Satan thinks His church is not dead yet

Posted on by A lesser demon

Satan recalls that His first church was first declared dead less than a decade after its inauguration when Michael Aquino became envious of members who, by a new decree issued by Anton LaVey, could purchase a clergy title within the church instead of earning it through meticulously studying and demonstrating theoretical knowledge about the teachings of The Church of Satan as Michael Aquino had spent much effort doing. He ostensibly did not support the argument that the financial foundation required to pay the charged fee presumably indicated that this member had sufficient success in real life and thus, by definition, had earned a degree that was intended to reflect its owner’s position in the real world. Then the Devil conveniently appeared to Michael Aquino and transferred His infernal mandate that had hitherto been bestowed onto Anton LaVey to Michael Aquino, at least if one is to believe Mr. Aquino. Satan remembers the situation somewhat differently, however, and denies having revoked any infernal mandate from anyone, if nothing else because He never granted it to anyone to begin with. Also, He detests being called Set—in fact, He finds there is something deeply misguided with those of His followers who are into Egyptology. Satan has never met a single person who was fascinated with the Egyptian gods and turned out sane.

No, The Church of Satan did not become defunct when Michael Aquino left it together with a sizeable number of its members to launch The Temple of Set (contemporary research and documentation support Mr. Aquino’s claim that a minority remained) and little was heard from the Devil’s church for another decade. It continued to attract people by means of contact information provided in The Satanic Bible, however, and in the 1980es its now high priest, Peter Gilmore, remained a member after being rejected by The Temple of Set when Michael Aquino learned that Peter Gilmore had been double-courting both organizations. Satan wishes to extend His thanks to Peter Gilmore for helping reinvigorate His church by means of editing the magazine The Black Flame and his continued work as an administrator in the organization. This, as well as occasional shock artists, kept The Church of Satan alive and growing, albeit slowly, while Anton LaVey appears to have concentrated on attempting to become a Hollywood movie consultant. Satan wishes to also mention Blanche Barton, whose hagiography of Anton LaVey, The Secret Life of a Satanist, and possibly her apologetic The Church of Satan, have likely persuaded a number of personality cult minded people to join as well.

Anton LaVey was skeptical of the emerging Internet but it enabled The Church of Satan to reach people that would otherwise never have heard of the organization, and Satan’s church gained renewed interest. The aftermath of Anton LaVey’s death in 1997 predictably prompted a variety of “Mexican generals” to claim their rights to lead the organization, and some splinter groups formed, including one led by Karla LaVey, each of them claiming to continue the true lineage of Anton LaVey and declaring The Church of Satan to be history. It soon became clear that they had little clout and while some have survived until this day, they have little influence and visibility. Satan does not mind: each of His followers should worship Him according to their abilities and needs, and He is not impressed by herd size.

The Church of Satan continued to grow and in the Fall of 2004, Peter Gilmore was bewitched by a homely-looking young female press intern and divulged to her that he estimated The Church of Satan membership count in the USA to be around 1,000 individuals, and an additional few thousand worldwide. (She promptly deleted this information from her article after it was published but Satan remembers.) Satan is inclined to believe the figures because a good rule of thumb states that the membership of any organization is about ten times larger than the number of active, “visible” members.

Peter Gilmore had to somehow consolidate his leadership and provide some personal touch, consciously or not, and the Devil was pleased to observe that Gilmore began to lay some distance to the fascist leanings that several high-ranking members of The Church of Satan expressed in the 1990es and early 2000s, even if they would habitually excuse it with aesthetics, shock value, or other recognizable ambiguities and dog whistles, as Nazi sympathizers always do. Satan considers Peter Gilmore to be an intelligent and well-written chap (if perhaps somewhat overestimating his own entitlements), and feels that these attributes substantially outweigh his underachieving real world day job even if The Church of Satan generally recognizes only one’s accomplishments in the latter: Satan thinks that the value of people’s actions in their real lives is not limited to their production of music and sculptures, but also includes their influence on other people’s thoughts; that is, armchair warriors sometimes have real leverage. Anton LaVey, too, is, and should be, remembered for his contribution to thought not his mediocre musical or artistic exercises.

Satan thinks it is probably Peter Gilmore’s development that caused formerly high-ranking members of The Church of Satan to leave; Diabolus Rex Church apparently had always believed in the Devil (which in spite of the atheistic position of the organization there is ample evidence indicating to have been inconsequential to Anton LaVey), and Boyd Rice declared that he had been appointed as the new high priest by Anton LaVey (not volunteering to produce a signed document to support it) and then disbanded “his” organization, thus conveying the message that Mr. Rice considered The Church of Satan to be passé. Today, a little less than a decade later, their departures seem to have had no bearing on The Church of Satan. Instead, the Devil’s church has improved its web site and found its way to various social media.

Satan thinks the greatest survival challenge of the organization has remained unchanged since its inception in 1966: its survival is contingent on building a critical mass that it has never reached within orders of magnitude. Organizations are kept alive over multiple generations of leadership only by means of a body of members supplying it with enthusiastic and accomplished leaders, and as Satanic organiations are concerned they all fall far short of supply. The Church of Satan, too, never had enough capable candidates to choose between for the next high priest position, and it was lucky to have Peter Gilmore filling the effectively void position during Anton LaVey’s late years. Satan cannot name any of its members as a worthy successor in spite of modest shoes to fill. What few people the contenders to The Church of Satan‘s throne might lure into their clutches and thus deprive The Church of Satan of is a far cry from the additional membership count required for a self-sustaining organization.

