Month: July 2022

Satan thinks His followers missed a slur

Posted on by A lesser demon

Most readers of The Satanic Bible who thought it resonated with them strike the Devil as people who immediately dreamed that one day others would bow before them, for they would be the highest embodiment of human life, then subsequently believed that the path from mediocrity to dominance is paved with a fervent insistence that one is a Satanist, and very little else.

Satan thinks they should re-read their book, because there is much wisdom to be found in it. Maybe one day Satan will explain how to read it or, more likely, He will assign the task to one of his underachieving minions as one of His many forms of recreational damnation.

Returning to the aforementioned readers of The Satanic Bible who take the Devil’s name upon themselves, Satan often hears them assert that they—Anton LaVey and his organization—came first. Before LaVey, Satanism was used exclusively as a slur, and no one had attempted to gather a group, ponder a philosophy, or realize a religious following bearing that name, they say: prior to LaVey, “Satanism” was used as a Christian slur against people whose conducts or beliefs the Christians disapproved of, especially in the US.

LaVey declared “year one” in 1966, and to his followers, that is about when physical time began because otherwise they might have noticed that several groups had existed decades earlier that openly embraced Satan Himself as their godhead. Some remained within the Christian discourse and believed in a literal devil, but others held Him as a symbol and a conduit of magic, quite like LaVey. Satan would know, as He has been summoned in plenty of their rituals, albeit often only to witness yet another attempt at alchemy involving a bowl of molten lead, various toxic chemicals, shiny crystals, and animal parts or human bodily secretions.

At least some of these groups were called Satanists. While those who chose that name for the groups (if a group had not itself settled for the name already) may not have blessed the practices and philosophies of the groups, and while they may not have used “Satanism” as an approving term, it was not the discreditation or accusation for which Christians usually reserve this word. When they—Christians and others—named these groups Satanists, surely it was not meant as a compliment, but considering that the groups honestly sided with Lucifer, it was a largely neutral description comparable to, say, Muslims describing the Jehova’s Witnesses as Christians. It actually fit in a sense that was very different from allegations and castigations of being child-eating cannibals, rapists, violent criminals, sodomites, and subversive decadents (and, in those days, the Jews).

Fast-forward to 1966 when Anton LaVey established The Church of Satan from his local group of occultists. His explanation of Satanism was originally formulated in the so-called “rainbow sheets” that he and his group distributed at seminars and lectures on his philosophy. These sheets made it into The Satanic Bible a few years later in the section “The Book of Lucifer,” with minor modifications. This is where we find out why Anton LaVey called it Satanism.

LaVey wrote surprisingly little about Satanic values or behaviors in The Satanic Bible, unless “The Book of Satan” means much more in practice than an infernal diatribe designed to rattle a few cages but not otherwise to be taken seriously. The Satanic Bible instead teaches us that in the 1960s, many Christians would behave according to their carnal natures—which the reader is assumed to know, despite psychologists struggling to identify and understand it over centuries—but then feel guilty about it. Anton LaVey proposed that man instead follow his carnal nature without guilt. According to LaVey, “they” (the comparatively high-strung Christians) named such ungodly behavior of fellow citizens who, if asked, would have answered truthfully that they considered themselves to be Christians: they named it Satanism. It was a slur aimed at people who would protest such accusations of being allied with the Devil.

Thus, LaVey’s Church of Satan was not the first group to refer to themselves as Satanists, because others had done this before. He also was not the first person to use the term “Satanism” as a non-Christian slur, both because it was used as a description of, not a slur against, the earlier groups of self-declared Satanists, and because the term for what LaVey proposed was in fact, by his own admission in The Satanic Bible, a slur that Christians used against other Christians.

Had LaVey been an educated individual with basic training in scientific method, he would promptly have realized that the observation that easy-going Christians exist and are disapproved of among orthodox Christians does not imply that only the latter are Christians while the former are Satanists. It merely implies that Christianity is not a monolithic entity but a mosaic of many elements (most of which Satan denounces, of course). Alas, what is done is done. Anton LaVey concluded in The Satanic Bible that “Satanism” is defined as the behavior of easy-going American Christians in the 1960s, blissfully unaware that overseas, Europeans viewed even such moderate American Christians, too, as religious nuts.

