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PULLMAN'S DEMONOLOGY

Pullman is not content to simply diminish the glory of God and lead children to believe that rebelling against Him and siding with Satan is beneficial. He journeys further down the slippery slope and makes it appear as though a child's contact with demonic beings is attractive, normative and even necessary. In Pullman's retelling of the fall, everyone has his or her own "daemon" (pronounced demon). Daemon is simply the Greek word for demon or devil. Pullman recast the fall in such a way that one realizes their godhood through demonic possession. He rewrites Genesis as though consciousness of ones deification comes from the revelation of ones personal demon:

"And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and your dæmons shall assume their true forms, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

"And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to reveal the true form of one's dæmon, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they saw the true form of their dæmons, and spoke with them.

"But when the man and the woman knew their own dæmons, they knew that a great change had come upon them,… "And that was how sin came into the world," he said, "sin and shame and death. It came the moment their dæmons became fixed.
(Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass, pp. 326-327)

These daemons are there to guide and assist one in making decisions. Of course, many of the daemons in Pullman's story encourage in the rebellion of Satan and the overthrow of God. This is similar to the activity of demonic beings who are in league with Satan as revealed in Holy Scripture. The difference is that Pullman candy coats the demons and puts a friendly and quirky spin on many of them to the point that they become appealing in most cases. In fact, in Pullman's demonology, he makes the demons not only attractive but also necessary for ones success. He portrays them as corporate entities, which are part familial spirit, part animal and part soul. If a demonic being manifests in an ugly and grotesque manner, no worry for Pullman because they are simply manifesting the mood of the person they belong to. By this means, Pullman is able to get children to identify with demonic beings as helpers whom they would otherwise flee in fear.

On Pullman's web site he seeks to normalize demonic possession and spirit guides by claiming that everyone has a demon, "the readers feel as if they've got a dæmon themselves. And my point is that they have, that we all have. It's an aspect of our personality that we often overlook, but it's there."
(http://www.philip-pullman.com/about _the_writing.asp).

It appears that a powerful demon has channeled the very doctrines of devils that the apostle Paul warned would come in the last days through Pullman who admitted to the New York Times that, "So that's why I welcome Halloween…My imagination comes to life only in the presence of the uncanny; the despot I serve is the part of my mind that feels a thrill as fierce and sudden as lust when it encounters a deserted graveyard, or comes on the idea of personal daemons…"
(http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9805E2DF1530F932A05753C1A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2)

Even as Pullman borrows from C.S. Lewis in the beginning of his series with a little girl in a wardrobe who stumbles upon another world, he seems also to take another page out of C. S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters when it comes to his "daemons." In the Screwtape Letters, the senior devil, Wormwood, instructs the junior devil, Screwtape, that they must make their demonic powers seem friendly or innocuous so as to deceive humans into opening themselves up to their wicked and destructive powers in their war against God. Pullman, in his "devilishly inventive" way, not only makes communion with demonic entities attractive to the young, but he also depicts separation from demons as a painful and deadly experience.

Lyra, who plays the part of the new Eve, has her own personal "daemon" and rather than it being an evil spirit, it is presented as a cute and cuddly little creature with plenty of soft fur. If one is severed from ones daemon, we are told, that the person would suddenly die. Thus children are being taught that demonic spirit guides can be cute and cuddly and are an absolute essential if we are to live successful lives. At a time when more and more new agers are introducing children to their "spirit guides," Pullman's, Dark Materials, only bolsters the ongoing deception. Children are being further encouraged to open their hearts and consciences to evil demonic beings that have no other real motive than the glorification of Satan and the destruction of their souls.

Pullman nicknames Lyra's demon, Pan. Pan has long been a depiction of the devil in occult teaching. Satanist, Aleister Crowley, arranged to have his satanic poem, The Pipes of Pan, read at his funeral and Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, lists Pan as another name for Satan under the "Infernal Names" in his Satanic Bible. It is fitting, since Lyra is to be a picture of Eve, that her daemon would have a name that has long been used for the devil.

An advertisement for Pullman's trilogy appearing in, Quality Paperback Book Review, quotes one of the leading characters in Pullman's trilogy, Serafina Pekkala, who happens to be a witch working on behalf of Satan in his quest to murder the God figure, stating, "All the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity. The rebel angels, the followers of wisdom, have always tried to open minds; the Authority and his churches have always tried to keep them closed." Thus we see the perpetuation of the lie that rebel angels are good and only desire us to open our minds. This sounds adventurous until one realizes that Satan wants us to open our minds to his wicked ways in the same way a computer hacker would like us to keep our computers unprotected from viruses so he could reek havoc. God's Wisdom is said to be pure and comes from above while satanic knowledge is based upon deception. No wonder Jesus called Satan the "father of lies" and a "murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44). God's Word warns that the very doctrines of demons that Pullman is propagating would become popular in the last days and even lead believers from the faith:

"The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron" (1 Tim. 4:1-2).

Tragically, we live in a time where parents seem to be at an all time low in discerning spiritual deception. The satanic spiritual realm must be relishing in the fact that deception has become like child's play in these last days.