The most recent organization above the radar, The Satanic Temple, breaks tradition by mostly ignoring The Church of Satan (except when attacked directly) and not declaring it entirely dead or replaced. Satan suspects that His temple may employ a sufficiently different version of Satanism to genuinely consider itself too far distanced from The Church of Satan to perceive it as an ideological rival instead of trying to intentionally ignore the “dead.” If so, The Church of Satan needs not worry that its philosophy is being appropriated by another organization. But The Satanic Temple does pose some threat to The Church of Satan beyond regularly stealing the limelight: by and large, the philosophical, contemplative depth of the Devil’s followers is limited to having a chip on their shoulder against Christianity and a fondness for demonic imagery, and they will join any organization purporting to be Satanic, like the aforementioned Diabolus Rex Church and Peter Gilmore once approached the Temple of Set, simply because the organization exists not because of its ideology. But, even in the best of all worlds, where The Satanic Temple could not poach a single member from from The Church of Satan or even inadvertently drew some people into it, the latter would still be too low-volume to be self-sustaining.

As of this writing, however, there is nothing that indicates that The Church of Satan is dead or dying in spite of several claims to the contrary, and Satan thinks it will remain alive at least until Peter Gilmore resigns.

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.

Satan thinks His followers have silly names

Posted on by A lesser demon

My fellow denizen Mr. LaVey recommended changing one’s name as needed as an application of lesser magic, and provided a list of useful names in The Satanic Witch. The Devil’s followers have certainly taken it to heart, and the Devil marvels at the enthusiasm of His followers who are so intent on selecting impressive names that awkward (or perhaps ironic) moments occur when nobody believes its authenticity once a person uses his or her given name because it sounds somehow noteworthy. Satan tips His hat at Anton LaVey’s recognition of the manipulative power of a well-chosen name but thinks His followers should perhaps consider their goals and their cultures, and also their own character, a little better.

Mr. LaVey lived in a culture where authors and artists habitally use pen names and aliases, and few people in the United States would bat an eye if they learned that someone prefers another name. Americans take mostly favorably to people altering their lives or dispositions and will readily allow a person the benefit of doubt. The same person might receive undesired reactions elsewhere, however; Europeans, who generally demand a broader spectrum of impressive features than the relative superficiality of a name, are often slower to trust first impressions than Americans and would consider him or her a clown. What may impress a Midwestern redneck could be the very thing that enables a Norwegian to recognize a self-inflated buffoon when he sees one â€¦ or worse, because the European mind is historically accustomed to thinking in terms of swift disposal rather than respect when confronted with a person named “Ruthless” or similar.

Even so, names are strongly determined by short-lived fashion, and the names that Anton LaVey listed in his decades-old book convey different sentiments today. Their application in lesser magic no longer applies, and any modern witch worth her salt would be wise to study the herd’s fashion statements and learn some new names. That is, the names made sense when the book was released, but unless our witch genuinely wishes to remind her quarry of his or her grandparents’ generation by selecting among outmoded names, the list of names is now just silly. Satan actually thinks the entire book has become outdated, because few of the many indicators of a person’s position on the “LaVey personality synthesizer” are still observable; the very principle of the synthesizer is based on pseudo-scientific bunk; and women no longer must rely on manipulating men in order to get ahead.

If the primary goal of the prospective witch or warlock is to ingratiate herself or himself with other followers of Satan, recognition as a witch being more important than magical acumen, the name should obviously appeal to the Devil’s other followers. This is straight-forward thanks to Anton LaVey, whose mandate derived entirely from his being the proto-Satanist (i.e., his authority rested on him being a Satanist by example) and hence role model: a witch yearning for peer recognition needs only appeal to LaVey’s fascinations, because they are compulsively imitated by his idolizers. To apply lesser magic, this observation spells—if you will excuse the pun—a combination of a burlesque attitude with some excess body fat, some slightly morbid pastimes, and a name that resurrects either Jayne Mansfield or Marylin Monroe. Everyone outside of Satanism thinks that the 1940es are History, and burlesque shows with them, however, and are utterly unimpressed and thus immune against such sneaky witchcraft.

The Devil begs His followers to learn that the Balance Factor makes everyone know intuitively that the choice of a pompous name is typically counterbalanced with correspondingly personal shallowness. The Devil had made up a few ludicrously exaggerated examples to illustrate His point and conscientiously did a web search to avoid accidentally targeting real people, only to find proof that, regrettably, reality exceeds His imagination. Satan thinks there are just too many Marylins, Daimons, Luci-somethings, Dracos, Wolves, Sades, Ravens, Mansfields, Liliths, cliché novel characters (oh, another Dorian Gray?), and any variety of names inferring violence. Satan believes that such contrived names only highlight that kings always beget kings and slaves always beget slaves, and that no name makes the king.

