The true name of Satan, the Kabalists say, is that of 
Yahveh reversed, for Satan is not a black god, but the 
negation of God.  The Devil is the personification of 
Atheism or Idolatry.

For the Initiates, this is not a *Person*, but a *Force*, 
created for good, but which *may* serve for evil.  *It is 
the instrument of Liberty or Free Will*.  They represent 
this Force, which presides over the physical generation, 
under the mythologic and horned form of the God PAN; 
thence came the he-goat of the Sabbat, brother of the
Ancient Serpent, and the Light-bearer or *Phosphor*, of 
which the poets have made the false Lucifer of the legend.

Gold, to the eyes of the Initiates, is Light condensed.  
They style the sacred numbers of the Kabalah "golden 
numbers," and the moral teachings of Pythagoras his 
"golden verses."  For the same reason, a mysterious book 
of Apuleius, in which an ass figures largely, was called 
"The Golden Ass."
----------------------

_Morals and Dogma_, by Albert Pike, L.H. Jenkins, Inc., 1950; p. 102.
_____________________________________________________________________


Typhon, like Ahriman, was the principle and source of all that is evil
in the moral and physical order.  Like the Satan of Gnosticism, he was
confounded with Matter.
-----------------------

Ibid., p. 255.
______________


Arhiman, second-born of the Primitive Light, emanated from it,
pure like Ormuzd; but, proud and ambitious, yielded to jealousy
of the First-born.  For his hatred and pride, the Eternal 
condemned him to dwell, for 12,000 years, in that part of space
where no ray of light reaches; the black empire of darkness.  In
that period the struggle between *Light* and *Darkness*, *Good*
and *Evil*, will be terminated.

Ahriman scorned to submit, and took the field against Ormuzd.
To the good spirits created by his Brother, he opposed an
innumerable army of Evil Ones.  To the seven *Amshaspands* he
opposed seven *Archdevs*, attached to the seven Planets; to
the *Izeds* and *ferouers* an equal number of *Devs*, which
brought upon the world all moral and physical evils.  Hence
*Poverty, Maladies, Impurity, Envy, Chagrin, Drunkenness,
Falsehood, Calumny*, and their horrible array.

The image of Ahriman was the Dragon, confounded by the Jews
with Satan and the Serpent-Tempter.
-----------------------------------

Ibid., pp. 257-8.
_________________

The Valentinians, and others of the Gnostics, distinguished three
orders of existences: -- 1st. The divine germs of life, exalted
by their nature above matter, and akin to the [Sophia], to the
mundane soul and to the Pleroma: -- the spiritual natures,
[Phuseis Pneumatikai]: 2d.  The natures originating in the life,
divided from the former by the mixture of the [Hule] -- the
psychical natures, [Phuseis Pneumatikai]; with which begins a
perfectly new order of existence, an image of that higher mind
and system, in a subordinate grade; and finally, 3d. The Ungodlike
or Hylic Nature, which resists all amelioration, and whose tendency
is only to destroy -- the nature of blind lust and passion.

...

The essence of the [Hulikoi] (of whom Satan is the head), is the
direct opposite to all unity; disruption and disunion in itself,
without the least sympathy, without any point of coalescence whatever
for unity; together with an effort to destroy all unity, to extend
its own inherent disunion to everything, and to rend everything
asunder.  This principle has no power to posit anything; but only
to negative: it is unable to create, to produce, to form, but only
to destroy, to decompose.

....

The Ophites commenced their system with a Supreme Being, long unknown
to the Human race, and still so the greater number of men; the
[Buthos/Abyss], or Profundity....  The first emanation was the Thought 
of the Supreme Deity [the Ennoia], the conception of the Universe in 
the Thought of God.  This Thought, called also Silence [Pneuma], 
produced Spirit [Pneuma], Mother of the Living, and Wisdom of God.  
Together with this Primitive Existence Matter existed also (the Waters, 
Darkness, Abyss, and Chaos), eternal like the Spiritual Principle.  
Buthos and His Thought, uniting with Wisdom, made her fruitful by the
Divine Light and she produced a perfect and an imperfect being, 
*Christos*, and a Second and inferior wisdom, *Sophia-Achomoth*, who
falling into chaos remained entangled there, became enfeebled, and
lost all knowledge of the Superior Wisdom that gave her birth.
Communicating movement to Chaos, she produced Ialdabaoth, the 
Demiourgos, Agent of Material Creation, and then ascended toward her
first place in the scale of creation.  Ialdabaoth produced an angel
that was his image, and this a second, and so on in succession to the
sixth after the Demiourgos: the seven being *reflections* one of the
other, yet different and inhabiting seven distinct regions....
Ialdabaoth, to become independent of his mother, and to pass for the
Supreme Being, made the world, and man, in his own image; and his
mother caused the Spiritual principle to pass from him into man so
made; and henceforward the contest between the Demiourgos and his
mother, between light and darkness, good and evil, was concentrated
in man; and the image of Ialdabaoth, reflected upon matter, became
the Serpent-Spirit, Satan, the Evil Intelligence....
 

