Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video, we’re going to discuss Lilith, the queen of hell, mother of demons, angel of prosti.tution, killer of pregnant women and infants, Adam’s first wife, and seducer of men. We’re going to start off
By looking at a couple of allusions to her in the Old Testament. Following that, we’re going to look at early influences that originated in Mesopotamia, and finally, we’re going to look at the tide of information presented in various works published throughout the Middle Ages. Let’s get into it.
Lilith barely features in scripture: she’s absent from the Quran and doesn’t appear in the New Testament; it’s only in the Old Testament that she’s included, and even then, her inclusion depends either on the translation or on the interpretation.
In the Book of Genesis, which is the first book of the Old Testament that describes the Cosmogony (the creation of the universe) and the anthropogony (the origination of humanity), the creation of women is described twice, each with different wording,
Which has led to some interesting theories and stories that endeavor to reconcile the two. The first instance reads as follows: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
One interpretation of this passage is that God created the first man and the first woman simultaneously, which, by this reckoning, places it at odds with the second instance in which the creation of the first woman is described. Here’s the passage that describes the second instance:
“And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man,
Made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man.” To reconcile the two accounts, one version, such as the one given in the Alphabet of Ben Sira,
Which we’ll expand on later, explains that the woman created at the same time as Adam in the first passage is a different person than Eve, the woman created from Adam’s rib in the second passage. Moreover, this version holds that the woman created in the first passage
Is actually Lilith, making her Adam’s first wife. Again, we’ll cover this part of lilith’s story in greater detail later in the video. The other mention of Lilith in the Old Testament is given in the Book of Isaiah, though her inclusion by name depends on the language and the translation.
In the JPS parallel Hebrew and English version of the Tanakh, Isaiah 34:14 reads as follows: “And the Wild-cats shall meet with the jackals, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea, the night-monster shall repose there, and shall find her place of rest.”
Night monster is indistinct and ambiguous, but many other translations, either of the Tanakh or of the Old Testament, have seen various monsters and animals substituted in, including: Lilith, night specter, night creature, night hag, Lamia (a female monster of Greek origin that
Preys on children), night bird, and screech owl. This last is especially interesting because it parallels a detail of the Queen of the Night plaque, which is nearly 4,000 years old, made in ancient Babylon sometime between 1800 – 1750 BCE. It depicts a winged woman
With talons for feet standing on two lions flanked by a perched owl on either side. Who this figure is isn’t known for certain, but the list of possibilities has been whittled down to just a few candidates: Ishtar, goddess of war and sexual love,
Ereshkigal, ruler of the underworld, or the demon Lilitu, who became later known as Lilith. And this takes us into the part of the video that looks at Lilith’s origins. Lilith, a female demon infamous for preying on infants and pregnant women,
And for copulating with sleeping men, thereby birthing a plethora of demons into the world, is a central figure in Jewish demonology. You could say that Lilith, as conceptualized in Jewish lore, is but one expression of an archetype, that of the demon who targets infants and pregnant women,
That seems to rear its head across cultures and millenia, particularly in the near East. If this is tracked backwards through time, it looks as though Lilith’s origins can be connected back to ancient Mesopotamia. She briefly features in the Epic of Gilgamesh,
A Sumerian work, and she’s identified with Lilu and Lilitu, respectively, male and female spirits of ancient Babylon – both of them notorious for attacking infants and women in labour. Another figure who shares this MO is Lamashtu, either a goddess or demon, who endangered women during
Childbirth and even abducted infants as they suckled at their mother’s breast. In appearance, she was a hideous amalgamation of many animals, having the head of a lion, the talons of a bird of prey, the teeth of a donkey, a body covered in hair, blood-stained hands, and long fingers with
Long nails. Another variety of demon germane to Lilith is the Ardat-Lili, which rendered men impotent as a sort of revenge for itself not being able to copulate. Sometimes women were also targeted and rendered infertile. In appearance it looks like a wolf with a scorpion’s tail.
Much of the best known information surrounding Lilith comes from the Alphabet of Ben Sira, a work thought to have been written sometime in the Geonic period, which lasted from the late sixth to the mid-eleventh centuries CE. The third part describes Ben Sira recounting 22 stories to
Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. One of these gives an alternative anthropogeny. Rather than Eve being created from one of Adam’s ribs, it describes Lilith, not only as the first woman, but also as being created from the earth just as Adam was. Unfortunately, their relationship is
Characterized by acrimony and incessant fighting, and ultimately, Lilith refuses to submit to Adam; so she invokes God’s name and flies away. Three angels, Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof, are sent after her, and they eventually catch up with her; but she negotiates
Her way out of the encounter, promising to be repelled by any amulets bearing their likeness, which is why thereafter such amulets were used to ward her off, safeguarding those she preyed on: pregnant women and infants. Furthermore, she also accedes to 100 of her children perishing each day.
Here’s a quote that describes this: “He also created a woman, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith immediately began to fight. She said, ‘I will not lie below,’ and he said, ‘I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you
Are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one.’ Lilith responded, ‘We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.’ But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the
Ineffable Name and flew away into the air…. The angels left God and pursued Lilith, whom they overtook in the midst of the sea… They told her God’s word, but she did not wish to return. The angels said, ‘We shall drown you in the sea.’ “‘Leave me!’ she said. ‘I was created only to
Cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male, I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth, and if female, for twenty days.’ “When the angels heard Lilith’s words, they insisted she go back. But she swore to them by the name of the living and eternal God: ‘Whenever
I see you or your names or your forms in an amulet, I will have no power over that infant.’” In one account, after the fall of man, which resulted in the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the
Garden of Eden, the first man and the first woman became separated for 130 years. During that time, Lilith returned to Adam and copulated with him in his sleep; supposedly the son that resulted from their coupling turned into a frog. Another account, the one given by Rabbi Eliezer in
The Book of Adam and Eve, claims that at one time Lilith was bearing Adam 100 children per day. The Zohar depicts Lilith as “a hot fiery female who at first cohabited with man”, who “flew to the cities
Of the sea coast” when Eve was created. The cabala portrays her as the demon of Friday, who appears as a naked woman with a snake’s tail for legs. Another description maintains the nude upper body, but gives her a column of fire for legs. And in Talmudic Lore, Lilith is presented as an immortal
Demon who will continue to plague mankind until God eradicates evil from the face of the earth. Eventually, a profusion of early traditions coalesced, and from them emerged two predominant activities associated with Lilith: the strangling of newly born children and the seduction of men.