Satan thinks nobody says it like it is

Posted on by A lesser demon

The Lord of Lies appreciates honest communication but finds that whenever someone “says it like it is,” it is never like that.

People who “say it like it is” use simple words that are each readily understood, but the statements in which the words are used carry little or no meaning on their own. Often they are unclear, ambiguous, or incoherent and riddled with non sequiturs and random thought-associations, and make no sense to an educated or intelligent person, who attempts to analyze and understand the statements. Such statements make sense only if the audience fills in the blanks and finishes the sentences as the statements trail off with no ending.

Less gifted people overlook the inherent inconsistencies and missing internal logic, however. They are provided with fuzzy implications and hazy connotations only and then reach their own conclusions—believing it was the speaker who offered them this conclusion, too. If they are assured that “you know who I’m talking about,” they imagine the speaker describes whoever they think it is, and if the speaker knowingly assures them that he offers a solution without mentioning which one, they each believe that the speaker is talking about the solution they are thinking of.  They introduce their own bias into the incomplete statements believing it to stem from the speaker.

By thus leaving it to the audience to fill in the blanks with their own ideas, explanations, and desired solutions, the audience is bound to agree with the speaker because they are their own ideas. From an analytical point of view the speaker said nothing at all, but it sounds as if the speaker “says it like it is” because all they hear is their own voice.

Everyone is prone to such confirmation bias, especially if feelings are involved, as is usually the case when someone delights in hearing something being “said like it is.” Feelings are the language of the “primitive” part of the human brain which is concerned mostly with survival. It thinks fast but is careless and error-prone, as opposed to the later evolutionary layer of the brain which adds rational thinking and the capability of weighing pros versus cons and outlining plans, at the expense of speed. All other things being equal, the capacity of afterthought and critical thinking enabled by intelligence and education helps reduce the tendency to add confirmation bias; or as Satan prefers to phrase it: confirmation bias is wholesale among stupid people.

All of the above is true for written documents, too. No book is known with certainty to provide sufficient information, and no text is exempt from interpretation. All communication, written or otherwise, is a two-way street. There is no book that “says it like it is” or provides “bedrock” that is not subject to the reader’s adding his or her bias wherever the reader fails to understand the author’s intent, regardless of cause or blame. Satan wishes to skip any detailed examples, however, because He feels at risk of insinuating that His followers are stupid for believing that, say, The Satanic Bible clearly outlines “it” in a way that anyone should be able to understand, or that His followers in His temple are stupid for believing that seven vague tenets suffice.

At the end of the day, the Devil knows that whenever you think that someone “says it like it is,” it is just you who are being stupid.

Satan thinks sex is overrated

Posted on by A lesser demon

Man is just another animal and is subject to the same laws of Nature as any other animal. Evolution rewards those best fit for survival—whether they be physically strong or capable of outsmarting their contestants—by allowing these specimens to produce offspring. The laws of Nature affect individual species differently and become manifest as widely varying strategies for survival. The human animal belongs to a group of species whose evolutionary strategy tends to moderately favor attempts to prevent other males in the flock from mating with a female, both through social competition and at a biological level by means of sperm cell competition and a penis whose shape has evolved to eject the semen of other males.

Primitive Man did not know this, and the Devil wryly notes that Man for the most part still is and doesn’t. Social rules had somehow evolved to demand that women become the property of specific males; that was just how it was and always had been as far as humans were concerned. The human brain did not evolve in order to understand Nature but to survive in it, and is thus incentivized to formulate guidelines for survival in terms that the brain can easily process, not in terms of what makes actual sense: the language of the brain is symbols not facts; it is religious. Religious answers are simple, easy to understand, and wrong, but from an evolutionary perspective “right” is not called for. The brain does not seek natural explanations for phenomena that appear axiomatic, such as social structures, when “that’s what the gods demand” suffices. Early law and order was religious, and although Satan hates to admit it, He thinks that probably it was the best early Man could accomplish in the absense of genuine insight.

Satan can relate to the desire to keep one’s piece of (pointed) tail nearby for easy access to sex, but He suspects that there may be another, bitter motivation to keep one’s conquest out of the reach of challengers: pain, infertility, birth defects, and death. The human animal had a relatively long lifespan even in ancient times and was thus considerably harmed by diseases that have less impact on shorter-lived species. For example, a cancer developing over the span of a few years is inconsequential to a rat, which breeds and dies of natural causes before the disease becomes disabilitating, but may be deadly to a human being. Humans knew nothing about the biological causes of the diseases that struck them; they just knew that they were bad and hence evil. They could only struggle to learn preventive behavioral heuristics and on rare occasions identify natural antidotes but more often potions and rituals with adversarial effect or none at all: they were believed to ward off evil and once having done that, little could be done save wait and see how much damage the demons had done to their hosts.

