February 1, 2002

THE GREAT SATAN



The Ayatollah Khomeini bestowed the title "The Great Satan" on us after his successful Islamic revolution in Iran. Although Khomeini is dead his spirit lives and our media as well as politicians have never stopped ridiculing the notion. There is good reason for the rejection of the idea because "We" as individual citizens are really basically good natured and don't want to harm anybody else. Most of us will, therefore, regard the term as slander. But there are policies, which are carried out in our name which, although well meant, not only impinge on the lives and belief systems of others but affect them adversely. Let us, therefore, not be too hasty and examine the Ayatollah's term somewhat more closely.

Baudelaire is credited with having said: "Satan's greatest victory was when he convinced the world that he doesn't really exist." Yes indeed! Our secular society, which has expelled God from public schools, surely does not have any use for His counterpart either. Although we bemoan the existence of evil the causes are usually sought in externals and when people are involved it is "the other" who foments evil. One's own contributions usually are not considered and if one tries to do so during our current war on terrorism one risks being labeled as unpatriotic. Nevertheless I invite you for the next few minutes to look at the splinter in our own eye and not only the beam in others. Was the Ayatollah totally wrong when he rejected America's values and their seductive influence? It is, after all, values we are really talking about and supposedly fighting for at this time. Let us look, therefore at our current society, not the way we want it to be, but the way it actually is and as we are seen by others.

If one were to publicly proclaim that the pillars our society rests on, and the forces which shape its course, are thoroughly satanic one would either be laughed at, or confined to a lunatic asylum if one were too insistent about it. Yet, this merely betrays the ignorance which has come to pervade our public lives inasmuch as the Greek word satanas means nothing else but adversary. This puts the entire discussion into a different perspective. Our legal system prides itself that it operates on the "adversarial principle." Truth and justice are no longer the overriding goals but rather the largest possible settlement in civil cases. In criminal law suits the outcome may depend on who can hire the most expensive legal team. Our journalists and media pundits take pride in their adversarial stance, where all sides of a given issue have equal merit regardless of the truth involved. All members of society are encouraged to take positions against each other. Even women have to fight men and vice versa; everyone has to fight for some "right" and if the presumed justice is not forthcoming it can be pursued on an individual or better yet, a "class action basis" where vast sums of money can be extracted. Fight as well as Rights have become the key words, while responsibility and cooperation are relegated to the backbench. Thus the spirit which motivates our culture at this time is thoroughly adversarial in nature. Advocates of peace and understanding are not much sought after.

In addition the quest for financial gain is paramount. Our culture as represented by Hollywood, with its emphasis on nudity, sexual licentiousness, and physical violence is geared to the lowest instincts of the human race because that is where most money can be made. Even when a program which airs what I still regard as genuine culture, rather than the smut we are exposed to on the major commercial networks, the viewer's enjoyment is constantly interrupted by advertisements. A glaring example might be the following. A few weeks ago ABC presented a film "Immortal Beloved." I did not immediately recognize the significance of the title, expected the usual graphic sex scenes, and would not have bothered had I not read the name Beethoven. The movie dealt with one of the two most famous notes ever written by the composer. In The Heiligenstadt Testament Beethoven expressed his distress over his impending deafness while in the letter to the Unsterbliche Geliebte he poured his heart out to "My Angel, My All, My I" over the fact that they would probably never be able to be joined in union as man and wife. The letter bore neither address nor where it was written, and the date was given only as July 6 without a year. Speculation has been rampant ever since who the intended recipient was. In the film she was identified as the woman who, through mistaken assumptions, had become his brother's wife instead of his. Her son was not Beethoven's nephew but actually his own offspring. This was clearly poetic license without any grounding in reality but be that as it may. The story was depicted tastefully and what made the film great was the skillful interposition of Beethoven's music with his life's events. But as soon as one experienced a genuine emotion of appreciation one was interrupted by five minutes or more of commercials. Imagine for a moment: the final bars of the 9th symphony are played, the chorus sings Brüder überm Sternenzelt muss ein guter Vater wohnen (brothers above the starry tent there is bound to live a good father), the picture shows the star-studded sky then fades to the orchestra and the deaf Beethoven who when the music has ended has to be turned to see the standing ovation because he can't hear the applause. It was profoundly moving, but without missing even a heartbeat the station cut immediately to selling beds, pain killers and other paraphernalia. This was truly jarring on account of its incongruity and we were immediately confronted by the commercialism which runs our lives. It may be argued that we have to pay the piper, we do, but we don't have to do it in this obnoxious manner.

