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Originally Posted by spiral
i am intrigued that considering satanists or whatever they may be called have been around by definition as long as christiantity that there is so much apparent rejection of there bieng types of knife used by them.l
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Well this is the crux of the matter for me. You say "satanists or whatever they may be called". Once the church gained enough power to rule over large groups of people there most probably arose opposition to their power. The church certainly would consider these people satanist. But they also considered practitioners of any pagan religion satanists. Yet these people were not satanists, that is to say their god or gods were not satan. Certainly these people used knives, but there is not much evidence that they used them in any particular non-Christian rituals. As i mentioned earlier, the dagger as a ritual tool does not really come into mode until relatively recent times, that is, the 19thC. Sure, perhaps a knife would be used in an animal sacrifice, but if this were done in the context of some pagan rite it is unlikely that a knife would be created with such obvious pagan symbolism as to possibly bring down the wrath on the inquisition if such an item were found. Pagans of old were common people who used common tools in ritual ways when it was called for. I have serious doubts that there was much human sacrifice going in Christian Europe, unless, of course, you count the witch burnings and the Albigensian Crusade ("Kill them all...God will know his own"). So i think there is a reason why knives such as these don't seem to appear until the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Age of Enlightenment.
At this time many sercet societies were forming. To the common god-fearing Christian they may have appeared "satanic", but i doubt many of them were. Some, perhaps. There is nothing on any of these knives that couldn't be used by some esorteric mystical lodge whose beliefs, in essence may have even been Christian. Skull and cross bones, snakes,owls images of Pan, none of these point to a satanic origin. ALL of them could be used by a satanist, but so could church regalia if used in a disrespectful manner.
I certainly believe many of these daggers have an occult origin and significance. My argument is that they should not be called "satanic". I suggest "occult dagger" instead. That being said, i would still vote for the "Hunchback" story in regards to your dagger Spiral.