Dancing with the Devil

By Andrew Rutajit

Please understand that I do not worship any deity. I believe in a historical (physical) Lucifer just as much as I believe in a historical Jesus; which is to say, I don’t believe in a historical Lucifer at all. However, if a “Lord of Darkness” does exist, the most deceitful act he ever carried out was to convince humankind that he is the heavenly-enthroned, almighty God.

My website has the option for visitors to send me anonymous eMail; those are often quite entertaining to read. I rarely get “hate mail” but an anonymous eMailer once accused of me having a Luciferian symbol on my website. For the record, the symbol on my website (pictured right) is a phoenix perched atop an ankh with twin serpents climbing it. I designed it. It is an amalgamation of several symbols, each with their own meaning, combined to form the longstanding caduceus; but Luciferian? That’s what struck me as odd. Why not Satanic? That sure is easier to spell. What's in a name I guess; but it got me thinking about the Devil...Lucifer in particular.

I’m fascinated by any myth, legend or lore that (like shamanism) can strike such fear in the hearts of completely rational people - doctors, lawyers, police officers, Ivy League graduates, even members of MENSA. So many believers would never question the identity of Lucifer because they believe the Bible was written by the mind of God and the hand of man…divine inspiration. To question these things is to doubt the perfect mind of God. The phrase, “never underestimate the power of faith” is very true. Faith is tied directly to your ego and when these two forces get together, they can control your life. Your ego tells your mind that your faith is strong while your mind is questioning everything and using logic to rationalize such bizarre claims. Over time, the mind surrenders and these important questions fade away as you grow to actually believe in deities such as the demonic Lucifer.

Before we go any further, I need to make a list of every chapter and verse in the Bible where Lucifer is mentioned:

Isaiah 14:12
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

That’s it. That’s the only place in the Bible where the word Lucifer can be found. Yet somehow this Lucifer becomes synonymous with the Devil, Satan, the detested angel, Lord of the flies, Little Horn, Beelzebub, the Prince of Darkness, and the rest. The Catholic encyclopedia states, the “Fathers [of the Church] maintain that Lucifer is not the proper name of the devil.” Actually, in some translations, Lucifer is not even spelled with a capital L and (like “Christ”) is intended to be a title, not a proper name at all. According to most scholars, the Lucifer in the Bible is intended to represent King Nebuchadnezzar, not a fallen angel from Heaven.

As I mentioned; when dissected down to its etymological roots, the word Lucifer is said to mean “light-bringer,” from the Latin lux (meaning “light”) and ferre (meaning “carry”, bear or bring). If you are paying close attention, you will notice that Lucifer is a Latin name and it found its way into a “divinely inspired” Hebrew manuscript, written long before there was a Latin language. The truth of the matter is the authors of the Bible read that this Lucifer had “fallen from Heaven” and they either incorporated it into their mythology, or they simply made a mistake.

Consider the symbol of the encircled pentagram. The pentagram is often said to represent Baphomet and Lucifer but this same symbol has always been symbolic of love, faith and sexuality. It is the symbol of the goddess Venus. In point of fact, it is the astronomical and astrological representation of the rotating cycle of the planet Venus and its path through the heavens.

Venus is the actual morning star. In view of the fact that Venus is extremely close to the sun, its rotation never moves it very far from the sun (from our perspective here on earth). As we rotate, and as Venus rotates, it either rises on our horizon just before the sun or, if it is on the other side of the sun from our perspective, it follows the sun down after sunset. Consequently, it is the morning star and it is sometimes the evening star. When viewed from Earth, successive inferior conjunctions of Venus plot a nearly perfect pentagram shape around the zodiac every eight years. One would see a pentagram by picking any sunrise date on which the morning star is prominent and then repeating the observation at 584-day intervals following that date for eight years. All of these things are left out of our common teaching while the symbol itself is demonized; just as the deities connected with these symbols are.

Because most Christians openly claim deities such as Lucifer, Beelzebub and Satan are the same entity; confusion is plentiful. In reality, Beelzebub is nearly indistinguishable from Ba'al. In point of fact, all secular “gods” were demonized and thrown into the fires of Hell where they melted into one deity. There has always been a difference between Beelzebub, Lucifer, Satan, and the others; however, these variations are buried beneath Christianity’s mountain of disinformation and propaganda. Rather than climbing this mountain to get a clear point of view, so many people instead bow down before it in worship and prayer. For them, the unknown is a gateway to Hell. They build boundaries made of fear of the unknown and fear will almost always triumph over truth.

