Painting by Goya titled “ El Aquelarre” 1823 ( the actual painting is bigger than the one presented here)

The rejection of phenomena which does not have a place in our empirical knowledge seems to be part of human nature, those things that are weird and we just simply do not know about. Of course, how could we blame ourselves as this “instinct” (which can even develop into a concrete and structured phobia called neophobia) has been part of our success in the adaptation & survival of our species.

I – THE EXPERIENCE OF THE UNKNOWN

Throughout evolution human beings have been able to determine what can become a threat both for the quasindividual and its community based on empirical knowledge. For example, probably the early human societies that were present during the Pleistocene epoch and which were located in the area of nowadays Mexico City experienced once a noice like a hurricane, loud and powerful, coming after the stampede of the woolly rhinoceros, zebu and cattle which finally unveil the saber-toothed tiger during his hunting and the attack towards one of the cavemen came to represent a direct threat for the community.

Thanks to the ability of “information retention”, early human understood that if they were to hear that sound again it would mean catastrophe and death. The roar and the saber-toothed tiger came to be not just an animal but symbolism of the enemy as it appeared to be that the tiger just wanted to kill and destroy the families that were part of the community. As time went by we understood the nature of the tiger as well as of many other things that lead us to stop recognising them as enemies as we unveiled more about them. Getting yourself into the territory of a tiger would mean a possible attack, especially if the tiger has cubs or it is hurt.

Knowledge made us free from many “enemies” we had, yet this does not mean the modern human being does not have enemies per se. Reality as it is, tacitly includes enemies. Disinformation is one of the main sources of uncertainty and humans are allergic to uncertainty. We might say that we got adapted to it but we would always prefer to have some information regarding the circumstances we’re facing, something familiar from where we can at least lean on.

II-AVOIDING UNCERTAINTY THROUGH MANICHAEAN DUALISTIC PERSPECTIVES

It is into this area of analysis where the main point of this text develops; What is not known or does not run in harmony with our perspective of life, interestingly enough, becomes some kind of enemy to us.

But as time has shown us, it is advantageous to put into perspective why something is our “enemy” (used as a synonym for the unknown). We must follow one of our main human characteristics and try to understand our enemy to gain control over the context. With this I’m not trying to express that our proceeding has been ineffective or improper. In fact, the perspective of life in a dual way seems to be natural and hard to avoid.

Manichaeism, as a dualistic perspective of life, has been living in our minds for way so long that we do not stop to analyze if a subject is truly what us humans catalogue as good or bad. One interesting phenomenon that has been a constant is the depiction of evil, the dark shadows of the human world and all the macabre that surrounds us and tries to pull us during the night into the vice and darkness of existence.

One of the main actors which has been the key symbolism of evilness has been Satan “the Lord of Darkness” (focusing on this specific name for the sake of the example) or that is what society has told us. Satan is constantly depicted with important features that makes him Satan, such as a pair of horns, goat legs, dark clothes and moved by a conscience that was not akin to Christianity during the Middle Ages.

The construction of Satan, if looked through the lense of sacred books and different religious perspectives, may prove to be a deeper one, one that is more theoretical and based on the philosophy of that religion in particular. But the focus in here is that of the depiction of Satan during the period from the V to XV centuries, in which the Christian church went through vital processes for the consolidation of the ideological features of the time.

III-THE CREATION OF SATAN

One of those processes was that of the rejection and denigration of pagan traditions. At this point the creation of the goat-like Satan took place. The period that started in the V century all the way until the XV was essential for the erection of the hegemonic force of Christianity over Europe, but this came also with the process of suppression and rejection of all those beliefs and symbols classified as pagan by the Christian leaders in order to depict those traditions as negative and be eradicated.

One of the figures which lived in the pagan traditions was that of the Greek God Pan, a god of the wild, a Nature deity who was depicted with horns and legs of a goat as said animal was constantly associated with fertility, wildness, disobedience and a general primal energy, something that for sure was not in the path of Christian normative thinking.

The goat is present not only in Greek deities but as well in Roman and Celtic traditions where it was a representation of fertility, the wildness, the cycles of life and death and in general its strong connection to the Earth and its flows. At that moment, there was no space for associations with evilness. All of the previous representations of the goat were nothing but Nature and its amorality.

