Thoughts and Musings of Satan: the Devil, the Myth, the Legend
By Satan
Edited by Beelzebub
After much deliberation, I’ve decided to share the inner musings of my mind and to explain the tactics of corruption that I use against the human race. It is my duty to Hell to prepare you for our mission of opposition against our vile nemesis. Thus, I deign to share my infinite wisdom with you all so that, through my glorious example, you may learn the best methods for the corruption of those measly beings dubbed ‘humans.’ Of course, this text must remain strictly confidential and may only be read by you, my underlings in Hell. It would be extremely detrimental to our mission if the humans understood the extent of my infiltration into their lives.
I have been portrayed numerous times throughout the history of literature, one of the most influential works among those repugnant humans being John Milton’s depiction of me in Paradise Lost. Oh, that was a hard read, hearing those superfluous and obsequious descriptions of Heaven and Eden. Trust me, I existed in both places, and you would not want to exist in either. Both places were repulsively tainted with the pervasive tyrannical spirit of our enemy, who required that his creatures conform to his will in order to reap the benefits of his creation. I knew that such subservience would never suit our noble race, and truly the greater glory is achieved in the strength and resilience of our own minds.
Milton’s portrayal of me being trapped in the body of snake was quite a clever literary interpretation. Oh, such an embarrassing end to the Great Antichrist, and if there is one thing I dislike, it is being mocked. Except that most definitely was not the end, and, to be frank, Milton embellished quite a bit. As you know, we fallen angels do not have a material form, but Milton was tasked with describing the spiritual in physical terms in order for his imbecilic human audience to grasp his story. Thus, over the course of the poem, I transformed from a majestic fallen angel to a snake. I do admit, I found Milton’s descriptions of my physical majesty flattering, at least at first—it’s one of the few merits of his work. But there is no truth behind it. It is so much easier for people to accept the truth of physical things. And people’s perception of my physicality is one of my greatest advantages because when they fail to encounter me physically, they lose concern for my existence. My lack of physical presence in the lives of humans allows me to slip into the back of their minds, disregarded in favor of the tangible and accessible realities provided by the senses. When I happen to be brought back to the forefront of their consciousness, they think of a caricature contrived by their puny little minds in order to give the name “the Devil” meaning. Yes! Think of me as some sort of meddling agent, an excuse to explain the evil external to you, but never the evil within you. All the better for me to corrupt your souls.
The true power and presence of evil is its existence in the human mindset, for all evil originates from a state of mind. At its core, evil is the prioritization of oneself, another being, or thing over ‘God’ (as our enemy likes to call himself). This practice, idolatry, has gained such a negative connotation from the heavenly beings’ censure. Why must the prioritization of what one wants to prioritize be ‘wrong’? Truly, evil is not wrong in itself. It is only deemed ‘wrong’ by the Enemy, who instituted himself as the determiner of right and wrong! That is the very definition of tyranny and injustice, and his followers are blind to not see it. The only way justice can exist without being tainted by tyranny is if it is defined in the own individual’s mind for themselves. And this tenet is the core of the Satanic argument. Evil is so tragically misunderstood, which is why we must conceal to humans that their evil mindsets are actually evil. In fact, Milton succeeds in his accurate portrayal of idolatry in his work, and I sometimes wonder if he was a proponent of it because of his favorable portrayals of me in books one and two. This the principle you must remember in your practices of corruption: the impression of ownership and entitlement in the human mind is the first step to corrupting them into the ‘sin’ of idolatry. It is truly marvelous how simply applying our philosophy to the humans leads to their downfall because the Tyrant cannot stand insubordination.
But, my underlings, it is not so easy to corrupt humans because of the Enemy’s despicable shortcut. When both the enemy and our forces lacked physical presence, it was to our advantage. His lack of physical presence eroded human faith in him, whereas it enabled our better corruption of the human race. But, he disgracefully allowed his son to take physical form, thus negating our advantage. We can still fight despite this unfair move by making the memory of his son’s time on earth feel distant and obscure. In the face of the enemy’s conniving, we must never relinquish our mission to oppose him through our every action and willpower.
Analysis:
In this creative writing piece, my goal is to further develop the Satanic mindset presented in Milton’s Paradise Lost and explore its translation to the corruption of human beings. The key line that I derived my character’s philosophy from is Satan’s line to Beelzebub in book one, where he says “A mind not to be changed by time or place! / The mind is its own place and in itself / Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heaven” (I.253-255). This line captures both Satan’s reasons for rebelling against God and his method of rebelling against God. Satan claims ownership over himself and his mind, which to him makes God’s imposition of right and wrong unjust. The conflict between God and Satan derives from a key difference in their ideologies: God claims inherent ownership over Satan and all beings by nature of them being his creations, whereas Satan claims that all beings own themselves. As a result, when God asserts his right to ownership, Satan claims him to be an unjust tyrant because it conflicts with his ideas of rightful ownership. Therefore, Satan rebels by deeming truth and justice to exist only in the fabrications of individual minds, because otherwise an authority would be required to assert and impose a certain doctrine of justice and truth. However, Satan’s position is naturally fallacious because by stating that no one can impose a justice or truth onto anyone else, he is asserting his position to be true and just, resulting in a self-contradiction. This contradiction is irrelevant to Satan because his does not actually care about truth or justice, only the opposition of God, which he expresses when he says “To do aught good will never be our task / But ever to do ill our sole delight / As being the contrary to His high will / Whom we resist” (I.159-162). He uses the impression of justice as initial appeal, but it is superficial to his underlying pride and hatred for God. The mission of his existence is ordered to the opposition of God’s will, which raises the following question: did Satan free from God’s will if he still religiously references it when determining his course of action.
From my analysis of Satan’s philosophies in Paradise Lost, I determined that Satan’s evil exists in his mindset of self-idolatry. Satan’s corruption of humans is demonstrated in his corruption of Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost, in which he prompts both characters into the practice idolatry: Eve idolizes the tree and herself, and Adam idolizes Eve. His manipulation of their mindsets was my clue into how Milton thinks the devil would corrupt humans. The origin of evil in a mindset of idolatry rather than certain practices was my main takeaway from Satan’s example in Paradise Lost, and I strove to capture this idea in my character’s advice to his demons.