Within man there are various kinds of power or force. I shall assume that everyone understands natural forces for I shall not be discussing these. All religions - from Christianity to Satanism - believe that there are invisible, supernatural powers. A Wiccan writes:
"In the tale of Adam and Eve, the apple signified hidden knowledge which was forbidden to human kind. Other early cultures encouraged holy and learned persons in their search for divine wisdom. For example, the Vedas state that the universe and ourselves are One, and that by realizing this and tapping into that Universal energy and state, we achieve wholeness and bliss. These concepts were known to many ancient civilizations. For most of the western culture, sacred knowledge was designated as the right of the One Deity only. It was considered heretical to study the Divine workings of the Universe. The apple signified that which we should not attempt to know, and many attempts over the centuries to obtain knowledge of the Universe (and therefore, ourselves) were suppressed. The pentagram in its modern guise as the pentacle was also a target of this subjugation."
Every religion in the world recognises that there is a hidden "energy" or "power" which, once tapped, confers supernatural powers on a man. By accumulating this energy, many supernatural miracles (such as healing) have been performed and continue to be performed. I have friends in the New Age movement who practice such occult arts as Qi Gong who have demonstrated that a power exists which may be tapped and used as a man wishes. One such friend healed her son using this accumulated energy. As I look around the world religions, I see that numerous techniques are employed to acquire this energy and that, for the most part, they work. What our Wiccan friend writes, therefore, has much truth in it, even though he has (as we shall see) fundmentally misunderstood what Christian knowledge and power is (he claims that Christianity is but a mutation of an ancient form of Wiccanism). We hear all the time of new miracle-workers such as the leader of the Om Sakthi spiritual movement in India who goes around restoring eyesight, curing the dumb, restoring hearing, and healing diseases for which no known medical remedy exists. He has performed other miracles too such as stopping rain, making the waves on the sea calm, and even creating "life".
Yes, these things happen for sure and many "explanations" are given, normally born out of panic and illogic. Another spiritual "superman", also from India, is able to do similar things, even to transmaterialising himself from one part of the world to another. There are many Chinese "supermen" also, such as the self-styled Qi Gong practicioner, the "Master Liu", who is able to cure all kinds of illnesses. And yes, all of these things are very real; one even hears occasionally of healings taking place in Satanic rituals - I personally know of one man who had his broken arm restored by a Satanist High Priest. But my question is: what is this invisible power, and where does it come from? People will give you different "explanations" - Christians and Satanists will claim it is "from the devil/Satan" and New Agers from the collective George Lucas Star Wars-type of collective life energy in the cosmos. But what is the truth? And how is it that the two powers that we have encountered in the previous chapter - Wiccan and Christian - are seeminly mutually antagonistic? How can there be a single pool of invisible spiritual energy if they are so opposite one another? Is one more powerful than the other? Is there a war between the two? Or is there a mutual yin-yang type of harmony between them - a balance of opposites, as it were?
Most Satanists (though not all - some are like Wiccans and do not believe in personal deities) believe that there is a war going on between two deities - the evil "Adonai" (the Christian God) and the good "Lucifer" or "Satan" - and they believe that Lucifer is going to win. But they also believe that the struggle will be a close one - that the two deities are pretty evenly matched and possess similar "powers". Some of them believe that Lucifer was originally in controll but that "Adonai" usurped power, and that Lucifer is in the process of regaining what he lost. There are various ideas about this in satanic circles.
Christians believe that Yahweh-Elohim (the Supreme Deiety or Heavenly Father - sometimes erroneously called "Jehovah"..."adonai" is the Hebrew for "Lord") has always been in control, that Lucifer was his most powerful creation who rebelled, fell, and was renamed "satan" or the "devil". Satan is permitted to do as he pleases within certain constraints and can be imprisoned - along with his fallen demons - at any time of Yahweh's choosing. The Bible prophesies that he will be restrained for a thousand years, briefly released, and then forever imprisoned, never to exercise control or power over mankind again.
Needless to say the two "versions" are very different and built on two completely different premises. Satanists believe that there is substantially very little difference between Yahweh and Satan - that they are almost equally matched but that Satan will win the contest because of his superior knowledge and power. Like Christians, they believe the contest is on for the souls of men - to persuade them to follow the one deity or the other.
There is an interesting parallel here in Mormon beliefs. For the Latter-day Saints believe that Jesus and Lucifer have a common origin - they were originally spirit-brothers and that the separating of the ways occurred over a disagreement as to who should save the world which Yahweh prophetically knew would fall. According to Mormon doctrine everybody has always exisisted as intelligences and that some intelligences are simply more evolved or progressed than other based on the choices they made in different aeons of time. Thus God, Jesus and Lucifer, they believe, all "evolved" from the same stock or power and are basically the "same". This doctrine is remarkably similar to various forms of New Age and satannic teachings.
The Biblical teaching is, however, very different indeed. Unlike Yahweh-God and Jesus Christ who have always existed, Satan and everybody else - angels, spirits and men - are created beings. The latter derive their powers from the former - they are not from a common origin. The powers of angels, demons and men are derived powers. It is these we must examine to understand all the supernatural activities going on in the world.
