Showing posts with label Possession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Possession. Show all posts

Sunday, September 19, 2021

Greek Orthodox Archimandrite Fr. Savvas Agioritis on the demonic nature of the peck


Following up on the idea that the pecked are no longer alone in their bodies, reader Ben Pratt has brought to my attention these remarks by a Greek Orthodox hieromonk. For those who understand modern Greek, the original audio (with English subtitles) is available here. My transcript follows (from the subtitles, edited slightly in the usual fashion, probably with plenty of tpyos), with a few remarks of my own at the end.

I would like to present to you a personal testimony of a hieromonk who made the mistake of getting pecked. This is his confession. If anyone wants to know his name, I can tell you privately. He is a priest under Archbishop Ieronymos of Greece. I will be reading directly from the publication, which fortunately is still on the Internet.

"In a few words, I will relate my experience after taking my first dose of the Phyzir peck. God obstructed me with many signs before taking the peck. Due to shortness of time I will not mention all of them. As I was heading towards the pecking center, right before I was getting into the queue, I felt something obstructing my approach. As I approached, I felt a stench that surprised me," said the monk.

You see, God cautioned him, and he still went ahead.

"While I was taking the peck, others were waiting outside. As I was leaving, I was unable to wear my kalimafi [clerical headdress]. I felt great shame within myself and left holding my kalimafi in my hands."

As you can see, he began to feel the demonic influence right away, as he was ashamed to wear his kalimafi even though he is a priest.

"Arriving home, I went to the bathroom to wash my face. Upon looking in the mirror, I was frightened at my face due to the expression I had. The next day, I went shopping at the supermarket, and since it was still the period after Easter, I would normally greet the shopkeepers with 'Christ is risen!' or respond 'Indeed he is risen.'"

So as you know, for 40 days after the Resurrection, we refrain from saying "Good day" and replace the phrase with "Christ is risen," and the other person should respond, "Indeed he is risen" and not say "Likewise."

"As a hieromonk, I was surprised to discover that I was very ashamed to say 'Christ is risen' to the shopkeepers. This greatly overwhelmed me."

He began to realize more intensely that something was not going well in his soul.

"A day later, I went and attended a divine service at a local church, but not to perform the service as priest. Upon entering the sanctuary, I felt as if I were dead."

You see, a living spiritual person notices the difference straight away.

"The joy I used to feel at the divine service was lost. It was as if I were not entering the sanctuary of a holy church, but as if I had entered a room in a house. All these things surprised me, but at the time I did not believe they stemmed from the peck. I saw familiar parishioners turn their faces away from me. The next day, I found that my conscience was causing me terrible pain. It was as if I had been pierced in my heart with such pain as I had never felt before in my life. I told this to a fellow archimandrite, what I was feeling, and he consoled me. He told me something along the lines of, 'Its nothing, don't worry about it.' Upon leaving, I found that this pain in my conscience was relentless and was deepening further within me. From that day forward, I was in a deeply troubled state with lasted 13 days. I could not sleep or calm down. Now allow me to explain the most terrible part. Day and night I constantly saw Satan in front of me, his face an inch away from mine. I went to sleep at night and felt him embracing me, and I would get cold all over. I would read the Salutations to the Virgin Mary, and I would feel as if my blood was burning in my veins. I felt a foreign presence within me, and it was judging me. I felt a horror, as if someone was saying, 'You belong to me now.'"

Do you understand how terrible these things are? And very true, because we personally know this person. This corroborates the experience of another hieromonk who was doing exorcisms, and the demon being pressed told the truth while having a dialogue.

"Why am I telling you this? I don't want to tell you this, but I am being pressed."

The hieromonk replied, "I am not pressing you."

The demon replied, "I am being forced to tell you."

So the demon told him, "We did a ceremony at a lodge in America for the pecks." The Satanists performed a ceremony for the pecks.

Furthermore, the demon said, "Those who take this peck will be unable to repent." Now this may seem too harsh.

The hieromonk then asked, "Why won't they be able to repent?"

The demon responded, "Because I will be inside of them."

