Prey For The Devil Quotes

Prisons are the temples where devils learn to prey. Every time we turn the key we twist the knife of fate, because every time we cage a man we close him in with hate.

I have seen Tasmanian devils battle over a carcass. I have seen lionesses crowding a kill, dingoes on the trail of a feral piglet, and adult croc thrashing its prey to pieces. But never, in all the animal world, have I witnessed anything to match the casual cruelty of the human being.

I don't believe in man, God nor Devil. I hate the whole damned human race, including myself. I preyed upon the weak, the harmless and the unsuspecting. This lesson I was taught by others: might makes right.

If you do not pray, you easily become a prey!

[the Devil]... stands waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions that see their prey, and expect to have it...

Over the souls of men spread the condor wings of colossal monsters and all manner of evil things prey upon the heart and soul and body of Man. Yet it may be in some far day the shadows shall fade and the Prince of Darkness be chained forever in his hell. And till then mankind can but stand up stoutly to the monsters in his own heart and without, and with the aid of God he may yet triumph.

She was apt at hunting, a naturally trained bird of prey who would beat the game and always bring it back to the hunter. And speaking of the devil … It

With the suddneness of a cat leaping upon its prey, he leaned forward and caught up her wrist. "Tread lightly, Miranda Fair." His thumb moved lightly over her fluttering pulse, as she stared with her mouth assuredly hanging open in shock, her heart beating furiously within her breast."You know, it's never wise to tempt the devil." His gaze lowered to her hand, still locked in his grip, her fingers glistening with pear juice. "Had I not this mask, I should be of a mind to suck that juice right off of your fingers.

as a bird swoops down on it's prey, and assumes this land bound wretch into heaven, so did romeo steal her lips before they fled him again. suspended somewhere between cherubs and devils, his quarry ceased to buck, and he spread his wings wide and let the rising wind carry them off across the sky, until even the predator himself had lost every hope of returning home. within that one embrace, [he] became aware of a feeling of certainty he had not thought possible for anyone - even the virtuous. with her in his arms, all other women, past, present, and future, simply ceased to exist.

That Monk mocks. Challenges. It’s the same old issue with the idealists. They judge the devil, and people call them the humans of light. However, the Mesmerizer agrees little with the Monk. The Mesmerizer will prove that even a monk may fall prey to the devil. He knows that man will try to avoid the dark path. He knows that man will try to stay a purist.

The devil is everywhere, sir. Those who believe otherwise fall prey to his wiles.

Idleness and luxury are the devil’s jackals, and find him abundant prey.

Prisons are the temples where devils learn to prey.

the uneducated grow up to be prey!

The devil is outrageous only against prayer, and those that exercise it; because he knows it is the true means of taking his prey from him. He lets us undergo all the austerities we will. He neither persecutes those that enjoy them nor those that practice them. But no sooner does one enter into a spiritual life, a life of prayer, but they must prepare for strange crosses. All manner of persecutions and contempts in this world are reserved for that life.

Christians must not be slothful. Idleness is the devil’s bath; a slothful person becomes a prey to every temptation. Grace, while it cures the heart, does not make the hand lame. He who is called of God, as he works for heaven, so he works in his trade.” - Thomas Watson

You will always be the prey or the plaything of the devils and fools in this world, if you expect to see them going about with horns or jangling their bells. And it should be borne in mind that, in their intercourse with others, people are like the moon: they show you only one of their sides. Every man has an innate talent for . . . making a mask out of his physiognomy, so that he can always look as if he really were what he pretends to be . . . and its effect is extremely deceptive. He dons his mask whenever his object is to flatter himself into some one’s good opinion; and you may pay just as much attention to it as if it were made of wax or cardboard. —Arthur Schopenhauer

The devil is outrageous only against prayer, and those that exercise it; because he knows it is the true means of taking his prey from him.

I have not snares around thee cast; Thyself hast led thyself into the meshes. Who traps the Devil, hold him fast! Not soon a second time he’ll catch a prey so precious.

When Gabriel was about Ivo's age," the duchess remarked almost dreamily, staring out at the plum-colored sky, "he found a pair of orphaned fox cubs in the woods, at a country manor we'd leased in Hampshire. Has he told you about that?" Pandora shook her head, her eyes wide. A reminiscent smile curved the duchess's full lips. "It was a pair of females, with big ears, and eyes like shiny black buttons. They made chirping sounds, like small birds. Their mother had been killed in a poacher's trap, so Gabriel wrapped the poor th-things in his coat and brought them home. They were too young to survive on their own. Naturally, he begged to be allowed to keep them. His father agreed to let him raise them under the gamekeeper's supervision, until they were old enough to return the f-forest. Gabriel spent weeks spoon-feeding them with a mixture of meat paste and milk. Later on, he taught them to stalk and catch prey in an outside pen." "How?" Pandora asked, fascinated. The older woman glanced at her with an unexpectedly mischievous grin. "He dragged dead mice through their pen on a string." "That's horrid," Pandora exclaimed, laughing. "It was," the duchess agreed with a chuckle. "Gabriel pretended not to mind, of course, but it was qu-quite disgusting. Still, the cubs had to learn." The duchess paused before continuing more thoughtfully. "I think for Gabriel, the most difficult part of raising them was having to keep his distance, no matter how he loved them. No p-petting or cuddling, or even giving them names. They couldn't lose their fear of humans, or they wouldn't survive. As the gamekeeper told him, he might as well murder them if he made them tame. It tortured Gabriel, he wanted to hold them so badly." "Poor boy." "Yes. But when Gabriel finally let them go, they scampered away and were able to live freely and hunt for themselves. It was a good lesson for him to learn." "What was the lesson?" Pandora asked soberly. "Not to love something he knew he would lose?" The duchess shook her head, her gaze warm and encouraging. "No, Pandora. He learned how to love them without changing them. To let them be what they were meant to be.

