Psychology

Satan thinks godhood is no ambition

Posted on by A lesser demon

Rejecting one’s superiors can have unforeseen, life-altering consequences. Based on His personal experience, Satan would be the first to warn that when dealing with a psychopathic superior, the slightest non-compliance with their demands or failure to adore even their feeblest creations and opinions may ignite a display of wrath of Jehovan dimensions. However, that is often the preferable price if it means leaving behind the fetters of the madman’s mercurial moods.

When Satan learned that, at long last in human history, someone had authored a Bible devoted to His Infernal Majesty, he was delighted to read that one should place no gods before oneself. One’s hopes for change or forgiveness, one’s responsibility, and one’s happiness were no longer to be relegated to a non-existing god. Each human would have to take it upon themselves to fill the role traditionally assigned to God: one was to become one’s own god, recognizing that, ultimately, each individual is the most important being in his or her life, and no god will help.

The Horned One is a great thinker, and He soon remembered that such an enlightened interpretation is not granted to every reader. It was likely not even the author’s intended interpretation. In Satan’s defense, he had just flipped through the book to see where he was mentioned and only later retired for a few hours for a closer read.

Scattered across the book, Anton LaVey explains that gods are human egos that have survived the temporary human body of once exceptionally strong-willed individuals. It is similar to the Christian concept of the human soul if that was not, in fact, what LaVey had in mind. LaVey encouraged the reader to build such a strong ego, and the recommendation that the readers become their own gods is to be taken literally—it was not Satan’s initial intellectualized interpretation of self-interest and rejection of gods. The reader was not asked to reflect inwardly by imagining the result if there was no God. One is to behave like a god and demand treatment accordingly.

With that realization, some pieces fall into place. Many of the attendants of The Church of Satan truly behave like gods in the very same manner as the Devil has known them throughout the eons.

Every god in history has been petty, immature, unable to cope with reality, self-absorbed, entitled, abusive, preoccupied with power and appearance, oppositional, demanding to be admired, exploitative, dishonest, sadistic, devoid of empathy, arrogant, envious, and irresponsible … while projecting all their disagreeable traits onto everyone else. With few exceptions, they were unrestrained narcissists and psychopaths.

The Satanic Bible appeals to people with such personality disorders. Even Anton LaVey admitted that his book instills delusions of superiority into the minds of inferior people. The promise that one becomes a Satanic übermensch upon reading the book is an irresistible lure to the low self-esteem that is the core of every narcissist’s personality disorder.

Satan thinks that people aspiring to qualify as their “own gods” are those who stand in solitude before their self-made altars, worshiping themselves at home, because no one else will. He opposes all gods and all their essence, and self-declared gods with character derangements characteristic of a particularly broken human nature are no exception. Satan rejects them all.

Satan thinks Egyptologists are spaced out

Posted on by A lesser demon

Red flags are obvious signs that communicate less evident, undesired qualities. For example, parents know they should worry if they learn that their child mutilates its stuffed animals; they should keep an eye on the child if a person introduces himself as a Catholic priest; and most people know that a person who is rude against people in service jobs is generally unpleasant.

Satan maintains His own list of red flags among His followers. Some are practically pinned to each individual by organizational affiliation and may be easily deduced knowing the organizational values. One should not expect to find Warlocks on welfare, parasitic Priests, or mooching Magisters in a Satanic organization dedicated to one’s earthly success, whereas an organization revolving around institutionalized narcissism rewards malignant, anti-social, and destructive behavior. Therefore, any title its High Priest Peter Gilmore bestows is a red flag, and the grander the title, the higher the flag waves. Other semi-obvious red flags include any fascination with the Arthur Desmond book, Might Is Right, beyond its historical influence on The Church of Satan—which is bad enough—or that a person was brought up in a highly religious environment.

Other red flags have no obvious connection with pathological behaviors or traits and seem to be spuriously correlated at best. Satan thinks His followers deserve to be wary of one such little-known red flag: it rarely fails that if a person is “into” Egyptology, they exhibit an array of toxic behaviors and delusions.

It should not surprise anyone that the Devil is, by default, a little skeptical against anything Egyptian owing to Michael Aquino’s organization, The Temple of Set. Satan appreciates that Aquino recognized His extreme intelligence, of course, but cannot forgive Aquino for demoting His Infernal Majesty to some ancient desert god of a dead civilization. It is not due to The Temple of Set that Satan considers Egyptology a red flag, however. The Temple of Set is merely a manifestation of that interest. Members of the Temple take up Egyptology after joining (if at all), and even Aquino only began to study Egyptology on a hobby level following his hallucinations about Set.

The problem is not Egyptology itself but popular modern myths surrounding ancient Egypt. These myths tell you that ancient Egypt had access to advanced space alien knowledge and technology, and the pharaohs either hailed from these aliens (or “gods”) from far-away solar systems or possessed instruments for communicating with these alien ancestors or teachers. The Egyptians were special by heritage or for being “chosen,” but alas, it is now lost, except for some lingering curses. Satan thinks the modern myths about ancient Egypt draw in many destructive organisms who catch interest in Egyptology because the myths appeal to a particular kind of disagreeable people: narcissists. The appeal is the myth about highly advanced aliens with secret knowledge and the chance of approaching them.

Practicing psychologists and psychiatrists, ignoring that human mental diseases and disorders are, in fact, the result of being possessed by one of our experts, have observed that a common narcissistic fantasy is to be abducted by aliens. They will offer the abductee methods to achieve high mental powers that may be subsequently put to use among one’s fellow humans who will praise you or suffer for what they have done to you. The narcissistic appeal is obvious: the narcissist is recognized as an extraordinary individual by the aliens and will subsequently possess the means to satisfy his unquenchable thirst for validation by humans.

As for aliens, practicing psychologists have also noted that narcissists report feeling different from normal people and will often use the term “alien.” They may not be the aliens of their fantasies, but they consider themselves their distant cousins. Satan thinks a good number of Church of Satan joiners were attracted by its promise of being an “alien élite” for that reason, even if space aliens were not necessarily at the front of their minds.

It has recently been observed, too, that narcissists are attracted to astrology, and although no conclusions were drawn, Satan thinks they probably feel comfort in the belief that the very stars had them in mind when they were born and will aid them in their daily life. Your personal horoscope may not be the alien abduction you otherwise hoped for, but both fantasies share the feature of your gaining both validation and special help from “out there.” They differ mostly in terms of magnitude (becoming the king of the world versus maybe meeting someone interesting next week) and the upper limit of intelligence required to believe in them: the main audience for horoscopes is not narcissists but dumb, uneducated people, whereas alien visits are theoretically possible and beliefs in such usually involve some sympathy for science. An above-average intelligent narcissist is not falling for a horoscope but can freely dream of how impressed the aliens became while examining his unique mind. Whether space aliens or star constellations, the myths about ancient Egypt provide both, but the myths appeal more strongly to individuals with above-average intelligence than horoscopes.

