diabolism

diabolism (countable and uncountable, plural diabolisms)

1. (uncountable) Worship of the devil; Satanism
   • The Witchcraft Reader By Darren Oldridge

     In a small minority of Italian trials, one finds a mixture of charges that cannot be categorized as either sorcery or typical diabolism.

   • "Demon Possession in Elizabethan England - Page 200"

     Such incidents were, of course, interpreted by sympathizers as evidence of saintliness and by opponents as evidence of diabolism.

2. (countable) Character, action, utterances, creative works, behavior or principles appropriate to the devil.
   • "The Fiend's Delight" By Dod Grile

     The atrocities constituting this "cold collation" of diabolisms are taken mainly from various Californian journals.

   • The Railroad Trainman, Volume 17

     What are the teachings we would then derive from communities like that of Guam, simply similar to those found by many travellers with plain groups of men not yet contaminated with the diabolisms of human law

   • An Authentic Copy of the Minutes of Evidence on the Trial of John Smith

     These diabolisms some of the religious negroes had been provoked to retort upon their tempters, in a manner said to be disrespectful ; and for this insolence they have been repeatedly flogged and confined in the stocks

3. (uncountable) Possession by Satan or other demonic forces.
   • 1762, William Warburton, The Doctrine of Grace:

     And this new Donation of the ecstacies of the Saints was a noble foundation for what he was now projecting , the Farce of DIABOLISM and EXORCISMS.
     "Religion and Society in Latin America"

4. (uncountable) The property of having attributes that are demonic or Satanic.
   • By Authors Possessed: The Demonic Novel in Russia By Adam Weiner

     Bely's attribution of an "Ahrimanian" spirit to Petersburg resonates on many levels of the novel, confirming not only that the core of Petersburg is diabolism, but also indicating how that diabolism relates to the novel's sense of its authorship.

   • "Out of the Darkness, Or, Diabolism and Destiny By John Wesley Grant"

     Thus was the Watchman torn from the wall, and diabolism, darkness and desolation were enthroned.

• diabolical

From diabolic +‎ -ism.

diabolism n (uncountable)

1. diabolism