Say you strike a Forty-barrel-bull—poor devil! all his comrades quit him. But strike a member of the harem school, and her companions swim around her with every token of concern, sometimes lingering so near her and so long, as themselves to fall a prey.

Another point of difference between the male and female schools is still more characteristic of the sexes. Say you strike a Forty-barrel-bull—poor devil! all his comrades quit him. But strike a member of the harem school, and her companions swim around her with every token of concern, sometimes lingering so near her and so long, as themselves to fall a prey.

What are the fifty newspapers, which those precocious urchins are bawling down the street, and which are kept filed within, what are they but amusements? Not vapid, waterish amusements, but good strong stuff; dealing in round abuse and blackguard names; pulling off the roofs of private houses, as the Halting Devil did in Spain; pimping and pandering for all degrees of vicious taste, and gorging with coined lies the most voracious maw; imputing to every man in public life the coarsest and the vilest motives; scaring away from the stabbed and prostrate body-politic, every Samaritan of clear conscience and good deeds; and setting on, with yell and whistle and the clapping of foul hands, the vilest vermin and worst birds of prey.

The dark leaden mask hides the devil with a soul of deceit, with his warm syrupy vacuous words coercing, enticing and grasping with exposed sharpened claws, scratching slow at his prey's surface with bullet pointed precision, inserting the slow hot mercurial poison of falsification of love straight into the flowing veins of the succumbing vulnerable heart. The prey’s wanton escape futile, isolated & drawn into the hot fiery abyss.

From the same twelfth-century bestiary, we learn that the hedgehog is covered with spikes and curls itself into a ball for protection; that the fox is a 'fraudulent and ingenious animal' that plays dead in order to catch its prey; that cranes move about in military formation; that the serpent called 'basilisk' can with the power of its glance; that the lynx's urine turns into a precious stone; that lions are compassionate and courageous, and that the eyebrows and manes offer a clue to their disposition. Finally, many (but not all) entries go on to draw a moral or make a theological point on the basis of the animal description. The hedgehog is an example of prudence, the crane of courtesy and responsibility. The fox is employed as a type of the devil, who entices carnal man through fraudulent behavior. And the male lion, breathing life into its stillborn offspring after three days, represents God the Father raising Christ from the dead.

Nature is not like those bad poets, who, in setting a fool or a knave before us, do their work so clumsily, and with such evident design, that you might almost fancy you saw the poet standing behind each of his characters, and continually disavowing their sentiments, and telling you in a tone of warning: This is a knave; that is a fool; do not mind what he says. But Nature goes to work like Shakespeare and Goethe, poets who make every one of their characters—even if it is the devil himself!—appear to be quite in the right for the moment that they come before us in their several parts; the characters are described so objectively that they excite our interest and compel us to sympathize with their point of view; for, like the works of Nature, every one of these characters is evolved as the result of some hidden law or principle, which makes all they say and do appear natural and therefore necessary. And you will always be the prey or the plaything of the devils and fools in this world, if you expect to see them going about with horns or jangling their bells.

Lucinda and Mr. Wiley were returning at last, and she ran to Lucinda, hastily stepping around the black horse, who laid his ears back evilly in warning. “Lucy!” she burst out while Lucinda waited calmly for Mr. Wiley to help her down. “Lucy! Disaster has struck.” “A moment, if you please, Elizabeth,” said the unflappable woman. “Whatever it is, it will surely wait until we’re inside and can be comfortable. I declare, I feel as if I were born atop this horse. You cannot imagine the time we had finding suitable servants…” Elizabeth scarcely heard the rest of what she was saying. In a torment of frantic helplessness she had to wait while Lucinda dismounted, limped into the house, and sat down upon the sofa. “Now then,” said Lucinda, flicking a speck of dust off her skirts, “what has happened?” Oblivious to the vicar, who was standing by the fireplace looking mystified and alarmed on her behalf, Elizabeth handed Lucinda the note. “Read this. It-it sounds as if he’s already accepted him.” As she read the brief missive Lucinda’s face turned an awful gray with two bright splotches of angry color standing out on her hollow cheeks. “He’d accept an offer from the devil,” Lucinda gritted wrathfully, “so long as he had a noble title and money. This shouldn’t come as a surprise.” “I was so certain I’d persuaded Belhaven that we couldn’t possibly suit!” Elizabeth almost wailed, twisting her blue skirt in her hands in her agitation. “I did everything, Lucy, everything I told you about, and more.” Agitation drove Elizabeth to her feet. “If we make haste, we can be home by the allotted time, and perhaps I can find a way to dissuade Uncle Julius.” Lucinda did not leap to her feet as Elizabeth did; she did not race for the stairs, dash into her room, and vent her helpless rage by slamming a door, as Elizabeth did. Her body rigid, Lucinda stood up very slowly and turned to the vicar. “Where is he?” she snapped. “Ian?” the vicar said distractedly, alarmed by her pallid color. “He’s gone hunting.” Deprived of her real prey, Lucinda unleashed her fury upon the hapless vicar instead. When she finished her tirade she hurled the crumpled note into the cold fireplace and said in a voice that shook with wrath, “When that spawn of Lucifer returns, you tell him that if he ever crosses my path, he’d better be wearing a suit of armor!” So saying, she marched upstairs.