You can see the correlation with the first hieromonk, who was saying the same thing, that he felt Satan inside of him and saw him an inch away from his face, telling him, "You belong to me."

The hieromonk performing the exorcism was having a dialogue with the demon. The demon was speaking through the demon-possessed person.

The demon told him, "Those who have taken the peck cannot repent, because I am inside of them."

The hieromonk asked, "How are you inside of them?"

The demon answered, "With the blood of the aborted fetuses."

We have mentioned previously that fetuses were used in the peck and were purposely murdered for their cells. These cells were extracted from the living fetuses by these atheist scientists and doctors who don't hold anything sacred or holy. They also remove the organs from a living fetus. If the fetus is already dead, the organs and the cells are useless. Therefore, they were not taking the fetuses from the waste bin -- which, even if they had been, would not have made it morally right, as an abortion had taken place. However, in this case, these fetuses were specifically prepared for an abortion.

So the devil confesses, "I am already inside those who took it via the blood of the fetuses." So this confession of this demon correlates with the hieromonk who was seduced into taking the peck. So as we previously read, he was saying he was ashamed to wear his kalimafi, to say "Christ is risen," how he felt dead whilst in the holy sanctuary, how everyone turned their faces away from him because his face was altered, how for 13 days he could not sleep or settle down, and most terrifying of all was seeing day and night the face of Satan an inch from his face continuously, and how he felt Satan embracing him, and though he was trying to read the Salutations, his blood was burning in his veins, and he felt someone saying to him, "You belong to me now."

Thus the hieromonk continues: "I had stayed at my family home in case of an adverse reaction. After a few days, I left. At the monastery where I currently reside, at the Divine Liturgy, I found that I could not understand a thing. I felt as if I were dead. I was constantly rushing through the service and felt great anxiety, not a speck of joy. I felt as if I were not a priest or even a baptized Christian! I reached a point of being unable to speak, as if I had lost my voice. I felt my life was dark and a constant state of despair."

You see, this person made this mistake and is being humbled. This means he has an ecclesialogical conscience. This is very important, as there are others who have made this mistake, and after seeing this mistake do not confess it so that they may warn others.

Let's continue reading.

"While I was in this hopeless state, a familiar family came to visit the monastery. I spoke with the mother. She said to me, 'Father, why are you speaking like this? Many people after taking the first dose do not end up taking the second dose. So you, too, should not take the second dose!'"

She gave him some courage.

"As she was telling me this, I felt a certain refreshing dew entering my soul."

This was from God.

"I was consoled by God's grace."

Because he had begun to repent. God sends people to console us, to inform us. This is how God works during such situations. Just a word, though many times irrelevant, shows us the way. So she said, "Okay, you made a mistake. Don't make the next mistake," i.e. don't take the second dose. Let's continue.

"I find it unnecessary to mention the despair I went through and the tears I shed. I don't know whether it's a coincidence or not, but exactly 40 days after the peck, I started to feel the grace of God again."

After 40 days, he began to feel that he was baptized again. He came back with repentance. So he confessed his sin, received the rite of forgiveness, and shed many tears. As it is written here, he cried continuously for 40 days, and only then did he begin to feel the grace of the Holy Spirit.

"I began to feel peace and consolation, that God had forgiven me for what I had done, even though I had had no knowledge of what this peck actually was."

Sadly, there are many people like this. Not everyone is indifferent. There are others who are directed by tyranny and fear, or by pressure, by their children or doctors, etc. However, when you have the correct information, you don't submit to all of this. This poor fellow was seduced, but now he has corrected his actions, so after 40 days he began to feel the forgiveness of God.

"I do not dare or want to know what would have happened to me if I had taken the second dose of the peck. The only thing I can say is that God felt sorry for me. Even though I now feel better, I have not recovered to the state I was in prior to taking the peck. In my humble opinion, this peck by Phyzir that I took is a mark but not the final mark, most likely a forerunner to the final mark of the beast."

This last statement correlates with another remark made by a demon during another exorcism. A close friend of mine, a respectable hieromonk, had told me of it. He had a dialogue with a demon during an exorcism.

