In The Everlasting Man, G. K. Chesterton writes about devil worship. He says that when pagans get serious about their imaginary deities, they turn to “diabolism”.
There was a sort of secret and perverse feeling that the
darker powers would really do things; that they had no nonsense aboutthem.
Or, that the devil really keeps his appointments.
As usual, Chesterton grasps these things on a very deep psychological and philosophical level, when he says, of the Aztecs and the Carthiginians who ritually sacrificed humans …
They were seeking the secret of power, by working backwardsagainst their own nature and the nature of things.
Now, there is something in the very nature of “power” that matches this description. In some ways, all “power”, practically speaking, is a turning away from nature. If it is in our nature to sleep until noon, and we train ourselves to get up at 6:00, the power that we acquire over our behavior is a triumph over “nature”, or at least over our natural inclinations. All education and training is likewise a battle against nature.
And yet this sort of training, the forming of good habits and the learning of difficult ideas and skills, though contrary to our fallen nature, is in accord with our noble nature. Or, in Chesterton’ words, it may be a turning against our own nature, but it is in accord with the nature of things, the teleos for which we are made.
So, then, it appears that diabolism is the seeking of the secret of power in turning away not only from our lower natures, but from all nature, a working backwards against the nature of things, the ends for which they have been created.
As I wrote yesterday in my post Suicide vs. Sacrifice,
Anthonly Esolen … points out how we are all tempted to distance ourselves from ourselves, to become not only god and not only the creator – but to become our own god and our own creator.
This is the source of that elusive “unreality” that I’ve been trying to describe.
Think of the secret thrill of masochism. The masochist delights in being tormented by the sadist because the masochist deliberately cooperates with the power that overcomes him. It is the thrill of the “secret of power” as Chesterton terms it, and it is working “backwards against their own nature and the nature of things”. It is the secret of power in masochism that makes it so secretly appealing to the masochist.
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But all of this pales in comparison to Chesterton’s great insight about the hallmark of pagan cultures that give themselves over to the pragmatism of devil worship.
But without dwelling much
longer in these dark corners, it may be noted as not irrelevant here
that certain anti-human antagonisms seem to recur in this tradition of
black magic. There may be suspected as running through it everywhere,
for instance, a mystical hatred of the idea of childhood. People would
understand better the popular fury against the witches, if they
remembered that the malice most commonly attributed to them waspreventing the birth of children.
This is the hallmark of our own neo-pagan culture, a mystical idea of the hatred of childhood (and innocence), with sorcerers preventing the birth of children by means of magical potions known as contraceptives and child sacrifice known as abortion.
Indeed, there is probably no other way of best describing the main preoccupation of our culture. It’s not democracy, it’s not freedom, it’s not art, it’s not literature. It’s the hatred of childish innocence and purity and the religious devotion to sterility.
The Culture of Death is the Culture of Sterility – because the modern world has become occult.
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But what else could we expect from a culture that has turned from Christ to a devotion to the secret of power, and all the dark and backwards things that go with it?
“Indeed, there is probably no other way of best describing the main preoccupation of our culture. It’s not democracy, it’s not freedom, it’s not art, it’s not literature. It’s the hatred of childish innocence and purity and the religious devotion to sterility.”
You’re right on the button, Kevin.
The primary aim of the Sex Ed. cult which has a franchise to impose its agenda on government school children in most of the Western world is to violate children by stripping them psychologically of any sense of modesty, any assumption of a right to privacy or a right to keep intimate matters intimate. It’s always boys and girls corralled together, compelled to discuss sexual matters in 0bsessive detail (aided by explicit physical and audio-visual material) such as they would never want to discuss it with a mother or father or even friends; and forced to accept that it’s proper for boys and girls to expect one another to be willing and uninhibited regarding sexual conversation, and to regard all sexual behaviour (with the exception for the moment of pedophilia) as morally OK. The implicit motto is, “Make private parts into public parks”. It’s exactly as in Huxley’s “Brave New World”.
As for the “religious devotion to sterility”, it is noteworthy that the priestesses of this other, but closely related, cult bitterly resent women who lack the required devotion, and want them harassed, victimized, penalised and persecuted. Witness the well-publicized demands that women be deterred from being long-term full-time mothers which have been made by the prominent feminists Simone de Beauvoir, Hilary Clinton, and Cherie Blair. The only “right to choose” recognized is a right to choose feminist-approved lifestyles, life values and life-paths.