The Biography of Satan: Exposing the Origins of the Devil

by Kersey Graves, Paul Tice (Introduction)

If the Devil exists, where is he? Is he really in a place called hell? If so, where is that? This well-researched book may shock you by exposing all the basic facts about the devil. Things
-- The origins of hell.
-- Where the Christian Devil was borrowed from.
-- Why the church needed a "bad guy" to represent evil.
-- What the words Devil and hell really meant in the Old Testament.
-- "Endless punishment" and its devastating effects.
-- The Devils twin brother -- God!! Was this true?
-- Why God was the author of evil according to the Bible. These and other startling facts are found in this work. Don't just accept the reality of the Devil blindly. Read this book and decide for yourself if he exists!

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, Ebooks, Occult

168 pages, Paperback

First published February 5, 1993

About the author

Kersey Graves was a skeptic, atheist, spiritualist, Nontheist Friend, reformist and writer. He was born in Brownsville, Pennsylvania. His parents were Quakers, and as a young man he followed them in their observance, and then later moved to the Hicksite wing of Quakerism. According to one source, Graves did not attend school for more than three or four months in his life, but another source says that he received an "academical education", and at the age of 19 was teaching in a school at Richmond, a career he was to follow for more than twenty years.

He was an advocate of Abolitionism and was also interested in language reform. He became involved with a number of radical freethinkers within Quakerism. In August 1844, he joined a group of about fifty utopian settlers in Wayne County, Indiana. In the same month, he was disowned by his Quaker meeting group due to his neglect of attendance, and also setting up a rival group. The groups he was associated with later dabbled in mesmerism and spiritualism.

In July 1845, Graves married the Quaker, Lydia Michiner, at Goschen Meeting House, in Zanesfield, Logan County, Ohio, and they later had five children at their home in Harveysburg, Ohio. They later moved back to Richmond and bought a farm.

The Goschen Meeting House was a centre of the Congregational Friends and were involved with Temperance and Peace, health reform, anti-slavery, women's rights and socialistic utopianism.

Graves' Quaker background conditioned him to the philosophy of the Inner light, whereby all clergy, creeds, and set liturgy in worship were irrelevant, and a hindrance to God's work. This was intensified by Hicks's brand of Quakerism - Quietism - where an individual's spiritual life was most important and all outward manifestations were invalid. The Congregational Friends were to the left of the Hicksites, and withdrew further from even Christianity and eventually a belief in God.

Graves died at his home just north of Richmond, Indiana on 4 September 1883.

Graves held the belief that religion corrupted truth, and he evolved into a writer claiming religious belief false. He wrote The Biography of Satan (1865), The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors (1875), and Bible of Bibles (1881).

Reviews

[Noora · Rating 2 out of 5]

مساء الخيرات
احنا نخش في الموضوع علي طول، الكاتب هنا ببساطة بيحاول يثبت فكرة واحدة بس.. وهي إن الشيطان او الشر " بمفهومه الأخلاقي" شيء تم تصنيعه.
بيقول ياجماعة الخير، ان الاله عند المجمعات البدائية كان كيان "خالق ومدمر" في ذات الوقت. يحمل بداخله الخير والشر بوصفه صانع وخالق للكون بكل ما فيه. وان مفهوم الشر وقتها كان مرتبط بالتغيرات الطبيعية في البيئة ليس بما هو متعارف عليه حالياً بوصفه "شر".
وهنا نبدأ نبص كده حولينا ونقول نيتشه ياعنيا هل هذا أنت؟!
المهم بعد مانطرد شبح نيتشه ونركز مع الكاتب تاني.. نلاقيه بيقول ان مرور الوقت ودخول المسيحية، قام البشر بفصل الخير والشر بداخل الاله لكيانين متضادين يتبادلان النصر والهزيمة علي مدار العصور، وذلك لتخليص الإله من عبء شرور البشر وتحميلها للشيطان، بوصفه المحرض الأول لكل الاثام البشرية منذ البداية.

اللي أزعجني بقي في الكتاب هو القفزات البهلوانية اللي الكاتب كان بيعملها شمال ويمين لإثبات وجهة نظره، كان ماشي بمنطق" "بص العصفورة" ويروح لازقك استنتاج غير مدعوم ولا مشروح كويس في وشك وتبقي مش عارف هو وصل للنتيجة دي ازاي. وده ممكن يقول انه بيفترض سذاجة اللي بيقرأ او ان مفيش مساحة في الكتاب للرغي الكتير والشرح عشان الحوار كبير ويطول شرحه.
علي كل حال الكتاب بداية كويسة لاي حد مهتم بأصل فكرة الشر في العالم واي حد خلقه واسع وبيحب يدور ورا اللي بيقراه.

