How to summon and sell your soul to Satan and other devils | Hacker News Reader

How to summon and sell your soul to Satan and other devils

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252 pointsflannery267 comments

Notes for those planning to sell your soul online: eBay specifically prohibits such transactions. [1] Compared to some online bans, the reasoning is pleasingly coherent.

  eBay does not allow the auctioning of human souls for the  
   following reasons: If the soul does not exist, eBay could 
   not allow the auctioning of the soul because there would be nothing 
  to sell. However, if the soul does exist then, in accordance with 
  eBay's policy on human parts and remains, we would not allow the 
  auctioning of human souls.

This is unfortunate. eBay seems perfect as souls are by definition somewhat used.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/soul-listing-policy-ebay-201...

Given what I know from retrocomputing eBay, I imagine people would try to sell their souls at much more than they’re actually worth.

But in the long term the market would determine a fair price. Assuming demons are rational economic actors, that is.

To this day, constructive mathematicians at eBay are trying to close the remaining loophole in the ban's reasoning

Given the subject matter, I'm going to hazard a guess they are somehow getting stuck on the Axiom of Choice.

They could use a paraconsistent logician also

Not really. The axiom of excluded middle is false* because it's a universal quantification, and consequently includes pathalogical cases like "This proposition is false."; there are plenty of specific classes of proposions on which resticted versions of excluded middle are valid, just like there are plenty of classes of sets (eg all well-founded sets) that have well defined membership despite Russel's paradox.

*: Give or take technicalities.

I've seen the law of excluded middle used to deny the existence of platonic idealism. But I really don't get it. I'd love to understand your explanation better.

If soul=psyche (as in Plato) then it seems easy to sell access to the attention. But if soul is referring to an ideal noetic form, then it's hard to understand how immaterial ownership would work without a material intermediary.

The axiom of excluded middle is that for every proposition, either that proposion is true or it is false. That's a universal quantification, so any counterexample makes it false. "This proposition is false." is such a counterexample (it can't be true, because than it's false and your logic is inconsistent, and it can't be false, because than it's true and ditto). This reasoning applies to pretty much any recognizable system of propositional logic (including, per Godel nineteen-thirty-something, systems that explicitly prohibit the basic self-referential counter example, as long as they're expressive enough to describe arithmetic), so it's at least colloquially correct to simply dismiss it as false, even if the pedantic version is that it's a axiom that cannot be part of a consistent set of axioms.

The theorem of included middle doesn't prevent specific classes of propositions from being exclusively divided into true and false, though. As a simple example, any proposition of the form "natural number SSS...SS0 is prime" will be either true or false, and there's nothing inconsistent about (say) "for every proposion P matching regex /(S)*0 is prime/, either P is true or P is false". Just like there's nothing weird about a linter that can reliably tell you that "while(1) {...}" doesn't terminate, halting problem or not.

I understand what you're saying (in the first paragraph). I really do because I also went down this path. Self-reference is very tricky and it's way easier to trick yourself into proving things than to prove things.

You are referencing Godel and there is a reason why he only proved 'non-provability', namely Tarski's undefinability theorem[1]. In short, you cannot express the truthiness of a statement in the system within the system itself. This prohibits you to draw conclusions in a way you did above.

I'm of course no expert on the matter, and I might be wrong just as likely, but I'll encourage you not to make such strong, definitive statements. Maybe the reason for it is only that what you stated above would be a huge result in mathematics so one would think there is a mistake somewhere (especially since Liar's paradox is nothing new). And one would explore the subject further to find it rather than 'I post it on online forums because no one wants to accept my theory'

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarski%27s_undefinability_theo...

> you cannot express the truthiness of a statement in the system within the system itself.

Of course not; I'm not talking about truthiness; I'm talking about truth.

> that what you stated above would be a huge result in mathematics

Not really; it's the same sort of trivially-blatantly-obvious thing as "two-boxing on Newcomb's problem is irrational" or "quantum superpositions never actually collapse".

> it's the same sort of trivially-blatantly-obvious thing as

> "quantum superpositions never actually collapse"

Popsci is fun,

Never stop learning, even if it's obvious.

>"This proposition is false."

What about "this proposition is true"? Does it have a truth value?

If "this proposition is true" is true, then it's true. But if "this proposition is true" is false, then it's false.

It's self consistent whether it's true or false, but there's no way to determine if it is true or false.

I've been wondering what the formal name is for this kind of statement; surely it's not a paradox. Searching for "the opposite of a paradox" is apparently not the right query.

I feel like there's something questionable going on with the word "is" in either statement.

> What about "this proposition is true"? Does it have a truth value?

I think it'll probably end up being neither true nor false too in most 'nice' systems (since general rules that could be used to prove or disprove it tend to set off things like Curry's paradox[0]), but unlike the other one it's (I think) dependent on the details of how you're defining things.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry's_paradox

If it were a financial market, one could perhaps sell the option to buy a soul pending resolution of the matter.

You've just invented a new kind of "futures trading" and the mother of all kinds of innovative financial scams. Awesome! Someone should definitely start a business trading in "souls" and NFTs seem to be of the same ilk, so you guys are onto something.

Couldn't the Bockchain be used to make sure souls can be optioned away only once? We would have finally found a use for the Blockchain after all!

Fantastic! Surely someone will torture you for your key, no? This needs to be an episode of Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell.

Even with the key the transaction cannot be deleted. The eternity of the soul is a perfect fit for an append-only ledger.

Starting a timer to see how long it takes for a soulchain to be offered.

This already exists - that's how Heaven and Hell keep track of souls.

You know why it's so hot in Hell? Because that's where the exhaust ports of the AC units cooling the soulchain mining servers are.

Well, if you're powerful enough you can always fork to create Horcruxes

That technology is too advanced to be revealed to humans, didn’t you get the memo?

Surely the modern way to sell your soul online is through NFTs?

Not necessarily. It is speculated that the Devil can solve any mathematical problem and thus human crypto is useless to him, as he can just reverse all hashes, compute the discrete logarithms and factor arbitrarily large numbers.

So an NFT (or any other cryptographic artifact) is rather something that Satan can offer you for your soul.

That's not the way math works. G-d himself can't reverse a hash.

Before you go invoking the "miracle" loophole, consider that miracles are logically impossible. If an impossible thing happens, then it was not in fact impossible. We just didn't understand the rules.

That's how maths works. Hashes are trivially reversible, all it takes is time, no miracle needed.

Oracles in complexity theory are a bread and butter concept

If two different x can produce the same y information is lost on the hash transformation. Finding _an x_ for your y is not the same as finding _the x_. That said, Laplace's Demon is, well, a demon. Presumably the devil can get the demon to unspool time to see what the input was and the math doesn't matter, collisions or not.

In cryptography either you only need 'an x', in cases that the original x does not matter, or if it does, then you can just as easily find all x of size less than large enough N and find 'the x', it is still solely restricted by time.

Laplace's demon, information loss, Landauer's principle etc. are at most tangentially related to the problem discussed

You understand that isn't the same mathematically as reversing the hash? If you farm the set of all possible x and try them to see what works you do not have an inverse function in your hands.

> If you farm the set of all possible x and try them to see what works you do not have an inverse function in your hands.

I'm not sure I follow, what do I have then? Could you give me an example?

> Finding _an x_ for your y is not the same as finding _the x_.

Not in all cases, but in the case of NFTs and other cryptocurrencies, it is. If a second private key fulfills all constraints of the original one (like size and all computed results so far), it is functionally equivalent to the original one.

If hashes were trivially reversible, there'd be no cryptography.

You're thinking of something like a rainbow table. Definitely not the same thing as rewinding a function that loses information.

God himself is omniscient, so He by definition knows all the reverses of all hashes.

Also, to know the reverse of any hash you don't even need full omniscience, just "merely" the knowledge of anything that ever happened. Rewind the history of the universe, read the reverse from RAM when the hash was computed, done.

