From "The Encyclopedia of Unbelief"
--------------------------------------

_DEVIL, UNBELIEF IN THE CONCEPT OF THE. Etymology._ The origin
and meandering meanings of this mythological and religious term
will be examined in conjunction with those of its several
synonyms or near synonyms such as Satan, Beelzebub, Asmodeus,
Mephistopheles, Lucifer, and others.

The name *Devil* derives from the Anglo-Saxon *deofol* (German
*Teufel*, Latin *diabolus*, and Greek *dabolos*, meaning
"slanderer" or "accuser.") As we shall see, this is a close
translation of Hebrew word from which *Satan* is derived. The
noun *diabolos* comes from the Greek *diaballein*, whch means
"to columniate or throw across." Both the term and the negative
concept behind it were incipiently present in the ancient Iranian
word *daeva* (an evil spirit), whose Sanskrit cognate, *deva*,
surprisingly stands for any *benevolent* deity of India.

In classical Greek, the term *diabolos* was used either as a noun
or as an adjective (slanderous), and it is in this sense that it
is employed in 1 Tim. 3:11, 2 Tim. 3:3, and Titus 2:3. In the
Septuagint, however, the term *diabolos* is used as a translation
of the Hebrew *hassatan* (the accuser or adversary) and in the
New Testament the same Greek word is employed synonymously with
the less frequent term *satan* or *satanas*. Other New Testament
synonyms for the Devil are Beelzebub, Belial, the Evil One, the
Accuser, the Tempter, the Great Dragon, the Ancient Serpent, the
Prince of this World (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11), and even the
God of this World (2 Cor. 4:4.). The sole New Testament use of
the term "*a* devil" (without the definite article in Greek) is
to be found in John 6:70, where Jesus, reportedly, refers to
Judas Iscariot as a devil, probably because the latter was
supposed to be withi nthe power of *the* Devil....


_Animism._....

Triggered, according to [E. B. Tylor in his "Primitive Culture"],
by the process of breathing itself and also by the fantastic and
mysterious contents of dreams, the belief in spiritual beings
has left unmistakable and indelible traces in all known
languages, including those of the most advanced and sophisticated
human groups. It is especially reflected in words for "soul" and
"spirit," which are usually related either to terms for "shade"
or "shadow" or, more frequently, to those reflecting various
organs and aspects of the process of respiration. In other words,
an epistemologically illusory metaphysics of often grandiose
purportions appears to have been built on the honestly mistaken
assumption that air, a thin material substance normally invisible,
is actually something nonmaterial or "supernatural."...


_Polytheism._ As particular spirits slowly evolved in the popular 
imagination into ever more sharply delineated representations of 
interacting gods and goddesses of early polytheistic pantheons, they 
were for a long time thought capable of both good and evil. What 
came to be considered good as distinct from evil depended on the 
impact of various natural phenomena and human experiences on
early man's feelings and survival instincts....

At first, good in general tended to be associated with *logos*,
(order, form, organization and light) and evil with *chaos*,
(disorder, amorphousness, disorganization, and darkness). Such
were the overall traits of negative mythopoeic beings and
deities in the earliest reconstructible cosmologies of
Mesopotamia (Tiamat vs. Marduk), Egypt (Apepi, Seth-Typhon vs.
Osiris), and other ancient civilizations. These mythological
figures, however, were not yet though of as wholly evil or as
masters of infernal underworlds, and even the Greek Titans and
Hades were not yet conceived as foes of mankind or of the gods.
These beings may have been more or less somber, but they were
not yet evil and malicious.

The Mexican lord of hell, Mictlantecutli, is, on the other hand,
a far more Satanic character than any early Eurasian king of the
dead. More or less serpentine, terrifying, and chatic are Ahi
Indian mythology and Leviathan among the early Hebrews. In the
Nordic legends we encounter Loki, first as a god of fire and
eventually as a personification of evil. Similar images can be
found in the mythologies of early Slavs, Celts, and many other
peoples.

Thus, while long unspecialized in their eventual commitments to
good or evil, these proto-deities, however benevolently predis-
posed toward humankind, were not considered free from hostile
interference by ever more clearly emerging and ever more powerful
competitors. The struggle between two increasingly antithetical
personal spirits fills the legends of the prehistory of religions.
The protagonists in this struggle are often combinations of animal
and human traits. Vishnu and Shiva, Osiris and Seth, Zeus and
Typhon, Jupiter and Saturn, Thor and Loki, Biolobog and Chernobog,
Amaterasu and Susanu, and many others.


