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    The Dark History of the Occult
    The Dark History of the Occult
    The Dark History of the Occult
    Ebook351 pages5 hours

    The Dark History of the Occult

    By Paul Roland

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    About this ebook

    Black magic murders, satanic sex cults and demonic possession - tabloid journalists jumps at any mention of the disturbing practices of the occult. Is this unhealthy obsession to blame for our increasingly violent society, or is the truth even darker and more disturbing?

    This book includes detailed accounts of animal sacrifice, exorcisms and the influence of Satanism in today's world, from rock music and ritual murders in the USA to black magic ceremonies and other necromantic practices worldwide. The Dark History of the Occult examines whether Satanic Forces are simply the emergence of the dark side of human nature, or whether we really do have something to fear - namely, evil.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcturus Publishing
    Release dateSep 1, 2011
    ISBN9781848588493
    The Dark History of the Occult

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      Book preview

      The Dark History of the Occult - Paul Roland

      TALK OF THE DEVIL

      'If the devil does not exist, and man has therefore created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.'

      Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russian novelist, 1821–81)

      Imay be risking my immortal soul by stating for a fact that there is no devil, Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer or Old Nick in this world or the next, but I am confident that my assertion will be borne out by the evidence that is presented in the following pages. I fear no contradiction – not even an appearance by the old boy himself – for it will be shown that the devil was a creation of the early Church and that all of his deeds are entirely man-made.

      That is not to say that there is no evil in the world, for though the devil does not exist his disciples and acolytes are clearly all around us. It is with their diabolical activities and beliefs that this book is chiefly concerned. The devil, I argue, is a personification of the dark side of human nature, of our basest instincts, impulses and desires, which we seek to deny and disown by projecting them on to a mythical figure of our own making. On the other hand, God can be seen as the projection of our divine potential. Angels and demons are, therefore, symbolic of our divine attributes and aberrations, the vices and virtues which are continually in conflict within us.

      It is highly significant that no one has claimed to have actually seen the devil in his traditional form, with horns and a tail, since the Middle Ages – no one of sound mind that is. Society's persistent belief in this malevolent cosmic entity is an insult to the intelligence, a remnant of the Dark Ages when fear, superstition, ignorance and bigotry reigned over reason. To believe in the devil is to deny our divine nature and that, if anything, should be a sin. It simply makes no sense to give credence to the idea that in this infinite universe, in which our world is less than a speck of dust, an evil omnipresent cosmic being could manifest as a man in order to tempt us into committing what our ancestors once considered sinful. Until we free ourselves from this fairy-tale figure and, more importantly, the fear of the unknown that he personifies, we will empower our fears to rule over us and limit our progress in this world.

      'The Devil Grazes Dormice', copper engraving by Janez Vajkard Valvasor, 1689

      How can I be so certain that the devil is a figment of our collective subconscious? Well, if there is a devil, a malevolent supernatural entity who is continually vying for possession of our souls, where is the evidence of his existence? It is certainly not in the Bible, the book that Christian fundamentalists quote so fondly.

      Angels and demons are symbols of our subconscious desires

      THE POWER OF NAMES

      In the beginning was the Word and the Word was power. In ancient civilizations writing was a sacred art reserved for priests and kings, so the written word acquired an aura of mystery.

      It was widely believed that to know the names of the angelic hosts and the demonic hordes was to have power over them. To know the name of an enemy was to possess something potentially more lethal than the sharpest blade.

      In the Old Testament and other sacred texts of the biblical era an adversary was invariably referred to by a generic term, typically 'a Satan', in the belief that the psychic connection would be weakened if their birth name was in common usage. This practice was also the origin of the commandment that made it a sin to take the name of the Lord in vain. For the Jews the personal name of God, Yahweh ('He exists'), was itself a magical invocation and was therefore commonly referred to indirectly as the Tetragrammaton, or the name of four letters. Only the high priest was permitted to whisper the sacred name of the Creator once a year on the Day of Atonement. At all other times the Jews referred to their maker as Adonai (Lord) or Elohim (God). To know the personal name of the Creator and its correct pronunciation was to know the secret of creation itself, for according to the Torah (the body of Jewish law and teaching) the Word with which God created the universe was his own sacred name.

