2010 schipper from milton to modern satanism

8/13/2019 2010 SCHIPPER From Milton to Modern Satanism

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Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 103124

Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010 DOI 10.1163/187489210X12597396698744

brill.nl/jre

Journal ofReligion in Europe

From Milton to Modern Satanism: Te Historyof the Devil and the Dynamics between

Religion and Literature*

Bernd U. SchipperDepartment of Teology University of Oldenburg

26129 Oldenburg, Germany

presently at the Harvard Divinity School45 Francis Avenue 02138 Cambridge, MA, USA

[email protected]

AbstractTe article explores the dynamics between literature and religion with the exam-ples of Lucifer and modern Satanism. With John Miltons poem Paradise Lost(1667), the originally Christian myth of Lucifer evolved in a positive direction.Having been adopted by so-called literary Satanism, this character became thebasis for a new non-Christian religion, the emple of Set (founded by Michael

Aquino in 1975). Te article also argues for a remodelling of the conception of thedynamics between religion and other systems of meaning in the European historyof religion: not only do religious traditions affect the medium of literature; litera-ture can also affect the religious tradition.

Keywords

literature, Lucifer, Europe, religion, devil, John Milton, emple of Set, Church ofSatan, Dante Alighieri, Satanism

Alongside the move of the study of religion into the domain of cultural stud-ies came a shift in the subjects of research. Scholars no longer focused solelyon the so-called world religions but also on the interplay between religionand culture in a broader sense. In an article on the paradigm of European

*) I would like to express my gratitude to Jesper Aagaard Petersen for some advice and toMichael Lesley and D. Andrew eeter for correcting the English version of this article.


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104 B.U. Schipper / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 103124

history of religion from 1993, Burkhard Gladigow called this a verticaltransfer.1 By using this category, Gladigow addresses the exchange between

different systems of meaning (Sinnsystemen) such as literature, science ortechnology. Tis approach is based on the assumption that religion appearsnot only in the well-known classical sense but in different cultural systemsof meaning, each having its own hermeneutic pattern.2 In the last fifteenyears, the academic discipline of the study of religion has shown the sustain-ability of such an approach. In the history of religion in Europe religioncould be located not only in an institutionalized, mainly Christian religion,but in other systems of meanings and media as well.3 Moreover, if the para-digm of a European history of religion is combined with a discursive deter-mination,4 which addresses religion as the result of a discursive process ofnegotiation, the religious historical development appears in a quite differentlight. Te focus is no longer on a development in the sense of a reception inlight of the uses of motifs rooted in Christian religion, but on the reinven-tion of religion through the use of traditional semantics and topoi.5

aking this as the starting point, the present article will examine thisprocess with a prominent example: modern Satanism. As I hope to demon-strate, the history of the devil can illustrate a parallel alternative, typical of

the history of religion in Europe, in which a different tradition was founded,6

that was not based on classical (Christian) religion, but on an alternativesystem of meaningin this case modern literature. In the interplay between

1) See Burkhard Gladigow, Europische Religionsgeschichte, in: Brigitte Luchesi & HansG. Kippenberg (eds.), Lokale Religionsgeschichte(Marburg: Diagonal, 1995), 1942, at p. 21.2) Gladigow, Europische Religionsgeschichte, 2426.3) See Hans G. Kippenberg & Kocku von Stuckrad, Einfhrung in die Religionswissenschaft.

Gegenstnde und Begriffe(Mnchen: Beck, 2003), 126135.4) For the term and its meaning Hans G. Kippenberg, Diskursive Religionswissenschaft:Gedanken zu einer Religionswissenschaft, die weder auf einer allgemein gltigen Definitionvon Religion noch auf einer berlegenheit von Wissenschaft basiert, in: BurkhardGladigow & Hans G. Kippenberg (eds.), Neue Anstze in der Religionswissenschaft(Mnchen:Ksel, 1983), 928, at pp. 1013 and Kippenberg & von Stuckrad, Einfhrung, 14.5) On strategies for the legitimation of new religions, see James R. Lewis, Legitimating NewReligions(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003), 13f.6) On Satanism as an important part of the cultic milieu of Western Culture and a culturalunderground of society, see Colin Campbell, Te Cult, the Cultic Milieu and Secularization,

A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain,5 (1972), 119136, at p. 122 and Jesper AagaardPetersen, Contemporary Religious Satanism. A Critical Anthology (Farnham & Burlington:Ashgate, 2009), 4f.


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B.U. Schipper / Journal of Religion in Europe 3 (2010) 103124 105

literature and religion, the originally Christian myth of Satan evolved in apositive direction which led to a form of religion that saw Satan as an ideal.

Trough the use of other ancient patterns of meaning, a religion developedthat was entirely disconnected from Christianity. Both Lucifer and the con-cept of Satan as a personal entity developed through the literature of theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and led to an alternative to the tradi-tional Christian Satan which, in a later time, formed the basis of a new,entirely non-Christian religion.

Te following article is divided into three parts. Te first part is a briefintroduction to a form of modern Satanism that will serve as the focus ofthis article: the Satanic group of the emple of Set. Te second part placesthe doctrine of the emple of Set in the history of Satanism and drawsattention to the piece of world literature which stands at the heart of theparadigm shift mentioned above: the poem Paradise Lost(1667) by JohnMilton. Te third part offers some general observations on the interplaybetween literature and religion.