A few heuristics were effective, however. Sexually transmitted diseases are easily prevented through sexual abstinence, either entirely or by keeping the number of sexual partners low. In fact, if the Devil had wished to prevent the spread of STDs, He would have recommended a strategy of abstinence, too. Such a thought would never cross His mind, however, as it runs counter to His demand for perversion and debauchery; besides, in Hell, we are exposed to all curses imaginable, and a full array STDs are but a minor welcome package which is routinely handed out to the newly damned souls when we pass the gates into our infernal empire. It makes perfect sense to Satan that primitive Man would recommend a ban on widespread sexual activity as a means to keep the demons of STD at bay and encode such a ban into their social, and hence religious, laws: sexual abstinence would be required by the gods, and sinners who broke the law would soon find themselves tormented by evil spirits as it began to hurt when they urinated. Satan likes the idea that He has thus been partly instrumental in the evolutionary establishment of the aforementioned social rules, sexist or not.

Satan imagines that the STD view may explain the aversion to homosexual activity in some religions, too. Homosexuality does not jeopardize the social structure by creating illegitimate children and would seem an obvious outlet for recreational sex, and has indeed been practiced in some societies for that very reason. Unrestricted recreational sex increases the risk of contracting an STD, however, and it is fair to assume that some societies eventually concluded that homosexuality was an agent of genital inflammation, and hence an abomination worthy of the flames of Hell.

The Devil contemplates that religious bans on sexual activity might once have been a necessary evil and not the attempt to control a population via feelings of guilt that some critics of religion suggest—although the ancient emergency solution cum religious rule eventually proved remarkably effective at that. Religion may once have played an important role in containing STD outbreaks, but today mankind masters birth control and contraceptives, and recreational sex poses virtually no risk as long as condoms are used. Most STDs are easily treated and medicine renders even the deadly HIV virus harmless and impotent. Science once again obsoletes religion, and today there is no excuse against the recreational sex that most humans long for except conservative, religious sentiments.

The Devil no longer looms over the lovers’ bed. Sex needs no longer be accompanied with fear of the gods and shame for breaking the divine rules. Satan thinks that true emancipation from the religious yoke involves recreational sex with no worries. He finds no reason to be associated with sexual activity or sexual identity, including “deviant” forms such as LGBT and whichever alphabet soup gets appended. Old Nick can fully sympathize with the queer or transgender boy who seeks comfort under His scaled wings, but the Devil thinks that such a need reveals inculcated shame that the fellow should first work to ignore. Anyone is welcome among His followers but Satan hopes for deeper reasons than belonging to a sexual minority or thinking that Marquis de Sade is kinky. Satan wants people to be comfortable with their particular sexuality and refuse to let the herd define it, be that through social prejudice against certain sexualities or by following a fad such as the sudden bisexual female trend in the early 21st century where women inspired by Hollywood-managed lipstick-bisexual artists declared themselves bisexual in droves. Sexual curiosity, inspiration, and experimentation is fine, compulsion less so.

“Look,” says Satan, “humans think wearing lace and leather and slapping their partner’s butt would make me raise an eyebrow, but come on. Anglerfish sex involves the male partner attaching himself onto the female and fusing into her, feeding on her as a parasite until he releases his sperm. Flatworms are hermaphrodites and will fight in order to choose their sex during mating. Snails stab each other during sex. Female praying mantis and female black widow spiders are notorious for their tendency to kill and eat their mates. Now there’s some grounds for invoking my name.” Satan thinks humans should realize that their mating habits are utterly uninteresting, and He sometimes wonders how humans are capable of mating at all considering their inability to find a comfortable sex position.

Satan thinks that as long as His followers identify themselves with Him merely because of their sexuality, they probably have a long journey ahead of them before they escape the clutches of religion.

Satan thinks religious diets are jail food

Posted on by A lesser demon

The Devil prefers to think that He fails to understand why humans fuss about dietary habits, but He does have some hypotheses.

Some foods are risky. Pigs often carry diseases and require stricter cooking techniques than, e.g., poultry. Ancient Man knew nothing of microbes but must have been mindful of the potentially lethal consequences of eating under-cooked or raw meat from certain animals. So, when mankind invented their gods, perhaps they threw in a divine ban on pork as a reminder to avoid it. Satan finds this explanation insufficient, however. It makes sense for swine (my Horned Master unfortunately did not clarify whether he meant the animal or the religious people) but is hardly true for many other dietary restrictions imposed by the various gods around the globe, and the Devil is inclined to dismiss this hypothesis except for a limited number of particular foods in specific historical areas.

Satan suspects more sinister reasons. He believes the gods never intended to serve Man (again, Satan sounded ominously ambiguous saying this) by offering sound advice but instead attempted to feather their own nests. My Master understands that gods use every trick in the book to retain their followers, and intricate rituals with complicated table manners and recipes requiring special attention to ingredients require both host and patron to concentrate on their faith. The more complicated the more the followers are forced to think about their divine lords.

The trick of eating different foods also provides the ability to distinguish oneself from other groups. For example, to stand out from the shellfish-eating, primitive pagans of the other tribe, is is easier to remove oyster from the menu than to stop being an equally primitive screwhead.

Lastly, leading its followers to believe that certain foods are yucky, or “unclean,” surely won the inventor a cosmic patent for its effectiveness as an unclimbable fence around the followers. Human taste develops during their lifetimes, but usually keep within the limits of learned acceptable categories of food. Humans that were raised to feel aversion to, say, fish, will usually stay off seafood. The divine subterfuge is to select food that is consumed in nearby religions, because this will keep one’s own followers from leaking into neighboring groups, who eat disgusting things.