The dominant idea of [Manes, founder of the sect of the Manicheans]
was Pantheism, derived by him from its source in the regions of
India and on the confines of China: that the cause of all that exists
is in God; and at last, God is all inall.  All souls are equal -- God
is in all, in men, animals, and plants.  There are two Gods, one of
Good and the other of Evil, each independent, eternal, chief of a
distinct Empire; necessarily, and of their very natures, hostile to
one another.  The Evil God, Satan, is the Genius of matter alone.
The God of Good is infinitely his Superior, the True God; while the
other is but the chief of all that is the Enemy of God, and must in 
the end succumb to His Power.  The Empire of Light alone is eternal
and true; and this Empire is a great chain of Emanations, all
connected with the Supreme Being which they make manifest; all Him,
under different forms, chosen for one end, the triumphs of the 
Good.  ...the Father has joined to Himself those fortunate and
glorious Eons {[Aiones, Gr.] .. Aiones}, whose Power and Number it
is impossible to determine....  Twelve Chief Eons, at the head of
all, were the Genii of the twelve Constellations of the Zodiac, and
called by Manes, Olamin.  Satan, also, Lord of the Empire of Darkness, 
had an Army of Eons or Demons, emanating from his Essence, and 
reflecting more or less his image, but divided and inharmonious among
themselves.  A war among them brought them to the confines of the
Realm of Light.  Delighted, they sought to conquer it.  But the Chief
of the Celestial Empire created a Power which he placed on the frontiers
of Heaven to protect his Eons, and destroy the Empire of Evil.  This was
the Mother of Life, the Soul of the World, an Emanation from the Supreme
Being, too pure to come into immediate contact with matter.  It remained
in the highest region; but produced a Son, the first Man [Adam-Kadmon],
who commenced the contest with the Powers of Evil, but, losing part of
his panoply, of his Light, his Son and many souls born of the Light, who
were devoured by the Darkness, God sent to his assistance the living
Spirit, or the Son of the First Man [Uios Anthropou], or Jesus Christ.
The Mother of Life, general Principle of Divine Life, and the first
Man, Primitive Being that reveals the Divine Life, are too sublime to
be connected with the Empire of Darkness.  The Son of Man or Soul of
the World, enters into the Darkness, becomes its captive, to end by
tempering and softening its savage nature.  The Divine Spirit, after
having brought the Primitive Man to the Empire of Light, raises above
the world that part of the Celestial Soul that remained unaffected by
being mingled with the Empire of Darkness.  Placed in the region of the
Sun and Moon, this pure soul, the Son of Man, the Redeemer or Christ,
labors to deliever and attract to Himself that part of the Light or of
the Soul of the First Man diffused through matter; which done, the world
will cease to exist.  To retain the rays of Light still remaining among
his Eons, and ever tending to escape and return, by concentrating them,
the Prince of Darkness, with their consent, made Adam, whose soul was
of the Divine Light, contributed by the Eons, and his body of matter,
so that he belonged to both Empires, that of Light and that of Darkness.
To prevent the light from escaping at once, the Demons forbade Adam to
eat the fruit of "knowledge of good and evil," by which he would have
known the Empire of Light and that of Darkness.  He obeyed; an Angel
of Light induced him to transgress, and gave him the means of victory;
but the Demons created Eve, who seduced him into an act of Sensualism,
that enfeebled him, and bound him anew in the bonds of matter.  This
is repeated in the case of every man that lives.

...