If God is omniscient, he can't do shit to punish you as he already knew you would commit a sin since the beginning of times.

Yes, the conflict of omniscience and free will is known in theology. I think they try to solve it by redefining omniscience to "being able to know everything but also being able to exclude stuff from one's knowledge".

Then there's no omniscience, because excluding oneself would cancel it.

“Can god create a paradox so mind bending even he gets confused?”

That's prior knowledge of the answer. Not the same thing as rewinding a trapdoor function. It's not very impressive if you already know the answer.

The omniscient one doesn't need to reverse a hash; they recognize immediately all possible values that could produce the hash.

So God had access to a really big rainbow table. Not terribly impressive for the supposed creator of the universe.

You are failing to grasp the notion that rainbow tables and knowing 51 factors to 17 and 3 are equivalent.

Back when I studied theology, the way we used to describe omniscience was to indicate that entities that exist outside of our universe can trivially see all points of our time stream.

Thus the hypothetical devil need not reverse the hash, they just have to view its creation to know what it was created from.

Anything existing outside out universe would have no access to anything happening inside it by definition. If the could access it, they would have to be part of the universe system. How else could information be transferred.

God is supernatural by definition. Anything we can compute, analyze and give logical meaning is just regular science.

For a god to have value to humans, however, that god would have to interact in some way with the natural world. Those things can be detected by science.

Perhaps we should creat soulcoins which are a secure way of trading souls

Its true. Instead of oracle calls, I use Faustian bargains.

I meant more human-to-human selling of your soul, as an alternative to selling on ebay. Doesn't even require you to believe in the supernatural.

That's a running thing in my mind for years. The devil can do math. So It's an incredible lost opportunity when people are being possessed and we dont go and ask them some clever questions.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-th...

Money made with math seems like something the Devil would be into.

The NFT standards need to be updated to include a hook that ensures royalties go to the creator upon transfer.

Sadly this is currently impossible as the NFT doesn't store the amount of value it was traded for within it. But it could.

For now, royalties only occur on third party platforms of NFTs.

Seems that they're doing just what they were intended to: proving ownership, nothing more.

Having said that, yes, I think building a concept of royalties in would have been a good idea.

I tried to buy a soul ~2004 but got the auction cancelled when I saw there was a duplicate auction

So long as they were transparent about the soul having been split I'm not sure I see the issue.

Didn't you read the ending of Harry Potter? Split souls are not something most people would want around!

About a dozen people sold their souls on Twitter a while back, so there's another venue.

E.g. https://twitter.com/liminal_warmth/status/142135011902313677...

Terms: https://liminalwarmth.com/contract-for-sale-of-soul/

Discussion: https://liminalwarmth.com/the-questionable-ethics-of-buying-...

As a total atheist I'd still say don't do it. It's not farfetched to interpret the word 'soul' as a future high-res brain scan runnable in emulation on future hardware. There may be other pitfalls.

My argument against this is as follows: would you sell your dignity for $10?

Now, my dignity doesn't exist in any sense which makes selling it meaningful. So it's kind of like free money.

But really it isn't. There's someone out there who can say "I own samatman's dignity, and I got it for cheap". I'm a guy who sold his dignity, and everyone knows it. I feel like people would judge me for that.

There are definitely people out there who will judge you for selling your soul. It doesn't have to exist for that to be real. Is it actually worth ten bucks? I expect there aren't many people who would see that and say "oh cool, you sold your soul for less than a sandwich in SF! You must be an interesting person, I think better of you now that I heard that".

Humans usually put their dignity on rent.

Nobody has come up with a SaaS for renting your dignity

Instagram and YouTube are two known sites for doing just that. You loan out your dignity when you become an influencer, and have it come back when everyone forgot about that chapter of your life.

The Internet never forgets. Never. People may forgive and be forgiven, but the Internet never forgets.

Counterpoint: I have serious doubt that many people (even those religious) believe you can sell your soul using a contract from the legal system in this mortal world. Thus, almost everyone should see it as the joke/fun that it is, and not you actually valuing your soul at $10. "I sold my soul for $10" is a lot better icebreaker than I've ever used.

Religious people who believe in the existence and sanctity of the human soul would probably see such a transaction as something similar to spitting on a holy object - it doesn't hurt the object itself, but as a symbolic gesture it shows your lack of respect for it.

aaa.. onlyfans for less than $10?(heard from a simp friend... really)

ah i liked that episode too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_Sells_His_Soul

>After proclaiming there is no such thing as a soul, Bart agrees to sell his to Milhouse for $5 on a piece of paper which reads "Bart Simpson's soul". Lisa warns Bart that he will regret selling his soul, but he dismisses her fears.

What if you sell it to many people? Dignity, as an abstract concept, is self-replenishing and infinite. In fact, all of our dignities should be given for free, as they're infinitely less scarce than any currency that uses finite resources.

Dude. We've ALL sold parts and parcels of our dignity for $10 or less.

Some people, simps for example, don't even get $10 for themselvs, but instead pay to have their dignity removed from them.

(this post is meant to be half humorous, and half not humorous.)

i'd sell my dignity for a million tho. So like anything else, it's just about what the price is. The cost for my soul would be much lower.

Unfortunately one does not need to be religious to realize that it’s foolish to assume there is no “god” when we have no way of proving that with science since we can only deduct reliably.

Isn't it just as foolish to assume there to be a good?

No. These questions have been well explained by a couple of old French philosophers, but they're usually presented in such a weak form ("weak man") that their answers aren't appreciated.

Pascal's infamous wager, for instance. It's usually rendered in the form of salvation and probability, but it's better for modern people to think of it in terms of meaning rather than salvation, and the probabilistic part of it can be simplified away.

Instead of asking, "Is there a God", ask first, "Does anything matter in any meaningful sense?".

If the answer is no, then one of the things which doesn't matter, is what you answer to that question. So you might as well answer yes. But if the answer is yes, then you should definitively answer yes, no matter what thing matters (because clearly, it also matters that it matters).

A better version of the argument in Pascal's wager is thus that "nihilism isn't more reasonable than the alternatives, even on its own terms". So you might as well have positive beliefs (though which ones, this argument can't answer). Bringing in probabilities is not necessary.

The classic argument against Pascal's wager is "but what if there's a God who will punish you from following the logic of this argument?". You can make that argument in a non-probabilistic way too, and suggest that maybe the positive meaning of existence is to not buy into arguments about the positive meaning of existence.

But that is rejected by another much misunderstood French philosopher's argument, Descartes' demon. The argument is that if there's some demon messing with my thoughts and perceptions to make me come to exactly the wrong solutions, then I am screwed anyway. Outsmarting it by definition won't work. So obviously, we might as well reject this assumption too.

To sum up, we reject the assumption that we have no meaning in the universe, because if that is true, we might as well. And we reject the assumption that the universe is out to get us, because if that is true, it makes no difference what we think.

> Instead of asking, "Is there a God", ask first, "Does anything matter in any meaningful sense?".

That's moving the goalposts and completely avoiding GP's argument. Interesting viewpoint nonetheless.

Precisely. If atheists are correct and there is not a god, you gain/lose nothing. However if the other side is correct and God does exist, the risk of existential woe is unfathomable. (None of this describes a personal perspective, merely things I’ve read)

The refutation that occurs to me (and has been raised before) is thus: if your belief in a god is wholly predicated on self preservation (avoiding eternal damnation/suffering/etc), and not motivated by the moral tenets of the religion, does that not defeat the purpose of being a believer? More to the point, if a god is all-powerful and all-knowing (or at the very least has some supernatural insight into human drives and motivations), there is little chance of deceiving the deity into accepting you as a true believer.

