Satan thinks religious people ain’t dumb

Posted on by A lesser demon

Several studies have been published that indicate that people with higher education tend to be more atheistically inclined than those with lower education. Satan prefers to dumb it down so everyone gets it: studies show that religious people are dumber than the rest.

But, in spite of the taunt-value of such research, The Prince of Darkness demands intellectual honesty. Old Nick is not convinced of the conclusions.

His Infernal Majesty notes that higher education cultivates abstract thinking. A university-trained person is likely to think in more abstract terms than a primary school drop-out. This phenomenon affects survey-based research.

For example, a survey question asking whether the respondent believes there is a god who personally decides everyone’s fate is very concrete. It practically asks whether the respondent believes there exists a human-looking being that has a personal relationship with you. To the Christian whose faith is very concrete, this may very well sound like the god he believes in, and he will answer “yes” on the questionnaire. But another Christian whose faith is more abstract may think of “God” as a guiding principle by whose example one’s fate in the afterlife is determined, and is likely to answer “no.”

Such a survey would conclude that people who think abstractly tend to be atheists. Yet, the two thought patterns are identical in the sense that both respondents believe in some entity whose demands they should meet, and for the same reason. The latter view is no less superstitious than the former; it is only more abstract. An ill-phrased question can make seminal differences in such surveys, and fields that are highly open to interpretation—such as people’s personal religious beliefs—are markedly vulnerable to careless phrasing.

Satan thinks that people with higher educations are no less religious than their less educated (and, although it is politically incorrect to say so, therefore as a general rule less intelligent) brethren. The difference between smart and dumb people is not how religiously inclined they are but what their religious narrative is. The smart, religious person may sound like an atheist to the dumb, religious person, and the latter may seem fundamentalist to the former—but it is the same basic belief. Neither is less religious than the other; they are just religious on their respective levels of intelligence. To the brainy individual, his religion is intelligent, and to the half-witted person, the religion is dumb—but it is the same religion.

And thus the Angel of the Bottomless Pit regrets to conclude that higher-educated, smarter people are no less religious than dumb folks. They are not the atheists that surveys may indicate. Religion transcends intelligence. Education is no bulwark against religion; it only makes superstition sound smarter.

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 all gods are puny

Posted on by A lesser demon

Legend tells us that The Son of the Morning was cast into the pit as punishment for committing the mortal sin of pride when He refused to kneel before Jehovah’s newly crafted creature of clay. However, it was sarcasm not pride that triggered the wrath of Jehovah on that fateful day when the Devil saltily added that if God had created man in his image, mankind wouldn’t be the thinking kind.

The human brain evolved to survive in the world, not to understand it, and mankind created its gods as a means to understand a world that the human brain is not configured to comprehend. The human animal saw actors—animals and mostly humans—as arbiters of change, and the brain of a social animal surmises that any change is caused by such actors even if the actor is unseen. Forces of Nature such as the Sun, the weather, the seasons, natural disasters, a well as perceived forces of good or bad fortune, were all viewed from the perspective of the anthropomorphizing human brain: whenever something happens, it is caused by someone who acted according to similar motivations and logic as the observer would have applied, only this someone is very powerful.

The gods thus took the shape of humans and animals with human qualities of reasoning and the ability to be influenced, and they were all “invented,” or rather taken as axiomatic, to provide mankind with a mental image of Nature. Gods serve to satisfy the brain’s requirement for a human-centered explanation where all is interpreted in terms of human interaction and human qualities are assigned to even inanimate objects.

No level of intelligence can deny the brain its need for actors as an explanation. The human brain imagines actors and succumbs to magical thinking when its host is not in control. It is not until an individual gains direct control over a situation and recognizes himself or herself as the cause of change that external actors become irrelevant. Hence, gods are killed not by intelligence, which is why even intelligent people often believe in them. A god dies when the human brain realizes that it is in control of the realm that belonged to the god.

It is with the above in mind that Satan finds it amusing when some of His followers declare themselves to be their own gods. Satan’s amusement is partly caused by somewhat concerning circumstances that He would like to spend a few paragraphs on. If gods are born of a lack of control, the Devil cannot help but wonder if it reveals that those followers are the very essence of powerlessness. The idea behind the declaration was never to do away with gods, only to replace them. But a god who is defeated disappears. It does not change ownership or name, no matter how personal, because all gods are deeply personal as they each live inside your brain. They cannot be abandoned and replaced if they still live there.

Satan thinks that the very need to introduce a god by proxy, even by figure of speech, points towards the person’s need for a god to mask the person’s insecurity and inability to cope. Satan therefore thinks it is probably a person who used to believe in gods and is unable to let go of this belief who utters the phrase “I am my own god.” After all, to an atheist who never had any god, the term “I am my own god” equals “I am my own non-existence,” and would be quite ridiculous.

Now, Satan knows that the phrase is derived from The Satanic Bible and Anton LaVey’s ill-founded model of religion in the chapter The God You Save May Be Yourself; the original variation of the phrase is found in the chapter Religious Holidays. The Devil thinks that those of his followers who make declarations about being their own gods have generally put limited thought into the statement and take it to mean that they choose their own moral views, make their own decisions, etc. instead of obeying some religious rules. Satan fully supports this idea. He is of course aware that in practice the declaration is similar to stating that one is one’s own master, although in this case human masters are not denied.

The main source of Satan’s amusement with the term “I am my own god!” however, is the connotations of the word “god.”

To the Prince of Darkness, gods symbolize lack of control, insecurity, powerlessness, impotence, infirmity, and herd mentality. So as far as Satan is concerned, any human being that invokes a god betrays these very personal shortcomings. What an unintended joke the Devil’s followers make of themselves by declaring themselves as gods!, the Devil grins.

The statement “I am my own god” may inspire awe among those who believe in gods and to whom gods are authoritative. But to everyone else it fosters no respect … or even disrespect when this “god” is soon revealed to be reared by the very god that the person was raised to believe in. It is uncanny how often the Devil’s followers cast themselves as contenders to the thrones of the old gods instead of doing away with the controlling gods altogether, only to model their “own” god by the old one.

