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To: alt.magick.tyagi,talk.religion.misc,alt.mythology
From: tyagI@houseofkaos.Abyss.coM (tyagi mordred nagasiva)
Subject: Re: Lucifer
Date: 8 Oct 1994 15:23:43 GMT

[from alt.pagan: tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney)]

Is it true that Lucifer was an old Roman deity?

This is my understanding of the subject:

"Lucifer" was a title of the planet Venus considered as an astronomical
phenomenon.  There was no actual character named Lucifer, nor any
mythology associated with that character.  The origin of Lucifer as a
mythic figure was in the misunderstanding of a Biblical screed against
Nebuchadnezzar, which ironically refers to him as the "star of the
morning", translated "Lucifer" in the Vulgate.  This was erroneously
conflated with the apocryphal legend of the Fall and gave us our
Western legend of Lucifer.

Does anyone have pointers to myths or legends concerning Lucifer that
did not derive ultimately from this Biblical misreading?  Thanks!
-- 
Tim Maroney, Communications and User Interface Engineer
{apple!sun}!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com

"Because there is something in you that I respect, and that makes me desire
 to have you for my enemy."
"On those terms, sir, I will accept your enmity or any man's."
    - Shaw, "The Devil's Disciple"

---------

To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.mythology,alt.satanism
From: tyagI@houseofkaos.Abyss.coM (tyagi mordred nagasiva)
Subject: Re: Lucifer
Date: 8 Oct 1994 19:05:22 GMT

[from alt.pagan: Raven  {Xposted per request}]


tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney) writes:

[duplication deleted]

You have expressed my understanding of the matter.  "Luci-fer" is Latin
for "light-bearer", so the word does not even exist in Hebrew; it could
not possibly have been the original name of any Biblical character prior
to Roman involvement in Biblical history -- that being the Occupation.

Conversely, in Roman usage it carried no connotation of an evil being,
but rather the sign or herald of approaching dawn, thus a good omen,
since the onset of light (in every sense) was considered a Good Thing.

Whether the Morning Star was considered a being at all -- well, please
remember that the planets WERE associated with gods; still are, in name.

And, yes, the only "son of the morning" who FELL was the king of
Babylon, also the only user of that title against whom Isaiah would
have felt the enmity expressed in that mocking verse (14:12).

Obviously, the Morning Star itself is still around... about a quarter
of the time, anyway... whenever Venus is on that side of the sun.

-- Raven (JSingle@Music.Lib.MATC.Edu).  [All standard disclaimers apply]
------------

To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.mythology,alt.pagan
From: tyagI@houseofkaos.Abyss.coM (tyagi mordred nagasiva)
Subject: Re: Lucifer
Date: 9 Oct 1994 17:28:58 GMT

[from alt.satanism: lucifer@tcastle.is.net]

TimTim@toad.com.uucp (tim Maoad.com.uucp (tim Ma <=-

[duplication deleted]

Thanks for that info.  I realized that it's a Latin word, but was 
unaware of the connection with the Vulgata.  There was, of course, 
definitely no talmudic connection with that  name, and, like so many
other devils' names, Lucifer too emerged from a fancy connected with
misreading some texts, this time even more recent!  Lucifer means 
"bringer of the light" and is a good description of the morning star.
Latin poets and writers liked expressions such as "pinus navigans"
(the sailing pine - for ship).  Bring such a misunderstood expression
in connection with any one of the many doom-stories, and a devil 
is born!  I am unaware of any other sources.  Thanks again for your
article.
Lucifer@tcastle.is.net


 .. The sum total of subjective beliefs of the masses is "reality"
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12

___ Olms 1.60 [Evaluation]
--------------------------

To: alt.magick.tyagi
From: tyagI@houseofkaos.Abyss.coM (tyagi mordred nagasiva)
Subject: Re: Lucifer and ARADIA
Date: 11 Oct 1994 17:28:35 GMT

[from alt.pagan: tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney)]

tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney) writes:

[duplication deleted]


Raven  writes:

[duplication deleted]


Thank you for confirming my understanding of the subject.

The question of "beingness" is admittedly fuzzy.  The one direct
reference I have found -- a very brief mention of Eosphorus (the Greek
cognate) in Hesiod's THEOGONY, 381-2 -- refers to Eosphorus as a star
and not as a being.  I can find no reference to Lucifer or Eosphorus
as possessed of any personality or ever having done anything except
being born of Eos and Astraeus, and siring King Ceyx of Trachis and
Leuconoe.  He's not a character in any myth I can find.

Returning to ARADIA, this would seem to make it difficult to read the
Lucifer of Leland as a derivation from this obscure and depersonalized
figure known only to classical scholars (and then only slightly).  The
Lucifer of Christian apocrypha is a prominent, personalized, and
well-known figure in Italy as well as Leland's own country, so the
preponderance of the evidence would seem to indicate that the Lucifer
of ARADIA was a reinterpretation of the Lucifer of Christianity.  One
derivation simply seems far more probable than the other.

I would not go so far as to say that this is beyond reasonable doubt,
but clearly the burden of proof is on those who wish to demonstrate
that Leland's Lucifer is =not= the well-known character of Christian
apocrypha.  Until I hear some compelling evidence to that effect, I
will have to continue to think of ARADIA as a Satanic legend.

(As with all forms of Satanism, of course, the being which is
reinterpreted is not the same as the original.  The Satan of Satanists
is not the Satan of Christians, any more than the Lucifer of Leland is
the Lucifer of Christianity.  They are both reinterpretations of
demonized characters in a more positive light.)
-- 
Tim Maroney, Communications and User Interface Engineer
{apple!sun}!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com

"Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion."
    - Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"
---------------------

To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.satanism
From: tyagI@houseofkaos.Abyss.coM (tyagi mordred nagasiva)
Subject: Re: Origin of Lucifer/Satan
Date: 11 Oct 1994 17:50:09 GMT

[from alt.mythology: dolan@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (dolan andrew patrick)]


I have read a book of very old stuff, Jewish Psedographia, called
the Book of Enoch. I think this may be the origianof the Lucifer/Satan
myth as well as the "war of the angels" story that is still taught in
Catholic schools. An Ethiopian version dated to about 2000 yearsd ago
exists, and is probably based on older oral traditions....

Lucifer/Satan was some sort of military commander who was  commanded by
"The Lord" to bow down bfore one of "The Lord"'s creations: man.
The story wqas that Licigfer refused to do so. It becomes a bit confused  
after that point. Apparently they left "Heaven" for a spell and committed several unforgiveable transgressiosn: they mated with "mortal" women, had children with
them and taught their children the use of metals.  For this they were set upon
by the loyal armies od the "The Lord", perhaps when they attempted to return
to "Heaven" for more personnel or materials. Apparently they were either cast
out for keeps or perhaps the ringleeader ans oem cohorts were put into some
sort of underground prison. It sounds to me like some sort of amateurs
playing Peace Corps with some native women in a colony and finding that   
their little adventure was not smiled upon back at headquarters. Their tale
later became a sort of a warning to other would-be adventurers not to 
disobey the emperor.It sounds to me like this intepretation as seen from ther
point of view of the savages in  the colony that they helped to civilize,
perhapos after the homeland had sent in some troops to de-civilize
the obstreperous natives after the natives had gotten their hands on
what may have been  an advanced technolgy at the time: the smelting and use
of metals.Sounds like a very old story.......