I would say a better reading of pascal's wager is to live your life morally and compassionately (relative to social norms), and accept that any god that may exist will judge you based on the character of your actions and decisions, and not on adherance to strict dogma.

atheists don't say there is no god. At least the general definition of atheism. Only that there is no reason to believe that there is one.

>Only that there is no reason to believe that there is one.

That would be agnosticism. Atheists claim there is definitely no god.

Atheist just don't believe there is a god. You can't rationally claim 100% certainty of anything.

sorry, you are incorrect.

Gnosticism/Agnosticism are, for all practical purposes, useless terms.

Gnosticism is what you know.

Theism is what you believe.

The two words are splitting hairs, the difference is just the level of certainty. You don't wait for absolute knowledge to act. You act on your beliefs.

A-gnosticism is a lack of total knowledge

A-theism is a lack in a belief in a god.

The definition of atheism is a lack in a belief in a god, not a claim that gods don't exist. There are some atheists who believe that no god's exist, but that is something extra beyond atheism.

That is exactly the "straw" interpretation I tried to argue against. It's not about God, at least not on this point.

It's about existential nihilism being pointless on its own terms. If you ask the question, "why does this matter" (and "this" can be absolutely anything) you've already assumed some things matter more than others. We absolutely won't get anywhere talking about God if we don't talk about this first.

Things matter to me, and that's all i need.

They brought up Death Note, but not Jigoku Shoujo ("Hell Girl"), presumably because one is vastly more popular and well-known than the other.

Going by Jigoku Shoujo you can actually sell your soul online, though it is a bit closer to a "contact me" form, you only really get to buy "revenge" and only on one person. Definitely a far cry from what you'd expect of modern online commerce.

As I understand it, "soul" is synonymous with "attention".

That is : you direct it and concentrate it. And it is prone to distraction (temptation?).

Given that, we are all well familiar with our soul. And its manipulation is a common everyday occurrence.

I think many religious people would disagree with your definition. That's the problem with any discussions of the "soul". It is poorly defined.

Better to refer to an observation than a definition, when discussing real stuff. It's the more solid reference.

We can observe attention.

Can we observe this alternative to which you refer?

No of course not. However, changing a definition away from what billions of people believe doesn't seem productive. If you want to talk about attention, cool, but call it attention. Most religious people don't consider the soul to be a synonym for attention.

It's similar to how some people want to redefine god as the universe. Ok, then just call it the universe, doing otherwise drags all kinds of assumptions and presuppositions that muddy the waters.

Then you refer to a fantasy.

Billions are immersed in fantasy.

One might call that a classically religious debacle.

I'm not saying that's what i believe. I don't believe a soul exists, or could exist. But I'm saying that's what billions of people believe. It doesn't help to redefine away a problem.

I think "attention" fits pretty well.

I think the general population waves its hands and calls it a unicorn. So fuck em.

And you might be surprised at how centrally attention figures into the human experience

Sell your soul: not OK Sell your best years to the man(tm): 100% OK

You're really better off selling it to a demon anyway. If you get nothing out of it then when you get to the afterlife you can convincingly claim that the demon reneged on the deal.

It's worth a read, but the ending is what brings it home, since (in my opinion) "selling your soul" has always been a metaphor, like many other religious ideas:

>That being said, while you can’t sell your soul to the devil in a real transaction, you can do so at metaphorical level. This happens every time someone is willing to overlook their humanity and decency in exchange for external temptations: power, money, fame etc. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be external pleasures. Ignoring basic human principles in order to obtain revenge, satisfy pride or envy can lead down the same path.

I read these stories much more literally.

One of the things the human brain does is project an honest picture of your self. This is your soul, it's whatever you perceive is your true nature. It's not nice stories you tell about yourself, it's your honest bottom line appraisal.

"Selling your soul" is doing something that you know will inflicting trauma on others in return for rewards to you. This is going against "God" where "God" is defined as the sum of all forces in the universe which heal trauma.

If you do this repeatedly, it makes irreparable changes to your self image. It gets harder and harder to see yourself as part of the movement to heal trauma, and you start to see yourself as part of the non-healing world, which includes "The Devil"—defined as the sum of all sentient forces in the universe which inflict trauma, either delighting in it or by suppressing normal emotional responses.

Alongside this, Christianity points at "seeking forgiveness", or asking for (external) trauma-healing forces ("God") to change you... with an earnest desire to be changed. That forgiveness, when granted, can then repair this self image in your brain. So that's the opposing side of this process.

Where you "soul" gets "sold" is just that the more you engage in trauma-for-pay, the more distance you put between yourself and the flock of trauma healers in this world. And the harder it is for you to believe any interest you might have in forgiveness is earnest. Eventually you get far enough out there you need a Jesus-level counsellor to bring you back into the flock, of which there are VERY few in the world.

That kind of person goes and finds the people with the most damaged self image, and is skilled at uncovering an old self image and healing their trauma. In Christianity, these are "saints".

But that's the long shot. The "don't sell your soul" directive is saying, don't head down that path because it's hard enough to maintain a positive, honest self image as it is.

> One of the things the human brain does is project an honest picture of your self. ... It's not nice stories you tell about yourself, it's your honest bottom line appraisal.

That's quite counterintuitive: It seems extremely likely that for most people (including but not limited to your humble servant), their self-image is delusional to a greater or lesser extent.

I think that's too metaphysical a concern for this form of Christianity. There's no "universal truth" component here. This "new testament" Christianity operates in the individual person's mind, so as honest as you can be as an individual, that's the world in which this drama plays out.

I will never get a more relevant chance to bring this up, so has anyone heard of Napoleon Hill’s(Think and Grow Rich) other book?

It’s called Outwitting the Devil, where he interviews the devil. He refused to publish it during his lifetime, and his estate also put off publishing it for decades because it contains strongs critiques of the educational system, the government, and the church as being tools of the ‘devil’ to keep the population confused, ignorant, and demoralized from a young age. It was considered too controversial for its time and I found it to be a thought-provoking book, very different from the “here’s a secret to success/power within/what they dont want you to know” genre. Instead of “think positive” it’s “here are all the tricks the ‘Devil’ is using to try to sabotage you.” If you like self-help books its a fun read/listen. http://outwittingthedevil.com/

As much as people love Napoleon Hill and his book, he may have been one of the first and biggest fake gurus of the 20th century, having never actually interviewed Carnegie and other rich people for his beloved book: https://youtu.be/iEDzb9ZplX0

What does that have to do with this other book?

The original comment seemed to be recommending this other book based on the quality of this book.

Research Napoleon Hill. He was a notorious lifelong scam artist. He made all that crap up and it's painfully obvious if you read any of his books.

"The Screwtape Letters" by CS Lewis is another book written from the similar point of view. Here the tricks are presented by an older demon to a younger one.

Great book and so is Mere Christianity

The actual interview text keeps hammering down on the same talking points so repetitively and unimaginatively, that it quickly becomes hard to get past first couple of pages. If a bit of information can be briefly, just for the sake of argument, defined as a difference that makes a difference, the book you mention makes a few starting laps and then halts at making a difference in its over-arching narrative with a remarkable braking force.

In other words, aside from “think for yourself” message, (sadly) it’s a classic example of a bad “business” book, annotations included. Mystery and woo-woo are also present, so yeah, there’s that.

Recommended contemporary occultists(demonic/dark magic practitioners) and their works:

EA Koetting (founder of BALG, 9 demonic gatekeepers)

Konstantinos (Nocturnal Witchcraft)

Somnus Dreadwood (Maergzjiran Cabal founder)

Kurtis Joseph (Black Magick of Ahriman)

Mark Alan Smith (Primal Craft books)

S. Connolly (The Complete Book of Demonolatry)

Asenath Mason (deals with Qliphotic magic)

NAA 218 (unknown author, created 'Liber Falxifer' and 'Book of Sitra Ahra')

Dragon Rouge (esoteric group that produces very detailed books)

Baron and Baronessa Araignee (magic dealing with the dead)

Frank White (knowledgeable YT channel - Grail of the Serpent)

S. Ben Qayin (Djinn Magick, The Book of Smokeless Fire)

International Guild of Occult Sciences - IGOS (group, produced a lot of books that are well respected)

VK Jehannum (https://vkjehannum.wordpress.com)

Temple of the Black Light (Liber Azerate)

Please please please for God's sake stay away from this stuff. It will steal your mind and your soul. This isn't something one can innocently dabble with. Turn to God instead, He will hear you.