Regarding the latter, it was thought that anytime a man woke up with wet undergarments, made so by the nightly discharge of seed, it was indicative of Lilith having paid them a visit and seducing them in their sleep. And in this she was thought so prolific that a virtually infinite
Number of demonic spawn were attributed to her, said to be her brood – legions upon legions sired by unwitting men as they slept. Apparently, people were so wary of her erotic powers that in some Jewish communities it was commonplace for sons not to accompany their father’s as their
Bodies were laid to rest in graveyards, sparing them the shame of bearing witness to all their demonic half-blood siblings, those conceived when Lilith seduced the father. Because of this, In the Zohar as well as other sources, Lilith is known by many colourful appellations that denigrate
For lasciviousness and wantonness. These include: the black, the wicked, the false, and the harlot. In Zoharaistic cabal, Lilith, along with Eisheth Zenunim, Naamah, and Agrat bat Mahlaht, three angels of prostitution, was one of the consorts of Samael, a figure with many identities,
Not all of them evil, depending on the version; among them were: the great serpent with 12 wings, a prince of hell, and another name for Satan, especially in Jewish lore. As conceptualised in Kabbalism, Lilith was given preeminence, becoming the principal and permanent partner of Samael –
Basically, in effect, crowned queen of hell. And that’s it for this video! If you enjoy the content please LIKE the video and SUBSCRIBE to the channel As always, leave your video suggestions down below
NARRATOR: He is the personification of evil. Satan was the source of torture and death and destruction. NARRATOR: He is the ruler of hell. He grew arrogant, and he lost his heavenly position. He was thrown out of the heavens and fell. NARRATOR: And he commands an army
Of demons united on a vengeful quest to destroy mankind. A demon needs a body to accomplish its evil purposes– You can’t have her. So they can bring about their plan of death and destruction. NARRATOR: But is the character known as the Prince of Darkness merely a myth?
Or could he be something much, much more? Satan may well be a person, a god, an angel, an ET who’s been maligned in a sense. NARRATOR: Millions of people around the world believe we have been visited in the past by extraterrestrial beings. What if it were true?
Did ancient aliens really help to shape our history? And if so, could evidence be found in centuries old stories of a fallen angel? Could there really be a Satan conspiracy? [theme music playing] He is called Satan, Lucifer, the devil, and his name conjures up horrifying images
Of a horned demon whose sole purpose is to corrupt and destroy mankind. Satan is portrayed as the enemy of God, trying to destroy good people, to make good people bad, and to keep them from being saved, keep them from going to heaven so that they can go
To hell where he’s in charge. KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: Satan has become the catchall for the embodiment of evil. When we think of Satan, I think there are two different ways that our brains can go. The first is this almost comical character that rules over the land of flames,
The red guy with the horns and the pitchfork. But then on the darker side, I think that Satan has become this very, very terrifying, frightening embodiment of evil who causes man to do terrible things, who is the source of torture and death and destruction. NARRATOR: But are these perceptions of Satan correct?
Is he really the master of all things evil in the universe? Lakeland, Florida, 2012. Hundreds of faithful followers congregate at the Ignited Church to witness the removal of demons from those who believe they’re possessed by the devil. You let him go. All the pain and the hurt you’ve caused this man,
You let him go. The devil wants to get even. How else to hurt the heart of God to the greatest possible extent but to harm the beloved of his creation, the height of his creation, the thing that God loves most, humanity, human beings, me, you, every single person on Earth?
NARRATOR: In the ritual known as exorcism, a priest or minister performs a sacred right in order to confront Satan and drive him back to hell. It is a ceremony that dates back hundreds and perhaps thousands of years and is considered quite controversial even within the Catholic church.
I torment you by the blood of Christ. When I’m battling Satan, there are a lot of mind games going on, and it’s a bit of a chess match. You think you have her, don’t you? Don’t you? – Yes. You think she’s yours, don’t you? Well, she’s not.
So I have to be mentally and spiritually prepared for that. How long have you had her? Long time. Yeah? Well, now it’s going to be a short time. Torment to you. Torment! Torment you. NARRATOR: But just who or what is Satan? And why is he determined to corrupt all of humanity?
Perhaps the answers can be found in the myths and legends that describe Satan’s ancient origins. ADAM BLAI: In the beginning, Satan was one of the angels that was created by God before the physical universe was created, and there was basically a sphere of angels around God, worshiping God.
And Satan at that time was Lucifer or the day star. He was the brightest of the angels. KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: Satan is actually one of the archangels. He is one of the high angels, one of the highest ranking, one of the most beautiful, the most beloved. He is beloved of God.
He is a bringer of light. When God created man in his image, he ordered all the angels to worship his image in this man. And Satan refused. He says, look, they’re mud people. We’re made out of fire. I’m not going to do it. And so he gets kicked out.
He grew arrogant. He began to challenge God. And for this arrogance, he lost his heavenly position. He was thrown out of the heavens and fell. ADAM BLAI: When Lucifer was cast down, it was instant and abrupt and total. And he was cast down to Earth to roam here
Until the end of time. NARRATOR: Although few references are made to Satan in the Hebrew testament, he is depicted as an opposer or accuser and is generally acknowledged to have been the inspiration for the serpent in the Garden of Eden. BRETT PETERSON: One of the great stories in the Bible
Is Adam and Eve in the garden. You know, we have this picture of a beautiful garden scene, and Adam and Eve in their innocence just enjoying God and each other and this beautiful creation. And all of a sudden enters Satan in the form of a snake.
And he finds Eve close to the one thing, the one law God gave mankind. NARRATOR: According to the book of Genesis, God placed two trees in the garden, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge and forbade Adam and Eve to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge.
Satan convinces Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and she convinces Adam to do that. And, of course, we see that suddenly their whole personality changes. BRETT PETERSON: Prior to eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve were sinless.
It means that the one law that God gave them, they had not disobeyed. Satan himself decided that if he could get them to break that one law, then sin would enter mankind. And when Adam ate, all mankind from that point on has been selfish, prideful, and were genetically
Given the ability and really the desire to rebel against authority and thus obtained the knowledge of good and evil. NARRATOR: But is this story of Adam and Eve really a fanciful account of how evil entered the world? Or might there be another even more profound explanation?
You can make a case that Eve actually wants to mature. She wants to grow up. God wants to keep us in a state of perpetual innocence, infantility perhaps. Eve decides that knowing everything she can know about this world into which she has been placed
Is more important even than obeying a particular command of God. The serpent enables her. Satan’s wanting to give humanity all this incredible wisdom that maybe can even elevate humankind to the level of gods. But the Old Testament God Yahweh is saying not so fast. Humankind aren’t perhaps worthy of this knowledge,
And this becomes then the battle between God and Satan. NARRATOR: Was the serpent’s temptation of Adam and Eve really a case of sabotage? Was it a deliberate effort to seduce mankind into sinning against its creator? Or might Satan’s real purpose have been to encourage mankind to share the fruits of God’s wisdom?