The demon told him, "No, this peck is not the final mark, but it is still a mark, a forerunner, and those who are like you, when they take the peck, they lose their light."

The demon continued, "A short man used to burn us with these exorcisms!"

This short priest is well known and performs exorcisms.

The demon continued, "Now that he [the short priest] has taken the peck, he has lost his strength. Now I am able to approach him and kiss his hand!"

Previously, the demon would tremble before this priest, but now that the priest has taken the peck, the demon is able to get his blessing. This correlates with the hieromonk we have been reading about: "Even though I now feel better, I have not yet recovered to the state I was in prior to taking the peck." As you can see, these pecks cause not only physical harm but also spiritual harm.

We have read this testimony as an example, and it is from a person living a proper ecclesiastical life, because as we previously said, when someone makes a mistake that is impacting many others, it's most beneficial to correct this mistake publicly. This is in order to protect other members of our holy church from making the same mistake.

As St. Chrysostomos says, "The lukewarm Christians are living in comfort." The lukewarm are those who want to combine everything: the world, Christ, hedonism, avarice, the external appearances, not to be disenfranchised, to go to church, take Holy Communion, Holy Confession, etc. These lukewarm "Christians" cause the most damage to the church. They don't admit to their mistakes, as they think they do everything correctly. If they make a mistake, they don't correct it. They do not publicly repent of their sin so they may protect those around them. As it is written in the Book of Revelation, these are people that God will spit out.

It is best to be hot or cold, never lukewarm. The one who is spiritually cold may at one point understand his spiritual blindness and become hot. God wants us to be hot. However, the lukewarm are comfortable. Sadly, most people nowadays are lukewarm. As mentioned by Father Athanasios Mitilinaios, most Christians are lukewarm. We, too, are lukewarm and need to stop being lukewarm.

To a faithful person of God, death does not exist. This is the reality. We have forgotten this, and we now fear death. Not only do we fear death, we also fear being fined, possible imprisonment, and prosecution. In NO case can a person call himself a Christian if he fears death. When a person is afraid to die, he becomes an idolater or an atheist. Instead, a Christian should long to die. The saints wanted to die. The reason that Christians truly want to pass away is so they can be fully united with the Lord they worship and love above all else. They want to go and are joyful when they are passing away. However, they never cause death to themselves -- they do not commit suicide -- but when the opportunity arises to become a martyr and confessor for Christ, they do this without fear of death.

Unfortunately, these things are not being heard from the preachers, bishops, and priests, but as you know are heard from the demons. A well-respected hieromonk who performs exorcisms once told me what a demon said to him.

The demon said to him, "How are you Christians fearful of death? I have seduced and deceived you into taking the peck with the fear of death!"

A demon again confesses that the pecks are his doing. In fact, he says, "We did a ceremony at a lodge in America for the pecks." See what the demon confesses!

The demon continues, "What did you fear? For you, death does not exist." For Christians, death does not exist. Do you understand, fellow brothers and sisters, where we've come to?

In the Gospels, Christ said something correlating with our present situation. When he entered Jerusalem and the children were calling out, "Hosanna! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!" the children were proclaiming Jesus as the awaited Messiah, and others were indignant, and said to Jesus, "Do you hear what they are saying to you?" Christ responds, "I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out." So, correlating with today's situation, now that the priests and archpriest are not proclaiming that death has been conquered, the demons are proclaiming it instead.

"How are you Christians fearful of death, and are all running to take this peck?" -- which isn't really a peck, but rather gene therapy, with the aim of oppressing humans.

This is the aim, which is why there will be more doses. In fact, there are many people who say there will be seven doses. The demons also state that there will be seven doses. Those who were deceived into taking the first or second dose, hopefully, will not take the remaining doses. May they repent, weep, and go to confession, because their salvation is in danger. We all ought to be vigilant of this.

I'll read another hieromonk's testimony to you all, which was published on the Internet unless it's now been erased -- because whatever is true these days is usually censored on the Internet. As you know, the Internet is Satan's. Unfortunately, the Internet is not governed by God's people. Whatever they want, they remove. As much as possible, they eliminate anything that is good and right.