      Understanding the true significance of that concept was a lifetime's study for the Kabbalists, the Jewish mystics who sought the secrets of life and death that they believed were encoded in the Torah. Judaism has both an exoteric (outer) and an esoteric (inner) teaching. The former comprises the customs and rituals which have been performed so often and for so long that their true meaning has been lost and the latter is the spiritual heart of the religion, which only the mystics claim to fully understand. The same duality applies to Christianity and to Islam. Those who adhere to none of these traditions, but who believe that there is a golden thread of truth common to them all, take the road less travelled, a road that divides into the Left and Right Hand Path of the occultist.

      BLACK VS. WHITE

      Genuine adepts of the Left Hand Path do not, of course, consider themselves to be black magicians, just as Satanists will not admit to being devil worshippers. They simply see themselves as the centre of the universe and they regard their own desires as being of greater importance than those of everyone else. Often they will dismiss the devil as a medieval superstition. One can imagine why. There is simply no room in the universe for two egos of that magnitude to coexist. But Satanism is a smokescreen for the genuine black magician who serves only one master – himself – and understands that magic itself is neither black nor white. It is merely a process for transformation that is brought about by exercising the will, empowered by the emotions. It is the intention behind the act that determines whether a magician is an adherent of the Left or the Right Hand Path and intentions are diabolically difficult to determine if one is playing the devil's advocate. Those who seek experience of the upper worlds in order to gain greater insight into the workings of the universe are clearly on a different journey to those who are self-serving and seek to subvert others to their superior will.

      The biblical story of Saul and the Witch of Endor in which the ghost of Samuel prophesies Saul's downfall

      It is a curious fact that both the black magician and his benign brother purify themselves before participating in any ceremony and both appeal to God and the angels for protection when consecrating the sacred circle with which they surround themselves. Even the most devoted disciple of the devil knows that it is not their infernal master who commands the legion of demons but God. The mere utterance of His name is sufficient to restrain them from breaking into the circle and it will banish them whence they came at the ritual's conclusion.

      Black magicians and white magicians share the same curiosity about the nature of existence and both understand the Universal Laws – which are based on the premise that every human being is a microcosm, a universe in miniature. To reveal the true nature of the universe, seekers first have to explore the symbolic landscape of their own psyche and then they have to possess the courage to face what they find there.

      CHAPTER 1

      WHO IS SATAN?

      'An apology for the Devil: it must be remembered that we have heard only one side of the case. God has written all the books.'

      Samuel Butler

      TWO FORMS OF KNOWLEDGE

      From the dawn of civilization there have been two forms of knowledge: the practical intelligence of the artisan and the academic and intuitive wisdom of the adept. The first can be instilled through education or acquired by observation, while the latter can only be awoken by initiation into the Mysteries, which offers direct experience of a greater reality.

      In the occult ('hidden') tradition, the Old Testament myth of Adam and Eve is interpreted as an incentive for every individual to partake of the fruit on the Tree of Life and so become aware of their true nature and divine potential. To realize that we are more than mere mortals is to be free from the fear of death and the tyranny of religious diktats and dogma. It is significant that this inducement was articulated by the serpent, which has traditionally been a symbol of wisdom.

      'Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.'

      Genesis 3.4–5

      But in the 'official' version of the story, as told by theologians, the snake is recast as a trickster who tempts Eve to eat the forbidden fruit so that man will be exiled from heaven and will thereafter be entirely dependent upon religious authority for absolution. That deliberate undermining of our divine nature and potential is surely the real original sin.