Ancient astronaut theorists believe more clues may lie in another book of the Hebrew testament. Southern Israel, this dry sun-blasted desert was once the realm of Edom, an ancient kingdom that some researchers believe was home to the biblical figure Job. According to the Hebrew Bible, Job was among the wealthiest men in the kingdom
And owned enormous herds of cattle, sheep, and camels. He was also among the most righteous, making sacrifices to the Almighty God to atone for his transgressions and the sins of his family. BARRY H. DOWNING: In the story of Job, Satan as part of the heavenly council of angels
And the council meets and God is at the council meeting and basically he and Satan have a discussion. WILLIAM FULCO: And God says, you know, look at Job. He’s very faithful. And Satan, in charge of quality control, and says, well, of course, you know. You give him everything. What do you expect?
KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: And Satan actually challenges God and says if Job were tempted, if he no longer had all of these wonderful things that God had given to him, what happens to him then? Satan convinces God the Job should be tested to see if he is really all that good.
And this is where Satan becomes the first adversary, the first tester of humans. JONATHAN YOUNG: So it’s interesting in this story, Satan is actually working with God as a kind of member of his staff or his heavenly council. WILLIAM HENRY: The divine council of God is very interesting because we learn
That it is composed of various angelic beings including Satan. And the idea is that these are advanced beings who carry out God’s orders and God’s wishes from the commands of this council. It really seems like we’re seeing some kind of divine bureaucracy, something like you would see in a corporate
Or a governmental bureaucracy. NARRATOR: Could our notion of Satan as an evil force be incorrect? Ancient astronaut theorists believe there is much more to this story and that the answer may be found not only in the pages of the Hebrew Bible but on ancient scrolls, scrolls whose origins date back thousands of years.
Qumran, the West Bank. Here during a series of excavations beginning in 1949, archaeologists unearth hundreds of ancient scrolls. They are believed to have been written by a Hebrew sect known as the Essenes more than 2,000 years ago. Several of the scrolls contained fragments of what has become known as the Book of Enoch
And the account of a rebellion launched by a group of angels called the Watchers. One of the most famous parts of the Book of Enoch is the story of the Watchers. This is a story about 200 angels that were charged with watching over mankind in its early stages and basically taking care
Of us, looking out for us. The Watchers are a group of angels who were dispatched to watch humans and to help humans. Now the Watchers are very interesting because they are angels who interact with humans. ADAM BLAI: There’s a brief reference to this in Genesis,
But the Book of Enoch essentially expands that story and tells a more full story. This was taken out of the canon of the Bible early in the church’s life, but it was in for a period of time. KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: Once the Watchers begin to interact with humans, they become infatuated
With this new species, and they become lustful of this new species. And all of the sudden, the original idea, the original commands that they were given seem a lot less interesting to them. ADAM BLAI: They came to a point where they wanted to take wives and have children, and so they decided
To rebel, create bodies, marry, and bear children. NARRATOR: According to the Book of Enoch, the leader of this rebellion is a watcher known as Samyaza or Sataneal. Could this be the same character we know as Satan? So what we’re seeing in the story of Samyaza
And the Watchers is very similar to the story of Lucifer in charge of the angels. In both cases, we are confronted with a hierarchy of a species which is between us and God, the leader of which disagrees with God and basically wants to live amongst mankind.
When you look at a different versions of the Book of Enoch, the one thing that combines all of them is that they talk about the Watchers, the Watchers from heaven, and they are the ones who gave knowledge. And when I look at terms such as Watchers from heaven,
Then personally I interpret them as possible extraterrestrials. NARRATOR: Do the ancient accounts of Samyaza’s revolt and Lucifer’s fall suggest that Satan’s efforts to corrupt mankind in the Garden of Eden were actually an attempt to give man forbidden knowledge? And might these legends be based not on myth
But on actual historical events, events involving extraterrestrial visitors? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and believe that close examination of the Book of Enoch may point to physical evidence of where Satan’s so-called rebellion against God may have actually occurred. Mount Hermon, Lebanon. Straddling the border of Syria, this legendary mountain
As described in the Book of Enoch is the peak where Samyaza and the Watchers descended to Earth. ADAM BLAI: In the Book of Enoch, there’s a reference to Mount Hermon. We see the angels basically descending to Mount Hermon. So Mount Hermon was both a place of connection with heaven
And kind of sally port between Earth and heaven. The Watchers being angels from heaven knew the sciences of heaven. Samyaza was basically an expert in enchantment and lute cutting. You could think of it as basically witchcraft, the casting of spells, creating magic, and using roots to create potions.
The Book of Enoch lists very specifically the subjects that are taught to humans by the Watchers, by these angels, who begin to share their wisdom with them. NARRATOR: The Book of Enoch describes Mount Hermon as the place where Samyaza taught humans about magic and medicine.
Other powerful angels passed on knowledge of metallurgy, weapons, astrology, science, and even warfare. SCOTT ROBERTS: The Watchers delivered to humanity the forbidden knowledge of God. All the stories in ancient cultures cross-cultural had these tales of beings that would deliver the forbidden knowledge of the gods to humans,
And they were all condemned for it. KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: The Watchers through Samyaza give us extraordinary tools which make our lives much, much better on Earth. So is Samyaza really a bad guy, or did he in fact liberate humans from ignorance? And if Samyaza actually is the forerunner of Satan,
Has Satan actually been misrepresented all of these years? NARRATOR: Is it possible that Samyaza and the other Watchers were extraterrestrial beings that gave humanity the foundations for civilization? Then if so, how did Satan come to be so misunderstood and misinterpreted by history? PHILIP COPPENS: If we equal Samyaza and Satan, what we’re
Confronted with here is a larger framework which basically tells us that Samyaza, Satan we’re here to civilize us. The Watchers were civilizing deities. They basically helped us to develop our skills of civilization. And so what we are confronted with here is basically the conclusion that civilization
The way we know it is not something divine but is literally satanic. It was Satan who gave us the tools of civilization. NARRATOR: Was Satan really a civilizing force for early humans as some ancient astronaut theorists believe? And if so, might further evidence be found by examining other ancient myths and legends?
In ancient Sumeria, you have these very curious stories of the Annunaki. The Annunaki where half god, half man who came down from the stars. They were instructing the Sumerians in various arts of civilization. They were very strange looking. They had elongated heads. They looked almost like insect-type people
Or what they call reptilian features in a sense or a viper visage as the Watchers were called in the Bible. In global cultures, we find constant references to these giant celestial beings coming to Earth and initiating or instructing humankind. Satan himself is considered to be a Seraphim, which means
Winged serpents or fiery serpents, but yet the word Seraphim contains the word ser meaning serpent and raphim them meaning giant. NARRATOR: Was the character we know is Satan really an extraterrestrial being, one who broke with his own species in order to live among our distant ancestors?
