Let's talk about Satan

If there is a 'highest', then there's also a basement

[Yes, this is more ‘grim reaper’ than the Christian basement dweller, but I had it handy.]

Pagans don’t worship Satan. This is a common misconception among Christians, which we’re going to have to continue addressing. Probably until the cows come home. It has to be done calmly, even when the Christian in question isn’t listening.

I’ve written about Pagan concepts around people doing bad things and compared that to Christian notions.

Years ago, a friend asked me if I believed evil existed. After a great deal of squirming, I decided that I thought it did. However, then I needed to refine why I thought so, the implications, and what that meant for my spiritual and religious practice. Now I’m figuring out how to talk to Christians.

Not all Christians see Satan as an existential threat. I’m reasonably sure that some don’t see him as real. Pagans don’t believe in him. But what does that mean, exactly? Do we think that no such entity exists? Do we think he exists for Christians, but ‘not my circus, not my monkeys’? Do we acknowledge his presence in the world but choose not to feed him with attention? I’ve met people with all three attitudes, and read plenty of commentary on the subject. I lean somewhere between the last two. The most common thing we can agree on is, Pagans/Wiccans/Witches/Heathens/Druids do not worship Satan.

I’ll be very honest here and say that dislike even writing the name. I feel this way because words have power. To name something give it some energy. Whatever Christians believe, giving the highest and best, a polar opposite, can only give that energy one way to go. Nor is this concept of polarity unique to Christianity. Zoroastrianism, which syncretized with Mithraism in ancient Persia [Iran], held that the highest divine was Ahura Mazda, and the the highest was opposed by Angra Manyu. The latter ruled demons [as opposed to deamons] and caused darkness and ugliness in the world. It was humans’ job to oppose this until the final battle from which Ahura Mazda would emerge victorious.

Sound familiar? How we practice religion changes as we do, but it also changes how we act. The cultural evolutionary question is how does it serve humanity to have such a polarized view?

I much prefer the pulse and flow cycles, and being willing to examine my personal dark places. To me, hard polarization feels like externalizing human failings for which we should take responsibility. There is a joke among Pagans that sometimes we do battle with our demons, but sometimes we just cuddle.

Understanding, and learning how to manage my darker tendencies [aka., my demons] has made me a more balanced person. I can channel my anger into useful action. I can recognize when my fear or disgust might be leading me astray into unreason. I can step back from strong emotions. But if I pretended that all that darkness was the fault of some external entity, I’d have much less power to do anything about it. The Christian basement dweller is truly dark. [The Zoroastrian one is no better.]

However, I think Christians might be better at seeing and facing big darkness: darkness that threatens whole cultures. In the 20th century, humans have done terrible things. Death was elevated to industrial-level efficiency in Germany, Russia, China, North Korea, and other places. It’s hard to look at that and see anything but the massive and demonic. Once you see, ‘massive and demonic’, then something equally powerful is needed to combat it. I’m sure Ghengis Khan had the same effect on earlier Christians.

A friend of mine trains war fighters all over the world in improvised weapons. He’s seen some shit, and done some shit, and some of his stories have made may hair stand up. Most of us have never had our life threatened directly by another human. My friend doesn’t encourage his students to look directly into the eyes of an attacker because the darkness there could get inside and paralyze them. He’s a devout Christian who’s seen dark native magic. He believes in demons, but he holds faith that Jesus and the angels will protect him or take him home. Without that faith, he couldn’t go into battle. There are most certainly Pagans in the military, although they’re less common the infantry. A soldier I emailed with years ago told me that it was unwise to be Pagan in that branch, and he kept it carefully to himself.

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Such a major difference in faith would be a trust issue. Warriors in teams need to trust each other on a visceral level. There is no pausing to ‘step back’ or intellectualize why differences should be tolerated when an enemy is trying to kill you. Without that visceral trust, and yes, love, the urge to get away rather than push forward could take over. Any such trust would have to be developed and proven long before deployment.

That’s hard when a large portion of the civilian population doesn’t even know Pagan religions exist. It’s hard because [I think it’s safe to say] that Pagans tolerate a wider variety of behaviors than other religions. There’s a reason we’re fringe. But the fringe can be bad. Move the definition of civilized and proper behavior too far, and the whole culture will collapse.

We’re not so far away from that. The Epstein and P-Diddy scandals [which seems far too tame a word] show how far people will go when not contained by moral behavior. That stuff is as dark as anything done by Ghengis Khan, Stalin, or Mao. Only the scale is smaller. There were stories of Satanic rituals designed to break down rules of civil engagement, shame, and guilt. They were also designed to be a tool for future control. Then there is the global phenomenon of child trafficking and grooming. The UK government does its best to deny that gangs of men groom and then kidnap young girls even though that’s common knowledge, with that plot-line featured on a popular British TV show before covid. That’s… evil.

If Christians look at us and all they see is that fringe, then of course they’ll think we’re in alignment with the dude in the basement, whether or not we believe in his existence.

If we want to avoid, or counter this assumption, then we need to be very clear about who we are and be able to talk about and model our morals and opinions right up front. Nor can those be too far outside Western culture. [For example: thinking that transitioning children is a Pagan value.] We have to be willing to take some heat, and that means we need to be clear about what we believe and why.

Brigantia Blackbird

had done a series of posts on YouTube about the values articulated in The Hammaval [You should go check her out]. There could be more like this. It will cause dissension among Pagans, but it needs to be done.

Modern Pagans were uniformly raised with the values of Western culture. If we don’t support that culture, it will go down and take us with it. There aren’t enough of us to stop it, and there are people out there who are much more dark than Christians. They might even qualify as evil.

If you’re curious about Paganism/Heathenism/Wicca/Druidry, please feel free to message me and I’ll be happy to answer questions.

Selina Rifkin, M.S. [Nutrition], LMT, has been Pagan since she was 14 [which was a long time ago] and been to Hades in a handbasket. More than once. This has given her some opinions. She has direct communication with her gods and they’ve always given her answers when she asks. [One does have to ask.] Like most of her generation [X] she’s okay with snark. Most days she tries for good writing. But the snark, and side comments creep in. Be warned.

Pagan Organizations

Cherry Hill Seminary

Sacred Well Congregation