Various strands -Demons are another order of beings, not always evil, though always other alien and dangerous. And a lot of demon folklore is transformed general folklore. And there is a tradition of condmening Solomon as a great fool rather than a truly wise man because of his use of magic and trafficing with the supernatural. Also there is a Kabbalistic tradition of summoning angels the way you summon demons, but via fasting prayer and purficiation. It is considered extremely dangerous, probably more dangerous than summoning demons.

Same preview as above but on Youtube so w/o other spoilery content.

I KNOW that I just pasted in a large amount of text above, but forgive me, I'm about to do it again.

IIRC, the Adversary is represented in the Job story as actively working for God to test creation, so not the rebellious source of all evil that Christianity later made him out to be.

I recently re-read a Popslash story called Rake at the Gates of Hell by Synecdochic. In it, Lucifer (referred to as Malachai, or Morningstar) is a character. She uses a wonderful analogy when he and Lance are trying to explain why he isn't the "rebellious source of all evil":

"...Lucifer's rebellion wasn't a rebellion at all. Angels don't have free will, not the way that we do. They can make choices, but they can't deny their -- Well. Fate is a good translation for the concept, or destiny, or predetermination. The fall from heaven had nothing to do with the question of accepting Jesus as God's son the way Milton had it. I'm not going to even get into that right now, because we don't have the time, but it basically had to do with the fact that there was a job that needed to be done and someone needed to do it and that someone just happens to be sitting over there and eating the rest of my Oreos; put those down, man." Mal looked innocent. Lance rolled his eyes and continued.

"Before man existed, there was God and the angels, and everything was in perfect harmony. Once man came on the scene, enter the concept of free will, which meant that people -- us -- could choose to reject God and God's plan. It's not a question of good versus evil, it's a question of -- oh, God-consciousness versus non-God-consciousness, and since people who have non-God-consciousness have stepped outside of God's plan for them, someone's got to handle them."

JC frowned. "Handle them how? Is Hell really a place for punishment of sinners, then?"

"No," Lance said, and shook his head, then stopped and bit his lip. "Well, yes and no. Mostly no. That's not really the right question. It's more like -- God's got this plan, right? Think of it like --" Lance's face brightened a little as he hit on the analogy. "Think of a really big symphony orchestra. Everyone's got the sheet music in front of them, and they all know what they're supposed to be playing. And everyone's supposed to be working towards the same goal -- the music -- but some of them don't want to play what's been written down, they want to go off and play what they want to play, and they don't care if it turns the whole thing into just chaotic noise, right? You with me so far?"

JC nodded. Lance leaned forward. "Okay. So God's the composer, right? The one who wrote the symphony. He knows what the end result is supposed to sound like, and he can identify who's not playing what they're supposed to be playing, and he can even figure out what they need to do to get there. If someone's playing the wrong notes because they can't figure out the right ones, he can take them aside, have a few words with them, maybe give them a little more of the score to figure out. But some of the people in the orchestra are playing the wrong notes out of maliciousness, because they resent being told what to play or they want to screw it up for other people, and there has to be someone standing down there in the rehearsal instead of up at the conductor's podium, who can take those people out of it and talk a little bit of sense into them, maybe shake them up a bit. Some people can be convinced that they really do want to play along with everyone after all, and they can go back into the orchestra and keep playing along. Some people just have to be thrown out of the symphony hall. But the guy who's doing the throwing is still working for the composer, because he's part of it too. He's not playing music himself, but he's making sure that the people who are playing the wrong music are taken care of."

(continued...)

( continues...) "Everything involves music for you people," Mal said with a snort, and then held up his hands when Lance glared at him. "What, what? It's a good analogy."

"So what Lance is saying," Chris said, slowly, to Mal, "is that you're really working for God. Have been all along."

"Well, in essence...." Mal trailed off. "It's more complex than that, of course, but Milton's better-to-reign-in-Hell is laughable. I was created in order to fall." JC thought, for half a second, that he saw pain in the other man's eyes. "I always knew it, too. If there is anything I rebelled against, it was this: that the Name allowed me to know beforehand what it was that I would be giving up. Lucifer the Morningstar, captain of the host of angels, first among equals, beloved of the Name. Cherished and loved and respected. Who better to take on such a task? But oh, how I wish it had not been necessary."

Having studied music for years, that whole analogy helped clarify some thought processes for me. I was brought up Roman Catholic; I haven't yet checked to see how it compares/contrasts with that theology.

Oh dear God, that preview is hilarious.

SHOW tonight. and if that preview is any indication, i might pee my pants laughing.

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but the latest Knight Rider started out pretty funny.

We got both a Captain Jack shout out AND the proper pronunciation of Samhain.

icantwaiticantwaiticantwaiticantwait

Sara's here, "Is it time yet? Is it time yet?"

My own little fangirl. I'm so proud.

dang, I was hoping it was Dean in the shower.

Didn't Spike do this to Fred?