Dispelling the Myths of Satan and Lucifer (Page 1 of 2)

My perception of Lucifer seems to be at odds with that of most. I am always tempted to associate "him" with Prometheus and perceive "him" as a powerful being of Light, a ruthless Teacher ("ruthless" in the Toltec sense, meaning  uncompromising as opposed to cold and callous) and yes, an angel. This is an intuitive perception but it has been with me for as long as I can remember.

These are extracts of one of my favourite texts on the subject. I think it has its place here since it deals with Disinformation, Mind-Control and suppressed  knowledge. It is partly channeled but extensively relies on Biblical references.

Dispelling the Myths of
Satan and Lucifer
Written by Jeannie Weyrick with Christ, Archangel Raphael, and St. Germain

Lucifer
An except from the book "A Dictionary of Angels":
Lucifer Means "Light Giver", [or “Light Bearer“?]. Erroneously equated with the fallen angel (Satan) due to a misreading of Isaiah 14:12: "how art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning." an apostrophe [metaphor] which applied to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.... The name Satan was applied to Lucifer by St. Jerome and the Church Fathers. Milton in "Paradise Lost" applied the name to the demon of sinful pride. Lucifer is the principal character of the epic poem by the Dutch Shakespeare, Vondel (who used Lucifer in lieu of Satan), and a principal character in the mystery play by Imre Madach, "The Tragedy of Man". Blake pictured Lucifer in his illustrations to Dante. George Meredith's sonnet "Lucifer is Starlight" addresses the "fiend" as Prince Lucifer. Actually Lucifer connotes star, and applies (or was originally meant to apply) to the morning star or evening star (Venus). To Spenser in "A Hymne of Heavenly Love" Lucifer is "the brightest angel, even the Child of Light."
In fact a being named Lucifer does not exist at all, except in fictional writing. When Isaiah was translated into Latin 2500 years after it was written the words “this luminous falling star“? were translated into the Latin word “Lucifer“?, literally meaning “Light Bearer“?. What Isaiah wrote was meant as a metaphorical reference to King Nebuchadnezzar. Through fictional writings, such as in Milton’s “Paradise Lost“?, a whole character was created and developed that is still is referred to as “the devil“? or used as a synonym for Satan.
Satan
A quote from "The Dictionary of Angels":
"Originally, Satan was a great angel, chief of the seraphim, head of the order of virtues. While seraphim were usually pictured as 6 winged, Satan was shown as 12 winged. Gregory the Great in his Maralia, after listing 9 hierarchic orders, pays this tribute to Satan: "he wore all of them [all the angels] as a garment, transcending all on glory and knowledge." Talmud [sacred writing of Orthodox Judaism] claims that Satan was created on the sixth day of Creation."
The word “satan“? means advocacy in Hebrew. In the Old Testament God sometimes sent a satan angel to oppose men, stopping them from doing their own will and helping them to do the will of God. A satan angel may have even been sent by the Lord to prevent worse harm, such as in Numbers.
"But God was incensed at his going; so an angel of the LORD placed himself in his was as an adversary [Hebrew: satan]" - Numbers 22:22
Satan possesses no real demonic qualities in the OT writings. He always carries out the will of God. In the following Biblical quote “Satan“? becomes an official title of a distinct personality, but it is still not used as a proper name because it is used with the article "the."
"One day the divine beings presented themselves before the LORD, and the satan came along with them. The LORD said to the Adversary, ‘Where have you been?’ Satan answered the LORD, ‘I have been roaming all over the earth.’ The LORD said to Satan, "Have you noticed my servant Job?" - Job 1:6-8
In this passage, the Satan is the servant of God, whose job is not only to accuse man, but he also urges God to test Job. He does nothing without the permission of God. He appears along with the other ‘ben Elohim’ (sons of God - angels) implying that he is one of the angel-ministers of Yahweh.
The first time Satan appears in the Bible as a personified being is in Chronicles. This first appearance is an obvious edit in which Satan was later inserted into the original story, taking the place of God. There are two contradictory Biblical stories relating to the event in which Satan first appears. In 2 Samuel (the oldest version) God asks David to number the people (take a census). In Chronicles Satan causes David to number the people, in both stories God becomes angry that the census was taken (for an unknown and unexplained reason) and gives David three choices of punishment. David chooses a plague and God sends down a plague that kills 70,000 men, and presumably many more women and children.
When Samuel was edited (circa 560 BCE), the editors thought that all supernatural actions (good and bad) came from God. When Chronicles was written over a century later, (circa 400 BCE) the author viewed God as operating indirectly through his helpers, thus “Satan“? tells David to number the people, and not God.
The early Jews believed in one God and that God was the only power and was both kind and good, and harsh and vengeful.
In c. 712 B.C.E (before common era) Isaiah writes of God saying “I form the Light and create the darkness. I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things.“? (Isaiah: 45:7).
Job 9:22-23: (1520 B.C.E.) “...[God] destroys both the blameless and the wicked. When a scourge brings sudden death, he mocks the despair of the innocent.“?
Lamentations 3:37-38: (588 B.C.E.) “Who has commanded and it came to pass, unless the Lord has ordained it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and evil come?“?