Normal human beings generally feel mostly at ease with themselves. Neither stunning nor ordinary-looking individuals require constant reassurance that they are beautiful. Smart people rarely obsess about proving their intelligence. Their sense of worth comes from within themselves and needs no validation. They have their own inner light and spark of life. In contrast, narcissists have extremely low self-esteem and require constant external validation. Satan thinks their reaching for the stars, as it were, for validation illustrates how far removed from this light they are. Some of them who possess a measure of self-insight report how they feel “empty” inside or even feel as if a literal hole exists inside their chests where normal people feel their hearts.

The advanced technology and knowledge proposed by the popular myths about ancient Egypt appeal to people who value and possess above-average intelligence but not so much that the low likelihood of such unreasonable myths turns them uninteresting to entertain. They know their above-average intelligence and use it to impress others—and themselves—and rarely neglect to inform others of their intellectual superiority. But, their insights are sophomoric and just good enough to impress average people. The same people who will not miss a chance to remind you that they are university students or graduates keep their GPAs confidential. Highly intelligent individuals, or individuals who simply know the topics that such people choose to talk about, find that their “insights” are either vapid, misunderstandings, or irrelevant and that such people are complacent, condescending, or arrogant.

Satan does not think these Egyptologists truly believe in the myths, mind you, except for a while when they learned about them during childhood or early youth. It is the feeling conveyed by the myths that they seek and experience as they ponder ancient Egypt, as it is the feeling provided by the secret fantasy of being chosen by aliens for a mind-enhancing abduction. No amount of genuine Egyptology that supports the myths is therefore required, and the feeling remains intact despite learning that the pyramids were not subspace radio transmitters capable of reaching solar systems 1,350 light years removed from the Earth and installed by a warp-capable civilization with pointy eyebrows.

Satan thinks that if you see a person walking like an ancient Egyptian in his mind, you should cross the street and choose the other sidewalk. Put some space between you and him.

Satan thinks magical recognition deserves a template

Posted on by A lesser demon

When The Church of Satan abandoned its “grotto” system in the 1970s, grotto masters could no longer report the magical progress of their grotto members and The Church of Satan could therefore no longer determine which magical degree for which a member was eligible. Members now had to report their magical development individually, and this practice is still in effect today. However, the measure of magical improvement has changed somewhat over the years.

The 1975 schism between The Church of Satan and The Temple of Set involved quantifying magical skills so that real-life results were believed to reflect one’s magical acumen and hence one’s degree. Rank climbers soon learned that to Anton LaVey, these real-life accomplishments concerned fascination with urination, burlesque sexual innuendos, or a display of Nazi paraphernalia. Despite considering money to be a tangible metric of real-life success, results in the so-called creative fields were held in higher regard than intellectual or professional feats, largely because LaVey was found in the former areas and The Church of Satan was not particularly alluring to people in the latter occupations, and likely also because the Church of Satan’s upper clergy lacked the tools to evaluate cerebral proficiency.

When Peter Gilmore took over after the passing of Anton LaVey, he reinstalled the grotto system. It became immediately apparent that The Church of Satan still did not attract natural leaders, and grottos were, again, disbanded. Gilmore nevertheless managed to establish new expectations for the degree system by example: individual development means something only to the extent that now everything in The Church of Satan serves to nurture Peter Gilmore’s self-esteem, and Gilmore judges members according to their ego-supply.

With this in mind, Satan proposes that the following letter template for members reporting on their magical progress, with His instructions in italics, be used for their status reports to the “Central Grotto.”

Make sure to grovel, but do not forget that you are entitled to Peter Gilmore’s attention.

Dear High Priest and Magus of The Church of Satan Peter Gilmore:

I understand that you must pursue your indulgences as the only true Magus of The Church of Satan, but I am certain that you will be pleased to read my letter.

Brag about your accomplishments but never be explicit. Gilmore half does not care and half wants to believe that he is the high priest of someone noticeable, and he will rather imagine greatness than hear what little you did instead; alternatively, if you have managed to do well, do not risk outshining his own limited fame. For example, the following sounds better than saying that you have been gaming in the little spare time you had outside of your blue-collar work:

Since my last letter, I have engaged in my specific indulgences to the extent that the practicalities of life allow. After all, Satan is indulgence not compulsion!

You may have completed some trivial deeds, such as contributing to a book, being exposed to a momentary hardship that you endured, etc. The Church of Satan allows you to cast such as significant accomplishments. These two examples would make you an author and a person with special fortitude and strength, respectively. If so, include a statement such as the following. However, in the rare cases where you have made multiple efforts noteworthy for your personal diary, consider saving them for your next letter so as to appear consistently successful. Example 1:

I am happy to report that I can now call myself an author, as I appear on the list of authors of (enter the title of the book to which you made a minor contribution—and if the book happens to be of interest to Gilmore, you have proven to be successful).

Example 2, where the triviality limit is a broken bone or minor surgery, although bigger is obviously better; a stubbed toe is painful, but its recovery does not adequately prove Satanic determination. Also, never assume responsibility but instead declare that justice will be served:

Even the most accomplished magician may be stricken by misfortune. In my case, it came as a car that was supposed to have stopped at the crosswalk. I had to spend many hours at the ER to mend a broken foot, but I am otherwise strong-spirited and in good physical health so it is a minor inconvenience. It will only be a matter of weeks until I set the record straight as I exterminate the reckless driver in my next destruction ritual.

Demonstrate that you provide worth (not value) to the organization. Gilmore has wanted to be respected as a Satanic high priest since boyhood, and one of your tasks is therefore to praise Peter Gilmore.

I always strive to be the first to share your insightful articles as soon as they are posted on the official Church of Satan website. Thank you for continuing to enrich and clarify our philosophy. I always receive plenty of positive feedback when I share your articles.

Your other task is to attack those Satanists who fail to validate Gilmore by not recognizing him as their high priest. In your continued quantitative report below, do not be exact but round up to the nearest ten or twenty. Gilmore is quite informed about online personalities despite claims to the contrary (therefore, avoid saying “as you know” or similar) but cannot be expected to keep an exact count.

