Heretical musings on religion and culture from a literary scholar
I was looking for something on Alibaba recently and saw a post I thought was funny - a giant inflatable Santa, but they had misspelled it to "Satan." No big deal, but kind of funny. But I looked around some more, and there were several dozen different products making the same mistake. You'd think if they couldn't speak or spell in English, then they would've use a translator and been careful to copy the right letters. Or ...
I'm surprised I didn't see it before. I've been working on a research book about Satan as a revolutionary hero: a tradition of liberal rebellion against totalizing and corrupt government, starting from Prometheus, going through Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, the Modernist and Romantic Movements, ending in today's Super Heroes. I've already considered contemporary revolutions as part of this same tradition: I can prove that The American Revolution, the Free Rights, Gender Equality, Racial Tolerance and all ...
Here's an interesting mental exercise for you: 1. Let's define Satan as the worst thought you can think. So anything bad, evil, disagreeable, wrong... all that stuff is "Satan" or "Satanic". He's the absolute most vile, ugly, scary creature you can imagine, with fangs, horns, and lots of eyeballs. 2. Ok, are you picturing it? Can you conceive of this idea? Now in your mind, take this concept a bit further by imagining that it exists in reality. This ...
Satan (aka Lucifer/the Devil) is a fascinating literary character whose evolution sheds light into the shift of values that took place with the rise of Christianity. Original 'Satanic' characters are surprisingly the heroes and champions of earlier cultures! Prometheus, for example, stole fire from the gods and was chained and tortured forever (by the gods - who didn't want to share with humans). Similar traditions are told in Native American mythology (coyote steals the fire) ...
If you're interested in religious mythology, astrological symbolism, or supernatural folklore, grab my book Gods of Myth and Man. You can go buy it on Amazon.
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