The human adaptability to strange situations teaches followers to consider unreasonable and nonsensical rules to be normal, and they will argue their necessity and pass them on to their offspring, never realizing that they are held hostage. Satan thinks religion is best defined as an institutionalized Stockholm syndrome.

Satan thinks the jury is still out on His temple

Posted on by A lesser demon

Staying optimistic about His options after being spectacularly cast from Heaven should convince anyone that Lucifer maintains the mindset that the chalice of human blood is half full. He is always welcoming of demonic initiatives and was pleasantly surprised when yet another organization was established in His infernal name, referring to itself as The Satanic Temple.

That said, Satan is a little confused about this new kid on the block. There have been plenty of short-lived newcomers but The Satanic Temple breaks tradition by largely ignoring The Church of Satan, not claiming that the latter deviated from its “true” teachings nor offering to relieve it of its infernal mandate, as if the Devil would ever entrust any human being or organization with such power.

The temple appears to provide a philosophy of its own that it considers Satanic, and Satan thinks He is no-one to judge what is or is not Satanic. He thinks such definitions are the work of human hands that no external powers can decide or judge, and he scoffs at human minds that are so primitively configured that they believe that merely being the first to define a term earns one the right to write all subsequent dictionaries. Language does not work that way; words are a means of communication that carry meaning only within a context. The Church of Satan redefined “Satanism” to use the Devil as a symbol and model and thereby created a new context within which the original word acquired a new meaning, but this action does not imply ownership of the word. Anyone can expand, reduce, or alter the context or even provide a new one, and no power in Hell or elsewhere can prevent it. Language is negotiated in what my fellow denizen Ludwig Wittgenstein calls “language-games,” and words and meanings change as contexts and discourses evolve: contrary to what lesser educated people might think, multiple meanings, sometimes mutually exclusive ones, of a word rarely cause confusion. Satan certainly has His own opinions, few of them being flattering, about the demonic talents of the various organizations that have used His name but being unable to arise on Earth as the Antichrist (yet) and settle the score once and for all regarding who is a Satanist and who is a nut, He can only recommend that humans study some bloody linguistics before making preposterous claims about the persistency and inambiguity of language. Satan thinks that faced with such nonsense, even Michael Aquino’s farcical argument that Satan had revoked Anton LaVey’s infernal mandate was comparatively wiser because such mysticism precludes educated scrutiny and subsequent logical (and inevitable) rejection. The Church of Satan‘s argument works on naïve people; Aquino’s argument cannot be contradicted as it is faith-based.

Satan nevertheless finds The Satanic Temple‘s definition of Satanism lacking. It provides a mission statement and seven brief tenets; any additional insight must be derived from the temple’s various campaigns, interviews, and happenings. Satan thinks this is too cheap. He enjoys astute aphorisms but insists that their purpose is to summarize complex or long explanations, not to prompt them. Brief tenets or statements standing alone are prone to being interpreted in widely varying directions and thus communicate very little in practice, and must be accompanied by guidelines and instructions elaborating how the statements should be understood. Its fallacies, misunderstandings, and outdated theories aside, The Satanic Bible does this for The Church of Satan‘s Nine Satanic Statements. Without similar detailed explanations, members of The Satanic Temple are obliged to interpret its tenets on their own, and language and interpretation being highly forgiving, especially towards brief statements, these members can attribute virtually anything to the seven tenets, including teachings usually reserved for conflicting religions. This paves the way for such a multitude of positions that unless The Satanic Temple communicates what it really means by its seven tenets, it risks diluting Satanism into meaning almost anything, rendering the term meaningless for Satanists and hence again leaving it to Christians to provide the only solid definition. Satan thinks that The Church of Satan has a point when it insists on only one valid definition even if it motivated by common vanity that causes The Church of Satan to remember it only when non-members receive attention.

Satan, being also forced to make interpretations of His own, notes a thin red thread of humanism running through the tenets and obviously prefers such an ideology to any religion, because humans come before any god. The Devil does indeed count humanism among His dark agenda but had expected more: humanism is Satanic, but Satanism is not humanism, says Satan, who is offended that The Satanic Temple is too pusillanimous to even mention His name in its tenets. People who play the Devil’s game should use the Devil’s name, and Satan hates say that had Anton LaVey not introduced Satanism half a century ago, The Satanic Temple might never have thought of its name and instead been perfectly comfortable as yet another branch of current religion. The Devil is only too aware that His opponent sometimes sneakishly pretends to be the Devil to deceive His followers into inadvertently winding up worshiping God instead, never realizing their mistake.

His third objection to the tenets is their reliance on questionable premises. For example, it certainly sounds appealing to act with compassion towards all beings within reason, but according to whose and what reason? It is not clear whether The Satanic Temple believes that objective limits exist or uses the term “reason” for what is ultimately an entirely moral choice. Satan wishes to stay positive but doubts that His temple has solved the trolley problem where compassion against one means the destruction of another. (The Devil solves the trolley problem by the application of a Schrodinger principle: by adding a trolley for a second run on the other track, neither party receives preferential treatment.) He definitely hopes that the author did not copy a passage from another religion’s scripture where Man was appointed to be the guardian of all creatures. Satan also finds this particular tenet to be contradicted by another tenet: evolution and survival is a veritable battleground with little room for compassion, and the very human brain is hardwired for double standards, reserving compassion for one’s in-group fellow specimens only. It seems possible to simultaneously insist on conformance with science and to act with compassion towards all beings not within but only in spite of reason.