EOF
Date: Sat, 26 Nov 94 10:52:03 EST
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From: dvera@met.com
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Message-ID: <22947LTMEXJYBUKAFNP@met.com>
Subject: Wicca and Satanism
Lines: 60


boniface@cybercircl.com  wrote:
 
 > ARADIA: THE GOSPEL OF THE WITCHES is a very interesting book and
 > I believe that every Wiccan should read it in order to know
 > something of where we as Wiccans have been.
 >
 > The fact that Lucifer is one of the deities in the book does not
 > mean that we have anything in common with Satanists.  The God
 > Lucifer is NOT synonymous with Satan.  The very first person to
 > confuse the two deities was Milton in his book PARADISE LOST.
 
No, the identification of Lucifer with Satan is much older than
Milton.  It is at least as old as the Christian Church fathers
(Tertullian, Jerome, Eusebius of Caisarea, etc.), according to
Maximilian Rudwin in _The_Devil_in_Legend_and_Literature_ (Chicago: 
Open Court Publishing Co., 1931).  The identification is based on an
interpretation of Isaiah 14:12 ("How art thou fallen from heaven, O
Lucifer, son of the morning").  In context, this verse refers to the
fall of the king of Babylon, but has been interpreted as referring
symbolically to the fall of a rebel angel as well.
 
Anyhow, _WAS_ there in fact an ancient _Roman_ deity called
"Lucifer" (rather than simply the _WORD_ "lucifer" to describe the
planet Venus when it appears as the Morning Star)?
 
 > I believe that the Strega of Italy (descendants of the Romans)
 > use the name Lucifer they do not mean Satan but God the Initiator
 > and bringer of the truth.
 
Nineteenth-century literary Satanists saw _Satan_ as an "initiator
and bringer of truth".  See "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" by
William Blake, "The Litanies of Satan" by Charles Baudelaire, "Hymn
to Satan" by Giosue Carducci, and, last but not least, the book
_La_Sorciere_ by Jules Michelet, still in print in English under the
title _Satanism_and_Witchcraft_.
 
According to J.B. Russell in _A_History_of_Witchcraft_, Michelet's
_La_Sorciere_ was a major source of inspiration to various writers
who are acknowlegded by Wiccans as influential:  Margarat Murray,
Charles G. Leland, Sir James Frazer, etc.  As far as I know,
Michelet was the first modern writer to use the word "witch" with
today's positive connotations of healing and resistance to tyranny.
 
Michelet was also an influence on more recent feminist versions of
Wicca.  _Satanism_and_Witchcraft_ is acknowledged in the
bibliography of, for example, _Witches,_Midwives,_and_Nurses:_
_A_History_of_Women_Healers_ by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre
English.
 
Note:  I am _NOT_ claiming that Wicca is a form of Satanism.  Wicca
and Satanism are distinct religious categories, but their histories
are intertwined to a greater degree than most Wiccans are willing to
acknowledge.
 
Read _Satanism_and_Witchcraft_ for yourself, and see.
 
 
Diane Vera
    

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From: "A.J. Brush" 
Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.satanism,alt.religion.all-worlds,alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Witches are Satanists (Was Re: are Wiccans, Satanists?)
Date: 4 Oct 1994 19:40:58 GMT
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donal@brewich.com (The Brew Witch) writes in response to Tyagi's post:


>Tyagi! For shame!  :)
>I have to believe that you intentionally clouded the water with this stuff.
>You know full well that Lucifer simply means lightbringer and that the Xians
>dragged him into the whole Satan thing as an afterthought, along with most
>of the other 'Satanic names'. These were merely old Gods that the Xians set
>up to knock down (see Straw Gods).

The latter part is true... But Satanists generally restore their
devils to their rightful place, so this isn't a problem.

>Except for the first time you mention it (i.e. "Satan/Lucifer") in your own
>words, nowhere in what you quoted is the name Satan used. What leads
>you to conclude that the two are one in the same? I do not. I see Lucifer
>as another version of the Promethius story (and I have heard noone try to
>say "Satan/Promethius"). In fact I would say that it is quite clear from the
>quotes you used that Lucifer is NOT a God of Evil, but of Light and when
>have the religions of Man ever associated Light with Evil???

The fact remains that Satan and Lucifer closely are related, even
outside xian theology, and Promethius too. Promethius rebelled against
his king, Zeus, by bestowing wisdom. Satan (serpent, Satan, same
difference) rebelled against Jehovah by doing much the same. Just as
Jehovah slanders Satan by calling him evil, Zeus could easily have
done the same to Promethius. Satan-Promethius is not such a silly
idea, and the term "Promethian Satanist" is not unheard of in these
circles.

As to light being evil, the religions of _God_ consistently associate
the two. Ignorance (often rendered "faith") is a necessity in docile,
exploitable followers, with scepticism and curiouisity being cardinal
sins. The whole Eden story exemplifies this in Judaism and xianity,
where God's first commandment is given as an unmistakeable "Thou shalt
not know."

Schemhamphorasch,

 - Tonii

Path: shell.portal.com!usenet
From: tyagI@houseofkaos.Abyss.coM (tyagi mordred nagasiva)
Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi
Subject: Re: Lucifer and ARADIA
Date: 22 Oct 1994 06:18:05 GMT
Organization: Portal Communications (shell)
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References: <36fpd5$99k@news1.shell>  <36vhld$cgb@news1.shell> <56540@toad.com>  <56729@toad.com>
Reply-To: tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney)
NNTP-Posting-Host: jobe.shell.portal.com

[from alt.pagan: tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney)]

tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney) writes:
>>Does anyone have pointers to myths or legends concerning Lucifer that
>>did not derive ultimately from this Biblical misreading?  Thanks!

walter@netcom.com (Walter Alter) writes:
>The 14'th chapter of the book of Isaiah contains a hymn of thanksgiving...
>     "How art thou fallen from heaven, oh Lucifer, Son of the
>     morning [morning star] ... how art thou cut down to the
>     ground, which did'st weaken the nations...  which made the
>     world as a wilderness and destroyed the cities thereof...

That's the source of the misreading I was referring to.  My question
was whether there were any legends of Lucifer as a being which derive
from another source.  No one has provided any so far.  There are
at least two references to the cognate Eosphorus in Hellenic myth,
but they do not provide any record of his acts or personality.

Because of that, it would seem very strange to assume that the
"Lucifer" of Leland's ARADIA was not the well-known Christian figure
who, in the European witch myth, was considered the god or king of the
witches, just as Diana or the cognate Hekati was considered their
goddess or queen.  The two are paired in ARADIA.  (This is actually a
reason to doubt the authenticity of the book -- it's too similar to the
European witch myth, which most scholars, Ginzburg to the contrary, no
longer believe had any factual basis.)

Despite its possibly fraudulent nature, ARADIA was one of the
foundation scriptures of the modern witchcraft movement, and the book
is plainly Satanic: it reveres Lucifer, another name for Satan, the
traditional lord of the witches in the European witch myth.  This fact
alone suffices to establish a definite and unambiguous connection
between the modern witchcraft movement and Satanism.  I will leave
aside the semantic question of whether "witchcraft is Satanism" -- it
all depends on what definition one uses -- but it is clear that they
are more than incidentally connected.

