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The devil
The weird world power
He is as old as God. everything is regarded as master of the seduction and
as originator bad in the world. For millennia he has been taken advantage of
as a comfortable alibi for slander, following and cruelty. What is who or
really the Satan? Why does it shudder for us still at its name? What are we
afraid of?
His latest great appearance was in New York: The devil himself let be seen
with thin, scornful eyes and grinning mouth before his grimace dissolved
itself in the biting smoke in the fug of the collapsing Twin control tower.
It was said which worldwide commercialized the weird apparition at
Associated the photos of the photographer Mark D. Phillips aren't
manipulated guaranteed press. A construct arisen by chance, brief as the
cloud formations in the sky, more not. And the fiendish grimace also has an
effect on rational people anyway. Stir to forgotten apparently, deeply into
us slumbering. To a mixture of darkness fears and fairytale pictures, Punch
and Judy show and religious instruction. And lose himself to a net from
memories which go beyond far the personal biography in the depths of the
time. Because the devil doesn't have his headquarters as the World Trade
center and also not in earthly temples in the command head offices of an
Osama bin Laden but in the archives of the collective memory. In the
precipices of the human consciousness.
Therefore also in mine? I shall write a report on the devil for P. M..
Interesting topic. But discomfort then packs me. Almost even horror. The
message deeply sits in the soul: Who calls the devil gets mixed up with dark
powers. Novel Polanski had after its devil film » «, the Satan (alias
Charles Manson and his response) caused in his Hollywood villa changed
course for for Rosemary baby for a gruesome bloodbath. The work papers on my
desk already look frightening -- : Books with a hell black title, satanic
grimaces. When I get down to writing, I am alone at home. The evening sinks
outside. The silence in the house gets as heavy as lead. A feeling of
Unheimlichkeit creeps highly in me. Call it for the aurochs horror
psychologists » «. I want to work on this report only in the morning as of
now. The devil loves the night, however, hates the morning, is in my
documents.
What else does one know over the Satan? He was, like us born him (think to)
know, sometime within the last centuries before the turn of an era. And at
his birth he was already ancient: the product of projections, imaginations
and fears of innumerable man generations. Distill from timeless archetypes
and legends which new ideas always joined in the course of the centuries. We
know the devil as engelschönen Luzifer but Satan spitting fire and poison
also as terrible when beguiling woman who robs chaste Saint Antonius of
almost the intellect in the desert and as a sulfur stinking billy goat with
giant penis and icy-cold sperm. He is stupid fool who gets what from the
clown over the head, then elegant Mephisto which sees through all secrets of
the earth and the human psyche. In a modern shape he looks kaltäugige Al
Pacino like the glib one, (in his film » in the order of the devil «) or
like this one diabolically grinning for Jack Nicholson who seduces the
witches of Eastwick (in the cult movie of the same name after a novel of
John Updike). He has the spectacular phenomenon of the Osama bin Laden taken
the shape of the George Bush, for the other ones depending on cultural
membership for the at the moment.
However, what is who or really the devil? Is there he? Is he with the help
of media, drug cartels, Heavy-Metal rhythms and new satan-cults, as
Christian and Islamic fundamentalists think to decompose the world on the
most right way? Takes he as soon as we don't pay attention infernally when
invisible darkness power for the destiny for the world into his hand? Who
gets mixed up with the devil more nearly feels confronted with a diabolical
fundamental property soon: the habit of the Satan, confuse the spirit with
Paradoxien and into mental vicious circles become entangled. The Greek word
Diabolos from which our word devil is deduced is (» so called original who
is the devil for Durcheinanderbringer «) .? Paradoxical answer: The victim
of the greatest condemnation which has ever taken place in the history
primarily. The American religion scientist Jeffrey Burton Russell of the
university of Santa Barbara: The devil is the con-product of a
Paradigmenwechsels which completed itself in the early Christianity: the the
emergence » dear God «.