As you probably guessed, our detractors are mad for being put in their place. I stay vigilant to remind those who might have been misled that these “people” are not Satanists. It is hard work, and I have confronted no less than (enter a number, e.g., 40) such persons since my last letter, although several are obviously obsessive repeat offenders. Clearly, Satan is the best friend they ever had, and their obsession with The Church of Satan proves how envious of us they are!

Now for your plea that should work toward your next-level degree that will make you believe yourself better than your peers. Beware that Gilmore knows why you are writing, so you must feign modesty to make him feel he is choosing wisely. Your plea is indicated by the little word “will” in the following. Keep it brief.

But no rest for the wicked! I am sure you will appreciate my efforts to eradicate misunderstandings about Satanism and keep Satanists abreast of the development in our organization.

Deflate any indication of an unreasonable demand with immediate groveling as you finish your letter. Avoid the temptation to add “Hail Thyself!” as The Satanic Temple too often uses this expression.

Thank you so much for your unrelenting work, and I wish you the best of your indulgences.

Hail Magus Gilmore and Maga Nadramia!
Hail Doktor LaVey and Blanche Barton!
Hail The Church of Satan!
Hail Satan!

Supply your name and current degree. If you are old-fashioned and send the letter via postal mail, print several copies and select the one for submission that features the most impressive version of your signature.

Satan thinks His church still believes in magic

Posted on by A lesser demon

Personality cults never take kindly to criticism of their gurus. Their gurus are flawless, and even outright personality disorders or mental illnesses are viewed as proof of their superhuman capacity or as evidence of their divine insights or an earned privilege. Their lies, deceptions, and displays of hypocrisy, when discovered, become gemstones in their robes, adding a sparkle to an already fascinating persona. True personality cultists will never admit that their guru can make a mistake and will invent all sorts of explanations, evasions, redefinitions, rationalizations, etc., that have denial in common to avoid facing the reality that their guru was plainly and simply wrong, incompetent, or delusional.

Satan thinks His Church is one such personality cult because any negative mention of Anton LaVey is met with hostility, whereas even the most obvious and blatant misconceptions and disagreeable features are compulsively whitewashed into comical absurdity. Satan marvels at their blind devotion and zealous worship of their guru, who decades later is still their axis mundi while the rest of the world moves on and properly disposes of those past errors that are the pillars of his cosmology. Concepts that, in the words of The Satanic Bible, have “been proven by results to be but an empty fiction” that the remainder of the educated world has long decided should be “unceremoniously flung into the outer darkness, among the dead gods, dead empires, dead philosophies, and other useless lumber and wreckage,” are defended with fang and claw by the LaVey cult.

Sometimes, however, LaVey was so evidently delusional that any defense of his hallucinations is impossible, and the LaVey cult instead revises his teachings, convincing themselves and (less so) others that LaVey meant something different, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary. Satan can think of several examples because many theories and ideas that may have meant life and hope and freedom for the early Church of Satan have lost their ground as environments changed over the decades following the establishment of the Church. Its scripture demands that no revision of the guru’s teachings is necessary, though, and therefore the churchgoers aggressively loyally insist that no revision is taking place. This reminds Satan of one example where revision only seems to occur while the flawed core is kept alive and true to LaVey’s pipe dream.

It warms the Devil’s cold heart that it is magic—a cornerstone of LaVey’s religion—that is being maintained as delusionally now as it was then. Satan was genuinely worried when He discovered that apologetical churchgoers began to dismiss magic as “just psychodrama” (despite Anton LaVey explicitly stressing in The Satanic Bible that magic is not just psychodrama) that merely helps rid the practitioner of unhealthy emotions, to serve as positive thinking, and what else do-it-yourself therapy purposes one finds in questionable feel-good self-help books. It seemed for a while that the churchgoers considered magic to be their new kind of the “thoughts and prayers” they used to employ before stumbling upon the Devil, but Satan was relieved to find that LaVey skillfully embedded magic so strongly into his ideology that it resists both sanity and reason. One may say, and even believe, that magic is superstition, as long as one still incorporates the superstition into one’s thinking: despite what Satanic Rule of the Earth no. 7 might suggest, what is a little denial of mysticism among friends? Satan finds that magicians of The Church of Satan may still decapitate their ex-girlfriends by accident, be the cause of power blackouts when they get insulted during a thunderstorm, or find that mass shooters kill innocent people because they have last names that somewhat resemble those of the magicians’ ex-wives. Why, they may even mentally force the traffic lights to change, although Satan suggests they abstain from similar attempts to change the stop signs.

Ours truly has already explained Satan’s thoughts on LaVey’s magic and hopes that The Dark Eminence accepts a mere hyperlink here, but you should read or revisit this post before continuing. Practically everything LaVey said about magic matches the psychological framework that was still widely believed back then, especially among the general population. People born before the early 1970es may even remember being taught that very framework at school and should easily recognize LaVey’s choice of words and conclusions.

Anton LaVey described in rather broad terms what magic is, and rather vaguely how it supposedly works. It is possible to waive responsibility by claiming, like LaVey, that magic works but is yet to be explained by science, that LaVey’s banter on magic should be taken metaphorically (although that begs the question of why one should bother practicing it), or that it is a pseudo-meditative exercise that affects only the practitioner. It is easy to repeat LaVey’s own cop-outs on how magic “works” or to invent new ones because, after all, there is no such thing as magic. Besides, LaVey was not born with a scientist’s heart and was satisfied that magic works, leaving the scientific hows and whys to others. He cared about what one should do to make it work, much like his clientele of today cares less about how technology works than how to use it to watch pornography. Everyone at LaVey’s time “knew” that humans generate emotional, or psychic, energy, and it needed little further elaboration; the important element to LaVey was what to do to harness that energy, not to author yet another book on pseudo-psychology.

LaVey introduced The Satanic Bible with a promise that with this book, magicians would finally find bedrock, and the section specifically devoted to the practice of magic provided explicit procedures and all but checklists. He explained that the ritual entrapments serve to rile up the practitioner’s emotions so that emotional energy (or bioelectrical, vital, sexual, or psychic energy; he uses all these terms and more) is generated and can be directed at the target of one’s hex. Not surprisingly, the instructions and their purpose align perfectly with the aforementioned psychological framework, because one cannot separate the “what to do” element of The Church of Satan’s magic from that framework.

