Devil's stuff: inventions that were thought to be Satan's intrigues

Incredible facts

Remember how Pushkin is doing: “How many wonderful discoveries we are preparing for enlightenment, spirit And experience, the son of difficult mistakes, And genius, paradoxes are a friend…” Alas, human genius has accumulated over the entire period of its history a vast experience of mistakes, sometimes associated with elementary ignorance.

As you know, many new trends in science and human culture have often encountered a blank wall of misunderstanding built from misconceptions, fears, suspicions and doubts. It is no coincidence that these trends were considered nothing more than Satan's machinations, devil's tricks designed to enslave our souls.

Do you think that such misconceptions were unique to our “dark” ancestors, who were clouded during the Middle Ages? Far from it! Obscurantism still lives among us, waiting in the wings to attack a new victim, accusing her of serving Satan.

We invite readers to learn about ten things and activities that the devil was responsible for bringing people into the world. For those who believe that this was only possible in ancient times, a big surprise awaits.

People's superstitions

Fork

A fork-like tool was used by the ancient Greeks when cutting meat. However, the fork, as kitchen utensils used for food, did not appear in the Middle East until the seventh century.

When the Doge of Venice (the title of head of this state in the Middle Ages) married a Byzantine princess (this happened in the 11th century), the fact that she used a golden fork at the festival when eating meat aroused terrible suspicions among the Italian people. Suspicions that the princess is connected to Satan himself.

In one of the historical books of that time on kitchen utensils, you can find the following statement: “Food is a gift from God, so using artificial methods to Bringing it to your mouth means that this heavenly gift is not suitable for human hands.”

It is not surprising that when the princess passed away from the plague, many thought it was the Lord's punishment. It is believed that the reason for the suspicion was the resemblance of the fork to the devil's pitchfork. It was with these pitchforks that the ancient Greeks and Romans often depicted the devil in their paintings.

It took several centuries for the fork to “take root” in Europe. However, even after that, many segments of the population were very suspicious of this item of kitchen utensils. Some believed that it was used only by ignorant people; others associated the use of a fork when eating a symbol of pampering and spoilage.

Thomas Coryath, an English writer and traveler who lived at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, actively advocated the use of forks when eating. He considered this way of eating more hygienic, but was ridiculed by society for it. He was given the corresponding nickname — “Pitchforks”. By the way, in Latin this word looks like this — “Furcifer”, which is in tune with the English “Lucifer”, that is, “Lucifer”.

Musical instruments

There is a widespread belief within Muslim culture that musical instruments are the product of Satan. Allegedly, the devil envied the melodious voice of the biblical David, and therefore created competing sources of wonderful sounds.

Within this same culture, there was an alternative version according to which instruments such as the lute, tambourine, and flute were created by Tuban-Cain, the famous Genesis master and descendant of Cain. Quite an odd choice for a blacksmith who, as the Book of Genesis notes, made excellent weapons for assassins.

In Syrian culture, the creation of musical instruments is attributed to Cain's daughter, who decided to “celebrate” Abel's death in this way. And although many Muslims claim that the Koran does not directly prohibit music or chants, as they are performed for the glory of God, in an ultra-conservative interpretation of music and making music is haram (that is, forbidden acts).

According to some Islamic trends, music causes ulcers on the body, leads to diabetes and madness, and does not comply with the canons of spirituality and ethics. The Umayyad Caliph (representative of the highest nobility from the caliphal dynasty) Umar bin Abdulaziz, who enjoyed unquestioning recognition among Muslims during his reign, did not favor musical instruments and music.

This is what he wrote to the clergy: “Let your first instruction for them be to hate musical instruments that come from Satan and anger Allah; I know from reliable sources that Visiting places where music is played and instruments are played instills hatred in hearts, just as water makes plants grow.”

Read also: What kind of music did Neanderthals like?

There was also a trend in Christianity in which Satan was defined as a musician, based on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel. It claimed that Satan, even before his overthrow, was a cherub “responsible” for music in the Kingdom of Heaven. After the Fall, he retained his musical skills, spreading a pernicious and dangerous musical influence around the world.

Satan's ability to play tambourine and wind instruments was seen as something that had been an integral part of the devil's nature since his birth. However, there are many other references to musical instruments in the Holy Scriptures, from which it is not very clear whether Satan was really “music on duty” in heaven before the Fall.