Salt Lake City is now eagerly looking forward, with some trepidation, to the upcoming Olympic Games. The papers are full of information on the events and the massive security preparations. A recent Sunday edition showed on the front page a picture of one of America's favorite downhill racers as he jumps over a section of the Hahnenkamm course in Kitzbühel as part of the qualifying events. What attracted my attention was not merely his good form but his ski suit was plastered with advertisements. On his right arm he sold VISA in addition to other unidentifiable companies, on the left leg Chevy trucks, on the right leg Holland-America line and Sprite. The ear band had another logo and so did the band which held his goggles in place, his back could not be seen properly but from what could be discerned was also plastered with ads. This type of commercialization of the sport is not limited to Americans but has become widespread and important international sailing regattas also display numerous ads on boats and sails. The remarkable aspect is that hardly anyone notices this commercialization any more, which penetrates all levels of our society, and has become accepted as the norm. Jesus had advised us that we cannot serve God and Mammon. It seems that our society has opted for Mammon.

Thus, to tell the truth, when the Ayatollah Khomeini called America the "Great Satan" - a rallying call which has now been taken up by other Muslim fundamentalists - he was not necessarily totally wrong. The culture we display and export through our media is indeed inimical to Islamic (as well as Christian) values. It is thoroughly understandable that Khomeini did not want his country to be swamped by this tidal wave of smut. When our media ridiculed the Ayatollah's notion they simply betrayed their ignorance of what he was talking about. Trained to look only at the most obvious in material terms they failed to see the deeper significance.


Let us, therefore, study Satan for a moment. How the concept has evolved, what the main properties are and what the individual can do in order not to succumb to temptation. To understand the satanic it behooves us to go back to the very beginning of the Bible and Eve's encounter with the snake. In Christian theology it is called the original sin while Jews put a different interpretation on it but this need not concern us here. What is important to remember is that it was Satan, in the form of a snake, who blessed us with "The Knowledge of Good and Evil." Since good and evil are antonyms one cannot exist without the other. What was the motivation of the mythical Eve to yield to temptation? She heard only "good" as well as "You will be like God" and jumped at the idea. It was not just disobedience but the impulsive act towards satisfaction of a desire without giving a second thought to possible consequences. This type of behavior has been reenacted by the human race ever since. The excuses are also typical. Some writers simply abbreviate the name of the forbidden tree to the "Tree of Knowledge" and insist we should be grateful to the serpent because by eating the tree's fruit we became scientists while God had intended to keep us ignorant. That is not so, it was only the knowledge of good and evil, i.e. moral judgment, which was withheld. There may have been good reasons because as the subsequent history of mankind shows, what is or is not moral has become a major bone of contention.

But there is more to the story. It tells us something about the nature of the satanic lie. The warning to Adam was: "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The prohibition was specific "you must not eat" but either Adam, or Eve had embellished it and she replied to the serpent that she wasn't even allowed to touch it. Why do I make such a point of this? Because it is a classic example that human beings don't hear what is said but what is perceived by the recipient's brain and that is what counts. Anyone who has either published or given lectures knows that what people tell him he has written or said bears at times little relationship to what was presented. Poor Eve was now in a quandary. This was the first time a choice had to be made. Should she or shouldn't she follow the serpent's coaxing? To make a long story short she did and persuaded Adam to follow suit. After he had eaten something drastic happened. Their "moral" eyes were opened to their nakedness and they realized that this was not an advantage. In addition they had developed a guilty conscience and the blame game started. "The woman you [emphasis added] gave me" made me do it. Don't we hear this over and over again? Not only is it Eve's fault that Adam took a bite but it is God's! He should have known better and not have given him a gullible Eve in the first place for his "helpmate."