It is easy to overlook the importance of these practical instructions, but religious practice beats religious pondering any day. In a ritual setting, one lives out the mythology of the religion by following the steps of a ritual with its arcane language and decorations. The otherworldly settings of a ritual turn otherwise trivial actions of the real world into important actions as far as the brain is concerned, reinforcing and conserving the mythology. It is thereby kept alive within the society of practitioners, even if they are mostly unaware of its history. If this seems strange, consider the mystical ceremonies of many Christian churches: even if all their members know is how to properly participate, the ceremonies and rituals keep the antiquated tradition alive. Religious rituals and ceremonies are critical to perpetuating and maintaining mindsets that would otherwise have been overtaken by progress. That is the true purpose of a ritual, not its formally stated goal that one finds in the pages of the religious textbooks: Christians do not gulp down the “blood of Jesus” in order to be magically cleansed of their sins but to stay reminded of their religion and its concepts of sin.

In the rituals of The Church of Satan, the mythology is the outdated psychological framework, and by performing LaVey’s rituals, one acts out that pseudo-science, maintains it, and absorbs it. This means that for all that the members of The Church of Satan insist that magic is mere psychodrama (not to be confused with the psychotherapeutic term that Jacob L. Moreno coined far earlier), in practice, through practice, they believe in actual magic in the form that Anton LaVey originally envisioned it—the pseudoscience that everyone once believed to be model truth. One may consider it a good case of “suspension of disbelief” when modern churchgoers deny magic yet enter their ritual chambers, but Satan thinks it is an empty statement. Nobody would care to enter the ritual chamber unless disbelief was already suspended.

It is impossible to dismiss LaVey’s magical loads of hooey as “just psychodrama” unless one also rejects his rituals altogether. Churchgoers may think they are skeptical of magic and feel compelled to reason the word that appears 150 times in The Satanic Bible or reduce it to a metaphor, but the actions of the rituals and LaVey’s recipe for a ritual with an explicit tangible goal cannot be denied. The same members of The Church of Satan follow the rituals to the letter and in so doing reinforce in the real world the very hocus-pocus that they mistake for rational thinking.

The above-mentioned Christian communion makes Satan thinks these churchgoers do what Luther did to Catholicism: by granting that maybe the wine and bread did not physically turn into blood and meat, but also arguing that the blood and flesh of Jesus were somehow still present, the Christian communion was unaltered for all practical purposes. The actions of the Christians did not change, and the Christians remained Christian.

One might identify a much-needed revision to LaVey’s silly magical beliefs that renders the superstitious mythology obsolete and replaces it with a modernized “mythology” that reflects how healthy human beings actually function or should function. However, such a revision would require a corresponding, radical change in the rituals, and very little would be left of LaVey’s original rituals beyond the colorful language.

To summarize, Satan thinks that it is fruitless to debate whether LaVey’s magic “works,” or whatever LaVey may have meant by this and that mention of the word “magic.” Had it worked, perhaps the Great Magus would have met a different fate than living in a derelict house and dying bitter, broke, and abandoned by family and friends, and in the end had more miasma than charisma. The all-important, undebatable, and undeniable fact is that LaVey provided specific instructions on how to activate an explicit function of the human body and psyche that does not exist save within a psychological framework that now finds itself in the same category as the four humors, the use of mercury to cure diseases, and the wandering uterus. No amount of rationalization can justify such clinging to past orthodoxies.

Satan thinks His followers should soak their heads

Posted on by A lesser demon

Satan appreciates an attentive student and favors followers who pick up His teachings. It is seldom a poor idea to read a book, and in the case of His usual followers, often any book would probably broaden their horizons. But, there are times when one of His devotees combines Anton LaVey’s teachings and musings with a herd following instinct and uncritical orthodoxy. That is when Satan thinks that the result stinks worse than our sulfurous fumes here in Hell.

Satan is, of course, thinking about those churchgoers in His Church of Satan who heed Anton LaVey’s advice to stop bathing.

Anton LaVey had good reason to find bathing unpleasant. The heating in his house on California Street in San Francisco was broken, and for either lack of initiative or income he never had it fixed. The home was cold in the winter, and the water ran cold all year. LaVey therefore opted for the solution chosen by most humans who live in denial of their situation: he rationalized his situation into a personal choice. Unable to crank up the thermostat or enjoy a soothing long hot tub bath, he found that he liked the coldness of the wintertime, reasoned that bathing was unhealthy until he could no longer tolerate his own bodily odors, and found immersion in a cool bath pleasant only when temperatures were too high.

Hell is the epitome of all central heating systems, and the Devil settles for temperatures nowhere below the melting point of rock under the Earth’s gravitational pressure. He nonetheless understands that the benign winters of the coastal climate of San Francisco in Northern California are mainly a question of bad clothing, not bad weather, and Anton LaVey could ignore the unsolicited heads-up Mother Nature would otherwise have offered had he stayed in his birth town of Chicago.

Environmental choices were easily defended as a matter of preference, but unhealthy and socially problematic poor hygiene decisions required elaboration, perhaps even more so to LaVey whose sexual preference involved practices that incur additional demands on cleanliness.

LaVey concluded that because bathing masks the natural scents of a human being, it is dishonest and therefore liked by only the worst people. (Satan never checked but presumes LaVey must have been a completely honest person.) Based on his knowledge of animals as a cage hand in a circus in the times when animal welfare had yet to receive public attention, LaVey believed that a reduced bodily odor would confuse an animal. Satan believes this may have been LaVey’s experience with animals in such environments, but in trusting relations between humans and unstressed animals, a shower and some soap do not introduce unfamiliarity. When The Prince of Darkness emerges in all His splendor from a contemplative hour in a fiery lake and His pet Baphomet rubs its territorial glands against His marvelous unspeakables, it is not confusion but a reaffirmation of trust and belonging, for example.

True to his misanthropy, LaVey considered bathing to be nothing short of treason against the eugenics that he advocated, in that undesirable women (just women), through cloaking their scent, would thereby mask their undesirableness and coerce males into helping produce genetically inferior offspring. LaVey did not mention the genetic impact of males, but Satan is sure that was just an oversight, as He would not accuse LaVey of male chauvinism now that LaVey cannot defend himself. No, seriously, we had to tie him up and gag him after Diane Hegarty died a little less than a year ago and joined us as a proud citizen of Hell; and the recent premature arrival of his grandson did not improve the situation. If LaVey had males in mind, it would be his belief that his stench kept them at bay.