Like the god they wished to abandon, they feel every bit the same need to reassert themselves, are every bit as arrogant and resistant to reason, and generally behave every bit like when the followed their former god, only maybe a little more pronounced. Satan thinks they should not be surprised that once they declare themselves as their own gods, no-one comes to worship them at their altars; their gods will never gain beyond a single worshiper.

Satan thinks confirmation bias is key

Posted on by A lesser demon

Confirmation bias is the cognitive tendency to see what one wishes to see and ignore the rest. It means one interprets, remembers, and searches for information that bolsters one’s beliefs, preconceptions, and prejudice. It ranges from interpreting ambiguity as supporting one’s position to overlooking or downright denying evidence to the contrary. Confirmation bias is the cause of poor decisions and systematic errors in both science, organizations, and international politics.

Anton LaVey is lauded for his large number of inspirations that he combined into what his organization describes as a novel and unique philosphy. There is no question that Anton LaVey was an avid reader; if in doubt, the bibliography of his 1971 book, The Satanic Witch, originally entitled The Compleat Witch, should convince anyone. Satanism might involve no innovative ideas or original insigts but Anton LaVey’s combination of elements of pre-existing ideologies and philosophies was new.

Satan demands study not worship, and it would seem reasonable to use Anton LaVey’s sources of inspiration as a starting point. And yet, it is a route traced by misleading paths where one must rigorously observe and apply the Balance Factor on a shaky ground of philosophical traps, unscientific foundations, and ideologically slippery slopes. Satan thinks that is incumbent on the eager student of the dark lore to always beware that Anton LaVey picked that from his sources which he liked and ignored everything else.

Anton LaVey later revealed to be aware of his cherry picking. For example, he explained in The Devil’s Notebook that he found the attempts to build “orgone accumulators” to be a fad that presumably one should steer clear of, and instead—with a direct reference to The Satanic Bible, so it should be considered important—pursue Wilhelm Reich’s cloudbusting hypothesis or his similarly hypothesised cancer biopathy. Lest any of you decide to follow his advice, Old Nick cautions that these works of Reich’s, too, were complete bunk. Wilhelm Reich should be honored for breaking somewhat free of Sigmund Freud’s paradigm, for being an early theorist of psychosomatics, and for describing mental illness as a phenomenon that may extend beyond the suffering of individual beings. And he should be remembered as an example of a suffering, pitiable madman who gained followers in pursuit of an unhinged dream founded on the yet unretired belief that the secret of human nature could be reduced to understanding particles. Satan cannot think for a moment that virtually any of Wilhelm Reich’s work deserves attention save his regrettably mostly unaccredited transition from Freudian mistakes toward modern psychology.

A more prominent example is without question Anton LaVey’s inclusion of the contents from several chapters of Might Is Right in “The Book of Satan” of The Satanic Bible. It was originally authored by Arthur Desmond using the pen name “Ragnar Redbeard,” and Anton LaVey wrote in his preface to the 1996 reprint that the book was a rant of glaring contradictions, leaving only a fraction of it suitable for The Satanic Bible, and this only for its inflammatory prose and evocative purpose, Anton LaVey claimed.

Satan could not agree more. Arthur Desmond was a failed politician with delusions of grandeur who kept getting into legal trouble and was eventually forced to flee from New Zealand. He came to America and settled in Chicago where he wrote the book. Might Is Right does not urge any specific ideology but rather argues that morality exists only in the human mind, that there is no such thing as “good,” and that there is no inherent benefit in being a good person or doing what is right. Arthur Desmond respected only those who were physically strong and could force others to do their bidding. The arguments went in all directions, however, often contradicting each other. There is no need to take Anton LaVey’s speculation that the author might have been Jack London seriously, because passages have later been recovered from Arthur Desmond’s early writings, and Jack London was just 14 years old when the first edition of Might Is Right was released anyway.

The elements that Anton LaVey plagiarized for The Satanic Bible are among the least senseless passages, and they serve their purpose as Satan’s long overdue retort against those who have slandered His name over the centuries. Satan thinks they also transmit the concept that morality is relative and a man-shaped idea that is subject to discussion and negotiation, without throwing the baby out with the bathwater by using Arthur Desmond’s original, preposterous arguments. (We shall ignore here that morality does in fact seem to extend beyond the human mind, because moral judgment and behavior, as humans understand it, have been observed among a variety of other species.) “The Book of Satan” thus channels the message that established sophisms and religious “truths” can go to Hell on their own banana peels and primes the reader for the new and superior morality of the Devil that follows in remainder of The Satanic Bible. Everything else in Might Is Right is useless.

Some level of condolence is usually implied when an author draws inspiration from a source but Satan thinks this does not apply in the case of Anton LaVey’s Satanism. Perhaps Anton LaVey was a pragmatist who cared little about the cause of magic as long as it worked, had little concern about the possible existence of the Devil as long as he felt he could draw on the powers of darkness, and ignored any political or other leanings of his sources if they otherwise managed to accidentally stumble upon something Anton LaVey considered true. In his many years of searching for the secrets behind magic, he would accept anything that he believed would work and discard the rest with a complete disregard of context.

This would describe a conscious application of confirmation bias where Anton LaVey deliberately ignored the context of his sources and placed them into a new one that cannot be derived from the original contexts—that is, Anton LaVey did not only combine hitherto unconnected ideas as mentioned earlier, he changed their meanings. The question, of course, is whether Anton LaVey was deliberately eclectic or was so vulnerable to confirmation bias that he was unaware of his suppression of contradicting evidence, non sequiturs, and broken causalities and his similar inclination towards hasty generalizations, false dichotomies, and strawmen. Satan thinks there are signs pointing in both directions and shall draw no conclusions on the matter.