[Bernard Corwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s basically a long argument that Satan isn’t an original cosmic villain, but a patchwork built out of older myths, symbols, and scare tactics that worked well enough to keep people in line. Graves jumps across ancient religions, astronomy, language quirks, and theology to show how the Devil slowly took shape over time rather than appearing fully formed.

The book really isn’t about Satan so much as it’s about how authority gets built. Hell and eternal punishment come off less like divine truth and more like administrative tools designed to scare people into obedience. Graves treats similarity as guilt, piles on examples, and never really slows down to consider softer explanations. The tone is confident to a point of smugness.

It’s uneven, dated, and occasionally feels like a guy who’s very pleased with himself proving a point, but it’s weirdly effective. You’re less worried about whether the Devil exists and more aware of how easily fear, repetition, and tradition turn into unquestioned power. Even if you don’t buy every claim, the method sticks with you, and that’s kind of the point.

[John Sharkey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun little time capsule. Not only of the history of the pagan origins of the Satan as a persona and instrument of priestly corruption, but also quaint snapshot of the post-enlightenment language that tackled anything metaphysical or religious. An incredible pithy naysaying of priests, pagans and preachers that pulled the cobwebs away from the entrances of more dark alleys than provided answers. Many a clever quip and twirl o’ the fencing foil for our man Kearsey Graves. TALLY-HO BELIEVER! I’m keeping score on this here scientific chalkboard next to my Galileo pop doll and

Whether or not Kearse makes a mountain of reasonable assertions or plain old facts, Humans need a Satan. The sack of potatoes needs a Sun King. They need a the boogie man that masquerades as the cessation of willpower when in fact it is their own conscience that is horning them in the ass. If there were no final and endless punishment waiting for them, why not steal the garlic from Woolworths at the self check out or have sex with a goat? What is stopping this from being ultimately unacceptable and not just a breaking of the social contract? A: The Cloven One and his little helpers that’s who. Not for guys like me though. I have read Beyond Good and Evil, I am smart and perfect. Very humble and good looking. Thanks for reading. Keep going? I’m tired.

I would recommend reading this book if only for the fun of composing unhinged answers to all 160-so gotcha-question that comprise the final chapter. Read them in a Dwight Schrute and gather the whole family around the fire. Please invite me over too, I’ve got a few bangers. Email me your submissions. Honestly as I type this, if you’re game I’d love to make this happen if only to continue the journey this brief sojourn into smarminess has taken me on and abruptly stranded me! THREE STARS WILL READ AGAIN.

[Father of Harlots · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book for its time would’ve been really pretty radical from my gathering of history, not so much that we’d have a burning at the steak situation on our hands, it lands a bit later than that but it was so refreshing to read that the philosophies that I live by were historically documented and people were thinking this way prior to modern Satanic movements. Though the book has a lot of comparison with the zodiac signs and I’m not 100% sure on the accuracy of some of these connections, I really appreciated the thought process and the imagination of the author. Again the first few chapters are really quite amazing considering that there’s not much literature at this time that was being focused on this subject matter, especially in this particular way. The de-Vilification of Satan is really prevalent here, taking us back in time and tracing the origins of the adversary and showing us that not all is what it seems. Again my favourite part of the book was definitely the first few chapters or even the introduction, it certainly shows where some of the bigger players in Satanic Thorpe got their inspiration from, maybe even their last public name? (If you know, you know!). Couldn’t recommend this book enough for someone who wants to look at historical Satanism, even if this isn’t 100% accurate. I still think it’s a fantastic read and I’ll be excited to read some more pieces by this author.