With the Priscillianists there were two principles, one the Divinity,
the other, Primitive Matter and Darkness; each eternal.  Satan is the
son and lord of matter; and the secondary angels and demons, children
of matter.  Satan created and governs the visible world.  But the soul
of man emanated from God, and is of the same substance with God.
Seduced by the evil spirits, it passes through various bodies, until,
purified and reformed, it rises to God and is strengthened by His light.
These power of evil hold mankind in pledge; and to redeem this pledge,
the Saviour, Christ the Redeemer, came and died upon the cross of
expiation, thus discharging the written obligation.  He, like all souls,
was of the same substance with God, a manifestation of the Divinity,
not forming a second person; unborn, like the Divinity, and nothing
else than the Divnity under another form.

It is useless to trace these vagaries further; and we stop at the
frontiers of the realm of the three hundred and sixty-five thousand
emanations of the Mandaites from the Primitive Light, Fira or
Ferho and Yavar; and return contentedly to the simple and sublime
creed of Masonry.

-----------------------------------

Ibid., pp. 560-8. 
_________________

The division of things into the active and the passive cause leads to
that of the two Principles of Light and Darkness, connected with and
corresponding with it.  For Light comes from the ethereal substance that
composes the active cause, and darkness from earth or the gross matter
which composes the passive cause.  In Hesiod, the Earth, by its union
with Tartarus, engenders Typhon, Chief of the Powers or Genii of 
Darkness.  But it unites itself with the Ether or Ouranos, when it
engenders the Gods of Olympus, or the Stars, children of Starry Ouranos.

Light was the first Divinity worshipped by men.  To it they owed the
brilliant spectacle of Nature.  It seems an emanation from the Creator
of all things, making known to our senses the Universe which darkness
hides from our eyes, and, as it were, giving it existence.  Darkness,
as it were, reduces all nature again to nothingness, and almost entirely
annihilates man.

Naturally, therefore, two substances of opposite natures were imagined,
to each of which the world was in turn subjected, one contributing to
its felicity and the other to its misfortune.  Light multiplied its
enjoyments; Darkness despoiled it of them: the former was its friend,
the latter its enemy.  To one all good was attributed, to the other all
evil; and thus the words "Light" and "Good" became synonymous, and the
words "Darkness" and "Evil."  It seeming that Good and Evil could not
flow from one and the same source, any more than could Light and Darkness,
men naturally imagined two Causes or Principles, of different natures
and opposite in their effects, one of which shed Light and Good, and the
other Darkness and Evil, on the Universe.

This distinction of the two Principles was admitted in all the Theologies,
and formed one of the principle bases of all religions.... [quoting 
Plutarch] And this opinion as to the two principles, [says] Plutarch,
"is that of all antiquity.  From the Theologians and Legislators it 
passed to the Poets and Philosophers.  Its author is unknown; but the 
opinion itself is established by the traditions of the whole human
race, and consecrated in the mysteries and sacrifices both of the Greeks
and Barbarians, wherein was recognized the dogma of opposing principles
in nature, which, by their contrariety, produce the mixture of good and
evil.  We must admit two contrary causes, two opposing powers, which
lead, one to the right and the other to the left, and thus control our
life, as they do the sublunary world, which is therefore subject to so
many changes and irregularities of every kind.  For if there can be no
effect without a cause, and if the Good cannot be the cause of the Evil,
it is absolutely necessary that should be a cause for the Evil, as
there is one for the Good."  This doctrine, he adds, has been generally
received among most nations, and especially by those who have had the
greatest reputation for wisdom.  All have admitted two gods, with
different occupations, one making the good and the other the evil found
in nature. The former has been styled "God", the latter "Demon."  The
Persians, or Zoroaster, named the former Ormuzd and the latter Ahriman;
of whom they said one was of the nature of Light, the other that of
Darkness.  The Egyptians called the former Osiris, and the latter
Typhon, his eternal enemy.

The Hebrews, at least after their return from Persian captivity, had
their good Deity, and the Devil, a bad and malicious Spirit, ever
opposing God, and Chief of the Angels of Darkness, as God was those
of Light.  The word "Satan" means, in Hebrew, simply, "The Adversary."

The Chaldeans, Plutarch says, had their good and evil stars.  The Greeks
had their Jupiter and Pluto, and their Giants and Titans, to whom were
assigned the attributes of the Serpent with which Pluto or Serapis was
encircled, and the shape whereof was assumed by Typhon, Ahriman, and
the Satan of the Hebrews.  Every people had something equivalent to this.

The People of Pegu believe in two Principles, one author of Good and the
other of Evil, and strive to propriate the latter, while they think it
needless to worship the former, as he is incapable of doing evil.  The
people of Java, of the Moluccas, of the Gold Coast, the Hottentots, the
people of Teneriffe and Madagascar, and the Savage Tribes of America,
all worship and strive to avert the anger and propitiate the good-will
of the Evil Spirit.