_Monotheism._ The crystallizing image of the Tempter in early
mythopoeic and religious thought is often associated with the
seemingly fascinating phallic symbol of serpents and serpent-
worship. In the universally oriented prophetic religions of
Judaism (Satan), Christianity (Devil), and Islam (Shaitan and
Iblis), the supreme personification of ontological evil is
imagined as a profoundly wicked and monstrously manifest
spiritual entity opposed to the good God of benevolent creation.
But, as we shall see, this notion and image gradually developed
through a long and convergent evolution from a number of old
"civilized" and "barbaric" traditions....


_General Overview_...

...the idea of the Devil, so central to monotheistic traditions
of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is a rather peculiar result
of complex historical combinations of ancient Semito-Hamitic,
Indo-European, and other mythologies.

On firm and scientifically defensible groups, it can be said that
the belief in the concept of the Devil (which in modern times has
developed in increasing *unbelief*) tends to be associated with
the original belief (and now growing *unbelief*) in the concept
of a personal God.


_Zoroastrianism._ There is no doubt, however, that the clearest
conception of a personified repository, container, and source of
cosmic evil is found in the ethically dualistic cosmology of
ancient Iran and especially in the teaching attributed to the
prophet Zoroaster, or Zarathustra. According to this very early
theodicy (around 600 B.C.) -- undoubtedly influenced by still
earlier Assyro-Babylonian and even Sumerian anticipations -- the
original Cosmic Being contained in his archsubstance two hypostases
or potential sub-substances, beneficent thought (creator of life)
and doubt (generator of death). It was the latter which, separated
and alienated from the original Primordial Oneness, developed, as
a shadow, into its ethical antithesis.

Ultimately, the world is created by what appeared as the good spirit,
Ahura Mazda (later, Ormuzd), god of righteousness and light, and
disrupted by the evil spirit, Ahriman or Angra-Mainyu, author of
evil and of death who lives in the world below as the master of all
things "impure." He was not imagined as an omnipotent god but only
as a great, though fortunately limited and transitory, negative
popwer, caused by Ahura Mazda to appear and disappear. In a passage
of the Zend-Avesta, the sacred book of Zoroastrian Mazdaism, Ahura
Mazda is described as having created both good and evil spirits.

The so-called Zervanist tradition in Iranian theology calls Ahura
Mazda and Ahriman twin brothers, both sons of Zervan, the god of
limitless time identified by Greek historians with Kronos. Even
the Zend-Avesta contains echoes of this idea. (Proverbs reflecting
a similar view of the close kinship between God and Satan are present
in several Balkan and other folk traditions).

It would be a mistake, however, to see the princple of good in spirit
alone and that of evil in matter alone. Good and evil, caught in a
cosmic struggle of epic proportions, divide the world of matter as
well as that of spirit. In other words, the ethical dualism of
Mazdaism, as reformed by Zoroaster, was not parallel with the
ontological distinction between spirit and matter....

Every human being should participate in this ameliorative general
struggle of opposites, which is supposed to result in the eventual
triumph of good, light and righteousness throughout the universe.
Every individual human existence thus assumes a profound signifi-
cance and acquires a unique value of its own....

...this wondrously fecund and suggestive religious mythology and
eschatology (pregnant with profound philosophical, historical,
and sociopolitical messages) has had an incalculable influence
not only on Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, but also
on the post-Renaissance and especially post-Enlightenment
developments of some of the most significant modern ideologies.
We find in this seminal scheme, in spite of the usual and fully
expected mythopoeic imprecisions, not only the prototypical
inceptions of the later Judaic, Christian, and Muslim notions of
God and Satan, but also of angels (*fravashis) and devils (*daevas*),
as well as the doctrines of incarnation, virgin birth, the Last
Judgement, the resurrection of the dead, Paradise lost and regained,
and the idea of progress, sacred as well as secular....


_Judaism._.... The maturing Hebrew conception of Satan, generally
believed to have come to its apex in the post-Exilic period, shows
significant elements of Assyro-Babylonian as well as Iranian
influence. During the Babylonian captivity (586-537 B.C.), from
which they were released by the Persians, the Jews must have
telescoped and blended the images of many evil spirits into what
eventually resulted as Satan, whose "personality" was useful to
Hebrew theologians in their reverent eagerness to protect the
sacred concept of their all-good God from any responsibility for
the great amount of evil in the world.