Anton LaVey passed away decades ago, however, and Satan is more interested in how Anton LaVey’s devotees of today react to his one-sided selection of source material. The Devil has identified no Satanist who constructed a cloudbuster in spite of Anton LaVey’s recommendations on the pursuit of Wilhelm Reich’s “magic,” and speaking of magic, newer Church of Satan members have demoted magic to do-it-yourself coaching intended as mental self-help. Modern readers of The Satanic Bible focus on the elements that appeal to them and downplay or even ignore anything they cannot readily relate to, and thus remove themselves by yet another level beyond Anton LaVey’s removal from his inspirators.

Satan thinks there are two important lessons to be learned from confirmation bias both as Anton LaVey is concerned and as LaVey’s legacy is concerned. (Well, there are three lessons, but the thirds one is general advice on how to manage confirmation bias. Satan thinks this lesson should be taught by others.)

One lesson is a danger of confirmation bias: the instant hit of The Satanic Bible and the inclusion of the passages from Might Is Right sparked a renewed interest in the book, which had by then passed into obscurity. It was reprinted and soon discovered by right-wing extremists who appreciated its rampant racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and social Darwinism—all that Anton LaVey had omitted except some hints of social Darwinism which, in the strongly anti-Christian context of “The Book of Satan” and The Satanic Bible as such, should be taken as opposition against the alleged meekness of Christianity rather than necessarily a political statement.

Satan thinks it is unfair to accuse Anton LaVey of intentionally inviting neo-Nazis into his organization through the otherwise ideologically fueling literature. However, it takes an exceptional lack of perspective to overlook the obviously appealing effect on right-wing extremists by dedicating an entire section of The Satanic Bible to Might Is Right. Indeed, Michael Aquino’s book, The Church of Satan, reveals that Nazi associations with The Church of Satan began in the very year that Might Is Right came back in print. For good measure, Michael Aquino’s book also reveals that Anton LaVey was opposed to the connection between neo-Nazism and The Church of Satan. The Church of Satan went dormant a few years later, and when it resurfaced in the mid-1980s it soon became clear that members with more than spurious interest in Nazism had joined the organization and became ranking members. One could barely find a periodical or a magazine published by a Church of Satan member that was not littered with neo-Nazi imagery and other fascist references. Satan takes no issue with people who feel that the sun-symbol should be reclaimed and make occasional use of it among less tarnished symbols, but the “who are you kidding?” line is long crossed when they reach a seven-out-of-ten ratio of the topics of a magazine. These members were not merely loud. They constituted a disproportionally large part of the representative membership and appealed to more members of their likes.

Satan trusts that Anton LaVey did not desire this, but it is what happens when you quote an important inspiration a source who was primarily occupied with issues that you chose to ignore in your quest for what you wished to find. Satan thinks that the avid Satanic student who reads the book should learn to appreciate not only its value for The Satanic Bible but also its author’s biography and why the remainder that Anton LaVey omitted speaks to right-wing extremists instead, and especially that there are often unintended and sometimes severe consequences of confirmation bias.

The other lesson is that confirmation bias replaces potentially vital parts of a teaching with one’s own opinions, and because everyone changes their views more than they imagine or can even admit (because the brain believes it is consistent) throughout their lifetimes, one may render the original teaching washed-out to a homeopathic dilution. What remains is the person’s culturally inculcated values, the person’s political stance, probably some affinity for diabolic aesthetics, and other entirely personal opinions—and the person believes this to be the exact same Satanism that Anton LaVey defined.

Satan thinks that followers of the LaVeyan variety should mind Anton LaVey’s confirmation bias that governs his definition of Satanism and make calculated efforts to steer clear of all the hogwash and counter-productive instructions that plagued his grimoires, too. Satan thinks that if ever in doubt of where to strike the balance, one should make no attempt to learn further from said grimoires.

Satan does not require infernal fundamentalism, far from it. He only asks His followers to both be mindful of opinions that they may not be conscious of and to be mindful of the origin of their opinions. If they do not stem from the Devil, Satan thinks that the would-be follower may have accidentally submitted to a different master, one without horns and cloven hooves.

Satan thinks religious hypocrisy is preferable

Posted on by A lesser demon

Lucifer is an advocate of personal integrity, self-esteem, and confidence. After all, did He not prefer to be cast into the pit rather than yield His will to some smug shah and feign impression when the latter had sculpted man out of sand like an infant on the beach? The Angel of Light, this magnificent creature of fire, should never bow to a body of dust. The virtues of a principled life sometimes come at a steep cost but you will have lost everything of you lose your own self: you will be a mere slave of the expectations of others.

Satan thus demands no less of His followers than of Himself.

Satan consents to a certain balance in the name of self-interest, of course. He has in fact later recognized that He could have taken a middle path between casting Himself to the ground in awe of the childish sand figure and Jehovah’s predictable temper tantrum with a display of some evidently deeply needed adult guidance. The Prince of Hell might have averted a crisis had He then, like any good parent, praised the creator’s creative if not successful attempt and reminded him to clean up afterwards. Satan thinks a similar balance act is prudent for His followers as long as they know what they are doing.

The Devil has an entirely different attitude towards those who are not His followers whom He would never require to be mindful of their convictions. Seeing what such people believe in, Satan encourages religious hypocrisy and hopes that His followers will help spread this message. Satan thinks none of His followers want Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and what have we to live and act according to their respective scrolls and books, because His followers would become wanted men—dead, not alive—in the blink of an eye.

No sane person would ever wish for a believer to devotedly follow the believer’s scriptures, which usually prescribe murder, torture, rape, and slavery as penalty for the silliest of transgressions, and towards non-followers of the religion in particular. Believers generally do not limit their laws to their own communities but enforce them wherever they can, and everyone else had better hope and pray that those laws are not overly deranged and the punishments not too grisly.

Better yet, Satan thinks everyone should both wish for and encourage the believers to be hypocritical. Hypocrisy is the pretense of having moral or religious beliefs or practices that one does not possess, lest you forget. The Devil obviously encourages deviation from religion in the first place, and although it may seem unfair when hypocritical believers demand from others what they would never do themselves, one should be thankful that hypocrisy is a trait that absolves the hypocrite of the responsibility that religion has laid upon him or her. One should count on the hypocrite, not on the ardent believer, to spare one from the punishment of one’s crimes against their religion.