Did he, along with other so-called fallen angels, actually break with God not out of spite or arrogance but instead to help mankind? Perhaps further clues can be found in legends of a flying serpent and in the story of a titan who is savagely punished for all eternity. The Yucatan Peninsula.
Here in the jungles of Southern Mexico lie the ruins of the great Mayan city Chichen Itza. Constructed more than 1,000 years ago, Chichen Itza was one of the largest and most powerful cities in the Mayan world. And dominating the site is the Great Pyramid El Castillo.
A temple built to honor the Mayan serpent god Kukulkan. WILLIAM HENRY: Kukulkan is a name for Satan or for the winged serpent. He’s always portrayed as a wisdom burying being who delivers this cosmic knowledge to humankind. Often we’ll see Kukulkan portrayed
As half human or half serpent or as a human being coming out of the mouth of a serpent. This is how Christianity will traditionally portray Satan as a dragon figure or a serpentine like being. The question is why is he depicted as such,
And I think we really can find out that Kukulkan is not unique in this sense. NARRATOR: One of the most powerful gods in the Mayan pantheon, Kukulkan was believed to have descended from the stars. He is also credited with teaching astronomy, mathematics, and agriculture to mankind.
WILLIAM HENRY: This is identical to the Christian tradition of Satan being the serpent of the tree of knowledge delivering the forbidden wisdom to humanity. In the Book of Enoch, we learn of the Watchers who are described as having visage as of vipers or the face of a serpent and delivering
This powerful knowledge to humankind. So it’s possible that what we’re seeing in all of these instances is the same figure or representative of the same tribe of angels, the satanic beings or these serpentine like angel beings. NARRATOR: Are the stories of Satan and Kukulkan
Really based on the same being as many ancient astronaut theorists believe? And if so, might this same character also be found in the myths and legends of other ancient cultures. PHILIP COPPENS: Satan is a creature who comes out of nowhere to live amongst mankind
And teaches is not something which is limited to the Bible. We find it in most traditions across the world. NARRATOR: According to the legends of ancient Greece, the titan known as Prometheus sinned against the gods by stealing the secret of fire and giving it to man. For his transgression, he was doomed
To suffer a gruesome eternal punishment by being chained to a rock and having an eagle eat his liver only to have the organ grow back each night so that the eagle could continue to feast on it the next day. RICHARD RADER: He’s a God that becomes associated with humans
Because he is a champion for humans. Right and the mythological stories talk about how Prometheus is basically like they’re representative. NARRATOR: Another such deity was the god Viracocha. Worshipped by the ancient Inca in the Andes of South America, Viracocha was a powerful creator god who came to Earth to pass on celestial knowledge.
Like Prometheus, this Incan god was described as a bringer of light and is depicted in ancient Incan sculpture as holding two lightning bolts and wearing the sun as a crown. WILLIAM HENRY: The Inca describe a luminous being called Viracoco or Viracocha who brought knowledge of medicine, astronomy, and other advanced sciences.
It’s possible that Viracocha is the same as Samyaza or Satan as a figure bringing this liberating wisdom to humankind that seeks to bring us along the path of advancement and enlightenment. So you have to ask yourself why would such diverse cultures have such similar mythologies. PHILIP COPPENS: In the case of Viracocha,
What we see is a deity which manifests itself from Earth, lives amongst mankind, gives us sciences, and after a number of years, disappears again. NARRATOR: The ancient Egyptians had cults that worship the god Set, a divine being who like Satan ruled over darkness and chaos. PHILIP COPPENS: The tradition traditional civilizing deities
Who go around civilizing, educating us is something which we find in all traditions whether they are the great cultures of Egypt, Inca, or the Mayan empires, or smaller cultures elsewhere in the universe. And so what we’re finding is that the story of Satan has a civilizing deity is definitely not unique
But sits within a clear framework across the entire world. And it shows you that the importance of Satan is not just something limited to the Bible but really tells us an awful lot about civilization as a whole. NARRATOR: Could it be that these ancient myths were actually
Describing the same creature, the fallen angel we now refer to as Satan? But how then did a creature who is so often credited with bringing mankind knowledge and enlightenment become thought of as the personification of all things evil. ERICH VON DANIKEN: The word Lucifer comes from Latin, makes looks fiery, making light.
It’s the same as in the Greek mythology from Matthaios, who stored the light from the gods. It’s really a sympathic idea that all these figures are finally just one figure in different languages but they were all sympathetic to the humans. It is quite possible that our religious traditions and those
Who selected the old holy texts some thousands of years ago, they made out an evil figure out of Lucifer and the devil. And maybe it was the other way around. He was the good one. PHILIP COPPENS: When we’re looking at something like Satan, we’re not necessarily
Talking about morality, but we’re actually exploring things about our ancestors. We’re exploring mythology. We’re exploring accounts of our ancestors saying that they developed civilization not on their own but with the help of non-human intelligences. And in the case of one such story, we see that that intelligence is Satan.
DAVID CHILDRESS: In many ways, Satan may well be a person, a god, an angel, an ET who’s maligned in a sense. Lucifer is Prometheus. He’s the light bringer. He’s the god of hard work. He’s the one who brings us fire. He’s the one who gives us the opportunity to do things ourselves.
NARRATOR: If the biblical character of Satan is really based on an extraterrestrial being, one who stole technology from his masters in order to benefit early man, then why is he now reviled as a creature of consummate evil? Ancient astronaut theorists believe the answer may lie not in ancient scriptures
But in numerous accounts of demonic possession. Klingenberg, Germany, located 32 miles southeast of Frankfurt. This small city is home to one of the most famous and frightening cases of demonic possession ever recorded. In September 1973, a young woman named Anneliese Michel began hearing voices that told her she was damned
And would rot in hell. When medical treatments failed, she sought the help of an exorcist. [speaking german] Demonic possession is perhaps the most frightening and visceral of all phenomena associated with Satan. According to Christian tradition, possession occurs when a demon enters the body, corrupting a person’s physical and spiritual being.
The belief in demonic possession is widespread. It seems to show up pretty much all over the planet. It was believed to be the presence of a satanic energy, truly dark, terrible evil that could take over a person, take over their body, take over their mind.