We now come to a key question: did the serpent lie? Ergo what is a lie? Answer: The deliberate misrepresentation of the truth as known to the individual. The serpent said that they would not die, and they did not "in the day thereof." Their "eyes would be opened," which was also correct and they now knew good and evil. So where is the lie? It resides in what was not said. It was the deliberate attempt to mislead by withholding information. This is the reason why an oath demands :"To tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" and why ex-President Clinton's lame excuse "it depends upon what the meaning of 'is' is," doesn't wash. This is also the reason why I became quite concerned when I read an article in a recent issue of the Jerusalem Post entitled the "Jewish Millennium." The author stated that the American people expressed "Jewish values" when they continued with high approval ratings for Clinton's political conduct and that he was not removed from office. Economic well-being took precedence over morality and as far as the author was concerned rightly so. If these are truly the values endorsed by the majority of our population, and not only some members of its Jewish segment, we are in deep trouble. Other countries may not appreciate the export of these "values."

Let us consider now what our mythological ancestors could have done? Eve might have said to the serpent: "Wait a minute, I don't understand, are we going to be like God in all respects or just in regard to good and evil? What is this good and evil anyway?" If the serpent had remained truthful and explained what evil meant, Eve would have cut short the conversation. Thus the deliberate use of the half truth constitutes the satanic lie. It is the most vicious, most effective, and most frequently used lie throughout the ages by propagandists, unscrupulous politicians, and other individuals who regard themselves as being in an adversarial position. Words taken out of context is also one of the most common techniques to smear someone whose views one disagrees with. I don't want to be hard on Eve because it was Adam who also thoroughly failed us. It would have been his job to say: "Evie, what in all the world  have you done? I don't know what's going to happen, so let's find God and ask Him what to do now." That would have been the rational approach. But we, just like Adam, are frequently not capable of thinking rationally when the "forbidden fruit" is dangled before us. In the numerous generations since that story was written we surely should have learned better.

In the Christian religion the devil used to be depicted as a hoofed, horned, furry creature which actually bore a close resemblance to the ancient Greek god Pan. Apart from his other characteristics he was mischievous and used to frighten people who wandered into the woods. Thus we owe the word panic to him. This picture of the devil was thoroughly repudiated during the period of the Enlightenment. We did away with all the ghosties and ghoulies and long legged beasties and things that go bump in the night from which the good Lord was to protect us. Nevertheless, they still bring in the cash in the form of horror movies and outer space creatures. But these are not Satan's essence. Among the various mistakes our materialistic society makes the one most relevant in this context is what may be called the pars pro toto attitude. The term is used in grammar when one word stands for a sentence. The part is taken for the whole. This is what we are doing continuously in our lives whenever we judge something or someone. We don't know the whole, so we go by the part we can perceive and deal with it as if this were all there is. What we cannot grasp with our senses is regarded as non-existent. Goethe's Faust provides an excellent example:

Doctor Faust had been followed by a poodle on his Easter holiday walk and when he returned to his study to continue translating the Bible, the animal grew unhappy and kept interrupting him. Finally the poodle morphed into Mephisto, which led to the famous saying "Das also war des Pudels Kern" (so, this was the poodle's essence). Faust then asked for the name of the person who stood in front of him. The devil initially just poked fun at the question because names are really no longer meaningful but eventually he answered: Ich bin ein Teil von jener Kraft die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft (I am one part of that force which forever desires evil and always produces good). Faust was perplexed and asked: what do you mean with this riddle? Mephisto answered: Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint! Und das mit Recht: denn alles, was entsteht, ist wert dasz es zugrunde geht . . . so ist denn alles, was ihr Sünde, Zerstörung, kurz das Böse nennt, mein eigentliches Element (I am the spirit who always negates and rightfully so, because everything that comes into being is worthy of perishing...everything you call sin, destruction or in short evil, is my true domain). Faust is still unsure and says: you call yourself "one part" and yet you stand in front of me as one whole being? Mephisto: Weil doch der Mensch die kleine Narrenwelt sich immer für ein Ganzes hält (because the human being, this foolish little world, always considers himself to be an entirety). This is the pars pro toto type thinking mentioned earlier. We always regard that part of whatever we can apprehend, conceive of, or desire, as if it were the whole. This is especially true of God but also of Science written with a capital S, because apart from Mammon it is likewise the current god.

