I have been on a strange research journey in the past few months, ever since the spirit cooking and pizza gate events, i have probably accumulated over hundreds of hours of research and ours spend contemplating about this, trying to understand why would someone do something like that or what their motivation might be.
I am not sure if the Devil actually exist as an entity, i guess nobody can really be sure all the evidence that prove that it does are mystical experiences. Like someone having a near death experience and having a very lucid dream. Or maybe the Devil is just an archetype, it is a story that exemplify a common dynamic that can happen in someone life. So what we can learn from the Devil?
The Devil is often portrayed as possessing a great amount of physical strength and magical powers that defies the realm of normal physics we mortal are forced to obey. Yet he almost never directly uses his power to get what he wants from the people of which souls he will torture. It rather relay on seducing them in to sin.
Why would an entity that is so strong and powerful never uses direct force to take what he wants? I can tell you for sure that it is not honor or empathy, because this are not necessary characteristics of the Devil.
He reason talks and treys to convince them to voluntarily make a deal, this is why we have the archetype of the contract with the Devil. That describes the apparition of the Devil in someones life whenever he experience some difficulties or is experiencing a low. The Devil takes various appearances, not necessarily a humanoid with red skin hoofs and horns holding a pitch fork that is just an artistic interpretation of the concept of the Devil. The Devil can take the form of almost anything that is material like a car, a beautiful women or a piece of property etc.
He is attempting to convince his victim to make an unfair deal, often symbolized through the metaphor of a contract with hidden and unfair clauses trough which you exchange your soul for immediate material pleasure.
It is hard to define the soul because we know almost nothing about it, so what are you really trading for material pleasure. If you undervalue something it is easy to be fooled and give it up for almost nothing. Similarly the way the native Americans did, they traded massive amounts of gold and land for almost nothing because they didn't understand how rare this things were for other people. Not only they suffered but generations after generations that followed them after those deals still suffer.
So what are you trading?
By choosing immediate pleasure when life gets hard, you are not practicing virtue, and when you lack virtue it is hard to be loved by others, because love is an involuntary response to virtue. Also by stop trying because the adversity that unavoidable happens in your life, you now have no chances of success and because you lack effort and drive it is almost impossible to be happy. You are basically trading your chance at having true love and happiness for pleasure.
There is an interview with Anton LaVey the founder of the Satanist Church, interviewed by Joe Pyne. Where at the question "are you planing in training a lot of little devils" he answered: "only the one who wish to become little devils", further in the interview he goes on to say that the purpose of satanism is to provide opposition, and offer the people that are unhappy an alternative to a way to live their live. He also makes various claims to pleasure and hedonism as being freedom.
The Devil wants something that it is impossible to take from you, your freedom this is why he doesn't uses force because through force he would never take something that is impossible to take. This is why he is trying to confuse and deceive his victims. Freedom is never lost, because there is always some options and choice you can have in your life. It is only when you are confused enough to believe that you are not free you can become a slave. This is why taking something with force is not a satanic concept. As far as i am concerned a contract that claims to take something for you that it is impossible to take has no value. The only thing that maintains the binding is your confusion.
Trading your immediate pleasure for pain is not going to guarantee that you are not going to experience any pain in your life. Pleasure and pain are cyclical, if you feel pain it is almost a guarantee that you will eventually experience pleasure and vice-versa. You are basically trading something that is impossible to avoid like pleasure for your chance of being happy and loved. That is like trading gold for air.
