[Buddha-l] Re: Magic

[Joy Vriens]

Alberto,

>I confess that I know virtually nothing about Satanism. The group of  
>people that I saw on television called themselves Bestie di Satana  
>(Satan's Beasts). According to the Italian Wikipedia  
>(http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestie_di_Satana) they were responsible  
>for at least three homicides. 

I don't know anything about it either. And the three homicides don't sound good at all. I have the impression that a lot of various ideas and phantasies are thrown into the bag of Satanism. A manichean master of evil (I have never understood the notion of evil), features of Dyonisios (or Shiva according to ALain Danielou) and Dyonisian gods like Pan etc. with all the hedonistic baggage of indulgence and debauchery, everything connected to magic and those who deliver it and simply everything that is considered deviant by society.

The funny thing is that a god like Yahveh probably started his career of a vague absolute concept as a simple tribal war god and his cult must have born some ressemblance then to what now would be considered "satanism". Funny thing history or History, its truths and perspectives don't have much to do with peoples lifes as they live them and yet it strutts its stuff like a quasi absolute.    
 
>I wonder if theirs was just a case of picking and choosing some objects  
>from a culture alien to them without knowing anything about their  
>background. 

When I still translated for lamas, you would have the average magus, magician or healer trying to boost their natural talents by adding more power tools and methods. Probably mostly to reassure themselves or to impress their clients.

Joy