Transcript
In today’s episode, we cover the next essay in Anton LaVey’s The Satanic Bible, “Hell, the Devil, and How to Sell Your Soul.” There’s a lot of history, linguistics, and a new segment to the show. Here, on Library Luciferi.
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Hello, devilish readers, and welcome to Library Luciferi, your Satanic literary review podcast. I am Jamison Rowan, the librarian of these infernal stacks. It’s been too long and I apologize for the delay. Truly, from the bottom of that black abyss I call a heart, I’m sorry. To sum up what the hell happened to me: I had surgery in September, holiday season kept me busy, and then I was caught up with some shit at work that was emotionally draining. I’m not going to go into detail, but I will say these two things: I love my cataloging management team, and please, everyone, support your local libraries. You would not believe the hate we’re getting right now. So with all that going on, it was difficult to get back on track and even communicate why I’ve been taking so long. But the good news is that I finished the episode, and here I am. Also, this show has a website that I’ve slowly been building. Visit libraryluciferi.com for episodes, FAQs, and transcripts. Thank you, devilish readers, for your patience with me. May that long absence never happen again.
Now let’s jump into today’s topic. We will cover the essay, “Hell, the Devil, and How to Sell Your Soul.” This is the essay that explains the evolution of the Devil and contains the list of Infernal Names. I will have something to say about that when we get there, but for now, let’s start at the beginning.
Opening the essay is Satanic statement number 9: “Satan has certainly been the best friend the church has ever had as he has kept it in business all these years.” What LaVey means by that is the Church has used Satan as a scapegoat for humanity’s sins. Church authorities wield the devil as a boogeyman to scare followers into obedience. He writes, “Without a devil to point their fingers at, religionists of the right-hand path would have nothing with which to threaten their followers.” I have to agree with LaVey here because this is a tactic that has been used all throughout history and shows up in classic works such as George Orwell’s 1984. Having a scapegoat is, unfortunately, an effective way for people to unite in self-righteous anger and provide a sense of moral superiority.
Following that, LaVey gets into some semantics. He is correct that the name Satan means “adversary” and “accuser”. He is wrong that “devil” comes from the Indian word “devi.” First, Indian is not one language. Many languages are spoken in India; what LaVey refers to is Sanskrit. Second, devil actually comes from the Old English word deofol, which comes from some Germanic alterations of the Latin word diabolus, after Greek diabolos, meaning slanderer. Third, devi actually means goddess (deva meaning god), not slanderer or accuser.
From here, we get a history lesson that Satan was originally considered a servant of God until the 14th century when he became evil and got his half-goat image. This a vast oversimplification, but I can understand LaVey not wanting to spend too much time on this point. The debate of Satan’s role began within the first few centuries of the common era. Gnostics and saints speculated on the nature of evil and whether Satan was an agent obedient to God or if he was independent. As for his appearance as a half-goat, that also began as soon as Christianity was born. The reason for this is explained in the next paragraph: “Whenever a nation comes under a new form of government, the heroes of the past become the villains of the present. So it is with religion.” When Christianity began to spread, pagan gods were turned into devils, especially the Greek Pan and Egyptian Bes. Thanks to Pan’s sexual freedom and his lack of a centralized place of worship, Christian fathers had a harder time curtailing his followers. I don’t know what source LaVey used to pin down the 14th century, as nothing I’ve found locks down that date range Satan except for Dante’s The Inferno. But in the story, Satan is a three-headed monster eating Brutus, Cassius, and Judas. He is nothing like Pan’s equivalent.
The mini history lesson ends with some more definitions. Here, LaVey says that Bog is the Slavic word for god, which is correct. He then says Bhaga is the Hindu word for god as well, and this is not only wrong, but I swear to Hell, he is angering me with his sloppiness. Hindu is a religion, not a language. So he could have meant one of two actual languages instead: Hindi or Sanskrit. In Hindi, bhaga means vulva; not the language LaVey meant. That leaves Sanskrit, the sacred language of Hinduism, in which Bhaga is the god of wealth. His name means “lord” (as in a feudal title), “protector,” and “provider of wealth.” So Bhaga is a god, but his name does not mean “god”.