In the Bible (with the possible exception of 1 Chron. 21:1), the
word *Satan* is at first not a proper name denoting a demonic
spiritual being conceived as an antagonist or as a rival to God.
In its original use, it is a common noun designating an adversary,
opponent, or obstructionist. It refers to human adversaries in
1 Sam. 29:4, 2 Sam. 19:23, 1 Kings 5:18 and 11:14, 23, and 25. Its
verbal form is used in a legal context (Ps. 109:6), as well as in
general references to antagonizing.

The angel sent to obstruct Balaam (Num. 22:32) seems to have been
chosen at random as *a* satan (*le-satan*), and it may be that the
consonants *lstn* should be read as the infinitive *liston*, which
means "to oppose or obstruct." There is nothing, thus far, to
indicate that *sitnah* was supposed to be a permanent function of 
a certain angel. As a settled designation of a particular angel,
"the Satan" makes his first appearance around 520 B.C. in Zech 3
and Job 1-2. In Chron. 21:1, the Hebrew article is discarded, and
Satan finally figures as a proper name. In Zech. 3, he serves as
public prosecutor in the court of heaven. In Job 1-2, he calls
into question this righteous man's loyalty and integrity and
proposes to God that it should be put to the test.

This role of an unfriendly demon is known from ancient Babylonian
sources, in which the demon denounces human beings and complains
against them before the gods. In the earlier books of the Bible,
however, Satan is unmistakably subject to God's will and command,
and, as a member of his celestial entourage, is clearly unable to
act without the Lord's authorization and beyond his mandate. In
no sense is he anywhere as yet a rival or competitor of God,
although in Chron. 21:1 he is conveniently blamed for the death
of 70,000 innocent Israelites, an event which could not have
occurred without the "unfathomable" will of God.

In the post-Biblical Hebrew Apocrypha, and Apocalypses, Satan
gradually assumes an increasingly negative character, and the
faithful are warned to beware of him. In the Talmud and Midrash,
there is a legend according to which it was Satan who challenged
God to tempt Abraham with the idea of sacrificing Isaac. This
legend can be found in Jubilees 17:16. In quite a few contexts,
however, Satan appears more strongly as the impersonal force of
evil than as a distinct personality. The evolution of his negative
physiognomy was probably completed in the 3rd and 2nd centuries
B.C. under the influence of so-called pagan literatures.

As a result, in later Judaism, we encounter a strongly Iranianized
version of the concept of Satan, with the demon Asmodeus of the
Book of Tobit bearing an eloquent resemblance to the evil spirit
Aeshara Daeva of ancient Zoroastrianism. In the Book of Enoch,
the word *Satan* occurs in both singular and plural forms and,
in Ecclesiasticus, he is identified with the wicked serpent of
Genesis. Finally, the Book of Secrets of Enoch describes his
rebellion against God and consequent expulsion from heaven.


_Christianity._ It is only in the New Testament that Satan emerges
as the chief adversary of God and the principle of universal evil
conceived as a person. He is a virtually sovereign personality
challenging Christ as the Antichrist. According to Christian
belief, human beings and angels were created for the enjoyment of
the beatific vision, but they were not to possess it without first
passing a test. Though they were all created as pure spirits
endowed with "supernatural" life, some angels failed this test for
reasons of arrogant self-assertion and the "sin" of pride.

In Matt. 9:34, Jesus speaks of "the prince of the devils" and of
the "devil and his angels." It is usually thought that one devil
(Lucifer or Lightbringer, Beelzebub or Satan) led the others to
perdition. The name *Lucifer* (which is mentioned in scriptures
only in Isa. 14:12) is alleged to have belonged to the rebel angel
before the fall. The term *Beelzebub* comes from the Hebrew *Ba'al
zebub*, lord of the flies, originally a Phoenician deity. From
Luke 4:6 and on, there is no more doubt that the devil is viewed
as an enemy of God and a tempter of human beings. According to
Christian theology, the principal consequence of the redemption
was to undo Adam's sin by destroying the power of the Devil.
Nevertheless, God still permits this evil demon to tempt us through
the nature of our body.

In the New Testament, the fall of the Devil is referred to in
2 Pet. 2:4 and in Rev. 12:7-9. In the former, it is claimed that
"God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into
hell" and in the latter we learn: "War arose in heaven; Michael
and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his
angels fought, but they were defeated... and the great dragon was
thrown down, that ancient snake who is called the Devil and Satan,
the deceiver of the whole world."