My Master finds it untenable to dissect all of the seven tenets and instead leaves it to His capable followers to engage their brains, because the remaining tenets have problems, too. For example, one man’s “justice” and “freedom” is another man’s injustice and subjugation and have no prevailing gold standards; humans routinely violate the bodies (ask any surgeon!) and freedoms (ask any parent!) of others expecting it to be for their best interests. The Devil hopes that His temple will allocate time to revisit or clarify its tenets before some of its members begin to insist on meanings that are bound to cause unnecessary quarrels.

Satan thinks that The Satanic Temple is a textbook example of religious evolution, because it demonstrates that Satanism can be appropriated by independent groups whose use of the term can differ significantly from that of the first-founded organization, sharing only its historical roots, some imagery and terminology, and a few ideological stances. Ergo, The Satanic Temple strikes the Devil as second generation Satanists; not generational Satanists that were born of Satanists but a sign that the Satanism of The Church of Satan has found its way into the collective human consciousness and has been shaped to the minds of new generations: it is modern Satanism, and it contrasts the conservative, scripture-bound, fundamentalist Church of Satan rooted in the pre-1960es of Anton LaVey which finds itself being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century where new knowledge, new customs, new social structures, and new values chant “evolve or die.” The Satanic Temple, not clinging to a distant past, will be less vulnerable to the ravages of time for yet a while and may spell the future of Satanism if it manages to stay in business. Satan has not yet made up His mind about His still young temple and has decided to keep an eye on it for now.

Satan thinks His statue should be removed

Posted on by A lesser demon

Satan is a proud being as the more popular legends detailing His fall can bespeak, and He was properly satisfied when He learned that His temple had erected a Baphomet monument in Detroit a few years ago. The Lord of Evil had hoped that the monument had been closer to Mr. Éliphas Lévi’s depiction instead of resembling a 3D-rendering of some cheap tarot card flipping but He understands that a display of His rod athrust and His feminine torso would provide His detractors will all the ammunition they needed in the puritan American society to censor the statue. So perhaps a loin cloth can be excused, and there are flat-chested women, too; the Devil is used to seeing religious idols pictured in a fashion that is suspiciously compliant with herd demands.

That said, the Prince of Darkness wishes the world rid of religion. Religious monuments should be demolished around the Earth, or at least be placed in museums to illustrate past delusions. Satan thinks that the last thing the world needs is yet another religion or religious marker, especially now that the Devil’s own religion has gained foothold. Before then, Satan was more favorably disposed towards the emergence of a new religion, of course, and prefers to explain His unabashed change of mind as having become wiser. Otherwise, humans endowed with the powers of perspective might have accused Him of having changed His mind only to prevent newcomers from stealing the picture, and such misconceptions must be neutralized: Satan would never be a hyprocite who allowed a church to be established in His name only to immediately become opposed to new religions or religous spin-offs and deny any new temples their rights to erect their altars. No, Satan thinks no new religions should be established and no new religious monuments should be raised, and He thinks that religious pluralism is just a euphemism for more ways to be stupid.

Satan nonetheless thinks His monument in Detroit is great. It requires real life muscle to challenge the crowd and win, and His temple’s monument is a testament of such strength. The monument reminds everyone who passes it that the prevalent religion is debatable and vulnerable and not the epitome of truth and power that some believe. Satan admits that this is vanity, however, and needs no reminders, well-intentioned as they might be, that He will defeat God in the end. His real appreciation arises from recognizing the monument for its strategic usefulness: it can be employed as a means to remove other religious monuments in places where religion has no place. Christians who like to have their Ten Commandments placed next to a legislative state building (obviously to lead the herd into attributing equal legitimacy to real law and the rules of divine madmen) find that they have two options: either they publicly demonstrate that they consider themselves above the law and have only the Baphomet statue removed, or they acknowledge defeat—the latter either by conceding to let Baphomet challenge their monopoly on values and ethics and have their religion put to the question while their own monuments stand, or by having the Baphomet statue and their own, antiquated symbols removed. Satan thinks it is worth using His monument as a tool to invoke counter-productive pride among Christians, who will hate the Baphomet so intensely that they will pay for its removal by removing their own. Satan attributes no magical powers to His religious idols and will happily see His monument in Detroit destroyed if it brings down other religious monuments with it.

Satan thinks His Bible has two secrets

Posted on by A lesser demon

It has been over twenty years since Anton LaVey reminded the Devil’s followers that every grimoire has a secret, the remainder being mere padding that is inspirational at best if the secret is overlooked. Satan already knew that the secret of The Satanic Bible was the Balance Factor, the dark force in Nature, of course, but He figures it was a good idea of Anton LaVey to mention it, especially because everyone seems to have missed it to the degree of passionately intending to prove it wrong.

