Society

Satan thinks there is indeed a Satanic community

Posted on by A lesser demon

His Infernal Majesty often hears His church proclaim that there is no such thing as a Satanic community. The Devil can follow the arguments made by His church some of the way: it is not a social enclave whose members are committed to meeting and organizing events for each other, “doing good” for their local areas as an excuse for socializing, or otherwise performing group activities together. (Satan has no issue with doing good as a byproduct of selfish needs, mind you; He believes that much good comes from selfish purposes.) The Devil has not asked but presumes that His church prefers to lay distance to the common American phenomenon of Christian denominations serving the role of a local community, and Satan would certainly be suspicious Himself if some new member requested such a function of His church.

Yet, Satan thinks that such a use of the term “community” is overly restricted. People with religious backgrounds may be prone to thinking of religious communities when they hear the word, and to believing this is how others think, too. But the term has many other uses: in politics, “community” refers to demographic profiles, markets, or businesses, and has little connotation, often none, with religion, physical proximity, or socialization. It names an abstract group that usually has an affinity for a certain identifier. It demarks in somewhat loose terms the market for certain fashion, readers and writers of a literary subgenre, special-interest political groups, etc., and their “members” usually interact only indirectly or in very small groups. Such abstract grouping into “communities” is based on shared features and shared interests not physical contact or even interaction nor necessarily shared agreements.

The Devil’s church is therefore a virtual (not meaning “online”) community, too, whether it likes it or not, and even Peter Gilmore, the current high priest of The Church of Satan, is known to have used the terms “Satanic arena” and “assemblage” for this phenomenon. And yet the Devil’s followers often form a community in also the aforementioned meaning of a religious community whether they have never met another follower. They read The Satanic Bible and joined The Church of Satan (or other groups) and know that others have done so, too. They may even think that everyone else interpreted the ambiguous scripture in the same way as themselves. This knowledge and these assumptions bind the members together much like a regular church community does, only without the social interaction. They may each be alone out there, but they are alone together.

A leading scholar in the study of religious Satanism, Jesper Aagaard Petersen, coined the term “Satanic milieu” as a designation for Satanists in any shape or size and how they interact with both non-Satanists and each others, and thereby arguably manages to cover a larger area than had he chosen “community,” because it enables the existence of a variety of different communities within the milieu.

Satan thinks that Peter Gilmore—and Anton LaVey, whom he quotes and paraphrases—simply chose a misleading word to communicate that The Church of Satan’s twice-failed “Grotto” system led The Church of Satan to conclude that it should strive to prevent its members from meeting and thus realizing how little their ideology really defines their lives and how accordingly little they have in common. But by the force of religious scripture, the word became a taboo word within The Church of Satan, whose members will readily yell at anyone who speaks of a “Satanic community” (even when they obviously mean Petersen’s “milieu”) and struggle to explain why they themselves shun the idea. It sometimes leads to amusing results when a member explains that they are not a community, only a means that enables them to find contacts and interact—which is exactly what a community does.

Satan prefers to suppress any laughs, deserving as they might be, because He appreciates His followers being a cooperative body. Satan thinks that His church, and several of His other communions, are in fact Satanic communities, virtual or tangible. Satan thinks that when Peter Gilmore wrote his article on the “myth” of Satanic communities twenty years ago, he reacted correctly against members asking The Church of Satan to mimic Christian church communities but failed to understand that communities imply neither Christian churches nor herd mentality.

Satan thinks that Satanic communities are provably real by the sheer reason that they are observable, and with the advent of The Satanic Temple’s local chapters, several of which focus on organized local community actions complete with photo documentation, the myth of the Satanic community has been dispelled as itself a myth. Time will tell if also these local communities will stay alive, or if they—dependent on the yet uncertain destiny of The Satanic Temple—will run out of steam. For now, they are real: the Satanic community is no myth.

Satan thinks His followers should vote leftist

Posted on by A lesser demon

The Devil has asked your humble demon to emphasize that Satan is entirely unconcerned with politics Himself, firstly because He is the undisputed ruler of Hell and has no intention of changing seats, and secondly because, after all, Hell is for the non-elect. At best, Satan rejects the notion that people get the politicians they deserve, because He finds it improper to hold sensible individuals accountable for herd actions that these individuals played no part in. However, He strongly believes that whenever someone benefits or suffers from the results of the politics that person voted for, it is fully deserved. Colored people who vote for white-supremacy politicans deserve to be victims of racism; major business owners who vote for socialist politicians deserve to have their businesses nationalized; and average-income people who vote for capitalist politicians deserve to be fleeced. No-one should be protected against their own stupidity.

