By Adrian Faraj
A statue of the Devil has been unveiled in Ceará. It is not the first in Brazil, nor the only one in the world.
The Devil is humanity's adversary. How can this phenomenon be explained: worshipping who hates you?
In a world where corruption, perversion, and lies reign - and where modernity is conflated with the abandonment of morality and ethics, the glamorized decadence and the impulse for auto-destruction is almost inevitable.
LEFT: Statue of Lucifer erected in Gravataí, in the Porto Alegre Metropolitan Area (Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil), in August 2024. RIGHT: 11 meters tall. A statue of the devil in São Gonçalo do Amarante, Ceará, Brazil. Designed and funded by a woman who calls herself Mother Queen of Darkness.
In recent years, Brazil and the world have witnessed a worrying phenomenon that is becoming increasingly common in both public and private spaces: the construction of large-scale monuments dedicated to the figure of the Devil.
The case in Ceará — where an 11-meter statue was unveiled amidst intense public controversy — joins similar episodes in Rio Grande do Sul and international movements, such as the installation of Baphomet images by organizations like The Satanic Temple in the United States.
Immediate public reaction ranges from the moral panic of religious groups to passionate defenses of the secular state and freedom of expression.
However, far beyond social media sensationalism and clickbait headlines, a much deeper and more uncomfortable question arises: what kind of mindset drives individuals and groups to seek to worship—or erect monuments to—that which represents their own enemy?
THE ETYMOLOGY OF "DIÁBOLOS": THE DIVIDER OF HUMANITY
To understand the gravity of this cultural symptom, it is essential to move past pop-culture clichés and return to the roots of words. Language reveals the essence of a concept.
The word "devil" originates from the Greek diábolos (διάβολος), a term formed by combining dia- (through, separation) and ballein (to throw, to cast).
In its literal and philosophical definition, the diábolos is "one who casts something between two things to separate them" — the divider, the slanderer, the agent of discord and fragmentation.
In the Hebrew tradition, the word Satan (Šāṭān) conveys the idea of the "adversary" — the accuser who opposes harmony and life.
The Devil, in his archetypal and historical definition, is neither a neutral entity nor a "symbol of freedom"; he is the personification of the principle that destroys the social fabric, severs connections, and causes the collapse of human empathy. He is the antithesis of the common good and the avowed adversary of humanity itself.
THE COMMODIFICATION OF REBELLION
Historical illustration of Baphomet by Eliphas Levi (1854)
Modern proponents of these manifestations often label the veneration of such figures as an act of "political rebellion," "individual freedom," or "intellectual provocation." However, under rigorous hermetic and historical analysis, this argument quickly falls apart.
The Western occult tradition was never reduced to a grotesque cult of evil. Historical figures in magic and hermeticism sought complex systems for understanding the universe:
When Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) drew the famous figure of Baphomet in the 19th century, he did not create an image for the worship of evil; rather, he crafted a complex hermetic symbol focused on the balance of opposites (light and shadow, masculine and feminine, the dense and the subtle).
Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), with his doctrine of Thelema — while presenting a philosophical quest aimed at realizing the unbridled "Individual Will" ("Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law") — remains far removed from the simplistic caricature of devil worship.
Reducing centuries of arcane study to an 11-meter, carnival-esque statue — adorned with horns and a trident to incite public scandal — reflects neither intellectual support nor cultural advancement. Above all, it reveals a symbolic illiteracy and a profound ignorance of the very sources these groups claim to represent.
True art and authentic rebellion are born of a sincere confrontation with the pains of human existence — not from a childish resort to aesthetic shock.
THE MARKET OF SUPERSTITION
If there is no philosophical substance, what drives the proliferation of these monuments? The answer lies in a very old dynamic, now wearing new guises: the exploitation of despair and ignorance.
The use of the iconography of dread serves the same commercial function as the worst forms of religious charlatanism throughout history:
1. The Promise of Shortcuts: It sells the illusion of material power.
2. The Business of Shock: Scandal generates free media coverage, attracts the unwary, and turns fear and a fascination with the morbid into a profitable business.
3. It sells and fosters the worst inclinations of human nature like personal revenge or the destruction of adversaries.
This is the "capitalism of superstition", where faith (or its inversion) ceases to be a spiritual quest and becomes a mere product for rapid, aggressive consumption.
CIVILIZATIONAL SUICIDE: THE WORSHIP OF THE VOID
The British historian Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975) formulated a famous thesis regarding the fall of great empires: "Civilizations do not die by murder; they commit suicide".
Centuries of history show that a society collapses not when it is invaded, but when it loses faith in its own values, in its memory and its capacity to create the beautiful and the virtuous.
The novel Submission (2015), by French writer Michel Houellebecq, accurately portrays this state of spiritual exhaustion in the contemporary West: a hyper-developed culture, yet one gripped by such profound apathy and existential emptiness that it accepts any form of dogmatism simply because it lacks the strength to defend itself.
The building of monuments to the "divider"— to the diabolos — in public spaces is the aesthetic symptom of this cultural suicide:
A living, proud civilization erects cathedrals, universities, and monuments to science, art, and human achievement.
A dying civilization, incapable of proposing goodness or beauty, begins to worship its own decomposition.
It is not merely a matter of identifying with external destruction; it is the visible manifestation of a collective impulse toward self-destruction.
Faced with a world perceived as corrupt, bankrupt, and hypocritical, the individual — bereft of support and solid points of reference — succumbs to the nihilism of venerating the very force that dehumanizes.
SOCIETY'S MIRROR
The statues made of concrete, metal, and fiberglass that make headlines are merely the tip of the iceberg.
They are physical projections of a process that has already taken place in the realm of ideas and emotions.
The true diabolos — division, hatred, cynicism, and the commodification of others' suffering — has long been at work within the social fabric and structures of power.
Recognizing these monuments as symptoms of a sickened collective psyche and cultural illiteracy is not a defense of the opposing religious fanaticism, but an imperative for mental sanity.
In an age that celebrates fragmentation and the absurd, refusing to worship the void — and choosing instead to reclaim truth, reason, and human dignity — becomes the only truly rebellious act.
SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY CONSULTED
Do Ceará a Madri: estátua do Diabo entra para lista de monumentos que retratam Lúcifer no mundo; veja lista
G1. August 03, 2026
https://g1.globo.com/ce/ceara/noticia/2026/08/03/do-ceara-a-madri-estatua-do-diabo-entra-para-lista-de-monumentos-que-retratam-lucifer-no-mundo-veja-lista.ghtml
CROWLEY, Aleister. The Book of the Law (Liber AL vel Legis). York Beach: Samuel Weiser, 1976.
HOUELLEBECQ, Michel. Submissão. Tradução de Rosa Freire d'Aguiar. São Paulo: Alfaguara, 2015.
LEVI, Eliphas. Dogma e Ritual da Alta Magia. São Paulo: Editora Pensamento, 1993.
TOYNBEE, Arnold J. A Study of History (Abridgement by D.C. Somervell). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
LIDDELL, Henry George; SCOTT, Robert. A Greek-English Lexicon (Definição etimológica de *διάβολος* e *διαβάλλω*). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