Satan thinks that, regardless, LaVey deserves credit for reclaiming the term, in the same sense that queers reclaimed a term that had until then been defamatory. He enabled some of the 1960s American Christians to turn it into pride and identity, together with nice black capes and a Baphomet lapel medallion. Satan also thinks that LaVey should be commended for making an attempt to augment their form of Christianity with a long overdue acknowledgment of His Infernal Majesty whether or not they be able to embed a minimal number of demonic principles in their own lives.

Both Anton LaVey and his organization have argued against accusations of choosing the term merely for shock value by rationalizing that it was simply the most fitting term at the time. In another time and place, another term might be more appropriate, their explanation goes. Satan is not altogether convinced that American 1960s Christianity could truly be named Satanism but otherwise agrees with His churchgoers. Satan thinks that His church should indeed apply the term that best describes them according to age, environment, and situation.

Present-day Christians use the term “Satanism” for one of two situations: either they describe truly destructive behavior that real Satanists, too, strongly oppose—although Satanists would use a different label to describe it; or they are fundamentalists to whom anything they disapprove of is the work of the Devil. No-one save zealots would think of using the term “Satanism” about LaVey’s philosophy. In today’s age, the term used by majority Christians would be “bad Christians” or “hypocritical Christians,” if at all they were noticed. Satan thinks it is about high time they change their name to “hypocrites” and leave the definition and practice of Satanism to their betters.

Satan thinks all bad comes from above

Posted on by A lesser demon

Having ruled supreme in Hell for aeons, Satan has learned a thing or two about setting expectations. One cannot effectively lead an army of darkness only through barking orders or threatening with punishment. (The latter will be administered regardless, anyway. After all, this is Hell.) It is important that the infernal hordes know what is properly evil behavior, and there is only one way to teach them: to lead by example. This is why, if you paid attention in church, you know that the Devil is the ultimate evil and fundamental villain, who torments the damned with terminal wickedness, Satan being the worst of them all.

Satan thus does what any business coach and leadership consultant would recommend. They, too, know that organizational values propagate from only one place—the highest-level management. It is the top level that defines the company values and sets the workplace tone; and they do so by precedence not via memos or policy documents because such formalities are secondary (albeit still useful) to proper conduct. A company may have stellar written policies, but it is the behavior of the highest-level management that defines the standard which trickles all the way down to the last employee, causing the same behavior to be found on all levels of the company. This is how herds function.

Employees who find themselves in companies with a toxic senior management layer will find that the entire company is toxic, and that their own behavior becomes toxic or enabling of toxic behavior. Roughly speaking, new employees will either soon support and comply with the unspoken rules of conduct, or they will be harassed or fired unless they choose the only appropriate option of resigning.

It is with such insight in mind that His Esteemed Abomination turns a concerned eye towards His own church on Earth that was once consecrated in His name by Anton LaVey. It seemed an eminently fertile soil for future denizens of our Infernal Empire, but Satan thinks the values of its upper tier do not adequately further His cause.

The first High Priest of The Church of Satan was, of course, Anton LaVey himself. Old Nick thinks he was on to something useful, but unfortunately could not keep his mouth closed about his fascination with the Third Reich. There is no need to suspect that LaVey himself was more right-leaning than most conservatives at his time, but he believed that the Nazis were successful magicians, treasured their aesthetics, felt that they and he shared some objectives, and did not hesitate to be edgy by finding good things to say about Hitler, Satan rest his soul. Satan thinks that although Anton LaVey did not plan or desire the inevitable result of being thus historically unaware and lacking Fingerspitzengefühl, his silly references to the Herrenvolk nevertheless became not so much a dog whistle as a loud, lewd and longing mating signal for neo-Nazis.

Whatever LaVey’s motivation or tactical ignorance may have been, soon The Church of Satan attracted neo-Nazis in droves, and by the late 1980s it was brimming with neo-Nazis in its membership and clergy, who produced neo-Nazi texts, imagery, music, and other projects. New members learned to be accepting of this (but certainly not of leftist or centrist movements) as a condition to be a Satanist, and echoing their behavior was a tacit requirement if one wished to climb the organizational stairs. The last thing one should do was to criticize the neo-Nazi infestation, as it proved disloyalty towards The Church of Satan to thus be a shit-disturber, as Anton LaVey put it.