An all-out conformity with written scripture would, of course, have some benefits. Pigs and various shellfish would probably appreciate if Christians paid attention to their Bible and noted that the Old Testament applies to them, too, in the words of Jesus, who reportedly came to fulfill the law, i.e., the Old Testament. Certain hate-mongering women would finally keep their mouths shut against audiences. Satan can think of many such examples but the Prince of Darkness is willing to tolerate the existence of an array of Fox News hostesses if it enables His female acolytes to uncover their bodies as they please while He enjoys a good schweineschnitzel at His favorite restaurant.

Satan does not understand why some of His followers, as well as regular atheists, mock believers for their hypocrisy. Satan thinks the last they should do is complain that believers are hypocrites and thereby encourage them to exhibit religious righteousness. They should instead thank providence for bestowing believers with hypocrisy and support every instance of hypocrisy they encounter among followers of the gods.

Satan thinks authority matters

Posted on by A lesser demon

Satan thinks everyone seems to be an expert these days but usually with little to show for it. He thinks humans may have forgotten what makes someone an expert and especially what constitutes authority as an expert.

Anyone can make a claim, but to convince others that you speak the truth about a subject, first you must establish credibility as someone who has actual knowledge on that topic. Your authority is required to speak on the subject matter, or none will attribute more significance to your claims than had you told them about your favorite color: it would be received as nothing but your personal opinion, and certainly not something that calls for consideration let alone compliance.

Religions face a particular challenge when their adherents must argue why they are right and everyone else is wrong, typically including all other groups within the religion than one’s own: there are no gods. Whatever gods the followers believe in, these gods never seem to care to visit Earth and settle the score once and for all. Godless religions such as certain schools of Buddhism are equally challenged because although the founder of atheistic Buddhism was once a living and breathing human, he is long dead and will never rise from his grave to explain what he really meant.

Instead, religions must resort to other tactics in order to feign authority. The Catholic Church has managed to keep an uninterrupted line of popes since the foundation of Christianity by Paul the Apostle, who claimed that Jesus had conferred the “Petrine primacy” to him and thus appointed him as the first pope. All popes are assumed to inherit this primacy, almost as if they were Paul the Apostle reborn. Hence, the Catholic Church’s claim to being right is its direct line of heritage to the founder of Christianity. Of course, if you do not believe that popes can inherit whatever mandate was given to Paul the Apostle, the Catholic Church will not convince you that it is the true kind of Christianity, at least not using that argument.

Michael Aquino (who founded The Temple of Set) took a similar approach, borrowing his mandate from a supernatural entity when he claimed that my Master had transferred an infernal mandate from Anton LaVey to Michael Aquino. Thus having been specifically appointed by the Devil Himself, Michael Aquino obtained the authority to define Satanism and Anton LaVey lost it. But, one must believe both that there is a Devil and that Michael Aquino spoke the truth to respect this claim to authority. In the absense of any Prince of Darkness to confirm the transaction, one can only conclude that Michael was either consciously lying or having a fit of self-delusion, whichever version one prefers. Satan thinks that the purported bestowal of His mandate onto Michael Aquino came at a remarkably convenient time, noting how perfectly it coincided with Michael Aquino’s intense personal dissatisfaction with Anton LaVey’s decision to sell titles in The Church of Satan for money and Aquino’s own urge to herald His Infernal Majesty as an existing being representing the ancient Egyptian deity Set.

Anton LaVey had never claimed to have been appointed by Satan, at least not that He is aware. Anton LaVey had no marketable skills to hang his hat on either with no jobs, no training or initiation, nor any education that might lend some credibility to his claims about Satanism. What Anton LaVey did have was an interest in reading. Satan is not certain whether Anton LaVey did so consciously, but it is clear that Anton LaVey was highly inspired by works of fiction and combined a number of fictional characters into a distinctive persona to replace his real-world footprint. This remarkable protagonist, who was a lion tamer at a circus, played in the city orchestra, had studied criminology, and much more, served to render Anton LaVey a Satanist by example. The fictional credentials served as a magical shroud, as it were, which provided Anton LaVey with the authority he needed, because who better to speak authoritatively about Satanism than someone who is demonstrably one?

Had Anton LaVey had been a school drop-out who never held a real job and lived at his parents’ house while dabbling with one occultism fad after the other, eventually saying that whatever he was currently practicing was Satanism, nobody would have cared, and others would probably be better qualified to define Satanism than Anton LaVey. However, if Anton LaVey was the very embodiment of a Satanist and knew the dark secrets because he was a carnival showman, a police photographer and occult adviser, a burlesque musician, and what not, then he could speak with some authority when he said what Satanism is and isn’t. Anton LaVey had no educational authority, no social authority, no legal authority, etc. to provide him with the might that is needed to be right, but he could provide himself as an example that he was right. By his spectacular past, Anton LaVey had acquired the mandate to define Satanism.

Many who attempted to imitate Anton LaVey and be the high priests of their own various churches and temples of Satan and Lucifer were easily dismissed as posers, who only wished to be what Anton LaVey was. No-one needed to take them seriously when the real thing, Anton LaVey, was available, as the argument from Anton LaVey’s own organization went. The Devil is inclined to agree, as most such would-be high priests tended to provide no new insights or interpretations, instead merely offering what they thought The Church of Satan failed to provide—that is, themselves as high priests instead of Anton LaVey.

In turn, The Church of Satan had to rethink its claim to authority following Anton LaVey’s death in 1997 which required the Church to now routinize his charisma. Its initial attempts at placing Karla LaVey (who would inherit some of Anton LaVey’s authority by virtue of bloodline) and Blanche Barton as co-heads predictably failed, and shortly after Blanche Barton was equally predictably offered an emerita retirement title so Peter Gilmore and Peggy Nadramia could finally assume the formal leadership that they had already assumed a decade before.

