“The Rise of Satan” (Part I)

July 23, 2019

By Jim Culp

Yesterday was a true “memory jogger” for me, and I scrolled through Facebook and the news, and came upon an article about the Satanic Temple pursuing the act of placing statues here and there…most notably in places where the Ten Commandments are placed in front of Court Houses and the like.

It’s been a while since we heard about the Ten Commandments argument, but we won’t rehash that here. I can rant all day about people wanting to make the USA a theocracy, but will not today.

If you are a person that is unfamiliar with the Church of Satan, it goes way back to the 1960’s. It was a time of change for the USA, and “young people speakin’ their minds” as Stephen Stills once sang. Hippies and revolution were the tempo of the day, and the Vietnam War was in full swing. Enter Anton Lavey…a singer, writer, and anti-establishment show man. It was in this year that Lavey founded the Church of Satan… and subsequently declared 1966 the First Year of the Age of Satan. Lavey had a fair amount to followers; and wrote several books. I ready one of them during my spiritual reformation of 2004. Lavey was rarely taken seriously, but nonetheless had great influence on many people…some of them years after his death in 1997. I had soldiers in the Army that were Satanists. I used to talk to them and find that they were just people that were raised strict Catholics and hated going to all the rituals. We had that in common.

Today let’s talk about this character Satan. For this, we need to go way back. I studied religious texts of many cultures for twenty years… and found some form of this entity in every one of them. For now, let us stick with Abrahamic religions. We’ll have to go back to about 300 BC, and into the Book of Enoch. This person was the father of Noah, the biblical character that built an “ark” (a very big boat or ship) according to God’s instructions, and saved a portion of humans and two of every animal on Earth for purposed of starting a new civilization after God destroyed the surface of the Earth with a great flood.

You are not going to find the Book of Enoch in your modern bible, anymore than you will find the Book of Eli. The Book of Enoch was removed (along with 22+ others) by men over a period of a thousand years because it was not considered canonical (inspired by God). The Book of Enoch spoke of giants and demons that walked the Earth, and it was removed from many texts by the Jews, because it contained prophecies of the Coming of the Christ. It was, however one of the earliest books that I found a reference to Satan. So I am inspired to believe that this creature did not have much prominence until I find him in the creation story of Genesis, and then playing a very important role in the Book of Job, where he directly interacted with a human being, and was allowed by God to torture the man for a season.

Job 2:1

“Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD*, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD*.”

{*: God, the Father, the Almighty}

Job 2:7

“So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.”

Satan appears many times in the repetitive books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and many times in Paul’s letters to the many states of the day that were provinces of the Roman Empire

Fast forward to the Isle of Patmos (Patmos is on the far west side of modern-day Turkey, in the Aegean Sea) to about 80-90 AD. John was sentenced to exile by the Emperor Domitian (an act of Grace in those days) to live out his days as John of Patmos. John would live to the ripe old age of 93…but before he died he was said to have had the most prophetic of visions, and these visions would translate over two millennia to books that could be called Revelation, The Book of Revelation, The Revelation of Jesus Christ, and the Apocalypse. There are many books that describe demons and devils, but Revelation accounts for some that will partake in the end of days. If you wish to delve into demonology (as I did); I recommend the Lemegeton; and read the Lesser Keys of Solomon…where he summoned demons and devils to do his bidding. You’ll find it tedious reading, much like a spell book… because that is what it is.

So, John of Patmos wrote down the things that he saw in visions, but for the purposes of this paper, we will stay in the confines of our subject, Satan.

Revelation 12:3

And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

Revelation 12:7          

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

Revelation 12:9          

And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

So, this character lives through the entire bible, and that work is reported to have claimed a period of about a millennium. John’s visons are of the future (we are told) and will happen sometime after the return of the Christ.

But hold on, Muslims (who are devout to Islam) believe there is a devil too. But it is the only one besides Christianity that calls him by his name.

We go to the Holy Quran, the book of Islam. Here we find warning about this entity called Satan.

O mankind, eat from whatever is on earth [that is] lawful and good and do not follow the footsteps of Satan. Indeed, he is to you a clear enemy.

(2:208)

ادْخُلُوا فِي السِّلْمِ كَافَّةً وَلَا تَتَّبِعُوا خُطُوَاتِ الشَّيْطَانِ

O you who have believed, enter into Islam completely [and perfectly] and do not follow the footsteps of Satan. Indeed, he is to you a clear enemy.

(2:268)

الشَّيْطَانُ يَعِدُكُمُ الْفَقْرَ وَيَأْمُرُكُمْ بِالْفَحْشَاءِ

Satan threatens you with poverty and orders you to immorality, while Allah promises you forgiveness from Him and bounty. And Allah is all-Encompassing and Knowing.

In modern times, I have spent many of my hours studying these readings. There are so many versions of the bible, you can get lost just trying to figure out what is original and what is not. The Quran is pretty straight across the board. It is more filled with orders on how to live than it is with prophecy and stories.

So, we have identified Satan as the bad guy, the dragon, the enemy of God. There, that is done. In Part Two we will talk about Satan’s influences on society, and how we came to a time when people are arguing about statues that mean things, just like they did 3,000 years ago.

-Jim 

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