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The Concept Of Satan

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At some stage in our esoteric lessons, we come to consider the need for clarity regarding a subject that has been greatly misunderstood throughout the ages – the concept of Satan or the Devil. The Devil is not a particular possession of the Christian faith and its origin is found in the remote past.

Some thought flow buoyed by history.

We’ll keep it simple.

Consider:

In the Old Testament, Satan is mentioned only three times.

Zechariah 3: 1-2 – “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the Lord said to Satan, ‘The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you!”

Job 1-2 – Satan is presented as the tempter and adversary of God, plying him for the soul of his servant Job.

1 Chronicles 21:1 – Satan appears as the tempter of David.

These particular passages, scholars consider to be from the postexilic period dated later than 539 B.C. Historically from this, we can theorize that Satan did not stem from the period when the Jews were held in captivity by the Egyptians. Current thought then lends this possibility – that the idea of a force of evil equal to God may have been derived from contact with members of the Zoroastrian faith of Persia.

The Zoroastrian religion, based on the teachings of Zoroaster, holds that two gods, Ahura Mazda aka Ormazd, was the leader of the “host of light” and the source of all good while Angra Mainya aka Ahriman was a spirit of darkness and the source of all evil. These two constantly battle for control of the world and all of its manifestations. At the end of it all, it is believed that Ormazd, the god of good wins and defeats Ahriman, the god of evil.

Further along, when this concept came to Judaism it led to the creation of the Satan (Sa-tan) patterned after Ahriman the creation who stood in opposition to God who sought to ruin man and frustrate the purpose God had for man. The Hebrew word Satan literally means adversary or accuser. This particular creation was always inferior to God rather than a dualistic equal version found in Zoroastrianism.

When Christianity rose and at the Council of Toledo I A.D. 447, Satan was transformed into the concept of Devil which is Greek for slanderer by the Church.

The Devil gets his horns:

Yet here is a puzzle piece to consider: The Devil as understood by Christianity was a misunderstanding based upon ignorance regarding the true nature of Wicca and its traditional association with horned gods and priests. This was fostered during the medieval period when Christians happened to stumble upon outdoor meetings of Wiccans whereby a priest might be dressed as a creature of horns dancing around a fire as it had been done for centuries. Because of the teachings of the Church and some lively imaginations observers went back to their priests insisting they had seen Satan himself. Unfortunately, because these people could not read or write, they did not know why the Church came to believe in the Devil.

In contemporary times, some people still believe in God and Satan in a literal sense often using the argument that Satan’s strongest tool is the use of non-belief in his power or existence. Some believe there is God but certainly no Satan. Still others believe there is a foundation based upon the balance of the forces of good and evil with no constructed concept of the duality of God vs Satan.

What does your contact with the Universal Mind tell you about the mythos?

 Enter the silence and find out.