Short look back in the time before. These are both no matter whether in
India, Altägypten, or in ancient Greece -- where always the sky not only one
but many gods resident, » good «and» bad «. So the Indian tall God is Shiva
creator and fighter at the same time; the goddess potash as well symbol of
the fertility like the death. Also Jahwe, origin of the western God picture
and original tribe God of a little Semitic shepherd tribe, behaves anything
but only kindly but also vindictively and brutal at first. God and devil in
a nature. People sure but send the plague to the punishment for offenses
also, torment the Hiob, have mercilessly Adam and Eva expelled from the
paradise he be conducted by the red sea. The change takes place but then --
in one for the front Orient critical time of great mental, political and
social tensions -- : God becomes the pure luminous figure. Only still kind
and merciful. Heavens and earth are filled with its love and pardon now.
The cheering new idea becomes one of the most successful in the history of
the human consciousness. But it has a hook: Who is responsible for murder
and homicide, hunger, Kindersterben and injustice, now? The scapegoat is
searched and invented. It is the devil. God opponent. A figure will this one
for one for unprecedented career make -- so the religion scientist Elaine
Pagel of the University of Princeton -- » «. Various shapes, these in
earlier times by Middle Eastern legends it is disastrous for gegeistert more
or little, flow into this nascent devil now. For example the
einzelgängerische old Egyptian desert God Seth, among other things
responsible for bad harvests. The Semitic Satan, one servant Jahwes who
examines and punishes the people in the name of God. Also Ahriman, the old
Persian prince of the darkness, this one in the permanent conflict lies with
the master of the light, serves as an example. The snake emblem is taken by
it, the shape in which the crystallizing devil approaches the people in the
paradise garden.
However, the biblical shape of the Luzifer is and anzie-hendste of everyone
for devil presentations the most contradictory » «: Favorite angel of the
Jahwe, thorn in the meat God. A shimmering nature who lured man to eat of
the tree of the cognition, and took the ego, the self-confidence, the spirit
of the contradiction and without breaking thirst for knowledge to the world
with that. Actually Luzifer embodies, Jeffrey Burton Russell says rather
exactly values of the modern meritocracy: Self-assertion, power wills and
curiosity which don't stop at dangerous secrets (e.g. genetic research)
either.
All this got the beautiful angel to rebel against God to feel godlike (» I
want to drive up over the clouds and am be for the one highest of all «). So
it is finally brought down from the sky. With it all angels which have
followed it fall and turn demons. The legend of the Luzifer and this one of
the sky by the way doesn't exist bad angel for Satan for, portrait of the
personified only in the Bible falling » «, but -- so the book author
Carl-Friedrich of Steegen (» «) -- in almost all cultures of the world for
1998. He possibly represents the collective mankind memory of primeval
cosmic catastrophes by meteorite elements.
Typical devil: He causes (still more) problems hardly in the world. Because
with him a fiendishly tricky question arises: Why does God have the devil
granted? The Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711 -- 1776) takes the
dilemma to the point: »Does God want prevent bad and can't it? It then isn't
all-powerful. Does it know it and doesn't it want? It then isn't kind. It
knows it and it wants it? How is this badly then possible?«Whole generations
of philosophers and theologians tormented themselves with this question.
Till a partly acceptable solution was finally found: God has given man the
liberal will. It lies, whether it in the responsibility of every particular
God wants to follow or to answer to the Einflüsterungen of the Satan.
The early Christians and the people imagine the shape of the adversary in
weirder and weirder shapes in the Middle Ages. Delivers food for fears, with
that which brings the people nightmares and despair (partly well to this day
rumble about in us: »Do you write what, about the devil?I get half seriously
half jocularly now frequently to hear «, », merely take care that Satan
doesn't strike you at the desk.«). The collective fear is of » stirred up
demonic boxes «, for experts in the area of devils. A species of churchmen,
to this day, which hasn't died out together with their colleagues, the devil
end drivers. The present Vatican expert, prelate Corrado Balducci, before
boss exorcist of the diocese Rome, has presented the stand of his findings
in 1988. After this Satan is away in 1758640176 different shapes on the
earth at the moment.