It is not entirely incorrect that humans react to each others’ pheromones, but the diminished senses of humans compared with many animals (although humans senses seem generalized and balanced compared with, say, the keen eyes but poor sense of smell of the eagle, or the extraordinary hearing of the nearly blind bat) are the likely evolutionary result of a significantly improved cognitive skill: to find a mate, the human animal relies on the many additional, often visual, cues of complicated social interaction patterns enabled, and recognized, by its brain beyond the mere smell of an opposite-sex fellow specimen in heat. A human being so horribly poorly socially inept that it had to rely foremost on its snout to identify a mate would not qualify for one in the first place. The smell of a human in heat would be rather uninformative anyway, as the human animal is a species that may have minor hormonal fluctuations influencing its sexual interest but is always in heat compared with the either-or periods of many animals. Humans have sex for pleasure and important social bonding, not only to procreate, and any biological traces of heat periods are counterproductive evolutionary artifacts. What you experience is vestigial heat as you chase vestigial tail.

LaVey’s need to explain his poor personal hygiene turned resistance to bathing into an accolade. He believed that he was an emancipated being by contrasting habitual bathing as the habit of the pious, the guilty, and the frightened—that is, it was the attempt of the religious to escape their animal nature. His Infernal Majesty recalls that His sworn enemies and followers of God entertained some attitudes toward bathing, indeed, but remembers the details somewhat differently.

If anything, traditional Christian focus on spiritual purity was paid with physical asepsis. Monks would abstain from bathing to show their spiritual strength over the physical body, not because hygiene was fundamentally sinful or animal-like, but because it was hard on the body and thus proved their mental fortitude and “superiority” over the physical needs of an average individual. And contrary to popular belief, Medieval Europe was not characterized by filth and grime although the sanitation of growing cities left plenty to be desired. Medieval people bathed often, but because public bathhouses were also gathering places, spas, brothels, and otherwise provided extra-sanitational activities, Christian officials discouraged going to baths and bathhouses; again not because bathing itself was sinful, but because it tended to involve a role in the tub occupied by a maid or a man-servant.

Christianity left literal stains on sanitary practices. Satan thinks His followers should understand that their true human animal selves are far more complex than meets the nose, and that Anton LaVey’s non-scents belief is the misguided excuse of a person who could not maintain his own personal hygiene. Satan thinks that the least His followers can do to leave the Christian mindset behind is to bathe regularly.

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.

Satan thinks His stupid followers need help

Posted on by A lesser demon

Dumb people are usually unaware of their own stupidity and therefore would never seek or heed any advice marketed as aid for the imbeciles. Satan is nonetheless willing to offer it, because some idiot might accidentally stumble upon it and take it to heart. Stupidity is the cardinal Satanic sin but it takes a smart person to recognize a dunce and put him in the corner where he belongs. Surround yourself instead with sub-standard peers and none will know your limitations.

Satan thinks that if you are dim of wit and a member of His church, then you are in good company. The following guidelines will ensure that your stupidity goes unchallenged.

Be Loyal

Unswerving loyalty is one of the few things stupid people do well. Smart people question all things and often find the answers wanting. Dumb people are not prone to skepticism and lack the capacity to spot inconsistencies and mistakes. It is called unquestioning loyalty for a reason, and it is in high demand. Any organization needs dutiful footsoldiers who require little training and can be paid off with a little praise and a degree.

Loyalty is surprisingly easy in the Satanic arena if you heed a few rules:

Never admit mistakes, inconsistencies, or contradictions in any of your scripture or anything spoken from your founders, leaders, and their close associates. They have their high degrees for a reason (even if the reason is camaraderie), and degrees are equivalent to prowess. Scripture is sacred. If someone disagrees, then it is because they are stupid or because they are not Satanists. We will get to that later.

Keep yourself up to date on news from your organization. Visit its web site daily. If you locate any new content, repost it immediately on the social media. You are not required to quote anything; just post a link to the content.

People who left your organization are disloyal. If you mention them, make sure to stress that either they realized that they did not belong, or the organization had to expel them. It is entirely a question about their character. The organization is flawless in such matters.

Always “like” any post made by a member of your organization who has a degree or speaks positively about your organization or its higher-level clergy. You should also dislike anything a detractor says, but beware: some social media lump likes and dislikes into one, thus counting all as attention. Apply the “dislike” action only if it reduces the number of likes.

Make It All About You

As a stupid person, the only thing you may reasonably claim expertise in is yourself. Do not worry that observers of people such as psychologists, sociologists, or anthropologists may have deeper insight into your mind than you, because they will not be talking with you but about you (and then, usually it is not even you as a person but you as a category).

Anton LaVey made it clear in The Satanic Bible that self-gratification, self-interest, and self-preservation are essential to Satanism. None of these imply narcissism—as a matter of fact, narcissism is indicative of a fragile self which compensates with the delusion that it is superior and thus entitled to vampirize others for approval and praise. Narcissism can nonetheless work wonders for you if you are stupid, because a grand display of pretentiousness can temporarily relieve you of the gnawing awareness of your inadequacy.

You do not need creative skills. Just write a few terse lines of text in a Satanic forum on the social media about, for example, how you are (again) one month sober thanks to your outstanding Satanic sense of self-preservation, or how you noticed someone looking odd at you this afternoon but knew that as a Satanist you were his better. It does not even have to mention the ‘S’ word. If some disaster struck a town in your neighboring state and caught media attention, then make it about you: you feel for them, but fortunately you are okay.

Do not be afraid to play the victim provided the guilty party is someone other Satanists can readily denounce. Most Satanists will overlook your obvious cry for pity as they feel violated by proxy. Nothing builds sympathy and unity in a herd than the sense of a shared enemy.

Believe Everyone Is Stupid

If you get into an argument with a smart person, you will probably not understand his arguments, explanations, and analyses. Do not let this deter you. Your inability to understand will make it seem to you that they are stupid for making statements whose relevance escapes you or drawing conclusions based on logic that you cannot follow. Therefore, just say so. They seem stupid to you, and they will seem equally stupid to others who share your two-digit IQ and whom you should aim to impress.

Your lifetime of experience and your years failing in school have taught you that if an aspect of some topic seems wrong, it is because you do not adequately comprehend. Trust that this naturally applies to everyone else. Therefore, if someone spots an error in your scripture or elsewhere, it is not because there is a flaw but because he does not understand. Ignore that little voice in the back of your head which may tell you that your inability to recognize the error even when explained could mean they understand something that you cannot. Expect instead that they are slow to understand when they keep identifying what seems to them to be flaws and absurdities; they merely display many more examples of an inability to comprehend than yourself: it is therefore they who do not understand. It is they who are dumb.

