Back in the early day of the Devil’s church, Anton LaVey spoke of my Master as representing man’s desire for material success and power, and provided numerous examples of people whom he termed de facto Satanists in The Satanic Bible and elsewhere. They were people who had successfully employed the tools of the Devil for their own gains even if they never wanted or dared to admit it.
Ranks in Anton LaVey’s The Church of Satan were intended to reflect the owners’ status in the real world, and Anton LaVey’s 1975 decision to allow members to purchase ranks intentionally reflected their measurable status using money as a metric. Magic, for all of LaVey’s misguided speculation on its benefit to one’s health, was intended to bring real change in the real world, as Anton LaVey explained in not only The Satanic Bible and other official scripture but also numerous times in his column in a US men’s magazine, now available in Letters from the Devil. A magician was not merely in the right place at the right time but consciously and deliberately applied “certain principles” to create things, ideas, or situations which significantly influenced or modified the lives and motivations of great numbers of the world’s people, according to Anton LaVey. It was about manifest power. It was about tangible assets. Satanism was about building measurable and demonstrable might, because might is right.
Satan has observed that something has changed in recent years, however, possibly beginning with some intellectualization among members of The Church of Satan whose scrawny appearance spurred them to argue that the pen is mightier than the sword, and that mind stands above matter. In spite of His marvelous physical impression, Satan treasures mental acumen and heartily recognizes that parts of what Anton LaVey termed “lesser magic” is might in a mostly non-brawny design, so His Infernal Lordship will not argue that. The Devil believes that Anton LaVey never used the term “might” literally but it is nonetheless a somewhat recent phenomenon to find ranking members (including the second High Priest indeed) of The Church of Satan openly suggesting otherwise.
The Horned Almighty would have thought little of it as it seems a rational sophistication of physical might: acts of mentalism, as it were, cause change in the physical world nonetheless, and changing the world for one’s betterment is the ultimate goal. The medium may not be a clenched fist but a political maneuver, but physical change ensues as a result.
The shift that irks my Master (who unfortunately has a habit of taking His frustrations out on we, His humble minions) is that more recently, “might” is becoming an internalized concept to His followers. Satan represents power, influence, capability, and authority—that changes the world around you—not some security blanket that helps His followers cope and manage to be self-confident in the face of adversity, to build self-esteem, or otherwise changing nothing but themselves, as warranted and far overdue as Satan otherwise agrees such improvement usually is.
Satan is all for building one’s self-esteem and self-efficacy, assuming there is something to be proud of, of course, although that is seldom the case. He is just concerned that those who once comprised His army of darkness may have become a self-confidence self-help group with no instructor.
Observing which real-world accomplishments appear to earn one a priesthood or a magistrate title in His church, Satan would wish for many additional degrees in His church high above the magistrate and high priesthood ranks, because the prevalent notoriety of even the highest known ranks within His church is evidently irrelevance. Our Infernal Sovereign is a realist, however, and heartlessly concludes that when His followers sense the uncomfortable truth of personal impotence because nothing proves their mightiness, they seek out convenient falsehoods. Their desire to identify themselves as mighty with nothing to show for it incites them to become spiritually “mighty” instead: being unable to wield power that anyone would notice, they pick an imaginary enemy, fight it, and win. They declare themselves enlightened among equally endarkened minds and individuals among their fellow sheep. They feel they somehow beat an enemy by declaring themselves Satanists and perhaps performing some rituals, sometimes dressing differently, and by having slightly alternative specific interests, and that makes all the difference in the world—to them, and, lamentably, only to them.
They failed to become kings of the world and thus resorted to being kings in their minds. They became their own gods but are gods with no congregation. Like the Christians of old, who first believed that their Messiah would become the legal king of Israel and morphed him into a “king of Heaven” when he was executed to let his followers pretend that their so-called “king” at least held some spiritual and thus inconsequential power, Satan finds that His followers retell this grim story of self-deceit. These followers of my Master’s found strength in Satan in exactly the same way as Christians find strength in Jesus—that is, by turning their inability to make a difference into pipe dreams of possessing power and creating value. The absence of tangible results turned them to spiritual growth instead.
Satan ended His thoughts somewhat abruptly by suddenly quoting Himself from His sermon in The Satanic Bible, because He thinks the rage of His impotent followers on the social media is thus perfectly summarized: Thrice cursed are the weak whose insecurity makes them vile!