// Catholic ex-occultist

ok, cool, now i want to try, thank you!

We're not "innocently" dabbling with it, we're all experts here on HN.

I hope you're being sarcastic and don't actually believe in this crap.

I thought I sold my soul to Satan for unfathomable worldly power, but accidently sold it to Stan, Certified Public Accountant[0] and then had to make so many calls to CityCorp to my soul back[1].

[0]https://mst3k.fandom.com/wiki/Stan_Johnson

[1]https://youtu.be/ZebKhabJItE?t=5280

I accidentally sold mine to Santa.

Im assuming that's how he gets his elves.

At least there will be hot cocoa.

Amen brother. Not to be messed with.

Well said.

This article did not go over much of the problems with this stuff.

Demons are notoriously child like creatures. Once summoned they will have the human try to put themselves in some position that they believe to be humiliating for the human. They hate the human for being naturally innately better than them even if less powerful.

The article does not go over some of the acts humans are made to do. It’s quite disgusting and vile. It does not go over the nature of demons. It’s quite pathetic. There is zero point in trying to dabble in this. Unless you believe your life cannot get any worse than it is. Occult will help you realize how bad it can really get.

I understand you can trap them in a iron pot, from what I vaguely remember people telling me in Karachi.

Edit: unless I’m confusing this with the flying pot at night?

Haha. But this is no joke. Normally demons live in a separate universe and stay to themselves. Interaction with animals can occur. But unprovoked interaction with human is rare.

Hey deadalus, quick question here: how does all of this compare to Luciferianism and left-hand path kind of stuff? I started reading some of the latter, but I found them to be so ridden with grammar errors that I wish Satan were an English teacher. Perhaps the most decent book I found was Anton LaVey's The Satanic Bible, but so far I am finding it too down-to-earth to quench my thirst for the exotic.

By the way, do you have an English translation for the Liber Azerate? I have the original in Swedish, but I have not learned Swedish yet.

Despite the name, LaVeyan Satanism has nothing to do with summoning occult beings as in GP's post. The latter (as with worship of the devil more generally) would instead be comprised under "Diabolism" which is very much a niche pursuit. It's even hard to tell if what looks like Diabolist practice isn't something subtly different, and more like the Voudun practice of summoning some "negative, dark, powerful" archetypal beings who are however quite recognizably different from any "devil". Heck, occasionally even something as basic as worship of the god Cernunnos (a very recognizable archetype of nature and the "male" principle) gets conflated by some with Diabolism.

I see, thank you for explaining, that should guide my future reading. Looks like I hadn't gone dark enough yet.

Most of the authors I linked here are not linked with Luciferianism. They deal with occult 'rituals' in order to gain a certain result - wealth, love, happiness, destruction of enemies, getting more opportunities. So you can expect to find a lot of rituals that aid you in getting those results. The work is not philosophical or analytical - but result oriented.

Here is the link to 'Liber Azerate' in English : https://gateway.pinata.cloud/ipfs/QmUHcdL7U78k1FiQbh5aC4JKVf...

And here is the link to 'Liber Anaxeiraxz'(another good book) - https://gateway.pinata.cloud/ipfs/QmT7m33x9munihmnAXxqth5mWP...

> wealth, love, happiness, destruction of enemies, getting more opportunities

One should be aware of the fact that these things can be pursued quite effectively with no need for seeking out or confronting any malevolent beings or forces, and this will generally be an easier and more fruitful approach, at least for the novice practitioner. It's very rare that even one's outwardly "selfish" goals are not far more amenable to a positive approach which can implicitly leverage the "loving kindness" that's inherent to the universe according to many practitioners of magick and similar pursuits-- relying on it as a key regulating, stabilizing and harmonizing principle.

Fantastic, thank you for the links.

That LaVey guy seems to be a quack who's appropriating Eliphas Levi's thoughts to give himself credibility, so why not to just read Levi's books?

Thanks for the list! Will check them out.

A few less "dark" folks I try to follow:

Jason Miller (http://www.strategicsorcery.net/blog/)

Aidan Wachter (http://www.aidanwachter.com/)

Damien Echols (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnRyoC6Oww6FrYVc-BxKyDg/vid...)

Bluefluke (https://bluefluke.tumblr.com/)

Frater U.'. D.'.

Further suggestions of contemporary practitioners are much appreciated.

Further suggestions (from my Youtube subscription) :

Behemoth-X, Black Witch Coven, Anewbiz, Ashera Goddess, Chthonia, Clandestine Lodge, D.H. Thorne, Damon Dark, Dark Sorcery, Enoch Petrucelly, From the Light of the Darkness, Go Virtual Lucifera, Groovy Psycho, Jenny Constantine, Kali Tribune, Mark Henry, Martin Faulks, Michael Hyson, Michael W. Ford, Mimir's Brunnr, mindandmagick, Mona Magick, Nexus Void, Occult Hive, OFSAdrianna, Orlee Stewart, Reality Files, Robert Sepehr, Satan and Sons, Saurious 7, ShanGO Rei TV, Slayden Sorcery, Sorsha Runarius, SQS, Taliesin McKnight, Tata Lucero, Taylor Ellwood, Teala Petrova, Temple of Ascending Flame, The Black Tower, The Eternal Black Flame 666, The House of Magick, The Infernal Obelisk, The Magick Couple, The Nemeton, The Serpent's Key, The Symposium, Thomas LeRoy, Thomas Sheridan, traditional church of satan, Travis Magus, Vidian, XELASOMA, Xag Darklight

Don't forget Hillarys books

My question is why would anyone want to deal with this stuff. If you're relying on this silly material, you clearly don't have the faintest idea what you're doing - in all likelihood, you'll just end up "summoning" lots of random mischievous spirits who'll be trying to have fun at your expense in weird and surprising ways until you finally learn how to banish them properly. There are plenty of other ways to get started with occult and magick that don't have this particular pitfall!

Well, you had me at the first sentence but lost me at the second.

Bertrand Russell said it's all "the random collocation of atoms." As far as anyone can tell, the meaning of Life, The Universe, and Everything is quantum physics. It explains all of the concepts currently attributed to both the physical and "spiritual" worlds.

Many religions acknowledge that there is no dichotomy between the physical and spiritual forms of experience. There is only one thing. If that's the case, the one thing's name is quantum physics. We can puts lots of other names on it from chance to déjà vu, from "bad behavior" to Beelzebub, but it's demonstrably the random collocation of atoms and probably not much more. Unless it's The Matrix, lol.

cough, cough:

Dragon Rouge is a global, independent, graphic design, branding and packaging agency that ignites brands and propels them forward since 1984.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=Dragon+Rouge&atb=v100-1&ia=...

That's a different group unrelated to the occult. This is the one :

https://para.wiki/w/Dragon_Rouge

http://dragonrouge.se/philosophy/

Since we are on a metaphorical plane today. Let me put my comment along similar lines on a youtube video [1]

You see in Zombie movies, the zombie is always trying to turn an individual capable of moral decisions, empathy, insight into just another zombie out of his own self interest. Our society is actually far closer to the truth shown in those movies. Just because people are not biting each other does not mean those movies are far from reality.