1. Te emple of Set and Modern Satanism

Te emple of Set is a relatively young satanic organisation. It was foundedin 1975 by Michael A. Aquino, a former US-army offi cer who, amongothers things, had worked in counter-intelligence.7 Since the late sixties,Aquino had been a member of the Church of Satan, a highly prominentSatanic group that became popular because of its connections withHollywood.8Anton Szandor LaVey, the founder and leading figure of theChurch of Satan, was on familiar terms with celebrities like Jayne Mansfield

7) Tere is still a lack of detailed research on the emple of Set in the study of religions. Fora first approach, see Graham Harvey, Satanism in Britain oday,Journal of ContemporaryReligion10 (1995), 283296; idem, Satanism: Performing Alterity and Othering, Syzygy11 (2002), 5368, at pp. 3134 and the recent published article by Jesper Aagaard Petersen,Satanists and Nuts. Te Role of Schisms in Modern Satanism, in: James R. Lewis &Sarah M. Lewis (eds.), Sacred Schisms. How Religion Divide (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2009), 218247, at p. 234239.8) See the offi cial LaVey biography by Blanche Barton, Te Secret Life of a Satanist. Te

Authorized Biography of Anton LaVey(Los Angeles: Feral House, 1990) which is, however,partly fictional, cf. Asbjrn Dyrendal, Et satans mannfolk: den autoriserte Anton LaVey,Din23 (2004), 7383.


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9) See the pictures in Arthur Lyons, Satan Wants You: Te Cult of Devil Worship in America(New York: Mysterious Press, 1988), 96f with LaVey and Sammy Davis, Jr., John ravolta,om Skerritt and for Jayne Mansfield, ibid, 108f.10) Bill Ellis, Raising the Devil. Satanism, New Religions, and the Media (Lexington:University Press of Kentucky, 2000), 169. For the Satanic milieu as a mirror of a largercultic milieu cf. Petersen, Contemporary Religious Satanism, 46.11) Tis topic was popular in US-media in the Summer of 2009, the 30ths anniversary ofthe crime.For the events of 1969 see Ellis, Raising the Devil, 177.12)

On the Church of Satan, see the contribution by Randall Alfred, Te Church of Satan,in: Charles Y. Glock & Robert N. Bellah (eds.), Te New Religious Consciousness(Berkeley:University of California Press, 1976), 180202; Jesper Aagaard Petersen, ModernSatanism: Dark Doctrines and Black Fames, in: James R. Lewis & Jesper Aagaard Petersen(eds.), Controversial New Religions(New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 423457,at pp. 430434 and Ole Wolf, Te Emperors New Religion, Syzygy11 (2002), 257310.13) Peter H. Gilmore, Te Satanic Scriptures(Baltimore: Scapegoat, 2007), 31. Cf. Petersen,Modern Satanism, 430.14) On the special meaning of the names, see Michael Aquino, Te Church of Satan, 6thedn[Internet] (San Francisco: emple of Set, 2002), 54.15) Joachim Schmidt, Satanism, in: Kocku von Stuckrad (ed.), Te Brill Dictionary ofReligion, vol. 4 (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2006), 16771680, at p. 1679 and Petersen,Satanists, 224.

and Sammy Davis, Jr.,9 and had became well-known to the general publicwith his role as the devil in Roman Polanskis movie Rosemarys Baby.10 Te

publics fascination with the Church of Satan took on a sinister character,however, when one of its members, Charles Manson, killed Polanskisspouse Sharon ate in 1969.11

Central to the doctrine of the Church of Satan is the notion of Satan asan autonomous power inside man.12 Peter H. Gilmore, high-priest of theChurch of Satan, put it as follows: Satan is not a conscious entity to beworshipped, but a reservoir of power inside each human to be tapped atwill.13 Tis central concept was developed more elaborately in LaVeysmain work, the Satanic Bible (1969). In this book, the doctrine of theChurch of Satan is developed in four chapters (books) according to fourfigures of the devil: Satan (as ruler of the fire), Lucifer (as ruler of the air),Belial (as ruler of the earth) and Leviathan (as ruler of the water).14 Te firsttwo books describe LaVeys Satanism as a positive religion, and in recentsystematic overviews scholars of the study of religion have labeled it autar-kic a-Christian Satanism or rational Satanism.15 Te last two booksdescribe rituals and magical practises. Te first two books, the book ofSatan and the book of Lucifer, can be seen as a kind of demythologization


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16) Joachim Schmidt, Satanismus. Mythos und Wirklichkeit (Marburg: Diagonal 2003),158159.17) Te concept of the seven deadly sins goes back to Gregor the Great; see Isabel Grbel,Die Hierarchie der eufel. Studien zum christlichen eufelsbild und zur Allegorisierung desBsen in Teologie, Literatur und Kunst zwischen Frhmittelalter und Gegenreformation(Mnchen: tuduv, 1991), 178. Te lollardic tract Lanterne of Liszt from 1410 links thesevices with different devils: Lucifer: pride, Beelzebub: envy, Satan: anger, Abaddon: lassi-tude, Mammon: greed, Belphegor: gluttony; Asmodeus: lust, see Grbel, ibid., 192.18) Anton Szandor LaVey, Te Satanic Bible(New York: Avon Books, 1969), 4647 (SomeEvidence of a New Satanic Age).19) LaVey, Satanic Bible, 47, see also p. 25, statement 7 Satan represents man as justanother animal.

of Satan as a metaphysical power. For LaVey, Satan is not a transcendent orpersonal entity but merely a synonym for man and his natural vitality.16

Implied in LaVeys conception is the idea of Satanism as a counter-principleto Christian-Jewish tradition, inasmuch as mans natural vitality is mani-fested in those acts which are viewed in the Christian tradition as condem-nable. LaVey uses the popular doctrine of the seven deadly sins, which datesback to Medieval imes,17 to offer a positive characterization of man: 18

Te seven deadly sins of the Christian Church are: greed, pride, envy, anger,gluttony, lust, and sloth. Satanism advocates indulging in each of these sinsas they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification. A Satanist

knows there is nothing wrong with being greedy, as it only means that hewants more than he already has. Envy means to look with favour upon thepossessions of others, and to be desirous of obtaining similar things for one-self. Envy and greed are the motivating forces of ambitionand withoutambition, very little of any importance would be accomplished.

