Benjamin John’s Reviews > Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World > Status Update

Unfortunately in this book he seems to indulge his personal grievances, stating that Satre’s politics are indicative of some sort of moral bankruptcy.

It holds a judgemental tone, very freely mixing his opinions with the history, rather than working through critiques in a more seperate manner which he had done previously.

It can seem at times we are reading his letter about why he doesn’t like Vatican II

Russel is a conservative Christian, but he has been pretty fair mostly. But as predicted when we approach the current day he absolutely loses the fucking plot, heavy metal is low level evil propaganda.

The foremost exploration of the devil and he doesn’t engage.

I cannot emphasise enough that when he talks about Satanism (even if you accept his loose definitions) he is talking about approximately 100 people.

The analysis of various different authors is interesting, but I do wonder how, without having always been tied to specific traditions of foreshadowing their influences, how they quite articulate the history of Devil in thought.

A fascinating chapter which really speaks to the beginning of the devil employed how I’m most familiar; as entertainment, stripped of theological meaning. That the Romantics took the devil as a symbol and configured him in a variety of ways, often without traditional meanings.

I commend Russell on being even handed in dealing with these topics, not reaching for terms like Satantic, as much as he disapproves

I appreciate how Russel emphasises not just the change beliefs, where skepticism begins to again a foothold, but also the increasing emphasis on material production, the desire to extract and throw away that which cannot easily be demonstrated to extract.

It does nicely to setup Milton as an aberration, the last gasp of a full throated devilism in a world which increasingly sidelined that influence.

Does really well to introduce the Protestant reformation, while ultimately seeking to enforce focus on the semi-parallel current of individualism which informed the idea of the devil far more than any theological developments or schisms

Again, it doesn’t quite feel like he does justice to the witch craze.

I think it could have been split into chapters, with the theological taking one half and literary the other.