However, the Devil looks after his own, and thinks that His followers should never vote according to any ideology—whether that be nationalist, religious, or otherwise mystical—that requires moral precepts about actions and opinions to be upheld in order to be a good citizen who altruistically votes according to what he or she believes is best for Society. The Devil’s prospective denizens should instead each consider carefully what provides themselves with the greatest benefits, political pipe-dreams be damned, if you will excuse your simple demon the possible inappropriateness of that word. It is this self-interest that prompts the Great Beast to propose that it would behoove most of His followers on the left hand path to keep left in a political context, too. The prospective follower needs not consider himself or herself to be red (red suits will be required to enter the Second Circle of Hell, however), and may in fact feel anything but solidarity with those who are traditionally left-wing, so my Ungodliness has asked me to elaborate.

In all human interactions, Satan believes that might is right. Of course, being an educated and intelligent gentleman, He does not believe in the pseudo-scientific notion that “strong” people, who have won a fight for power, will beget similarly strong children, nor does He believe that the principle that might is right implies that one should accept and succumb to any balance of power. “Might is right” is the realization that power is not merely a question of brawns but instead the phenomenon that right and wrong is defined by those empowered to do so, and that power is the continuous struggle for this position: those who gain power gain whichever rights that power enables. Hence, Satan thinks that those who fight for interests that conflict with those of His followers should never obtain the power to do so. Satan wants to reduce any right defined by the moral, financial, or legal systems of his opponents unless it happens to coincide with those of His followers, and similarly supports any legislation that supports His followers regardless of its formal reason.

Satan has no romantic dreams about humans living as if one with Nature (and, may I interject, He also has some personal issues with this paradisical concept after a certain deity made Paradise forever lost to my Master) and humans have no biologically or divinely imposed obligations towards other animals, human or otherwise. As a species, you human beings behave like any other animal: you exploit the planet’s resources as best as you can. You destroy the very source of your existence, and wishing to change this in order to survive does not make or require you to be a tree-hugger. Satan thinks it is a self-preservation instinct to keep an environmentally-friendly agenda.

And when some group of people is trapped because of conservative initiatives, the Devil objects to their suffering, but not because Satan has any feelings for the victims. He simply understands that such a government has exactly the same sentiments towards any of His followers, any of whom will soon find themselves in hot water once the government sets is eyes upon them. In that case, each of these followers can soon relate to human suffering and human mistreatment, because they will be those very humans. There is not a shred of bleeding-heart liberal feelings in this view; it is egoism, and any egoistic person should know that egoistic goals are often best met through cooperation and effective (if not necessarily earnest) solidarity.

Satan hopes that His followers are self-interested and just want to be well off. Granted, their self-gratification is a multi-dimensional equation with countless compromises that involve both biological, environmental, and parental imperatives, and is under constant development. They will work for their gratification to the extent that their day job is not exceedingly uninteresting or demanding and thus ungratifying. They will sacrifice some of their immediate desires in the interest of their family because it benefits them in the long run. Their actions are characterized by an adaptation to what will provide both short term and long term benefits within certain margins. But His followers have wishes. They want more money, safety on the streets, a society of knowledge and development, food without dangerous additives, the ability to get around, leisure time, etc.

This is where leftism becomes relevant. It is a left-leaning government that will benefit most of the Devil’s followers. What little His best-off followers might cash in on tax reductions for the rich will be paid back with liberal interest added thereunto, either as user charge or lost opportunities. A few hundred tax dollars saved per year is nothing compared to the methodical destruction of educational institutions for the followers who have offspring, their problem soon becoming the problem of His followers—just to name one example. If public transportation is starved or fares increase for drop-off locations father from the destinations, highway congestions will increase with you and your car in the thick of it. A measly few tens of dollars saved on the tax returns is a sorry compensation for major inconveniences.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with various groups of Society is a tactical move which does not require nor imply feelings of solidarity. The Devil asks that you, His followers, cease your infights over minor disagreements and instead ally and resist those who divide and conquer. You may not be an immigrant, a homosexual, a threatened species, a marginalized citizen, an ethnic minority, a child, in need of medical care, or a natural resort. Satan welcomes all of the above but you should realize that most of you are not part of the economy cult which gladly sacrifices any group on the altar of capitalism, and if capitalists are willing to sacrifice the aforementioned groups, then they will sacrifice you, too.