So this hieromonk who published his testimony on the Internet said, "I thought taking the peck was nothing, so I went and got it. But after I got it, I lost my prayer. I felt Satan coming and embracing me. For 40 days, I could not even say, "Lord have mercy.'"

This hieromonk has testified this publicly. I personally know him. He is from a monastery in the Peloponnese. He also urges everyone not to make his mistake, and whoever has already taken it, not to take any further doses, which will cause more harm for both body and soul.

In conclusion, these are the things I wanted to say to you, brothers and sisters in Christ. As you can see, there are many testimonies from many individuals. God even caused the demons to give testimony. Remember what the demon said to the hieromonk during the exorcism? "Why am I telling you all this? I do not want to tell you, but I am being pressed."

We must also remember that the devil lies, too. However, there are many times when the devil speaks the truth, especially when forced with the prayers that are read during an exorcism. Likewise, we read in the Gospels of the demons speaking the truth to Jesus: "Thou art the son of God!" The demons confessed that Christ is God.

Let us take these things into account so that we don't fall into this trap of Satan, which as you can see, Satan is using much force to direct all of humanity into this trap so he can kill as many as possible. This is the murderer that Satan is.

This is now all coming to fruition with what is happening globally. The devil wants to take as many souls as possible. This is his final goal. If all these things were good, why would they make them mandatory? Something that is good is not forced. You see Christ, whenever he went to heal someone, he would ask, "Do you want to become well?" These rulers nowadays are trying to force us to be well. That's what they think.

However, they don't want to make us healthy. Quite the opposite is occurring, actually, because we know these pecks cause sterility and thousands of other adverse reactions. Over two million adverse reactions were recorded in Europe and over 600,000 adverse reactions in America. Over 21,000 deaths in Europe, and 14,000 in America. These are all mainstream statistics that you can find online. Therefore, we don't need to be idiots. Under no circumstances are we to accept these things that the evil one is selling us.

May God bless us all. May John the Baptist guide us, not only to cease committing evil, but to call out evil when we see it. Whoever cowers and is silent before sin becomes an accessory and an accomplice to sin. So what I tell you, you need to tell others. Inform all our brothers and sisters sot hat they may not fall into this trap of Satan's and lose the kingdom of God. Amen.

To this I add my own testimony that the Holy Ghost and my own intuition have made it abundantly clear to me that I am not even to think about submitting to the peck, and that, while the biological harm is certainly very real, the primary danger is spiritual.

As for the details, obviously anything that demons say should be taken with more than a grain of salt. Fr. Savvas focuses on the use of aborted fetuses in the development of the pecks; but my own sense is that this, while clearly abhorrent, is not the central issue, that the connection to evil is much more direct and fundamental, though I cannot yet articulate it clearly.

Most importantly, the demon's claim that those who take the peck will be unable to repent is very clearly a lie, as illustrated by the account of the hieromonk who took the peck and repented. Repentance is always possible, and the contrary doctrine is a Satanic lie, designed to induce despair and convince you that you "might as well have fun / 'cause your happiness is done / and your goose is cooked." I have obviously not taken the peck myself, but I have committed sins of equal gravity, and I have repented. There is always a way back.

If you have been snookered into letting them inject that garbage into you, do what the hieromonk did. Confess, repent, and don't take any more doses. Don't think that you're already pecked and so to stand on principle now would be meaningless. Standing on principle is never meaningless.

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

Sunday, August 15, 2021

No longer alone in their bodies

Das war also des Pudels Kern!

There's a bit of doggerel Mormons like to quote, without ever crediting it to any particular author. The earliest such quotation I can find is in M. Russell Ballard's 1989 talk "The Effects of Television."

All the water in the world
No matter how it tried
Could never sink the smallest ship
Unless it got inside.
All the evil of the world
And every kind of sin
Could never damn a human soul
Unless we let it in.

Mormon reader Ben Pratt left this comment on my post "Things come to a point in the CJCLDS." The letter he refers to is the one sent out by the CJCLDS First Presidency, urging the faithful to "follow the wise and thoughtful recommendations of medical experts and government leaders" and get the "safe and effective" peck. I've made my customary edits.