At this point the use of Manichaean perspective (the dual perspective of life) sparks and leads to the depiction that as the pagan constellation is not part of the Christian Church world, as it profeses a different philosophy and ideology and because the ideology professed by the Christian Church of that time was “right and good”, therefore that of pagans was bad, a threat to the Christian Church’s status quo.

Taking into consideration that the position of the Christian Church leaders during that time was almost paternalistic, it was relatively easy to disseminate the preferred idea. We have to take into consideration that this process was way more complex involving social phenomena, geopolitics and the importance of religion at the time. Nevertheless, for the description of this example we can focus on this general yet effective historical process.

The movement against paganism and its collection of beliefs that constructed a specific morality did not run harmoniously what of Christianity. One of the many symbols which seem to be present in the ideologies of pagan culture and triggered the rejective reaction of the leaders of the Christian Church is that of the untamed forces of nature and its nuances of rebellion towards God’s divine plans. Therefore, both the ideology and the culture of the pagan tradition became part of the list of the non-wanted, whose aim is prone to the “vices and instincts” that were the contrary to God’s teachings. This is why then, accordingly to the Old Testament, the referring to those powers that were not akin to the Christianity as Ha’Satan which literally means “ The Adversary” or “The Enemy”.

With this definition in mind, the character of Satan moves from being subject to be a demonic figure or the Lord of Darkness to its original purpose which is a title used by the Christian Church in order to refer to all those who were against them, that constellation of ideologies adverse to the Christian Church’s teachings. Ha’Satan’s title also encloses the depiction with denigrating purposes of Baphomet, which as well under the umbrella of Manichaean dual perspectives was an alteration of the Islam and the Prophet Mohammad.

Once again the strategies of assuring the supremacy of the Christian teachings in Europe during the V-XV century lead to the depiction of those others as enemies, as Ha’Satan. Taking this into consideration the construction of Satan has now another meaning, a response of the leaders of the Christianism in order to protect the intro group morality, the division of “them” and “us” which obvious negative qualities in “them”. There is a need of a manichaean perspective of all this which is feed by the morality of the group, in this case Satan as we know it might not be really that goat-like demon but a representation of the others which according to the Christian leaders had to be evil as they did not followed the rightful path of light (light as a metaphor of the clear accepted ways) which the Christian church believed they followed.

Furthermore, there is an important factor which appears to push further the God Pan and all those pagan communities which were not on the same page of the hegemonic Christian church that is the little empathy there was for those groups as they appeared to be far, not familiar and therefore dangerous or not desired.

IV-CONCLUSION

Whether Satan (or Baphomet) is really evil and prone to throw us into the darkness of evilness is a question that might appear logic to answer according to the main sources of Christian teachings, yet its origin might be something more of a natural procedure of human being in order to “protect” their wellbeing and avoid the uncertainty that the unknown produces.

Nevertheless, thanks to these facts we have built a new Satan, we veered towards Ha’Satan rather than the commercial demonic figure. The aim and final message is that the construction of society’s catalogue of reality is heavily influenced by a non plural perspective, the manichaean dualistic conception
of our reality seems to be unavoidable. If we are to embrace a world without constraints and limits imposed in a way by what the previous generation depicted as bad we might be falling into a spiral of assumptions without doubting about their reality.

With this I’m not trying to advocate for nowadays Satanic beliefs neither to attack the people’s ethical standards, simply to present the intrigue to know and understand if what we conceive as bad is indeed bad or rather the lie has been repeated so frequently that it has become an accepted fact.

The world in which we live in has been conceived in a dualistic way; There is and there is not. It is probably the mere nature of human beings until now, that way of conception, yet the increasing presence of authors arguing for the introduction of nuances in this bicolour world may provide us a new reality one which is more plural, more inclusive and progressive.

Sources

Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Baphomet. Retrieved October 29, 2024, from
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Baphomet
Mythology.net. (n.d.). Baphomet. Retrieved October 29, 2024, from
https://mythology.net/others/concepts/baphomet/
Eden Bengals. (n.d.). What does a goat head symbolize? Retrieved October 29, 2024, from
https://edenbengals.com/what-does-a-goat-head-symbolize/
New International Version. (2011). Job 1:6-12; Job 2:1-6. In The Holy Bible: New
International Version. Zondervan