Symbolically those movies are depicting the fact that there are people, groups, organizations, companies who are trying to rob a man from himself by trying to turn that individual into just another member of the herd who looks out for nothing more than self interest which are not even his own but of that group. Tell me this is any different than what is shown in those zombie movies.

[1] Is a Mass Psychosis the Greatest Threat to Humanity? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojPcF-oLABE

You may also like

[2] In Shadow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j800SVeiS5I

That makes sense. So the majority of us are already zombies

Interesting, my take was always diametrically opposite, that if it has any meaning at all it's the allegory for getting converted to a collectivist religion or an ideology.

Zombies are not really selfish - I mean, if you were chasing one human in a horde and you were selfish, wouldn't you, for example, try to eliminate or exclude the competition? They are, rather, single-minded to the exclusion of any priorities other than one.

What's the difference between a religion and a corporation that someone devotes their life to? Other than scale.

Very few people really devote their life to a corporation, at least as far as I can tell. It's either just a job to pay the bills (for most people), or an exciting project that you easily switch from when it suits you (if you are in tech or other such job).

To be fair, relatively few people really devote their life to religion or ideology, too, although I'd argue the average level of devotion is higher and lasts longer :)

I mean zombies are spooky.

I don't buy a lot of books on demonology, but when I do, I try to buy from the most successful author.

Edit: If you're actually "interested" (definition to personal taste), plug for Stjepan Sejic's upcoming Fine Print series https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/fine-print-vol-1-ogn... (No relation to disclose, just a fan of his work)

>I don't buy a lot of books on demonology, but when I do

Naturally, this must be read in the voice of the Dos XX guy

Ah cool, was looking for something to do with the kids next weekend.

This seems to be mostly a history of ideas about devils and demons, but it also has things that sound like the oversimplified/mythologized versions of history that neopagans come up with. Mainly this:

> The traditional method of summoning demons involves drawing the sigil of your desired demon on the ground. If your summoning ritual is successful the demon will be conjured on the location of the sigil and be unable to move away from it. They are constrained to that particular location, and cannot affect anything beyond it.

And then the list of sigils. Is that, or any other specific thing, the "traditional" way to summon demons?

Given the stigma attached to summoning demons I would expect a dearth of accurate historical documentation. Practitioners would have taken pains not to leave evidence of their activities.

That's a fair assessment, and it's one of the reasons that neopagans have had to fill in a lot of gaps.

Actually yes.

There is an historical body of literature on various kinds of summoning magic, starting with the Picatrix.

Those particular sigils are from the Lemegeton, also known as the Lesser Key of Solomon. Which verifiably predates the neopagans. The general idea of constraining the demon by writing its sigil and summoning it has existed for a long time, although in the Lesser Key (and most sources afaik) the demon is summoned into a triangle, with the sigil drawn within, and it is the triangle which constrains it.

I can't recommend doing any of these things, but if someone wants to, I highly suggest not naively following the directions of a satirical blogpost.

> I can't recommend doing any of these things, but if someone wants to, I highly suggest not naively following the directions of a satirical blogpost.

Very interesting stuff. Regarding this part, are you saying that that the supernatural claims behind these rituals are real in some literal sense, or that they have psychological effects that might not be desirable?

One does not have to believe "that the supernatural claims behind these rituals are real in some literal sense" to be very wary of this sort of stuff - magick is not something that works along "literal" lines in the first place! Anything that you do in a serious magickal ritual (and if you're intending to "sell your soul", that definitely qualifies!) can have very real and long-lasting effects in the spiritual plane. That's what's especially troubling about this: it's definitely doing something, that something it's doing is going to be very much not-nice (since you're expressly intending to deal with malevolent beings) and we don't even know what exactly is happening! It's just madness unless you happen to be very familiar with this sort of left-hand path stuff, and even then there's plenty of reason to be very careful since you're straying way off from even most acknowledged "left-hand path" stuff (which is ultimately about skillfully leveraging evil and chaotic forces in ways that will accomplish some greater Good).

It sounds like you're referring to "spiritual plane" as something that is a distinct metaphysical entity that exists alongside what would be normally be seen as the natural world. (In this case I mean "metaphysical" in the philosophical sense.)

I realize that "natural world" is a fraught concept in itself, but please take me in a common sense reading; basically what would be seen as natural in everyday conversation or depicted in a movie/book/etc.

Maybe that concept should be expanded or contracted or eliminated to slice up the world in the most accurate ontology that we can, or maybe we should have no ontology at all. All of those are lines of argument that have been advanced by those who believe in religion, magic, etc. But as of right now the term "natural world" does have a current common sense interpretation that most people having good-faith discussions would recognize.

"Metaphysical" is a confused word. You don't have to include spiritual stuff in your model of the world (there's plenty of people who don't, and this doesn't seem to stop them from leading outwardly fulfilling lives!) but if you do, you're going to see it as no less "natural" than anything you'd include in your 'common sense natural world as depicted in everyday conversation or in a movie/book'. It's literally something that's part of the exact same web of cause-effect relations as what we all acknowledge as 'physical'. The metaphysical question is ultimately uninteresting and we don't need it to work with this stuff effectively.

Fair enough. Then would you say the spiritual plane that can be accessed or interacted with via these rituals, couldn't be fully described under the laws of physics as we currently know them?

(Obviously almost any phenomenon can't be fully described by the laws of physics in the sense that it's too complex to account for the location and state of every elementary particle involved. But I mean in the sense of introducing entirely new laws, or instances where the existing ones are overridden.)

Nope, I wouldn't necessarily say that. Just as there's many people who don't acknowledge the spiritual in their model of the world, there's many, many people who do very real magick using nothing more than the commonly acknowledged laws of physics! We generally call them scientists and engineers. And the kind of magick they customarily deal in (known, somewhat conventionally, as "natural magick") is probably the most powerful of all, at least wrt. its effects on the purely physical plane. Other, more spiritual kinds of magick then act in a strictly subsidiary role, to "fill in the gaps" and "augment" this work in ways that aren't generally overt or amenable to be described by some outward "law". I realize that this description will probably seem very frustrating to you if you're inclined to very literal thinking, but that's how this stuff works. It's silly and childish to expect that "spiritual" magick will ever substitute for effective science and engineering.

Yeah, to be honest, parts of this message I'm having trouble even parsing as information. If you've had/seen interactions like this where the other person just seemed too literal-minded, I'd ask you to think about whether your ability to explain it is also contributing. Maybe it's a bit of both. Certainly, I don't pretend this stuff is easy to explain to an outsider. But I think of people like the clearest defenders of Buddhism or Advaita Vedanta--Swami Sarvapriyananda has both Eastern and Western education and is an extraordinarily good popularizer of Advaita Vedanta, for example. I actually understand what they're saying and for the areas that simply can't be described in words, I understand the general bounding box of where the nonverbal insight needs to happen. (E.g., I don't know what it's like to be in a state of pure consciousness without thoughts, if that exists, so I can't understand that specific part of their argument.)

I don't think of myself as very literal-minded. I've spent hundreds of hours doing things like meditation and lucid dreaming and have experienced a range of states of consciousness. I'm even interested in very wild (but naturalist and law-bound) accounts of why subjective experience exists, like mind/body dualism and Russellian monism.

In this sense I appreciate people like psi researchers who at least overtly say "yes there are supernatural phenomena that go against the current laws of physics, we understand them very little if at all, but we're trying to get some initial data." I don't think they've ever succeeded, but at least I know how to have a conversation with them. But in other cases the answers just get bogged down in elliptical wording that I can't even understand, and I think that's what happened here.

The POV of psi researchers these days is more like "psi phenomena might or might not exist, but if they do exist they're mischievous enough that there's no way they're going to show up unambiguously in a rigorous controlled experiment!" In this sense the physical effects of higher or "spiritual" magick are indistinguishable from psi, and for the same reason they're most likely not going to impact our understanding of "the laws of physics".

