Beat the Devil

Entry #1: Principles

Oct 01, 2024

Here’s a story from the Abrahamic mythos:

Once upon a time, long ago, back in the Desert Days, before Yahweh became the Supreme Ruler of Heaven—before the God-Slaughter—there was the Divine Council.

The Divine Council had a ruler whose true name is lost to us: the Big El, the Old Bull. As the Creator, the one who first pulled the plow across the cosmos and made the form of everything, the Old Bull was primus inter pares. But many other gods held court with him.

There was Bull-El’s consort, Athirat. There was storm-roaring Baal. There was Astarte, and Anat, and Yamm-Nahar of the Waters. Burning Resheph. Enlil the Grower. Yahweh, who would later become so notorious, loitered around as a junior war god. Generations of gods, elder and younger, fighting and squabbling through the aeons, each with their own jurisdiction. Members of the Divine Council rose and fell, but those who held office at one time or another numbered in the hundreds.

One of these was Ha-Satan, the Inquisitor.

Ha-Satan had an important role in the Divine Council: Head Prosecutor, upholding the Great Covenant—the agreements that maintained the cosmic Order of Creation, keeping everything in its proper place.

His job was necessary because the Old Bull could be a prima donna. An Orson Welles type. Gruff bluster gave way to capriciousness, impulsivity, broad sweeps of passion ending in long, brooding sulks. Creator-gods are like that. They often end up fathering more children than they know what to do with.

Athirat could soothe the Old Bull’s worst excesses. She could handle his tantrums and torpors up there in the Divine Council. But he still needed a thin-lipped consigliere to keep everything running smoothly, once he’d set it all in motion.

That was Ha-Satan.

His office as Inquisitor and general fixer gave Ha-Satan a privileged place in the Divine Council. Not so proud as sitting at the right hand of the Creator (although that’s where the wine tended to spill). Ha-Satan was the left-hand man—the sinister supervisor—the just-in-case dagger, concealed in the folds of the royal cloak.

It was a position of quiet honor, even thought it regularly brought Ha-Satan into conflict with one of the Old Bull’s most confounding works: the humans down on Earth.

Humans were among the lower orders of Creation. The Big El had fashioned them from clay, like the other earthly creatures. But for some inscrutable reason, he had given them just enough Spirit to think of themselves as separate from the rest. There was no denying they could be useful from time to time, if properly managed. But still—give them a cubit, and they’d take a whole league. Like ants at a picnic.

None of the other gods could figure out what he was up to, making these troublesome little goblins. Was it a prank? Did it amuse him to watch them running amok across the Earth? Was he drunk again?

So Ha-Satan had his work cut out for him, with the humans and all their infractions. He didn’t like them, personally. Noisy and ungovernable. But the decision to make the wretched things was above his pay grade.

Still—he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he loved his job. Ha-Satan was a Company Man to his ethereal bones. At least the Old Bull had given the task of keeping the little beasties in line to someone capable. And this, Ha-Satan did with enthusiasm.

While he set to work making sure that the worst offenders against the Great Covenant were properly humbled, he also had a larger project: building a case against the humans’ privileged role in Creation.

No disrespect to the Big El, of course. Couldn’t expect him to plan for every contingency. Creation had a Mind of its own, once it got off and running. Nevertheless—there had obviously been a slight miscalculation. Now, suddenly, there was this teeming mass of clammy, meddling, nearsighted pig-apes, poised to subsume the Earth, with absolutely no regard for the trust placed in them.

They’d already come close to wiping themselves out once before. Not only that: they’d had the fucking temerity to blame it on the Divine Council, if you could believe it. Any single one of the gods could have told them—did, in fact, tell them, with a multitude of prophecies and omens, thank you very much—that building giant cities directly next to the sea was pure folly. A serious breech of the Great Covenant, not to mention an affront to basic common sense. Did the squeakers pay any attention? They did not. And look what happened when the glaciers melted: a spectacular mess. Easily avoided, if only the damned things had listened.

So maybe an adjustment was needed. Maybe the humans should be demoted to an even lower rank in Creation. The gods could find new creatures to favor, to raise up as their stewards on Earth; the humans could go back to living like ordinary animals.

(Not that it was his place to suggest, mind. But if anyone had asked—Ha-Satan always thought the octopuses showed great promise. Some modifications to the Earth would be needed to accommodate them, of course. A few more rods of sea-level rise would do the trick. Still, he enjoyed thinking about the world they might build, with the right kind of guidance.)

