship which associates them with their crimes, and involves them in one common wickedness and judgment of God. ”

“ Satan, the Devil, the old Serpent, the world and the flesh. These are what you serve, and these are the one—for all together make but one—to whom you are to look for your reward. And let me tell you from love in my heart for your soul, that your life in the service of the devil is a life of sin, and the reward or wages of sin is death; not extinction, but a state of deadness to all blessedness and happiness forever. ”

“ In the same way demons and angels breathe into the soul and excite its corruptions, and especially mislead men by inducing them to sacrifice to false deities in order that they may thus obtain their peculiar food of fumes of flesh and blood. Every spirit, whether angel or demon, has wings ”

“ In illustrating the doctrine by typical examples from the enormous mass of available details, it will hardly be possible to discriminate among the operating spirits, between those which are souls and those which are demons, nor to draw an exact line between obsession by a demon outside and possession by a demon inside, nor between the condition of the demon-tormented patient and the demon-actuated doctor, seer, or priest. ”

“ Accordingly, those who worship God must not serve demons. We may also learn the true nature of demons if we consider the practice of those who call upon them by charms to prevent certain things, or for many other purposes. For this is the method they adopt, in order by means of incantations and magical arts to invoke the demons, and induce them to further their wishes. Wherefore the worship of all demons would be inconsistent in us who worship the supreme God; and the service of demons is the service of so-called gods, for “all the gods of the heathen are demons.” ”

“ Hence the symptoms of possession not unfrequently cease under a fervent invocation of the Saviour, if the exorciser is able by his superior energy of will to create in the patient a firm faith in the power of the holy name. This expulsion of the demon is, of course, nothing more than the abandonment of the struggle by the evil principle in the sufferer's soul, by which the good impulses become once [Pg 346] more dominant, and a healthy, natural state of mind and body is restored. ”

“ As to the nature of these demons, it has been generally believed, that they were spirits of a higher origin than the human race; and, in support of this opinion, it has been alleged, that the supreme deity of the Pagans is called the greatest demon; that demons are described as beings placed between the gods and men; and that demons are expressly distinguished from heroes, who were the departed souls of men. ”

“ The ex-god—Deities demonised by conquest—Theological animosity—Illustration from the Avesta—Devil-worship an arrested Deism—Sheik Adi—Why demons were painted ugly—Survivals of their beauty.
The phenomena of the transformation of deities into demons meet the student of Demonology at every step. ”

“ Seventhly, The devil brings a nauseating of the duties of worship, by a wrong representation of them, in the carriage and gestures of those that engage in them. It seems strange to some that are but as idle spectators to observe the postures of saints, seriously lifting up their eyes to heaven, or humbly mourning and smiting on their breasts. ”

“ The worship of demons then has ceased: creation has been sanctified by the divine blood: altars and temples of idols have been overthrown, the knowledge of God has been implanted in men’s minds, the co-essential Trinity, the uncreate divinity, one true God, Creator and Lord of all receives men’s service: virtues are cultivated, the hope of resurrection has been granted through the resurrection of Christ, the demons shudder at those men who of old were under their subjection. ”

“ Yet Miss Murray does not explain why the number thirteen should form any link with an earlier ritual and worship. On the other hand, the demonologists are never tired of insisting that Satan is the ape of God in all things, and that the worshippers of evil delight to parody every divine ordinance and institution. The explanation is simple. The number thirteen was adopted by the witches for their covens in mockery of Our Lord and His Apostles. ”

“ First, the moral condition among the spiritists is exactly as it was among the ancient priests and priestesses in the temples of Devil worship; they literally worshipped the Devil in their corrupt, degrading practices. Now, among the votaries of Spiritualism, every iniquity, crime, and indecency known among men and women are daily carried on. ”

“ To the same place or kingdom pertaining to this earth. They do not go to the depths of hell, neither can they until they become angels of devils.
Is a Saint subject to the power of the Devil in the spirit world? No, because he has gained the victory through faith, and can command Satan, and he must obey. How is it with the wicked? The Devil has power over them to distress and afflict them: they are in hell. ”

“ With their sick and their stricken, in faith they flock round Him,
As sighing He looks up to Heaven for strength.
He has touched the deaf ears and the blind eyes anointed—
And straightway they hear Him and straightway they see;
Laid hands on the lame and they leap, supple-jointed,
The devils denounced and affrighted they flee.
Yea? for their faith, from each life-long affliction,
Yea, for their faith from their sins they are freed,
And therefore have earned His divine benediction—
Stretch forth Thy hand, for as sore is our need. ”

“ Since the Church believed in demon possession it sought to cure by exorcism and there are in the ritual of the Church, as the ritual has finally taken form, offices growing out of this long, long battle against evil spirits which have now little suggestion of their original purpose. ”