Interesting take. It's analogous to religious arguments defending the idea of miracles. I don't say that in principle the world must be causally closed and bound by natural laws; only that it seems very likely, as it enough to explain an insanely huge ratio of what we already witness, and the quality of the evidence for other stuff is very low.

I just finished with a quick edit to my post to be more specific, but I suspect your answer would be similar either way.

I might agree, except I view it more productively as an argument defending the idea that the physical world can be inherently lawful ("bound by natural laws", in a very real sense) despite the common belief in miracles or magick! You don't have to renounce belief in the reality of physical laws just because you might also practice some ceremonial magick (or religious prayer, for that matter) - indeed, one can make very rigorous claims about just how much physical laws explain already.

Well, I can agree with all that, probably more so than 80%+ of other naturalists. Although naturalists tend to actually be pretty open to the powerful psychological effects that can happen via natural means, as you need that to explain things like alien abduction experiences, near-death experiences, etc. in natural terms, unless those people are literally all lying.

I'm going to punt on the first half, the second is emphatically true. Or the psychological effects could be desirable.

No one should recommend ceremonial magic and occult study, in my opinion. Anyone who 'should' be going down the rabbit hole can't be dissuaded.

But if you must, start with something like Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson. Don't just pull out the Goetia and start summoning demons. Reality may or may not be mutable, but our perception of it certainly is. Would you really pick that as a first experiment?

> But if you must, start with something like Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson. Don't just pull out the Goetia and start summoning demons. Reality may or may not be mutable, but our perception of it certainly is. Would you really pick that as a first experiment?

Maybe so, because my mind is so bull-headedly resistant to being modified (at least in the ways associated with occult stuff, like visions, extreme emotion, etc.) that maybe I need a dose of the hard stuff to even notice it ;)

As a naturalist I don't think I can sign on to the first half, even as a realistic possibility. But for psychological effects, sure, I could buy it. The ability of the mind to do get into pretty extreme psychological states, via ritual and otherwise, is easily underestimated.

In fact I would say many naturalists hold onto that argument harder than just about anyone, because it's critical to help explain the weird stuff people experience (e.g. alien abductions are often hypnagogic hallucinations or sleep paralysis, near-death experiences are due to various impaired brain states, etc.)

I’d put the case a little differently. If you say those who stumble down that path were “destined”, to such an extent that no human intervention is possible, then that very assertion will attract to that path those who already feel helpless and disempowered. Those are the very ones least able to manage that sort of path.

How about this? Do not invoke what you cannot dismiss. You cannot be certain that you can dismiss anything you invoke. Don’t be an idiot.

Or perhaps this. You are playing a first-person shooter. You can be seen by your adversaries, but the adversaries are invisible to you and you have no idea of their powers or weaponry. Sounds like a stupid game for which there are only stupid prizes.

There are many paths up the mountain. Don’t be an idiot.

Everytime I hear something about this topic I think about one of the oldest unchanged websites I know of: https://beyondweird.com/ Many downloadable books there containing occultism.

Wow. Been nearly 20 years since I stumbled on this site. Unfortunately, I still am not psychic according to the test on there.

Also, I did find it fascinating, just the first essay I clicked “The Body of God” from 1922, seems astonishingly similar to Scott Adams’ novella God’s Debris. As well, the preface is shockingly similar to Adam’s antisemetic views, views on women’s rolls in society/ child-rearing, and views on male “self determination”/ self-actualization.

Wonder how foundational that was to a young Scott Adams, assuming he read it.

> In this case, selling your soul is just a sin, a pretty bad one, but still a sin. In Catholicism and some Protestant traditions, you will enter into a state of Purgatory, (or purgatory-like phase) after death where you are cleansed of sins.

Catholicism does not teach that you will necessarily enter Purgatory; if you are unrepented, into the eternal fire you will go. This isn't because Satan owns your soul, but because you rejected God, who will not force you to be cleansed against your will.

https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P2O.HTM;;catholic

I don’t see where this says selling a soul is “only” a sin.

Research demonology: have computers casting summons over fractal fragments looking for any whose phone numbers we don't already know. cf the works of Charlie Stross

Perhaps that pokemon game had more in it than we thought...

Please explain? Are you talking about dwave?

Charlie Stross is an author (and occasional poster here) who has a series collectively known as “The Laundry Files” in which magic can be performed by computers as well as by humans, by having the computers perform specific calculations.

Also books by Aya Nishitani

if you mean these folks [1], then no; I think that falls under divination. I was thinking more about the graphical sigils; but there's surely other attractive signatures that could be found computationally, right?

More practical: synthesize sounds and play them in a garden, with some cameras and vision software to count insects attracted, perhaps classify by type. Add some seeking function and you might make a mechanical pied piper for pests.

Surely thats only an analogy. Cicadas are not actually demons.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Wave_Systems

Is wishful thinking part of divination?

Then again they did manage to get, e.g. google and Lockheed Martin(?) To actually purchase some of their wishful thinking hardware. There might have been a deal with minor/slightly demonic imp to get that far.

2nd part - you could find the song of the mosquito. They suck blood at least, and seem to be good for nothing except feeding bats. So there’s that.

Maybe… or The Atrocity Archives, or something from the laundry files… something along those lines perhaps.

Edit: somebody scooped me

I already have quite a few daemons in my PC. I communicate with them using launchd.

You might like Scott Alexander's Unsong, freely available online. On the grounds of Yudkowsky's HPMOR, you could be excused for expecting fiction by rationalists to be generally terrible, and it is; Unsong is the exception, and proves if nothing else that Alexander missed his calling.

Thinking about how this plays with Gurdjieff's[0] idea that I've been partial to lately that one is not born with, but instead must develop a soul through effort.

[0]https://www.wikiwand.com/en/George_Gurdjieff

That's an interesting concept which aligns well with our vernacular use of the expressions "soulless" and "selling your soul." If a soul is sensitivity to others then that certainly has to be developed. The fact that it's poorly developed in many people (and even less so down the line of animals) is a good indicator that it might be learned or built-up evolutionarily in the species and the individual.

Just agree to the GameStation EULA back in 2010.

https://www.engadget.com/2010-04-16-uk-game-retailer-claims-...

> For example, a priest once asked the devil to build a bridge over a river, in exchange for the soul of the first one to cross the bridge. The devil upholds his side of the bargain and builds the bridge, but the priest then sends a dog to be the first one to cross it. Realizing he was tricked, the demon throws the dog over the bridge as a consolation prize.

Sounds like the demon won. An evil man exchanges the soul of an innocent for some "free" labor.

There's a movie about that [1]; well, not exactly "selling" it to the devil but upgrading to a better one. Paul Giamatti plays an actor named "Paul Giamatti" who feels he can't properly do Uncle Vanya without a Russian soul. Hilarity ensues.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1127877/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

For me, becoming famous is similar to selling your soul, in the sense that you trade in your privacy in return for being famous and also presumably being rich too. It's like Cypher in the Matrix who wants to be reborn as an important actor in exchange for handing over keys to the Zion mainframe.

Sidenote: The problem with fame is that you can't reverse it. If people know your face, then they know your face. There's no getting away from it.

David Cassidy, former teen throb (yes I’m old) had a good quote, “If you want fame and fortune, try fortune first and see if that’s enough”.

Interesting premise for a story:

Act 1: Protagonist sells their soul to the devil for infinite riches, wealth and power.

Act 2: Protagonist uses this power to solve the vast majority of the evils in the world: feeding and housing the poor, removing the corrupt from power, etc.

Act 3: The devil and god fight in 'court' over protagonist's soul, with god arguing that protagonist used the faustian bargain so benevolently that it would be unjust to send them to hell.

If anyone is interested in this from the point of view of folklore or mythology, or as a source for worldbuilding, I suggest the Youtube channel Esoterica[0] which covers historic occult rituals and texts. The Lesser Key of Solomon, referenced in the article, is discussed here[1].