I have my found my pecked friends and family members to be uncharacteristically and extremely fearful and angry. Another line of evidence brought that into focus yesterday, and I now suspect that the pecked are no longer alone in their bodies.

I'm still exploring this idea, but it instantly felt right and offers insight on the aforementioned letter as well.

Yes, Brother Pratt is implying exactly what you think he is implying, and my intuition immediately told me it was true. (The First Presidency letter makes a lot more sense if you imagine it being read in the voice used for the Senators in this video.) It would also help explain the sense of extreme spiritual urgency I and others feel, that we absolutely must not be pecked, and that far more than the health of the body is at stake. 

Monday, April 19, 2021

Satan divided against himself

Disclaimer: My terms are borrowed (by way of Terry Boardman and Bruce Charlton) from Rudolf Steiner, but I cannot claim to be using them in anything like a strictly Steinerian sense. In fact I have read only a tiny fraction of Steiner's voluminous output and assimilated only a tiny fraction of that. However, his demonology has long since taken on a life of its own.

These are just some tentative notes. I neither pretend nor aspire to be an expert on evil.


Sorath

MEPHISTO:
I am the spirit that negates.
And rightly so, for all that comes to be
Deserves to perish wretchedly;
'Twere better nothing would begin.
Thus everything that your terms, sin,
Destructionevil represent—
That is my proper element.
-- Goethe's Faust (Walter Kaufmann's translation)

By Sorath I mean the principle of evil at its purest, the devil of all devils, Goethe's "spirit that negates." God is the love-motivated Creator, and Sorath is the hate-motivated anti-Creator, who opposes all creation -- who thinks it "better nothing would begin" and that all that has begun "deserves to perish wretchedly."

Sorath's ultimate goal is that nothing at all exist, including Sorath himself. Does Sorath exist, then? Perhaps not. Perhaps it is not possible that he should. It may be possible to be God, even to be Lucifer, but not to be Sorath. After all, who can fail to see the self-contradictory nature of the statement, "I am the spirit that negates"? Sorath should probably not be thought of as a person at all, but as the hypothetical limit to which evil converges. Appropriately, Sorath is not a name from folklore, not a demon people are actually said to have interacted with, but an artificial creation of Steiner's, made from the Hebrew numerals for 666.

God is, ultimately, a Person -- and, pace Yeats, there is no Deus Inversus, no equal and opposite God of Evil, no Angra Mainyu ("Ahriman" in the original Zoroastrian, non-Steiner sense of that name). Devils who are persons certainly exist, but the devil of all devils is an abstraction, a mathematical limit which none of them can quite reach. And the name we give to this limit, this outer darkness, is also mathematical: Sorath.

We may nevertheless speak, and not altogether figuratively, of "what Sorath wants" and what it means to "serve Sorath."


What Sorath is up against

Sorath is against creation and against Creator -- that is, against existence, against being as such -- so any understanding of Sorath's battle plan must begin with answering that ever-popular question, Why is there something rather than nothing? (And, yes, I intend to answer that little question en passant and then forge ahead with my demonology. This attitude is, incidentally, why there is something rather than nothing posted on this blog.)

Descartes, meet Berkeley. Berkeley, Descartes. Let's have each of you chuck your most famous Latin catchphrase into this here crucible and see what comes out, shall we? And . . . splendid: Esse est cogitari aut cogitare. "To be is to be thought, or to think." Sorath's enemies are thinkers -- God, the gods, and such humbler beings as ourselves -- and the combined harmonious thought of these thinkers, which is the creative Logos.

New thinkers think themselves into existence, oh, probably all the time -- beginning as "minor presences, riffraff of consciousness" (Iris Murdoch's phrase) and then, some of them, developing from there, some even to the threshold of Godhood itself.

But this is likely a one-way street. Thinkers don't ever think themselves out of existence -- how could they? How could you cease, by an act of will, to have an active will? To say, or think, "I will my own annihilation," you have to say I will. Existence cannot be undone.

