In the Conversations with God trilogy, there is a really interesting entry about the devil and its origin. Basically, there really is no devil. We simply just invented it. How and why did this happen? Well, read on…

In discussing the origin of the “devil”, let us begin by looking at your yesterdays. I would speak to you of power, and of strength — and the difference between the two. I would also chat with you about this Satan figure you have invented, how and why you invented him, and how you decided that your God was a “He”, and not a “She”.

Now, let us go back to the time when your society reorganized itself. That is when men became the dominant species, and then decided it was inappropriate to display emotions — or in some cases to even have them.

What do You mean, “when society reorganized itself”? What are we talking about here?

In an earlier part of your history, you lived on this planet in a matriarchal society. Then there was a shift, and the patriarchy emerged. When you made that shift, you moved away from expressing your emotions. You labeled it “weak” to do so. It was during this period that the males also invented the devil, and the masculine God.

Males invented the devil?

Yes. Satan was essentially a male invention. Ultimately, all of society went along with it, but the turning away from emotions, and the invention of an “Evil One”, was all part of a male rebellion against the matriarchy, a period during which women ruled over everything from their emotions. They held all governmental posts, all religious positions of power, all places of influence in commerce, science, academia, healing.

What power did men have?

None. Men had to justify their existence, for they had very little importance beyond their ability to fertilize female eggs and move heavy objects. They were very much like worker ants and bees. They did the heavy physical labor, and made sure that children were produced and protected.

It took men hundreds of years to find and to create a larger place for themselves in the fabric of their society. Centuries passed before males were even allowed to participate in their clan’s affairs; to have a voice or a vote in community decisions. They weren’t considered by women to be intelligent enough to understand such matters.

Centuries more passed before they could think of actually holding the positions of leadership for which they finally had the chance to vote. Other posts of influence and power within their culture were similarly denied them.

When males finally obtained positions of authority within society, when they at last rose above their former place as baby-makers and virtual physical slaves, it is to their credit that they did not even turn the tables on women, but have always accorded females the respect, power, and influence that all humans deserve, regardless of gender.

I like your sense of humor about this. I really do. Shall I go on?

Okay, please go on…

Let’s get back to our narrative. But before we go on about the invention of “the devil”, let us talk a bit about power. Because this is what the invention of Satan was all about.

You’re going to make the point now that men have all the power in today’s society, right? Let me jump ahead of You and tell You why I think this happened.

You said that in the matriarchal period, men were very much like worker bees serving the queen bee. You said they did the difficult physical work, and made sure that children were produced and protected. And I felt like saying, “So what’s changed? That’s what they do now!” And I’ll bet that many men would probably say that not a great deal has changed — except that men have extracted a price for maintaining their “thankless role”. They do have more power.

 Actually, most of the power.

Okay, most of the power. But the irony I see here is that both genders think they are handling the thankless tasks, while the other is having all the fun. Men resent the women who are attempting to take back some of their power, because men say they’ll be damned if they’ll do all that they do for the culture, and not at least have the power it takes to do it.

Women resent men keeping all the power, saying they’ll be damned if they’ll continue doing for the culture what they do, and still remain powerless.

You’ve analyzed it correctly. And both men and women are damned to repeat their own mistakes in an endless cycle of self-inflicted misery until one side or the other gets that life is not about power, but about strength. And until both see that it’s not about separation, but unity. For it is in unity that inner strength exists, and in the separation that it dissipates, leaving one feeling weak, and powerless — and hence, struggling for power.

I tell you this: Heal the rift between you, end the illusion of separation, and you shall be delivered back to the source of your inner strength. That is where you will find true power. The power to do anything. The power to be anything. For the power to create is derived from the inner strength that is produced through unity.

This is true of the relationship between you and your God — just as it is remarkably true of the relationship between you and your fellow humans.

Stop thinking of yourself as separate, and all the true power that comes from the inner strength of unity is yours — as a worldwide society, and as an individual part of that whole — to wield as you wish.