Tese sentences illustrate the focus of LaVeys doctrine: he characterizesman as an animal ruled by the instinct for self-preservation and by sexualdrive. Satan appears as an archetype of the dark, animalistic side of human

existence: Te strongest instinct in every living thing is self-preservation,which brings us to the last of the seven deadly sinsanger. Is it not ourinstinct for self-preservation that is aroused when someone harms us, whenwe become angry enough to protect ourselves from further attack?19

LaVey develops a doctrine in which mans nature is not profoundlybad, similar to the philosophy of the Marquis de Sade (17401814).De Sades philosophical system is also based on the assumption of evil as


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20) Cf. Schmidt, Satanismus, 7677.; Karl R.H. Frick, Satan und die Satanisten.Ideengeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Herkunft der komplexen Gestalt Luzifer/Satan/eufel,

ihrer weiblichen Entsprechungen und ihrer Anhngerschaft(3 vol., Graz: Akademische Druck-und Verlagsanstalt, 19821987), Vol. 2, 139 and Jeffrey Burton Russell, Mephistopheles:Te Devil in the Modern World(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 146147.21) See his work Justine, ou les malheurs de la vertu, first published in 1791, and Frick,Satan und die Satanisten, 131.22) For a new examination of Crowleys Magick religion as part of the history of religionin the 20th century see Kocku von Stuckrad, Aleister Crowley, Telema und dieReligionsgeschichte des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts, in: Brigitte Luchesi & Kocku vonStuckrad (eds.), Religion in Cultural Discourse (Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche undVorarbeiten 52, Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2004), 307324.23)

Marco Pasi, Crowley, Aleister, in: Wouter J. Hanegraaff (ed.), Dictionary of Gnosis andWestern Esotericism, vol. 1 (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2005), 281287, at p. 286.24) LaVey, however, distanced himself from Aleister Crowley, and located himself in atradition going back to John Milton, Goethe, Machiavelli and the Romantic and Decadentpoets, as Marilyn Manson points out in his foreword to Satan Speaks from 1998; AntonLa Vey, Satan Speaks! With a foreword by Marilyn Manson(Feral House, 1998), p. XII.25) Cf. Asbjrn Dyrendal, Darkness Within. Satanism as a Self-Religion, in: Jesper AagaardPetersen (ed.), Contemporary Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology(Farnham & Burlington:Ashgate, 2009), 5974, especially p. 59, 6465.26) On Crowley see von Stuckrad, Crowley, 314315 and for this type of rational Satanismwith Satan as a symbol of rebellion, Petersen, Satanists, 224. On de Sade see Frick, Satan(vol. 2), 134135.27) In his presentation of modern Satanism, Petersen distinguishes three distinct phases,modelled primarily on the history of the Church of Satan (19661975), the emple of Set

an autonomous vital force.20According to him, Satan has no specific role,though evil as a self-contained principle does. De Sades Satanism is mainly

linked with sexual obsession, which made it popular,21 but it also started aline that led through the first decades of the 20th century and AleisterCrowley. Strictly speaking, Crowley was not a Satanist himself, but he pos-tulated that dark energy existed in him and in all living things.22 Tis canbe seen in two main statements from his book Liber AL vel Legis(Book ofthe Law). Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law (AL, I, 40)and Every man and every woman is a star. (AL, I, 3).23

Since LaVey places man in the middle of his system,24 this form ofSatanism is often labelled Self-Religion.25 Evil is a not a metaphysicalentity, but autonomous vitality in man. Tis implies the antithesis of aChristian worldview and Christian morality, something already present inthe writings of de Sade.26

urning to the emple of Set and its doctrine, a number of differencescan be seen.27 Michael Aquino, the founder of the organisation, created a


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(1975mid 1990s) and changes in the movement since the introduction of the Internetand the death of LaVey in 1997, Petersen, Modern Satanism, 427429.28) Cf. the self-portrayal by Michael Aquino, Te emple of Set, 7th ed. [Internet] (SanFrancisco: emple of Set, 2009); Lyons, Satan, 126127 and in addition Harvey, Satanism,285290.29) Aquino, emple of Set, 1415.30) According to Aquino it was Set who appeared to Aleister Crowley when he saw the stelaNo. 666 at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo; for the events of 1904 in Cairo, see vonStuckrad, Crowley, 311, and Pasi, Crowley, 282.31) On Life and its Sanctity, http://www.xeper.org/pub/org/xp_FS_ord.htm (accessed29 August 2009).32) See Dyrendal, Darkness Within, 66f.

complex religious system which views Satan differently than LaVey, andwhichand this seems to me to be the crucial pointdoes not need

Christianity as a negative mirror: Both of these can be seen in the founda-tion myth of the emple of Set.28According to Michael Aquino, at mid-summer in 1975 (the 21stof July) the prince of darkness appeared to himas the deity Set. He announced he wanted to be worshipped under hisoriginal name, Set, which had been replaced as man had come to knowhim as Satan and Lucifer.29 He had already revealed himself to theAncient Egyptians, but while the priesthood of the god Osiris knew aBook of the Dead he wanted to reveal a Book of Life.30 Based on thisetiology he named the new organization the temple of the god Set, wheretemple refers not to a building, but to man himself as a vessel for thepersonal conception of Satan. As the high priest of the organization, DonWebb V

o, says:

Te emple of Set is a Left Hand Path organization. It reveres the psyche, andseeks its unification, empowerment, and isolation from the Cosmos, both inthe world of Becoming and in the afterlife. Its philosophy and practice are aRemanifestation of the ancient Priesthood of Set, and are encoded in Xeper,a trans-personal principle that is best translated into English as I Have Come

Into Being. Tis word refers to the Realization of potentials within the Self,possesses the only ontology Recognized by the emple of Set, and is the rootof our metaphysics. We see the possibilities for our self-development arisingout of Gift from the Prince of Darkness, and our reciprocal responsibility isto become a suitable companion for Him.31

Te connections with the Church of Satan are considerable, but there arealso differences. Like the Church of Satan man is in the centre,32 but the


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33) Based on this Petersen, Modern Satanism, 435 labels the emple of Set an intellec-tual wing of esoteric Satanism. A second aspect which cannot be addressed in this articleis the tradition of the Left Hand Path, which is part of Western esotericism. See StephenE. Flowers, Excerpt from Lords of the Left-Hand Path: A History of Spiritual Dissident,in: Jesper Aagaard Petersen (ed.), Contemporary religious Satanism. A Critical Anthology(Farnham & Burlington: Ashgate, 2009), 239246, at pp. 239242 and Kennet Granholm,Embracing Others than Satan. Te Multiple Princes of Darkness in the Left-Hand PathMilieu, in: Petersen (ed.), Contemporary religious Satanism, 84101.34) For this and the following quotes see the website: http://www.xeper.org/pub/lib/xp_FS_lib.htm (accessed 29 August 2009).

liberation of the psyche is linked with a supernatural principle. Te text refersto a meta-physic and ontology of its own. Tese terms underline what the

emple of Set claims to be: an intellectual religion which views Satan as apersonal entity.33 Te introductory information on the website states:

Te second premise of the emple is that the psychecentric consciousness canevolve towards its own divinity through deliberate exercise of the intelligenceand Will, a process of becoming or coming into being whose roots may befound in the dialectic method expounded by Plato and the conscious exalta-tion of the Will proposed by Nietzsche.34

Te emple of Set sees itself as a kind of forum which makes the develop-ment of such intelligence possible:

Te means by which Setians seek to Xeper are many. As a matter of principlethe emple declines to standardize its approach to Initiates. Each may pursuetopics of greatest personal interest with whatever emphasis and at whateverrate desired. Te emple seeks merely to be a forum for Setians to communi-cate and cooperate with one another constructively and courteously. Manyideas and philosophies are discussed within it, but such discussion does not

constitute the dictation of dogma.

Te ideas mentioned in this quote are interesting in a number of ways. Onthe one hand one can see how a new religion is created through the use oftopoifrom non-Christian religions. As a rather young religion, the templeof Set attempts to establish the dignity of its doctrine by making a connec-tion with an older system of reference: here it is Ancient Egypt and the godSet, who had revealed himself to the Egyptians and was known under thenames Satan and Lucifer before wanting to be worshipped again by his


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35) Tis is a strategy of traditional legitimation linked with the element of Teophany; onthe theoretical framework, see Lewis, Legitimating, 89 and 14.36) Cf. the detailed chapter on Egypt in Aquino, emple of Set, chapter 3, p. 1926.37) See Kippenberg & von Stuckrad, Einfhrung, 4647.38) See Harvey, Satanism, 288, who conducted a survey of Setians, in which self-understanding was given as the core of the teaching of the emple of Set.39) See the tract Te Pylon System by Don Webb V

o. http://www.xeper.org/ pub/org/

xp_FS_ord.htm (accessed 29 August 2009).40) ranslated by Monika B. Vizedom & Gabrielle L. Caffee (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1960).41) Ibid.

original name.35 Te new religion appears to be an ancient one andmoreimportantlya religion that antedates Judaism and Christianity.36 Tus it

says on the website: While the emple of Set as an organization was for-mally incorporated in 1975 CE, its magical and philosophical roots areprehistoric, originating in mankinds first apprehension that there is some-thing different about the human race.

At the same time, the recourse to Ancient Egypt opens up the possibilityof constructing a form of religion without Christian associations. Accord-ingly, the emple of Set should be seen as another example of new religionsreferring mainly to traditions outside Christianitybe it on Graeco-Roman antiquity, Ancient Egypt, or Asian religious traditions.37

A second aspect of interest in the philosophical-theological system ofthe emple of Set is the development of the individual.38 Te emple ofSet does not prescribe a rigid system of rituals, but a framework withinwhich one can develop individually. Tis can be seen in the websites infor-mation on participation in the community of Setians:

Te Gateway to your own Initiation is in your Heart, but often Hidden thereby circumstance and habit. External Gateways are Symbols you can use in mak-ing your rites of passage. Most of the rites of passage you need in your life youwill have to create yourself. Pylons are one such gateway. Real Initiation doesntcome from texts, it passes from Mouth to Ear; texts are supplemental.39

Te text focuses on the individual person and religious experience. It isnoteworthy that on the page of useful literature recommended by theauthor is a standard scholarly book on ritual, Arnold van Genneps TeRites of Passage,40 with the remark that it is a good guide for setting upones rites of passage.41


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42) Petersen, Satanism, 435.43) See also Merja Hermonen, Rationalistic Satanism: Te Individual as a Member of aCountercultural ribe, Syzygy11 (2002), 69104, at pp. 9496.44) Both the recourse to Egyptian religion and the focus on individual development wouldwarrant a more detailed study. Te specific meaning of Ancient Egyptian Religion in recentreligions is the topic of an article by the author which is going to be published in theHandbook of Egyptian Religion (ed. by J. Assmann & H. Roeder, Leiden & Boston:Brill, forthcoming).45) Te text gives Lai Che/Ben Cat, South Vietnam as the place of composition, and wasapparently composed during Aquinos time in the military during the Vietnam War. See

Aquino, Church of Satan, Appendix 15, p. 512.

