I haven't read the book Lewis is talking about so I have little to say about what exactly he means by devil worship, however as someone quite familiar with his work, though long since having left religion myself, I can say that he is not one use a phrase like that merely out of petty spite or to be pejorative, but rather because he thinks it's the best technical description, at least that would fit into two or three words, that reflects this is analysis of the book's themes. Lewis was a medieval and renaissance English scholar before he was a Christian, and his professional work is far the greater portion of his writing and bears at leaat as much on his thinking as did his popular apologetics.
Lewis's model devil, both by his own description and by its depiction when he uses such a character in his fiction, is a kind of well mannered bureaucrat who just happens to be made of such a nature that his sustenance must come from feasting on human souls, and the more miserable his victims are by the experience of being utterly deprived of their individuality by complete and permanent dissolution into the self of this demon, the more pleasure it derives from consuming them. It is essentially inhuman but has no connection with the conventional idea of a monstrous man-bat scampering around with pitchforks and goat themed headgear. Lewis even pointed out, in case anyone missed the allusion, that selfishness of this complete and all-encompassing sort is a territory adjacent to that of sexual desire and conquest, and shares some of its traits. Love becomes a demon when he becomes a god, etc.
The reason this is worth pointing out is that Lewis is reliably consistent with his basic criticism of the modern world as tending toward an excessive and unhealthy elevation of monumental individuality, to the point that some individuals who are in advantaged circumstances to assert their individuality at the expense of others', by outright dominating them, or depriving them of opportunity, happiness, or satisfaction, will certainly do so. and if unchecked will grow just like a cancer, for that's what they are: apex parasites grooming their hosts, suppressing their spirit(ual) energies and curiosity by anesthetizing them with banal distractions this decade, only to drive them into bloody trenches the next. All so that a few can live impossible, unsustainable existences at the pinnacle of human society, of a culture they literally cultivate to keep themselves in rareified and thoroughly selfish power. The portrait Lewis draws of Mr Savage in the Pilgrim's regress is probably the most thorough exploration of this idea, and Lewis in the voice of a character (drudge) who is given one of the more sympathetic, clear eyed and and omniscient perspectives (i.e. the authors own voice) in the book, speaks of him with admiration and even goes off to join his massing armies of Swastici and Marxomanni, "who are all alike vassals of Cruelty."
I didn't mean to imply that Lewis would speak out of "petty spite". Rather that his ability to reason appears to be clouded by his convictions about God and Christianity. For example, the "Trilemma" argument is full of holes and somewhat circular.
I'm still struggling to see how this notion of "devil" relates to the plot (specifically the ending) of Star Maker though. I googled around and did find a Reddit thread which raises the same question and describes the book's ending very well:
> The narrator comes into contact with a Creator of immense power who relates to our universe (and to several other universes that it has created) in the same way that an artist relates to a piece of art, without regard for the suffering of its inhabitants. The Creator is also depicted as pleasantly surprised that its newer universes have begun to exhibit emergent behaviours that were not intended at their conception. At the same time though the Creator is described this way...
> "Here was no pity, no proffer of salvation, no kindly aid. Or here were all pity and all love, but mastered by a frosty ecstasy. ... Love was not absolute; contemplation was. And though there was love, there was also hate comprised within the spirit's temper, for there was cruel delight in the contemplation of every horror, and glee in the downfall of the virtuous. All passions, it seemed, were comprised within the spirit's temper; but mastered, icily gripped within the cold, clear, crystal ecstasy of contemplation."
Perhaps Lewis interprets the idea that love is not absolute, or that the universe's creator is not a loving being, as being tantamount to "devil worship" ?
I have not read the book but from that description it sounds very like what the literal devil worshippers in That Hideous Strength worship (not a creator, but otherwise).
In one of his books (cannot recall which one) he does states that God is to be worshipped because God is good, not because he is all omniscient. He quotes of a story of a viking who says "I go to die with Odin" as sharing the underlying morality.
A dispassionate creator would precisely fit what Lewis thought of as a devil. And celebration of the concept, without any consideration of the horror implied in the subjective experience of the things that have been created, and with no favor for their happiness account as sensate beings, amounts to the creation of a plaything for one's private interests, that just so happens to incorporate the whole spectrum of pleasure along with the whole spectrum of cruelty. Lewis's position, the one that I think let him settle on Christianity as opposed to any other philosophical framework (I strongly suspect he was inches from being a nihilist, mainly had to do with the circle he grew up within) dealing with the hard problem of suffering.
So perhaps Lewis is accusing Stapledon of devil-worship for imagining a world with an uncaring creator?
I would disagree that it obviously celebrates the concept or ignores the horror therein.
I think the problem I'm having is that for me, as a well-established secular person, the concept of "devil" is inherently bound up in Christian context, i.e. on the assumption that God exists and is good etc... . The concept does not easily apply outside of that context, to speculative fiction set in hypothetical worlds. However, I suppose that Lewis interprets everything in the Christian context, whether it is intended or not.
Lewis's model devil, both by his own description and by its depiction when he uses such a character in his fiction, is a kind of well mannered bureaucrat who just happens to be made of such a nature that his sustenance must come from feasting on human souls, and the more miserable his victims are by the experience of being utterly deprived of their individuality by complete and permanent dissolution into the self of this demon, the more pleasure it derives from consuming them. It is essentially inhuman but has no connection with the conventional idea of a monstrous man-bat scampering around with pitchforks and goat themed headgear. Lewis even pointed out, in case anyone missed the allusion, that selfishness of this complete and all-encompassing sort is a territory adjacent to that of sexual desire and conquest, and shares some of its traits. Love becomes a demon when he becomes a god, etc.
The reason this is worth pointing out is that Lewis is reliably consistent with his basic criticism of the modern world as tending toward an excessive and unhealthy elevation of monumental individuality, to the point that some individuals who are in advantaged circumstances to assert their individuality at the expense of others', by outright dominating them, or depriving them of opportunity, happiness, or satisfaction, will certainly do so. and if unchecked will grow just like a cancer, for that's what they are: apex parasites grooming their hosts, suppressing their spirit(ual) energies and curiosity by anesthetizing them with banal distractions this decade, only to drive them into bloody trenches the next. All so that a few can live impossible, unsustainable existences at the pinnacle of human society, of a culture they literally cultivate to keep themselves in rareified and thoroughly selfish power. The portrait Lewis draws of Mr Savage in the Pilgrim's regress is probably the most thorough exploration of this idea, and Lewis in the voice of a character (drudge) who is given one of the more sympathetic, clear eyed and and omniscient perspectives (i.e. the authors own voice) in the book, speaks of him with admiration and even goes off to join his massing armies of Swastici and Marxomanni, "who are all alike vassals of Cruelty."