(By the way, this is not the first time I've had this debate, and the
same thing always happens.  As soon as I start pointing out the
presence of Satan as an explicit cognate of their Horned God in the
writings of Wiccan progenitors such as Leland, Murray, Gardner, and
Valiente, the anti-Satanic pagan faction falls abruptly silent.  I
assume that they consider the use of kill files to be a legitimate
tactic of debate.  If there is some equally compelling counterargument,
I would like to hear it.)
-- 
Tim Maroney, Communications and User Interface Engineer
{apple!sun}!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com

"Every institution I've ever been associated with has tried to screw me."
	-- Stephen Wolfram

Path: shell.portal.com!usenet
From: tyagI@houseofkaos.Abyss.coM (tyagi mordred nagasiva)
Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.satanism
Subject: Re: Lucifer and ARADIA
Date: 22 Oct 1994 06:19:44 GMT
Organization: Portal Communications (shell)
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Message-ID: <38aau0$3hg@news1.shell>
References: <36fpd5$99k@news1.shell>  <36vhld$cgb@news1.shell> <56540@toad.com>  <56729@toad.com> <12OCT94.06712419.0018@ESAMATC.LIB.MATC.EDU>
Reply-To: Raven ]

[I cannot post back to alt.satanism.  Would someone crosspost this?]

|tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney) writes:
|>>Does anyone have pointers to myths or legends concerning Lucifer that
|>>did not derive ultimately from this Biblical misreading?  Thanks!
|
|walter@netcom.com (Walter Alter) writes:
|>The 14'th chapter of the book of Isaiah contains a hymn of thanksgiving...
|>     "How art thou fallen from heaven, oh Lucifer, Son of the
|>     morning [morning star] ... how art thou cut down to the
|>     ground, which did'st weaken the nations...  which made the
|>     world as a wilderness and destroyed the cities thereof...
|
tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney) writes:
|That's the source of the misreading I was referring to.  My question
|was whether there were any legends of Lucifer as a being which derive
|from another source.  No one has provided any so far.  There are
|at least two references to the cognate Eosphorus in Hellenic myth,
|but they do not provide any record of his acts or personality.

Tim, I quote from Sir William Smith's SMALLER CLASSICAL DICTIONARY:

LUCIFER, or Phosphorus ("bringer of light"), is the name of the planet
Venus, when seen in the morning before sunrise.  The same planet was
called Hesperus, Cesperugo, Vesper, Noctifer, or Nocturnus, when it
appeared in the heavens after sunset.  Lucifer as a personification
is called a son of Astraeus and Aurora or Eos, of Cephalus and Aurora,
or of Atlas.  He is called the father of Ceyx, Daedalion, and of the
Hesperides.  Lucifer is also a surname of several goddesses of light,
as Artemis, Aurora, and Hecate.          [end quote]

Let me suggest that the relationship shown in ARADIA, of sun-god and
moon-goddess as brother and sister, is also that of Helios and Selene.
Meanwhile, Diana started out as an Italian woodland divinity, worshipped
at Aricia together with the woodland god Virbius (formerly Hippolytus
son of Theseus).  Diana's bow was later associated with the moon's
crescent, making her a moon-goddess; little wonder if the sun became
her brother and consort.  The shifting of the name Lucifer in the
above entry shows how easily these changes could take place, without
any reference to the Judeo-Christian scriptures.

By the way, the original words used in Isaiah 14:12 were names of gods
from Canaanite mythology:  HELAL ben SHAHAR, Daystar son of Dawn.

And, just to dispose of the idea that Isaiah actually was referring to
the planet Venus, read his preface in 14:4:  "you will take up this
taunt against the king of Babylon..."; that makes it explicit IN THE
TEXT that he was mocking a terrestrial human monarch, not describing
astronomical events.  As usual for Bible-thumbers, Walter Alter cited
an excerpt that seemed to back his view -- and ignored the nearby part
that expressly contradicted his interpretation.

|Because of that, it would seem very strange to assume that the
|"Lucifer" of Leland's ARADIA was not the well-known Christian figure

It wouldn't seem strange to me.  Lucifer was known and favored in Italy
LONG before Christianity moved in -- or ever used the name "Lucifer" for
Isaiah's text -- or mistakenly equated that with the figure of Satan.

|who, in the European witch myth, was considered the god or king of the
|witches, just as Diana or the cognate Hekati was considered their
|goddess or queen.  The two are paired in ARADIA.  (This is actually a
|reason to doubt the authenticity of the book -- it's too similar to the
|European witch myth, which most scholars, Ginzburg to the contrary, no
|longer believe had any factual basis.)

From the CANON EPISCOPI:

It is also not to be omitted that some wicked women, perverted by the
Devil, seduced by illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and profess
themselves, in the hours of night, to ride upon certain beasts with
Diana, the goddess of pagans, and an innumerable multitude of women,
and in the silence of the dead of night to traverse great spaces of
earth, and to obey her commands as of their mistress, and to be summoned
to her service on certain nights.        [end quote]

From the phrasing, please note that the Christian writer does not
believe this to be TRUE -- in fact, he calls it illusion -- but
that "some... women... believe and profess" this claim.

Diana's companion deity was called Herodias.   Aradia?

|Despite its possibly fraudulent nature, ARADIA was one of the
|foundation scriptures of the modern witchcraft movement, and the book
|is plainly Satanic: it reveres Lucifer, another name for Satan, the
                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"Another name for Satan" TO THE CHRISTIANS, and then only by a mistaken
reading of their own scriptures, which do not actually equate the two.

It does NOT follow that the worshippers of Diana shared that assumption.

Possibly, after centuries of being told that all non-Christians worship
the Devil, SOME of them might have started to believe that -- but then
this is still a Christian belief influencing an existing religion, not
a Satanist origin of the religion.

|traditional lord of the witches in the European witch myth.  This fact
|alone suffices to establish a definite and unambiguous connection
                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Hardly.

|between the modern witchcraft movement and Satanism.  I will leave
|aside the semantic question of whether "witchcraft is Satanism" -- it
|all depends on what definition one uses -- but it is clear that they
|are more than incidentally connected.

Connected BY THE CHRISTIANS who called all non-Christian faiths Satanic,
not connected in their own traditions, any more than other pagan faiths
that developed without ever hearing of the Christian's anti-god figure.

|(By the way, this is not the first time I've had this debate, and the
|same thing always happens.  As soon as I start pointing out the
|presence of Satan as an explicit cognate of their Horned God in the
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Are you suggesting that the Greek Pan, the Roman Faunus, or the Celtic
Cernunnos had anything to do with the Jewish/Christian Satan (who was
never mentioned in scripture as having horns)?  This "cognate" was
only made by the Christians in order to "demonize" pagan gods.  If you
accept that as a true "cognate", you've just bought the Christian
anti-pagan propaganda, which has nothing to do with historical truth.

|writings of Wiccan progenitors such as Leland, Murray, Gardner, and
|Valiente, the anti-Satanic pagan faction falls abruptly silent.  I
|assume that they consider the use of kill files to be a legitimate
|tactic of debate.  If there is some equally compelling counterargument,
|I would like to hear it.)