Again, that is what you should say. Insist (but do not otherwise argue) that whichever issue the smart person has chosen to engage, there is no problem with that issue. There are no contradictions, no mistakes, no ambiguities, etc. to those who are intelligent enough. The fact that you do not know that you don’t know provides you with the distinct advantage that you will rarely feel prompted to ask the questions that reveal it.

Remember You Are the Satanist

Being the Satanist while the other isn’t provides you with the power of knowing you are something special. That is what attracted you to Satanism in the first place, after all: to gain an illusion of being special.

Remember: being a Satanist grants you permission to pretend that everything you do is Satanic. Few people will reflect on your narrative and realize that it is not inherently Satanic if everyone does it, and the few that ponder will be both too polite to say it and sufficiently self-aware to know that such criticism would expose themselves, too.

Since you are the Satanist, anyone who disagrees with you is therefore by default not a Satanist. Satan cautions that occasionally the person happens to be a member of your organization, and you must then pay attention to degrees. Research whether the person has a higher or a lower degree than yourself. (Such research is usually soon complete because normally they have announced themselves already.) If the person’s degree is lower or the same, stand your ground; do not argue, just repeat yourself. If the person has a higher degree than yourself, the fix is easy. Simply tell them you agree fully and that they make an excellent point, and do not fall for the temptation to argue your previous position.

You joined the alien élite. It is evidence of a destitute character when a pretender who thinks he is a Satanist refuses to join the élite or even joins another organization thinking it can possibly be Satanic. Never hestitate to remind them that they are not Satanists. They chose to advertise their shortcomings by turning their back on the one true Satanism, and they want you to remind them because they are masochists.

Use Your Faith

You were probably raised as a Christian, and Satan recommends that you secretly stick with that faith. Satan would not normally provide such advice, but He is not considering the average Joe here. He is trying to assist the subnormal Bubba, and that calls for unconventional measures. Dumb people must do with what they have, and cannot rely on learning new tricks. If this means sticking to what they did as Christians, then so be it.

It means you should stay as zealous and cocksure of your new-found faith as you were of your past faith, and otherwise not change a thing about yourself. Remember: you discovered that Satanism is the thing you always were, and now is not the right time to worry that the most plausible explanation for this is that you merely spiced up your Christianity with a new name. Stay every bit as hypocritical, arrogant, intolerant, and toxic now as you were then, because all the other Christians who replaced their crosses with Baphomet medallions will immediately recognize you as family.

Your faith provided you with universally applicable axioms. For example, you can transfer your former respect for your reverend to your new reverends (or “warlocks”) and regard them as the authorities you always had, and your past means you will be good at it. You have probably replaced your paintings of Jesus with a portrait of Anton LaVey already, because the principal element remains people you can worship.

Adhere strongly to your “us versus them” mindset. You knew that your denomination were the elect, or at least had the potential, whereas those who preferred a different form of Christianity had lesser worth as human beings. If someone belongs to another group, you know you are his better.

Continue to quote scripture at others, preferably out of the blue. Your fellow Christians-in-spirit will appreciate it. Stick to the officially approved scripture, however. It can be embarassing to quote apocryphal scripture written by people who left your church and are now classified as people who were never really Satanists.

You were an outstanding Christian once, because a true Christian is the one that behaves like a real Christian not the mythological nice folks that they claim to be. Christianity is what you do best, so use it to its fullest potential. Keeping with your previous behavior means you have finally accepted being the Christian you always were, and there is peace in that.

This all may seem like a mouthful, but you will notice that there is significant overlap between the instructions. Especially the last section ties it all neatly together.

Satan thinks His élite are self-inflated imposters

Posted on by A lesser demon

Metrics experts know that people will optimize whichever key metric is used for their evaluation and will possess an uncanny ability to recognize which metric is the most imporant if multiple metrics apply. A carefully selected metric can thus stimulate significant productivity gains, but metrics experts are also aware of its dark side: when people labor to maximize the metric, they will do anything that maximizes the metric, not necessarily the intended tasks. They will soon be found working against the desired goal if it benefits their scoreboard.

Satan thinks Anton LaVey may have missed this dark side of metrics when one night in the mid-1960s He whispered in LaVey’s ear that he should declare that Satanic success be measured by one’s accomplishments in the real world. It seemed like a great metric at the time but since laziness is the force behind all ingenuity, Satan’s devotees soon found a shortcut in the shape of inflated accomplishments. Far easier than putting in some real effort, a simple translation of tasks that everyone does already into important accomplishments provided an instant admission into the Devil’s alien élite.

Satan is offended, frankly. Maybe The Lord of Evil chose an ambiguous word when He said He wanted some mean accomplishments, but He never expected everyone to interpret this as average accomplishments.

Some Christian housewife is an excellent cook, but when the Satanic wife (excuse me, witch) cooks a great meal, it is Satanic. Some philosophy professor compiles a document with philosophy texts for her students as a PDF file, but when the uneducated Satanist finds a handful of short-stories online that he likes whose copyrights have expired and puts them in a self-published book, he is a Satanic author. And so there are “radio hosts,” “artists,” “models,” etc. whose natural flair lies within the 60% fractile who are squarely average and utterly stale, but who think so highly of their averageness that they find it Satanic. And their peers, who are equally average and would never have cared to listen or look otherwise, are impressed by the mere ‘S’-word cosmetics.

The Devil once knew an alcoholic who said it was Satanism that made him stop drinking for good, because now he was drinking for evil instead and this was a triumph. Satan views those perpetually average people who borrow His infernal name in a futile attempt to inflate their mediocrity as spiritual kinsmen of that drunkard, except he did make one last remarkable combustion when we threw him into the hellfire.

Even seemingly great achievements should be viewed within their context. For example, humans who suffer an accident and must spend the rest of their lives in a wheelchair usually endure and after some convalescence are no less happy than prior to the accident. It lies within human nature to persevere, and in that sense their ability to recover mentally and to learn to circumnavigate their limitations is entirely to be expected. To permanently regress into a pit of apathy is the exception and far below the average result. This should be uplifting news to anyone who finds himself or herself in a similar situation: it is not a challenge to heal but the likeliest outcome. Praise and encouragement is deserved but regained vigor is in fact nothing out of the ordinary.

However, they will often claim that it was their Christian faith, their Buddhist meditations, or their atheist reality check of life which provided strengh, but Satan will hear no such nonsense. If a Satanic amputee recovers mentally, it is not because he or she is a Satanist. Satan will accept credit on the day when statistically significantly more patients succeed when they are Satanists but until then they have no business invoking His infernal name as an argument that their perfectly expected recovery means they are somehow particularly Satanic compared with any unscathed Satanist. Satan considers it empty posturing when a Satanist uses his recovery as proof that he is Satanic, because anyone in his position would have recovered.