And they would be acting with no free will. They would be a complete slave to the power of the dark side. ADAM BLAI: Demons manifest on Earth to interact with people to afflict us and tempt us in various ways. The oppression involves physically wounding us attacking us, causing effects
On our body and our mind. Possession is when we surrender our lower faculties to them and they take over our body and use it as their own. And in rare cases, they can appear visibly to multiple people as supposed human spirits. NARRATOR: Most Christians believe
Demons are evil incarnations of the other angels who followed Lucifer in his rebellion against the Almighty God. They bear names like Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Moloch, and Mammon and are dedicated to corrupting the souls of mankind. Biblically speaking, the demonic comes from the fallen angels, those who fell with Lucifer during the great wars
In heaven. And their purpose is to deceive humanity, to lead them astray, to distract them from God, and there are many castes. They range from your basic thugs in the bottom all the way up to your, if you will, your intelligentsia that is governing behind the scenes of the affairs of mankind.
ADAM BLAI: It is essentially you can imagine a military structure with generals, officers, privates. There’s basically nine levels which are fallen angels of various ranks serving under each other, ultimately serving Satan. NARRATOR: In many religious traditions, there are sacred rites to exorcise these demons from the bodies of the afflicted.
Let her go. Let her go. I come against you again, Satan, by the blood of Christ. NARRATOR: The Reverend Bob Larson is an evangelical minister, an exorcist, who says he has come face to face with the demonic and the truly satanic. The blood of Christ, I torment you, Satan.
You can’t have her. She belongs to God. Torment you. I torment you by the blood of Christ. Torment you! I’m here to be an instrument of God to cast out the devil, to free human souls. It’s not my power that does it. It’s God’s power. I’m simply the instrument that he uses.
But my mission is to get every demon possible out of every possible human being and send them straight to hell. How long have you had her? Get me some oil please. I anoint you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. How long have you had this woman?
How many generations? How many generations? The demon is metaphysical. It is invisible. It’s spirit. Doesn’t have a physical body so a demon can’t really do anything evil. A demon can’t start a war, can’t pull the trigger of a gun, can’t rape anybody. A demon needs a body to accomplish its evil purposes.
So demons are looking to inhabit human souls so that through the physicality of human beings, they can bring about their plan of death and destruction. NARRATOR: According to Larson and other Christian theologians, demonic forces have always been present on Earth, and demons are continually traveling to Earth to sow the seeds of ruin.
But where exactly are they coming from? Is it hell or perhaps someplace else? BOB LARSON: Both the Jewish and Christian scriptures as well as other religious books that delve into the subject of demonism never fully describe the nature of their existence, where they operate.
It seems to be in a kind of parallel reality, another dimension, out of our time, space continuum. They’re there. We’re here. Einstein opened a little bit of a door into the possibility of other realms. We are getting a small glimpse of the reality that exists beyond our understanding.
We just need to know there’s another realm out there, and when I do an exorcism, I step in and out of those realms. I’m in the physical natural realm, but I’m also invading the realm in which demons operate. So I step from the physical into the metaphysical.
I don’t have to understand what’s going on there. I’m on a simple mission, not to find out everything I can about that world but to get the demon out of the human soul. NARRATOR: Might devils and demons really be beings from another realm?
And might that realm not be hell but an actual extraterrestrial world? And are they really malevolent? Or might they have another perhaps even more profound agenda? Ancient astronaut theorists believe the answers may be found in the mysterious prophecies of the Book of Revelation. Megiddo, Israel. Located 11 miles from Nazareth, this ancient city
Is mentioned more than a dozen times in the Bible, most prominently in the prophetic Book of Revelation. According to the religious text, it is outside this city on the so-called plains of Megiddo where the forces of the Almighty God will wage a final battle against Satan and the forces of evil.
The Book of Revelation is certainly one of the most complicated books in the Bible, and it belongs to a separate set of material that’s called apocalyptic. It is a book that gives visions of the future to come. BRETT PETERSON: There’s a battle that will take place
In a valley in Israel called Megiddo or Har Megiddo, thus Armageddon we get the term. Satan himself will gather the armies of the world to Megiddo to fight Jesus Christ. Satan takes on a more physical appearance, uses various technologies to enslave more and more of mankind.
Ultimately, he becomes a geopolitical force, basically essentially a dictator of the entire world. NARRATOR: The Book of Revelation further describes that this battle will be fought in heaven and on Earth. Angels will descend from the sky. Demons will spread out across the land to destroy with fiery swords.
And the Almighty God will reign destruction down upon Earth. KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: The Book of the Revelation is really a pretty terrifying document if we’re to look at it and think that these things could happen literally. I mean, when you look at what’s happening in the book, we have cataclysms on the Earth.
We have earthquakes. We have fire raining from the sky. We have angels doing battle in heaven. And then repeatedly we have Satan coming back. NARRATOR: But could it be that this biblical prophecy isn’t a doomsday prediction of cataclysm and war but it has another even more profound interpretation?
The Book of Revelation gives us some of the clearest depictions of what not a few moderns would call extraterrestrial activity. Think about it. We have supernatural beings flying through the cosmos blowing trumpets, casting fire upon the Earth. We have great conflict between light and darkness, good and evil.
There’s a cosmic dualism going on here that involves in the end the reassertion of divine authority over those wayward angels who had gone astray so long ago. NARRATOR: Extraterrestrial combat? Could the Bible’s Book of Revelation really be referring to a galactic war, one waged over the ultimate fate of mankind?
If so, who or what is Satan? Is he a demon, the devil, the personification of evil? Or was he, in fact, a benevolent extraterrestrial being, one who stole technology from alien beings in an effort to lead early man out of darkness and ignorance?
If so, then why did Satan become a force for evil? Does he seek to punish mankind for siding with our creator against him? Perhaps he is testing us, using alien technology to modify human behavior in ways we have yet to understand. He’s this idea of an adversary, this idea of a liar
Or a tester combined with this concept of Lucifer, the fallen angel, combined with this leader of the Watchers who also leads rebellion. I think that ultimately what we find is that Lucifer is a conflation, a character who is a composite of all of these different ideas and different characters.
It’s important for us to remember that Satan is part of the class of angels called Seraphim. The Seraphim were sent to Earth as benefactors of humankind bringing wisdom. The church has created this evil monster out of Satan, perhaps even out of thin air, when in reality Satan’s entire mission
Was about bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity and, in fact, caring about humanity, not seeking to destroy humankind. DAVID CHILDRESS: In a sense, Satan’s not such a bad guy. You cannot have the light without the dark. You can’t have right without wrong. And we have to learn these things for ourselves.
And ultimately through choice, wrong and right, we grow, and we become who we are. And ultimately that is to be like our makers to become gods ourselves. NARRATOR: Might Satan’s reputation as the personification of evil really have been his punishment for giving mankind scientific knowledge? If so, might his evil acts really
Be expressions of revenge against the human creatures that abandoned him? Or are the evil deeds associated with Satan really a part of a grand plan, a series of moral challenges intended to prepare us for our next and perhaps final close encounter?