In dealing with the humans, Ha-Satan reasoned that the best defense was a good offense. Why wait around for them to get on their bullshit yet again? Better to find the ones who were predisposed to mischief, by testing them, and then have them written up. The righteous would have nothing to fear. The shirkers were already guilty in their hearts, just waiting for a chance to transgress. Better to be proactive. Less headache. Less paperwork to file.

And so Ha-Satan dispatched his undercover task force, sent the Vice Squad down to Earth. The Great Covenant had no statutes against entrapment. His approach, therefore, was deviously simple: whisper into human ears, and tell them that there was no Great Covenant, no Divine Council, no Heavenly Court, no Spirit—that only the material world was real.

This is all there is, and all there ever will be.

If they were stupid enough to fall for that child’s gambit, surrounded by all the glory of Creation—all the favors, all the charity, all the grinding fucking patience that the Divine Council had granted them—then they were as good as damned.

The prideful would hear the whispers and imagine themselves as unaccountable sovereigns over the Earth. Usurpers. The cowardly would listen and lose heart completely, failing to uphold their role in Creation. Malingerers. The decadent would think the world was made for their enjoyment, and choose indulgence over duty. Traitors. Guilty until proven innocent, all of them, when they were brought before the Heavenly Court. And Ha-Satan stood faithfully by, to show the evidence, to bring the case against them.

Only the clear-eyed would see the ruse and ignore Ha-Satan’s whispering. For this, they called him the Prince of Lies. Impertinent little squibs. But even the most stalwart could falter, at some point in their desperate lives; they were the most likely to tire under the weight of embodiment, sooner or later, and begin to doubt. Even the enlightened would be watched by Ha-Satan. Their hearts would still be scraped against the touchstone along with all the rest. Order demands vigilance.

And of all the wiles Ha-Satan had in his bag of tricks—the greatest, as you might have heard, was convincing the humans he didn’t exist.

They did it themselves, really. Got confused. Not that he didn’t nudge them on their way.

Ha-Satan let the rumor spread that he’d been tossed out. After the corporate re-structuring of the God-Slaughter—Heaven Under New Management, ruthless Yahweh sitting on the throne—the story started going around that he, Ha-Satan, Inquisitor of the Divine Council, had objected to the new boss’s continued indulgence of the humans. Had actually raised his voice in anger.

As if he ever would.

The humans heard about the rebellious Lucifer (up-jumped messenger, rabble-rousing piker, the absolute fucking nerve) and thought the two were one and the same. But Ha-Satan bit his tongue, swallowed his pride (a deadly sin) and let the record go uncorrected. He kept his eye on the main chance, the long con.

Then the humans thought he was imprisoned, somewhere down below the earth. Thought he was an enemy of Heaven. Thought that all they had to do to keep him away was invoke the name of Yahweh, Adonai, El-Shaddai, and he would disappear in a puff of sulfur, like some sniveling imp. They told themselves they were safe from him in their temples, safe in their hearts, safe everywhere on Earth, because God had banished his Adversary, and—can you believe it?—given humankind the whole world as a gift, completely gratis.

The humans, the fools, spread the word that they weren’t bound to participate in Creation, to help with its continued unfolding. Hadn’t each been given a spark of Spirit—the very breath of the gods—so they could transcend their physical limitations. Weren’t entrusted with stewardship over the Earth, one small piece of Creation. No—it said right there, in their Big Book: God granted them dominion over everything, the entire visible universe.

(If Ha-Satan ever felt a single pang of guilt in all of eternity, it was over that one linguistic snare. Although it had seemed like a brilliant stroke—child’s play, really, whispered in the ear of the right scribe at the right time—he never expected the poor creatures to fall for it quite so hard. But fall they did. And he was there to catch them.)

Listen to the good news, they said: the only God left in Heaven expects nothing in return for all this. Nothing but belief, which is easy enough, once you set your mind to the task. Anyone can do it.

All this new Ruler asks for, they said, was unquestioning belief, in Himself and his Word. Eventually, this became belief in his Church, and in his Laws—which looked suspiciously like a counterfeit copy of petty human prejudices, rather than a proper Ordering of Creation.

Belief, and an ongoing defiance of the Devil—a storybook figure who cackles and capers and likes to play pranks on the faithful out of spite. Don’t worry: you’ll know him when you see him. Just stay away from anyone with hairy legs and cloven hooves, and you’ll be fine.

So the humans kept a sharp eye out for a shady vagrant named Lucifer. They expected him to show up in a fiery flash, demanding they piss on their Bibles, or some other amateur theatricality. They were ready with banishments and declarations of faith, ready to proclaim that they believed in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. They were certain they had all the right words to drive Lucifer back down into the pits of Hell, when the time came. Curses! Foiled again! Hisssss!