Have you heard one now?

-- Raven (JSingle@Music.Lib.MATC.Edu).  [All standard disclaimers apply]

Path: shell.portal.com!usenet
From: tyagI@houseofkaos.Abyss.coM (tyagi mordred nagasiva)
Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi
Subject: Re: Lucifer and ARADIA
Date: 22 Oct 1994 06:21:09 GMT
Organization: Portal Communications (shell)
Lines: 97
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References: <36fpd5$99k@news1.shell>  <36vhld$cgb@news1.shell> <56540@toad.com>  <56729@toad.com> <12OCT94.06712419.0018@ESAMATC.LIB.MATC.EDU> <57013@toad.com>
Reply-To: tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney)
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[from alt.pagan: tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney)]

Tim Maroney (Hey, That's Me! Hi Ma!) writes:
>|Because of that, it would seem very strange to assume that the
>|"Lucifer" of Leland's ARADIA was not the well-known Christian figure.

Raven  writes:
>It wouldn't seem strange to me.  Lucifer was known and favored in Italy
>LONG before Christianity moved in -- or ever used the name "Lucifer" for
>Isaiah's text -- or mistakenly equated that with the figure of Satan.

Well, Raven, I certainly respect your scholarship and intelligence, but
in this one instance you're entirely off base.  I finally found my copy
of ARADIA tonight, and I started looking it over with an eye to whether
its Lucifer was ever explicitly identified with =either= the morning
star =or= with the Christian Satan/Lucifer.  This turned out to be a
very easy bit of research.  Chapter one, page one, sentence one:

	Diana greatly loved her brother Lucifer the god of the Sun and
	of the Moon, the God of Light (Splendor), who was so proud of
	his beauty, and who for his pride was driven from Paradise.

That is an absolutely clear reference to the Christian myth of the
Fall.  It has nothing to do with the classical Lucifer or Eosphorus,
who in fact possessed contradictory astronomical attributes.

Now consider page 16, the Invocation to Aradia, who was identified as
Lucifer's daughter on page one.  This is what it has to say about her
father:

	Aradia! my Aradia!
	Thou who art daughter unto him who was
	Most evil of all spirits, who of old
	Once reigned in hell when driven away from heaven...

Page 18 has another reference to his fall from heaven.  In fact, every
time he is mentioned, he is explicitly identified as the angel who fell
from heaven and reigned in hell: that being, of course, the figure of
Christian apocrypha known as Satan or Lucifer.  In no place is he
identified with the morning star.

These passages being sufficiently clear to establish his identity
beyond reasonable doubt, I hope you will forgive me for not responding
in detail to your educated and interesting -- but ultimately mistaken
-- passages speculating on a connection between Leland's Lucifer and
the obscure figure of pre-Christian mythology.  It has now been
established that ARADIA is a Satanic myth.

This brings us back to the main question.  I have chosen not to address
the semantic issue of whether modern witchcraft is a form of Satanism,
which is simply a question of what definition of Satanism one chooses
to employ.  Instead, I am addressing the factual question of whether
there is a distinct and significant connection between the modern
witchcraft movement and that which must be called Satanism under any
reasonable definition, which is to say, the veneration of Satan.

It is an undisputed fact that ARADIA was a seminal influence in the
modern witchcraft movement, and it has now been clearly established
that the Lucifer in that book was the Christian Lucifer, not the Latin
title of the morning star.  Therefore, it flies in the face of easily
verified fact to say (as modern witches and neo-pagans often do) that
"there is absolutely no connection between witchcraft and Satanism."
The former was built from the latter, as well as from other sources.

>|(By the way, this is not the first time I've had this debate, and the
>|same thing always happens.  As soon as I start pointing out the
>|presence of Satan as an explicit cognate of their Horned God in the
>             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Are you suggesting that the Greek Pan, the Roman Faunus, or the Celtic
>Cernunnos had anything to do with the Jewish/Christian Satan (who was
>never mentioned in scripture as having horns)?  This "cognate" was
>only made by the Christians in order to "demonize" pagan gods.  If you
>accept that as a true "cognate", you've just bought the Christian
>anti-pagan propaganda, which has nothing to do with historical truth.

What I'm "suggesting" is that Charles Godfrey Leland, Margaret Murray,
Gerald Gardner, and Doreen Valiente have all stated that the historical
witches used Satanic terminology for their god.  This is easily
verified by checking the primary sources.  Again, the question is not
whether "witchcraft is Satanism," but whether it is true to deny any
connection between them.  The people most responsible for founding the
tradition do not agree with their successor's denials; in fact, they
explicitly state that the historical witches did employ Satanic
terminology.  (Whether borrowed or not is no issue, since Satanism is a
process of reclamation.)  If I've "bought anti-pagan propaganda" here,
it's propaganda that was written by the primary sources of the modern
pagan movement!
-- 
Tim Maroney, Communications and User Interface Engineer
{apple!sun}!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com

"A book is the product of a contract with the Devil that inverts the Faustian
 contract, he'd told Allie.  Dr Faustus sacrificed eternity in return for two
 dozen years of power; the writer agrees to the ruination of his life, and
 gains (but only if he's lucky) maybe not eternity, but posterity, at least.
 Either way (this was Jumpy's point) it's the Devil who wins."
	-- Salman Rushdie, THE SATANIC VERSES

Path: shell.portal.com!usenet
From: tyagI@houseofkaos.Abyss.coM (tyagi mordred nagasiva)
Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.satanism
Subject: Re: Lucifer and ARADIA
Date: 22 Oct 1994 06:22:33 GMT
Organization: Portal Communications (shell)
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References: <36fpd5$99k@news1.shell>  <36vhld$cgb@news1.shell> <56540@toad.com>  <56729@toad.com> <12OCT94.06712419.0018@ESAMATC.LIB.MATC.EDU> <57013@toad.com> <14OCT94.09622866.0030@ESAMATC.LIB.MATC.EDU>
Reply-To: Raven 
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[from alt.pagan: Raven ]

[please cross-post back to alt.satanism; I can't from this site.]

tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney) writes:
|Tim Maroney (Hey, That's Me! Hi Ma!) writes:
|>|Because of that, it would seem very strange to assume that the
|>|"Lucifer" of Leland's ARADIA was not the well-known Christian figure.
|
|Raven  writes:
|>It wouldn't seem strange to me.  Lucifer was known and favored in Italy
|>LONG before Christianity moved in -- or ever used the name "Lucifer" for
|>Isaiah's text -- or mistakenly equated that with the figure of Satan.
                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|Well, Raven, I certainly respect your scholarship and intelligence, but
|in this one instance you're entirely off base.  I finally found my copy
|of ARADIA tonight, and I started looking it over with an eye to whether
|its Lucifer was ever explicitly identified with =either= the morning
|star =or= with the Christian Satan/Lucifer.  This turned out to be a
|very easy bit of research.  Chapter one, page one, sentence one:
|
| Diana greatly loved her brother Lucifer the god of the Sun and
| of the Moon, the God of Light (Splendor), who was so proud of
| his beauty, and who for his pride was driven from Paradise.
|
|That is an absolutely clear reference to the Christian myth of the
|Fall.  It has nothing to do with the classical Lucifer or Eosphorus,
|who in fact possessed contradictory astronomical attributes.