In the blue corner is the being supreme, the lord of love and reigning world champion in the infinite battle of Good vs. Evil, the one and only, God Almighty. In the red corner is heaven’s outcast, the devil from down below, the one and only Master
Of Deception and Father of Lies, The Prince of Darkness. That’s pretty much how the story goes, or at least that’s the tale many people tell. But Satan, he’s a complicated entity. There’s much more to him than most people know.
He’s not just a devil with a pitchfork who stands on your shoulder telling you to steal a candy bar; he has a long history, and he’s gotten up to stuff you wouldn’t believe. Today you’re going to learn a lot more about this overlord of the underworld! 50.
Ok, so first you need to know who Satan is. It’s a bit more complicated than you think, but we’ll try and make this one as short as we can. There’s a kind of devil in all the Abrahamic religions, but in Christianity, he plays a bigger role than he does in Judaism and Islam.
In all three religions, Satan is there to make people impure, to lure them to the dark side. The Old Testament talks about an entity that is an adversary of God. He’s there in the Book of Job, making life really hard for Job.
He kills Job’s children, his servants, and for good measure, he covers Job in boils. He does all this to see if Job will renounce his belief in God. So, there you go, Satan is there to mess with people’s beliefs.
Still, in that old book he was far from being a cloven-hoofed beast with horns that can spin a young girl’s head around. In the New Testament, there is talk of fallen angels. In the story of Matthew, there’s a devil-type thing that tries to persuade Jesus to give up his belief in God.
He’s yet again the tempter, the evil to all the good in the world. In short, there are lots of stories. There’s Lucifer, sometimes interchangeable as Satan, who is said to have rebelled against God, and with a gang of other fallen angels, they wage war against God.
Then you have Beelzebub, a flying demon who also is a kind of a Satan character. In the Book of Revelations, you have the Red Serpent, which you could call devilish, but what about this pitchfork swinging, constantly cursing guy who isn’t very photogenic?
Well, he was made up by some creative folks in the Middle Ages. Dante Alighieri wrote about Satan in The Divine Comedy in the early 14th century. This is how Satan is described in the “Inferno” part: He has three faces. He has a chest of ice.
He has mighty bat-like wings, crunching teeth, and he is generally a rotten thing. When the King James Bible became a best-seller after it was published in 1611, Lucifer, aka, the “Morning Star”, played a big part, as it did in John Milton’s 1667 masterpiece poem, “Paradise Lost”.
Now we have a much more wicked tempter, a more monstrous figure who’s a real brute. Satan was no longer just an angel that had switched jobs, he was something more terrifying. The cloven hooves and horns were often a feature, which relates back to Pan, a mythological
Half-goat, half-man figure that was always wild and irrepressibly horny. When you think about famine, plague, and the rest of the crappy things that made Europe a horrible home for a long time, it only makes sense that this devil turned into something absolutely terrifying. This is the guy evangelists conjure up in their nightmares.
He’s the entity that possessed witches and made Hollywood tons of money. The bottom line is the devil evolved throughout history. Ok, we had to get that out of the way. Now for some short facts. 49. Not surprisingly, when you go filling people’s heads with stories of this beast, it affects
Some folks in a bad way. In 2018, an Australian man beat his best friend to death because he thought his friend was Satan. Satanic serial killer, Richard Ramirez, once shouted at a victim, “Swear on Satan.” This one survived. Many did not.
In fact, a lot of killers have claimed to either be in the service of Satan or believe they are killing Satan. Either way, most people would believe Satan isn’t to blame. As you’ll see in this show, the devil is often a scapegoat. Well, that’s what the law thinks. 48.
A 2016 Gallup poll revealed 79 percent of the American respondents said they believed in God, but only 61 percent of people said they believed in the devil. 47. A similar poll went out in the UK, but only 18 percent of people said they believed in the devil. 46.
U.S. televangelist Paul Crouch once said that if you play a part of Led Zeppelin’s song “Stairway to Heaven” backward there is a Satanic message in there. This is how it allegedly goes: “Here’s to my sweet Satan. The one whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan.
He will give those with him 666. There was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan.” Guitarist Jimmy Page once said it was hard enough to write the songs forwards, never mind backward, too. By the way, some experts now say the number in the bible that represents the number of
The beast is 616. 45. There is a Church of Satan, but its founders don’t actually believe Satan, or God for that matter, exists. One of the high priests said believers are “insane” and he says Satan just represents someone who is an “adversary” or an “opposer”, someone who questions everything.
Recently, a British member of the Church of Satan said Satanism has less to do with doing bad things than it does with being atheist and libertarian. In the U.S, you can pay $225 and get a lifetime membership for the Church of Satan. 44.
Some people believe if Jesus is the son of God then the anti-Christ is the son of Satan. An example would be Damien Thorn in the Omen movies. 43. It’s been said the first of those Omen movies was cursed, with the reason being a lot of
Really unlucky things happened to the cast and crew. The weirdest of them all involved effects artist John Richardson. He was the guy responsible for creating the famous decapitation scene in the movie. During the filming of his next movie, he got into a car crash. He survived, but his passenger was decapitated.
On top of that, an animal trainer was killed by a tiger after making The Omen, and during the filming of The Omen, a stuntman was attacked by trained Rottweilers. 42. The Pope has been accused of being the antichrist from time to time.
Martin Luther once said the Pope “is the true end times Antichrist who has raised himself over and set himself against Christ.” 41. Quite a few American presidents have at one point been accused of being the antichrist. Those include Donald Trump, Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan.
Hilary Clinton has been called out, too. 40. Ok, so some people think the mark of the beast will appear on us all at some point. It comes from something written in the Book of Revelations. It goes like this: “He causes all, both small and great, rich
And poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” What could that mean?
Maybe subcutaneous technology could be the mark of the beast. In the past, people used to say the number 666 was hidden in barcodes. That’s been debunked, but people have now moved onto microchips under the skin. Some evangelicals have already said those chips will be the mark of the beast that gets
Under everyone’s skin. 39. Quite a few well-known people have said the Freemasons worship the devil. We don’t have any proof to back that up. Now we’ll talk about some really dark things the devil has supposedly been involved with. 38.
According to the “Canon Episcopi”, a text of medieval canon law dating back to the 10th century, witchcraft was alive and well in Europe back then. It says witches flew around on broomsticks, and one of their favorite destinations was the forest.
