Devils, Demons, Underlords, and Archfiends, Greetings:
You have, I hope, heard the catch-word "empowerment." Empowering and enabling employees was a mantra oft used in the halls corporate America in the 1990's and early 2000's. It may not be quite as popular anymore as Dilbert has successfully mocked it to such a degree that even highly paid consultants now are ashamed to let the words come out of their mouths. Pity. The word in itself was quite useful; constructed along germanic etymological principals, in its time it offered the common employee the theme of greater self-determination when its best presentations delivered quite the opposite.
The elevation of the common man has never been our goal, as they are much easier to feed upon when reduced to a helpless herd. In our war with the Enemy, we have always labored mightily and, I would add, effectively to render the whole of mankind a homogeneous and ineffective mass. To consider our progress, however, we must consider the setbacks we have suffered and how we have responded to them.
Almost two thousand years ago, there was a heaven and earth-shaking enabling of the common man. Before the sacrifice, death, and resurrection of the Enemy's Son, mankind was utterly unable to stand before the judgment seat of our Foe. This happy condition had been effected by the strategic action of our Father Below (as you all know) in his first interaction with the first man and woman. The covenant sin of Adam and the additive sin of each progeny rendered each a dead man, unworthy and unable without judgment to approach the throne or even to draw near enough to Enemy in heart or mind to desire, hear, or obey His word and commands.
Our Enemy responded in time, establishing a priesthood at the crossroads of three continents. That priesthood was spiritually separated to the fearful task of drawing near to the Enemy. In response to the rebellion that our Father set in motion, the Foe's justice cried out for blood, and so that priesthood drew near under the cover of blood -- the blood of animals. It was a temporary cover, passing, incomplete if not ineffective: one man, the high priest, was able to come before the throne-on-earth once a year to sprinkle yet more blood... and then withdraw. The high priest drew near our Enemy, the priests drew near the high priest, and the tiny chosen people drew near the priests. And the rest of mankind languished in the cold and darkness of impending judgment.
Our Foe also chose prophets to speak His words to the people. The prophets functioned as conveyors of His word (why He would wish to communicate to the beasts is still a matter under study): they were messengers and deputy prosecutors for His law. They delivered the Enemy's words and pleaded to Him for the pathetic people. If one would know what the Enemy had to say, one went to a prophet. Thanks to our Infernal Master, none could not approach the Enemy himself; and going to a prophet -- if our Foe deigned to choose one in a given generation -- guaranteed no personal communication with Him. None had right to make petitions before the throne. In the legal sense, a bar stood between mankind and the Enemy, and the prophets were His barristers.
Over centuries we labored to undermine, undo, and unmake what He had set in place, and that most successfully. Unhappily, our Enemy was not idle and acted on His own behalf.
The Foe Himself took to Himself a true human nature. The Son became man. Why He would humble Himself so egregiously remains a topic of wardroom debate in the lowest levels of Hell. The Christ loved His Father with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength. He loved His neighbor as Himself. As a human being, He grew up, He studied, He learned.
We did not sit idle. Our Father Below himself acted to challenge Him. As all of you know, it went exactly according to our Infernal Master's plan; whatever rumors you have heard concerning his sudden departure from the action, they have been grossly exaggerated by the Enemy. It was, in any case, a terrible battle with many losses on our side. In the end, our Master triumphed, entering in to one of His disciples and arranging the so-called "Lamb of God's" judicial murder.
Victory always comes at a cost, however. As the humans say, "you can't make an omlette without breaking some eggs." Sacrificed as He was by the government, innocent of any crime of his own, He took to Himself the guilt of every crime of His people. In so doing, He became the permanent cover of His people, as it was said that He would sprinkle many nations. In a further unforeseen consequence of His nauseous righteouness, death itself had no power to hold Him. His subsequent resurrection and ascension into heaven, however, is not the topic of the moment.
Cleansed by Christ, the common man has been made a prophet to the Enemy. Cleansed by Christ, the common man is made a priest to our Foe. Washed clean by the blood of the "Lamb of God," His people may now enter boldly into the throne room of God, that is now denied to us. They may cross the bar, make petition, hear and be heard.
That happened almost two thousand years ago. Since that time we have been laboring to undo this horror. As alway, the human's naivete' and gullibility allowed us to manufacture "religious" reasons to separate the common man from that responsibility and privilege.
Over 13 centuries we fought His church. Success came with the elevation of the papacy wherein we changed their pastors into priests and separated the common man from the Scriptures, hiding them away under the pretense of their being too holy or too confusing for the common man. Obviously, it was not confusion or holiness that troubled us but quite the opposite. Nevertheless, the maneuver was largely successful for many years. It reduced the common believer to his condition before the Christ came. Our Enemy responded; the battle that ensued was called the Reformation. It was at heart a battle to restore responsibilities and privileges we had rightfully stolen, to return to the word of God into the hands of the common man.
Now 400 years have passed. One of the unfortunate outflowings of that Reformation was the founding of those colonies that became the United States of America. Our Enemy showered that union with immense benefits, and again the foot soldiers of the Enemy faced us as His prophets, His priests, His kings. The situation was untenable at best. However, again, we merely changed our appearance, not our tactics. As for their success, I ask you, how many students in the state schools of that nation learned of the Reformation? Indeed, how many can spell the word?
What did we do? How did we answer this new threat? We manufactured a new religion, but we labeled it a "non-religion:" Secular Humanism. Of course, the Un-Religion we manufactured is chock full of religion. It has its a creation myth. It has its priests. It has its prophets. It has its rights (our rights). It has its wrongs (His law). And it demands its dominance and centrality as only a religion can do in their little mannish hearts.
For priests, it has men called scientists. They are the chosen who may draw near the secrets of the universe and impart them to the common folk. They are astronomers, geologists, physicists, chemists, biologists, every branch of the human study of the Enemy's creation. There are even cross-breeds (biochemists, geophysicists, etc.). But when they step into the priestly role and speak for the religion, they become simply Scientists. In pretense they are guided by their limited and flawed observations of the universe; in reality, they interpret all they see through the filter of our unreligion.
For prophets, it has journalists: individuals committed to bringing the truth to the common man... well, all the truth that is fit to print. They seek out what the common man needs to know and imparts it to him. They are moralists. They are heroes. They are champions. And it is the common man's place to listen. They convey the words of the scientists. They can be trusted more than the Enemy that created them. So they say, and thus they speak our words in constant, gratifying repetition.
In this manner we have disabled the common man. His responsibility and privileges are revoked. He is, after all, a ditto-head, an idiot, a redneck, moron. He should be glad to lay down his burdens and trust in the journalists and the scientists. Shouldn't he? Those that do accept the espoused dogma are blessed and free to feel pious and intelligent, liberal and right-thinking, emancipated and self-satisfied. Those that don't? Well, we reserve for them the epithets of moron, idiot, and conservative.
Happily, the people of those lands once labeled "Western Christendom" have bought into our new un-religion. Our success has only burgeoned in the last decades. They have downed the Un-Religion and missed its overpowering religious stench. Inculcated in their entertainment, catechised in their state schools, indoctrinated in their universities, the un-religion surrounds them. It surrounds them so completely, like fish in water, they don't even perceive it. And we will drown them in it.
Every last one of them.