These excerpts from the Old Testament, with the exception of Lamentations, were written before the Jews were captured and exiled to Babylon in c. 687 B.C.E. Their detainment in Babylon, and again later in Persia, greatly influenced their religion. The beliefs in a devil or evil personified in a single being is a pagan belief. The Hebrews had no concept of this dualistic belief until they were held captive by the Babylonians. During and after their long detention and exposure to such concepts their writings started to change and began to reflect the pagan beliefs held by their captors.
The Babylonians had a very dualistic religion. There myth of creation is know as the "Epic of Creation" and in it tells of the creation of the world and the gods of light. Their belief system extends duality throughout all of creation, and does not limit it to the Earth. The central part of the story is a struggle between the gods of light and the powers of darkness. Bel--Meridach, the god of light responsible for the Earth is locked in mortal combat with Taimat, the Dagon of Chaos. The Dragon is the force trying to destroy the order of the universe and is the adversary of the Creator-God. Bel-Meridach defeats Taimat and saves the Earth from total chaos.
Later another religion would have a profound and lasting effect of Judaism. The Persian religion Zoroasterism taught that evil was completely separate from the Divine. They believed that everything had a cause and since good cannot cause evil, evil was a separate principle.
In Zoroasterism the world emanated from the wise and good Lord Ahura Mazda (or Ormazd). His guiding spirit willed good upon the world, but his good will was restricted by his evil twin brother Ahriman. In the story Ahriman is banished to hell, from where he invades the world as evil and the arch-devil.
With the acceptance of these pagan myths by many Jewish people the dualistic concepts of a devil and hell made their way into Judaism, and eventually they extended into Christianity and Islam, as well.
It is difficult to love a God who is constantly sending down plagues and enabling your enemies to enslave you. It is much easier to understand and love God if He is all good and all things evil are created or influenced by a personification of evil, such as a devil or Satan. A concept of a devil has other advantages as well. It gives people a means of dehumanizing and demonizing their enemies. With this tool people could see themselves as being aligned God, and their enemies as being in league with a devil or Satan. Because they were under the influence of a devil or Satan they were evil and there was justification for killing them, enslaving them, or treating them as less than human. The belief in a devil and Satan also allows for people to lay the blame of all their misdeeds on a scapegoat rather than taking personal responsibility for them.
The New Testament:
The authors of the Gospels believed that since Jesus was Divine and the Son of God He could/should do battle with and defeat the devil, whom they had come to believe in and gave so much power to over the previous centuries. There is a Jewish teaching that the Messiah will defeat Satan once and for all. So to show the Jesus was the Messiah and to illustrate Jesus' divine powers the authors of the four canonical gospels created many stories where Jesus castes out demons or does battle with Satan directly. Some of these stories were meant as inspiration, and others were meant as allegory, but they all came to be taken very literally as time went on. The Gospel of Thomas was written before the four Biblical gospels. It only contains sayings and teachings of Jesus, there are no stories in it. In reading the Gospel of Thomas it is readily apparent that Jesus Himself never mentioned or taught about a devil, or Satan.
Through changing beliefs, mistranslations, intentional uses of Satan in the New Testament, and through fictional writing over the millennium “satan angels“? developed into Satan, a personified being, and the personification of all evil.
Long after Jesus’ resurrection the concept of Satan was greatly expanded upon by the Orthodox Christian church, which includes the Catholic Church, and then later the Protestant Sects who separated from them. They felt that it was necessary to extend the concept of a supernatural evil force that could take control of a person's life so people would turn to the church for protection. It is very advantageous to have a supernatural evil being and/or evil force to threaten people with. The church found that they had much better control over the masses and the elite alike if they could threaten them with hell and the devil. Through these fear tactics people’s loyalty and their money was assured.
The stories and beliefs in Satan and hell grew to ever greater levels in the Christian church until it reached its zenith in the Middle Ages, leading the to Inquisition. In the 14th century, Nicholas Eymerich, a Dominican, wrote a book called "Directorium Inquisitorum", or the "Handbook of the Inquisitors." In it he described three forms of Devil worship. Near the end of the 15th century, two Dominicans; Henry Kraemer and Jacques Sprenger wrote a book called "Malleus Maleficorum" (Witches' Hammer). It became the legal reference book for the Witch burnings. The book was inspired by a combination of hatred of women, fear of sexuality, and religious superstition. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people were accused of Satan worship, tortured until they confessed, and then burned at the stake. The Inquisitors prosecuted people with a vengeance. They believed that if even one Satanist were left alive, the church would be in danger. They rationalized the torture and murder of the heretics through their belief that their victims were destined for eternal torment in Hell anyway. By torturing them until they recanted their faith and accepted Christianity, they had a chance to attain heaven. After recanting the church burned them alive so that they could not revert to their original heresy. For over 300 years, Western Europe was caught in an orgy of demonic superstition. The last European heretic was burned alive at the stake in 1792.
Their fear of the devil, their hatred of women, and fear and shame of human sexuality was so great - and irrational - that they came to the belief that every newborn was possessed by a demon at birth. The