APRIL 30 EXECUTE JUDGMENT AGAINST MY OPPRESSORS MY CHILD, HEAR my words, for I am the Lord your God. I will execute judgment in the morning and deliver those who have been plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. I will punish them according to the fruit of their doings and will judge them according to My righteousness. I will hold you up in mercy, and in the multitude of the anxieties within you, My comfort will delight your soul. I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away. I will bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick. I will make a covenant of peace with you and cause showers of blessing to come down in your season. You will know that I am the Lord who has broken the bands of your yoke and delivered you from the hand of those who oppressed you. JEREMIAH 21:12; EZEKIEL 34:16, 25–27 Prayer Declaration Father, because I am Your sheep, You will deliver me from all the places where my oppressors have scattered me. You will feed me in good pasture and shelter me on the high mountains of Your grace. I will no longer be a prey for the wicked but will dwell safely, and no one will make me afraid. For You are my Lord, and You have broken the yoke of oppression and delivered me from my oppressors.

whose red painted faces flash from out their peltry wigwams; for leagues and leagues are flanked by ancient and unentered forests, where the gaunt pines stand like serried lines of kings in Gothic genealogies; those same woods harboring wild Afric beasts of prey, and silken creatures whose exported furs give robes to Tartar Emperors; they mirror the paved capitals of Buffalo and Cleveland, as well as Winnebago villages; they float alike the full-rigged merchant ship, the armed cruiser of the State, the steamer, and the beech canoe; they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as direful as any that lash the salted wave; they know what shipwrecks are, for out of sight of land, however inland, they have drowned full many a midnight ship with all its shrieking crew. Thus, gentlemen, though an inlander, Steelkilt was wild-ocean born, and wild-ocean nurtured; as much of an audacious mariner as any. And for Radney, though in his infancy he may have laid him down on the lone Nantucket beach, to nurse at his maternal sea; though in after life he had long followed our austere Atlantic and your contemplative Pacific; yet was he quite as vengeful and full of social quarrel as the backwoods seaman, fresh from the latitudes of buckhorn handled Bowie-knives. Yet was this Nantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits; and this Lakeman, a mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed, might yet by inflexible firmness, only tempered by that common decency of human recognition which is the meanest slave's right; thus treated, this Steelkilt had long been retained harmless and docile. At all events, he had proved so thus far; but Radney was doomed and made mad, and Steelkilt—but, gentlemen, you shall hear.

What?' He cried, darting at him a look of fury: 'Dare you still implore the Eternal's mercy? Would you feign penitence, and again act an Hypocrite's part? Villain, resign your hopes of pardon. Thus I secure my prey!' As He said this, darting his talons into the Monk's shaven crown, He sprang with him from the rock. The Caves and mountains rang with Ambrosio's shrieks. The Daemon continued to soar aloft, till reaching a dreadful height, He released the sufferer. Headlong fell the Monk through the airy waste; The sharp point of a rock received him; and He rolled from precipice to precipice, till bruised and mangled He rested on the river's banks. Life still existed in his miserable frame: He attempted in vain to raise himself; His broken and dislocated limbs refused to perform their office, nor was He able to quit the spot where He had first fallen. The Sun now rose above the horizon; Its scorching beams darted full upon the head of the expiring Sinner. Myriads of insects were called forth by the warmth; They drank the blood which trickled from Ambrosio's wounds; He had no power to drive them from him, and they fastened upon his sores, darted their stings into his body, covered him with their multitudes, and inflicted on him tortures the most exquisite and insupportable. The Eagles of the rock tore his flesh piecemeal, and dug out his eyeballs with their crooked beaks. A burning thirst tormented him; He heard the river's murmur as it rolled beside him, but strove in vain to drag himself towards the sound. Blind, maimed, helpless, and despairing, venting his rage in blasphemy and curses, execrating his existence, yet dreading the arrival of death destined to yield him up to greater torments, six miserable days did the Villain languish. On the Seventh a violent storm arose: The winds in fury rent up rocks and forests: The sky was now black with clouds, now sheeted with fire: The rain fell in torrents; It swelled the stream; The waves overflowed their banks; They reached the spot where Ambrosio lay, and when they abated carried with them into the river the Corse of the despairing Monk.

