Forgetfulness of past orthodoxies

Satan thinks Epicureanism is no indulgence

Posted on by A lesser demon

Most of what is said about our Master in Hell serves to either amplify His malice so He can be blamed for one’s irresponsibility or to tame Him so one’s own impotence in all matters demonic is less evident in comparison. Satan understands why His sworn enemies resort to such tactics but is scornful towards those of His own followers who betray themselves with similar campaigns.

The herd mentality of the Devil’s church members compels them to chant the words of their clergy, never imagining it would be prudent to verify the claims or check the references. This emphasizes the importance of a responsible church magistrate whose alliance must always remain with Satan not their lesser selves, despite their delusions of grandeur.

One such incident was the current high priest’s, Peter Gilmore, attempt to flatten Satanism and explain it in terms that can best be described as the vulgarity of the uneducated, when Gilmore reduced Satanism to “modern Epicureanism,” explaining that it is a refined selection of gourmet indulgences. Satan thinks perhaps He should be thankful that Gilmore at least managed to contrast it to primitive hedonism.

A little-known Finnish-Greek philosopher among our ranks here in Hell named Perkeles once made an attempt to reconcile Epicureanism with Anton LaVey’s Satanism but abandoned the project before making any significant headway. Perkeles began with a study of Epicurean physics, which stipulated that there is no such thing as life after death, immaterial souls, or gods and devils. All that exists is physical reality. Neither God nor Satan exists. This appears to be the end of Perkeles’ study, because after proudly presenting the distinctly unconvinced King of Hell with his findings that there is no Devil, he vanished without a trace. However, although naturally opposed to worldviews that deny His existence, Satan admits that as far as humans are concerned, one should always reject supernatural claims; He can wait until the day He makes sure they learn the truth the hard way.

Epicureanism is one of several attempts among ancient philosophers toward a practical philosophy of achieving happiness. It is named after the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who lived from 341 to 270 BCE. Epicurus believed that the greatest good and the key to human happiness was to attain a state of tranquility through freedom from fear and the absence of bodily pain, and by not increasing one’s worries through acquisition or ownership. One would spend the best life if surrounded by all your friends, by minimizing one’s desires to the bare minimum required for survival so one had as much time as possible with said friends, and should strive to form communities with them. Hence, Epicurus himself abstained from sex and stuck to a diet of bread and water. Friendship was of such paramount importance to him that he held that a wise man would rather die for a friend than betray him. Epicureanism denied that wealth and power can bring happiness.

Satan could hardly think of anything less congruent with His nature. He represents indulgence instead of abstinence, and although moderation and prioritization of one’s pleasures mark the difference between indulgence and compulsion, Satan thinks that the bare-bones minimum requirements for survival cannot possibly qualify as anything but sheer abstinence. Satan, marvelous in His independence, would also not be caught dead feeling dependent on, or even overly keen on socializing with, anyone including friends. The Prince of Darkness derives His own, dark peace of mind from knowing that He is self-contained and that His diabolical essence is within his full control, unaffected by what others think. He shuns the notion of a community and considers misanthropy a positive trait. Satan agrees with the Epicurean view that there is no intrinsic purpose to life beyond biological imperatives, but He permits Himself the right to determine his own indulgences and values, thank you very much.

It is only in modern, popular usage—explicitly attributable to the promulgation of misunderstandings of Epicurean doctrine by Christian polemicists—that Peter Gilmore’s use of the epicure as a connoisseur of the finer sensual pleasures may be acceptable, but Satan thinks it is just that: a Christian misunderstanding that, if kept unchecked, could easily turn Satanism into its almost polar opposite.

Yet, Satan can identify some genuine parallels between Epicureanism and His church and its members. Firstly, He is convinced that a great deal of them are involuntary Epicureans whose fierce limitation of indulgences occurs by necessity rather than choice. Secondly, Epicureans discouraged learning, culture, and civilization, believing such would upset one’s tranquility, except to the extent that such knowledge could rid oneself of fears. Satan is certain that His church does its utmost to uphold this standard. Like the Epicureans, they rely on empiricism (which denies rationalism and trusts only what humans can directly experience with their senses, and is ultimately the cause of such nonsense as modern-day flat-Earth belief) and are unswayed by fact, science, and logic, demonstrating at every chance they get that they have no grasp on these phenomena whatsoever.

This fervent resistance against intellectual development could, ironically, be their bulwark against the full depravity of Epicurean abstinence and people-addiction. Satan takes solace knowing that His church members, being one of the least studious ethnicities there exists, will echo Gilmore’s words like braying sheep but luckily for them will never choose to study and pursue Epicureanism. Like so many of their “truths,” it is, as the Epicureans would say, an empty sound.

Satan thinks His church wears a good-guy badge

Posted on by A lesser demon

Take it from a liar to recognize another liar, and The Father of Lies knows one when He sees one. He has reserved the entire eighth circle of Hell for those very people. Even those who lie so hard they believe their own lies cannot hide from Satan’s smoldering eyes, but although they fit naturally within His aforementioned circle, for some reason they are in high demand in Heaven and are allowed through the Pearly Gates before Satan can offer a bid for their souls.

Satan’s own church appears to be brimming with the latter kind of liars if their online presence is to be trusted. Most of them, if not all, are relative newcomers to whom the Satanic newsletters, magazines, and periodicals of the past have never been available, and who never learned Satanic creeds in the days of Anton LaVey, before the age of social media and before The Church of Satan turned into what His Depravity calls Gilmoron Satanism. Hidden from plain view and made available only to subscribers, and to some extent incorporating a sufficient amount of cringe-worthy content to seem unbelievable except to those who could read, the doctrine was explicit. Today, reading comprehension skills not granted to everyone are required to decipher the dogma.