The next High Priest, Peter Gilmore, had expressed his interest in The Church of Satan in the early 1970s when he wrote to Anton LaVey’s column in a US monthly tabloid. Still an early teenager, young Peter’s Satanic ambition was to lead a group of Satanists and obtain both a free membership and an honorary title in The Church of Satan because he considered himself smart, and because he wanted to make his followers (his word) respect him more. LaVey declined, informing Gilmore that recognition is earned and that he would not reach his personal potential by settling for transitory, unearned “ego-sops.”

Unfazed, Gilmore later joined The Church of Satan and the competing Temple of Set, according to the high priest of the latter who promptly sent Gilmore on his way when it was discovered that he was riding on two horses at once. Peter Gilmore made sure to befriend Anton LaVey as soon as he could afford to travel between New York and San Francisco. Anton LaVey’s partner, Diane LaVey, was the main administrative person in The Church of Satan, and when she divorced her husband, Peter Gilmore was able to fill the administrative void that would otherwise have befallen LaVey himself and his groupie, Blanche Barton. Gilmore and his partner became the official online contacts and representatives of The Church of Satan and for all intents and purposes its de facto leaders until the passing of Anton LaVey.

Both Blanche Barton and LaVey’s daughter, Karla LaVey, desired to be the successor of Anton LaVey, and Peter Gilmore helped facilitate a shared leadership construction that was impossible and, predictably, immediately failed, leaving Gilmore as the fall-back choice—and he now assumed full control as the High Priest of The Church of Satan. Satan tips his hat at the successful take-over, of course. Management by confusion, intrigue, and triangulation requires Machiavellian skills not reserved for everyone.

Peter Gilmore was, and is, no neo-Nazi (nor was Anton LaVey), but had learned the rule of the game. His 1990s and early 2000s kept with the general use of thinly veiled Nazi innuendos, but it did not take long until he ceased to back the neo-Nazi clergy who began to siphon out of the organization one by one, often citing Gilmore as their reason. New values had been introduced by the new High Priest, and they understood that their neo-Nazi dispositions were now perceived as non-kosher by those in charge.

Satan thinks the previous values of The Church of Satan were not specifically neo-Nazi or even fascist. It was through a combination of neglect, a bad choice of agent provocateur (Nazis, that is), and a lacking sense of consequence that neo-Nazism nonetheless became a predominant value by attracting a critical mass of wrong people. Satan is pleased to know that the current values are less so. He certainly demands that His legions of evil fight with stormtrooper courage towards the final cosmic solution, but as the archetypical Adversary, Satan has bad experiences with such convictions whose core ideologies involve the demonization of your opponents and considers their presence in his ranks to be an obvious recipe for disaster.

Satan has no use for the new values introduced by the next High Priest, Peter Gilmore, either, however. Young Peter Gilmore’s late-childhood read-through of The Satanic Bible had apparently instilled in his mind that his identity hinged on becoming a Satanic cult leader, but not for any reasons qualifying as Satanic. Satan thinks that Anton LaVey nailed Gilmore’s motivation in their very first correspondence as a need for ego consolation. He needed to be respected, but instead of earning respect per LaVey’s recommendation, years later he settled for an underachieving job in real life and, gained by befriending LaVey, the intimidating effect that a “Satanic priest,” whether high or low, has on some people. In that first communication, Gilmore had also described his fear, “the greatest Hell imaginable for anyone,” of being remembered by your enemies as a fool, but LaVey did not address this concern. Satan suspects it may have been out of pity, because only people with considerably low self-esteem would feel that belittled, if at all, by knowing their enemies think badly of them. Of all hated beings, The Prince of Darkness would be a sorry mess if such insignificance troubled Him.

The new values introduced by Peter Gilmore in The Church of Satan are, regrettably, a level of grandiose narcissism that lies comfortably within the clinically diagnosable range of personality disorders, and of which Gilmore’s early letter to LaVey is a textbook example. No doctrine, opinion, view, or standpoint is conclusively important as long as one requirement is satisfied: you must either give Peter Gilmore the impression that he is being liked and that he can ultimately sway your opinion if he wants to, or you must be a useful idiot who enables his narcissistic behavior towards others by defending him in spite of what should have been your better judgment.