(1) I believe I expressly pointed out, in text you have deleted,
    that Diana and Lucifer seem to have been conflated with Selene
    and Helios, and further that this sort of conflation had happened
    before, as Lucifer was also the surname of other deities of light,
    Artemis and Hecate (of the moon) and Aurora (dawn) among them.

(2) I believe I also pointed out that the continual Christian teaching
    (non-Scriptural, and possibly created to demonize this very god)
    equating Lucifer to Satan may very well, after centuries of being
    preached by the Church, have been believed by some "witches" --
    but that this does NOT mean that the worship originally had anything
    to do with ANY Biblical figure.  Christian teaching also included,
    for a while, the idea that Muslims worshipped a demon named Mahound.
    It does not follow that Muslims actually are or were diabolists...
    nor would it, even if (under centuries of Christian domination)
    Muslims had actually started talking of Mahound instead of Muhammad.

|Now consider page 16, the Invocation to Aradia, who was identified as
|Lucifer's daughter on page one.  This is what it has to say about her
|father:
|
| Aradia! my Aradia!
| Thou who art daughter unto him who was
| Most evil of all spirits, who of old
| Once reigned in hell when driven away from heaven...
|
|Page 18 has another reference to his fall from heaven.  In fact, every
|time he is mentioned, he is explicitly identified as the angel who fell
|from heaven and reigned in hell: that being, of course, the figure of
|Christian apocrypha known as Satan or Lucifer.  In no place is he
|identified with the morning star.

By your reasoning then (since the BIBLICAL "Lucifer" WAS the morning
star, son of the dawn, Helal ben Shahar), this one isn't the same chap!

Again, this appears to be a later conflation, possibly post-Milton;
the religious or social equivalent of a "created memory" overlaying
an earlier one.  Things the Church taught (to EVERYONE, since no-one
had a choice in the matter for centuries) got mixed in with previous
traditions of the old religion.  Look at similar syncretism in Santeria.

|These passages being sufficiently clear to establish his identity
|beyond reasonable doubt, I hope you will forgive me for not responding
|in detail to your educated and interesting -- but ultimately mistaken
|-- passages speculating on a connection between Leland's Lucifer and
|the obscure figure of pre-Christian mythology.  It has now been
|established that ARADIA is a Satanic myth.

On the contrary, the connection to pre-Christian mythology has not only
NOT been disproven, it is the most probable reason that Satan was EVER
equated to the phrase in Isaiah 14:12 (which 14:4 explicitly says is a
taunt against the king of Babylon).  Why make this mistaken equation,
and why bring up the Latin name "Lucifer" in place of the Hebrew name
"Helal" (when "Satan" was kept in Hebrew and not translated), unless to
demonize the Roman deity of light?  And why bother doing THAT, unless
he still had followers?  The Celtic equivalent "Lugh" did for some time.

Neither "light-bringer" nor "horned one" were attributes of the Biblical
Satan.  We know that the horns were added later, to demonize Pan and his
Roman and Celtic equivalents; yet their worship was not originally any
derivation of Christian diabolism (except retroactively -- in the Church
teachings).  Mutatis mutandis, the same appears true of "light-bringer".

|This brings us back to the main question.  I have chosen not to address
|the semantic issue of whether modern witchcraft is a form of Satanism,
|which is simply a question of what definition of Satanism one chooses
|to employ.  Instead, I am addressing the factual question of whether
|there is a distinct and significant connection between the modern
|witchcraft movement and that which must be called Satanism under any
|reasonable definition, which is to say, the veneration of Satan.

The Biblical Satan is absent from the theology of modern witchcraft.
"Lucifer", even as a translation of "Helal" in Isaiah 14:12, is not
equated to Satan in the Bible.  The use of "Lucifer" to translate
that name, and the equating it with Satan, are both later additions
to Church teachings -- quite possibly to discredit the deity so named.
Lucifer-worship is Satan-worship ONLY IF you accept these Church
teachings.  And I've just cited reasons to believe that Lucifer-worship
PREDATED those Church teachings, rather than followed them, namely that
the Church had no reason to make these changes unless Lucifer-worship
already existed.  That propaganda may have affected the particular
"scripture" Leland translated (or invented), but not necessarily all
other "witch" traditions... such as the Sicilan "strege" tradition
Leo Louis Martello describes, coming from the homeland of Demeter.

|It is an undisputed fact that ARADIA was a seminal influence in the
|modern witchcraft movement, and it has now been clearly established
|that the Lucifer in that book was the Christian Lucifer, not the Latin
|title of the morning star.

If you insert "conflated with" between "was" and "the", then maybe.

But for two figures to be conflated, they must originally have been two
different figures.  In fact, we know they WERE two different figures.

|                            Therefore, it flies in the face of easily
|verified fact to say (as modern witches and neo-pagans often do) that
|"there is absolutely no connection between witchcraft and Satanism."
|The former was built from the latter, as well as from other sources.
                ^^^^^^^^^^
No, the former was EQUATED TO the latter, by its enemy the Church,
just as other religions (like Islam) were equated to devil-worship.

|>|(By the way, this is not the first time I've had this debate, and the
|>|same thing always happens.  As soon as I start pointing out the
|>|presence of Satan as an explicit cognate of their Horned God in the
|>             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|>Are you suggesting that the Greek Pan, the Roman Faunus, or the Celtic
|>Cernunnos had anything to do with the Jewish/Christian Satan (who was
|>never mentioned in scripture as having horns)?  This "cognate" was
|>only made by the Christians in order to "demonize" pagan gods.  If you
|>accept that as a true "cognate", you've just bought the Christian
|>anti-pagan propaganda, which has nothing to do with historical truth.
|
|What I'm "suggesting" is that Charles Godfrey Leland, Margaret Murray,
|Gerald Gardner, and Doreen Valiente have all stated that the historical
|witches used Satanic terminology for their god.  This is easily
|verified by checking the primary sources.

The "primary sources" in question are the records of examination under
torture, where the accused were stretched, burned, pierced, and broken
until they either died or were willing to say anything their examiners
wanted them to.  The standard instructions to the scribes recording
confessions were that, any time the accused spoke of his God, the scribe
was to write the word "Devil" instead.  Under these circumstances, YES,
the "primary sources" say that "the historical witches used Satanic
terminology" -- but no other result was possible under those rules!

This is why your argument that witchcraft was Satanic in origin does
not convince me.  If it had been true, why would the Church have had
to systematically falsify confessions and distort its own scriptures
in order to prove it?

|                                           Again, the question is not
|whether "witchcraft is Satanism," but whether it is true to deny any
|connection between them.  The people most responsible for founding the
|tradition do not agree with their successor's denials; in fact, they
|explicitly state that the historical witches did employ Satanic
|terminology.

Under such torture, the POPE would employ Satanic terminology; either in
his own words, or after the scribe got done changing "God" to "Satan".

|              (Whether borrowed or not is no issue, since Satanism is a
|process of reclamation.)  If I've "bought anti-pagan propaganda" here,
|it's propaganda that was written by the primary sources of the modern
|pagan movement!