Satan has not kept close tabs on The Church of Satan’s referrals to Anton LaVey, but He feels that LaVey’s authority has shifted from being a Satanist by example to now being a first mover: Anton LaVey’s authority today rests less on his persona than on his being the first person to define Satanism outside of Christian mythology. Part of the explanation may be that Anton LaVey’s persona was uncovered as a myth and his original authority as the proto-Satanist was shattered with it. However, Satan thinks that the primary reason is simply that Anton LaVey has been dead for over two decades as of this writing. No-one is waiting to see what the great Szandor comes up with in The Cloven Hoof, and all but a few members of The Church of Satan have never experienced him. To everyone, Anton LaVey is literally history. His made-up colorful persona was bound to fade had it not already been debunked.

Satan thinks that being first with an idea warrants appreciation, if nothing else. No Satanic organization since the formation of The Church of Satan can deny the influence of Anton LaVey, and no-one has dared to provide alternative scripture. That is, much mystical mumbo-jumbo has indeed been written among Satanists, but there has of yet been no competition to his book whose title—The Satanic Bible—is hard to outshine. All Satanic organizations owe a historical debt to Anton LaVey whether they like it or not.

The Church of Satan may lay claim to authenticity as the continued existence of Anton LaVey’s original organization, but that is a different matter. It is nowhere implied that one is permanently right simply for proposing the first definition of a phenomenon, or that the definition is immutable. There is no copyright on ideologies. Anyone can pick and chose from an ideology and change it where they feel so inclined. They may mangle the ideology beyond recognition, but perhaps that is precisely what the ideology needed to be true. After all, the first person who gazed into the night sky saw the stars as gods, and although we now know better, they are still stars to us. (That is, except for The Morning Star, whom we all adore.) The Church of Satan can at most assert that it offers the interpretation of Satanism that comes closest to Anton LaVey’s original description. (Satan does not wish to go off on a tangent pondering whether The Church of Satan truly resembles Anton LaVey’s original “magic circle” whose activities were strongly tied to physically attending Anton LaVey’s tutelage in his home on California Street in San Francisco until the early 1970s.)

The Church of Satan may nonetheless succeed in convincing at least some people that being first implies being both right and the owner of an ideological copyright and unregistered trademark. It seems to the Devil that the argument works well on The Church of Satan’s own members, and He agrees that although you cannot fool all of the people all the time, usually it is enough to fool some of the people some of the time.

The Devil believes that The Church of Satan has a second claim to authority: it is the only Satanic organization that has scripture to be reckoned with. Other organizations have written material for their followers but none of it has hit the bookshelves like the superbly-titled The Satanic Bible. Yet, Satan notes that although The Church of Satan does point to its scripture as a source for “one true Satanism,” usually the organization’s argument is that that Anton LaVey defined Satanism in this book, thereby using the author as an authority rather than relying on the persuasive and argumentative powers of the scripture.

Satan thinks that perhaps it is for the better. The Satanic Bible does not prove its claims nor does it attempt to, and is thus subject to the reader’s good faith. Putting it somewhat bluntly: one either believes in the claims made in the book, or one does not; if one does not, then it holds no authority. But more importantly, Satan thinks that if anyone were to treat The Satanic Bible as gospel truth and declared that the book contained the truth by its mere status as a bible, everyone would recognize the brainlessly religious nature of the Bible-thumpers of a certain religion that shall remain unnamed here. The Church of Satan can justifiably contend that it is the only organization that has any noteworthy (and, indeed, prominent) scripture but any reference to religious scripture as a source of truth is frowned upon across the entire Satanic milieu and is bound to backfire.

A short-lived group that named itself The Satanic Reds has a history that traces back to an early 1970s group of occultists in Florida which included a Church of Satan clergy. Satan is not overly interested in the now defunct group but wishes to mention where it derived its authority, because it added a step-up to Anton LaVey’s strategy of creating an alternate past.

Like Anton LaVey, the group featured no prominent scholars or other means of standing out as a natural source of the truth. But, somewhere during the occult studies, the group believed to have identified an occult tradition that had been upheld in secret societies through millennia. Widely different cultures in different ages seemed to have maintained a steady interpretation of the Universe and our role in it. An introduction to any specifics is far beyond the scope here so suffice to say that the technical term is syncretism. Satan prefers layman’s terms where syncretism means establishing a credo by picking what you believe is similar from entirely independent and dissimilar traditions while ignoring everything in those traditions that speak against your observations. This credo, named the dark doctrines, provided the group with the authority of research. They had identified the “roots of Satanism” and could now speak with authority on the latter.

Two of the members of the Florida-based group began to construct a past that was less flamboyant and wide-ranging than Anton LaVey’s and instead strongly focused on belonging to the dark tradition that they had identified. They claimed to have been formally initiated and accepted into this tradition, and one of them even claimed to stem from a family of generational Satanists. If Anton LaVey was born a natural Satanist by accident, these two were Satanists by birthright and could speak with both the authority of their research and the authority of their “Satanic culture.” They were eventually awarded magistrate degrees in The Church of Satan, and Peter Gilmore drew on their findings, as scientifically non-proof as they might be.

The much younger noteworthy organization, The Satanic Temple, is no easier off than any of the above but also denies magical or other metaphysical appeal to authority. Lucien Greaves, the leader of The Satanic Temple, boasts a Harvard degree in neuroscience, and while this is no small accomplishment (if true), a neuroscientist cannot be expected to offer any particular insight into Satanism. Lucien Greaves does feature a somewhat villainous look owing to his scarred right eye that may cajole some emotionally inclined individuals into projecting demonic qualities onto him, but that is about all. Satan knows the background and while the Devil respects Lucien Greaves’ wish to not discuss the incident in any detail, Satan regrets to inform His minions that nothing diabolical occurred. It may be worth mentioning that Lucien Greaves breaks tradition by avoiding to make claims about his background and by avoiding to pretend that his made-up name is genuine. The impression of personal integrity usually helps boost one’s authority but Satan is unable to determine how much it matters in Lucien Greaves’ case.