Socialism

Not only some material objects or certain creative activities were considered a diabolical invention on Earth. There is a revered branch of Christian socialism in which some followers of this “left-wing ideology”, so to speak, see the teachings of Jesus as a reflection of the teachings of Jesus.

The “right” Christians, on the other hand, believe that socialism is Satan's machinations. In their opinion, the foundations of socialism were laid by the heretical beliefs of the Italian monk Joachim Florsky, who divided the entire human history into three periods: the period of the Father, the period of the Son and the period The Holy Ghost.

According to Joachim Florsky, the church began to “die away” when it decided to create a kind of spiritual utopia. To those few who are still familiar with Karl Marx's works, this phrase may sound familiar: the German philosopher said something similar, but about the state, believing that it is “dying away”, creating a material utopia .

Famous anarchists, such as Proudhon and later Bakunin, being supporters of socialism, directly wrote in their works that their task is to awaken the devil in people's hearts, to summon them primal feelings. Allegedly, only this will help destroy the old world, which, in their opinion, will be the basis for creation. It is not surprising that after such statements, religious leaders declared socialism a diabolical invention…

You could find their claims that Satan specifically invented socialism to try to take control of the Earth. Like, at one time, the Lord bequeathed the Earth to Adam, but the devil took it away from him. Then Jesus came to Earth and put our world back into the hands of humanity.

However, Satan allegedly has not yet abandoned his plans to seize the Earth through the creation of socialist states, so be careful in choosing your political views… A great tool for manipulating the views of certain numerous categories of citizens, isn't it?

Misconceptions and myths

Smoking

The Spanish were the first Europeans to get their hands on smoking tobacco. It was presented as a gift to the Spanish navigator Christopher Columbus by the Indians, but Columbus did not appreciate their generosity, throwing the gift overboard. In fact, the Spanish just didn't understand what they were supposed to do with these dried leaves back then.

The Spaniards, on the other hand, were the first to sound the alarm when they saw a terrible sight — smoke coming out of people's mouths. And it wasn't about health care at all! The Spanish decided that a person who breathes smoke from his mouth is possessed by the devil. And, as was the case at the time, the Inquisition sentenced the first European to smoke to a large prison term (and that was an even lighter sentence!).

This poor fellow was a member of Christopher Columbus's expedition, a sailor named Rodrigo de Jerez. You could say that it was the very first anti-tobacco company in the world! This happened in 1501. And just thirty years later, the first tobacco plantations, founded by the same Spaniards, have already begun to appear in Europe. However, this does not mean that smoking has since been accepted favourably throughout Europe.

King James I of England (aka James VI of Scotland), who ruled Scotland since 1567 and England since 1603, has repeatedly stated that smoking is a diabolical invention. He even wrote a kind of scientific treatise called A Counterblaste to Tobacco (in fact, something like a brochure “On the dangers of tobacco”).

In his work, James I called smoking “a disgusting habit of godless savages” and, even worse, of the French and Spanish. Smoking was considered a mortal sin in Russia and the Middle East; and Pope Clement VIII threatened to be excommunicated for smoking in any holy place. Meanwhile, the Spaniards had been growing tobacco on their plantations for 70 years…

Phone

American writer Ambrose Gwinnett Beers once called the phone “an invention of the devil that abolishes the ability to disagree with a person by staying away from him.” Beers was also a humorous author, so his satirical message is quite understandable.

However, when the first phone was released (or the world saw the first phone), there were many people who really saw this invention as diabolical in origin, perceiving itself the ability to talk to someone from a long distance from them, with great suspicion.

After the 1896 demonstration of the telephone in Sweden, many not very educated people feared that it was magic; they say that telephone wires can attract lightning and devil entity. Church officials also openly blasphemed the phone as the Devil's tool. It is not surprising that telephone wires were often cut off by farmers who sabotaged telephone communications.

On the American continent, in Pennsylvania, Amanite and Mennonite sectarians, as supporters of Protestant denominations, held similar views. Their communities seemed to exist in isolation from the rest of the world, adhering to their own views on morality and many other things; they had their own clothes, traditions and manner of communication (often non-verbal).

New forms of communication were seen as a real threat to their foundations (including the rules of face-to-face communication as required by their social structure). For such people, there was no doubt that the telephone was a diabolical invention, as were telephone lines.

