THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

7
J for the Judaeo-Christian belief that everything associated with carnality is evil, and that
this evil is created by an independent malevolent spirit.
Another belief that the classical Greeks passed on to Christianity concerned the existence
ofmalicious minor spirits, associated with the principle of evil. The original Greek word
daimon evolved from its neutral reference to spirit, to the post-Homeric separation of
gods from demons, and the association of demons with evil in the late Hellenistic period.
However, although classical Greek religion and mythology clearly shaped the Christian
conception of the Devil, there is no mythical figure who represents the personification of
evil in Greek antiquity. With the advent of Greek philosophy and the first rigorous,
systemic, and rational deliberation on the nature and origin of evil, the destructive
principle at large in the universe became refined and elaborated.
The monist assumption underlying Greek mythology was that there was a single
benevolent and omnipotent divinity. Plato and his followers began from the assumption
that all was the product ofa single divine principle, but that there was a refractory cosmic
aspect, either a degraded manifestation of the principle, or an entirely separate element
altogether. This secondary or degraded aspect was matter in all its manifestations (the
phenomenal world), co-existing with the ideal or spiritual world, which was believed to .-/
ontologically superior. Chaos, defined as disorder, irrationality, or random motion, may
well have predated the creation of the cosmos, and continued to exert its pull on the
material world, despite the divine intention ofthe creator. This argument allowed Plato a
position of ethical dualism whereby evil was acknowledged, but its cause could not be
located in God. During the first two centuries A.D., the Platonists entrenched this
dualism, and evil was understood to be ~~istan~e
(Russell, 1977, p. 160).
of m~tQ....1he_clivine~ill"
3 Orphism was an ancient Greek cult which subscribed to the doctrine that the highest spiritual objective is
to divest oneselfofthe earthly element in one's composition, i.e., one's body, and to unite oneselfwith the
Divine.