The Mimetic Status of the Devil

The Devil is trending. Talk of demons can be heard from Tucker Carlson, theorists on UFOs and AI, right-wing podcasters interviewing exorcists, and the Psychedelic Renaissance aficionados. So I go over what I recently wrote about the devil on my blog: Girard's anthropological interpretation of the Devil as the force behind seduction, conflict, and accusation; the victimary mechanism as the Satanic mechanism, depicted in the story of the Gerasene Demoniac and the parable of Satan casting out Satan; the devil in schizophrenia and in psychedelic experiences.