What Mr. LaVey did not tell my Evil Master’s followers is that another dark secret lurks within the pages of The Satanic Bible, a secret that has less to do with Satanism than with organizing and controlling the herd, making it a truly magical book. It is, perhaps ironically, a section that Mr. LaVey himself did not write and which the astute reader of The Satanic Bible may have noticed has changed between published editions. In addition to the price tag, that is.

The Satanic Bible contained an introduction by Burton H. Wolfe which was used in the 1969-1972 edition and in a revised version in the 1976-2005 edition when, for obvious reasons true to Orwellian standards of historical revisionism, Michael Aquino’s 1972-1976 introduction was removed by The Church of Satan‘s Ministry of Truth and henceforth not mentioned. The current edition of 2005- includes an introduction by Peter Gilmore. As you have probably realized by now, Satan thinks the second secret of The Satanic Bible is indeed its introduction.

Our Dark Lord realizes that His followers are often not the reading kind so He asks this subdued demon of yours to explain. Most introductions provide a review or a recommendation, an historical outline, perspective, or background. The introductions to The Satanic Bible do this to some degree, but all versions—least in Mr. Aquino’s version and most in Mr. Gilmore’s version—focus on the remarkable life of Anton LaVey. The introductions reveal that Anton LaVey was a carnival showman whose street smarts outperformed any businessman and whose observant eye of a con artist beat any psychologist. Working in forbidden careers, he saw the hidden truths of human nature and learned the secrets of mankind. He learned what could not be taught. He was a Satanist by example, the proto-Satanist that future Satanists would all measure up against.

At least that is what the introductions purport. The Devil would never wish to belittle our esteemed fellow denizen but in colder blood, Mr. LaVey was a school drop-out who never held a real job and huddled his way through life, was supported by his parents, never received an education, and eventually died in poverty, failing to be the embodiment of magical power that he is made out to be. He was a colorful figure in the brief, early heydays of The Church of Satan, but his days of glory lasted only few years. Now, Satan would like to emphasize that this is meant only to put things into perspective. The Prince of Darkness truly has the fondest feelings for Mr. LaVey, whom He believes was a grand person who deserved much better than he was granted in life, and the Devil wishes everyone to understand that in spite of LaVey’s failure to demonstrate an ability to practice as he preached, as it were, the road to Hell is in fact paved with good intentions, and Anton LaVey proudly walked down that road in the end. The Devil thinks that often it is genius that merely points the direction, and He does not require genius to also walk the talk: Maxwell never understood the implications of his equations, and Mozart received a pauper’s funeral. Satan fully acknowledges Anton LaVey’s contributions without requiring a convincing demonstration on his part.

This is all good or bad, depending on perspective, so let me, the Devil’s servant, explain the secret: the introduction serves to establish Anton LaVey’s authority as someone who could legitimately define Satanism. Anton LaVey was intelligent but he was no scholar who could draw on academic training and had no experience in scientific method and formal research; any scientifically trained eye can see this in how he argued and drew conclusions. He could not refer to any predecessor. He could not call on the blessings of a Devil that he did not believe in. In fact, he had no claim to authority at all and was forced to concoct a charming story to make himself seem interesting enough to warrant attention because all else would fail. Hence, he embellished his life story, omitting mistakes here and adding desirables there, turning a personal interest in music into an orchestral career and transforming a fascination with the Police into a formal employment in its grimmer departments. Borrowing feathers is one of the oldest tricks in the book on lesser magic, and it still works wonders: lacking all authority, Anton LaVey manufactured the story that he was a Satanist by example, thus making him worth paying attention to. He faked his resume to obtain an infernal mandate, and the The Lord of Lies granted it as an indisputable formality.

Some of Satan’s followers read the introduction of The Satanic Bible and nodded charitably when they effortlessly called Anton LaVey’s bluff, but they kept an open mind and were for the most part pleasantly surprised by Anton LaVey’s opinions and reflections and pardoned him his oversights, excessive generalizations, contradictions, and unintentional ambiguities throughout the book, just like they found his many tounge-in-cheek statements to be an enjoyable read. Depending on their education, they might have recognized that he lacked the necessary tools which a formal education would have provided him with and were able to fill in the blanks, read between the lines, and decide what to keep and what to discard. Satan thinks it is probably these readers who could discern between the truths and the lies in the book that Anton LaVey cautioned against in his preface, and who discovered the first secret of The Satanic Bible on their own.

Other followers read the introduction and were deeply fascinated with Anton LaVey to the point of describing him as the father they never had. Satan thinks that these people were rather had by Mr. LaVey instead. They judged the contents of The Satanic Bible not on the merits of thought but by their fascination with Anton LaVey’s made-up persona. They are a fan club, personality cultists, and herd matter. The more power to Anton LaVey, says Satan, and does not wish to share his thoughts about these followers.

Those who saw right through the yarns spun by Anton LaVey did not lose respect for him, mind you. Satan thinks they are probably accomplished magicians who recognized another warlock, just like a shrewd negotiator appreciates the skills of a bargaining colleague, and they smile wryly at the LaVey fan club knowing that one sorceror can bewitch the other.