If you follow how telephone communication gradually entered people's lives, you can see a lot of funny stories. Take, for example, the installation of one of the first telephones in the palace of Emperor Menelik II in 1889, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

This news was greeted with extreme discontent by clerics who spoke out sharply against the new technology. Eight members of the clergy reached the throne of the emperor, announcing that the phone in his palace was Satan's intrigues. They said that the device should be removed and then publicly destroyed when there were a large crowd of people on the palace square.

Menelik diplomatically said their concerns were “reasonable” and that he would return to the issue the following day. Then he got in touch (maybe he called?) to the head of the Ethiopian Church and a representative of the highest clergy, tearfully complaining that priests are interfering with his vision of the development of the state, saying that the phone is from the devil.

In addition, Menelik said that this looks like sabotage by church representatives, which even gave him a grain of doubt about the need to keep members of the Orthodox Church by his side . Having heard such speeches, the Patriarch assured that no other priest would dare stand in the way of the Emperor to prevent him from developing the country in his own way. And he kept his word.

Bones

It may not come as a surprise to you that gambling was considered a sin back in the Middle Ages. Such games were believed to condone ideas of blasphemy and idolatry; the players themselves were said to worship and pray to pagan gods instead of the true god.

This may be due to the fact that dice was associated with pagan divination, which used animal bones thrown on the table. According to contemporary lexicographer Bernadette Paton, Italian monks considered dice to be a form of satanic rite, claiming that players “honored the will of the bones above the will of the Lord.”

John Mirk, a 14th-century English priest, agreed with them when he said that “a priest who throws dice on a gaming table throws his soul to the devil at the very moment! He turns the gaming table into an altar for himself, through which he entrusts the good of the church to the devil as well as the good of others. Behind his false oath and other types of deception, his selfish desires are hidden.”

Dominican priest Gabriel de Barletta also said: “Just as God came up with twenty-one letters of the alphabet, the Devil came up with dice, each of which he placed twenty-one dots on each of them.” . It sounds convincing when you consider the fact that the priest was referring to the Latin alphabet, which originally included just that many letters…

One poem from the same 14th century said that bones were invented by a Roman senator and forced by the devil. The bones became a symbol of the fall (fall); each side with dots on the bone was opposed to one holy element: one to God, two to God and the Virgin Mary, three to the Holy Trinity, four to evangelists, five to Christ's wounds, and six to six days of Creation.

Misconceptions

The Smurfs

Tremble, DC and Marvell fans: comics are a product of the devil. At least that's what some representatives of the religious world said in the 1980s. This idea originated among members of the religious organization Jehovah's Witnesses. However, they did not blame every comic book in a row, but only the Smurf comics, which first appeared in 1958.

Members of Jehovah's Witnesses of those years were convinced that Smurf dolls (aka Smurfs) were specially made to come to life and begin to swear and bite children. And the circumstances of the Smurfs appearing in the original comics suggest that they were clearly demonic in this world.

If everything you hear seems to you to be just a temporary insanity for some members of the organization, you are deeply mistaken. In fact, these “trends” were very popular at a certain time. It wasn't just the Smurfs who got it. One of the popular American shows of 2011 declared the characters of another popular franchise that appeared in the early 1960s, “My Little Pony” (that is, “My Little Pony”), “The Devil of Hell”.

Read also: Films have learned to be converted into comics

Famous TV evangelist Dorothy Spalding, whose word is heard by hundreds of thousands, said that she believes “My Little Pony” is a product of Satan. Then she switched to the long-suffering Smurfs, and then told this story: a little boy couldn't sleep at night until his parents packed up all the bed linen depicting the Smurfs, curtains, rugs, books and pictures, and didn't burn it all in the backyard of their house.

After that, they walked around the room, treating it with oil and calling on angels to clean the room. Hundreds of thousands of people saw this statement by TV evangelist Spalding; the comments left by viewers under the video were not as clear as you might think. For example, some have claimed that Papa Smurf (one of the main characters in the franchise) is an image of Karl Marx.

The Smurf world created in the comics (its economy and structure) supposedly resembles a communist society. Papa Smurf's red robe says it all. However, others believe that the character's hat indicates that he belongs to the Ku Klux Klan sect. Whether to take such statements seriously is up to you. But first, remember what they said only three centuries ago about an ordinary fork…

Cross

Yes, don't be surprised — the attitude towards this sacred symbol of many beliefs has not always been so unambiguous. Perhaps not everyone knows that the cross, as a religious symbol, was originally used in paganism (the ancient Egyptians were the first).

