Scholars of religion enjoy relating the story of an indigenous, coastal people which is strongly reliant on the gifts from the sea. They are a fishing people, and like any indigenous tribe, they believe in a variety of gods and demons. And like any indigenous tribe, they have been the target of study by anthropologists and other scientists.
Anthropologists noted that for the most part the tribe was relatively pragmatic regarding its mythical entities. The fishermen would perform their required rituals before setting off to the sea, and then while they sailed close to the shore, the navigated according to visible landmarks and the stars. A peculiar thing would happen if the fishermen became trapped at sea in a storm or lost sight of land, however: instead of leaning on rational attempts to find their bearings, they instead began to perform magical rituals and implore the gods to save them and the demons of the sea to spare them. They did probably the last thing a sensible person would do in a time of crisis.
Satan does consider their behavior to be immensely silly but hesitates to attribute it to the generally lacking knowledge of primitive peoples. After all, when good Christians from developed countries find themselves on a plane that has engine trouble, they begin to pray instead of locating the nearest emergency exit, finding the life-jacket if above sea, re-reading the safety pamphlet in front of them, and paying careful attention to the cabin crew. As tempting as it may be, the Devil does not attribute their behavior to stupidity either, because religious people are otherwise as intelligent as normal people. Poor intelligence would have manifested itself in many other unfavorable and readily observable forms in addition to religious behavior and belief. Old Nick asks His followers to understand that they are barking up the wrong tree when they explain superstition as mere stupidity.
The odd behavior of our fellow tribal fishermen is not intended to solve a precarious situation but to feel in control. Psychologists have coined the term “locus of control,” meaning the degree to which an individual believes to be in control of events in his or her life as opposed to believing to be at the mercy of external forces. When lost at sea or on a crashing plane, it is not difficult to understand that one is prone to realizing that the outcome is determined by forces beyond one’s control. When the locus (the “perceived location”) of control becomes external, your brain is prone to persuading you to regain control by appealing to those same external forces instead of relying on your own ability to manage the situation.
Locus of control is a key component of depression, along with some other psychological models, because part of the depressive spiral is the conviction that everything is hopeless: there is nothing you can do, and no-one can help you. Satan thinks this insight helps explain why, statistically, believers are less prone to depression than atheists, because by creating an illusion of control through prayer, belief, and other ritualistic or ceremonial behavior, believers have a method—a pipe dream as it may be—that makes them feel better because they believe they have (some) control of the uncontrollable.
The desire to resort to magic is thus prompted by a feeling of being powerless. Satan finds this to be an interesting observation regarding those of His followers who insist that magic is real and who feel compelled to perform magic rituals. Satan is convinced that these followers keenly feel that they have very little power in the real world if they truly believe that magic works and thus warrants their time and effort above tangible action and honest work. My Master spoke briefly with Anton LaVey, who mentioned the Balance Factor as a yardstick for one’s magical potential. He reportedly said that if one’s real world powers are limited then one’s magical success will be equally limited, but the Devil thinks His followers are unaware of this correspondence.
“Please do not get this wrong,” says my Master of All Things Evil. Satan does not mind rituals at all, especially not when He is summoned to a particularly lively performance. Rituals, regardless of religion, are intentionally “irrational” and employ mythical settings that one pretends to believe in—and, with some practice, can honestly believe in—during the performance of the ritual. Then afterwards the participants should preferably regain their mental bearings and be fully aware that the magical workings were complete bunk that has no effect on anything but the participants’ mindsets. It is only if a participant still afterwards believes that the magic worked that Satan thinks the participant should have his or her mind checked. In that sense, Satan agrees with the seventh of the “11 Satanic Rules of the Earth” which proclaims that you will lose all you have obtained if you deny the power of magic that you have called upon with success: you will lose your illusion of being in control and will have to come back to the verity of the real world.