      'The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man' by Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel, 1615, depicts the christian concept of original sin

      SATAN AS GOD'S ADVERSARY

      Satan's first appearance in Judaeo–Christian mythology can be found in the Old Testament Book of Job, where as the angel 'ha-satan' he is assigned the task of testing the extent of Job's faith. In Hebrew, ha-satan translates as 'the tempter' or 'the accuser', an angelic being who is not by nature evil but is the one who identifies those on earth who are responsible for evil acts and who informs on those who have turned away from the Lord.

      In the Torah, the Hebrew Book of the Law, 'satan' is an appellation that is used to denote any historical figure who is opposed to the Semitic people, be it a military leader as in 1 Samuel 29:4, 2 Samuel 19:22, 1 Kings 5:4 and I Kings 11:14, or a legal adversary as in Psalms 109:6. In Numbers 22:32 Satan is the name given to an angel who opposes Balaam's ill-advised journey and in Chronicles he is blamed for leading King David astray. But nowhere in the Old Testament is Satan described as being God's adversary. Quite the opposite, in fact. In the Book of Isaiah it is explicitly stated that the Hebrew God, Yahweh (Jehovah), is the omnipotent ruler of the universe and that he alone presides over mankind.

      'I form the light and create darkness; I create peace and make Evil; I the Lord do all these things.'

      Ambiguous and obscure allusions to the devil were only found in the Old Testament in retrospect.

      It is thought that the notion of Satan as an adversary of God filtered into Judaic mythology during the third and second centuries CE, as a consequence of the Persian concept of dualism. Dualism held sway in the East during the millennia before Christianity because it solved the dilemma of how God could support one particular group and yet be on the side of its opponents. Dualistic thinking decreed that there was not one God but two, one benevolent and one demonic. The evil deity was always on the side of your enemy so the devil, it could be said, was always someone else's God. This was the origin of the hierarchy of hell, a list of demons and their functions that appeared in early magical texts such as The Testament of Solomon, which dates from the first century CE, and later treatises on black magic such as the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum by the 16th-century occultist Johann Wier.

      In all of these books the evil spirits were named after ancient deities whose worshippers had been conquered and their Gods demonized. Beelzebub, 'the prince of devils', had been Baalzebub, god of the Philistines, Ashtaroth was the dark goddess of the Phoenicians and Baal was the bloodthirsty deity to whom the Canaanites sacrificed burnt offerings, namely children. Other maleficent entities were created in an effort to explain the existence of various illnesses. Mammon was the exception. The god of avarice came into being only because the words of Jesus had been misinterpreted by his followers, who thought he was referring to an evil deity when he warned them that man cannot worship both God and mammon (money).

      ORIGINAL SIN

      Satan appears in the company of demons in the Talmud, a collection of rabbinical commentaries on Judaic law, but the trials that he devises to tempt the pious are always at the behest of God and he often expresses his hope that the victim will prevail.

      'Job Speaks with his Friends' by Gustave Dore, 1866

      In the Book of Genesis, the serpent that tempts Eve to commit the first sin by eating the forbidden fruit is merely a snake, not Satan in disguise. That particular twist comes from Revelations 20:2 in the New Testament, thereby making the serpent's alleged crime ex post facto (guilty according to a law passed after the event).

      Adam and Eve are seduced by the 'subtil' serpent who persuades them to eat the forbidden fruit

      Christian theologians have assumed that Satan was a synonym for the devil in the Old Testament, but rabbinical scholars have stated that no such link was intended or should be inferred.

      Satan's antecedents have been further obscured by the legend of Lucifer, the fallen angel who appears in the Apocrypha, a collection of deliberations on the meaning of the Torah. These were written by anonymous Judaic scholars, visionaries and mystics who hid their true identities behind the names of ancient rabbinical authorities in order to lend credibility to their arguments and apocalyptic legends. For this reason Orthodox Judaism disowns these texts. Nevertheless, the idea of Satan as a fallen angel persists to this day. It was Christian theologians who argued that the fallen angel in Isaiah 14:12 is in fact the figure called Satan who appears elsewhere in the Old Testament, but for Judaic scholars these mythical figures are unconnected and serve separate functions.