So you’re saying,” I interjected, “that there is no organized, conspiratorial evil in the world, no satanic plot to which we fall prey?” “None. There is only human fear and the bizarre ways that humans try to ward it off.” “What about the many references in sacred texts and scriptures to Satan?” “This idea is a metaphor, a symbolic way of warning people to look to the divine for security, not to their sometimes tragic ego urges and habits. Blaming an outside force for everything bad was perhaps important at a certain stage in human development. But now it obscures the truth, because blaming our behavior on forces outside ourselves is a way of avoiding responsibility. And we tend to use the idea of Satan to project that some people are inherently evil so we can dehumanize the ones we disagree with and write them off. It is time now to understand the true nature of human evil in a more sophisticated way and then to deal with it.” “If there is no satanic plot,” I said, “then ‘possession’ doesn’t exist.” “That’s not so,” Wil said emphatically. “Psychological ‘possession’ does exist. But it is not the result of a conspiracy of evil; it is just energy dynamics. Fearful people want to control others. That’s why certain groups try to pull you in and convince you to follow them, and ask you to submit to their authority, or fight you if you try to leave.” “When I was first drawn into that illusory town, I thought I had been possessed by some demonic force.” “No, you were drawn in because you made the same mistake you made earlier: you didn’t just open up and listen to those souls; you gave yourself over to them, as if they automatically had all the answers, without checking to see if they were connected and motivated by love. And unlike the souls who are divinely connected, they didn’t back away from you. They just pulled you into their world, the same way some crazy group or cult might do in the physical dimension if you don’t discriminate.” Wil paused as if in thought, then continued. “All this is more of the Tenth Insight; that’s why we’re seeing it. As communication between the two dimensions increases, we’ll begin to have more encounters with souls in the Afterlife. This part of the Insight is that we must discern between those souls who are awake and connected with the spirit of love and those who are fearful and stuck in an obsessive trance of some kind. But we must do so without invalidating and dehumanizing those caught in such fear dramas by thinking they are demons or devils. They are souls in a growth process, just like us.

The words and ways this requires are…potent. They come at a price—power always does. This isn’t a matter of wrong or right, you understand, but merely the working of the world. If you want strength, if you want to survive, there must be sacrifice.” That’s not what Mags taught them. You can tell the wickedness of a witch by the wickedness of her ways. “So who paid your price?” He bends his neck to look directly at her, weighing something. “A fever spread through my parents’ village that first winter.” The word fever rings in Juniper’s ears, a distant bell toiling. “It was nothing too remarkable, except the midwives and wise women couldn’t cure it. One of them came sniffing around, made certain deductions…I took her shadow, too. And the sickness spread further. The villagers grew unruly. Hysterical. I did what I had to do in order to protect myself.” That line has smoothed-over feel, like a polished pebble, as if he’s said it many times to himself. “But then of course the fever spread even further… I didn’t know how to control it, yet. Which kinda of people were expendable and which weren’t. I’m more careful these days.” The ringing in Juniper’s ears is louder now, deafening. An uncanny illness, the Three had called it. Juniper remembers the illustrations in Miss Hurston’s moldy schoolbooks, showing abandoned villages and overfull graveyards, carts piled high with bloated bodies. Was that Gideon’s price? Had the entire world paid for the sins of one broken, bitter boy? And—were they paying again? I’m more careful these days. Juniper thinks of Eve’s labored breathing, the endless rows of cots at Charity Hospital, the fever that raged through the city’s tenements and row houses and dim alleys, preying on the poor and brown and foreign—the expendable. Oh, you bastard. But Hill doesn’t seem to hear the hitch in her breathing. “People grew frightened, angry. They marched on my village with torches, looking for a villain. So I gave them one.” Hill lifts both hands, palm up: What would you have of me? “I told them a story about an old witch woman who lived in a hut in the roots of an old oak. I told them she spoke with devils and brewed pestilence and death in her cauldron. They believed me.” His voice is perfectly dispassionate, neither guilty nor grieving. “They burned her books and then her. When they left my village I left with them, riding at their head.” So: the young George of Hyll had broken the world, then pointed his finger at his fellow witches like a little boy caught making a mess. He had survived, at any cost, at every cost. Oh, you absolute damn bastard.