The Devil is further referred to as "your enemy" in 1 Pet. 5:8 and
as the "dragon" and "the ancient serpent expelled from heaven to
earth" in Luke 10:18 and Apocalypse 12:9 and 20:2. His temptation
of Christ is described in Matt. 4:1 and 10 and his continued
temptation of ordinary mortals to this day in Acts 5:3 and in
1 Cor. 7:5, 2 Cor. 11:14, and 2 Cor. 12:7. His "ability" to cause
even physical harm and illness is depicted in Luke 13:16. Besides,
Satan is believed to have his own kingdom (Matt. 12:26, Mark 3:23
and *passim*) which is, purportedly, in an open war with the kingdom
of Christ. Finally, he is accused of spreading perfidious and
false teachings, a doctrine which lends itself potentially to self-
serving interpretations.

At the end, Satan is supposed to be vanquished by those faithful
to Christ (Rom. 16:20). After a millenium in chains, he will be
temporarily freed from captivity, will seduce many nations all over
the world, including "the Gog and the Magog," and offer a final
battle against the City of God. Needless to say, the Devil will
be defeated, thrown into a sulfurous lake of fire and tortured for
ages of ages.

For a variety of reasons, early Christian theology, which 
substantially repeats the material in the Gospels, had to deal with
very strnage demonologies. According to some of these, "the angels
of God took wives with the sons of men" (Gen. 6:2). The opinion
that demons were the sons of fallen angels and human mothers can be
found in Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Cyprian, and other early 
Christian writers. In the Eastern half of Christendom, St. Basil
and St. Athanasius claimed, under the influence of Origen, that the
Devil is a spiritual being expelled from heaven because of his pride.
This view is shared in the West by St. Augustine. In the 4th century
after Christ, Athanasius described the "diabolically" inspired 
torments of St. Anthony, in a manner much imitated in later 
hagiographies. By modern psychiatric standards, some of these
descriptions would have to be charitably relagated to the realm of
psychopathology. The same applies, *mutatis mutandis*, to the lives
of many other priminent religious figures from later centuries, such
as Martin Luther, St. Teresa, Sister Jeanne des Anges, as well as
the 19th-century St. John Vianney.

The Devil and his properties are extensively and variously discussed
in medieval theology by both the Dominicans (Albertus Magnus, Thomas
Aquinas, 13th century) and the Franciscans (Duns Scotus, d. 1308).
The subtle controversies continued into the 16th century in the works
of Francisco de Suarez and, in the Protestant tradition, both Luther
and John Calvin gave the Devil a prominent place in their arguments
about the so-called "slave will" (*de servo arbitrio*).


_Folklore and Literature._ Eventually, as with Ahriman, all cosmic
evil and everything negative came to be attributed to Satan: "sin,"
sickness, lies, death, treachery, and so on. As a matter of fact,
this world is depicted by Christians, under scriptural influence,
as being more or less completely his domain and, in German folklore,
he is so busy running the affairs of man that he has to send his
grandmother to do much of his bidding. And he is supposed to have
many assistants as well as apprentices.

In addition to his biblical names the Devil is called by numerous
other terms, some of them euphemisms used for fear that merely
naming him might place one in his power or cause him to appear:
the Good Man, the Great Fellow, the Old Gentleman, Auld Hornie,
Clootie, Old Harry, Old Nick, Old Scratch, and the Black One.
(It is interesting that most of the dark-skinned peoples of the
world insist that the Devil is white!)

In many Christian countries he is believed to be a master musician,
a virtuoso on the local people's favorite instrument. On the
continent this is usually the violin, in Scotland the bagpipe, and
among Black Americans the banjo or guitar. Complete mastery of
any of these instruments is deemed impossible without a quasi-
Faustian compact with the Devil.

Among the Devil's main attributes, some came from ancient "pagan,"
that is, pre-Christian, demonology. Such were the prehistoric
superstitions of the Germanic, Slavic, Celtic, and other former
"barbarians," including the belief that the Devil can readily change
into all sorts of things and beings large and small, and that,
however generally resourceful, can be outwitted and outsmarted
either through man's own cunning, or, more likely, through the
help of God or some other "saintly" being.

