Truthseeker -
When i was a child, Satan was very real to me. I wasn't hugely fearful at the thought, but sometimes it did bother me, and i occasionally thought i saw the Devil in my dark bedroom at night.
But now, i don't see that Satan exists, except in the minds of those who believe in him. I see that the Devil symbolically represents a person's fear-oriented ego, whereas Saint Michael symbolically represents a person's love-oriented higher self. And when Saint Michael supposedly defeated Lucifer as the story goes, this is symbolic for a person successfully transcending / moving beyond their fear-oriented ego through being centred within the love and deep inner peace of their higher self.
Here's a quote some of you might find interesting, regardless of its source:
"Few people will dispute that in the world of nature everything reacts to an exact law; and physical as these laws seem in their outworking, they all originate from the spiritual universe. There can be no haphazard methods, for nature is very drastic with delinquents. This also happens in the spiritual spheres where the smallest action calls forth an exact reaction. This means that man's thoughts become his creations, that they become like angels of good and evil to him; so that when he views his life from some higher plane of existence, he well realizes the disastrous nature of those mental creations of his - of gloom, depression and selfishness - which were and are his mental children.
"This has affected me deeply since my arrival here, for I was wont to create such characters, scenes and word-pictures. Mine was a vivid imagination; and, while I gave forth many a picture of joy, homeliness and beauty, my pen also depicted scenes of crudity, ugliness, crime and horror. While recognizing that such pictures may by their very contrast teach their lesson, on the other hand creations of ugliness and terror are apt to live on in men's minds, and fill them with violent and unhealthy vibrations. Now I gaze down into the lives of men and women who have been considerably influenced by me for either good or ill. This I tell you only to illustrate the lesson.
"Some day every man will attain either the joy or the terror of seeing the effect of his creations, beautiful or the reverse; no matter whether they are merely fictitious characters or actual conditions of life resulting from actions of his which have considerably influenced the lives of others. He will then see his own personal contribution, be it positive or negative, to the collective whole." -- Arthur Conan Doyle, from the "after-death" state, as channeled by a medium