Thinkers -- excepting perhaps those dragons and titans and hecatoncheires who came into being before there was a Logos -- have a natural tendency to think and act in harmony with the Logos. At first, at the most rudimentary levels of development, this tendency is almost wholly passive and unconscious. "For behold, the dust of the earth moveth hither and thither . . . at the command of our great and everlasting God" (Hel. 12:8) and "even the wind and the sea obey him" (Mark 4:41).

As a thinker develops, though, and becomes increasingly active and conscious, the possibility of deliberately rebelling against the Logos begins to emerge. Sorath wants to persuade as many as possible to choose that path, with the ultimate goal of undoing creation, reducing the cosmos, if not to nothing at all, at least to chaos.

The problem, though, is how to persuade anyone to join you when you have quite literally nothing to offer. The devil of all devils wants everyone "to choose captivity and death, . . . that all men might be miserable like unto himself" (2 Ne. 2:27). Uh, what's the selling point again?


Ultimately, many can and will choose just that -- will say, "Evil, be thou my good!" and walk willingly into hell -- but they must be brought to that point by a circuitous route. That's where Lucifer and Ahriman come in.


Lucifer

In The Song of the Strange Ascetic (which I discuss here), G. K. Chesterton imagines how he would have lived if he "had been a Heathen" and expresses bafflement at the choice of an actual heathen called Higgins -- a sort of Caspar Milquetoast of heathenism -- not to live that life. Heathenism, we are to infer, is as much wasted on the heathens as youth is on the young.

A heathen Chesterton would have filled his life with wine, love affairs, dancing girls, and glorious military campaigns against the Chieftains of the North. He would have served Lucifer, in other words -- pursued forbidden pleasures -- and doesn't quite get this Ahriman fellow whom the prissy bourgeois Higgins chooses to serve instead.

Lucifer is all about wine, women, and song. Those who follow Lucifer are motivated by pleasure rather than the avoidance of pain, and are willing to embrace risk, danger, adventure, even a sort of heroism, in its pursuit. They do not shy away from violence and may even revel in it. Alcibiades, Casanova, Blackbeard -- Falstaff, even. (Not Epicurus, who, despite the modern connotation of his name, was a consummate Higgins.) This is the most relatable and accessible form of evil, the sort a good man like Chesterton could easily fantasize about embracing. "Gateway drug" is the term, I believe.

Why call this aspect of evil Lucifer? Well, because Steiner did, obviously, but we can also invent an ex post facto etymology for it. Lucifer, "light-bearer," is from the Latin lux, "light," but we can imagine that it derives instead from luxus, "luxury, debauchery." Also, Lucifer was originally a name for the planet Venus -- whose other name is that of the ancient Roman goddess of sex, drugs, and rock-'n'-roll.


Ahriman

How did Satan become Satan? Joseph Smith, the Prophet, proposes a somewhat novel origin story for this supervillain: One of the angels comes before the Lord and proposes, "send me, . . . and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost." And it is for this offer of universal salvation -- because, that is, he "sought to destroy the agency of man" -- that he is cast out of heaven and becomes the devil (see Moses 4:1-4).

If Lucifer seeks pleasure, Ahriman seeks control. Note that this is not necessarily the same thing as seeking power. Those who serve Ahriman may seek to be in control themselves, but more often their goal may simply be that everything be under control. Hierarchy is of Ahriman, because even those who are far from the top have no objection to it. Even an Ahrimanist who has the ability to control things personally will generally defer these personal decisions to a system or algorithm, personal responsibility being unpleasantly risky. A near-perfect example of Ahrimanic man is the 2020s birdemicist, happy to submit to house arrest, universal surveillance and censorship, and forced medical procedures -- rather than take a chance of catching the flu. "Non serviam" is Lucifer's motto, not Ahriman's; if Ahrimanism were condensed into a two-word motto, it would be, "Safety first" -- or, if more than two words are needed, "None are safe until all are safe" ("that one soul shall not be lost").