Yet remember this:  Power comes from inner strength. Inner strength does not come from raw power. In this, most of the world has it backwards.

Power without inner strength is an illusion. Inner strength without unity is a lie. A lie that has not served the race, but that has nevertheless deeply embedded itself into your race consciousness. For you think that inner strength comes from individuality and from separateness, and that is simply not so. Separation from God and from each other is the cause of all your dysfunction and suffering. Still, separation continues to masquerade as strength, and your politics, your economics, and even your religions have perpetuated the lie.

This lie is the genesis of all wars and all the class struggles that lead to war; of all animosity between races and genders, and all the power struggles that lead to animosity; of all personal trials and tribulations, and all the internal struggles that lead to tribulations.

Still, you cling to the lie tenaciously, no matter where you’ve seen it lead you — even as it has led you to your own destruction.

Now I tell you this: Know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

There is no separation. Not from each other, not from God, and not from anything that is.

Act as if you are separate from nothing, and no one, and you will heal your world tomorrow.

This is the greatest secret of all time. It is the answer for which man has searched for millenia. It is the solution for which he has worked, the revelation for which he has prayed.

Act as if you were separate from nothing, and you heal the world.

Understand that it is about power with, not power over.

Thank You. I got that. So getting back, first it was females who had power over males, and now it is the other way around. And males invented the devil in order to wrest this power away from the female tribal or clan leaders?

Yes. They used fear, because fear was the only tool they had.

Again, not much has changed. Men do that to this day. Sometimes even before appeals to reason are tried, men use fear. Particularly if they are the bigger men; the stronger men. (Or the bigger or stronger nation). Sometimes it seems actually ingrained in men. It seems cellular. Might is right. Strength is power.

Yes. This has been the way since the overturn of the matriarchy.

How did it get that way?

This is what this short history is all about.

What men had to do to gain control during the matriarchal period was not to convince women that men ought to be given more power over their lives, but to convince other men.

Life was, after all, going smoothly, and there were worse ways men could have to get through the day than simply doing some physical work to make themselves valued, and then have sex. So it was not easy for men, who were powerless, to convince other powerless men to seek power. Until they discovered fear.

Fear was the one thing women hadn’t counted on.

It began, this fear, with seeds of doubt, sown by the most disgruntled among the males. These were usually the least “desirable” of the men; the unmuscled, the unadorned — and hence, those to whom women paid the least attention.

And I’ll bet that because this was so, their complaints were discounted as the ravings of rage born of sexual frustration.

That is correct. Still, the disgruntled men had to use the only tool they had. So they sought to grow fear from the seeds of doubt. What if the women were wrong? they asked. What if their way of running the world wasn’t the best? What if it was, in fact, leading the whole society — all of the race — into sure and certain annihilation?

This is something many men could not imagine. After all, didn’t women have a direct line to the Goddess? Were they not, in fact, exact physical replicas of the Goddess? And was not the Goddess good?

The teaching was so powerful, so pervasive, that men had no choice but to invent a devil, a Satan, to counteract the unlimited goodness of the Great Mother imagined and worshipped by the people of the matriarchy.

How did they manage to convince anyone that there is such a thing as an “evil one”?

The one thing all of their society understood was the theory of the “rotten apple”. Even the women saw and knew from their experience that some children simply turned out “bad”, no matter what they did. Especially, as everybody knew, the boy children, who just could not be controlled.

So a myth was created.

One day, the Great Mother, the Goddess of Goddesses, brought forth a child who turned out to be not good. No matter what the Mother tried, the child would not do good. Finally, he struggled with his Mother for her very throne.

This was too much, even for a loving forgiving Mother. The boy was banished forever — but continued to show up in clever disguises and clever costumes, sometimes even posing as the Great Mother herself.

This myth laid the basis for men to ask, “How do we know the Goddess we worship is a Goddess at all? It could be the bad child, now grown up and wanting to fool us.”

