I once had a Sunday school teacher named Brother Jack who commented that Satan was not very clever when it came to coming up alternative names to mask his identity. He referenced his least favorite holiday: Christmas, whose dominant figure these days is Santa Claus. He noted that the letters in “Santa” basically spelled “Satan” if you simply rearranged the order of the final three letters.
Brother Jack made this observation to our Sunday school class around fifteen years ago. Little did I know at the time that I would be making a similar observation today. Today I share with you a couple of examples where evil spiritual entities do not exactly go out of their way to mask their identity.
I began to hear about the dangers of the New Age Movement two years ago this month. It took only a few weeks before I learned about the godhead of the New Age Movement: a spiritual entity named “Sanat Kumara”. When I first encountered this name I immediately thought back to Brother Jack’s statement about Satan not being clever when masking his identity. I quickly figured out that the letters in the name “Sanat” could easily be reorganized to spell “Satan” (just reverse the order of the final three letters of his name).
One major New Age teaching about Sanat Kumara further confirmed that Sanat is really Satan with a really uncreative name. Sanat Kumara is known as the “Lord of the World” to his followers, which is a title that the Bible gives to Satan in John 12:31-32, John 14:29-30, 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, and Ephesians 2:1-3.
- Satan is known as the ruler of this world because he has dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth. This is demonstrated when Satan offered Christ all the kingdoms of the earth and glory if He worshipped him.
Since the time I learned about Satan’s alternative name “Sanat Kumara” I encountered another instance of an evil spiritual entity using a name that is quite similar to a name mentioned in the Bible. There's a UFO cult around a figure named Ashtar (the Ashtar Command), who followers claim oversees the activities of all the UFOs and provides messages to select followers through the unbiblical channeling process. Some people who are aware of Ashtar link this spiritual entity with the deity Ashtaroth (also known as Ishtar and Astarte) mentioned in passages like Judges 2:13and 1 Samuel 7:3-4:
- Jdg 2:13 And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.
- 1Sa 7:3 And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the LORD with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the LORD, and serve him only: and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.
- 1Sa 7:4 Then the children of Israel did put away Baalim and Ashtaroth, and served the LORD only.
It’s quite possible that Ashtar is Ashtaroth. Demonologists link Ashtaroth of the Bible with an evil spiritual being whose known by the same name throughout time.
It’s amazing that Satan or his minion did not bother to significantly alter their names in these instances. Satan is extremely crafty (Genesis 3:1), yet by not choosing to alter his name he risks having his alternate identity publicized by people like me. It seems so uncharacteristic of Satan to be so overt… Perhaps Satan is so prideful that he wants to be worshipped under a name similar to his own.
What is even more amazing is that there are a lot of people who are completely oblivious that they are worshiping Satan or following his minions even though they did not bother to alter their names much from their biblical names. The absurdity shows that a lot of people are not grounded in the Bible or are easily deceived. It’s probably a combination of both.