In many cases, the Devil is even imagined as an irresistable
pansexualist, capable of the most tantalizing and improbable
metamorphoses. In other instances, his image in the popular
mind is a syncretic combination of Christian theology and local,
traditional, pre-Christian lore, so that he is often a typical
agglomeration of several "pagan" deities reduced to subservience
to the Christian God. He is not, however, always ugly to behold,
sinister and slick, endowed with horns, pointed ears, bat's wings,
a tail, at least one cloven foot, often a limp (as a reuslt of his
fall from heaven), bush or bristling hair, a frightfully grimacing
face, a horrible backside and the smell of brimstone. He is not
always a snake, reptile, lion, or a cross between animal-like and
humanlike monsters. Though he is often a repository of the cattle,
serpent, goat, and dragon deities of antiquity, with sexy Pans and
and satyrs added to the mixture, the Devil is, at times, portrayed
as a strikingly handsome and alluring young man.

In the folktales of many countries and centuries, the Devil has a
variety of structural positions and functions. In some legends,
his representations correspond to the imagery of medieval theology,
according to which he is the archenemy of God and seducer of human-
kind. Indeed, the Devil is the main figure and the favorite
subject of the folklore-inspired monster-world of the Middle Ages,
the Renaissance, and even post-Renaissance periods.

Current research is well acquainted with the line of historical
development of the great tradition of Christian didactic literature
and the ascent of the Devil in the 16th century to a position of
virtual omnipresence or ubiquity, especially as a reult of 
widespread popularizations of Luther's satanology. As already
indicated, the Devil was really supposed to be the source of all
mischief in this world and the cause of every human misfortune.
Even natural tempests, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other
catastrophes were regularly attributed to his tricky power and
evil will. So were otherwise inexplicable "miracles" claimed by
followers of other faiths. But while folk beliefs about the Devil
may have been more or less humorous and amusing, the official
medieval view of the Devil was grimly earnest, constituting the
cornerstone of the Inquisition and leading to widespread 
witchhunts, persecutions, and suffering.

As a matter of fact, all denominational outsiders, including the
Manichaeans, the Jews, and many others, were brutally presecuted
as as more or less directly "inspired" by the Devil.

A peculiar genre of devil literature, made up largely of moralizing
treatises, developed in the second half of the 16th century. In
this literature, all the notorious vices of the age were 
personified, like the Devil himself: avarice, drunkenness, cursing,
whoring, idleness, game-playing, magic, hunting, laziness, etc.
Without the popular theater and the typical representations of the
Devil in in church illustrations and sermons, his images, which
came down to us from the past, could not be explained and 
understood. But as a result of ever more frequent denial through
increasingly demythologizing Christian pronouncements among both 
Catholics and Protestants, these notions of the Devil are 
disappearing from the religious imagination of an ever more
unbelieving public....

The demonology of the Devil began to unfold fully only at the
beginning of the postmedieval period with the well-known charges
and outrages against "heritics" and "witches," alchemists and
astrologers, the Knights Templar, and many others. It should
be observed, in passing, that the most intense persecution of
"witches" occurred during the Renaissance and the Reformation
and that thousands were put to death over a period of some 200
years.

Although the Devil received a great deal of attention in Dante's
"Divine Comedy", his character was actually modeled after the
ancient legend of Theophilus and its later European variants.
Elements of early Satanism can be found in such eminent 
Renaissance writers as Rabelais and Machiavelli. In this
tradition, we find not only Christopher Marlowe's but also 
Goethe's treatment of Dr. Faustus and his pact with 
Mephistopheles. This pact is an alliance for the augmentation
of knowledge and, with it, of one's own power. Detected and
noted already in the "demonic" practices of some 14th-century
physicians, this perfectly understandable human desire was
scorned by the medieval clergy as the *libido sciendi* (the
passion for knowing).

In addition to these great literary adventures with the Devil,
we must mention, in passing, John Milton's "Paradise Lost" and
"Paradise Regained", Klopstock's "Messiade", and works by Lesage,
Capardi, Lermontov, Baudelaire, Poe, Longfellow, Hugo, Michelet,
Verlaine, Rimbaud, Huysmans, Barres, Dostoevski, Flaubert, Balzac,
Beranger, De Vigny, Valery, Gide, Shaw, Benet, Mann, and many,
many others. In some of these writings, Satan is treated with a
touch of tragedy and ancient beauty.