Satan thinks the relationship between you and your employer involves a fundamental disagreement between the ratio of work and compensation. You have opposing financial interests, and it is in your best interest to have a strong trade union that works to secure you against your employer. It would be down-right self-destructive to support an establishment that supports the interests of the employers against the interests of its employees, such as fighting trade unions or by providing discount trade unions whose goal is to make money and not have their members’ interests in mind. Satan could not care less about the success of a trade union, and would never ask His followers to care either, but He thinks His followers have an obvious rational interest in solidarity with trade unions that work to strengthen His followers, regardless of their feelings. A large membership base provides a trade union with the power to fight for whichever is an advantage to its members.

Nature is taking damage, and it will also become costly to compete for the remaining resources. Satan doubts that His followers wish to pay for that, and thinks His followers should prefer to repair the system before it is either too late or has become ruinously expensive. Satan has no romantic dreams of woodland lakes or species that “deserve” to be sustained but thinks any of His followers will benefit from a preservation of the ecosystems.

Satan is by no means recognizably “red,” regardless of what Medieval frescos may otherwise suggest, and does not ask His followers to be socialists either. The Horned One insists that none of this discussion involves “feeling solidary” with one issue or group or another; it only matters to understand that it is beneficial to ally with people who already work for a distribution of power that favors His followers. Satan thinks His followers should not worry if they happen to support people whom they disagree with on a variety of issues as long as those people will fight for a cause that also happens to benefit His followers. It should be of no concern if that makes others think that the follower is a socialist. Hopefully none of Satan’s followers, who refer to themselves as Satanists, are that afraid of being associated with the dreaded “S” (socialist) word.

Satan asks each of His followers to pursue their own self-interest, and that includes the tactical realization that there are more white-belts out there than one can safely wave a stick at. Unison begets power, and the Devil’s followers should unite with whoever provide them with power. Satan thinks it is beneficial to vote leftist whether you feel for it or not.

Satan thinks His followers dress funny

Posted on by A lesser demon

Satan’s key observation about hipsters is that they prove a generic human trait: whenever humans achieve the freedom to be individuals, they use it to imitate each other. In an attempt to look unique and uninfluenced by fashion, hipsters look to each other for inspiration and eventually all look the same. It is this trait that makes Satan think of His followers as hipsters: they wish to stand out from the herd’s expectations but habitually become involuntary stereotypes for that very reason. Satan has observed that with some venerable exceptions, His followers occupy three categories when they choose their outfits:

1. The heavy metal dude with a pitiable body dressed with prominent pentagrams and inverted crosses, complemented with illegible band name tee shirts. Studded leather boots that would fit a slightly homo-erotically–appealing villain of a medieval-times TV series also seem popular. All of it except the band name and image was black before being worn and fortunately washed too many times. Satan counts his blessings (or curses) that they grew up without knowing what the heavy metal icons of the 1980es looked like and attempted to imitate them instead.

2. The pretentiously overdressed snob who attempts to impress others, who watch overbearingly while the pretender impresses only himself or herself and possible a few fellow followers. The Devil hands this follower that at least he or she managed to grasp a few basics about lesser magic and the need to stand out from the herd but wishes that they would observe the Balance Factor. At least they seem to be learning that looking like Anton LaVey is growing out of fashion. Satan cannot tell if the memory of Mr. LaVey is fading or if the general population today now simply shrugs at a shaved head and a goatee, and is mostly relieved that fewer of His followers make the attempt without having the skull—both literally and figuratively—to imitate the old Doctor. He cringes at the thought that His followers might instead one day look to Peter Gilmore, LaVey’s successor in His church, resulting in a horde of eyebrows combed upwards and a tendency towards overweight, but rather than hoping Peter Gilmore will one day recall his own opinion about Michael Aquino’s shaved eyebrows two decades ago, the Devil takes solace in knowing that Peter Gilmore’s meager charisma will inspire few people to imitate his physical appearance.

3. The person who has lost perspective and only recalls that he or she is a Satanist when the Devil is occasionally mentioned and otherwise behaves and thinks and dresses entirely like everyone else. The wardrobe reflects the similarity with others.