The first "wanted" poster of the Satan was already prepared in the
apocalyptic vision of the evangelist of Johanne: glowing eyes, terrible
claws and teeth, fire-breathing throat. He gets a limping foot angedichtet
as result of his fall from the sky in addition later. The phenomenon of the
ancient Greek god of shepherds Pan is also consulted. Because Pan is a new
perfect example of the bad for the body hostile Christianity with its
vigorous, unbridled sex energy. The devil looks shaggy buck legs, split
hooves, horns, sulfurous smell, giant phallus for shaking bottom and » « --
now for some centuries so. Mentioned fast, again a Paradoxie, on the edge:
Although (or just because) the devil fear is stirred up by a church side so
intensely, the picture of the adversary gets first notches; the demon
religious Middle Ages already develop a trace humor. The new, till now
unknown idea of the stupid devil which has outwitted by a human cunning for
himself and stands under the slipper of his grandmother gradually arises.
But it isn't actually to jest with the Satan. He works as a bad power in the
complete world today certainly, too, lights hate, fanaticism and facing. The
perhaps oldest excuse of the world is for bad deeds up to the murder. The
devil admirers killed Manuela (23) and Daniel Ruda (26) the Satan has their
//num(33) - jährig// teammate Frank H. acted by them himself, explained them
in front of the district court Bochum, declined any responsibility for the
deed with 66 knife thrusts and hammer blows in July 2001. Daniel Ruda: »We
aren't murderers. The car but the driver isn't accused also at an
accident.«The devil as an alibi bad about it. And for centuries also
argument for mad rush, slander and following. Discovers because with it the
people have the particularly perfidious weapon of the condemnation. In their
social history of the bad Elaine Pagel writes (» «), for Satan for origin
for 1996 the early Christians have already come on this fiendish idea. The
Jews, the heaths, became the gods Roms dämonisiert first. Late Muslims,
homosexuals, red-haired, self-confident women and very simple of everybody
who didn't suit his neighbor or the authorities. In a sweeping blow pope Leo
XIII condemns for example. in the year 1884 Masons, Heilsarmisten, baptists
and Buddhists as » unions under the top rule of the Satan «. The politics
shows particularly clearly how deeply this satanic habit is rooted in us.
This makes use namely of the condemnation certainly today: »Ronald Reagan
called the Soviet Union for the empire of the bad «. »The title of a topic
evening «was» in the television transmitter the empire of the darkness take
« over the Taliban regime. Particularly suitable object of the condemnation:
the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Sheitan the and ayatollah Khomeini the
other way round declared simply all of the USA the domain » « (Arabian:
Satan). The really satanic effect of condemnation: It mobilizes hate and
fear, and already nips uncomfortable questions about an own responsibility
in the bud.
»God is «, dead Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 -- 1900) announced as a result of
the clearing up. Also the picture of his adversary this one walks around
like a roaring lion and searches, », it swallows which «, (1st Petrusbrief),
has faded in the light of the scientific cognition up to the Unsichtbarkeit.
The fascination has where the pure fear fades a chance: A new one arises in
the course of clearing up and Romanticism, devil picture almost occupied
positively. »The musician Niccolò Paganini (1782 -- 1840) is called by his
contemporaries devil violinist because he plays the violin well and
completely is always in black on the stage celestially «. The English poet
Lord Byron (1788 -- 1824) invents the figure of the dandyhaften, seductive
salon devil. And the fascinating devil undoubtedly best in this team is
Goethes Mephisto: supple, highly intelligent, meditation joyful. In a
mysterious way with God verbandelt, like the pre-Christian devil: »I am a
part of that force, this one, evil always wants this and always the good
creates «.
So-called satan-cults which for the most part exist to this day arise in the
atmosphere of the changed devil understanding in the 19th century. Don't mix
up the it-tablishment for your dogma (with the youth response, these
proceeding under this name also -- as a sign of the rebellion against --
kick up a row on cemeteries) .: these » Ent-Teufelung « of sensuality and
sexual Promiskuität, the withdrawal from morals and Gutmenschtum. »Tu, only
law what you want, this is this «, the rule of life returned by Aleister
Crowley (1875 -- 1947), one of the most important heads of the Satanismus
is. Church of Satan preaches inconsiderateness and egoism for appreciated
20000 members also founded in the USA the 1966 » «, for the worldwide
probably largest devil organization. It was brought into being of Anton
Szandor LaVey, this one in Polanskis film, » « for for Rosemary baby the
role of the devil played.