When Goethe credited the devil with wanting evil but nevertheless achieving good he had paraphrased Milton who actually was less charitable in his Paradise Lost:

To do ought good never will be our task,

But ever to do ill our sole delight,

As being contrary to his high will

Whom we resist. If then his Providence

Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,

Our labor must be to pervert that end,

And out of good still to find means of evil;

Which oft times may succeed, so as perhaps

Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb

                                     His inmost counsels from their destined aim.



The German language has another word for the devil that is quite fascinating: der Leibhaftige. It is used by the common people especially in the countryside when they don't want to "paint the devil on the wall." There is no single word in the English language which captures the meaning; therefore, it has to be explained. The word is a composite of Leib (body) and haftig, Haftig comes from the verb haften which can be translated as: to cling to, to stick to, or adhere to. The inherent wisdom of the people has thereby created a word which indeed provides the devil's essence. While God is in the German language also referred to as the Himmelvater (heavenly father), a term which encompasses the material and spiritual realm, the devil is thoroughly and exclusively wedded to bodies. The Leibhaftige has no room for the spirit which has to be denied, and the acquisition of material goods is to be the overriding objective.

While the Leibhaftige is German, there exists in the English language the word Mephistophelean which is defined as: cynical, crafty, sardonic, or fiendish. Thus, we do not have to look far for its presence among people. The challenge we face as human beings lies in the recognition that when we lie, cheat, or hate we create an adversarial environment and thereby help to keep Satan alive. It is from the lie that all the other evils spring. He who lies to himself will inevitably lie to others and trust, which can only be gained by truthfulness, has been destroyed. Without trust, societies cannot function, regardless of how many laws are invented. But trust has to be earned, it cannot be demanded, and it requires honesty. In our present-day society this is hard to come by. We are being lied to on an unprecedented scale by politicians, the media and commercial enterprises.

So how do we know the truth of a given statement? In science we are dealing mainly with relative truth as available at the moment. Science, in contrast to religious faith, is work in progress and new information can readily invalidate previous concepts. Science is important for technologic and hygienic progress but every scientist knows that the fundamental questions: "why are we here?" and "what is our purpose?" do not lend themselves to scientific investigation. Philosophical or religious truths are also subject to modification as time goes on and conditions change but in spite of this there is an inner core of reality which defies time and is readily discernible when one reads literature which originated several centuries or millennia earlier. This core can be found in all religions regardless in what part of the world they originated. The names with which phenomena are described differ but the substance and the message are always the same. Because human behavior has remained constant over the ages so has the advice for achieving contentment in life. Faith in the ultimate goodness of God, perseverance with planning for the long range goal rather than immediate gratification, kindness, helpfulness, friendship, honesty, resisting anger and hate, but fostering instead a spirit of gratitude are just a few of the virtues human beings have always been told to aspire to. I have deliberately avoided the word love. When "making love" means having sexual intercourse and the word is being equated with lust, which disappears upon gratification, we have left the eternal for the temporary. Furthermore since love is an emotion, it must arise spontaneously and cannot be produced on command. "Love thy neighbor as thyself" goes beyond the capacity of human beings as history has amply proven. We have to be more modest and simply aspire to treating each other with kindness and consideration.

A fundamental difference between the satanic and the divine is that God has time! God's truth is still true after millennia while Satan's is fleeting. Satan constantly urges us that we must act now, immediately, lest we lose out either on revenge or on a tremendous advantage. We are thus coaxed to repeat the original sin. By recognizing that Satan is within us, just as the kingdom of God is, we can a turn a deaf ear to seduction. We don't have to hate Satan, and what he stands for, because hate is an unhealthy emotion and would serve his purposes. Instead, when we recognize the inner voice of seduction all we have to say is: "Thanks, but no thanks" and concentrate on the task at hand. If we hanker after, or stew over, an imagined past or a fantasized future, which will never happen the way it is imagined, we open the door to Satan's realm. But if we can stare the adversary in the face and can say: "no, there is a better way" we have achieved the victory which a simple denial of his existence cannot provide.