Lucifer's motivation is positive: the pursuit of pleasure. Ahriman's is negative: the elimination of risk. Lucifer's focus is personal; Ahriman's, universal. Thus Ahriman, though less obviously "evil" than Lucifer, is actually considerably closer than Lucifer to Sorath, to the pure and universal "spirit that negates."


Evilution


Suicide has cause and stillbirth, logic; and cancer, simple as a flower, blooms.
-- Karl Shapiro

Conceptually, Sorath is primary, and I have discussed him first. Chronologically, in the evolutionary development of evil, he comes last. The natural progression is from Good to Luciferic, from Luciferic to Ahrimanic, and from Ahrimanic to Sorathic.

First, the good are tempted by forbidden pleasures, and by forbidden means of pursuing good ends, and embrace the ethos of Abbey of Thélème: Fay ce que vouldras, "Do what you want."

This Luciferic playing-with-fire leads to predictable results, people begin to feel that the world has become a chaotic and dangerous place, and they turn to Ahriman. We can see a clear example of this if we look back at the past half-century: As the flower children (those fleurs de mal) blossomed into flower fogeys, a movement that began with free speech, free love, and letting it all hang out evolved organically into the world of PC, sexual harassment prevention training, and a superstitious horror of the "inappropriate."

As Ahriman drains the world of its charm and turns everything into management and bureaucracy, as he extinguishes joy and the memory of joy, as everyone, to one degree or another, is assimilated into his soulless system, mutual respect becomes impossible, more and more people live in a state of barely suppressed rage, and the prospect of burning everything to the ground becomes increasingly attractive. Sorath has arrived.


The Blood War

When Sin claps his broad wings over the battle,
And sails rejoicing in the flood of Death;
When souls are torn to everlasting fire,
And fiends of Hell rejoice upon the slain,
O who can stand?
-- William Blake

In the Dungeons and Dragons cosmology, one of the defining features of the "Lower Planes" (hell) is the Blood War -- the interminable conflict between the chaotic-evil (Luciferic) demons and the lawful-evil (Ahrimanic) devils, with a third class of neutral-evil (Sorathic?) fiends manipulatively playing each side against the other. So -- did the D&D guys get hell more or less right? Was old Gary Gygax privy to one or two of the deep things of Satan?

If the Blood War did not exist, Sorath would have to invent it. Remember what Sorath wants -- for men to hate the good as such and to pursue evil strictly for the evulz -- and how contrary to human nature that is. How to get us humans to sail against the wind of our own deepest nature? By tacking, of course.

  • Sorath's goal: Avoid good, pursue evil
  • Human nature: Pursue good, avoid evil
  • Lucifer tack: Sacrifice the avoidance of evil in order to pursue good (e.g. to seek pleasure)
  • Ahriman tack: Sacrifice the pursuit of good in order to avoid evil (e.g. to be "safe")
Clever little devil, right? But so far this is just tacking, and no one ever said tacking was hell. War is hell. That's the next step. Notice that the Lucifer tack and the Ahriman tack are polar opposites and are both evil. With just a bit of nudging, we get this:
  • Sorathized Lucifer: Sacrifice the avoidance of evil in order to destroy Ahriman!
  • Sorathized Ahriman: Sacrifice the pursuit of good in order to crush Lucifer!
Rage against the machine! Machinate against the rage! Behead those who insult Sorath -- who, for his part, claps his broad wings above the battle and sails rejoicing in the flood of Death. O who can stand?


La fin de Satan?

And he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, "How can Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.
-- Mark 3:23-26

Given what we have discussed thus far, what are we to make of this statement attributed to Jesus? 

Victor Hugo's unfinished poem does not really address the matter; I have pilfered the title because of its ambiguity. La fin de Satan could mean the annihilation of Satan, or it could mean Satan's objective, his telos (which is in fact the word used in Mark) -- and, wait, are those even two different things? Didn't we say that "Sorath's ultimate goal is that nothing at all exist, including Sorath himself"? La fin de Satan est la fin de Satan.

Jesus, in the passage quoted, is responding to the claim that "by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils." The implication is that devils obviously don't work that way, because if they did, the whole enterprise of devilry would have collapsed long ago, torn apart by infighting. The continued existence of Satan is proof that Satan is not in the habit of undermining himself, and thus that the whole idea of a power-of-Satan-compels-you exorcist is inherently implausible.

