Day 6: Depiction of Religious Entities in DEVIL’S DESSERT
31 Days of Halloween continues, and here’s a post about my 5th novel, DEVIL’S DESSERT. Different religions have different depictions of God, the Devil and the countless angels and demons. Trying to take them all into account can be a tedious task, but it was well worth it in the end. So just how does a book about demons respect each faith?
In truth, it probably doesn’t. It’s too controversial of a topic to delve deep into it, but I can say I tried to make them all the “real” faith. Though I was raised Catholic, I’ve learned to respect everyone’s beliefs or disbelief. Luckily for me, there is a lot of common ground with which to work here.
This book’s version of “God” and the “Devil” are unique. Instead of calling them those nouns, I described them as the yin and yang of sorts. It is about the eternal war between light and darkness (good and evil). After reading DEVIL’S DESSERT you could come to the conclusion that these entities are not the true God and devil or that they are. It is up to the reader to decide at this point.
Lux Lucis was the name I gave to the embodiment of Light (God). The name is derived from Latin meaning “The One Light”. Tehum, on the other hand, means Darkness, and is the name I gave the dark entity (the Devil). Their goals differ from one another, so they aren’t necessarily good or evil because they must co-exist in order for the universe to continue forward. It would be oblivion without the other, yet only the Light seems to know this.
From Light was created darkness, and from them the angels and demons. For the main angels I took common archangel type characters (Michael, Raphael, Metatron, etc) and had them each as representatives for a heavenly virtue. The same goes for the demons representing vices, only with the demons, common names for the devil were used. In other words, I chose to use the name Satan as the demon of wrath, while Lucifer is an entirely different darkness, both of which are separate from the actual “devil”.
There are other minor angels and demons on each side, but those are not the focus of the story. The war between heaven and hell finally has a grand battle on earth with humanity stuck in between, searching for a way to remain a separate side. While some have chosen a side, our main characters have preservation of the human race in mind. In other words, they are saying “Take your war somewhere else.”
When it came to my depiction of Hell, I relied heavily on Dante’s Inferno for ideas. I always loved the painting and felt that it was as true a representation as could be. I took those ideas and tied them in with the descriptions of hell from the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, and others texts. Then I created the place with my own additional thoughts. We see a moment where Cain is seeking revenge and wants to kill “God”. In order to do so, he must trek through each of the levels of Hell and then Heaven (which quite literally are both embodiments of the individuals fears or bliss).
Purgatory and Limbo are also domains bridging the gaps between those realms and Earth, and they are touched upon as well. Although some extreme believers or non believers would take issue with the way I portrayed certain things, I stand firmly by the proof that you can’t make everyone happy. There were weeks of research into the many religions out there and I really tried to understand the individual perspectives. My respect for them all is my way of delivering my own type of message and that is that we should all be able to coexist peacefully.
This by far was my most difficult book to write because I wanted it to be something special and inclusive for everyone. The novel DEVIL’S DESSERT is available for kindle and in print, via links on the right side of the page. Coming soon will be the graphic comic spinoff DEMONIC ENTITIES.
sCrypt Publishing 