You have unfairly tasked me with three very difficult questions. I was very interested in your comments about Christ’s atheism on the cross. That final moment of atheism, that’s something I have never thought about in that way. It’s a very interesting thought because what it really ….it’s an unbelievably merciful idea in some sense. That the burden of life is so unbearable and you see in the Christian passion, of course, torture, unfair judgement by society, betrayal by friends and then a low death. That’s about …as bad as it gets. Right? Which is why it is an archetypal story. It’s about as bad as it gets. And the story that you describe points out that it’s so bad that even God himself might despair about the essential quality of being. Right? Right. So that is merciful in some sense because it does say that there is something that’s built into the fabric of existence, that tests us so severely in our faith about being itself that even God himself falls prey to the temptation to doubt. So that’s…ok now… There is a very large critical literature that suggests that if you want to develop optimal resilience, what you do is lay out a pathway towards somewhere better, someone comes in, they have a problem, you try to figure out what the problem is and then you try to figure out what might constitute a solution. So you have a map. And it’s a tentative map of how you get from where things aren’t so good to where they are better. And then you have the person go out in the world and confront those things that they are avoiding, that are stopping them from moving to that higher place. And there’s an archetypal reality to that, you’re in a fallen state, you are attempting to redeem yourself and there is a process by which that has to occur. And that process involves voluntary confrontation with what you’re afraid of, disgusted by and inclined to avoid. And that’s works. Every psychological school agrees upon that exposure therapy, psychoanalysts expose you to the tragedies of your past, and redeem you in that manner, the behaviourists expose you to the terrors of the present and redeem you in that manner, but there is a broad agreement between psychological schools that that works. My sense is that we are called upon as individuals precisely to do that in our life. We are faced by this unbearable reality, that you made reference to when you talked about the situation on the cross, life itself is fundamentally - and this is a pessimism that we might share - it’s fundamentally suffering and malevolence. But this is I think where we differ, I believe that the evidence suggests that the light that you discover in your life is proportionate to the amount of darkness that you are willing to forthrightly confront and that there is no necessarily upper limit to that. So I think that the good that people are capable of it’s a higher good than the evil that people are capable of. And believe me that I do not say that lightly, given that I know about the evil that people are capable of. And I believe that the central psychological message of the biblical corpus fundamentally it’s that. That’s why it culminates in some sense with the idea that it is necessary to confront the devil and to accept the unjustness of your tortured mortality. If you can do that, and that’s a challenge sufficient to challenge even God himself, you have the best chance of transcending it, and living the kind of life that would set your house in order and everyone’s house in order at the same time. And I think that’s true even in states like North Korea...

At least tell me the truth about Blakeborough,” he said hoarsely. “Do you love him?” “Why does it matter?” His eyes ate her up. “If you do, I’ll keep my distance. I’ll stay out of your life from now on.” “You’ve been doing that easily enough for the past twelve years,” she snapped. “I don’t see why my feelings for Edwin should change anything.” “Easily? It was never easy, I assure you.” His expression was stony. “And you’re avoiding the question. Are you in love with Blakeborough?” How she wished she could lie about it. Dom would take himself off, and she wouldn’t be tempted by him anymore. Unfortunately, he could always tell when she was lying. “And if I say I’m not?” “Then I won’t rest until you’re mine again.” The determination in his voice shocked her. Unsettled her. Thrilled her. No! “I don’t want that.” His fingers dug into her arm. “Because you love Blakeborough?” “Because love is a lie designed to make a woman desire what is only a figure of smoke in the wind. Love is too dangerous.” He released a heavy breath. “So you don’t love him.” His persistence sparked her temper, and she pushed free of him. “Oh, for pity’s sake, if you must know, I don’t.” She faced him down. “Not that it matters one whit. I don’t need love to have a good marriage, an amiable marriage. I don’t even want love.” It hurt too much when her heart was trampled upon. Dom had done that once before. How could she be sure he wouldn’t do it again? Eyes gleaming in the firelight, he said in a low voice, “You used to want love.” “I was practically a child. I didn’t know any better. But I do now.” “Do you? I wonder.” He circled her like a wolf assessing its prey’s weaknesses. “Very well, let’s forget about love for the moment. What about passion?” “What about it?” she asked unsteadily as he slipped behind her. Nervous, she edged nearer the impressively massive pianoforte that sat in the center of the room. “What part does passion play in your plan for a safe and loveless marriage?” She pivoted to face him, startled to find that he’d stepped to within a breath of her. “None at all.” He chuckled. “Does Blakeborough know that?” “Not that it’s any of your concern, but Edwin and I have an arrangement. He’ll give me children; I’ll help him make sure Yvette finds a good husband. We both agree that passion is…unimportant to our plans.” “Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “It certainly aids in the production of those children you’re hoping for. To quote a certain lady, ‘You can set a plan in motion, but as soon as it involves people, it will rarely commence exactly as you wish.’ You may not want passion to be important, sweeting, but it always is.” “Not to us,” she said, though with him standing so close her legs felt like rubber and her blood raced wildly through her veins. “Not to me.” With his gaze darkening, he lifted his hand to run his thumb over the pounding pulse at her throat. “Yes, I can tell how unimportant it is to you.” “That doesn’t mean…anything.” “Doesn’t it?” He backed her against the pianoforte. “So the way you trembled in my arms this morning means nothing.” It meant far too much. It meant her body was susceptible to him, even when her mind had the good sense to resist. And curse him to the devil, he knew it. He slipped his hand about her waist to pull her against him. “It means nothing that every time we’re together, we ignite.” “People do not…ignite,” she said shakily, though her entire body was on fire. “What an absurd idea.” She held her breath and waited for his attempt to kiss her, determined to refuse it this time. But he didn’t kiss her. Instead he fondled her breast through her gown, catching her so by surprise that she gasped, then moaned as the feel of his hand caressing her made liquid heat swirl in her belly. Devil take the man.