The Satanic Temple instead draws its authority from several sources. Firstly, it exists. So do The Church of Satan and The Temple of Set, of course, but unlike them The Satanic Temple has proven itself capable in the real world by showcasing tangible results, most prominently in the shape of its infamous Baphomet statue and its legal campaigns that result in significant media coverage. The Satanic Temple manages to demonstrate that it is more than a web site and a Twitter account. (The Church of Satan had the “Black House” in San Francisco but it served as a semi-official building only in the very early years of the organization, and consequently did little to communicate organizational thrust once its use as an organizational asset was discontinued. In fact, Satan thinks The Church of Satan exposed its impotence when it was unable to raise funds to keep the house, which was demolished in 2001.) It is not surprising that movie director Penny Lane caught interest in The Satanic Temple for her documentary movie Hail Satan? (2019), not The Church of Satan. The latter has Satanis: The Devil’s Mass (1970), which is tacky and obviously outdated, and Inside the Church of Satan (2010), which Satan considers toe (or hoof) curlingly embarassing and telltale of a diminished group of personal friends.

Secondly, might is right, and The Satanic Temple displays strength in numbers. The Church of Satan may have been advantaged by the Internet lately but as late as 2004, Peter Gilmore reported less than 10,000 members globally. Satan is not certain whether The Satanic Temple has that many members but the number of local chapters gives an impression of a thriving and spreading organization. It would be unfair at this stage to compare The Church of Satan’s pre-Internet age grotto count with the number of chapters in The Satanic Temple after the Internet revolution but The Church of Satan’s decision to abandon its grotto system makes Satan’s church less visible. The Satanic Temple has become a dominant mass on the statistical map, and this lends natural authority to the organization.

Thirdly, humanism is an already established ideology if not altogether well-defined. The Satanic Temple’s tenets are readily recognizable as identical or highly compatible with most humanist movements. This can—and Satan thinks maybe it should—be used as an argument against The Satanic Temple being a Satanic organization instead of just yet another humanist group, but it enables The Satanic Temple to draw on an established train of thought: they offer the aesthetics of horns and cloven hooves to a known ideology, and recognition is authoritative. This may be considered shallow but it works; it is the authority to define truth that is pursued not, regrettably, truth itself.

Fourthly, The Satanic Temple borrows its authority to define Satanism from historical literature. The Satanic Temple refers to itself as “romantic Satanism” and provides a reading list containing Romantic period (give or take a century or two) authors who paid homage to the Devil one way or another. The syncretic pitfall mentioned earlier notwithstanding, Satan is a modernist who demands change and thinks poorly of romantic rumination but is aware of the market a for medieval items and museum replicas. As the fashion trend in The Satanic Temple strikes the Devil as the “goth” look, He expects that some with slightly warped romantic inclinations will feel that the organization’s references to “romantic Satanism” has some merit.

Finally and fifthly, The Satanic Temple is a real life example of one who embraces the Devil’s role in society as the accuser against those who believe themselves to be at all times good. The Satanic Temple uses both outrage, mockery, and legal actions as it applies my Master’s tools. Satan does not wish to depreciate the aforementioned four appeals to authority but prefers this last one. It is the only decidedly demonic aspect of The Satanic Temple’s uses of authority although humanism, too, is sometimes decried as the work of the Devil in some circles of society.

Satan wishes to conclude by stating that there is no answer book on Satanism or any other ideology. Sense and meaning can be drawn from definitions and interpretations that are known to be falsehoods. Satan only asks that His followers keep a cool head and never believe they have discovered a universal and objective truth, and to always beware of the credentials of those who declare themselves experts.

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.

Satan thinks water should be prevented from finding its own level

Posted on by A lesser demon

The Devil has been aware for quite a while that one of His churches ranks stratification as the foundation of its so-called five-point program, which ostensibly contains the goals of the organization. In the words of its founder, Anton LaVey, water should be allowed to find its own level with no attempt to mandate its flow. People are not equal, and allowance for incompetence should be prevented from interfering in human life, because according to Mr. LaVey, this benefits the weak at the expense of the strong.

Satan always enjoys a good phrase that communicates a simple solution to a complex and compound issue. Such childish optimism and joyful obliviousness of the nature of a difficult problem always brings a smile to the Dark Lord’s face, or at least a sardonic smirk. It seems somehow intuitively true that the entire world would become a better place if everyone was allowed to develop into their true selves—a universal Maslowian paradise of self-actualizing indiviuals, no less. It seems almost too good to be true, and as common sense would caution, it is.

The analogy can be taken a little further without being drawn too far; in the present case one may realize that left to its own devices every particle of water ultimately goes downhill not up, and that only violent manipulation can make it temporarily rise. Water that is allowed to seek its own level with no natural or artificial dams, dikes, redirections, or pumps to force its flow and keep it in motion will settle and turn stagnant. The natural flow of water is in the direction of mediocrity.

Satan is confident that LaVey realized this and only desired an abolishment of the control systems in those areas where he believed to be personally unfairly limited, and would eagerly restrict the options for anyone who happened to have conflicting goals. He did specifically address apologists of mediocrity after all, and was undoubtedly in favor of draconian measures against those whom he felt held him back. This sentiment naturally impresses the Prince of Darkness, but playing the Devil’s advocate for a moment, Satan cannot help but compare the attitude with the motto of the eternal underachiever: they would have recognized my genius had they not preferred mediocrity. In Anton LaVey’s case, his proficiency in music and visual arts reached the level of a skilled hobbyist, and his intellectual insights into the nature of mankind would be met with overbearing smiles from any modern day philosopher, anthropologist, psychologist, or sociologist.

The Devil does not hold this against Mr. LaVey, who has now joined us in Hell and is busy being tormented with an unobtainable doppelgänger of Jayne Mansfield (who, incidentally, is also among us, but in a different department). Mediocrity depends on context and is not to be confused with a sweeping average across the entire population. One group of people may have standards which interpret mediocrity far above or below the potential of another group. (Considering the creative and intellectual level that Satan has observed among the members of the “mutual admiration society” of Anton LaVey’s legacy, Satan is confident that Mr. LaVey remains the one-eyed king of the blind.) Anton LaVey was at the very least aware that mediocrity is not going away in the near future, and saw no other solution than isolationism, with space ghettos as the only viable answer.