The Devil swears by nine parts respectability to one part outrage in accordance with the Balance Factor. Not eight parts that scream loser to two parts 1990es movie, not seven parts respectability to three parts empty posturing, and not ten full parts of mediocrity.

Satan thinks His church is political

Posted on by A lesser demon

Satan is all for taxing His opponents into oblivion and preferably so by also confiscating any assets they might possess. If that means that His own churches and temples must pay taxes, too, then so be it. He gets suspicious if anyone achieves or even attempts to obtain tax-exempt status but recognizes that for legal matters, recognition as a religious organization by the Internal Revenue Service implies a variety of secondary legal benefits, not to mention a strong argument against anyone who would try to dismiss the organization as fake. Satan has lost count of the number of times His church, The Church of Satan, has found it pertinent to remind someone that it was mentioned in the army chaplain’s grande list o’ religions, arguing that it is thus legally recognized as a religion, perhaps rightfully assuming that the US Army Chaplain’s Handbook constitutes a legal document and is not merely a reference book for the Christian priests serving in the US Army Chaplain Corps.

The Devil was reminded of the non tax-exempt status of His church when his temple, The Satanic Temple, recently gained tax-exempt status. He will defer his opinions on the latter for now, because something suddenly confused my otherwise self-assured Master.

Michael Aquino of The Temple of Set once claimed that The Church of Satan had attempted to qualify for tax exemption but failed and, not admitting defeat, only then chose its policy of working for strict taxation of all religion in its five-point program entitled Pentagonal Revisionism. Satan has not been able to locate Michael Aquino’s source for his claim, however, and regrets to inform Mr. Aquino that this makes his claim hearsay. But this is not the source of my Master’s bewilderment.

The issue that made The Prince of Darkness raise an eyebrow (which, unlike Michael Aquino’s or Peter Gilmore’s eyebrows, are not shaved or combed into appearing pointed) is that His church has often lamented The Satanic Temple‘s position that Satanism is a political endeavor and immediately reiterated its own stance on taxation when The Satanic Temple became tax-exempt. Satan shall again abstain from mentioning His own opinion on such matters but finds such complaints and statements of his church’s incompatible with its Pentagonal Revisionism.

Besides the fact that both the demand that stratification be enacted on all levels of society and the demand that religion be isolated from the Law, which are both strictly political statements (both demands being part of Pentagonal Revisionism), questions of taxation also fall squarely within the realm of politics, which among other issues govern financial budgets. With three out of five of the positions of Pentagonal Revisionism being overtly political, Satan finds it either hypocritial or stupid of His church to complain that His temple admits to being a political organization or that Satanism means being political.

Satan also finds it at odds with His church’s opposition to wearing a “good guy badge” that it so strongly highlights itself as a social role model for not paying taxes when it speaks of The Satanic Temple. Satan thought the old carny would readily have fleeced the gullible instead of being a paragon of virtue (and therefore suspects that Mr. Aquino might be speaking the truth), but if that’s how His church wants it, Satan will gladly pin a good-guy badge to their lapels as they walk through the gates of Hell—on their way out.

Satan thinks belief in gods is counter-democratic

Posted on by A lesser demon

Gods are powerful beings that have the authority to define human value, to determine human rights, and to reward and punish any human decision. The gods stand above humans, and allow humans no influence; Man may pray for help and beg for mercy but cannot conclude or decide. Regardless of what humans choose, gods can overrule it. No human opinion stands above that of the gods. The gods always have the final say in human affairs.

Humans who believe in gods believe that the intentions of the gods outweigh human sentiments; they believe that any human opinion can be ignored or rejected because the views of the gods must be respected. And when the gods remain curiously silent, the clerical representatives of the gods will happily explain which of their personal opponents’ opinions should be overruled in favor of the gods—who conveniently always happen to agree with whatever their priests and followers want.

All gods are man-made but believers do not know this. In their self-centered world-view they also fail to recognize that the opinions of their gods are but their own opinions assigned divine authority. Satan wants His followers to be their own gods but it is instead believers who manage to play that role. With their God in their hands, they claim the right to ignore the opposing opinions of others regardless of majority. Should public support of a decision approved of by the believers wane, the believers will claim that their gods demands that it be sustained. And should support of their favored, elected leader falter, soon that leader will have been chosen by God.

Democracy, on the other hand, is for human beings. It is a principle that assigns one vote to each individual, all votes counting exactly the same regardless of individual power or value. No one has more voting power than anyone else. No vote can be overruled by someone else’s demand. Democracy suffers no god a vote because no god exists.