Bingo!  And since the "primary sources" were Church propaganda -- later
writers are secondary or tertiary at best -- you have your answer.

At least later writers do mention that the "Satanic" references were
due to torture, falsification, and propaganda.  You should admit that.

-- Raven (JSingle@Music.Lib.MATC.Edu).  [All standard disclaimers apply]

Path: shell.portal.com!usenet
From: tyagI@houseofkaos.Abyss.coM (tyagi mordred nagasiva)
Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi
Subject: Re: Lucifer and ARADIA
Date: 22 Oct 1994 06:24:15 GMT
Organization: Portal Communications (shell)
Lines: 164
Message-ID: <38ab6f$3n5@news1.shell>
References: <36fpd5$99k@news1.shell>   <12OCT94.06712419.0018@ESAMATC.LIB.MATC.EDU> <1994Oct14.131808.74898@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <16OCT94.08911648.0016@ESAMATC.LIB.MATC.EDU>
Reply-To: Raven 
NNTP-Posting-Host: jobe.shell.portal.com

[from alt.pagan: Raven ]

magic@falcon.cc.ukans.edu (Stephen R. Figgins) writes:

|Although Aradia refers to a child of Diana named Lucifer, her light
|half if you will, that does not necessarily make him the same as
|Satan.

Errr, Stephen, if you're referring to Leland's rendition, Aradia
refers to a HER, not a HIM:  the daughter of Diana AND Lucifer,
not a child of Diana NAMED Lucifer.

But I agree that Lucifer isn't (except by Christian attribution) the
same as Satan, just as Muhammad (snidely called "Mahound" by Christians)
isn't/wasn't a demon, although the Church insisted on that a long time.
"demonizing" other religions' leaders/gods was standard for the Church.

|Tim if you took Aradia, and wherever you saw the name Lucifer you
|substituted another name, say Fred.  Would you say that Fred and Satan
|are one and the same?  They seem to be very different myths to me.  I
|do not see the Angel fallen from grace, nor the great Rebeller against
|authority in Aradia's Lucifer.

And this was literally done in the Inquisition transcripts.  People were
tortured to say what the Inquisitors believed to be the truth; and even
if they persisted in speaking of their "God", the scribes were ordered
to write that down as "Devil".  It's easy to prove diabolism that way.

|The connection between the Devil and witchcraft has been pointed out
|by Murray and Gardner, and others.  The similarities are not really
|denied.  In fact it has been posited that much of what Christian's
|think of as "the Devil" was drawn from images of the Horned One.  "The
|Devil" as a nickname for the High Priest seems to have been pretty
|standard.

At least after the Church got done transcribing the confessions --
who knows what the original word was?  If the High Priest had "drawn
down" the GOD and was so addressed, the transcripts would still say
"Devil".

|           But I don't think the adoption of that name makes
|historical Witches Satanists.

And if they were, or if they had been, why don't they use the name
"Satan" -- as the indisputed Satanists did, who certainly existed
before Leland or Murray or Gardner wrote about witches?

Huysmans wrote about Satanists in 1890's Paris, but there the
name "Satan" was used, the Christian rites were inverted, and the
worship was clearly of the Christian anti-god.

NONE of this is true of the Leland/Murray/Gardner version of witches;
clearly they are not the same religion.

|It is my personal belief that much of what is generally thought of as
|Satanism was invented during the persecution of the pagan people
|during the inquisition.  Modern day Satanism seems to be derived from
|many sources, some of those sources are the same ones from which
|modern Witchcraft is drawn.  In reconstructing our religions,
|Satanists, and Witches have dipped a lot of things from the same well.

From the description by Huysmans, Satanism was clearly drawn from just
turning Christianity on its head (like the crucifix itself); additional
ideas were conflated from other traditions that the Church had CALLED
Satanic, like the goat's head (from allegations against the Templars)
and the pentagram (from allegations against the witches).  If the Church
had still been hot-and-heavy against the Muslims in the 1890's, and if
Muslim practices had still been well known despite that attitude, I'd
expect "Satanist" practices to have included praying toward Mecca five
times a day, and fasting during Ramadan.  In this sense "Satanism" is
ENTIRELY a Church creation -- using every rite it called Satanic.

By contrast, the deities Diana, Lucifer, Lugh, Pan, Faunus, Cernunnos,
the Horned / Green / Light deities, were NOT in the Bible, and existed
long before the Christian Church.  Casting a circle is neither Christian
nor anti-Christian; like praying toward Mecca, it is simply different
from Christian practice.  That's enough to be called "Satanist", IF
we accept the Church teaching that all other religions are Satanic.

|I do not believe that Aradia is clearly Satanic.  Clearly the book
|uses a name associated with Satan.  Aradia is a goddess who encourages
|rebellion.  But I would not say that the book reveres Satan, although
|I can see it embraces several Satanic principles.  Lastly, although
|Lelands book had a great deal of influence on the reconstruction of a
|modern Witchcraft, many parts of the story were rewritten, ignored, or
|rejected.  The encouragement to poison people for instance.  If this
|was a part of Tuscan Witchcraft, it certainly was not a part of the
|Modern Craft, Gardnerian or Alexandrian.  About the closest acceptance
|to such an attitude I can think of is when Z. Buddapest advocated
|magical violence toward Rapists.  Aradia is nothing more than a very
|interesting story that excited the imagination of Witches reforming
|the craft and provided some very beautiful liturgy.

I think that's a very fair statement.

|Tim, arguing that there is a connection between Satanism and
|Witchcraft is fine, if a bit unneccessary, as I think that is
|generally accepted, at least historically.  Maybe people just fall
|silent because it is a moot point, and they agree with you.

Or because they disagree, and don't feel up to historical debate.

|What remains to be proven is that Witchcraft and Satanism are
|sufficiently alike to say that they are the same.  I don't think that
|is true, unless all that I currently understand about Satanism is
|wrong.  It has also not been shown to me that Satanism is a neo-pagan
|religion.

On classic Satanism (e.g. Huysmans), I would agree with you; inverting
Christianity is still depending on its teachings.

On modern Satanism (e.g. LaVey), where "Satan" represents what I refer
to as a religious version of Ayn Rand's "virtue of selfishness", I'd
argue that this truly is "non-Christian" rather than "anti-Christian",
and being also "post-Christian" is truly "neo-pagan".  Aquino's use of
the Egyptian god-name "Set" in place of "Satan" makes this even clearer.
Would you agree that Setianism is "neopagan"?  But then the similarities
to (LaVey's) Satanism would suggest that BOTH of them are, or aren't.

|           There are ways in which Satanism is similar to
|neo-paganism, but they just don't seem to share the same goals, the
|same reverence for nature, the same spirit of cooperation.

It depends on whether you make those the defining attributes of
neo-paganism.  If so, are Quakers, or Amish/Mennonites, "neo-pagan"?

|                                                            I think a
|Satanist can also be a neo-pagan, just as I think a Buddhist can be a
|neo-pagan, neo-paganism is not necessarily incompatible with these
|ideas.  But Satanism as a whole does not seem very neo-pagan. If
|Satanists want to be a part of the club, then they shouldn't attempt
|to force themselves into paganism by proving some historical
|connection.  I mean, really, who cares?  Satanists should go about
|showing neo-pagans they share the same ethics and attitudes toward the
|world that other neo-pagans do, the same reverence for life and love
|and others.