It is no coincidence, for example, that adherents of some religious movements consider the cross not a symbol of Christianity at all, but the result of the devil's machinations, who managed to impose pagan traditions. For example, adherents of the Church of the Great God, which is a branch of one of the religious movements (Armstrongism) founded by Herbert Armstrong in 1933, are sure of this.

The proof is that the cross was not used in society as a Christian symbol until the time of Emperor Constantine I the Great, who ruled from 306 to 337. And was the cross seen by the emperor during his marvelous famous vision on the battlefield a symbol of God but not of the devil? In fact, it looks very much like the symbol of the Syro-Phoenician god of nature Tammuz, resembling the letter “T”, which, in turn, looks like a cross.

Another argument is that the Romans had two types of crucifixion. One, which is the intersection of vertical and horizontal lines, is well known to us. But another cross is associated with the image of martyrs who were beaten with leather whips that ripped off their skin. Then they were forced to drag their crosses to the place of their own execution, after which the unfortunate were tied or nailed to them.

Adherents of such extreme religious views say that the Bible does not clearly indicate which cross Jesus suffered on or which cross to use. They are also outraged by the fact that the “method of execution” is in principle used as a religious symbol. Allegedly, it is not otherwise that diabolical intrigues are involved here. Be that as it may, the cross remains one of the main symbols of Christianity.

Religious prejudices

Soccer

Everyone knows the biblical story, according to which humanity tried to match God's greatness by building the Tower of Babel. As punishment, God mixed all languages, scattered people around the world. Nigerian evangelist Evang Adebayo believes that football is an even greater sin than building the Tower of Babel; in her opinion, it is a form of idolatry invented by the devil himself.

Yes, that's right! On the one hand, football blurs the lines between classes, skin colors, nationalities and religions. But look at it this way: aren't we starting to create idols for ourselves from our favorite teams and individual players? Adebayo considers all this a diabolical plan designed to unite the people in order to create one government ruled by the Antichrist himself.

According to the evangelist, there is a spirit (or god, if you like) of football, who is Satan himself. It also has its own temple, the Maracanã Stadium in Brazil, which many people call it the temple of football. Adebayo and her many followers are sure that football will not bring us joy. In her opinion, this game hides a terrible secret.

Evang Adebayo once said, “You love football because you're possessed by the demon of football. Almost everyone in the world is possessed by this demon — only a few have stayed away. Many were affected in utero or as babies.” According to the evangelist, football encourages immoral behavior and distracts people from God's creations.

It also nurtures other sins: profanity, violence, malice, gambling, drunkenness, witchcraft, sacrifice, and homosexuality. As proof, she cites the fact that Nigerian fans use amulets and occult symbols that open their way directly to hell… I wonder why Adebayo is so excited about football? Could it be because the Nigerian football team never qualified from the group at the World Cup in Russia?

Theater

In 1632, puritan William Prinne wrote a work called “The Tragedy of an Actor”, in which he convinced readers that theater was Satan's sinful product. Prinn was particularly outraged by the amount of expensive and high-quality paper that was used to write words to actors, or could be used to spread the word of the Holy Scriptures.

Prinna was disappointed by the large number of scripts for plays, as well as the fact that Shakespeare's plays were printed on so-called royal paper, which was higher in quality than the Bible was sometimes printed on. Prinn also called actors and playwrights “masters of debauchery, scoundrels, drunks and atheists” who clearly participate in rituals of worship Satan.

However, as subsequent events showed, Prinne, to put it mildly, went a little too far with the “masters of debauchery”, since the wife of King Charles I, Queen Henriette Maria of France, participated more than once in pastoral masquerades, various productions and plays (not to mention the fact that she often helped organize them).

For his intolerance to acting, Prinne was sentenced to a fine of five thousand sterling silver, deprivation of his legal title, and nailed by the ears to a so-called pillar of shame . I must say that Principal Prinn's problems did not end there, but that's another story.

But let's get back to the theater: in 1910, Pastor Isaac Holdman published an ad in The New York Times, the oldest US print publication. In this announcement, he announced that theater was Satan's invention, and also boasted that he had never seen a single play in his life. Holdman compared theater to playing cards and dancing, which, in his opinion, only harm humanity.

However, Isaac Holdman also had other views, for which he would now be called the most hardened male chauvinist (which he actually was). And if you think that few people were interested in his opinion, you are deeply mistaken: Holdman was the pastor of the First Baptist Church in New York City, so there was someone to evaluate his ideas.

Devil's stuff: inventions that were thought to be Satan's intrigues

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