The devil therefore only still an icon for Pseudo religions? Does he have as
Seelenfänger, scaremonger and darkness power clapped-outly? After all, at a
current survey for P.M. 23 per cent still said (striking under this many
officials) of one thousand people asked! »I think, provides a devil «, 14
per cent regarded it as possible that one can enter into a pact with it and
nine per cent admitted to be afraid of him. People far more frequently see
an invention in the devil, around which explain bad (to 68 per cent) and a
power instrument with which the church has a try put pressure for (49 per
cent) today, however.
However, interesting is primarily a further one, answer also frequently
given. Almost the half of the people asked also indicated: The devil is in
us. Admitted: This thought isn't brand-new. Already the sacred Augustinus
and Martin Luther had identified the inner world as a real battlefield of
the devil. But the thought has been successful only with the emerge of
psychology: There is not a personified devil but spiritual energies only
negative. After Sigmund Freud had studied a fall of possession incomingly
from the 17th century, it came to the end: The devil is the sum of momenta
and fended off drives which drift in the unconscious disaster. Carl Gustav
Jung coined the idea of him for the soul for this shade replaced » «. He
extended it by an over-personal component, though: Impressions and not only
of one's own circumstances eat these darkrooms of the soul but also the
collective unconscious ones, the sum of all human experience.
»The banality of the bad «: Under this title the Jewish writer Hannah
Ahrendt described her impressions of the process against the Nazi thug Adolf
Eichmann, the devil in the form of an honest man. The devil then really
doesn't have dark power for more, that one for outside herumstromert become
a man with her coinage of this » banal bad « -- but into us ourselves at
home. Possibly even in our genes. The homo sapiens gets also painfully since
biologists, zoologists, anthropologists gradual of its special lot as »
clear crown of the creation « fetch down: Man belongs common with his most
closely-related one, the chimpanzee to the most violent and most ruthless
mammals of the earth.
A world religion which completely gets by without devils (and God) teaches
by the way already for millennia what moved only in the light of a
scientific cognition in the western consciousness has. For the Buddhism
three negative emotional basic forces are root poisons for cause of the bad
in the world (» «): Hate and aggression, greed and envy and ignorance (facing).
So the devil of the problem but man isn't seen so for his dark sides
according to the motto if he doesn't want to take on responsibility: Only
the other ones are always bad. Do ways, a ruthless inside show, courageous
journey into the shade, how it do to Carl Gustav Jung it call, are
repurchase of the projections (condemnations) to become a the Satan's
gentleman? He but the clear light of the self-knowledge doesn't shun holy
water or crucifixes lifted up, then.
So my own weird feelings also have got less and less at the writing. In
accordance with the old magical rule: Demons which one knows lose their
power. Goodbye, devil? As an inspiration for films, books, fantasy games,
plays he remains unchanged for us well in future, too. And furthermore the
one reputed to be dead gets over-counselling even from an unexpected side
now. In the meantime, so he is for some thinkers as important spiritual raw
material as an archetype which should be lost in no fall. Andrew Delbanco,
professor for literature at the Columbia University, is sorry » as a tragedy
for the human imagination «, that the concrete concept Satan bad about it
disappears. Its modern inverse is as wrong as the old fear of the devil: in
the face of Bosnian mass graves, Australian arson and youthful madman and so
incorrect like the condemnation it already almost feels this one for it in
its Ausschließlichkeit » for shit for mouthful « for mentality, the cool
Schulterzucken for blind Psychologisierung of the bad. The scientist thinks
Stalin, pole pot may, Hitler, have been psychopaths traumatized all of them
but this consideration suffices to explain the extent of the horror which
took place with her help? Delbanco thinks nothing of a renaissance of the
horned, sulfur stinking hell prince. Well but of the conclusion that the
evil just really isn't banal but only can exceed any human measure. For this
the concept devil is a suitable metaphor furthermore, too.
With what, so the Satan will lift up his head in the 21st century
furthermore, too. He anyway isn't really totzukriegen probable. And this
report shall be completed with a last Paradoxie so. It has already the
French poet Charles Baudelaire, Satanist and author for it for flowers of
the bad formulated » «: »The perfect cunning of the devil is to persuade you
that it doesn't exist at all.«With other words: Perhaps the fact that we
throw the devil gradually about board, not we, but his greatest victory is.
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