King Solomon of Israel captured and contained 72 rebellious demons within a brass vessel. He threw that vessel into a deep Babylonian lake in order to keep others from discovering the power it held. While searching for the treasured vessel, the Babylonian’s broke it, releasing the demons.
Given the sheer evil that exits in the world any attempts to thwart the Devil would seem to have been in vain. This reviled figure has managed to have an impact no matter the gender.
The subject of a True Life Podcast, Anne Hamilton-Byrne wore pearls and Chanel perfume. She played the harp and sang soprano. She had blonde hair, styled in waves that caught the light. As leader of The Family, the Australian doomsday cult she founded in the 1960s, she claimed to be Jesus reborn as a woman.
One of the few female cult leaders in history – and apparently one of the cruellest – Hamilton-Byrne operated in almost total secrecy over two decades. Hidden away in the countryside outside Melbourne, The Family’s motto was “Unseen, unknown, unheard”. The police, acting on information from two child escapees, raided the cult in 1987. It emerged that over the years Hamilton-Byrne had collected 28 children through bogus adoptions and “gifts” from followers, dressing them in identical clothes and bleaching their hair platinum. To keep her eerie brood under her control, they say she subjected them to vicious beatings, starvation and emotional torture.
The Hand of the Devil?
Satan, or the Devil, is one of the best-known characters in the Western traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Surprisingly, this entity was a late-comer in the ancient world. Satan, as a totally evil being, is nowhere to be found in the Jewish Bible. He evolved during the height of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (beginning c. 550 BCE) and was adopted by Jews living under Persian rule at the time. His formal name, Satan, derives from the Hebrew ‘ha-Satan’. ‘Ha’ means ‘the’ and ‘Satan‘ means ‘opposer’ or ‘adversary’.
- Jenny Valentish
- Annie Lock – Missionary
- Rosaleen Norton – Witch of Kings Cross
Waltzing With Matilda's 