Article June 14, 1975 Issue

One God and No Devil

GARY JOHN JEWKES

Belief in the devil is the result of false reasoning. It is based on a misdirected superstitious sense of cause and effect. In early times unusual events in everyday life, which were not understood, stimulated suspicion and fear. From this false mental state came belief in both good and evil spirits—the devil, or Satan.

The Hebrews, who were among the first worshipers of one God, declined into fear, superstition, and eventually into idol worship on their journey from Egypt to the land of Canaan. The ingratitude, disobedience, willfulness, jealousy, stubbornness, and sensualism of many in the group darkened their awareness of the one God, Love, and they were led astray. Their guide, faithful Moses, gave them a remedy for their plight: acknowledgment of the one God, Spirit. "Know ... this day, and consider it in thine heart," he says to the people in his great final address in the book of Deuteronomy, "that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else." Deut. 4:39;

This knowing is effective today in meeting the present fascination with superstition and occultism. Contemporary waves of cynicism, fatalism, psychic mediumship, and uncontrollable nervous actions and reactions tend to attract the trust and interests of mankind in the wrong direction.

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There's a Way Out
June 14, 1975
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