Of course, the Prince of Darkness is not overly fond of democracy Himself and is unsympathetic towards a system of government that grants voting power to stupid people. The only time in History he ever supported democracy was at an event about 2,000 years ago when the vast majority of a large crowd of Judeans voted for Jesus’ death sentence. Satan is the tyrant of Hell who rules His infernal realm with an iron fist and allows His tormented souls no rights.

Satan thinks that in the realm of humans, however, a mindset that surrenders any part of a decision-making process to a super-human entity is inherently counter-democratic as it strips humans of their human worth, human influence, and human rights, surrendering the power of the people to undeserving believers and their priests.

Satan thinks people are being bullied because they are weird

Posted on by A lesser demon

From an evolutionary perspective, herd confirmity is critical to social animals. In fact, even solitary animals must obey the “social” rules of their species, including rules that mandate getting killed and devoured by a fellow specimen.

If you deviated from the social norms in ancient times, your local peers would quickly inform you of your misstep with angry outbursts and often physical reminders intended to motivate correct behavior. Deviation was not called for; it usually implied life-threatening risks and deadly mistakes affecting the entire social group, and such is usually dealt harshly and swiftly with on an evolutionary scale: evolution requires change and adaptation, favoring those who possess a lucky fit to physical and social environments, but most evolutionary paths are short and dead-ended. Repeat offense tended to be punishable with death, where your socially conscientious group would rend you limb from limb or ostracize you and leave you to the futile odds of surviving on your own. Lex Talionis—the law of the jungle—stipulates that you either conform or die.

By the same token, physical deviance is perceived as a threat, too, for good reason: in Nature, if an animal looks like something is wrong, then usually something is wrong, and the unfortunate individual should immediately be prevented from contributing to the gene pool as a matter of precaution.

Mankind may consider itself to be highly evolved but Satan thinks Man is barely a late-generation ape whose apparent sophistication is skin deep. A long history of evolution and very basic rules of survival govern human behavior to a much larger extent than humans like to think. Such deeply rooted core behavior dominates, so as soon as a human grows old enough to decode primitive social situations, any sight of unnatural (meaning any eccentric or peculiar) behavior will prompt normal human children to use all forms of peer pressure involving chicanery, harrassment, exclusion, bullying, and violence to suppress the aberration. The specific methods usually become more refined and artful as the children grow older and into adults, but typically not much and least among less gifted individuals. Nonconformity is feared by any age group because unnaturalness awakens the primoridal terror of a threat to group survival.

Satan wishes to interject here that it is a common misconception that people who rise to the top broke the rules to get there. They did not; they are in fact highly conformant. Some successful businessman or leader may indeed seem to break all codes of conduct or deviate from classical methods but social expectations ask just that of a powerful individual, and he or she rose to the top only through satisfing the herd’s demand for conformity-enforcing products or opinions. Satan thinks that few things are as conformant as acting “nonconformantly” in accordance with a social role that is defined by the herd. To successfully deviate from the herd, you must deviate in a predefined fashion that everyone accepts.

There are individuals who cannot help being nonconformant, however. They may suffer from mental illnesses or personality disorders that prevent them from understanding or following social rules or even from perceiving the world in a manner that aids their survival. To a varying degree, their irregular behavior threaten the life-sustaining conformity and hence they deserve to be either taught to conform or be properly disposed of, sometimes for perfectly good reason if their deviant behavior is harmful to others. And so from an early onset in life they are bullied until they occupy a harmless role in their society and until they keep a proper distance to normal people. For matters of brevity (and possibly because my Master specifically asked me to avoid any mention of demonic possession in the context of mental illness), your disloyal demon points its dear readers to our esteemed denizen Mr. Foucault’s book: Madness and Civilization for a historical rundown of psychotherapeutic treatment. Focus must remain what Satan thinks, not how humans have historically addressed mental health.

The Devil does not wish to share His opinions on the moral aspects of bullying, nor will He discuss specific forms of deviance. He merely understands that it is innately human to bully outliers, and that being bullied is thus a litmus test for deviance. Some anomaly is easily identifiable—physical disability or deformity is obvious—but adults do not readily recognize that if a child is otherwise being bullied in school, then probably there is something wrong with that child from a normality perspective. Bullies may be forced to stop but Satan thinks that an important step to stop the bullying would be to locate the deviant behavior and its cause because an early diagnosis can change everything for the better for a person.