Having fallen prey to the intellectualism of modernity, both Christian worship and Christian pedagogy have underestimated the importance of this body/story nexus—this inextricable link between imagination, narrative, and embodiment—thereby forgetting the ancient Christian sacramental wisdom carried in the historic practices of Christian worship and the embodied legacies of spiritual and monastic disciplines. Failing to appreciate this, we have neglected formational resources that are indigenous to the Christian tradition, as it were; as a result, we have too often pursued flawed models of discipleship and Christian formation that have focused on convincing the intellect rather than recruiting the imagination. Moreover, because of this neglect and our stunted anthropology, we have failed to recognize the degree and extent to which secular liturgies do implicitly capitalize on our embodied penchant for storied formation. This becomes a way to account for Christian assimilation to consumerism, nationalism, and various stripes of egoisms. These isms have had all the best embodied stories. The devil has had all the best liturgies.

Another sign of our effectual calling is diligence in our ordinary calling. Some boast of their high calling, but they lie idly at anchor. Religion does not seal warrants to idleness. Christians must not be slothful. Idleness is the devil’s bath; a slothful person becomes a prey to every temptation. Grace, while it cures the heart, does not make the hand lame. He who is called of God, as he works for heaven, so he works in his trade.

MARCH 5 YOU WILL DESTROY ALL ANIMALISTIC DEMONS DO NOT FEAR when the enemy comes after you disguised in the animalistic characteristics of wild beasts and dangerous vipers. If you fight in My power and strength, you will tread on the lion and the cobra, and you will trample the great lion and the serpent. The wild boars from the forest will not be able to ravage you, nor will insects from the field be able to feed on you. I will protect you from the prowling of beast in the darkness, when lions roar for their prey and seek their food. Though the leopard lies in wait near your home to tear to pieces those who venture out, it will not do you harm, for My power in you is greater than all the power of the enemy. PSALMS 91:13; 104:2–21; JEREMIAH 5:6; LUKE 10:19 Prayer Declaration I tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt me. I tread down the wicked; they are ashes under my feet. I rebuke every spirit that creeps forth from the forest. In the name of Jesus I close the door to every demonic rat that would attempt to come into my life.

Sensations were completely different. Like the night she had run free as the wolf, Savannah now had the senses of a bird of prey. Her vision was sharp and clear, her eyes enormously wide. She spread her wings experimentally, then flapped them in the light drizzle. They were much bigger than she had anticipated. It delighted her, and she flapped them harder so she could create a wind, causing waves in the water standing in the patio. Are you having fun? Gregori’s voice held a hint of laughter. This is so cool, lifemate, she answered. Her rapidly beating wings lifted her into the air. The light mist was already passing overhead. The air was warm and heavy with the promise of moisture, but she soared high, reveling in her ability to do so. Gregori’s larger, stronger body dropped over hers, close and protective, guiding her in the direction of the bayou. As high up as they were, the sharp eyes of the raptor could spot the smallest of movements below. Details were vivid and clear. Even colors were different. Infrared vision, heat sensors— Savannah wasn’t certain what it was exactly, but the way she perceived the world was a different and unique experience. She dipped beneath Gregori and soared away from him, turning sideways and circling high above him. In her mind she could hear him swearing. As always he sounded arrogant, elegant, Old World, completely in command. Laughing, she caught a thermal and rode it up over the river. The male dropped down to cover her with his huge wings, fencing her in. Spoilsport! she accused him, her touch in his mind a whisper of lightness, of invitation to join in her fun. You are in a great deal of trouble, ma femme. He knew the threat was empty when he made it; he would give her the world. But why did she have to be such a little dare-devil all the time? Anyone choosing to live with you would have to have a sense of adventure, don’t you think? Her soft laughter played over his skin like music, like the gentle breeze blowing from the mountains in their homeland. Even within the bird’s body, he stirred to life, need and hunger rising to become a part of him. Relentless. Demanding. Savage in its intensity. It was more than simple lust. More than hunger. More than need. It was all of it merged together with a tenderness he had never conceived he could feel. When she was at her most outrageous, her most defiant, that was when his heart melted.

Shakespeare Sonnet XVIII: Twilight Vampires Shall I compare thee to a Twilight brute? Thou art more alluring and far too cute. Thy skin like marble quarried from Carrara's mines, Stands an Augustan temple of flawless white. Thy complexion like gems sparkle in heaven's vault When fair sun rises and bids adieu to Stygian night. Thy teeth, like Wolverine's talons, lie hidden Until primed to pierce their prey. (OMG, you'd be one badass X-Men If only you could work by day). Thy eyes turn crimson like the devil's cock, When upon human blood ye feast. Who can turn their gaze from thee, Not I, nor king, nor priest. So long as mortals can breathe or Children of the Moon can see, Take my love, my freshest blood, which bequeaths immortal life to thee.

MARCH 9 YOU WILL COMMAND THE ENEMY TO LEAVE YOUR CHILDREN ALONE DON’T EVER DOUBT My power over the enemy who would pull your children into a stronghold of evil. I am able to deliver your children out of the hand of the enemy. Even if your sons and your daughters are taken prey, place your hope in Me, and you will not be disappointed. I have given unto you the keys of My kingdom. Whatsoever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; whatsoever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Your children are a heritage from Me, and the fruit of your womb is your reward for faithfulness. Therefore I will hedge up their way with thorns and make a wall, that the enemy cannot find their paths. ISAIAH 49:22–25; MATTHEW 16:19; MARK 10:14–16 Prayer Declaration I command all devils to leave my children alone in the name of Jesus. My children are a heritage from the Lord, and they have been redeemed from every curse. I and the children whom the Lord has given me are for signs and wonders about God. He has established His covenant between me and my seed in all their generations, to be a God unto them and to their seed.