Te approach based on the individual person is connected to a frame-work for personal development called Xeper, based on the old Egyptian

word pr (becoming, coming into being).42 From a more systematicpoint of view, the concept of a framework for personal development to befilled by the individual seems typical of recent religions, which offer theindividual room to create a personalized religious experience. In the empleof Set this is combined with the development of personal rituals whichenables the individual to create his own individual religious praxis with itsown particular rituals.43 Tis kind of inner development is linked with thebelief in a higher principle: the devil in the form of the god Set.44With itsconcept of the devil as an autonomous and positive principle, the doctrineof the emple of Set should be seen as part of a tradition dating back to thetime of the Counter-Reformation, the work of John Milton, and the his-tory of the fallen angel, Lucifer.

2. Te History of the Devil and John Miltons Paradise Lost

Te reference to Lucifer on the emple of Set website already hints at the

specific meaning for Aquino of this particular figure from the history ofthe devil. A poem by Aquino shows the centrality of Lucifer in the devel-opment of the emple of Set-doctrine. In 1970, five years before the foun-dation of his own Satanic organisation, Michael Aquino published atractate which marks the transition from the doctrines of the Church ofSatan to those of the emple of Set.45 Te tract entitled Diabolicon


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46) All quotes from the edition of Diabolicon in Aquino, Church of Satan.47) Schmidt, Satanismus, 166.48) Schmidt, Satanismus, 172.49) Te passage is followed by the speeches of Belzebul, Azazel, Astaroth and Belial.

develops a complex teaching about the creation of the world, god andman. It begins with the words:

Hail, Man! Te mysteries that are thy heritage shall now be proclaimed, butlearn first the history of thy conception and creation amidst the eternalCosmos. For as the Universe itself be infinite, so art thou a true creature ofinfinity incarnate and the ascension of man shall herald the final triumph ofimmortal Will.46

As with LaVey the focus is on man, but this is connected with a narrativereminiscent of Christian tradition.47

Know, then, that throughout the great Cosmos there exists a sublime order,whose nature was determined in eons long past by that singular consciousnessof all order which Is now called by name God. [] Te Earth of man wasinfused with this divine order, and all that was on Earth came under the forceof the order. [] And yet the force was not full master of the Cosmos, for Iwho am Satan was conceived to complement the craft of God.

A dualistic concept of Satan is developed which, with its antithesis betweenLucifer and God, stands in stark contrast to LaVeys monism. Ten I who

had brought the first great spark of enlightenment was known as Lucifer,Lord of Light, and we called our race angel, for we were the embodiedpowers of God.48

In what follows, Lucifer is described as possessing various attributes. Heis the rebel who revolts against god, he is proud and noble, and he has freewill. A direct connection to man and his development is then asserted:But of all creatures it was man whom we determined to infuse with pureintelligence and Will.

Te speech of Lucifer ends: I who am Lucifer, and who have taken the

name Satan ArchDaimon, do bear this title with pride, for I am in truththe great enemy of all that is God. ogether, man, thou and I shall achieveour eternal glory in the fulfilment of our Will.

Tese few quotes from his elaborate tract49 show the specific importanceof Lucifer in Aquinos teaching. Te devil, Lucifer, appears as a positive


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50) Milton, Book I, Preface (Douglas Bush [ed.],Milton. Poetical Works[London: OxfordUniversity Press, 1966]).51) Ibid.52) Milton, Book III, Preface (Bush [ed.],Milton).53) For a broader discussion see Russell, Mephistopheles, 92127, with further literature,and the anthology edited by J. Martin Evans: John Milton. wentieth-Century Perspectives(5 volumes, New York: Routledge, 2003).54) Tere is also a detailed discussion on the portrayal of the Satan in Robert McMahon,Te wo Poets of Paradise Lost(Baton Rouge & London: Louisiana State University Press,1998), chap. 2: Satan and the Bard, which cannot be covered in this article.

principle that brings insight. Here Aquinos concept is tied into an elementof the tradition by means of bringing a specific piece of literature to bear:

Paradise Lostby John Milton (16081674).Miltons epic poem is one of the classics of world literature. Te work

presents in twelve chants a sort of new narrative of the story of paradiseand the fall of mankind as described in chapter 3 of the Book of Genesis.Te text begins with a scene in which Satan and his angels fall into hell, aplace not in the middle of the earth but, as Milton puts it, a place of utterdarkness, fitliest calld Chaos.50 Satan and his legions of lower devils,named according to the Idols known afterwards in Canaan and theCountries adjoining,51 intend to win heaven back. When they realise theywill lose in their conflict with God they turn against Gods creature, man.God sees Satan flying towards the world and shows him to his son sittingon his right.52 When he sees the garden of Eden Satan begins to doubthimself, but finally finishes his work, beguiling Eve into the fall. In theend, Adam and Eve are banished from Paradise.

It is impossible to consider all the various aspects of Miltons poemhere,53 so in light of the topic of this article, we will restrict the analysis tohis characterisation of the devil.54 Miltons poem marks a paradigm shift

in the history of the devil as Milton provided him with human featuresand allowed him to appear as an individual. Tis is especially clear in twopassages from Books I and IV, respectively. Te former characterises Satanas heroic, while in the latter he falls into self doubt at the prospect ofEden.

