I was raised as a Methodist.
Experimented with Baha’i at 16 with a teacher.
Exposed to Unitarian Universalist at 17-19.
Did some church hopping from Quaker to Episcopal, vipisanna meditation.
I never encountered anything Satan that was serious to me.
They never really mentioned much of any Satan in any of those places.
My si went Wiccan as a teenager and she still is, although she says her values are basically Methodist.
My grandmother believed in Edgar Cayce – America’s “sleeping prophet” and “kept an open mind” about Ancient Aliens including including possible alien DNA which made us human — and this is a long time before X-Files.
But Satanism for me was just this thing that Christian conservatives complained about and was hiding in heavy metal music and Dungeons & Dragons would lead your kids to Satan as would video games (era of PacMan and Zaxxon mind you).
And I knew of Anton LaVey as a teenager way back in the 80s.
I would hear TV evangelists talk about Satan
But I didn’t think anybody really truly believed it was real.
The first time I was in my early twenties at a job in an office assisting a lab.
This one guy avoided me for months.
His eyes would open up and he would leave the room when I came in.
It was only when I was about to leave the job I tracked him down and stopped him.
His name was Anthony and he went to school with my si and he knew who I was.
I asked him why he would go out of his way to leave when I was around.
He said that my si sbte was satanic and Evil. She was a witch and followed the devil.
And he left as quickly as possible to get away from me again.
We only had two churches in the town – one Methodist and one Catholic.
I know which one he went to. But I think his fear was all his own.
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