Satan thinks His followers should use goodwill accounts

Posted on by A lesser demon

In His dealings with His minions and followers, the Devil employs the simple strategy of tit for tat. Satan thinks that treating people exactly as they treat you is a surprisingly effective strategy for convincing them that you are evil incarnate. Moreover, it is a highly effective game-theory mechanism that outperforms virtually all contenders while also being the simplest of them all—although perhaps not as simple the strategy of always turning the other cheek which however suffers the severe drawback of being disastrously inferior to them all.

For the uninitiated, the tit for tat strategy means “equivalent retaliation” (although not desiring to wait for hostile action before taking revenge, the Devil often implements preemptive retaliation instead) where you replicate your opponent’s previous action: if your opponent was helpful, you cooperate whereas if your opponent was uncooperative, then so are you. The strategy becomes highly cooperative once your opponents follow (other) strategies involving cooperation as long as you stick to your tit for tat principles and begin with being cooperative in situations where you must take the initiative. This is not to say that Satan thinks you should strictly bother no-one and destroy them if they bother you. It means you should apply the Balance Factor when you reward or punish and tip the scales of Balance slightly by offering a gift in any initial move.

The simplicity of the tit for tat strategy avoids lengthy records and statistics of past behavior; it suffices to merely recall someone’s last action. But although Satan thinks that most people could easily be replaced with mindless automatons following simple scripts, real life is subject to somewhat more complicated rules than are usually set in game theory competitions. There are variably delayed rewards and punishments, drawbacks to some cooperative or punitive actions (you can only quit so many jobs in a short while until it damages your resume, for example), and people who play tit for tat but whose cooperation is harmful or vice versa, just to name a few issues.

In these modern days of lawyers, bankers, and accountants, Satan thinks His followers should think in terms of book-keeping. Relations with others—employers, spouses, strangers, groups—can be thought of as “transactions” on some checking account using “goodwill” as currency. Satan thinks that one should begin each relationship by opening a goodwill checking account and immediately deposit some amount of goodwill on it. The other party is then free to deposit or withdraw goodwill through his or her actions. You, on the other hand, behave as if your “opponent” (who is your collaborator in a mutual tit for tat arrangement), too, maintains a goodwill account, so make prudent withdrawals and deposits on their accounts as well, according to the tit for tat principle.

The key is to cut your losses and terminate the relationship once your goodwill account is overdrawn. The initial amount that you deposited serves as your initial “gift” to the other party and as a buffer amount that safeguards young relationships from minor misunderstandings. Never make an initial deposit worth more than you can afford to lose: invest too much, and you risk becoming prey to a psychic vampire who keeps drawing on your goodwill while giving very little in return.

Satan thinks moral people are untrustworthy

Posted on by A lesser demon

Satan’s preferred epistemological model of human knowledge is tabula rasa, because most humans preserve this state of mental blankness throughout their existence. What little primordial wisdom exists is systematically replaced with herd conformity and herd values through a process known as socialization. Little children, the hellspawn that they are, have an innate concept of justice and understand that exploiters and predators should be ostracized or overthrown; but through careful grooming they are taught to view sophisticated exploitation and oppression as socially desirable. They are taught to succumb to the undeserved power of trickery and brawns by a herd thus suppressed, learning to follow herd expectations: they become moral beings.

Some herd decisions may be advantageous for the continuation of the species but the Devil is satisfied with recognizing them all as man-made, not universal or divinely prescribed. They are the herd leading itself. Moral requirements are nothing but peer pressure to fit in, and Satan, had He not been morally disengaged to begin with, naturally disassociates Himself from all crowd self-control.

Satan does not mind seemingly moral arguments serving the self-interest of every individual. For example, blood or organ donations, tax payment, or similar society-level resource pooling can be regarded as either personal insurance or investment sharing, and the Devil tolerates a limited level of moralization on such issues against people who do not condone or grasp the obvious advantages of self-serving actions and are swayed by appeal to morality instead; Satan considers the latter a necessary white lie.

Satan abhors moralizing individuals who place themselves on a pedestal by example of their own moral superiority, however. Our Lord of Lies is unconcerned with the truth value of their claims, knowing that moralization and hypocrisy are lockstep conducts; it is the moralization He despises because it is empty posturing and an attempt to obtain unearned authority. Satan recommends that His followers never trust a person who claims to be right because he or she holds a higher moral ground than his or her opponents. Anyone that uses self-aggrandizement as the authority for truth and justice will treat you as an inferior with fewer rights once you inevitably have disagreements.