[Supra Dee · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was written in 1924 and reprinted. The Author try’s his best to explain that devil is made up, however he does a very bad job in doing so. The Author does and not realize arrival of Satan or demons in someone’s reality is a personal one like I learned. Yes Lucifer/Satan exists. Another thing he mentions is why all superstition have the devil in them but science cannot find no evidence...I can easily answer this, the reason is no science equipment or technology can never prove existence of God or Satan or Jesus Christ, only you can prove it with your personal experience. The tries to discredit the Christian Faith , why is so many similar stories in Chinese, India, Egypt with good care bad , Heaven and Hell that predates Christian Bible...that is an easy one to answer it is cause Satan has been here a long time before arrival of Jesus Christ, Satan already knew Jesus was going to come thousands of years before Jesus came, so Satan and his false holy trinity stories made up many false like Jesus prophet stories for thousands of years as much as possible in Persia, Egypt, China, India and etc to cause confusion for back then, and even more now... Sadly Satan 100% exists, the only way to heaven and no more confusion is Jesus Christ. Surrender to Jesus at all cost

[Arantxa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an interesting book to read when you look at it for what it is. I wasn’t sure when it had been written when I started it, but it soon became clear it was not recent, since it doesn’t meet modern academic standards. Be aware that this was written before peer review was required for a work to be academic in nature. Not all sources are cited. Once you understand that the book was not written to meet rigorous standards we have in place now, you can start to read it in a constructive way.

The questions that are brought up to challenge the acceptance of the belief in Satan and Hell are valid questions, though not original to the author. Even though thought provoking questions are brought up, there is minimal exploration of their complex nature— I think this is evident when you suddenly get to the end of a chapter and realize how short it was.

Overall, I don’t recommend reading it. There are reasons we have peer review in place now, and one of those is so we don’t end up presenting something narrow and undeveloped like this book. I’ll have to continue looking for books that explore these questions in a better way.

[Mohamed · Rating 2 out of 5]

Any rating above 2 stars rating for me is a generous, non deserved credit;

* Plenty of references with considerably weak correlations.
* Faith and philosophy are two universes whose marriage would hopefully provide a fruitful chunk of solutions for most of world human, mental and psychological disorder. Hence, you can’t be closer to shallowness than understanding while embracing such paradox.
* The repetition of a pattern doesn’t solidify the correctness of its basis. It just proves its seduction since the same experiment is getting repeated over years with less than a considerable development regarding the faith and religion perception. It could be argued that religion has been used for less than noble causes, yet it is immature to conclude that it has been solely created for such reason. Nor the devil as a whole.

A good read. Yet lacked the good argument.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up. goes hard for a book allegedly written in the 19th century.

however, the idea that this book was written by kersey graves and published in either 1865 or 1880 seems dubious. swing on over to wikipedia to discuss further, i added a section to kersey graves' talk page, but i can't find any reference to this book prior to the 1924 '4th edition.' call me a conspiracy theorist but i think this might be pseudobiographical

edit: i found pictures of a 12th edition from 1880 so now i don't know what to believe

[Iami Menotu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decent content but written unapealingly

[Yousef Sharaf · Rating 2 out of 5]

كتاب كفكرة حلو جداً ولكن بيكرر نفس المعلومة كتير

[Marisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dry but still oddly funny. Not what you want it to be, but still interesting.

[Matt Stepka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kersey Graves was simultaneously a rationalist and atheist, but also a spiritualist. The book similarly contains some fantastic arguments, as well as some ridiculous and absurd claims. Overall reading this book was a rollercoaster since anything worthy he said, was completely dispelled by the next page.

This book is full of reductive points, contradictions, and strawman arguements. It consistently belittles the existence of God by calling him imaginary and refering to believers as ignorants holding superstitious beliefs, all while saying that this book is not about ridiculing the Christian Bible.

Nevertheless, Kersey does manage to present sound arguments against the physical existence of Hell and eternal suffering - Biblically, philosophically, and historically.

Ultimately, I think that his harsh reaction towards Christianity could be understood especially in the 19th Century. His main argument against God was presented by the similarities between Christian and 'Pagan' doctrines and prophecies. He elaborates on varied cultures - Greeks, Egyptians, Hindus, Buddhists, Romans, Persians - without considering a universal truth that doesnt dispell, but supports and develops one another.

Interesting yet painful read

P.S. its really funny reading work from a "rationalist" and a "man of science" from the 1850s

[Pat D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The seeker of truth!

This is a magnificent read, anyone who is a student of religion should read this book! I find the language refreshing, so much of today's books lack...style and seem to be copied and pasted. If you are a true seeker of the truth and have an open mind READ THIS BOOK! Follow the trails, the sources, you will soon feel as if you are Indiana Jones searching for the lost ark!
Truth is where you find it!