I think this hits an important point, about squabbling over words rather
than dealing with realities.  But I think one object of the definitional
excercise was simply to point out that Satanists and [other?] neo-pagans
DO have something in common:  they are minority religions in a Christian
dominated society, subject to all sorts of horrendous accusations of the
"cult crime" variety, and to discrimination and persecution as a result.

Instead of squabbling over their differences, why not acknowledge that
they share the need to defend the freedom of religion -- even if that
religion in a given case is not one's own?

If a Satanist, purely by reason of religion, is denied employment or
housing or child custody or any other legal or social privilege which
the same person (if Christian) could have had, that is a threat to
Wiccans and Asatru and CAW... and Jews and Muslims... because the
SAME THING could then be extended to any of these other religions.

No matter whether it's a Satanist or a Wiccan who's attacked, both must
be concerned, because most Christians do lump them together -- and
arguing that "We're NOT the same!" is irrelevant and ineffective.
Otter G'Zell seems to have chosen this latter, useless, strategy.

By the same token, arguing that "We ARE the same!" is pointless, and
not just because the differences are real and obvious -- but because
this isn't the important issue.  Freedom of religion IS.

-- Raven (JSingle@Music.Lib.MATC.Edu).  [All standard disclaimers apply]

Path: shell.portal.com!usenet
From: tyagI@houseofkaos.Abyss.coM (tyagi mordred nagasiva)
Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.satanism
Subject: Re: Lucifer and ARADIA
Date: 24 Oct 1994 22:44:47 GMT
Organization: Portal Communications (shell)
Lines: 132
Message-ID: <38hdcv$kvi@news1.shell>
References: <36fpd5$99k@news1.shell>  <36vhld$cgb@news1.shell> <56540@toad.com>  <56729@toad.com> <12OCT94.06712419.0018@ESAMATC.LIB.MATC.EDU>
Reply-To: Raven 
NNTP-Posting-Host: jobe.shell.portal.com
Xref: shell.portal.com alt.magick.tyagi:901 alt.satanism:10203

[from alt.pagan: Raven ]

[I cannot post back to alt.satanism.  Would someone crosspost this?]

|tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney) writes:
|>>Does anyone have pointers to myths or legends concerning Lucifer that
|>>did not derive ultimately from this Biblical misreading?  Thanks!
|
|walter@netcom.com (Walter Alter) writes:
|>The 14'th chapter of the book of Isaiah contains a hymn of thanksgiving...
|>     "How art thou fallen from heaven, oh Lucifer, Son of the
|>     morning [morning star] ... how art thou cut down to the
|>     ground, which did'st weaken the nations...  which made the
|>     world as a wilderness and destroyed the cities thereof...
|
tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney) writes:
|That's the source of the misreading I was referring to.  My question
|was whether there were any legends of Lucifer as a being which derive
|from another source.  No one has provided any so far.  There are
|at least two references to the cognate Eosphorus in Hellenic myth,
|but they do not provide any record of his acts or personality.

Tim, I quote from Sir William Smith's SMALLER CLASSICAL DICTIONARY:

LUCIFER, or Phosphorus ("bringer of light"), is the name of the planet
Venus, when seen in the morning before sunrise.  The same planet was
called Hesperus, Cesperugo, Vesper, Noctifer, or Nocturnus, when it
appeared in the heavens after sunset.  Lucifer as a personification
is called a son of Astraeus and Aurora or Eos, of Cephalus and Aurora,
or of Atlas.  He is called the father of Ceyx, Daedalion, and of the
Hesperides.  Lucifer is also a surname of several goddesses of light,
as Artemis, Aurora, and Hecate.          [end quote]

Let me suggest that the relationship shown in ARADIA, of sun-god and
moon-goddess as brother and sister, is also that of Helios and Selene.
Meanwhile, Diana started out as an Italian woodland divinity, worshipped
at Aricia together with the woodland god Virbius (formerly Hippolytus
son of Theseus).  Diana's bow was later associated with the moon's
crescent, making her a moon-goddess; little wonder if the sun became
her brother and consort.  The shifting of the name Lucifer in the
above entry shows how easily these changes could take place, without
any reference to the Judeo-Christian scriptures.

By the way, the original words used in Isaiah 14:12 were names of gods
from Canaanite mythology:  HELAL ben SHAHAR, Daystar son of Dawn.

And, just to dispose of the idea that Isaiah actually was referring to
the planet Venus, read his preface in 14:4:  "you will take up this
taunt against the king of Babylon..."; that makes it explicit IN THE
TEXT that he was mocking a terrestrial human monarch, not describing
astronomical events.  As usual for Bible-thumbers, Walter Alter cited
an excerpt that seemed to back his view -- and ignored the nearby part
that expressly contradicted his interpretation.

|Because of that, it would seem very strange to assume that the
|"Lucifer" of Leland's ARADIA was not the well-known Christian figure

It wouldn't seem strange to me.  Lucifer was known and favored in Italy
LONG before Christianity moved in -- or ever used the name "Lucifer" for
Isaiah's text -- or mistakenly equated that with the figure of Satan.

|who, in the European witch myth, was considered the god or king of the
|witches, just as Diana or the cognate Hekati was considered their
|goddess or queen.  The two are paired in ARADIA.  (This is actually a
|reason to doubt the authenticity of the book -- it's too similar to the
|European witch myth, which most scholars, Ginzburg to the contrary, no
|longer believe had any factual basis.)

From the CANON EPISCOPI:

It is also not to be omitted that some wicked women, perverted by the
Devil, seduced by illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and profess
themselves, in the hours of night, to ride upon certain beasts with
Diana, the goddess of pagans, and an innumerable multitude of women,
and in the silence of the dead of night to traverse great spaces of
earth, and to obey her commands as of their mistress, and to be summoned
to her service on certain nights.        [end quote]

From the phrasing, please note that the Christian writer does not
believe this to be TRUE -- in fact, he calls it illusion -- but
that "some... women... believe and profess" this claim.

Diana's companion deity was called Herodias.   Aradia?

|Despite its possibly fraudulent nature, ARADIA was one of the
|foundation scriptures of the modern witchcraft movement, and the book
|is plainly Satanic: it reveres Lucifer, another name for Satan, the
                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"Another name for Satan" TO THE CHRISTIANS, and then only by a mistaken
reading of their own scriptures, which do not actually equate the two.

It does NOT follow that the worshippers of Diana shared that assumption.

Possibly, after centuries of being told that all non-Christians worship
the Devil, SOME of them might have started to believe that -- but then
this is still a Christian belief influencing an existing religion, not
a Satanist origin of the religion.

|traditional lord of the witches in the European witch myth.  This fact
|alone suffices to establish a definite and unambiguous connection
                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Hardly.

|between the modern witchcraft movement and Satanism.  I will leave
|aside the semantic question of whether "witchcraft is Satanism" -- it
|all depends on what definition one uses -- but it is clear that they
|are more than incidentally connected.