Satan thinks the Ninth Statement is a warning

Posted on by A lesser demon

A religion that preaches redemption from evil needs evil to be redeemed from, and a religion that sentences its stray sheep to Hell needs Hell. My Infernal Lord is therefore not surprised to be integral to Christian mythology, nor has He overlooked the fact that by His many names, countless other religions and ideologies have drawn upon His services to drive their droves into place and will continue to do so.

All it took for Mr. Hitler and his associates to convince their population to persecute the Jews was to draw pictures of them with little horns and claim that they were my master’s people. (My master asks me to mention that He nonetheless does not hold “Adolf,” as He said, entirely responsible for the Holocaust incident, as Mr. Hitler had merely followed up on the proposals of Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism.) And a few decades ago, a president in the Western World who shall remain nameless, because we do not wish to speak the names of angels to be, needed only declare the Middle East to be the “axis of evil” and an enemy of his religion in order to launch a full scale war against a competitor to his family business.

Satan thinks the mechanism is a tad more general than being a manipulative, religious tool, however, because He finds it deeply rooted in the human brain. Any group—religious, political, social, or other—defines itself positively and negatively. The terms refer to what the ideology believes to contain and not to contain, and do not signify “good” or “bad” values. For example, atheism rejects the notion of gods, and although atheists consider this to be good (and Old Nick wholeheartedly agrees), it is a negative definition. A positive definition of atheism, had there been any, would describe what atheism adds rather than what it subtracts compared with other groups. The population of the USA would define itself positively (i.e., by what they are) by stating, e.g., that they are inhabitants of Northern America, and negatively (i.e., by what they are not) by assuring that part of their excellence involves not being Canadian.

Positive and negative definitions are often made-up. The positive definitions serve to reassure oneself of validity and greatness, or they are group goals, while negative definitions serve to both demark the limits of a group, and to be “inverse positives” which communicate that the group is the opposite of the negative definition. The Devil dryly notes that from his perspective, the latter is generally a statement of what the group merely wishes it wasn’t, because humans usually are as deplorable as they say they aren’t.

Human beings tend to converge on quite similar positive and negative definitions regardless of group identity, mainly because Man is a social animal and behaves accordingly. Human survival depends on everyone behaving mostly alike, and in societies, which all function mostly the same around the planet. Satan grants that there are trivial differences between groups such as geographically determined traditions regarding food or fashion, differently named gods and varying degrees between believing in literal or abstract deities, or different names for how governments universally enable the ruling class to exploit the less fortunate.

As social animals, humans need to belong to a group but its size is limited by the mental capacity of its members. Everyone outside of the group (which can be geographically far stretched in a highly connected world) is “the others” because the human brain can scope only the individual’s own group. Human identity is derived from their groups through the groups’ self-definitions: that which the group is and is not is what its members are and are not; defiance implies ostracism, which is the worst of all fears because in human evolution group rejection once spelled certain death.

Satan thinks that the stronger the need of an individual to feel the identity bestowed by his or her group, the more prone he or she is to concentrate on negative definitions, emphasizing how other groups are different or, equivalently, how his or her group is entirely unlike them. This is especially true when the groups seem similar, because at a deeply primal level the similarity creates the impression that the other group is a close contender to one’s own group, which might subsequently be overtaken and eliminated and oneself with it. Satan cares little whether the need to underscore one’s group at the expense of others arises from a self-inflated sense of significance which inspires people to contribute high importance to negative definitions, or whether it is the result of a mental capacity falling far below Dunbar’s number that requires less ambiguously defined group boundaries. He thinks that the strong need to defend one’s group is herd mentality regardless of cause, and the only important and perhaps counter-intuitive observation is that herd mentality compels an individual to identify strongly with narrowly and even binarily defined groups (by specific congregation, nationality, etc.) and aggressively dismiss its closer contenders rather than finding common ground. Herd mentality drives Europeans to fear the Middle East more than the Far East, and Western Satanic groups to be more spiteful against each other than even against the soup of Christianity that engulfs them all.

Your humble, and more often humbled and humiliated, narrator had wished to ask its master if the observation is really counter-intuitive, and whether not true individualism as opposed to herd mentality would obviously make someone both shrug off group conflicts and be capable of joining very large communities without feeling obliged to group-think. However, the Horned Almighty routinely punishes dumb questions with another turn on the rack, and yours unfaithful has decided to leave the answer blowing in the hot winds of Hell.

