Devil

Lucifer, having sinned, was banished from Paradise to the Nether Region. On his descent, he paused for a moment, then went back and approached the Almighty. »I just had a thought,« he said.

»Go on,« God allowed.

»I understand that you are about to create mankind.«

»What of it?« replied God.

»He will need laws....« Lucifer mused.

»Wretch!« thundered He. »You have committed the most grievous sin, yet you ask if you can write mankind's laws?«

»Beg pardon,« bowed Lucifer. »I only ask that he be allowed to write them himself.«

Why do they have angel-food cake and devil's food cake. Is that what these supreme beings actually eat? Probably thay have some ephemeral afterlife version of these cakes, which are, like, 10,000 times better than our finite, earthly version.They probably have everyone go to the breakroom, sing "Happy Birthday, Dear Gabriel, or Beelzebub, or whatever, and have the most delicious, most badass cake ever. Cake so good that it would kill you or me. Well, I really like chocolate, so I guess I know where I'M going. I just hope they have baseball.

The word 'devil' spells 'lived' backwards. Is this a reference to what poor old Lucifer did before he fell – or an intimation of what he could do again, if only he could turn himself around.

This talk of the devil recalls the media reports of »satanic abuse« in the early-1980s United States and mid-1980s Britain and their emphasis on purported devil worship – as if this would have made the sexual abuse and torture of children any more abhorrent. Drawing on Wilson (1951), anthropologist and DHSS-commissioned investigator La Fontaine (1998:93) attributes this to »shared fears of figures of evil«:
»There is no evidence in these cases that what is alleged to have happened has happened... There is evidence that children have been sexually abused and subjected to perverse treatment and there is also evidence that children's interest in magic and witches may be used to lure them into participating in sexual activities and to make sure that they keep these activities secret. However, the satanic conspirators of the satanic abuse allegations, like night-witches or the celebrants of the witch's sabbath, reflect «the nightmares of the group.»«

La Fontaine, Jean S. (1998): Speak of the devil: tales of satanic abuse in contemporary England Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Wilson, M. (1951): »Witch beliefs and social structure« in American Journal of Sociology 56 307-313

what does it mean to live in the shadow of devil mountain? we watch the sun fall behind the devil's shoulder. the sky glows red, deepens to purple and the shadow swallows the mountain, setting the people free.

gradually I came to wonder what might be my place in that city on the strange plateau betwixt strange peaks. at first content to view the scene as an all-observant uncorporeal presence, I now desired to define my relation to it, and to speak my mind amongst the grave men who conversed each day in the public squares. I said to myself, "this is no dream, for by what means can I prove the greater reality of that other life in the house of stone and brick south of the sinister swamp and the cemetery on the low hillock, where the pole star peeps into my north window each night?