Le Monde des religions, March-April 2005 —
Whether the devil exists or not is irrelevant. What is undeniable is that he is returning. In France and around the world. Not in a spectacular and dramatic way, but in a diffuse and multifaceted manner. A multitude of signs point to this surprising comeback. Cemetery desecrations, more often satanic than racist in nature, have multiplied worldwide over the past decade. In France, more than three thousand Jewish, Christian, or Muslim graves have been desecrated in the last five years, double the number in the previous decade. While only 18% of French people believe in the existence of the devil, those under 24 are the most numerous (27%) in sharing this belief. And 34% of them think that an individual can be possessed by a demon (1). Belief in hell has even doubled among those under 28 in the last two decades (2). Our research shows that significant swathes of teen culture—goth, metal music—are steeped in references to Satan, the quintessential rebel figure who opposed the Father. Should we interpret this morbid and sometimes violent world as simply the normal manifestation of a need for revolt and provocation? Or should we simply explain it by the proliferation of films, comics, and video games featuring the devil and his acolytes? In the 60s and 70s, teenagers—and I was one of them—sought to express their difference and rebellion more through a rejection of consumer society. Indian gurus and the ethereal music of Pink Floyd fascinated us more than Beelzebub and hyper-violent heavy metal. Shouldn't we see in this fascination with evil a reflection of the violence and fears of our time, marked by a breakdown of traditional values and social bonds, and by a profound anxiety about the future? As Jean Delumeau reminds us, history shows that it is during periods of great fear that the devil reappears. Isn't this also the reason for Satan's return to politics? Reintroduced by Ayatollah Khomeini when he denounced the Great American Satan, the reference to the devil and the explicit demonization of the political opponent were taken up by Ronald Reagan, Bin Laden, and George Bush. The latter, moreover, was simply drawing inspiration from the considerable resurgence in popularity enjoyed by Satan among American Evangelicals, who are increasing their exorcism practices and denouncing a world subjected to the forces of Evil. Since Paul VI, who referred to the "smoke of Satan" to describe the increasing secularization of Western countries, the Catholic Church, which had distanced itself from the devil a long time ago, is not to be outdone and, as a sign of the times, the Vatican has just created an exorcism seminar within the prestigious Pontifical University Regina Apostolorum.
All these clues warranted not only a proper investigation into the return of the devil, but also into his identity and role. Who is the devil? How did he appear in religions? What do the Bible and the Quran say about him? Why do monotheistic religions have a greater need for this figure who embodies absolute evil than shamanic, polytheistic, or Asian religions? Furthermore, how can psychoanalysis shed light on this figure, on his psychic function, and allow for a stimulating symbolic reinterpretation of the biblical devil? For if, according to its etymology, the "symbol"—sumbolon—is "that which unites," the "devil"—diabolon—is "that which divides." One thing seems certain to me: it is only by identifying our fears and our "divisions," both individual and collective, by bringing them to light through a demanding process of awareness and symbolization, by integrating our shadow side—as Juliette Binoche reminds us in the illuminating interview she granted us—that we will overcome the devil and this archaic need, as old as humanity itself, to project our own untamed impulses and anxieties of fragmentation onto the other, onto the different, onto the foreigner.
(1) According to a Sofres/Pèlerin magazine poll from December 2002.
(2) The values of Europeans, Futuribles, July-August 2002)