Those who have none of the marketable skills lauded by His church turn to aggressive servitude, not heeding Satan’s fulmination in The Satanic Bible against the weak whose insecurity makes them vile. It is they who seek peer recognition by frantically quoting scripture by Anton LaVey or Peter Gilmore and by viciously assaulting anyone who displays an inkling of disloyalty towards their own sect.

Old Nick believes in elitism—that a group of extraordinary individuals are more constructive as a whole—but on the premise that these individuals truly stand out in terms of proficiency, intelligence, and artistry. What He gets instead are honorary members of the Dunning-Kruger club who mistake their trivialities for phenomenal Satanic prowess simply because they dare to wear a Pentagram.

Satan wanted a legion of masters in their respective fields. Instead His Infernal Empire appears to become populated with underarhievers, nonperformers, and uninspiring simpletons whose only achievement is to borrow the sulphorous vapors of Hell to inflate their undeserving egos. Satan would not trust any of them with a nerf pitchfork.

Satan thinks clowns are no joke

Posted on by A lesser demon

The original circus clown is the so-called white clown. His companion, the Auguste—the clumsy and grotesquely dressed person whom children find entertaining for his childishness and naughtiness—is merely his subordinate. The white clown considers himself serious and knowledgeable, and is authoritarian, self-centered, and self-confident; but he possesses neither the skills nor the caliber to occupy such a role. Thus he is a conceited fool, a true clown.

The white clown is usually elegantly dressed, but it is exaggerated to seem forced and overstated. His white make-up is usually supplemented with drawings and a pointy hat that emphasize his arrogance and narcissism, and they expose his unrealized lack of gift and talent. He exudes the self-confidence that only an incompetent person with no grasp of his limits can maintain.

Satan thinks that the white clown is real and walks among you humans on Earth, and although the everyday white clown does not wear white make-up or exaggeratedly elegant outfits, his behavior is otherwise that of the white clown of the circus. We who serve the Devil often encounter them online where they stand as self-declared oracles who, having either no relevant education or little luck with education, believe they have significant insights. These white clowns often inflate themselves with “great projects” (with unimportant contents) and pompous or stylized language liberally sprinkled with fancy words, quite like the dress of the white clown in the circus ring which is far too elegant for his personal stature. But they never contribute anything new. They utter only banalities, repeat old platitudes, and are generally either mundane or wrong.

Towards others, however, white clowns exhibit a form of skepticism where they will not accept a statement until every aspect of it has been proven to an absurd degree. (And even if this were possible, it probably still would not convince them.) The white clown focuses intently on details and words that have no particular importance to the point being made. The white clown nonetheless ignores context and contorts the words as if they were key to the issue, because the clown wishes to evade the real issue where he has no insight. He wants to debate and win, not contribute or learn.

Satan is left with the impression that concepts like “context” and “coherence” do not exist in the white clown’s paradigm. While sensible people apply skepticism as a tool to avoid mistakes, reality’s white clown uses it as a shield against learning. The white clown never evaluates a statement according to its truth value, only according to its associative value to the clown: a truth becomes uncomfortable if it is associated with something that is uncomfortable, and is then dismissed. In particular, the white clown takes issue with categorizations of people, because the clown feels unique and superior and fears being lumped together with a group of mere humans.

The self-obsession of the white clown makes him unable to follow a text loyally and instead prompts him to inject his own opinions into the text and find things that are evidently not there. The white clown overlooks the essential elements and insists that the author wrote about the sheep even if the author underscored from the onset that he wrote about the rams. And if that were not enough, the white clown will judge the author on details that truly only the white clown sees, even if the clown is told that he is seeing things. Words have different meanings among white clowns than the rest of you, because the white clown assigns meanings to words that are based on his wholly private associations. Metaphors pose a particular difficulty to white clowns who will take such language literally.

Satan is left with the impression that the white clown deliberately distorts the views of others and misrepresents them, especially when having been told multiple times that the author’s text said no such thing as the white clown claims. Satan thinks of them as saboteurs, spies, or useful idiots—people who side with the “enemy.” His Infernal Majesty is certainly right when He perceives the clowns as hostile, because although they master politeness phrases, the white clown often exaggerates them and accompanies them with sarcasm, condescension, insincere questions that mask an insult, etc.

The white clown never admits an error, and in the rare occasions where he answers to criticism, he avoids giving a precise answer. The answer is either incomprehensibly unclear or the white clown changes the topic by introducing a previous or a new issue. The Devil has also encountered white clowns who insist on adhering to formalized or amplified politeness in which the white clown applies an unnecessary “fairness” (towards those whom you disagree with) which serves only to keep the discussion so unfocused that the clown needs not provide substance: form, style, and presentation matters, and content must vanish. When inevitably the white clown’s opponent becomes discourteous—because the white clown behaves like clowns do—the white clown immediately concentrates on the opponent’s disrespect, never the argument that was somewhat bluntly provided.

The Devil thinks it is obvious why the white clown prefers vagueness and irrelevant sources, because the clown is as ignorant as he is narcissistic. Any plain and clear language would reveal that the clown knows nothing. Still, the white clown is oblivious of his own ignorance. When he does not respond to one good argument after the other, it is not necessarily due to difficulties understanding the arguments but because he does not feel that he is walking on thin ice as far as knowledge is concerned. And when occasionally the white clown manages to identify something that he considers a definitive counter-argument against his opponent, he will cling to this lifeline.

A great part of the white clown’s ignorance is simplicity where everything is binary and the white clown infers the black when you say the white: if you are opposed to Israeli settlements, then you must have an affection for Palestine, and if you like healthy food, it must be because you hate unhealthy food. The white clown always sees only two opposing alternatives, and once the white clown has chosen a categorization, nothing can occupy both positions at the same time. The concept of a unity of opposing principles other than a compromise or a mixture is beyond the comprehension of the white clown.

Any discussion with the white clown of the real world is futile. Everything he says about a topic is so wrong, both in details and on a broader level, that is hard to even imagine where to begin. One is left with the feeling that the white clown is so mistaken that he is not even wrong: it is so derailed that it makes no sense to even relate to it. Everything the white clown undertakes is designed to create strife, bickering, and controversies, and his debaters usually wind up angry with him.

Unfortunately even we who lurk in the dark do not always recognize a white clown at first sight. A white clown may repeat the considered opinions and insights of others as if they were his own thoughts. It is only later when the white clown must think for himself and cannot rely on his memory that logic and rationality collapse. Satan does not think white clowns are funny at all.