LaVey then explains the association of the Devil with the goat by retelling the story of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) from Leviticus 16:8-26. In this story, two goats are ritualistically prepared: one clean for offering to the Lord, and the other cast out into the woods carrying everyone’s sins. This latter goat would be for Azazel, a name for a demon that is misinterpreted from the Hebrew words ʽēz 'ōzēl , "the goat that departs.” So the goat absorbs everyone’s sins and escapes into the woods away from the village. As LaVey points out, this is where we get the term scapegoat.
Next, LaVey states that Satanists do not conjure demons or devils into shape, like a summoning. He gives us yet another language lesson by explaining the Greek word demon (more accurately daimon) as a guardian spirit. This is true. And while a Satanist would not summon demons like a scared right-hand path magician, they can, however, invoke the names of devils/demons.
Which brings us to the Infernal Names. And this, dear listeners, is where I dragged most. I wanted to look up every single name to fact-check LaVey. This may not sound like a lot of work, but let me assure you, gods and devils are not always clear-cut in their information. Just because the first three pages of a simple Google search say one thing does not make it 100% accurate. And looking up 78 names…In short, this section was a pain in my ass, but I tried So. Hard. To get it done.
And then I got an idea, something that can make my research go a little easier and may bring a fun element to the podcast. My idea is to introduce a segment that discusses one demon, devil, or god from the Infernal Names, explaining the history, etymology, and characteristics—really deep diving into the entity, something I can’t do as well when I’m trying to fit 78 names into one episode. I could, but it would need to be a separate episode that will take much longer than a normal episode. And, once I get through the Infernal Names, I can continue with other demons not mentioned by LaVey. Think of it as a bite-sized demonology lesson, one demon at a time.
And it would go something like this: Today, we’ll look at Abaddon, whom LaVey writes as Hebrew to mean destroyer. This is true of Apollyon, which is the Greek translation of the name. The name Abaddon really means “destruction” in Hebrew. Abaddon appears once in the King James Version of the Bible in Revelations 9:11, but in the English Standard Version, the name appears 7 times: 3 times in the Book of Job, once in Psalms, twice in Proverbs, and once in Revelations. In the first 6 mentions of the ESV, Abaddon is referred to as a place rather than a being; here, King James uses “destruction” in place of Abbadon. He doesn’t become a person until Revelations 9:11: “They [the locusts] have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, he is called Apollyon.”
Note here that Abaddon is referred to as an angel. Denominations of Christianity have differing opinions as to what this means. Many tie this verse with Revelations 20:1: “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit…” Methodists, in their Interpreter’s Bible on page 434, stated, “Abaddon, however, is an angel not of Satan but of God, performing his work of destruction at God’s bidding.” (I’d like to note that from what I’ve seen so far, this is not repeated in their New Interpreter’s Bible.) Jehovah’s Witnesses agree with this and even believe the Abaddon is another name for Jesus. In a 1961 essay, “United Against Nations in the Valley of Decision,” there’s the statement, “When Jesus was on earth as a man, he was a Hebrew, and now in his capacity as Jehovah’s royal Executioner he is called by the Hebrew name Abadʹdon, which means Destruction.”
Everybody else, though, believes Abaddon is either Satan or one of his demons. Francis Barrett, in his work The Magus, places Abaddon in the seventh order of demons, described as a mansion ruled by the furies. And John Frederick Berg wrote in his essay, “Abaddon and Mahanaim, Or Daemons and Guardian Angels,” that Satan is Apollyon, who rejoiced when Jesus was crucified. In two popular works of fiction, Abaddon is the bottomless pit of John Milton’s Paradise Regained and is the angel that assaults Christian in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
Today, Abbadon has shown up in a plethora of works, both as a place and a demon, such as the show “Supernatural” and the webcomic “The Abaddon”. For all you Potterheads, in the ebook, Short Stories from Hogwarts of Power, Politics and Pesky Poltergeists, J.K. Rowling wrote that the name Azkaban, the wizarding prison, came from a combination of Alcatraz and Abaddon.