According to J. K. Huysmans, one of the prominent "decadent"
writers of the 19th century, Satanism (as sadism) is a "bastard
of Catholicism." Allegedly, it consists of sacreligious practices,
rebellious morality, spiritual orgy, and aberrant and nihilistic
contempt for all things "ideal" and Christian. It is also said to
be characterized by pleasure tempered by fear; the forbidden joy
of transferring to Satan "the homage and prayer due unto God"; the
nonobservance of Catholic precepts in favor of their opposites;
the commission, in order to outrage Christ the more gravely, of
"sins" he had expressly forbidden and cursed; the contamination of
the cult, and carnal licence.


_Theology, Philosophy and Anthropology._ The entire question of
the existence of the Devil has been a source of considerable
controversy, difficulty, and embarrassment even to theologians.
Under the impact of the consequences of biblical criticism by
authorities such as Erasmus and BENEDICT SPINOZA, and especially
in the wake of the Enlightenment and its predominantly materialist
rejection of belief in in the supernatural, open minded Christian
scholars began to interpret the scriptural references to Satan as
"picture thinking" that is, as metaphorical language not to be
taken literally. They became willing to concede that this was a
mythological attempt at expressing the woeful reality in the
world. This intellectual development would seem to corroborate
the opinion of the eminent anthropologist E. Adamson Hoebel,
according to whom: 

	Urban culture contributed to the birth of the Age of 
	Enlightenment and the Age of Reason following the 
	Renaissance in the West, greatly reducing the relative 
	importance of supernaturalism in civilized thinking
	as compared to that of primitive peoples. Whether
	naturalism will entirely displace supernaturalism in
	future cultures cannot be said, although the general
	trend in the evolution of culture and human thought
	can certainly be said to be in that direction.

...

Within its teaching about the angels, the Roman Catholic church has
long advocated the existence of fallen, evil spirits and seen the
Devil as their supreme chief. This teaching, which once had the
status of dogma, was presupposed by the Second Vatican Council
(1962-5) and explicitly acknowledged by Pope Paul VI in 1972. 
Similar statements about the Devil and his "sinful" influences on
man, including the possibility of a person's seizure or possession
by an evil spirit, should no longer be taken literally. This
changing view is, presumably, the reason for the church's 1972
decision to discontinue the long established consecration of
special exorcists.

Traditional Protestant theology has always discussed the Devil as
an evil spiritual creature fallen away from God's primeval condition
to a superhuman and still supernatural state of being in which his 
godlike omnipresence is encountered as "sin" and "temptation" in
human life. But modern liberal Protestantism usually denies the
need to believe in a personal Devil and understands all references
to him as metaphoric personifications of the essentially impersonal
principle of evil. This tendency, however, is by no means universal,
nor has it permeated fundamentalist thinking....

Tremendously important and invaluable adaptive devices and 
byproducts of cultural evolution, religion, myth, and magic have
been far more inspiring than inhibiting in their influence upon
human creativity in architecture, scupture, painting, literature,
music, and other arts. This applies far less to their role in
philosophy, ethics, politics and science, where the influence is
often sadly misdirected and dangerously overextended. In any 
event, religion, myth, and magic have played a significant part
in man's long and tortuously difficult ascent toward humanity.
In a balanced and objective assessment, they might appear as
neither more nor less ambiguous or ambivalent than any other
major system of system of symbols generated by our kind in its
dialectical confrontations with nature.

In this confrontation, humankind is not likely to perish if it
finally reaches that, while evil and undoubtedly exist, an
actual Devil does not. That this mythological character has no
objective ontological status, independent of the images and
conceptions of him in the minds of those who still believe in
him, seems so patently clear that a fairly well-educated 
naturalist, rationalist, or humanist is almost reluctant to
insist on it. Those who are adequately acquainted with the
with the critical methods and results of the scientific
approach to the phenomenon under review will almost feel guilty
of an act of intellectual overkill if they take the surviving
beliefs in and about the Devil seriously enough to refute them.
But it would be a mistake to underestimate the pervasiveness
and the and the emotional depth and tenacity of these beliefs,
at least among the so-called born-again group of religious
fanatics, Satanists, sex cultists, drug-users and certain
eccentric experimenters with ultra avante-garde music.

Nevertheless, even some sophisticated modern intellectuals
seem to prefer the traditional metaphoric approach. In the
course of my research for this article, an internationally
respected folklorist remarked only half playfully that the
Devil is especially delighted with those who do not take his
existence seriously.

"The Encyclopedia of Unbelief", ed. by Gordon Stein,
	Prometheus Books, 1985; pp. 141-9.
____________________________________________________

EOF