The indoctrination of Satan and his demons is a tool used to make people comply. It works on one of the most influencing and instinctive emotions, namely fear. Look at the histories of any culture and civilization and you can see how fear in something has motivated that group to perform the even most incredible things, to name a few from the 20th century, The Holocaust, McCarthyism, Racial prejudice, the cold war, Y2K, and now War on Terrorism.Some of the fears can be true, some can be based on a truth and some are made up. But all, if convincing all are extremely powerful.
The fear of Satan and demons is, in part, fear of the unknown. Nobody has ever seen Satan or one of his demons but millions of people are terrified by the prospect. You could say that it is an irrational fear. One of the best methods for overcoming the fear of the unknown is to acquaint yourself with it. I'm not suggesting you should paint you nails black and sacrifice a goat while listening to Megadeath, but research their origins.
Here's a few to get you started I found through google:
Satanism:
In the Middle Ages, the concept evolved to articulate Satanism as sort of an opposite number to the Catholic Church. At this point, Satanism became a fishy notion. In the eyes of the church, as detailed in literature related to Witch Trials and the Inquisition, Satanism was structured specifically as the opposite of the Church. It possessed its own sacraments, all of which were evil opposites of the Catholic sacraments, and it performed dark rites such as the Black Mass, which was a backwards parody of the Catholic Mass. One variation of the mass, recorded in James Frazer's The Golden Bough, a compendium of the world's occult practices, was called the Mass of Saint-Secaire:
Lucifer:
The scholars authorized by ... King James I to translate the Bible into current English did not use the original Hebrew texts, but used versions translated ... largely by St. Jerome in the fourth century. Jerome had mistranslated the Hebraic metaphor, "Day star, son of the Dawn," as "Lucifer," and over the centuries a metamorphosis took place. Lucifer the morning star became a disobedient angel, cast out of heaven to rule eternally in hell. Theologians, writers, and poets interwove the myth with the doctrine of the Fall, and in Christian tradition Lucifer is now the same as Satan, the Devil, and --- ironically --- the Prince of Darkness.
Devil:
In fact, the very words "demon" and "devil" have been vilified in just such a way. Before cultural judgment turned these words into something wholly other than their original meaning, both words represented entities that were considered sacred and holy. The word "devil" comes from the Sanskrit/Hindi word "deva," which refers to the good angels of the Hindu pantheon. The root of both "devil" and "deva" means "divine." It was only after Zoroaster and the Persians conquered Hindu territory that they felt compelled to make the Hindu gods into devils! Thus, the Hindu devas became the Persians devils.
Demon:
The word "demon" comes from the Greek word "daimon" or "daemon," which originally referred to beings of divine, godly nature - gods, not evil spirits. "Daemon" was also corrupted and changed into having a evil connotation through the same religion-making process. It had nothing to do with an accurate discernment of any genuine evil spirit. It was simply Christian Propaganda used to brainwash the followers of the Greek and Roman religions into rejecting their old gods in favor of the newly created Christian character. Look at the greek god Pan or Roman god Faunus and see the reference to the medieval images to portray Devils and demons.
And here's what The Bible for idiots says:
Surprisingly, most of what people believe about Satan does not come from the Bible. For instance, the common image of Satan as a forked-tailed horned demon with a goat's body from the waist down derives more from the Greek god Pan than anything biblical. What, then, does the Bible say about Satan?
The Hebrew name Satan (pronounced sa-tan) actually means "adversary," and most often in the Hebrew Bible it is prefaced by the direct object, meaning "the adversary" rather than a distinct personal name. Satan's role grows more developed both in scope and magnitude through time, and, thus, in the earlier writings of the Hebrew Bible, Satan exists not so much as an individual character but as an adversarial position occupied by both humans and angels.
For example, the word satan is used for a human potential adversary in the Philistine army (1 Samuel 29:4), and two kings God raises to be Solomon's adversaries (1 Kings 11:14, 23). An angel of the LORD is called satan when he blocks the path of Balaam (Numbers 22:22, 32). Satan becomes more developed as a character in later writings of the Hebrew Bible, though he only appears a few times. He at times causes humans to do bad things, as he incites King David to conduct a census (1 Chronicles 21:1).
Satan also acts as a heavenly prosecuting attorney, bringing charges against sinners before God's heavenly court. For example, in Psalm 109:6 the author asks Satan to bring an enemy to trial. Also in Zechariah 3:1-2, Satan stands at the right hand of an angel to bring charges against the High Priest. Satan has a similar role in the opening chapter of Job, where he appears in the heavenly court with the sons of God to bring charges against Job.
In the New Testament, Satan plays a much larger role. Here Satan, also frequently called the Devil (from Greek diabolos, also meaning "adversary") is a proper name for the one who opposes God. Satan is also identified in the New Testament with the deceitful serpent in Eden, as well as many other names including Belial, the evil one, the ruler of the demons, the enemy, the ruler of this world, and Beelzebul (Beelzebub, meaning "Lord of the flies," is a pun on the name Beelzebul, meaning "Prince Baal").
Many scholars attribute Satan's development from an adversary to the archenemy of God to the influence of the Persian religion Zoroastrianism. This religion is a lot like Star Wars, in which two opposing forces, one good and the other evil, struggle for control of the universe. Yet, the New Testament preserves the Hebrew Bible's notion of Satan as far inferior to God and needing to get God's permission before "raising hell" on earth (see, for example, Luke 22:31). Following the biblical period, Medieval theologians reinterpreted passages such as Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, in which Babylonian and Phoenician kings are condemned for pride, as descriptions about Satan. In fact, the name Lucifer comes from a Latin translation of Isaiah 14:12, in which the Babylonian king is linked to a fallen Morning Star, called in Latin lucern ferre ("bearer of light").
Happy reseaching
Steve