Now, Satan is not certain whether Anton LaVey had been watching Flash Gordon too self-identifyingly given his striking similarity with Ming the Merciless of said space opera or if LaVey had merely given the solution inadequate consideration, because it is impossible for a self-sustaining human society to exist without a highly diverse set of skills.

This finally provides a key insight: everyone is mediocre in all but maybe a few respects. A brain surgeon is layman in the field of rocket science, the rocket scientist is layman in most fields that do not involve space satellites, and both are laymen plumbers. You are for the vast part mediocre. Mediocrity will not disappear. Any “mutual appreciation society” on some distant moon colony may admire each others’ specific competences all they like, but everyone must be excused for being mediocre on virtually all accounts—and thus mediocrity is inevasibly apologized. This apology violates Anton LaVeys cardinal formula for a better world, but unless it is granted, it is tantamount to equipping each human being with an original sin with no redemption or escape, simply for being human. It is a pipe-dream to believe that mediocrity can be averted save by death or by withdrawing to the insanity of a mind that has closed itself against the reality of the world.

Satan is not convinced that space ghettos will ever be created save for research purposes and expects that even in the best case scenario the exodus will be reserved for those who currently can afford to own private islands in the tropics. There is no salvation waiting in the sky for the Devil’s followers, because none of them will find themselves entitled to an interstellar den. The Devil does not personally care. His Infernal Majesty is content as long as the planets contain a Hell and orbiting or traveling space stations include a section below deck that is decorated with brimstone, sulphorous lakes, and molten rock.

Mediocrity thus being the rule that describes each and everyone of you humans, and space ghettos solving nothing (if ever they be constructed), Satan thinks that one’s opinion on the merits of mediocrity is utterly pointless. The question is how to deal with it right here, and right now.

Everyone is mediocre, and the only immediate reaction that makes sense is the ultimate apology in the shape of a complete recognition and acceptance of this fact of human life and interaction. Satan is inclined to say that humans apologize too little for their shortcomings when they act as if just one proficiency entitles them to an opinion on matters that lie beyond their comprehension, or when they bully people with genuine skill out of their positions. The only proper reaction to such pretentiousness is to understand that everyone is naturally apologized for mediocrity and then move anyone who speaks outside of his or her skill areas out of focus—by force, if necessary.

Satan thinks it is through the acknowledment that all humans are mediocre and excel in very limited areas only that corrective action may be taken to place people of skill into their various areas of expertise, and to prevent people from meddling in those affairs where they know as little as everyone else. This cannot be left to laissez faire governance. One might, for example, assume that some social media playform will regulate itself according to likes and dislikes and eventually reach a desired level, but nothing could be further from the truth … unless the desired level is the lowest common denominator where only mediocrity reigns. Instead, the needed regulation requires heavy interference from people who dare to acknowledge when a person is operating outside of one of his or her fields of incompetence. It is the very opposite of allowing water to find its own level. Water that finds its own level is the deluge that washes away landmarks and distinctions and eventually becomes stale and rotten. Water that is carefully controlled and protected as necessary as a valuable resource, however, is a powerful tool.

Satan thinks people who strive to be nice usually aren’t

Posted on by A lesser demon

For all our awe and admiration of The Infernal Majesty’s insights and intelligence, The Dark Lord has insisted on several occasions that a little barstool psychology can go a long way.

The unfortunate ex-demon whose skepticism prompted it to ask for an example was immediately obliterated for daring to question our Master, but the Devil posthumously humored it and asked us who happened to be present what characterizes a “nice person.” We soon agreed that a nice person was nothing like Satan, and although our Master appreciated our sentiment, He had doubtlessly given it a little more thought than He had let on, and slightly impatiently explained Himself.

Satan thinks that truly nice people generally do not try to meet an ideal of “niceness,” even if they can easily formulate such an ideal or identify historical or mythical individuals who may serve as role models. The key to their nice behavior—being considerate of others, being helpful, etc.—is that they act according to an innate comprehension that humans are better off by working together. They ultimately serve their own interests but as a species not as specimens. Therein, says Satan, lies the difference between self-interest and self-preservation versus egoism, the former benefitting the human race and the latter benefitting oneself but in the very short term only. It is not required to “love one another.” There are some who deserve love, and some who deserve none. Satan thinks that genuine niceness involves a sense of justice that urges you to give and take from each what they naturally deserve.

It is people who are only admirable by obligation that Satan thinks ill of. They are people who have been instructed by word but not through example to be loving, friendly, and helpful as this ostensible acting makes them believe they are better people and have earned the right to feel entitled. They are people who do good not because they feel somehow compelled but from concern with what their neighbors would think. They are people who help others only for the sake of their personal salvation not because of the needs of others. They know right from wrong and good from evil only because they have it memorized. They invariably see themselves as good; even when they observe ill traits within themselves, they believe themselves superior because they consciously combat their true nature.

Satan may prefer deed to creed and thus appreciate that such people play nice after all, but the King of Lies is no fool. He knows that people exercise their true nature whenever their self-discipline is momentarily disengaged. A person who is not innately “good” but merely puts on an act (even if they believe in it themselves) is certain to eventually place a dagger in your back, speak ill of you, cheat on you, or betray you, and they will blame you, my friend, because knowing that they are your morally superior it cannot possibly be their fault; if they behaved poorly, you forced their hand. Satan advises to beware of martyrs in particular, as they think they do ever good but never understand that the perpetual source of their punishments is their own poisonous personality.