Connected BY THE CHRISTIANS who called all non-Christian faiths Satanic,
not connected in their own traditions, any more than other pagan faiths
that developed without ever hearing of the Christian's anti-god figure.

|(By the way, this is not the first time I've had this debate, and the
|same thing always happens.  As soon as I start pointing out the
|presence of Satan as an explicit cognate of their Horned God in the
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Are you suggesting that the Greek Pan, the Roman Faunus, or the Celtic
Cernunnos had anything to do with the Jewish/Christian Satan (who was
never mentioned in scripture as having horns)?  This "cognate" was
only made by the Christians in order to "demonize" pagan gods.  If you
accept that as a true "cognate", you've just bought the Christian
anti-pagan propaganda, which has nothing to do with historical truth.

|writings of Wiccan progenitors such as Leland, Murray, Gardner, and
|Valiente, the anti-Satanic pagan faction falls abruptly silent.  I
|assume that they consider the use of kill files to be a legitimate
|tactic of debate.  If there is some equally compelling counterargument,
|I would like to hear it.)

Have you heard one now?

-- Raven (JSingle@Music.Lib.MATC.Edu).  [All standard disclaimers apply]

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From: jjc4162@is.nyu.edu (Blackjack)
Newsgroups: alt.satanism
Subject: Re: Lucifer and Satan
Date: 13 Oct 1994 01:05:27 GMT
Organization: The Generation of Vipers
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In article <37fht5$mdr@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com>
SaviaC@ix.netcom.com (Chris Savia) writes:

> In <37eiib$qq@owl.und.ac.za> mkhwanaz@beastie.cs.und.ac.za (NB Mkhwanazi) writes: 
> 
> >
> >Yo luciferians and satanists  can u tell me the difference between satan and
> >lucifer..please elaborate as much as possible
> >
> >
> >cya
> >
> 
> Once upon a time there was a people who named things floating in
> space.  They took these things floating in space as "gods".  Well
> if they were gods, they must have names.  After all, god is made in
> our own image (HPL not included).  So they named the "wandering star"
> we call Venus, Lucifuge or Lucifer which in Latin means "Light Bringer"
> 
> Poppa Smurf, does that mean he brought us Coors Light
> 
> No you little bastard, and stop with the jokes
> 
> Ahem, in a far away land there were a people who called themselves
> Hebrews.  Well, they never really had a home (unless you call being
> enslaved by Egyptians home) but they were always promised one by their
> "god".  Well, these Hebrews had a language that had a word for the
> term "enemy" or "nemesis".
> 
> What was that Poppa Smurf?
> 
> The word was Satan, or something very much like Satan.  Satan never meant
> the manifestation of evil.
> 
> No Poppa Smurf?
> 
> NO!  :::pulls out pistol and blows little smurf's head off:::
> 
> Little fuck...anyway...Satan just meant that he was the enemy, "god's"
> enemy.  The Xian church just pooped it all around so he became the
> manifestation of all evil.  After all "god" is good.  Ha ha ha ha.
> 
> That's the difference betwixt Satan and Lucifer kiddies.

You forgot something:

Those poor homeless Hebrews got beat up on by the nasty Babylonians,
whose king was Nebuchanezzur (Fuck me, little smurfs, if I can't
spell.)  Nebbie got his ass kicked by Cyrus, king of Persia.  The
Hebrews thought this was just dandy and gloated about it in one of
thier books of prophecy, talking about how "The Star of Morning" (for
that's what nebbie was called) fell.

Centuries later, along come some Romans who want to translate the Bible
into Latin.  They came across this "Star of Morning" and wrote down
Lucifer, because that's what they called the Morning Star.

Centuries later, a dense and hyperloquacious fellow by the name of
Milton read the Latin Bible (which was called the Vulgate on account of
all the dirty words (not)) and saw this Lucifer character and assumed
he was the same guy as Satan and wrote a long poem called Paradise
Lost.  Now most folks couldn't read back then and them that could
didn't pay too much attention, so as Milton's story got around,
everybody just assumed it was straight from the Bible.

There.  That wasn't so bad.

Now ask me what Revelations means.

No.  Don't.

Blackjack
---

  =============                                               //
  =============  The Rev. Dr. J.J.  "Blackjack" Collins   ////////////
  =====   =====                                             //     //  
  =============            Gentleman Pyrate                //     // 
  =============                                           //   \\//
  =====   =====           jjc4162@is.nyu.edu             //     \/    

                  The above stated are my opinions, 
                   But since I'm smarter than you,
                       They are probobly right.

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From: Michael.Aquino@125-430.astaroth.sacbbx.com (Michael Aquino)
Date: 13 Oct 94 08:28:15 -
Newsgroups: alt.satanism
Subject: Re: Lucifer and Satan
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NM> Yo luciferians and satanists  can u tell me the difference between satan
NM> and lucifer..please elaborate as much as possible

As I expect you can see from other responses, there is not a single, simple
answer to this. "Satan" is generally a Hebrew term, per the Old Testament, for 
what began as a sort of "prosecuting attorney" for YHVH against [fallen]
humanity [as in Job, etc.]. Christianity developed Satan into a full-fledged
anti-Christ or anti-God scarecrow, and Islam went along with this convenience.

Lucifer, as has been elsewhere pointed out here, was a Roman term
used/confused for the Morning Star aka Venus, and further confused with Satan, 
presumably because of the legend of Satan's being the brightest star who fell
from the heavens, etc.

By the time of John Milton & _Paradise Lost_, "Lucifer" had become Satan's
name before his fall [after it he took the name "Satan"]. Today you can see
playing with this good name/bad name theme in such variations as Tolkien,
where Lucifer/Melkor "falls" and becomes Satan/Morgoth, etc.

Some other medieval & later grimoires split Satan & Lucifer into two demons
again. The most famous example of this is _The Sacred Magic of Abra=Melin the
Mage_ - over which Mathers & Crowley devoted much of their time - which
introduces Satan, Lucifer, Belial, & Leviathan as "the four princes of Hell".
This found its way into Crowley's works, and Anton took it from Crowley to use 
in his _Satanic Bible_. [I don't recall his having a copy of _Abra=Melin_ and
am not sure if he is aware of that earlier source.]

So: Take your pick!
;

Newsgroups: alt.satanism
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From: royd@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Roy Daniel)
Subject: Re: Lucifer and Satan
Message-ID: 
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References: <37fht5$mdr@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> <37i14n$bun@cmcl2.NYU.EDU> <37lmhc$6p1@case.cyberspace.com>
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 1994 07:31:53 GMT
Lines: 20

mkennedy@cyberspace.com (Max Kennedy) writes:

>To the connection-making impaired:

> The morning star is venus, that is brightest before dawn, that brings
>in the day; light-bringer...

Yep! Nice connection, although there are no symbological connection involved...

The astrological planet Venus has nothing to do with Lucifer... Nor the roman 
goddess, or Aphrodite, since we all know roman gods are a fraud. :) Lucifer 
is a direct copy of Prometeus of Greek fame, the Titan who stole the Divine
fire from Zeus to give it to Man so he can have knowledge and evolve. Sounds like
Luci all right? You bet. Prometeus wasn't *evil* per se, and he was actually
freed by Heracles. Christians once again walk in and turns everything that 
doesn't suit their desire for mindlessness into emanations of the Devil.

Elijah