Much of the information I found surrounding Abaddon centered around his places in the Bible. I haven’t found any primary sources yet that give him any physical description or personality traits. The only artwork I found is a sketch from Francis Barrett: here, Abaddon (listed as Apollyon) is shown with a human head and a green scaly chest with wings. His skin is red, his nose is sharply hooked, his ears pointed, his brow slightly protruding, and both hair and beard are a mass of curls. Not exactly good-looking, but not really monstrous either.
With that, I’ll conclude this segment on today’s Infernal Name, and bring you back to LaVey.
After the Infernal Names, LaVey points out that deities have traditionally had animal characteristics and uses three examples: the pig, the scarab, and the serpent. LaVey is correct about pigs and people of the Judaic faith. Jewish people do not eat pork because it is considered an unclean animal. Pigs and the Ancient Egyptians, though…it’s not so clear cut. There is ongoing research about pigs’ roles in Ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptians raised pigs as livestock, and the sow was considered sacred to Isis. In The Book of the Dead, there is a scene where the god Ra declares the pig an abomination to Horus. Then, there are records of pigs kept by the temple of Ptah in Memphis and the temple of Osiris in Abydos.
An oft-quoted passage from Herodotus describes how swine were considered unclean and could not be touched. Other than swine farmers, those who touched pigs had to clean themselves in the river. Swineherds also had to be kept segregated from everyone else and could not enter the temples except for one day of the year. There is little to no evidence of any of that being true.
For the other deities mentioned alongside the pig, both Freyr and Freya rode wild boars, Adonis was killed during a hunt by a wild boar, piglets were sacrificed to Demeter and Persephone during the Thesmophoria Rites, and Attis…a Lydian version of the myth suggests that he too was killed by a boar, but the primary myth is that he died from castrating himself.
Next, LaVey mentions the god Baal, who became Beelzebub, whose image of the fly came from the scarab, or dung beetle. This is correct. Finally, he states that ancient Jews believed through the Persians in the two main forces of the world: Ahura Mazda, the good God, and Ahriman, the serpent representing evil. For the point LaVey is making, Ahriman as a serpent god is true and builds his case for deities with animal characteristics. I’ll correct here that ancient Jews didn’t believe in Ahura Mazda and Ahriman just because the Persians taught them Zoroastrianism. Instead, Zoroastrianism just influenced Judaism by supplying the ideas of the Devil, hell, and the apocalypse.
Next up, LaVey recounts the story of Dr. Johann Georg Faust, who has more of the legend written about him than the actual details of his life. The legend goes that Dr. Faust summons Mephistopheles, lives a long life, and then dies from an explosion in his lab. This tale has two inspirations: Theophilus of Adana, who legend says sold his soul for a position as bishop before appealing to the Virgin Mary for forgiveness, and the real Dr. Faust, who was known as a powerful alchemist and died in an explosion but his reputation was heavily embellished decades following his death. LaVey says the story of Faust was written as a protest against the science and magic of the Reformation period. This is mainly true about the chapbook written in 1587 and printed by Johann Spies. The chapbook contains several stories about Faust and how he supposedly sold his soul to the Devil for knowledge. Of course, they are all false and have strong religious overtones. However, the book later became an opera and inspired Christopher Marlowe’s play, “The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus.”
LaVey’s next point is that Satanists do not sell their soul to a devil. The church invented such a bargain as a scare tactic to control the flock. Christians also invented the term “God-fearing,” which makes no sense to LaVey as God is supposed to be merciful.