Above them all th Arch-Angel; but his faceDeep scars of thunder had intrenched, and careSat on his faded cheek, but under brows

Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride


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55) Bush (ed.),Milton, 227. See also McMahon, Poets, 6768.56) Bush (ed.),Milton, 277.57) Interestingly, parts of Book IV were composed several years before Milton decided towrite Paradise Lost, see McMahon, Poets, 61.58) Hans Biedermann, Lexikon der magischen Knste(Wiesbaden: VMA, 1998), 132.59) McMahon, Poets, 6769.60) Tis can be seen in the controversy following Miltons book. For the early criticalreception see the overview at Margaret Kean (ed.),John Miltons Paradise Lost. A Sourcebook(London & New York: Routledge, 2005), 4152.61) Russell,Mephistopheles, 97; McMahon, Poets, 73.

Waiting revenge. Cruel his exe, but castSigns of remorse and passion to behold.

(Book I, 600605).55

Tus while he spake, each passion dimmed his faceTrice changed with pale, ire, envy, and despair,

Which marred his borrowed visage, and betrayedHim counterfeit, if any eye beheld.(Book IV 114119):56

In the period before Milton these words would have been nearly unthink-able.57 Classically, the devil was described in the way he is ubiquitously

depicted in present times: as a grotesque being, half man, half beast, withanimalistic attributes like a tail and the feet of a he-goat. In the MiddleAges the devil was described as a monstrous entity without any of the self-reflexion Milton gave to him two hundred years later. A popular bookfrom the 15thcentury states that the devil appeared in form as tall as aman, and was hairy and shaggy, of a colour like a little red squirrel, with atail curled over his head.58 In contrast, Miltons is no longer the monstrousdevil of the Middle Ages, with his grotesque face. Te devil appears morehuman, a being with feelings, with courage and pride, but also withcruelty.59

Milton made the devil attractive, gave him a face, and the beautiful devilemerged, the devil who was no longer only frightening and repulsive, butalso charming.60 Satan was no longer simply the personification of evil, buttook on a form all his own. He became an individual with feelings and sor-rows and thereby a figure in his own right61 who could be emulated: thedevil became an ideal. Finally, Miltons Satan offered a combination of theconcept of the personalised evil with a focus on the individual, a central


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62) See Ernst Osterkamp, Lucifer. Stationen eines Motivs (Komparatistische Studien 9,Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1979), 132135.63) A very interesting explanation was given by William G. Riggs, Te Poet and Satanin Paradise Lost, in: J. Martin Evans (ed.), John Milton. wentieth-Century Perspectives,

vol. 4: Paradise Lost(New York & London: Routledge, 2003), 303326, at pp. 303304,who paralleled the narrator of Paradise Lost with Satan, see also McMahon, Poets,165166.64) Tis can be seen in the reception of Milton, see Lucy Newlyn, Paradise Lost and theRomantic Reader(Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), 19. who speaks of a Milton Cult.65) Otto Bcher, eufel VIII. Ikonographisch, in: Gerhard Mller (ed.), TeologischeRealenzyklopdie, vol. 33 (Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2002), 141147,particularly p. 127.66) See Frick, Satan 2, 8; Grbel, Hierarchie, 38f, and for an exegesis of the New estamentpassage, Christian Nanz, Hinabgeworfen wurde der Anklger unserer Brder. (Offb 12,10).Das Motiv vom Satanssturz in der Johannes-Offenbarung, in: Backhaus, Knut (ed.),Teologie als Vision: Studien zur Johannesoffenbarung (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk,2001), 151171, at pp. 155160.

concern of enlightenment thought.62 His Satan is not just evil, he is nobletoo. His figure is like an awesome angel of noble beauty, but also of pain and

passion. His uncontrollable pride and his envy against the son of God drivehim to wage war against Gods majesty. Te devil becomes a humanlikebeing.63 He appears as a kind of archetype for the revolution against cosmicoppression and Christian religion. At the end of the seventeenth centuryJohn Milton depicted a man aware of his skills, proud and noble.64

Tis paradigm shift becomes more evident if we consider the notion ofthe devil in the time before Milton. Te devil was not only determined bystandard iconography,65 but also shaped by ideas regarding the hierarchyamong different devils and their specific significance. wo biblical textsfrom the book of Revelation, the last book of the Christian Bible, are ofgreat interest. In chapter twelve of the book of Revelation, the battle inheaven between Michael the archangel and the Devil is described (12:9):Te great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is calledthe Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world he was throwndown to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

Tis verse marks the natal hour, so to speak, of the devil in his classicalform. Tis is the devil who fights against the divine powers, who wants to

deceive the world, and who has his own entourage, the demons.66

Againstthe backdrop of texts such as Isaiah 14 from the Hebrew Bible and Luke10 from the New estament, the so-called church fathers of the third


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67) Tis myth could be found for the first time in Origenes. On the content of the Christianmyth, see Osterkamp, Luzifer, 15.68) On the origin and the name of Lucifer see Frick, Satan, 164167 and Karl Hoheisel,Luzifer, in: Walter Kasper et al. (eds.), Lexikon fr Teologie und Kirche.3rd, completelyrevised edition, vol. 6 (Freiburg & Basel: Herder, 1997), 1154.69)

See Jeffrey Burton Russell, Lucifer, the Devil in the Middle Ages(Ithaca: Cornell UniversityPress, 1984), 247.70) As Richard Bauckmann has pointed out, during the first Christian centuries the devilwas not of great importance. Te concept of the devil in the netherworld was rooted inmedieval tradition, see Henry Ansgar Kelly, eufel V. Kirchengeschichtlich, in: GerhardMller (ed.), Teologische Realenzyklopdie, vol. 33 (Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter,2002), 124134, at p. 128.71) On Peter Lombard see Grbel, Hierarchie, 85, and on the aspect of demonic hierarchy,see Frick, Satan 2, 14.72) Dante wrote his Comedy in the last fifteen years of his life. His admirers later called thework the Divine Comedy; Russell, Lucifer, 216.73) Grbel, Hierarchie, 60.74) See Frick, Satan 2, 8 for a broader discussion of the issue.