If fear dominates truth, then fear hides the truth. To occult something is to hide something; in point of fact, fear of the unknown literally, by process of elimination, manufactures the occult. When the Moon occults the Sun, it casts a shadow onto the surface of the Earth. Consequently, every time this occultation occurs, an eclipse also occurs. To say that you study the occult is to say that you study those things which are hidden. Lucifer would make a fantastic talisman for the occult because Christianity’s Lucifer is both the Spirit of Darkness and the Bringer of Light (a personification of the very word “Occult”).

The results of a web-search for Lucifer Worship will display hatred and finger-pointing; much of which is coming from pro-Christian and/or anti-Masonic websites. To quote one of these websites (cuttingedge.org), “…if people really understood that Masonry is a worship of Satan, no one would join.” Now, this was said after a set up of Lucifer is this and Lucifer is that…then they make the familiar leap from Lucifer to Satan. A taste of their own medicine would be something like this, “If people were told that Christians partake in rituals where they light candles, chant in Latin and participate in mock blood-drinking rituals, no one would join.” Fear and propaganda keep people from an understanding that could change the way they see the world forever. Furthermore, fear keeps people from an understanding that would demand a change in the way they live their lives. For some, it is the fear of change itself that keeps them from wanting to understand many things. By the way, the “Palladium,” the most secret Masonic order, which is said to practice devil-worship, does not exist…it is and always was a hoax (do a web-search for “Taxil's hoax”).

The Christian point of view may shed some light on both Lucifer and Jesus. Jesus is a deity who demands faith and Lucifer is a deity who demands proof. This sparks the age old conflict between Science (proof) and Religion (faith). If the Christian idea of Lucifer is to be Satan, then it must have been Lucifer in the Garden of Eden telling Adam and Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit; thus encouraging them to open their eyes and know the difference between right and wrong for themselves.

In this light, Lucifer is also Prometheus – a friend of humankind who stole fire from the gods and gave it to us mortals – quite literally the “bringer of light” and reminiscent of the Olympic torch-bearer running toward humankind with fire stolen from the gods. Has Lucifer become an amalgamized mythological deity who was unjustly cast out of Heaven, guilty of working to free humankind from ignorance? Perhaps.

After all, like the tale of Prometheus, something was stolen from the gods and given to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden…Knowledge – also known as Light. Was the sin in the Garden of Eden the fact that Adam and Eve ate from a tree they were told not to eat from? Or was their sin the fact that they ate from the tree of KNOWLEDGE?

I won’t get into further details connecting Venus to Lucifer except to link them together as so: The snake in the Garden of Eden is Satan - Satan is seen as Lucifer - Lucifer is Venus - Venus is Aphrodite - Aphrodite is symbolic of Sex and sexual suppression has been on the top of the Christian agenda for millennia.

In Islam, the word Shaitan means God's “Adversary” - it is the root of the English word for Satan. It has been suggested by both fiction and nonfiction writers alike that the Church chose an Islamic word (Shaitan) for such a contemptible deity because they considered the Islamic language itself to be dirty. For the modern-day Satan worshiper, Satan represents the opposite of the Christian Church and some of their rituals blatantly mock Christianity; thus the incorporation of stylized Christian symbols, silly masks and over-elaborate rituals. Satan or Lucifer, whatever the title, this deity is a sponge absorbing everything secular and taking the fall for every catastrophe and misfortune humankind and the Church have ever experienced.

“Satan himself is the originator of the concept of evolution.”
~ Henry M. Morris (Founder of the Creation Research Society and the Institute of Creation Research)

If you think Science and Religion butt heads today, consider the set and setting of the times when science was beginning to explain the motion of the planets, or the big bang, or evolution, or stem cell research. Not only has science always been a thorn in the side of the Church, science has truly been God’s Adversary from the Church’s point of view. I’m not suggesting there was or is an official conflict between the Church and science; I’m suggesting there was an official conflict between the Church and anyone who dared question the power and authority of the Church. Throughout antiquity, the Church had the last word on everything, period (politically, spiritually, and scientifically). If the Church said the sun moves around the earth and the earth is in the center of the solar system and it all took six days to create - so be it. Even if the Church’s claims were completely ridiculous and easily debunked, truth seekers could be severely punished for using logic over faith (especially if you lived in Spain during the late 15th Century).

All things considered, during the Middle Ages, anyone with a profound interest in science was a potential threat to the Church. Consequently, as the Church’s inquisitions stamped out the fires of truth and knowledge, the Church burned and banned many tons of books. This was done while simultaneously and hypocritically amassing one of the greatest collections of rare manuscripts ever assembled – fifty miles of shelf-space, off limits to the public and protected by armed guards at all times to this very day. Some of these manuscripts are rare only because all but one or two copies were spared from the fires of the Church’s censorship. During these times, reading and writing would become illegal as humankind was forced into the Dark Ages.