The forest is where they made love to demons, and sometimes killed infants in the name of Satan. 37. Things got much more heated in the 15th century. That was when the book “Malleus Maleficarum” was written, a treatise on witches that detailed the exploits of people possessed by Satan.
It might sound funny to you, but it led to massive persecution of people accused of being witches. Thousands of people were tortured and killed during decades of witch hunts. 36. The first European folks to make the New World their home weren’t much better.
The Puritans of New England talked about babies being born with claws and horns, which was a sure sign the devil had infiltrated the woman. Some of those puritans believed the Native Americans were “children of the Devil.” 35. It was mostly thanks to the Enlightenment thinkers in the 17th and 18th centuries that
Belief in witchcraft started to die. Unfortunately, some parts of Europe and the New World remained in the dark and dismissed what those thinkers said. Witch hunts stopped in most places, but belief in Satan remained strong. 34 Satan doesn’t just appear in Christian bibles,
He also shows up in the Talmud and has been discussed by Jewish rabbis at length, with some positing that Satan was involved in the story of Moses returning from Mount Sinai and that he may have played a role in the Purim story, which tells of how the Jews were
Saved from the Persian Empire. 33 And speaking of the Talmud, the origin of the name Satan actually comes from the Hebrew word which means “opposer” or “adversary” and was used in the Hebrew bible as a term for both human enemies of the Jewish people, as well as supernatural foes. 32.
In 1966, after the Beatles member John Lennon said his band was “more popular than Jesus”, people in the Southern United States took to burning Beatles’ records even if they loved them. Some people believe Lennon made a pact with the devil so he could get famous.
The devil got his due, though, because Lennon was shot dead in the street. 31. In the 1960s, the Beatles were accused of putting Satanic messages in their music. Decades later, an article in the Vatican newspaper praised the band for their melodic tunes. Now for something that may frighten you. 30.
In 2018, The Atlantic reported that priests in the U.S. were being asked to perform an unusual number of exorcisms. The article said, “The official exorcist for Indianapolis has received 1,700 requests so far in 2018.” That’s a lot for just one state, especially as there are only around 100 official Catholic
Exorcists in the U.S. 29. In 2020, in Panama, seven people died in a mass exorcism. The victims included a pregnant woman and her five young kids. An extremist religious group was blamed for the deaths when it was discovered members
Of the group held natives captive and beat them with bibles, burned them with torches, and cut them with machetes. This particular sect was denounced as “Satanic” by local church authorities. 28. The novel “The Exorcist” was partly based on the alleged demonic possession of a 14-year old American kid known as Roland Doe.
That wasn’t his real name. The exorcism was kind of like the movie, in that the boy allegedly spoke in a weird voice, things flew on their own around the room and the kid couldn’t stand to be near a holy cross. At one point marks just appeared on the kid’s body.
It’s also said he got up and broke a priest’s nose. 27. In 2014, two women in the U.S. were charged with murder after killing two children, aged one and two, during an exorcism. The women said the kids’ eyes had turned black due to the devil being inside them.
They badly beat two older kids, but they thankfully survived the ordeal. We found more recent cases of children being killed in exorcisms in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere. If you think belief in demonic possession is dead, you are very wrong. 26. Parts of the bible talk about Jesus doing exorcisms.
This is from Mark 1:25/6, “Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him.” It’s a pity all exorcisms aren’t so quick and easy. 25.
The saying, “The devil is in the details” actually comes from, “God is in the details.” 24. Satan goes by other names as well as the devil, including, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, the Prince of Darkness, Lord of the Flies, the Antichrist, the Father of Lies, and Moloch. Ok, back to more dark details. 23.
In 1692, in Salem Village, Massachusetts, a group of young girls were accused of being in league with Satan. What happened next became known as the Salem Witch Trials. The accused girls, as well as women, and men, appeared at a special court to address the
Accusation that they were getting friendly with the devil, which of course wasn’t true at all. 22. 20 people in all were hanged by the neck in Salem for the crime of practicing the devil’s magic, but over time around 150 people were accused of being witches.
One of the men who was executed was pressed to death, which had to be a very painful way to go. The authorities thought if he was tortured he might spill the beans, but there weren’t any beans to spill. A Massachusetts General Court soon reversed the guilty verdicts, but that came too late
For the 20 victims. The youngest of the accused was a four-year-old girl named Dorothy Good. She told the court her mom had been talking to the devil. She was also said to bite people like a wild animal. The next fact is just plain crazy. 21.
Believe it or not, animals played a big part in the hysteria that happened at Salem. Yep, cats, dogs, and other animals were also said to be possessed by Satan. Some folks believed the animals were a kind of team member for the witches, and like some of the accused witches, they had to go.
In one instance, a girl had convulsions and it was believed she was a witch. She said the neighbor’s dog had bewitched her. That dog was immediately shot. A local minister later declared the dog innocent of any wrongdoing.
Later, another mutt took a bullet, even though the locals said it was a victim of evil. 20. Did they really do a float test on accused witches, or is that just made up? It’s not fiction at all and was in vogue in the 17th century.
Sometimes called “dunking” or “ordeal by water”, it would involve throwing a person, usually a woman, into a river. If she sank, she was innocent of working with the prince of darkness, but if she floated, well, obviously she was in league with Satan.
You might ask what the rationale was behind that, but let’s remember the Age of Reason was still a century away. Some people said water was pure, and that’s why it wouldn’t accept witches. You really wouldn’t want to show off your treading-water skills in those days. 19.
You might wonder what the difference is between a demon and the devil? Basically, the devil is the CEO of evil and demons are his managers. You could say those who demons possess are the folks on the lower end of the pay scale. 18.
The American anthropologist, Erika Bourguignon, spent a lifetime studying demons and she said 488 societies in the world believed in demonic possession. You don’t need Satan to have demons, but you need evil. In the past, if you were mentally ill sometimes people would say you were a victim of demonic possession.
That still happens today in some societies. A psychiatrist in northern Thailand once said he took his team to the villages far from the city. In some villages he found autistic kids locked in cages. Their families would offer chicken sacrifices to the evil spirit so it would leave the kid’s body.
Coming up next is something called “The Satan Defense.” 17. Satan gets the blame for a lot of bad things that people do, so you could call the poor fella a handy scapegoat. In 2016, a guy appeared in court after shooting two teenagers. One of them died and the other was badly injured.
What was the guy’s defense? He actually said Satan made him do it and so he was actually innocent. The guy, named Kody Lott, was actually incensed when the media said killing two kids on their way home from school for absolutely nothing was senseless.
Lott said the devil told him to do it, so how was it senseless. He will stay in prison until at least 2046. God might feature in the courtroom, but the justice system has no time for Satan. That’s kind of weird when you think about it. 16. Satan has little to do with Halloween.