century CE combined the devil and Lucifer.67 Originally a positive deity inRoman religion, the light-bearer68 became the leader of all devils.69 Tis

concept was further elaborated during the Middle Ages. Peter Lombard,one of the central theologians of the twelfth century, developed the notionof a hierarchy among the devils, with some of them in the hell.70Accordingto his doctrine these devils sojourn in a stratum of air beyond the earth andtravel daily into hell to punish men.71 Te connection with the alreadyexisting concept of Lucifer was created by Revelation 20:12: Ten I sawan angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to thebottomless pit and a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient ser-pent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

Te concept of various devils and the notion of hell are also graphicallyillustrated in another piece of literature: the Divina Commedia, by DanteAlighieri (12651321).72 Dantes magnum opus is based on the notion ofmany devils with different duties, a notion typical of the Middle Ages.73 Healso incorporated Tomas Aquinas who, in his Summa Teologica, devel-oped the idea of Lucifer as created by God as the highest and most perfectangel. On this basis, Dante labels Lucifer the highest of any creature.74

Te poem, from 1321, describes the journey of young Dante into Satans

empire, hell. On his trip Dante and his companion Virgil travel throughthe pits of hell, which are filled with historical personages atoning for their


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75) For a summary, see Russell, Lucifer, 217.76) Tis concept is founded on Ptolemaic and Neoplatonic philosophy, cf. Russell, Lucifer, 216.77) Russell, Lucifer, 227, n. 26 mentioned that Lucifers tomb, as described by Dante, is aparody of Holy Sepulchre, the tomb of Christ.78) Tis motif is also rooted in a tradition that goes back to the itans of Graeco-Romanreligion and the giant children of the angelic Watchers in apocalyptic literature, RudolfPalgen, Dantes Luzifer. Grundzge einer Entstehungsgeschichte der Komdie Dantes(Munich:Hueber, 1969), 7374.79) Mark Musa, Dante Alighieris Divine Comedy. Vol 1 Inferno(Bloomington & Indianapolis:Indiana University Press, 1996), 329.

sins, among them Cleopatra, Achilles, the emperor Barbarossa and PopeAnastasius II.75All in all, 128 historical characters are distributed through-

out the nine pits of hell.76 Dante and Virgil climb deeper and deeper untilthey reach the lowest part of hell. Tere they see Lucifer, stuck in ice,crushing with his three mouths the heads of three historical characters:Cassius, Brutus and Judas Iscariot.77All of them are traitors: the first twobetrayed Caesar, the latter Jesus Christ. Lucifer is described as a giantdevil:78

(28) Te king of the vast kingdom of all griefstuck out with half his chest above the ice;

my height is closer to the height of giantsthan theirs is to the length of his great arms;you see how big all of him had to bethat body in proportion to his arms.If once he was a fair as now hes foul

And dared to raise his brows against his Maker,it is fitting that all grief should spring from him.(37) Oh, how amazed I was when I looked upand saw a headone head wearing three faces!

one was in front, and that was a bright red,the other two attached themselves to this oneat a point above the middle of each shoulder,and at the crown all three were joined in one:[](55) In each of his three mouths he crushed a sinnerwith teeth like those that rake the hemp and flax,and so he kept three souls in constant pain.(Divine Comedy, Inferno, Caton XXXIV, 2857).79


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80) On the iconography of the devil see Grbel, Hierarchie, 6061.81) For the soul-eater, see Grbel, Hierarchie, 101102.82) Palgen, Dantes Luzifer, 7677.83) See Russell, Lucifer, 224225. and Grbel, Hierarchie, 61.84) Cf. Osterkamp, Lucifer, 133.85) Tis is, in my view, the unlike older attempts to characterize Lucifer as a positive entity,see Norman Cohn, Europes Inner Demons(London: Paladin, 1975), 5354.86) Russell, Lucifer, 202.87) See Schmidt, Satanismus, 58, and for a contrary position, Riggs, Poet, 60: Miltonknew exactly to what extent he was of the Devils party.

Te passage presents a combination of different motifs linked with thedevil: his red colour and monstrous face,80 the notion of the devil as soul-

eater and the notion of the demonic hierarchy, with Lucifer at its head.81Dante ties in the tradition of the battle in heaven and the fallen angel fromRevelations 12, but expands it to include Lucifers fall into the deepest hellwhere his lower body is stuck in ice.82 Tis concept of Lucifer as the high-est and, for Dante, most fearsome devil is combined with the doctrine ofthe seven deadly sins. Each pit of hell presents different sinners accordingto the seven deadly sins: those who had been arrogant, those who had beenavaricious, and so on.83

Against the backdrop of the concept of the devil in the Middle Ages asrepresented in Dantes Divine Comedy, the paradigm shift brought on byJohn Milton becomes clearer.84 On the one hand Milton ties in the ancientmyth of Lucifer, the fallen angel, but on the other he liberates this figurefrom the medieval image of the devil and from the attributes given it byDante.85 Milton seizes on Tomas Aquinas and Gregors notion that afterSatans sin a war broke out in heaven where the angels, under the leader-ship of Michael the Archangel, drove out the Devil and the other apostateangels.86 Moreover, Milton did not sketch the devil as a monster, establish-

ing a tradition which leads finally to the romantic concept of Satan in the18thand 19thcentury. How much of this was intended by Milton is stilldebated. William Blake famously stated that Te reason Milton wrote infetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devilsand Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devils party withoutknowing it.87