In a sense, the Catholic Church was trying to be like God and rule the world by imposing their “Catholic” (meaning – “Universal”) religion upon everyone. Anyone fear the New World Order? How about a Universal Religion? The entire world under one system of belief and all who opposed were heretics who needed to be exterminated. A scholar specializing in the history of the Catholic Inquisitions and a scholar specializing in the history of the Holocaust would have a compelling debate over which atrocity was more horrific.

I use the Holocaust only as an example because hind-sight is 20/20; the power and authority of the Church and its inquisitions produced the suppression of art, science, and nearly all secular progress. Where would we be today if not for the handicap set upon us by these warriors of Christendom? This is why I previously wrote, “...if a “Lord of Darkness” does exist, the most deceitful act he ever carried out was to convince humankind that he is the heavenly enthroned, almighty God.”

We were thrown into the Dark Ages by the suppression of scientific ways of thinking and promoting…or rather, demanding religious ways of thinking. Surely, a bringer of “light” could bring an end to the “Dark” Ages. In this regard, Lucifer as the Light Bringer represents not only science but a press for truth and understanding in a world of suppression and self-inflicted ignorance. Coincidentally or consequently, Lucifer would become synonymous with the evil Satan - indistinguishable from every other demonic name and dissolved into the mix of “that which is evil.” Seeking the Light – seeking the truth – is clearly an act (by very definition) in contradiction with faith. As a result, it became a part of an anthropomorphized demon used to scare people away from truth and have them running in fear to their local church with high hopes they wouldn’t be cast into Hell for their thought-crimes against a very jealous god.

According to the Bible, Lucifer was thrown from Heaven because he wanted to be like God. Actually, it was more like an attempted coup d'état; Lucifer actually wanted to become God and ascend to God’s throne. As a result, a war ensued and Lucifer and his army of fallen angels battled Archangel Michael and his Army of God. My point being, a huge war took place in Heaven before the events in the Garden of Eden did. Christians suggest that we are born into sin because of the sins of Adam and Eve in Genesis, but apparently there was plenty of corruption in Heaven long before Adam and Eve let the temptation of knowledge get the better of them. As a matter of fact, Adam, Eve and Lucifer were all three charged with the very same crimes - Trying to be like God.

Genesis 3:5
For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

Genesis 3:22
And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever

The proper name for the tree they ate from is, “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” I’ll discuss this tree in depth in a later chapter but for now, it is safe to say, this tree was obviously created before they sinned by eating of its forbidden fruit. So where is this “evil” in paradise coming from? Most Christians will argue the concept that this omnipresent God did not cause evil but only permits it to happen. This argument includes the philosophy that without evil, we would have no choices in life - the constant temptation to backslide gives us an option to choose our fate by surrendering to temptation or choosing the path of wisdom and spirit (darkness or light)...or, as many believe, these paths either lead to the ultimate punishment or the ultimate reward.

Is there really no reason to seek knowledge; to read and discover new and fascinating ideas about this reality we inhabit? Could this life and afterlife be so simple that all we need is a water ritual at birth and a belief in Jesus for it to have a fairytale ending? Mother Teresa receives the same reward in the afterlife as a serial killer who repents on his deathbed? This brings to mind the biblical account of a man named Job. The Bible says Job was a loyal servant to God but Satan claimed that Job was only loyal to God because he expects to be rewarded.

Job 1: 9-11
“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

What happens next is rather odd – God allows Satan to test Job. In order for God to prove Satan incorrect, God allows and watches as Satan takes away all of Job’s possessions, tears down his home, kills Job’s family and inflicts Job with boils covering his entire body. In the end, Job came very close but never directly cursed God; however, he cursed the day he was born and to me, that's just about the same. After loosing his family, Job was moments from having lost everything else – including his life and sanity just so God could have an “I told you so” moment with Satan.

Consider this concept of God and Satan being two literal “war Lords”…Generals fighting it out on battlefield earth…Robert E. Lee vs. Ulysses S. Grant for example. How odd it would be if Lee said to Grant, “Your Lieutenant is only faithful to you because you treat him so well; he would curse your name if you took away all his belongings.” It would be even odder still, had Grant decided to test his Lieutenant and replied to Lee saying, “Take everything he owns, just don’t kill him; but feel free to kill his family and inflict him with disease.” And just to twist the knife, Grant would have the authority to stop these horrific events at any time but instead, chooses to watch it all play out. Total insanity.

In the end, no matter how things got started or what these names and titles were intended to mean, Lucifer is Satan is Beelzebub is the Devil, etc, etc, etc. They are all the same deity and it is this way because this is what the majority believes to be true. This very fact categorizes the understanding of the true nature of these legends and folklores under “the occult”. As a result, the truth is left in the dark…hence the age old saying:

“Light is found in the heart of darkness.”

Fiat Lux