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154 Luciferian Children of Satan
formerly a great archangel who rebelled against
God and was tossed out of heaven. The legend of
the rebellion and expulsion of Lucifer, as formulated
by Jewish and Christian writers, describes
Lucifer as the chief in the hierarchy of heaven, and
as preeminent among all created beings in beauty,
power, and wisdom. To this “anointed cherub” was
apparently allotted power and dominion over the
earth; and even after his fall and exclusion from
his old domain, he still seems to retain some of his
power and ancient title to sovereignty.
According to the writings of the rabbis and
church fathers, his sin was pride, which was an act
of complete egoism and pure malice, in that he
loved himself to the exclusion of all else and
without the excuse of ignorance, error, passion, or
weakness of will. Other versions hold that his
audacity went so far as to attempt to seat himself
on the Great Throne.
In the medieval mysteries, Lucifer, as the governor
of the heavens, is represented as seated next to
the Eternal. As soon as the Lord leaves his seat,
Lucifer, swelling with pride, sits down on the
throne of heaven. The indignant archangel Michael
takes up arms against him and finally succeeds in
driving him out of heaven down into the dark and
dismal dwelling reserved for him for all eternity.
In heaven the archangel’s name had been Lucifer,
on earth it was Satan. The angels who joined his
rebellion were also expelled from heaven and
became the demons of whom Lucifer is the lord.
Another reference to the daystar can be found in
Ezekiel’s prediction of the coming downfall of the
king of Tyre. Here Lucifer is an angel, blazing with
brilliant jewels, who was in Eden, the garden of God,
walking up and down among the “stones of fire.”
Lucifer may have been the hero of an earlier
story in which the morning star tries to steal the
role of the sun but is defeated. This story is
derived from the observation that the morning
star is the last star proudly to defy the sunrise.
However, as the sun’s rays strengthen, his light
fades. It has also been suggested that the story is
another version of the fall of Adam and his expulsion
from Eden, the divine spirit who tried to
rival God being the first man himself.
Lucifer’s name was applied to Satan by St.
Jerome, writing in the fourth century, and other
church fathers, when commenting on the verse, “I
beheld Satan as Lightning fall from heaven” (Luke
10:18). The name Lucifer has been applied by
Milton to the demon of sinful pride in Paradise
Lost, and in Christopher Marlowe’s play Doctor
Faustus as well as in Dante’s The Divine Comedy
Lucifer is the king of hell.
He constitutes the title and principal character
of the epic poem by the Dutch author of the
seventeenth century Joost van den Vondel, who
uses Lucifer instead of Satan. Moreover, Lucifer,
who represents the main character in the mystery
play The Tragedy of Man by Imre Madach, is also
pictured by Blake in his illustrations to Dante.
He is addressed as Prince Lucifer in George
Meredith’s sonnet “Lucifer in Starlight,” and is
described as “the brightest angel, even the Child of
Light,” by Edmund Spenser in his “An Hymne of
Heavenly Love.” In the early thirteenth century, a
few Satanist heretics, who were called Luciferans
and who worshiped the Devil, were discovered in
Germany and persecuted.
See also Fallen Angels
For Further Reading:
Cavendish, Richard. Man, Myth & Magic. The
Illustrated Encyclopedia of Mythology, Religion
and the Unknown. New York: Marshall
Cavendish, 1995.
The Illustrated Bible Dictionary. Leicester, UK: Inter-
Varsity Press, 1980.
Rudwin, Maximilian. The Devil in Legend and
Literature. Chicago: Open Court Publishing
Company, 1931.
Luciferian Children of Satan
(Bambini di Satana Luciferiani)
The Luciferian Children of Satan (Bambini di
Satana Luciferiani, BSL) was perhaps the largest
Satanist church to develop out of the Goth subculture—at
least before the group was disrupted by
the authorities in 1996. Inspired partially by the
writings of Aleister Crowley and older Satanist
organizations, the BSL was founded in Italy by
Marco Dimitri. Rather than link his new group
with older Satanist bodies, Dimitri advocated a
bolder Satanism which, among other things,
courted media attention. Initially a tiny group
centered in Bologna, the BSL began to grow after