A few years ago our daughter, who knows of my interest in comparative religion, gave me for Christmas The Dhammapada which is part of the Sacred Writings Series. I already had a fair amount of other Buddhist literature so I wasn't immediately interested but in our "time of war" I picked it up again and found it rather useful. The book contains the essence of Buddhism in English translation as well as in the original Pali with explanations. In the context of the current topic verse number I: 5 is most appropriate:

Not by enmity are enmities quelled,

Whatever the occasion here.

By the absence of enmity are they quelled.

                                                    That is an ancient truth.


Isn't this what Jesus meant when he told us not to resist evil?


On September 12, 2001 our leadership had a choice. We had been viciously attacked and a response was needed. The entire world was with us in stunned grief at the outrage which had been committed. A wise government which had no ulterior motives in mind could have limited itself to promising: 1) with the help of international police and intelligence services we will track down and bring to justice the perpetrators. 2) For the families who have lost loved ones we will appoint a supervisory agency that sees to it that they do not suffer financial hardships in addition to their grievous emotional loss. 3) We will renew and redouble our efforts to seek justice for the oppressed in this world - wherever they are - and try to bind up wounds rather than create new ones.

This is what could have been done. Instead we have announced rather than declared war, which as it turns out now is a crucial difference because captured enemy personnel are not regarded as prisoners of war, with the rights they would be entitled to. We have bombed a country which was already devoid of infrastructure and we have destroyed the Taliban government but not the idea behind it. Although there is a pro-Western interim government in Kabul at this time its authority does not exceed the city limits. The rest of the country is in anarchy; people are starving and dying of exposure. International relief agencies still cannot get to the people who desperately need help because of marauding bands that steal and rob.

If we go through with plans to bomb other countries, whose policies we do not like, we will indeed continue to play Satan's role. Our current political conduct is likely to create more enemies rather than friends abroad. This in turn will hamper the primary goal of our mission: to find and disable terrorist networks around the world. For this we need the international community. Unless and until America returns to the ideals our country was founded upon and heeds the wisdom of Washington's Farewell Address, where he counseled us to avoid foreign entanglements, we are likely to glory in momentary ephemeral successes but lose our integrity. The leaders of our society seem to have struck a Faustian bargain: material well-being for the loss of our soul. The rest of the world is supposed to do so likewise. That some members of Islamic countries will not merely passively accept this idea but rebel was to be expected. What would be most helpful now is, instead of widening the war, to reflect on our ultimate aim of bringing peace to this world even if we thereby have to give up some pet notions that military might, and/or money is the answer to all problems.

We have been blessed with a wonderful country let us, therefore, not destroy it by continuing in an adversarial spirit at home as well as abroad. Let us cherish our diversity by learning about and from each other. Instead of adversarial conduct let there be cooperation even if we disagree at times on philosophical or religious abstractions. If we were to move forward on this basis we would have far fewer enemies and a great many more friends.



The article as it appears above was written about a week prior to President Bush's State of the Union speech on January 29. It contained an enumeration of American values all of us can heartily agree with, including the goal "to seek a just and peaceful world beyond the war on terror." On the other hand I felt quite concerned about the methods - seemingly mainly military - through which this goal is to be reached. The President also stated that this war will occupy at least the next three years of his presidency and may extend beyond it. This will involve considerable expenditures for external as well as homeland defense. He believes that we can keep at the same time the economy growing and the budget deficit under control. The last president who had tried the guns and butter approach was Lyndon Johnson and he failed on both counts. There seems little reason to believe that Mr. Bush will do better but time will tell.

Earlier in this update I failed to mention another hallmark of Satan namely pride. Our government seems determined to believe that only its ways are the correct ones regardless of the viewpoints of other nations. In the State of the Union address we received a "pep talk" the consequences of which, once the fine print is revealed, may not be to the liking of the average citizen whose life is going to become increasingly less free on account of "security" regulations which will increase geometrically. What is happening currently here in Salt Lake City on account of the Olympics, which are upon us, could well be a harbinger of what the future may be like.

 
 
 
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