      In the Book of Wisdom Satan is named as the bringer of death, while in the Slavonic Book of Enoch (believed to date no earlier than the first century CE) the Watcher called Satanael is identified as an evil spirit. This has compounded the belief that Satan is not an individual name but is instead a generic term for an adversary. The Book of Enoch also contains a reference to a group of satans. The angel Phanuel is heard 'fending off the satans and forbidding them to come before the Lord of spirits'.

      THE SHADOW SELF

      'We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.'

      Oscar Wilde

      According to the once secret teachings of Judaism, known as Kabbalah, there is a parallel universe to our own called the Kellipot, which is made up of the 'shells' or 'husks' that contain the remnants of the earlier worlds that God destroyed when he saw that they were imperfect. This is the realm over which Satan and his legion of demons now preside. But even in this cosmic scheme the Dark Spirit is said to be powerless to extinguish the divine spark that animates each of us, or to sever our connection with our Creator. Again, the idea that Satan is out to steal our souls is alien to the Judaic world view. It is yet another Christian concept grafted on by a Church that wished to set itself up as a mediator between man and his maker.

      We must all suffer for our sins

      We are, each one of us, our own devil

      Even in his guise as Samael, the Angel of Death, Satan is not considered evil, for in Kabbalah death is a natural cosmic function that enables our immortal spirit to leave the body in order to reincarnate and so continue the work of evolution through experience. Evil is anything which seeks to counter the inexorable momentum of evolution – or the Divine Will, to use religious terminology. It is not the malign mission of one cosmic being.

      'Lucifer' by Franz von Stuck, 1892

      But even in the multilayered world of biblical parable, that which is perfect cannot conceivably create that which is imperfect. The demonic realm must therefore be seen as an intellectual conceit of the rabbinical scholars, who have argued that everything in creation must have its opposite, just as modern physicists offer a hypothesis in order to test the validity of a theory. In Kabbalah, a shadow realm in which the divine light is excluded is a contradiction – it is yet another thread in the rich tapestry of Judaic mythology and as such not to be taken literally.

      Modern Kabbalists interpret this alternative universe of the Kellipot as a symbol of our own multifaceted psyche, in which the demons personify our negative attributes and the angels represent our divine characteristics. Satan is therefore no more than our own shadow self, which manifests when we consciously indulge in evil acts or in self-delusion, while what we perceive as chaos in the world around us is merely a series of events initiated by cosmic forces as a way of testing the integrity of order in the universe.

      The legend of Lucifer can be traced to a much later date. It is largely of medieval origin, being 'borrowed' from an earlier story concerning the fall of the morning star in Isaiah 14.12, with elements of Ezekiel 28 and the New Testament tale of Satan's fall in Luke 10.18. Stripped of corruption and confusion it is simply a parable on the perils of pride, for according to the Kabbalah we are all fallen angels, the light bearers who are tempted to forgo spiritual development for the lure of temporal power, the accumulation of possessions and the pursuit of pleasure.

      Interestingly, the Bahá'í Faith acknowledges the existence of Satan but makes it clear that he represents our lower nature, or ego.

      CHRISTIANITY

      In the New Testament, Satan the tempter is recast as the Evil One, the merciless host of hell where the souls of the damned burn for all eternity if they do not repent of their sins and accept Jesus as their saviour. However, Jesus never claimed to be able to save man from original sin. The doctrine of vicarious atonement was an invention of St Paul.

      It was not until the 13th century that the name of the devil came into common use. The name derives from the Greek word 'diabolos', meaning slanderer, which was adopted when the Old Testament was translated from Aramaic. Then from diabolos came

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