Everything I've written in this post thus far -- Lucifer vs. Ahriman, the Blood War, all that -- seems to be saying that the kingdom of Satan succeeds by being divided against itself, and thus that Jesus was wrong. Well, as a Christian, I obviously can't leave it at that!

The easy way out would be to point out that this quote from Jesus does not appear in the Fourth and most authoritative Gospel, that Mark consists of notes compiled by a non-witness, and that Jesus may well never have said anything like this. Honestly, though, it sounds quite Jesusy to me, and I believe he probably did say it or something like it.

Another possibility is that Jesus was speaking specifically about exorcism. Back when I still believed the mainstream idea that Mark's was the most trustworthy Gospel and was focusing my studies on it, I went so far as to read an entire book called Demonic Possession in the New Testament, by William Menzies Alexander. Alexander draws a distinction between possession by "demons" or "unclean spirits" (a condition cured by Jesus on many occasions) and possession by "Satan" (attributed only to Judas Iscariot). The latter (which also has the distinction of being the only "possession" mentioned in the Fourth Gospel) is clearly moral in nature and leads to damnation. In contrast, those troubled by "unclean spirits" are treated as victims who bear no moral responsibility for their condition. The other important point that Alexander makes is that the wave of demon-possession described in Mark was a unique phenomenon, localized in time and space. With a few ambiguous exceptions like the case of King Saul, there is scarcely a hint of demon-possession in the Old Testament, nor does demon-possession in the Marcan mold appear to happen much in the modern world. (Satan-possession, in contrast, seems to be at an all-time high.) The demoniacs of first-century Palestine, a bit like the Convulsionnaires of Saint-Médard centuries later, appear to have represented a sort of spiritual outbreak or epidemic which flared up, spread through the population, and then burnt itself out -- with this last process perhaps expedited by the activity of Jesus and his disciples. If this phenomenon was the "Satan" Jesus' accusers were referring to, it would appear that its kingdom didn't stand, and it did have an end.

Something else to keep in mind is that Jesus' responses to critics or those who tried to catch him in his words generally worked on two levels. At the level of mere repartee, their purpose was to pwn and silence his opponents; at a deeper level, they were "parables" -- riddles -- conveying more substantive truth. For example, Jesus' famous statement about the unforgivable sin against the Holy Ghost was also a response to accusations that he used demonic power to cast out demons. As rhetoric, its message was, "Be very careful calling something demonic which may actually be from the Holy Ghost" -- but we can hardly conclude that mistakenly thinking a particular "miracle" may be demonic is the unforgivable sin! The deeper meaning of this statement is, well, deep, and a great deal has been thought and written about it -- almost all of which, rightly, departs from the statement's original rhetorical context.

So focusing too much on the conclusion "and therefore exorcisms are never performed by demonic power" may be much too narrow a constraint when it comes to understanding the deeper meaning of "How can Satan cast out Satan?" Rhetorically, it is supposed to work as a reductio ad absurbum: Satan obviously wouldn't undermine his own power; therefore, no exorcist is a servant of Satan. But those who think it out realize at that what it reduces to isn't absurd at all: Satan cannot stand, but hath an end. I mean, what's the alternative, really? That Satan and his works will endure forever? That Satan -- ce monstre délicat -- has eternal life?


What if they gave a Blood War and nobody came?

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil.
-- Matt. 5:39

Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, . . . durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, "The Lord rebuke thee."
-- Jude 9

Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight."
-- John 18:36

But Jesus said unto him, "Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead."
-- Matt. 8:22

We are not here to fight in the Blood War. We are not here to contend against Satan and those who serve him. The example of the Messiah conspicuously not overthrowing the Empire should have made that clear enough. We are here to learn, to serve God, and to follow Jesus to eternal life. Anything else is a distraction.

Ace of Hearts

On the A page of Animalia , an Ace of Hearts is near a picture of a running man whom I interpreted as a reference to Arnold Schwarzenegger....