By this device, men got other men to worry, then to be angry that women weren’t taking their worries seriously, then to rebel.

The being you now call Satan was thus created. It was not difficult to create a myth about a “bad child” and not difficult, either, to convince even the women of the clan of the possibility of the existence of such a creature. It was also not difficult getting anyone to accept that the bad child was male. Weren’t males the inferior gender?

This device was used to set up a mythological problem. If the “bad child” was male, if the “evil one” was masculine, who would be there to overpower him? Surely, not a feminine Goddess. For, said the men cleverly, when it came to matters of wisdom and insight, of clarity and compassion, of planning and thinking, no one doubted feminine superiority. Yet in matters of brute strength, was not a male needed?

Previously in Goddess mythology, men were merely consorts — companions to the females, who acted as servants and fulfilled their robust desire for lustful celebration of their Goddess magnificence.

But now a male was needed who could do more; a male who could also protect the Goddess and defeat the enemy. This transformation did not occur overnight, but across many years. Gradually, very gradually, societies began seeing the male consort as also the male protector in their spiritual mythologies, for now that there was someone to protect the Goddess from, such a protector was clearly needed.

It was not a major leap from male as protector to male as equal partner, now standing alongside the Goddess. The male God was created, and, for a while, Gods and Goddesses ruled mythology together.

Then, again gradually, Gods were given larger roles. The need for protection, for strength, began to supplant the need for wisdom and love. A new kind of love was born in these mythologies. A love which protects with brute force. But it was a love which also covets what it protects; which was jealous of its Goddesses; which now did not simply serve their feminine lusts, but fought and died for them.

Myths began to emerge of Gods of enormous power, quarreling over, fighting for, Goddesses of unspeakable beauty. And so was born the jealous God.

This is fascinating.

Wait. We’re coming to the end, but there’s just a little more.

It wasn’t long before the jealousy of the Gods extended not only to the Goddesses — but to all creations in all realms. We had better love Him, these jealous Gods demanded, and no other God — or else!

Since males were the most powerful species, and Gods were the most powerful of the males, there seemed little room for argument with this new mythology.

Stories of those who did argue, and lost, began to emerge. The God of wrath was born.

Soon, the whole idea of Diety was subverted. Instead of being the source of all love, it became the source of all fear.

A model of love which was largely feminine — the endlessly tolerant love of a mother for a child, and yes, even of a woman for her not-too-bright, but, after all, useful man, was replaced by the jealous, wrathful love of a demanding, intolerant God who would brook no interference, allow no insouciance, ignore no offense.

The smile of the amused Goddess, experiencing limitless love and gently submitting to the laws of nature, was replaced by the stern countenance of the not-so-amused God, proclaiming power over the laws of nature, and forevermore limiting love.

This is the God you worship today, and that’s how you got where you are now.

Amazing. Interesting. But what is the point in telling me all of this?

It is important for you to know that you’ve made it all up. The idea that “might is right”, or that “power is strength”, was born in your male-created theological myths.

The God of wrath and jealousy and anger was an imagining. Yet, something you imagined for too long, it became real. Some of you still consider it real today. Yet it has nothing to do with ultimate reality, or what’s really going on here.

 And what is that?

What’s going on is that your soul yearns for the highest experience of itself it can imagine. It came here for that purpose — to realize itself (that is, make itself real) in its experience.

Then it discovered pleasures of the flesh — not just sex, but all manner of pleasure — and as it indulged in these pleasures, it gradually forgot the pleasures of the spirit.

These, too, are pleasures — greater pleasures than the body could ever give you. But the soul forgot this.

Hmm.. it seems we are now heading to another topic. Nonetheless, I believe this entry is long enough. So let us end here for now. Perhaps it is time to reflect on what has been written on this blog. For my next few entries, I will go to reflection on how I have been living my life knowing these truths.