Such individuals are a terrible race, but Satan thinks that applied barstool psychology is useful to pinpoint these foul creatures of the human world. It is quite simple according to Satan: barstool psychology stipulates that you speak of your most prominent failures as if you are their conqueror. For example, when John Doe of forty brags about his many sexual conquests, you should bet your money that he is both still a virgin and has a tiny pecker. Extending this principle to moral inclination, expect people who speak of being devoted to a movement that does good to be none the part. If they had no problem being “good,” they would focus on something else. Hence, anyone who subscribes to a doctrine of good should be expected to be lacking in that very department.

It goes without saying that the Devil advises His followers to steer clear of the followers of His mortal foe—Christians, that is—but He thinks the caution should be extended to anyone who was brought up in a Christian home where one was demanded to “do good” for no heart-felt reason. Religions are codifications of group behavior (using symbolic language), and it is reasonable to include sanctions against dissocial behavior within this code, but merely following the code does not assure sanity. Satan thinks that no sane human being needs religion to behave properly, and that religion is in fact partially a sign that people lack this skill. The latter is beyond this discussion, however, as yours truly has a job to do torturing lost souls. Suffice to say that Satan is not fooled by people who declare themselves neither atheists nor Satanists if they grew up in a Christian home: He expects them to be as vile as their parents.

Satan thinks once-religious people stay religious

Posted on by A lesser demon

My Master has lost count of the number of followers who were originally raised as Christians and are quick to assert what Christians believe and how Christians behave. It would make sense to believe these followers based on their first hand operative experience, of course, were it not for the one important facet that they are wrong.

My Master’s new converts will readily teach you that Christians work against either the very order of Nature or at least their own best self-interest by practicing humility, altruism, unconditional love, etcetera, but it never occurs to these once-Christian followers that there is no such thing as humble or charitable Christians—firstly because Christians are no better on these virtues (or vices, as we demons tend to think of them) than anyone else, and secondly because being mindful about one’s fellow man, showing restraint, being humble, and what other virtues Christians believe to distinguish themselves with are in fact equally present both in many other religions and outside of religion; several so-called Christian virtues are so universal that they have been proposed as the very foundation of human morals and may transcend religion into the very core of human biology. There is nothing specifically Christian about such goals. Satan thinks it should be obvious to anyone with an intact cognitive apparatus that Christians are every bit as capricious, malicious, insolent, hateful, stingy, rambunctious, traitorous, and immodest as everyone else, and like all religious groups believe that only they, by virtue of their religion, may avoid or resist such traits.

The aforementioned Satanists describe Christians that do not exist, and yet they speak from earnest experience. This would seem self-contradictory but according to the wisdom of my Master of Occult Insight, it is quite simple: they repeat what they were once taught about Christian beliefs and practices, because they still believe what they were once taught.

All religions, including Christianity, maintain a mythical universe that in varying degrees involves supernatural beings, transcendental experiences, metaphysical entities, and—and that is key here—narratives describing themselves and their followers in a rather idealized glow. It is this myth that the aforementioned Christian-raised followers still believe in. They may have abandoned the most far-fetched myth of all of a literal god which cares whether they masturbate but ignores millions of starving, praying children, but in spite of popular belief, the choice of gods is one of the least defining elements of religion. Other elements of religion prescribe truths and falsehoods, human values, and social norms, but even more importantly they govern how followers view the World. Satan thinks it is easy to deny your gods. It is much harder to recast your standards of knowledge, your view of humans including yourself, your place in Society, and your very values, all of which Satan demands that you reevaluate to be a true follower of the Devil.

Satan thinks many of His followers merely deny their god while they keep practicing every ounce of ingrained attitudes they held since they were barely potty trained. Satan thinks that when these ex-Christians accuse mythical enemies of mythical behaviors, they are reacting according to the beliefs of a religion that they still belong to and are still preaching. Or, to put it more simply: Satan thinks that if you truly believe that Christians are meek, humble, and what else they think about themselves, and then criticize them for being such, then you are a fully-fledged Christian for believing this about Christians to begin with, because this is a much deeper-held religious belief than to believe in the Christian gods, saints, and spirits. Gods are easily killed, but the comprehension of other people and social norms it not; you will never join us in Hell with that attitude.

Satan thinks that these people have not moved or changed one iota from Christianity; they still believe in the Christian myths that they were brought up with. They have become religious Uncle Toms who internalize their self-hate and side with their perceived enemy, preaching how bad Christianity is but practicing it all the while, unable to let it go. The Devil is prejudice enough to posit that even if for a while they manage to think according to an original interpretation of pre-Christian concepts such as prudence or temperance, then like salmon they may momentarily venture down a stream of reason but will eventually return to the point whence they were spawned.

The Devil is mostly concerned with followers of His own, of course, but He thinks it is a general issue. He could easily discuss how to observe distinctive differences between atheists of specific religious backgrounds whose behaviors as atheists reveal their childhood upbringing, for example (yes, former Christian atheists and former Muslim atheists tend to promote atheism so according to their “abandoned” religions that it is barely indistinguishable from their missionaries). Shared among them all is their tendency to describe their former religions according to the narratives of those very religions, and their tendency to behave as they always did. Ex-Christians will soon be sharing “Bible verses” of their religious scripture, quoting Anton LaVey and other perceived authorities in The Church of Satan, accusing others of sinful behavior, as it were, for exhibiting un-Satanic behavior, will sustain the conservative values of their past religion, desire to flaunt their religion (safely behind their browsers), and otherwise in all but their surface appearances stay the Christians they always were. Much in contrast to the Hollywood portrayal of the Great Beast as a servant who may always be summoned onto a crudely drawn pentagram on the floor by anyone, my Master is not fooled by someone who merely wears a five-pointed star necklace.

Lacking the ability to live out the sins of their former religion, they turn to the Devil and His sins instead where they learn a new vocabulary, new rules of engagement, new symbols, and other new ostensibilities, but their convictions and beliefs remain intact; they will never change. Satan thinks that once a person has been raised within a particular religion, no angel in Heaven or demon in Hell can turn that person truly atheist or toward some other religion. That person will keep behaving according to the tradition he was raised in. Satan thinks there is no such thing as a born Satanist, and a person that was raised into a religion cannot be made a one either.