[0]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoydhtfFSk1fZXNRnkGnneQ

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0HyPIwco38

Edit: a depressing number of people in this thread seem to take this stuff seriously. A lot of your parents wouldn't let you play D&D or listen to Black Sabbath as kids, huh?

Let go of your fear of the boogeyman, he isn't real.

As it seems on topic, in case one wanted to join a quality internet death cult, but not sell one's soul, the Internet Death Cult of Fun is highly recommended.

https://www.deathcult.fun/

Many of the demon sigils resemble circuit schematics!

Perhaps demon culture is heavily influenced by electrical engineering.

As someone who studied EE and briefly worked in the field before abandoning it, can confirm that EE and demonology are inextricably intertwined.

I think they even play the same role. At least the prominent occult authors say that all these effects are nothing but electricity and magnetism (snake is a typical occult symbol for electricity). Levitating a frog by a magnet is legit magick, NMRI is high-end sorcery. Things that are considered magical are various magnetic effects that haven't been discovered (by science) yet, but are known to people who don't quite understand the underlying mechanism. But in each and every case it's the good old magnetism. I'd guess that these sigils are meants to shape a magnetic stream produced by something else, and when properly shaped it tends to capture a "fish" of some kind. As for why the low type occultists use blood to fill these sigils, it's because of its magnetic properties (if you live in medieval ages, getting access to a lab with ferrofluids and 100 Amp generators is pretty difficult).

Why would learning stuff require a deal with the devil? Two of the listed demons are described pretty much as what a scientist is.

If you find a proof of P != NP or the Riemann hypothesis, why would that be as bad as using the Death Note book?

The demons are just trying to satisfy the marketplace. They provide whatever will sell.

Surely there would be more demons in the vanity/jealousy/revenge market than the knowledge market?

There are many more demons to choose from than the ones listed in the article[0].

The interesting thing about demonology is that it was mostly being practiced in secret by Christians, even clergy (a lot of these spells and rituals use Christian liturgical elements.) They didn't believe what they were doing was "selling their soul to the devil," rather that Christ had given them dominion over angels and demons, so they had every right to summon demons and use them as they saw fit. Legend at the time was that King Solomon built the First Temple using demon slaves.

Of course the Church proper would have strenuously agreed with this way of thinking.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_demons_in_the_Ars_Goet...

There was no such thing as "science" at the time - every aspect of human thought and philosophy had some religious dimension or spiritual connotation. The study of the stars and planets was tied to astrology, and the study of herbs and healing was associated with witchcraft and folk magic.

If anyone is wondering what sort of writing would get you canceled in the US in the 1970s, this is a decent example.

Source: I'm old enough to have been able to understand news stories of the 1970s as they were being published.

I thought this was just going to suggest you play old school dungeons and dragons

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wL7lEwD1uGI

Speaking of selling your soul, this post is a veiled advert funnelling you to sign up for audible.

On Christianism, it's just a metaphor on the first agricultural societies and the fights between the hunting-hoarders and land workers. You know, the roots of.. civilisation. Solstice is celebrated and so is the harvest times which are exactly the months of Jesus' death. Oh, and the Virgo placement in the sky matches harvest times, too. So, all of you Christians are nothing more than secret vegetarians.

Why is this on hackernews again? I thought it was a blog on Kubernetes or React!

Posted by someone with high karma. Yes, I know...

You’re mistaken about something - the only thing hacker news denizens have in common is that they could potentially feature in posts on /r/iamverysmart.

You probably thought it was tech or something about startups…think again.

If you have showdead turned on, there's a fella spamming almost every thread saying it's a covid site

Yeah, what the actual fuck. This really makes me question the audience on this site...

Does anyone have any alternatives to hacker news? Preferably ones with more skeptics than there are occultist and "demonologist" morons?

Fucking bizarre.

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

I forget, is your quote attributable to Michael Scott or Wayne Gretsky?

You assume I've neither read the article or researched demonology. I have.

All of the neopagan bullshit and demonic sigils can be traced back to obvious frauds starting in the 19th century, when occultist grifting was in vogue.

This is a simplistic article on an already childish subject.

You seem pretty caught up in your own emotions on this topic and are missing my point entirely. These stories and ideas still came from human minds, and that's the part that interests me even if I think the claims are fraudulent.

One could argue that the mere existence of a concept or an idea in someone's mind makes it real, especially so if that concept or idea has real, observable side effects for others in the "real" world. Heck, isn't this why we read science fiction or play board games? They create a mental image, the image is real in our minds.

Neat but it's still a simplistic article and pretty much everything "comes from human minds."

My emotions are disdain and disbelief that people still gobble up this horseshit. Nothing wrong with that. Do you believe yourself to not have any emotions and are an arbiter of truth and perfect logic?

Please.

As technologists, we play in complicated contructed worlds, with rules and rituals, and obscure variations and debatably non-stochastic processes, created by other people all day long (and sometimes all night).

You don't have to believe in demons (or third normal form, or agile) for the body of knowledge to be interesting.

Some people take it pretty seriously, and some people do it for fun. Like LARPing.

Why all the anger? I may read on different philosophies and religions that I do not fully or partially agree with, practice or believe in, yet I may find useful life lessons in each, or drive pleasure just from the act of reading. I do not regard any of them as "bullshit" just because I do not understand or share their opinions.

Just flag it

Is a classical 'testing your interests' hook. Probably for filling reports. Similar to

'What brand of sunglasses do you wear?'.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28029206

or the, always popular bunch of themes falling in the pattern: 'do you take drugs?/ what drugs have you experienced?'

or 'what diseases do you had?' also very popular theme.

In resume, Don't talk with the police but, would you mind to answer this bunch of questions about your personality on internet instead, please?.

Wrong. Is a blog about Apple M1

The passage about following the contracts to the letter and thus being able to get out of those contracts with a bit of cleverness reminds me of a similar principle in stores about faeries -- that faeries will follow their bargains with mortals to the letter. In faerie stories, this is what makes deals with faeries so risky, especially with the more malevolent ones; you never know just how your words will be twisted against your intentions and desires.

I wonder how much of the to-the-letter aspect of demonic contracts borrows from the older European folk stories of faeries, or whether it is the opposite -- the to-the-letter aspect of deals with faeries being a medieval Christian projection upon those stories.

One of the best Christian theological treatments of the subject, for those interested — The Devil by Bishop Fulton Sheen: https://youtu.be/FuCw8UT5y6c

The article does a great job at explaining an important topic (morality) to the common public, using analogies from popular culture and religion to make its point.

It resonates with the tech community because some may have been struggling with this dilemma in the shadows for a long time, due to the conflict of interests.

Since this was a “how to” guide, if you want to get serious, here is a short video how to do the opposite: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XzWpa0gcPyo

Do the opposite? Buy an extra soul from Satan? Why?

Nope, how not to sell your soul while living in a dark world

Hasty reader seems to have skipped the parts about circles to constrain the summoned demon in their haste to get through their grimoires. Well. Good luck with that.

Generally one stays inside a circle for protection and summons the demon into a triangle for containment. :P

Yeah, I should have said “designs”, not “circle”.

Looking at those Demon sigils I'm wondering if any of them match Crop Circle patterns, at a quick glance they look pretty similar.

I thought they resembled hockey playbooks.

They may or may not have been deliberately designed as apophenia targets. That is in any case what they are.

Almost certainly, given they can be made whatever shape you like and the overlap of interests.

Since both are undoubtedly created by hoaxes and frauds, that's an interesting observation. I guess all artwork really is derivative.

It would be neat to trace that artistic lineage back to its sources.

Then again, there is a commenter on here claiming they look like circuit diagrams (whereas I look at schematics on a daily basis and see no resemblance). So stupid.