Satan thinks that the Ninth Statement should be taken as a warning not to be yet another friend of the Church through one’s actions and demeanor. When Satan observes one of His followers behaving according to Christian precepts about the Devil’s own, believing to be thus expected, He thinks the follower is a Christian who has no place wearing the Devil’s colors. It helps little if the follower does so knowingly in order to offend his or her haters. That requires no talent; true demonic skill lies in turning the haters’ invested emotions against themselves, perplexing them into dislodging their ideological conviction. Satan thinks that wishing, by one’s actions, to be the best friend the Church has ever had, the best option is: go to church.

And Satan thinks this warning should call for introspection, too, allowing the abyss to gaze back. His followers should avoid the herd mentality need to identify themselves so strongly with their own group that their use of other groups for negative definition turns disagreement into obsession. He recalls that one of his denizens, some Friedrich Nietzsche, once cautioned against becoming the monster you chase, and thinks that His followers, too, should avoid the temptation to allow their enemies—percived or real—a seat on His throne by casting them as the followers’ Devil in order to stay in business.

Satan thinks the strong should take care of the weak

Posted on by A lesser demon

Satan would like to remind His ask followers not to treat His sermon as gospel when He declared the strong as blessed and the weak as cursed. The Devil said such only to rattle the cages of the less enlightened of His latent followers in the part of the world where He held said sermon: those who were raised to be Christians and still harbored the illusion that Christianity somehow favors weakness. These followers needed to be forcefully reminded that they should discard such notions immediately. Our Royal Darkness has later confessed that He got somewhat carried away and had rather intended the passage for the considerably smaller number of prospective followers who did indeed require disillusioning but who were also not at the same time stupid.

His Infernal Ruler is keenly aware that the powers that be are always intimately entangled with the dominant religion in any area, and that supremacy rests on a shared ideal among one’s powerful peers that is invariably expressed in religious values. In short, the very followers who read the aforementioned passage in The Satanic Bible should convert to Christianity immediately, and become devoted ones at that in conservative settings, if they desire power, because it is the Christians who are thus blessed.

Yes â€¦ there are examples of people who rise to power, glory, and influence in disregard of the established aristocracy. Your humble harrasser (the titulary terms “tormentor” and “accuser” are reserved for my Master) dares to remind you without consulting its Master that the lifetime of a human is but a moment in the realm of the gods and the devils. Such successful people, or at least their immediate descendants, will soon find themselves part of the religously-bound aristocracy if their power manages to survive a single generation.

Satan thinks that His followers should remember to always think of themselves and maintain perspective. It is easy to feel powerful if you have a mere few subordinates, but losers pose a problem on a larger scale and challenge power. There is detailed and perfect stratification in Hell, as we lesser demons of the realm can painfully testify, but among humans living above our fiery abode, losers do not simply vanish into thin air. They keep demanding nourishment and inhabitation, and whatever else rodents seem to require, regardless of how much wealth and power you amass, and moreso the more you amass on their behalf. Starve them of food or land and they will not simple succumb to oblivion and die and magically disappear. Losers, having nothing to lose, will begin to rob you of both once they are bereft of choice.

The Devil’s followers usually subscribe to one of two solutions: either they barricade themselves and arm themselves to their teeth in a perpetual battle against the desperate hordes, or they keep killing them before they become a nuisance. Both options being virtually impossible and verging towards pipe-dreams, Satan thinks they should consider a third alternative, namely to feed the bastards and provide them with living quarters to pacify their desperation. It would be pricey but nowhere as costly as establishing and maintaining a defensive perimeter, and Satan thinks His followers should consider the value of safety that allows them to walk freely anywhere without fearing assaults.

Satan cautions that support not be left to individualized aid and handouts, however, because as Satanically correct as it might seem (for the uninitiated, it means that whoever wishes to provide charity should be allowed to do so without making it mandatory for everyone), such practice fosters a culture where righteousness is faked through paltry alms. It would support philosophies of altruism and run counter to all Satanic ideals. Satan thinks it is better to institutionalize “alms” at a national level through adequate social welfare so that no human can pretend or believe to be “good” for keeping losers alive. Separation of state from religion is contingent on the state taking responsibility for those civic and human duties that are currently being implemented by religious enterprises.