The Devil

Readers enter the realm of the Prince of Darkness, but their journey will be a safe one if they keep within the pages of this fascinating volume. It's an entertaining chronicle that reviews both the legends and the religious beliefs about devils—a vast array of lore that dates back thousands of years and endures to the present day. Here are accounts of the Judeo-Christian Satan as he appears in the Old and the New Testaments. Here too are accounts of the dibbuk, from Eastern European Jewish folklore . . . the Hindu asuras, who are said to be frightening goblinlike spirits . . . Mara, the leader of an army of demons in the Buddhist tradition . . . the powerful jinni of Islamic folklore . . . and even Lilith, a female personification of a devil, believed by some Jewish scholars to have been Adam's first wife and a killer of children. This compendium of demonic information includes true tales of devil worship and witch hunts, as well as quotations about demons from famous literary works, legends from around the world, discussion of demonic imagery, and many atmospheric full-color illustrations.