Be that as it may, during the Romantic period Milton becomes a key-figure in the transfiguration of the image of Lucifer. Interestingly, some fea-tures of Miltons portrait of Lucifer were already found earlier. In a Corpus

Christi drama from 1480 (the Egerer Fronleichnamspiel) we have a detailed


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88) See Grbel, Hierarchie, 91.89) Russell,Mephistopheles, 95.90) See Osterkamp, Luzifer, 138139, who pointed out the influence of Milton onKlopstock.91) For the romantic legacy of Milton in authors like William Blake, William Wordsworth,Samuel aylor Coleridge, George Gordon Byron and John Keats, see Jonathon Shears, TeRomantic Legacy of Paradise Lost: Reading against the Grain (Farnham & Burlington:Ashgate, 2009) and Osterkamp, Lucifer, 179212.92) For Luthers concept of the devil see Russell,Mephistopheles, 3839.93) Tis is also found in the tradition as early as the Renaissance; Osterkamp, Lucifer, 52.94) Osterkamp, Lucifer, 211, and for Byron see Shears, Legacy,130138.

self-description of Lucifer. Te text includes a lamentation of Lucifer afterhis fall, whereupon the other devils try to console their patron.88

However, the specific mode of self-reflexion found in Paradise Lostwasa new element and it was this that was of central importance for the liter-ary Satanism of the decades that followed. As Jeffrey B. Russell pointedout, it was John Milton who transformed the traditional story of the fallof angels and humanity into a scenario so coherent and compelling that itbecame the standard account for all succeeding generations.89 One hun-dred years later this romanticized figure of Satan with his steeliness, hispride, his beauty and his noble rebellion was embellished by FriedrichGottlieb Klopstock (17241803) in his epochal work Te Messiah.90 Inthis epic poem Satan appears as a figure lacking all demonic qualitiessearching for salvation.

If we look at this line of development, enriched in the 18th and 19thcentury through the reception of Miltons Paradise Lost,91 we see the theo-logical doctrines of Satan augmented with a new one, the doctrine of aself-confident Lucifer who rebels against a Christian concept of god. Inthis way Lucifer becomes an ideal for a human liberated from the Christianworldview and beliefs through his own free will. An individual with sense

and sentiment appears who emancipates the human from the assumptionof man as sinner and from Martin Luthers popular image of the humansoul like a horse ridden (and ruled) by God or the devil.92 Te psychologiz-ing of evil is in this chain of development as well.93 Milton, Klopstock, andLord Byron present the concept of evil as an entity of its own and notsimply in opposition to Christian religion.94

I would like to propose that this other tradition of the devil which can befound for the first time in John Milton and which was followed by theliterary Satanism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through the


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95) See Bernd U. Schipper, Literarisierung von Religion. Fiktionale Literatur undApokalyptik, in: Hans G. Kippenberg, Jrg Rpke & Kocku von Stuckrad (eds.),Europische Religionsgeschichte (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), 811839,at p. 811.96) Bettina Gruber, Literature and Religion: Features of a Systematic Comparison,Journalof Religion in Europe2 (2009), 2136, at p. 21.

emple of Set was essentially conveyed by the medium of literature. Tismedium was the crucible in which a new tradition was created by adopting

an ancient myth of the devilin order to employ it against a Christian viewof Satanand combining it with the concept of the self-aware individual.

3. Te Dynamics between Religion and Literature

Te paradigm of the European history of religion mentioned in theintroduction can be analysed in different media. In recent years, scholar-ship has focused more and more on literatureepic poems, narratives ornovels engaging with religious semanticsand has led to new insights onthe interplay between religion and literature. Recent scholarship, forinstance, shows both the aestheticization of religious topoiand the func-tionalization of religious narratives.95 Recent research on narrativee.g.,the use of the apocalyptic patternhas shown that these transformationscould hardly be explained through a paradigm based solely on the recep-tion of religious patterns in a secular medium. Instead they require ananalysis of the specific function such patterns play in modern texts. In a

recent article in this journal Bettina Gruber demonstrated, by means of thePerceval/Parsifal material, that literary motifs can also serve as a basis forreligious cult and that the differences between religious and non-religiousnarrative depend only on the function assigned to them by social resp.theological authority.96 Te example of Satanism developed in the presentarticle gives additional support to this conclusion. It provides an interest-ing and, as far as I am concerned, highly characteristic interplay betweenreligion and literature. Here a narrative, originally rooted in Christian tra-dition, is modified and passed down over the centuries through the medium

of literature and finally affects the development of a new religious tradi-tion. With John Milton and the adoption of Miltons Paradise Lost by so-called literary Satanism, the myth of Lucifer became the basis for a newreligion. Tis religion, the emple of Set, is constructed without Christian


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patterns, tying itself instead to another ancient tradition to indicate the ageand dignity of the new doctrine, which is to be understood as an ancient

one. Tis example presents an interplay of different factors: the tradition ofthe fallen angel and the beautiful devil as found in literary Satanism; theschism in the satanic movement itself, in which members of the Church ofSatan decided to create an alternative religion, the emple of Set; andfinally the recourse to Ancient Egypt as a new system of reference.

In light of this example of recent religious history and the tradition ofLucifer, the theoretical framework for the dynamics between religion andother systems of meaning in the European history of religion should beremodelled in at least one aspect: not only do religious traditions affect thesecular medium of literature, but the medium itself can affect religioustraditions, tooeven to the point of leading to the founding of a newreligion. Burkhard Gladigows vertical transfer appears to be a dynamicprocess not only in one direction but two, from religion to literature andfrom literature to religion.

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