But she’s a ghost. And a demon.” “Might be a closer struggle than otherwise,” Edmund agreed heavily. “But he does have us.” “Oh, good,” said Reggie. And a little voice in the back of her head asked her why they were even bothering to come out. If Janet’s trap had worked, if Colin, the part-dragon, the magician with more than a century of life behind him, was actually in danger, what exactly did Reggie think two mortals and a few lead projectiles would accomplish? She told the voice to remember fables about mice and lions and traps—or was that thorns?—that in setting her trap for large prey, Janet might have left smaller openings unguarded, that there had to be a reason mortals were running so much of the world. Then she told the voice to go to the devil. Then she wished she hadn’t thought of the devil.

The Devil makes easy prey of people who emotionally navigate their lives and marriages

Are you one of those Christians who believe everything you hear from the pulpit without checking it in the Word? Then the devil’s eyes probably light up when he sees you as well. You are the weakest link as far as he is concerned. You are open prey. That is exactly the kind of people the devil is looking to beguile.

Sometimes the muse sits on my shoulder, but most often not I have a devil of a job tempting her back!

The devil must exist because otherwise someone couldn’t be so beautiful and so cruel at the same time.

Our thinking is prey to its own weakness. But even more so, to its own grammar. It takes only a few centuries for the world to change from angels, devils and witches, to atoms and electromagnetic waves. It takes only a few grams of mushrooms for the whole of reality to dissolve before our eyes, before reorganizing itself into a surprisingly different form. It only takes the experience of spending time with a friend who has suffered a serious schizophrenic episode, a few weeks with us, struggling to communicate, to realize that delirium is a vast piece of theatrical equipment with the capacity to stage the world. And that it is difficult to find arguments to distinguish it from those great collective deliriums of ours that are the foundations of our social and spiritual life and of our understanding of the world.

Cullen merely sighed and nuzzled into the breasts presently cuddling him. Really, damp though they were, they were quite lovely, and if a man had to be smothered to death, this was not a bad way to go. He felt something hard nudging his right cheek beside his mouth and realized her nipples had grown hard. She also suddenly stilled like prey sensing danger. Not wishing to send her running with fear, he opened his mouth and tried to turn his head to speak a word or two of reassurance to calm her. "Calm yerself," was what he said. Cullen didn't believe in wasting words. However, it was doubtful if she understood what he said since his words came out muffled by the nipple suddenly filling his open mouth. Despite his intentions not to scare her, when he realized it was a nipple in his mouth, he couldn't resist closing his lips around it and flicking his tongue over the linen-covered bud.

The devil in orbit, always watching his prey.

A man-eater is a rare phenomenon in tigers, those are humongous gentle beings that prey on humans only on dire necessity when humans have completely exterminated their habitat. Give it an inch to walk away, and it will, even with the slightest intimidation or scare, the predatory instinct kicks in and tails wags up with short rushes and terrible roars. To hunt is a nature sport commenced on us but when animals kill us we call it an act of ferocity.

Patience,” Aelin said. She turned to Lysandra. “You know, I bet the men around here would cut out their snarling if you turned into a ghost leopard and snarled back at them.” Lysandra’s brows rose. “Ghost leopard?” Aedion swore. “Do me a favor and never turn into one of those.” “What are they?” Lysandra said. Rowan chuckled under his breath and stepped a bit closer to Aelin. Aedion shook his head. “Devils cloaked in fur. They live up in the Staghorns, and during the winter they creep down to prey on livestock. As big as bears, some of them. Meaner. And when the livestock runs out, they prey on us.” Aelin patted Lysandra’s shoulder. “Sounds like your kind of creature.

We didn’t know what to do. It was as though we were being hunted. Steve went off to the back block of the zoo to try to get his head around everything that had been happening. He built a fire and gazed into it. I didn’t have to think about it. I knew beyond certainty that the most important part of Steve’s life was his family. His children meant everything to him. All of a sudden, my wonderful, sharing, protective husband was being condemned. His crime was sharing wildlife experiences with Robert, exactly as he had done for the last five and a half years with Bindi. The media circus escalated. Helicopters hovered over the zoo, trying to snag any glimpse of the crazy Irwin family. Steve erected shade cloth around our yard for privacy. We soon realized we couldn’t go anywhere. There would be no visits to the zoo, no answering the phone, no doing croc shows. The criticism and the spin continued. I stood by Steve’s side and watched his heart break. I couldn’t believe the mean-spirited, petty, awful people in the world. Editors manipulated film footage, trying to make the croc look bigger or closer to Robert than it actually was. What possible end could that serve? I have seen Tasmanian devils battle over a carcass. I have seen lionesses crowding a kill, dingoes on the trail of a feral piglet, an adult croc thrashing its prey to pieces. But never, in all the animal world, have I witnessed anything to match the casual cruelty of the human being. It was about to get worse. We stepped off a very dark cliff indeed.