But among the Greeks, Egyptians, Chaldeans, Persians, and Assyrians,
the doctrine of the two Principles formed a complete and regularly
arranged theological system.  It was the basis of the religion of the
Magi and of Egypt.  The author of an ancient work, attributed to Origen,
says that Pythagoras learned from Zarastha, a Magus at Babylon (the
same, perhaps, as Zerdusht or Zoraster), that there are two principles
of all things, whereof one is the *father* and the other the *mother*;
the former, Light, and the latter, Darkness.  Pythagoras thought that
the Dependencies on Light were warmth, dryness, lightness, swiftness;
and those on Darkness, cold, wet, weight, and slowness; and that the
world derived its existence from these two principles, as from the male
and the female.  According to Porphyry, he conceived two opposing
powers, one good, which he termed Unity, the Light, Right, the Equal,
the Stable, the Straight; the other evil, which he termed Binary,
Darkness, the Left, the Unequal, the Unstable, the Crooked.  These
ideas he received from the Orientals, for he dwelt twelve years at
Babylon, studying with the Magi.  Varo says he recognized two
Principles in all things -- the Finite and the Infinite, Good and Evil,
Life and Death, Day and Night.  White he thought was of the nature of
the Good Principle, and Black of that of the Evil; that Light and
Darkness, Heat and Cold, the Dry and the Wet, mingled in equal
proportions; that Summer was the triumph of heat, and Winter of cold;
that their equal combination produced Spring and Autumn, the former
producing verdure and favorable to health, and the latter, deteriorat-
ing everything, giving birth to maladies.  He applied the same idea to
the rising and setting of the sun; and, like the Magi, held that God
or Ormuzd in the body resembled light, and in the soul, truth.

Aristotle, like Plato, admitted a principle of Evil, resident in
matter and inits eternal imperfection.

The Persians said that Ormuzd, born of the pure Light, and Ahriman,
born of darkness, were ever at war....  ...Ormuzd made himself
three times as great as before, ascended as far above the sun as the
sun is above the earth, and adorned the heavens with stars, of which
he made Sirius the sentinel or advance-guard: that he then created
twenty-four others Deities, and placed them in an egg, where Ahriman
also placed twenty-four others, created by him, who broke the egg,
and so intermingled Good and Evil....

The twenty-four good and twenty-four evil Deities, enclosed in the Egg,
are the forty-eight constellations of the ancient sphere, equally
divided between the the realms of Light and Darkness, on the concavity
of the celestial sphere which was apportioned among them; and which,
enclosing the world and planets, was the mystic and sacred egg of the
Magi, the Indians, and the Egyptians, -- the egg that issued from the
mouth of the God Kneph, that figured as the Orphic Egg in the Mysteries
of Greece, that issued from the God Chumong of the Coresians, and from
the Egyptian Osiris and the God Phanes of the Modern Orphics, Principle
of Light, -- the egg crushed by the Sacred Bull of the Japanese, and
from which the world emerged; that placed by the Greeks at the feet
of Bacchus the bull-horned God, and from which Aristophanes makes Love
emerge, who with Night organizes Chaos.

Thus the Balance, the Scorpion, the Serpent of Ophiucus, and the
Dragon of the Hesperides became malevolent Signs and Evil Genii;
and entire nature was divided between the agents or partial causes
subordinate to them.  Hence Michael and his Archangels, and Satan and
his fallen compeers.  Hence the wars of Jupiter and the Giants, in
which the Gods of Olympus fought on the side of the Light-God, against
the dark progeny of earth and Chaos; a war which Proclus regarded as
symbolizing the resistance opposed by dark and chaotic matter to the
active and beneficent force which gives it organization; an idea which
in part appears in the old theory of two Principles, one innate in the
active and luminous substance of Heaven, and the other in the inert
and dark substance of matter that resists the order and the good that
Heaven communicates to it.

Osiris conquers Typhon, and Ormuzd, Ahriman, when, at the Vernal
Equinox, the creative action of Heaven and its demiourgic energy is
most strongly manifested.  Then the principle of Light and Good
overcomes that of Darkness and Evil, and the world rejoices,
redeemed from cold and wintry darkness by the beneficient Sign
into which the Sun then enters triumphant and rejoicing, after his
resurrection.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Ibid., pp. 659-64.
__________________

EOF