But they never suspected Ha-Satan.

Never saw him coming.

And if they did, they never guessed he was still on the Heavenly Payroll.

The greatest trick he ever pulled.

Things are different now. It’s not like it used to be, back in the time of the Divine Council, when the Old Bull still held the throne. Quieter, certainly. There’s been less squabbling ever since Yahweh put the Kingdom of Heaven under martial law.

The new regime might be a bit heavy-handed for Ha-Satan’s taste. Too autocratic. You don’t get the thrilling thrust and parry of a good debate when only one Voice is allowed to speak. The old Council may have been chaotic at times—but it had some class, some lively banter, some noblesse-oblige.

Not that he would say any of this out loud, mind. Ha-Satan is still a Company Man. Order must be maintained, no matter who sits in the big chair.

But it’s almost too easy these days. Ha-Satan can sit back and collect his pension—barely needs to lift a finger, now that the humans have deputized themselves as their own jailers.

Their rulers down on Earth, their scientists and politicians, their philosophers, even some of their priests—all using different words to say the same thing: this is all there is, and all there ever will be.

Divinity is somewhere else. We’re just flesh and bone, down here. The righteous will make it to Heaven someday, when they leave this clay behind; until then, there are just these bodies, and this Earth for us to rule over, floating alone in a universe still waiting to be conquered. There is no heartfelt cosmic splinter-spark of Spirit in all of us, connecting us, communing with Creation. That’s just an old story. Really, there’s only the flickering candle of belief, locked away inside our minds, waiting to be kindled or snuffed into darkness.

And so they imprison themselves in a netherworld of their own design, a hall of mirrors more diabolical than anything Ha-Satan could ever devise. They condemn themselves. Trapped for a lifetime inside a brain, inside a skull, inside a body, stuck to the side of a dead rock, in the cold emptiness of space, and all of it falling apart around them, every minute of every day.

Finally, the time comes for them to be released from their own embodied purgatory—and they find themselves in the Divine Court, confronted by Ha-Satan, unprepared to argue in their own defense. To explain why they did so little with so much.

You had the very breath of the gods in you this whole time, says Ha-Satan. And this is what you did with it. State your case. Explain yourself.

The Inquisitor’s campaign to demote the humans seems all but wrapped up, with this new abundance of evidence against them. Still—no one knows when Yahweh will cast a final judgment, whether he’ll revoke the Mandate of Heaven.

After all: once a War God, always a War God.

El Above knows where the humans got the absurd notion that fatherhood had blunted Yahweh’s murderous edge. They see no connection between their reverence for him and their growing enthusiasm for killing one another. They invoke Yahweh continually, as they hack and blast each other to pieces. They tell themselves that the Blood Sacrifice is a relic of a barbarous past, even as they turn the whole world into a burnt offering.

And Yahweh can’t help but be flattered. Can’t resist indulging them. It makes him nostalgic for the Desert Days—the old days of blood and fire, when he was just a junior war god on the fringes of the Council. Back before the Heavenly Crown weighed so heavy on his head. Just another god among many, carefree, smashing his toy armies together, out there in the burning sand.

Meanwhile—old gods don’t stay dead forever.

It’s only a matter of time before the victims of the God-Slaughter reconstitute themselves, in some new form, somewhere in the shadowy realms beyond the Heavenly Court. The ones who loved a well-ordered Creation are no doubt horrified at the earthly wreckage of Yahweh’s regime. There are whispers that these malcontents are gathering strength, plotting an insurrection; rumors that Lucifer might be raised out of exile with his guerrilla army, like a cosmic Fidel Castro, to lead the vanguard and storm the Gates of Heaven.

There’s no telling how many humans will be left on Earth to see this conflict resolved. These things often take aeons to sort out. Maybe, instead, it will be (does Ha-Satan dare to hope?) the octopuses who witness the rise of a new pantheon, the forming of a new Divine Council.

None of this is his business, mind. Ha-Satan is a loyal servant. He upholds the Great Covenant that transcends these petty palace intrigues. Order must be maintained, no matter who sits on the throne.

So Ha-Satan keeps his head down. He stays busy, shows up to the office, submits his paperwork on time. Still takes pride in his job.

But there’s not much work for him to do on Earth anymore. He gets bored up there in the Heavenly Court—misses the old days, the tradecraft, whispering out of a whirlwind in the desert. And so he’ll come down here from time to time, to get a bit of that old frisson.

Someday, you might hear the whisper of the Inquisitor, if you haven’t heard it already:

This is all there is, and all there ever will be.

Don’t you agree?