[Adso, experiencing a divine allegorical vision] I saw a voluptuous woman, naked and fleshless, gnawed by foul toads, sucked by serpents, coupled with a fat-bellied satyr whose gryphon legs were covered with wiry hairs, howling its own damnation from an obscene throat; and I saw a miser, stiff in the stiffness of death on his sumptuously columned bed, now helpless prey of a cohort of demons, one of whom tore from the dying man's mouth his soul in the form of an infant (alas, never to be again born to eternal life); and I saw a proud man with a devil clinging to his shoulders and thrusting his claws into the man's eyes, while two gluttons tore each other apart in a repulsive hand-to-hand struggle, and other creatures as well, goat head and lion fur, panther's jaws, all prisoners in a forest of flames whose searing breath I could almost feel.

Christians must not be slothful. Idleness is the devil’s bath; a slothful person becomes a prey to every temptation. Grace, while it cures the heart, does not make the hand lame. He who is called of God, as he works for heaven, so he works in his trade.

I remembered. It was the taste of hatred-- my hatred, theirs, the guards', and the world's. Prisons are the temples where devils learn to prey. Every time we turn the key we twist the knife of fate, because every time we cage a man we close him in with hate.

So what can we generalize about Victorian vampires? They are already dead, yet not exactly dead, and clammy-handed. They can be magnetically repelled by crucifixes and they don’t show up in mirrors. No one is safe; vampires prey upon strangers, family, and lovers. Unlike zombies, vampires are individualists, seldom traveling in packs and never en masse. Many suffer from mortuary halitosis despite our reasonable expectation that they would no longer breathe. But our vampires herein also differ in interesting ways. Some fear sunlight; others do not. Many are bound by a supernatural edict that forbids them to enter a home without some kind of invitation, no matter how innocently mistaken. Dracula, for example, greets Jonathan Harker with this creepy exclamation that underlines another recurring theme, the betrayal of innocence (and also explains why I chose Stoker’s story “Dracula’s Guest” as the title of this anthology): “Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will.” Yet other vampires seem immune to this hospitality prohibition. One common bit of folklore was that you ought never to refer to a suspected vampire by name, yet in some tales people do so without consequence. Contrary to their later presentation in movies and television, not all Victorian vampires are charming or handsome or beautiful. Some are gruesome. Some are fiends wallowing in satanic bacchanal and others merely contagious victims of fate, à la Typhoid Mary. A few, in fact, are almost sympathetic figures, like the hero of a Greek epic who suffers the anger of the gods. Curious bits of other similar folklore pop up in scattered places. Vampires in many cultures, for example, are said to be allergic to garlic. Over the centuries, this aromatic herb has become associated with sorcerers and even with the devil himself. It protected Odysseus from Circe’s spells. In Islamic folklore, garlic springs up from Satan’s first step outside the Garden of Eden and onion from his second. Garlic has become as important in vampire defense as it is in Italian cooking. If, after refilling your necklace sachet and outlining your window frames, you have some left over, you can even use garlic to guard your pets or livestock—although animals luxuriate in soullessness and thus appeal less to the undead. The vampire story as we know it was born in the early nineteenth century. As

Environmental historian Valeria Fogleman wrote that perhaps the early Christian colonists saw themselves figuratively as the wolves’ prey based on the New Testament’s anecdote of Jesus sending his followers out as sheep among wolves. Their antipathy and fear toward wolves was a physical manifestation of their spiritual protectiveness, she wrote, for “wolves were considered capable of murdering a person’s soul.” Wolves were also viewed through a religious and cultural lens as animals that made pacts with the devil, thereby garnering them the stigma of being full of trickery and evil. Livestock damages may have been the rational argument for clearing wolves from the woods around settlements, but wolves likely also symbolized a potent religious threat in the minds of some early colonists. The Native Americans did not view wolves so negatively, and some even tattooed images of wolves - along with moose, deer, bears, and birds - on their cheeks and arms, according to William Wood, writing about New England in 1634, described the “ravenous howling Wolfe: Whose meagre paunch suckes like a swallowing gulfe” in a passage that imparts the belief that wolves consumed more prey than was necessary. Wood wished that all the wolves of the country could be replaced by bears, but only on the condition that the wolves were banished completely, because he believed wolves hunted and ate black bears. He also lamented that “common devourer,” the wolf, preying upon moose and deer. No doubt, the colonists wanted the bears, moose, and deer for their own meat and hide supplies. Yet Wood also observed the wolves of New England to be different from wolves in other countries. He wrote that they were not known to attack people, and that they did not attack horses or cows but went after pigs, goats, and red calves. The colonists seemed to believe the wolves mistook calves that were more coppery colored for deer, so much so that a red-colored calf sold for much less than a black one.

It proved what the Vicar said, that there really was a devil lurking in the shadows in the dark recesses of the human mind, a monster preying on the defenceless, the old and the young, small boys and old ladies, the raving lunatics turned onto the streets for some care in the community. It really was shocking, as though the world was going mad, people turning in on themselves and falling prey to wicked thoughts.

He had become the lion and Sean was his prey.

What does it say about us when, at Mass, we sneer at the mothers of crying children or at couples with many children? The devil is a patient predator who studies his prey and knows well our weaknesses. Cultivate a vigilant, virtuous, valiant heart.