No one is exactly sure how the tradition started, but it likely goes back to harvest festivals that were held pre-Christianity. The Christians, however, got hold of it and started calling it All Hallows’ Day, which was a day to celebrate saints and the faithful that had died.
This somehow turned into a night where people walk around dressed as Hello Kitty and maniacs put glass in candy. This next one is seriously messed up. 15. There is no shortage of people who claim they are the devil. These egomaniacs are everywhere and they span all age groups.
A recent case involved a naked woman breaking into a family’s house. The owner told her to leave, to which the woman laughed and then claimed she was the devil. All hell broke loose when the woman attacked the man and his family, even though he had a gun.
39 shots were fired but the woman wasn’t hit. Not only that, but she also managed to fight off all the family. The man later said, “She had the strength of four grown men.” Maybe she was the devil, or she’d been taking some serious drugs.
You can find multiple stories every year in the USA where people who do horrible things claim to be the devil. For some reason they are usually women. 14. There is a term, “She-Devil”, but it usually refers to a woman who manipulates men and does horrible things to them.
While sometimes we refer to Satan as a ‘he’, in reality, or super-reality, the devil is sexless. However, in Hebrew, the noun for Satan is a masculine noun. 13. If Satan is real, he must work around the clock, so much so he makes Elon Musk look lazy.
That’s because around 150,000 people die in the world every day of the week. Considering most of those people will not be faithful to God and will no doubt have a rap sheet of sins a mile long, the intake process for hell must keep Satan really busy. 12.
In the bible, it doesn’t say Satan created Hell. Nope, he was condemned to live in the inferno. He’d probably prefer a three-bedroom suite in Manhattan, but sinners can’t be choosers. The bible actually teaches us that Satan spends most of his time on Earth.
Hell is a little confusing, so we thought we’d refer to that paragon of truth, Billy Graham. In his writing he says the “everlasting fire was created for the devil and his angels”, and he also says that the devil can roam “through the earth going back and forth in it”.
There’s also the theory that sinners will be cast into the pits of hell only on judgment day, so right now they are on remand. Those who wrote the big book talk about Jesus mentioning “eternal life” and “eternal punishment”, but some Christian scholars argue that eternal punishment just means being
Wiped out, like completely being deleted from the big server in the sky. So, hell could be absolutely nothing. The idea of a goat-man with a pitchfork burning your toes with his cigar is entirely a modern fancy. It would have been alien to JC. 11.
The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a play about hell called, “No Exit.” A well-known phrase from that play is, “Hell is other people.” In the play, people die and end up in a waiting room, but the thing is, they are there for eternity.
They soon get on each other’s nerves, and that waiting room becomes a kind of hell. It sounds a lot like social media. Ok, we’ve reached the top ten now, time to ramp up the evil. 10. Some Christians, mostly of the ilk that have Jesus bumper stickers, believe in something called “The Rapture.”
This is when the world ends and the goodies on Earth with the once faithful dead will be beamed up “in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.” This great kidnapping will lead to eternity in heaven. As for those left behind, things aren’t supposed to be great for them.
Maybe they will have a date with Satan at some point, or they might go on to act in a very popular TV series. By the way, most Christians don’t actually believe the big snatch will ever happen. 9. God was sometimes really wrathful; you certainly didn’t want to get on the wrong side of
God. In Genesis 3:14, God has some stern words with Satan, saying, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.” 8. You should know that you shouldn’t make deals with Satan because whatever he gives,
He’ll take back double. He once offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, but in the small print, there was a proviso stating that in return Jesus had to worship Satan. Jesus’ response to this offer was, “Away from me, Satan!” 7.
You’ve heard of the Seven Deadly Sins, but did you know some people say behind each one is a demon who can tempt you into committing that sin. The sins are: Pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust. Satan himself is behind wrath. A prince of hell named Belphegor is the gluttony guy.
He tries to convince folks to get really rich, which we all know in the real world gluttony has its fair share of problems. 6. What do you think is the most committed sin by men? Greed? Sloth? Nah, it’s lust, according to some research we read.
Think about how often every day you have a sexual thought… for women that sin was pride. 5. Speaking of sexual thoughts, there are demons called Incubi and succubi. The former is a demon in male form that makes love to women in their sleep and the latter
Does the same but she is female and chooses sleeping men. Such stories were around a long time before Christ appeared on the scene, so they are not only Christian stories. In the past, these demons were sometimes accused of messing with a man’s health, while women were said to sometimes be impregnated by them.
Maybe demons weren’t the problem… Now for something very real. 4. There is a book called “The Devil’s Bible” that was written by a monk over a period of decades in the 13th century. It’s quite the tome, too, weighing in at 165 pounds (75kg).
Some people believe the devil himself was behind the book, but most folks think that the writer just had a lot of time on his hands. If you wrote all day every day the book would take about 20 years to finish. It got the name Devil’s Bible because of an illustration on page 290.
The legend behind the book says that a monk had broken his vows and faced being walled up alive. His other option was to agree to write a book that contained all human knowledge. That wasn’t going to be easy, but what’s a monk gonna do.
He tried writing the book, but it was too hard, so the story goes that he asked Lucifer for help in exchange for his soul. All he had to do was feature that picture of the devil. 3. Ok, so how would you contact the devil if you wanted to do a deal with him?
He’s obviously a busy demon, and you can bet he has a lot of requests. We looked online for, “How to contact Satan”, but there are no clear guidelines. There are a bunch of rituals you can find online that tell you how to summon demons, which usually involve evocation spells.
There is a new book out there containing such spells, although the International Association of Exorcists condemned it saying it was like putting a grenade in people’s hands. It’s aimed at kids, too, telling them if they have too much homework or life aint going
So well, they might want to draw some lines on the floor and “dial up some demons.” 2. The good news is that after looking at a bunch of Christian websites not one agreed that the devil can read your thoughts. Satan, unlike God, is not omniscient.
Nowhere in the bible does it say the devil can plant things in your head. Watch out though, because this is in the bible: “Brothers and sisters, be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.”
An interpretation of this could be that the devil is always there, just waiting for you to show some weakness. When he sees you are weak, he can somehow use his trickery to create circumstances around you that will tempt you to sin.
He also has a network of demons doing such bad work, demons that must have been busy during all those Catholic Church abuse scandals. 1. So, what is the fate of Satan? Can’t we just get rid of him?
According to the Book of Revelation, at some point Satan will be forced to hang up his gloves. This is what’s written about his forced retirement. “And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown.
They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” Amen. Now you should watch this, “50 Insane Cold War Facts That Will Shock You!” or, have a look at this, “50 Insane Facts About Vietnam War You Didn’t Know.”