Before we venture any further, it is important to understand what narcissism is. It is not egoism, which is basically just being a jerk. Narcissism is a compensation mechanism for an intense feeling of insecurity stemming from unusually low self-esteem. The compensation generally takes the form of a grandiose sense of self-importance and an excessive need for admiration, exploitative and superficial relationships that only serve to confirm a positive self-image, a need for control and lack of empathy, a fragile and easily threatened identity whose stability depends on maintaining the view that one is exceptional, blaming others for one’s faults, being unable to take no for an answer, and being deeply afraid of being perceived as wrong or seen as inadequate. Failing to give them their way often triggers a hysterical, sometimes violent, rage. They feel “special” and unique and believe they can only be understood by other special or high-status people. They feel entitled and often believe they deserve better or were overlooked, are envious of others, or believe that others are envious of them; they are preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love. Their attitude towards others is often arrogant and haughty, and they frequently demean, intimidate, bully, or belittle others in order to seem better themselves in comparison.

It is not clear what causes narcissism, but scientists currently tend to agree that a genetic element and a later trauma element together turn a person narcissistic, after which the personality disorder is chronic. Satan thinks that their deep-seated low self-esteem and their compulsive and pervasive self-deceit run counter to the very core of Satanism, and since part of their condition is neurologically hard-wired, Satan thinks that, contrary to Satanists, these Non-Satanists are thus born not made.

Where LaVey had, probably inadvertently, created an organization that attracted neo-fascists and neo-Nazis, Peter Gilmore has propagated values that changed the organization into an environment that nourishes his narcissistic cravings. He uses The Church of Satan as a proxy for his ego: every praise of The Church of Satan feeds his self-esteem, which in narcissists is a perpetually empty hole of starvation. He demands respect, reverence, and for people to be impressed with him. Conversely, no criticism or disagreement can be tolerated, and no mistake can be mentioned because they threaten the very core of his being.

It is why, his ego intertwined with The Church of Satan, he often provides excuses or claims that are quite outrageous: for example, that they have extremely influential and powerful members who all just happen to keep unrealistically secret about it; that Gilmore’s uncommitted slowness and sense of low importance in his processing of membership applications is deliberate, intended to “test” the applicants; and that whenever a formerly appreciated, decorated, or dedicated member leaves, it invariably turns out they were, retroactively, “never really into it,” or never truly understood Satanism.

Through more than two decades as the de facto head of the organization, his demand for positive attention, and his equal terror at even the slightest doubt of his worth, have been institutionalized throughout the organization. He chooses his close associates and enablers of his narcissism based on their willingness to look up to him, and has made sure to make others in high positions feel unwelcome, should they not place him above all else.

The Church of Satan has become an entity of people who have taught one another to demand of everyone the unbounded admiration that Gilmore requires and to attack on sight anything that might leave the slightest dent in their inflated self-regard. What they believe is the proper way to be members of a Satanic organization is, instead, Peter Gilmore’s low self-esteem marioneteering their behaviors (and his!) like a parasite taking control of its host. Satan is impressed—to minds who do not understand organizational dynamics, such herd mentality is indistinguishable from magic.

This environment, shaped to accommodate Gilmore’s narcissism, is an environment that other narcissists readily recognize as conducive to their own narcissism as well. The Satanic Bible, by Anton LaVey’s own admission, already appeals to such undesirable characters, and LaVey considered the damage they do to be a tolerable trade-off, but it was Peter Gilmore who turned The Church of Satan into a self-perpetuating and multiplying breeding ground for them. Even those who are not narcissists by nature will soon learn to act as if they were.

The organization that was once established to create stronger individuals by exploring one’s own strengths is now an organization bent on pretending to have worth by diminishing the efforts of everyone else. True to the nature of narcissists, its claim to fame and accomplishment consists of exaggerating the tiniest of achievements to make the organization seem noteworthy, and first and foremost of demeaning and bullying everyone other than The Church of Satan who appears in the Satanic arena, as well as any true individual within their own ranks who calls the bluff and, as it were, exclaims that the emperor wears no clothes.

Satan has no use for such an organization, which is alive but an empty shell. Satan demands stalwart soldiers with genuine fighting skills for the imminent battle against the hordes of God, not a mob of deluded snowflakes who believe that their petty, verbal party fireworks rain fires of doom upon their foes and that victory is won by declaring that the celestial army is fake angels, all the while sabotaging the Devil’s far superior elite squadrons.