In the first of four talks on the Devil and his disciples, author and journalist Gavin Baddeley traces the evolution of Evil, from the dawn of civilisation, to the Middle Ages. Gavin’s unusually qualified, as an ordained Reverend in the Church of Satan, so this event promises to offer a fresh perspective on the matter. ‘The Problem of Evil – why there is cruelty and suffering in the world’ is a question that’s exercised generations of theologians and philosophers. The Judeo-Christian solution involves creating a cosmic scapegoat in the shape of Satan. It’s a view that has the advantage of simplicity, but one which has created its own problems.

Gavin takes us back to the roots of Abrahamic faith, and further to the cultures that preceded it, in search of the genesis of the Prince of Darkness. What does – or more significantly doesn’t – the Bible have to say on the matter? Did other creeds have their own equivalents? Are our demons merely the lost gods of forgotten faiths? The Middle Ages saw the Church triumphant, and the clergy record a world unified by belief in God and dread of the Devil. But what did our ancestors really believe? Plumbing the shadows thrown by the Church reveals a myriad of strange stories, blasphemous cults, and heretical thinkers, expressing sympathy for the Devil during Europe’s darkest days…

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