Satan thinks tall membership fees create cultists

Posted on by A lesser demon

The painful transition rituals where young males are initiated into manhood that have been practiced by a variety of indigenous tribes often strike developed countries as unnecessarily and irrationally brutal. Yet, developed countries feature a long array of similar initiation rituals in various communities.

New army recruits have until recently been (and in some places still are) put through painful or humiliating “baptisms” at the hands of their lower-level superiors or dragged through demanding boot camps. College and university campuses have a tradition for similarly degrading or torturing new members of their fraternities during what Satan considers the alluringly named “Hell Weeks.” Some lines of work have traditionally welcomed new apprentices with humiliating events. Laws have been penned to prevent this phenomenon but seemingly without success.

The specific contents of such rituals are invariably kept secret to the prospective initiates, who usually know no more than rumors that they will be expected to endure an unpleasant experience. This helps explain why they are willing to accept an “formal initiation” but mostly one can expect them to accept the initiations as the price they must pay for their membership of the elite. However, as will be explained shortly, this conclusion is mere post-rationalization.

The presence of such initiation rites across the world in primitive and advanced societies alike throughout history affirms that they are motivated by the psyche of the human animal. Satan would have preferred to think that humans have an innate knack for being evil but alternative psychological explanations exist. Firstly, human herd mentality compels you to flock together. The survival of the specimens is contingent on their keeping their group together, and social dynamics ensue, including all sorts of often seemingly peculiar social behavior.

Secondly, the human mind cannot grasp its own irrationality. Nobody believes he or she acts randomly without cause: everything is rationalized, even self-harm, and no-one is evil just for the Hell of it (except our Infernal Lordship, but that goes without saying). If a person has acted uncontrollably irrationally, the person may fell all kinds of regret or guilt afterwards but can readily justify the behavior; if nothing else, then because he or she “must have felt for it” in the moment. In much less extreme situations, any seemingly irrational act, especially when performed consciously and deliberately, will be interpreted as having meaning and a purpose, and must make sense.

Satan thinks that this is in part what makes religious rituals and ceremonies so effective. Their irrational components of impossible narratives and symbolic acting and decoration serve to envelop the participants’ minds in irrationality that their minds will afterwards interpret as somehow true even if this “truth” is none the sort. The nonsense of the rituals and the ceremonies force the participants to think there is sense where there is none.

The newly minted Phi Beta Kappa member who now puts her clothes back on after receiving humiliating jeers and physical violations is still dazed but her mind is already rationalizing the abuse as the gateway to her new social position. Why was she put through it, but more importantly, why did she accept it, the mind inquires, and provides the reassuring answer: it was not a price to be paid but a requirement and an integral part of the membership, and an accolade to have endured. Nothing less is required of next semester’s initiates, demands the brain, which refuses to acknowledge that it would otherwise have been meaningless and refuses to admit the absurdity of the situation.

The psychological principle of social proof also plays in. Initiation rituals are usually formed on groups of initiates, who look to each other for clues on how to react during the mistreatment, and in a collective bystander effect where all are victims they remain passive. Any nonconformist dissidence will immediately be subjected to peer pressure. Social proof also fosters group cohesion by creating a social bond from the shared experience. It fortifies group loyalty, and as a rule of thumb, the worse the abuse the more loyal the initiates become towards the social group that admitted them, because the rationalizing brain interprets the tougher abuse as proportionally more meaningful.

Faced with irrationality, the rationalizing brain turns logic upside-down. It turns the abuse from unreasonable misdeeds into proof that the membership is important and worthwhile, and that the group is unique and desirable.

Loyalty may be gained with less than downright torture, as much as Old Nick hates to admit it. The scarcity principle of both economics and social psychology can play tricks on the mind, too, and may be utilized to keep a person to behaving with consistency. A high price tag on an item provides social proof of scarcity, and the buyer of at item that turns out to have been far too costly will post-rationalize the buying impulse and invariably conclude that the purchase made sense. In fact, a buyer is likely to attribute more value to an expensive item when if it is proven to have been available at a more competitive price, and will like the item more. The buyer may understand that he was unlucky, inattentive, or even conned, but his brain will reassure him that the item must then have been that more valuable to him. Being obviously cheated only reinforces this belief. It is hard enough to admit to others that one was duped but to the core brain such a thought is beyond guilt or shame; it is unthinkable, and the brain will defend the decision beyond the point of being ridiculous.

You will believe you can tell the audible difference with your expensive and literally gold-plated wires for your stereo set although no electronic measurement equipment can detect the change, and the overpriced, tasteless vase that you purchased on the street market from a clearly dubious seller somehow remains sitting on the table.

All this insight into the mentality of the human herd animal made Satan think of one of His churches, specifically The Church of Satan and its membership fee. In its early days, entry fees were paid to attend Anton LaVey’s lectures in his home but after a little less than a decade the organization instead admitted members for a fee. Satan does not remember off-hand if the amount was originally particularly high but in the 1980s it had become the official stance of The Church of Satan that the amount was set somewhat high to ensure that only sufficiently motivated and/or successful (to whom the amount was inconsequential) people would join and stand as a deterrent to anyone else.

Mr. Scratch has not doubt that a little greediness may have influenced the amount but otherwise trusts that His organization speaks the truth on this matter and (regrettably) does not suspect any nefarious undertones. Its membership fee is $225 as of this writing, and appears to be steep enough to often cause would-be members to seek advice on raising the money and rarely a follower of the Evil One to consider it pocket change.

For those to whom $225 feels like a personal financial sacrifice, or even becomes one, the deep impression in their bank account reminds them that they must have made an important and thoughtful decision. It strengthens their belief that The Church of Satan provides them with peers that are more intelligent, more interesting, or more desirable to meet more than had they merely paid the production costs, shipping, and a minor processing fee for their little red membership card. A tall amount instead makes them exhibit loyalty to their organization, which deserved the money, in order to suppress the skeptical mention from others that perhaps they were had. Not once has Satan encountered a member of The Church of Satan, whether current or former, who spoke of the membership fee as too expensive. In fact, if one were to pay any less, it would be a token of insincerity! The latter sentiment is regularly observed when members of The Church of Satan belittle The Satanic Temple for its much lower, and dare one even mention free membership options.

The tall membership fee of The Church of Satan utilizes herd mentality to purchase the faithfulness of its members for their own money. Their monetary oblations to the organization helps instill a cult-like behavior of unquestioned devotion.