We get another history and language lesson here beginning with the name of the Teutonic Goddess of the Dead: Hel (with one “l”). LaVey writes that another l was added when the Old Testament was written. This does not mean, however, that our word “hell” comes from the goddess Hel; it is a cognate from the Germanic language family. LaVey is correct that the bible also used “Sheol,” “Hades,” “Tartarus,” and “Gehenna” to reference a type of Hell. Sheol refers to Hell as a pit, Hades as a grave, Tartarus as an underworld, and Gehenna as a place of burning. LaVey is also correct here that Gehenna is the origin for the fiery version of Hell. Gehenna, which means “Valley of the Sons of Hinnom,” was a valley south and west of Jerusalem where children were sacrificed by fire to the god Moloch in several places in the Old Testament. There is a debate as to whether it became a burning ground for garbage, burning continuously from the addition of sulfur—the biblical version of “dumpster fire”—but no archeological evidence supports this. In Matthew and Mark of the Greek New Testament, Gehenna repeatedly appears again when Jesus says that it is better not to sin than to be cast to Gehenna, which has been translated as hell into the King James and English Standard versions. The burning imagery of sacrifices and the translations have associated it with the idea of hell as a pit of fire.
From there, LaVey mentions different beliefs in Hell. He begins with the Catholic view of hell as eternal damnation and Purgatory and Limbo as a place where “all souls go for a time” and “where unbaptized souls go,” respectively. Purgatory is more of a process than a place for souls to be cleansed of their sins before entering Heaven. It’s not like the afterlife’s waiting room where you learn your fate of Heaven or Hell. Souls that are right with God but still have baggage undergo Purgatory to get that baggage removed, then enter Heaven. In Dante’s Inferno, however, it is a place akin to Limbo as a place for virtuous pagans. Limbo in Catholicism is primarily for unbaptized infants but can be extended to adults, either unbaptized or non-Christian, who aren’t guilty of any sin.
LaVey then describes the Buddhist hells as “eight sections, seven of which can be expiated.” There are two kinds of Buddhist hell, or narakas: the cold narakas and the hot narakas. Each has eight levels, in which the soul resides for a Long, Long Time to work off bad karma before progressing to the next level. Then there’s the ecclesiastical version of fire and brimstone—we all know that one. Finally, there’s the version LaVey attributes to Dante’s Inferno and cultures with colder climates: “a giant refrigerator.” For Dante’s Inferno, it’s mainly the ninth circle with its icy lake that’s cold. Other circles, like the seventh, can be hot. In Norse mythology, the realm of Helheim is considered frigid.
The essay wraps up with the lesson that Satan, although often shown as a cloven-hooved, horned man, is whatever the Satanist imagines him to be. I’ll read his explanation here: “He merely represents a force of nature—the powers of darkness which have been named just that because no religion has taken these forces out of the darkness.” LaVey elaborates in the next paragraph that Satan was created by religions as something to account for indesirable behaviors—the “sins”—and why people act on them. He’s essentially the scapegoat for what church authorities don’t like.
And his final note to that and the essay: “So what?” If they call us evil, then let us be evil in this new Satanic Age and LIVE (with the footnote that live is “evil” spelled backwards)!
That concludes “Hell, the Devil, and How to Sell Your Soul.” Final thoughts on this are that overall, this is a decent essay, but it does seem a little sloppy to me. LaVey is trying to fit in a lot to make his point, but some topic jumps, such as from animal characteristics of demons to Dr. Faustus and then from not selling your soul to more Biblical linguistics of Hell, seem sudden. Plus, his whole irritating misuse of Hindu as a language instead of Sanskrit. But even with that and some factual errors, especially in some of the Infernal names, he does at least get his message across that Hell has benefited the Church by being a scare tactic. Satanists don’t need to fall for this tactic because Satan is just a force of nature to embrace.
And that concludes this episode of Library Luciferi. Join me next time as I review more essays from the Book of Lucifer. For more information on the show, please visit libraryluciferi.com. This is Jamison Rowan, wishing you, devilish readers, good reading. Remember: Knowledge is for everyone. Thank you for listening to Library Luciferi. Hail Satan!
Library Luciferi was written and produced by me, Jamison Rowan. Theme music is “Danse Macabre,” composed by Camille Saint-Saëns and performed by Kevin MacLeod.
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