church regularly exorcised babies at the time of baptism with the following ritual:
"I exorcise you unclean spirit in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Come out and leave this servant of God [infant's name]. Accursed and damned spirit, hear the command of God himself, he who walked upon the sea and extended his right hand to Peter as he was sinking. Therefore, accursed devil, acknowledge your condemnation...and depart from this servant of God [infant's name]...Never dare, accursed devil, to violate the sign of the holy cross, which we place upon his/her forehead. Through Christ our Lord."
When the Church of England split with the Roman Catholics, they abandoned the baptism-exorcism ritual. The Protestant churches continued to torture and kill religious heretics, but they generally hung people, instead of burning them alive, which was considered more humane.
The church believed that Satan can appear as an angel of light. So the Inquisition could charge a person with Satan worship if they had an angelic vision. Joan of Arc was accused of being an "invoker of demons," and was burned alive for her angelic visions. Hundreds of years later it was declared that they had made a mistake and she was named a saint.
By the late 18th century people came to realize that if there was any real Satanic or demonic influence it was within the church itself, and was expressed in the tortures and murders they were committing on innocent people. Through this realization the churches began to lose their credibility and their congregations and had to rethink their actions and policies. Without the backing of the people they had little power to carry out their deplorable acts.
The main resource that Christian and Jewish people have to base their beliefs on is the Bible. The Bible is full of inspired writings and there are many truths within it if you read it with an open heart. But the Bible was not written to be taken literally word for word. Some of it is an account of ancient history from the point of view of the writer. Some writings were meant to be fables or parables that taught a lesson, which some people think have to be accepted literally today. The Old Testament reflects the beliefs of people of the time. In many instances God is portrayed as a fearful and vengeful God because of the beliefs, traditions, and human experiences of the time. People wanted to believe that God was on their side and that He initiated every war so that they could justify the killings and enslavement of others. In these writings human beliefs and attributes were projected onto God. The New Testament was written between the years 70 to 100 AD. It was taken down from the memories of people repeating Jesus' words. Some of it is accurate, at least in essence, and some of it was diluted or changed over time to better fit what people want it to say. One of the biggest problems is the translations and editing that the Bible has gone through. It was translated from Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek into Latin and then to English and other languages. Each time some of it was changed due to mistranslations of words as the meanings were not truly understood or accurately represented because of cultural differences. In the fourth century the Bible as we know it today was put together and extensively edited by the Nicene Council. It was then that many books were taken out or edited, and policies made that effect the way we understand the Bible today. Other councils and further editing of the Bible over the next several hundred years would further shape many Christian beliefs of today.
Satan as a personified being does not exist any more than Lucifer exists. The idea of Satan began as a compilation of evolving Biblical concepts that were tainted by pagan beliefs. Much later the persona of Satan took on ever more demonic qualities and powers until he was considered almost as powerful as God by some people.
Sadly, today there is a resurgence of people teaching about the devil and even performing exorcisms publicly on a mass scale. These activities are mainly done by the Fundamentalist Christian Churches. As long as there are people who can be cowed with threats of a devil and hell these beliefs and actions will continue. People need to be exposed to the origins of the beliefs so that they can see through the misguided information. Unfortunately the leaders of these Sects have laid down an iron clad trap for themselves and their followers. They teach that any information advocating that there is no devil is sponsored by the devil so that he can more easily trick people and influence their lives. This cleaver teaching sets up a “catch 22“? for the people who believe in it. Any information that might set them free from their fear-based beliefs is avoided at all costs as a work of the devil.
Satan angels were introduced in the Bible as angels of God. They did not turn into a single personified evil being, or decide to head an evil force against the Earth during the years that the Bible was being written. It is only people's perception and stories of them that has changed through mistranslations, misunderstandings, fictional accounts, and manipulation for purposes of control.
Angelic Beings who help the Earth have very vast consciousnesses. They live and serve multidimensionally and interdimensionally. They have complete God Realization and live and create in unconditional Love and Divine Understanding. They are not like humans. Humans are very small individualized slivers of their own Divine Consciousness (Higher Self), living temporarily in physical creation in a state of separation and illusion. People mistakenly project those human limitations on Angelic Beings and believe them to have human needs, such as wanting to be on the Earth in a position of power and control over humankind. This could not be further from the truth. Angles have divine powers already, they do not need trivial and false powers of that kind. That is very much a human desire, not a divine desire.

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