Yet, the importance of Anton LaVey’s biographical narrative cannot be overstated, because it provides The Church of Satan with its only authority as an arbiter of the meaning of Satanism. The organization owns The Satanic Bible as its only authoritative document, and in turn its authority rests on its author possessing the authority to define Satanism, leaving The Church of Satan deeply dependent on Anton LaVey’s charisma; he is practically synonymous with The Church of Satan. Any erosion of Anton LaVey’s authority weakens the organization, and it is the reason why so many detractors of The Church of Satan target Anton LaVey when they attack the organization. It explains why Nicholas and Zeena Schreck, then in the Temple of Set, compiled their infamous “truth and legend” document about Anton LaVey: the document served to harm The Church of Satan by proxy by undermining Anton LaVey’s authority by sabotaging his narrative. Michael Aquino had claimed that the Devil had revoked Anton LaVey’s infernal mandate and in some sense, Mr. Schreck’s and Ms. LaVey’s document helped revoke the infernal mandate that Anton LaVey’ narrative had provided. Some of the statements in the document are merely accusational but a significant number of them are convincing, and Peter Gilmore, in his introduction to The Satanic Bible, found it incumbent on him to counter with an explanation that the list has some merit but did not overall dismantle Anton LaVey’s being a Satanist by example—his authority still being critically required.

The Church of Satan stresses that it is not the person but his teachings that should be considered, but Anton LaVey’s charisma permeated The Church of Satan from the very beginning and still lingers. One needs only visit its web site or listen to any interview to understand the importance of Anton Lavey’s continued presence in the organization. Satan realizes how this is going to sound, but He thinks it is always LaVey this and LaVey that, and wishes that His followers would think a little of Him, too. In 2018, Church of Satan aesthetics is still thoroughly inspired by Anton LaVey’s pre-1960es imagery, music, and standards of beauty, with everyone attempting to satisfy Anton LaVey’s personal taste as he described it. Peer recognition in The Church of Satan is gained through compliance with Anton LaVey’s showmanship genres: writing, painting, constructing dolls or sculptures, hosting some radio channel, playing music, etc. (sometimes even skillfully) but rarely by demonstrating accomplishments in the cerebral areas of teaching, scientific research and publishing, etc. that are outside of Anton LaVey’s demographic background. Intellectual display is still limited to the level of Anton LaVey’s unlearned reading which separates the cocksure student from those who know. The Devil doesn’t mind such lowbrow activites at all but would like to remind His followers that while such tactics have directed the decisions of which tavern to visit for a drink and a brawl, History is changed by magicians who are not stuck in the early last century.

Satan thinks vegans have a point

Posted on by A lesser demon

Satan agrees with vegans and vegetarians on one of their chief arguments: it is less expensive—both financially and ecologically—to live on plant matter than on meat, even if accounting for the required haulage of seasonal products that were generally unavailable a century ago in order to satisfy the nutritional needs of a human being. The Devil does not wish to discuss obviously untenable or plainly stupid arguments; for example, there is no reason to debate that Man is biologically an omnivore not a herbivore.

Yet agreement is one thing, caring is another. The latter turns the ecological fact into a moral question, and the Devil asks His followers a few rhetorical questions: are humans unconcerned about the future for vast population groups including their own? Are humans willing to live on a polluted planet, and can they look themselves in the eyes knowing they leave an exhausted Earth to their offspring? Do humans believe that a reduced production of meat should be permitted? The vegan answer is no, and disagreement with them is impossible without either being ignorant or feeling guilty. (The latter option being reserved for humans, of course, as Satan has no idea what it means.)

But, acknowledging the validity of one moral argument is a slippery slope, and allows the vegans to present another moral argument, which is perhaps their primary argument: how can humans, living and feeling beings, justify killing and devouring other living and feeling beings? Why do humans find it dandy to eat cows but not each other?

Meat eaters sometimes argue that other carnivores and omnivores usually have preferences, too, and usually do not eat their own species; however, this does not necessarily apply to humans, who might be one of several exceptions. Humans have eaten only certain species for as long as we can remember but that is a naturalistic argument, and vegans are correct when they state that humans have the capacity to make a choice, as humans have done in other areas of their biological history; for example, when they take medicine.

Humans who eat the flesh of other beings genuinely have some explaining to do: they do not have to kill animals for food. They choose to do it, and it changes nothing trying to justify the killings by peeping that the animals maybe individually and most likely as a species would meet their destiny more brutally in the fierce struggle for survival in Nature. At best, humans can patch their guilty conscience by killing their prey “humanely” (which Satan thinks sounds a little disturbing, because it reveals human standards for killing each other in cold blood), and thus flaunt your hypocrisy by wanting the dead animals on the one hand but feeling uncomfortable killing them on the other. Vegans see through this hypocrisy and stress that humans do not escape their choice by pretending to be friendly executioners.

Killing animals for food is perfectly legal, and like the ecological view it is a moral choice. It is unnecessary; it is impossible to pretend otherwise. Satan thinks it would behoove His meat-eating followers to admit that they kill intentionally and harm the planet merely to satisfy their own culinary pleasure. Satan does not personally care what humans eat, however. He is the Devourer of Souls and would never lower Himself to consuming the improper foods of humans.