God and the
Devil, Gods and Demons and Devils, and the Goddess
In
Homer, the Greeks are seen to equate theos (god) with daemon
(demon), the first stressing personality and the second
activity. Later came the concept of a personal deamon, along
with one's fate.
Later,
when the Jews turned the gods of their enemies into evil
forces, the pagan gods became demons and the personal spirit
was usually called genius. From the Jews we also got the
idea of angels fallen from heaven by the sin of pride under
the leadership of Satan (The
Adversary). This chief Evil One we call The Devil, and all
the angels who fell with him
(and presumably all the pagan gods) are devils and demons.
In
this book, devils and demons are regarded as the same thing.
Where the devils and demons of other religions fit into
the Judeo-Christian idea is a vexed question. We made, for
instance, the chief evil god (Ahriman)
of the Persians into our Devil and the occult practices
of their Magi into our black magic, alternatively feared
or dismissed as charlatanism.
If
the Magi who followed
the star to Bethlehem were among the first to honor Christ,
the early Christians believed, then there must be some power
in their astrology, and if The Devil is active in the world,
there must be some ways of taking his side against God and
obtaining power from The Devil by a pact bartering the soul.
Those
whom the church regarded as heretics were of The Devil's
party in the eyes of the church and were to be put down.
Students of cabalistic and other hermetic lore were suspect.
Witches were thought to be practicing the religion of The
Devil, often with ceremonies parodying those of the church.
Alchemy and astrology
and other pseudo-sciences became entangled with demonology
and witchcraft.
Magic potions and medicine existed side by side.
The
superstitious medieval mind was much infected by all of
this. It was not really until after the medieval witchcraft
scare that the great witch persecutions began in earnest.
The Renaissance and Reformation were the darkest periods
of superstition and violence as regards to The Devil and
his devils and demons. Hundreds of thousands of persons
were accused of witchcraft and their bodies destroyed, presumably
for the good of their souls - or those of the faithful.
In
the 20th century, witches tend to be involved not with The
Devil but with The Goddess,
whose religion (claimed Margaret Murray in much-debated
books) was the Old Religion that Christianity could not
quite destroy and which was the base of magic and witchcraft.
Most
modern witchcraft pays little or no attention to devils
and demons and is not to be equated with Satanism.
Where
the religion of The Devil was one of anarchy and destruction
of God's great plan, the religion of The Goddess is one
of harmony and living in accord with nature.
