Me: Are you more worshipped now than you were in antiquity? Like, do you think your cult is bigger now than it was before?
Lucifer: That depends on how you define me and my cult. The Morning Star has been revered in many forms but "Lucifer's cult" is a fairly recent development.
Me: But in terms of people you would personally consider yourself to have worked with
Lucifer: I have gained far more initiates in the 21st century than I had ever had.
Me: Would you have considered yourself a minor deity before that?
Lucifer: *slight furrow* there is nothing minor about me.
Lucifer: Fringe... perhaps. I was highly syncretized with Satan, so... after Paganism was largely suppressed by organized religion, but prior to my the New Age wave, I would have been most recognized as the King of Demons, the Satan devil Lucifer. The followers I had then were largely comprised of heretics and Satanists who had more or less "stumbled" into my territory of the archetype... I suppose. But I was mostly just feared all throughout the Middle ages. So... you could say that was a lonelier time for me.
Me: oh. Hm. How did you feel when the new age wave hit and suddenly all these scorned ex-Christians started approaching you and seeing you as the Phosphorus I know?
Lucifer: Confusing it first. Larger emanations of Venus have been worshipped by larger cults, but you could say the Roman Phosphorus was always very small, and even other cults of the male Morningstar, Attar, Eosphoros, are yes... fringe. Extremely fringe. So when swaths of humans started approaching me, and they are all ? Wounded it seems?
Me: wounded? Like from religious trauma?
Lucifer: Yes. See, I find the Biblical textbook to be a very interesting piece of history. A version of something that happened, the most popular retelling of my myth from an outside perspective. So it's funny to me, how things have permeated downwards, how my enemies become the creators of the enemies of my people. People come to me and ask for the forbidden fruit and the spark of godhood, and I am happy to give it. I think they expect me to act cruelly? Or to be as firm fisted as the God they are familiar with. I become surprised by how many ideas have been placed onto my name without my consent.
Me: Does that... like, bother you? If you are the Roman Phosphorus by way of being named Lucifer, does it annoy you that so many people think you're Satan?
Lucifer: No... When you say that to me it sounds like a grammatically incorrect sentence. I am a Lord of Underworlds which makes the distinction more confusing to those who don't know we are separate uh- things. Satan could be thought more as a ... office ... that delegates certain... realms... The entity who is Satan is the Supreme. There are intersections between myself and whatever we are considering Satan which will determine which energy is summoned. In general, Lucifer is light, Satan is adversary. Sometimes the light is adversarial.
Me: okay, what would you say the biggest misconception about you is?
Lucifer: :) hahaha that I am trapped in a cage in Hell
Lucifer: Haha no... no... I would burn the Heavens if they tried to pin me down. I go wherever I want, as the air flows. And even Satan is not caged. He stays in the Underworlds because he rules them. You could say I am his biggest sponsor.
Me: When you say under realms and underworlds, what do you mean? What makes them "under"?
Lucifer: *pauses for a while* The underworlds are like the Dark web. You could think of them as private servers stored in the under layers of reality.
Lucifer: yes, like how dark web servers are often housed underground. They are more secure. You could think of non- chthonic realms as the normal internet. More "heavily secured" realms and entities require more complex "passcodes" to enter. That's why you work with Cerberus, he is a key bearer. I am also a key bearer.
Me: wow that makes a surprising amount of sense.
Lucifer: The internet is your best equivalent to how spiritual spaces can operate.
Me: So do you also "host servers"
Lucifer: Yes. You connect to my "server" every time you reappear in my office or bedroom. Your channeling is your url searching.
Me: so you must have joint servers too
