Empty posturing

Satan thinks saving for membership is unworthy

Posted on by A lesser demon

Back in the still early days of Satan’s own church, Anton LaVey shocked some of its high-ranking members by unexpectedly offering degrees in The Church of Satan for sale. To at least some of them, this was a betrayal of the very Lord of Darkness. They had spent significant time deluding themselves into believing the Devil is real, and that their “magical studies,” for which they had laboriously earned their degrees, had accomplished anything of relevance in the real world. As a result, a sizeable number of them promptly left The Church of Satan together with Michael Aquino to continue their navel-gazing in The Temple of Set, believing that Anton LaVey had sold out on the principles on which The Church of Satan had been founded.

Satan thinks Anton LaVey was on to something real, just more subtly than he probably realized. He (Anton, not Satan) argued that money was a sensible measurement of one’s success as a magician, in that one’s practical magic skills should be focused on one’s material success. Therefore, one’s ability to pay for a particular degree would indicate a correspondingly magical acumen accurately enough for titular purposes. Satan does not consider that to be Anton LaVey’s stroke of wisdom, however, because the notion that financial success is indicative of one’s spiritual success is a specifically Christian concept that stems from American Protestantism; Max Weber had realized this almost a century earlier.

His Infernal Majesty has not heard about any recent purchases of degrees but trusts that the current High Priest of The Church of Satan possesses the full supply of corruptability required to happily offer a degree for even a modest price or praise. But, it is the membership fee Satan has in mind, not the silly degree system.

The Church of Satan considers the membership fee to be a gatekeeping mechanism—never mind that it happens to also be an income—that helps prevent nonserious people from joining. A sufficiently tall membership fee presumably dissuades unwanted people from enlisting. Satan thinks that is wishful thinking. It may deter some of the undesired elements (and, regrettably, some desired individuals), but it also means that people who mistakenly believe themselves to be Satanists are only correspondingly more convinced of their delusion.

It is not its assumed gatekeeping attribute that catches Satan’s interest. It is the connection between the membership fee and Anton LaVey’s early likening of income with magical success that has a subtle implication for those Satanists who carefully scrimp and save to obtain the coveted membership card: the Satanists who want to become members but cannot currently afford it, and therefore save some of what little money they have so one day, hopefully not too far in the future, can submit their membership application.

For those who may have forgotten, Mr. Scratch represents indulgence instead of abstinence, and vital existence instead of hypocritical self-deceit. What the above-mentioned financially challenged Satanists reveal is a desire to forego indulgence for months or years for the intangible asset of a membership, disregarding that vital existence calls for that money at a time when they need it. Even before they join, they exhibit traits that run counter to the ideology they deceive themselves into sharing. They should spend that money on vital existence and indulgence. It is not even an investment to save it for a membership, because investments are characterized by tangible returns. Otherwise, it is only an indulgence in the Catholic Christian sense: you pay real money for a fantasy of betterment.

There is nothing wrong with throwing money at a cause that you appreciate. The Devil is a philanthropist Himself, boasting an impressive collection of souls that He all paid for, for example. But to throw money at something while getting nothing except the boasting rights and the illusion that you are being personally appreciated for it requires that this money be mere pocket change to you. It is when you must save for your membership fee, or if the membership fee makes any deeper impact than a shallow and temporary dent in your finances, that Satan thinks you prefer abstinence and an inflated sense of your true resources over vital existence and indulgence. It is pretentious posturing with an emptied account, and Satan is not fooled by your balance.

Satan thinks His stupid followers need help

Posted on by A lesser demon

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

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

Be Loyal

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

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

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

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

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

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

Make It All About You

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

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

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

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

Believe Everyone Is Stupid

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

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

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

Remember You Are the Satanist

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

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

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

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

Use Your Faith

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Satan thinks His élite are self-inflated imposters

Posted on by A lesser demon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Satan thinks clowns are no joke

Posted on by A lesser demon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Satan thinks 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 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 moral people are untrustworthy

Posted on by A lesser demon

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

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

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

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

Satan thinks His followers should boast some more

Posted on by A lesser demon

Satan does not recall demanding the same display of humility from His followers that His opposing gods invariably seem to require of theirs, even if the latter generally ignore the requirement and consider themselves intrinsically superior simply because their gods are better.

My master of all things evil is many things but unfortunately is not omnipresent and must instead rely on reports from His lesser demons and followers. We are, regrettably, not being driven to overwork ourselves informing our infernal master of the excellence of His followers, and He is quite surprised at the low level of bragging he receives from them, too. He would have imagined His alien elite to both stand out from the herd and to loudly flaunt their accomplishments or skills, but rarely sees or hears mention of neither.

The Devil acknowledges that human beings usually repond with humility in recognition of the vast pool of knowledge yet to be gained and mastered once undefiled knowledge has been inflicted upon them, thus transferring them outside the criteria of the Dunning-Kruger effect, but their attendance in His churches and temples nonetheless strikes Him as staggeringly low. All He hears is the fanfaronade of shock value focusing amateur musicians, would-be artists, want-to-be photographers, and won’t-be authors, and perhaps a few nondescript web designers who use their self-taught HTML hacking skills to provide yet another web page telling the “truth” about Satanism as a subconscious approach to developing their own understanding of the subject. The Devil appreciates such web sites, of course, but has stopped reading them as they all seem curiously alike to Him, as if no new thoughts have been manufactured for decades.

Our Dark Majesty cannot help but suspect that perhaps the routinization of the charisma of His denizen Anton LaVey, who had no education, plays a role in this. LaVey’s claim to authority, which consequently became his organization’s claim to authority, was his—in part fabricated, but our King of Lies would never hold that against him—life of carnival performance, thus making feats of entertainment rather than mental agility or academic performance their measure of demonic worth.

Never accepting defeat even if cast into the deepest of pits, the Devil believes, in spite of evidence to the contrary, that a good deal of His followers are found in the fields vital to the construction of artificial human companions, both directly in physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, and mathematics, and somewhat indirectly in psychology, sociology, philosophy, and anthropology. These fields have more exact definitions and requirements to quality than the aforementioned arts (a term which Satan uses somewhat benignly about His followers’ works) and deal particularly harshly with empty posturing, so Satan has no doubt that their enthusiastic announcements be somewhat curbed. His Unholiness would, however, be very pleased to find an occasional scholar or highly intelligent individual among His followers and asks them to please brag a little and mention His name as a token of respect.