Those with pet devils will be relieved to know that Devil's Food is for sale on ebay... https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Pillsbury-Sugar-Free-Devils-Food-Cak... Also sold, cat and dog and fish food..

As an atheist I must point out this is for entertainment purposes. Although, I see 'selling one's soul' as a contract with oneself. For example, if I say I would sell my soul for a hot-cooked meal, that means I'm going to get up and go cook. If I don't, then the consequences are that I will suffer with a cold sandwich.

If selling your soul to the devil works, you'd be a fool to sell it. Otherwise, you're just wasting your time.

In America, you'd use it as collateral.

In Catholicism and some Protestant traditions, you will enter into a state of Purgatory, (or purgatory-like phase) after death where you are cleansed of sins. This could potentially take a while.

This should be written in the devil contract, like how long do I need to stay in purgatory...

Depends on your sins, wouldn't it? Murder would be one term, but working for an digital ads company, developing dark pattern UI, or social media companies would be at least half of eternity.

Is eternity countable? I really want to know what I am in for, ya know. Plus, depending on the properties of the eternal manifold, maybe I can perform some useful closed timelike computation while there and use that to get rich when/if I return.

It's countable. But you can always add 1.

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in

I believe the correct term is “countably infinite”

I come to HN exactly to find detailed tutorials of obscure technical matters like this. Thanks!

I see only "Our system thinks you might be a robot!"

Does it mean robots are excluded from the deal?

Sunday mornings on Hacker News seem to have taken a turn for the dark side.

Seems a bit Eternal September to me…online equivalent of fourteen year olds drawing pentagrams on their notebooks (I suppose nowadays putting demon stickers on their tablets).

What? No ones built an app to simplify the process and bring this amazing opportunity to the masses? Come on already... get on it boys.

Please whatever you do, dont mess with this stuff. Ive really had interactions of this kind and I can tell you it is not fun, you will not be happy or at peace. Satan is a liar,murderer and deceiver.

Jesus came to save you and even if you have "sold" your soul to satan then just know that Jesus defeated satan on the cross and paid for your soul with his blood.

Logged on just to upvote this.

Lest one person out of a thousand that read this actually try the things mentioned in the article, I'd like to point out that the topics in the article such as summoning demons and dabbling in magic is ultimately not desirable.

If any of this were true, we would have a proof, and it would become science. We known it doesn’t work, because all the recorded attempts resulted in absolutely nothing.

In order for it to work you must believe it will work. That is how christianity works and how witchcraft works.

It never worked even for people who believed it works.

> In order for it to work you must believe it will work.

In other words: if you are susceptible to having your mind play tricks on you, it will. Mentalists[1], mediums[2], and other proven charlatans[3] make a living out of that effect. Add some confirmation bias[4] and you do it to yourself.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentalism

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_...

[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

If I buy someone else's soul, could that be resold?

On a related note, let's clear up a few things...

Myth: The "soul" is something separate from the body.

Fact: The soul being a separate entity from the physical body did not come from Judaism or Christianity. In Genesis 2:7, the first man "became" a soul (Hebrew "Nephesh"[1]), he was not "given" a soul. The Old Testament teaches that the "soul" is the whole person. The Bible uses the word "soul" in reference to both humans and animals (Genesis chapter 1 and Revelation both do this). The Old Testament also teaches that the soul can die. See Ezekiel 18:4, 20.

Myth: Hell is a fiery place of torment to punish those who reject God.

Fact: There is no word "hell" in the original writings of the Bible. This was a later development. The idea that God punishes people for all eternity, essentially making him worse than Hitler, is not found in the Bible. In multiple places the Old Testament says that God does not condone burning your children in fire. See Jeremiah 7:31; 2 Kings 17:17; 2 Chronicles 28:3; Deuteronomy 12:29-31 for a few examples. When the New Testament speaks about "eternal fire", these are symbols or illustrations to demonstrate eternal destruction of the evil ones, not literal torment. Also, the place that Jesus said people would go for this "eternal fire" was called "Gehenna"[2] (not Hell) which in those days was just a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem.

Myth: The Devil's name is Lucifer.

Fact: The word "Lucifer"[3] comes from the Latin translation of Isaiah 14:12. It's simply a word that means "shining one", a word that was used to describe the King of Babylon at that time, not the Devil. The King's fall is similar to that of the Devil, but the Devil in the Bible is never referred to as "Lucifer".

[1] https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h5315/kjv/wlc/0-1/

[2] https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g1067/kjv/tr/0-1/

[3] https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h1966/kjv/wlc/0-1/

> Also, the place that Jesus said people would go for this "eternal fire" was called "Gehenna"[2] (not Hell) which in those days was just a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem.

You are taking the use of Gehanna literally. How do we know that Gehanna is not being used metaphorically as a representation to provoke an emotional visualization of real conditions in an actual Hell?

How do you interpret

> Mar 9:48 - Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Other than that "the worm" the cause of death, decay, and suffering, never ending, and thus the suffering never ending?

A while back I looked into what the Bible really seems to say about Hell in the hopes that something so evil could not have been written there, but I think ultimately any interpretation that leads to the belief that the Bible doesn't describe a Hell as it's commonly understood is just wishful thinking.

Sorry for the late rely. HN doesn’t make it easy to see comment replies.

You’re misunderstanding what I said and you’ve got it backwards. Jesus was speaking metaphorically when he said “Gehenna”, not literally. The eternal fire was not literal and Gehenna was not literal. It’s a symbol for eternal destruction.

The reason he mentioned the worm is because the Jews at that time understood that the worm would eat dead bodies in the literal Gehenna. Jesus was pointing out that their future death would be eternal with no hope of a resurrection if they continued down a certain spiritual path.

Also, please look up the verses I cited previously. The symbolic understanding of Gehenna is in agreement with those other verses where God clearly does not condone burning people, let alone burning them eternally.

Also, there is no place in the Bible that says that the “soul” will reside in hell forever, separate from the body. The whole person gets thrown in Gehenna, which is pointed out in the context of the verse you cited (see verses 43 to 47).

Until Columbus no one had ever heard of neither God or Jesus from Canada to The Patagonia. Just think about it, FFS.

Oh, a guide to working at Facebook.

I thought selling your soul was done by signing on to work at Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

That’s just the simplest and most common method.

To be fair, selling your soul definitely pays better than working a job where it's slowly crushed everyday.

I worked with someone that went on vacation, and never returned. Instead, he called in and said that the job was stealing his soul and would not be returning. Sadly, we all understood 100%

I guess this must be the premise of capitalism.

Startup for a quick online soul market?

If you are grinding leetcode, you are already in hell.

In the modern economy you are always a small, finite number of transactions from someone using slave labour, bombing civilians or using torture.

At some of the big tech corps this number is 1 though - murderous regimes do use these companies directly.

You can be a spy instead, and try to change it from the inside (however impossible that seems). That is the moral justification.

That is just a rental, not a sale.

I want to know how to sell the soul of someone who has aggrieved me with his holier than thou attitude. I want to see the look on his face when he confronts Old Nick and has a WTF moment...

I’m appalled this is even on HN.

- If you are an atheist, would you sell it for $5? If the answer is no, why sell it for more? What value can you place on your soul (or someone’s idea of it)?

- If someone is willing to pay much more than $5, consider what they are gaining, and what you are losing. Why would they be willing to pay so much?

- If only in the interest of self preservation, have you heard of Pascal’s Wager? [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager

One might wish to be careful with this. While strict materialism is probably the dominant paradigm amongst HN readers, there is significant evidence and reliable testimony of inexplicable events[1] that defy a natural explanation.

On the other hand, it may well be the fastest way to start speaking fluent Aramaic. Duolingo eat your heart out!

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/01/...

All quantum events defy natural explanation. Since all physical phenomena derive from quantum behavior, the physical world can neither be observed nor predicted accurately without access to the quantum view -- which we don't have.

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