“Lex Talionis,” eugenics, social stratification, social Darwinism with a necessity of culling the human locusts who overrun and overpopulate the planet and the breeding of a Satanic “iron youth,” and similar concepts were ideals that Satan’s true followers once aimed for, if ever so feebly applied in practice in a society that promotes weakness and natural injustice. They were societal goals that were to be implemented literally as an alternative to the current, Christianized society of undeserved alms and apologists for inadequacy where criminals were treated as the victims, to the extent where human evolution was at stake.

Satan does not wish to impose unreasonable demands upon His followers, of course. Each must be evil to the extent of his or her ability, which is rarely anything to write home about. It did not take long until especially the scrawnier breeds began to quip that “might is right” was to be interpreted more broadly than favoritism of brawns, thus allowing the pen to be mightier than the sword, especially if all one had was a pen. Satan thinks it is fine to continuously develop and reinterpret one’s convictions and would in fact not recommend that His followers let themselves get stuck in the 1960es of Anton LaVey.

Today, virtually every one of Satan’s followers on social media believes that His church does not truly mean “eugenics” in any other sense than social preferences, that “stratification” is mostly what society already features, and that magic is “just psychodrama.” Every demonic aspect is defanged and declawed, especially when said followers are confronted by people who complain about the political and social ramifications and respond by pinning a good guy badge on their lapels. And that, my dear, is the big lie that they believe in themselves.

It is rare to find a person who speaks the truth, but occasionally an officially appointed spokesperson from The Church of Satan will set the record straight for those few who care to listen. This is when you discover that they welcome plans that would actively weed out purposeless people and that moochers on welfare, degenerates with (severe) disabilities, and fruitcakes with personality disorders who join them have failed to understand that Satanism is not for them, even when their predicament is no fault of theirs. In a world of their values, such individuals would be eradicated through swift evolutionary deselection, and conscientious and responsible people would lend Nature a helping hand as early as possible in such matters to conserve resources otherwise squandered on biological retrogressions.

Those “in the know” will sometimes place such people on a pedestal regardless. A token cripple, a token black person, a token leftist, or a token queer provides the organization with a good-guy badge that illustrates how they, by the goodness of their hearts, do not discriminate. In the meantime, and behind their backs, the same knowing people laugh wholeheartedly as these sideshow freaks of their carnival entertain the outsider guests—those who are not privy to the truth—by flaunting their delusions of inclusion and adequacy.

This is the nature of the real world and the human animal within it. The herd may require that the secret be concealed behind a good-guy badge lest they cower in fear and retreat, but the élite does not require it. Satan thinks the secrecy is unnecessary. There are far too many sideshow cage geeks paid with sips of their addiction, pinheads, and mental midgets in His church already—all of whom the animal world would have torn apart and devoured, but due to man’s sadistic demand for the suffering of others are kept alive and on display for their deficiencies and outbursts of insanity. Satan feels no need to expand that arena in His circus.

Satan thinks a conversion process is needed

Posted on by A lesser demon

Satan has previously explained that the conversion narrative of being born not made is self-deceit. For the lazy readers who decide to skip His magnificent thoughts, Satan thinks that “Satanists are born not made” is a bogus statement that His followers apply to relieve themselves of the need for an explanation of why they chose their outrageous religion when excuses such as “Satan appeared and spoke to me!” obviously do not apply. Anton LaVey provided this original narrative because he lacked all the possible credentials to provide him with the authority to claim that he was a Satanist, and had no other choice than to postulate that, somehow, he always was one. Once an angel, Lucifer is testimony to the fact that Satanists are indeed made not born, however.

The conversion narrative makes it very easy to convert—so easy, in fact, that Satan thinks His followers are god-damned jokes, instead of the god-damning soldiers He requires. The Church of Satan believes that a somewhat steep membership fee guarantees that only the best may join, but Satan thinks it proves but a bare minimum of real-world capability and instead primarily cultivates a cultic mindset, even if this dynamic is unknown to His church. (As a service to the same lazy readers as above, it is a well-known sales trick to make people believe that if they paid a large sum for something, they will believe that the acquisition was important to them and thus gain their loyalty.) Such a conversion requires virtually nothing. All that is required is to decide that one is now a Satanist. In reality, no one was ever a Satanist until then (with perhaps very few exceptions who may qualify), and henceforth one makes no further effort to become one. Satan thinks that such low requirements are laziness beyond belief, not that He is fond of any kinds of belief to begin with. He thinks this is the reason why so many of His followers join a Satanic organization but seem to stay the Christians they always were.

Satan remembers the early days of His church when members attended lectures in “The Black House,” or “Central Grotto,” of Anton LaVey. They were awarded degrees in the church that reflected their magical studiousness and acumen per LaVey’s judgment, and the titles were selected to mock the religious counterpart of the Christian church. Within a few years after establishing The Church of Satan, the organization allowed members to organize themselves in local chapters, or “grottos,” provided that the grotto leaders attended training in Central Grotto. This training did not include leadership skills, however, and the grottos soon became a disastrous affair of “Mexican generals” with no sense of corporate conduct and responsibilities. The grotto system was disbanded, training in Central Grotto ceased, and LaVey declared that with The Satanic Bible now on the bookshelves, everyone had the tools they needed. LaVey decreed that degrees were now awarded based on members’ performance in the real world, as it presumably reflected their magical proficiency in a religion where magic aimed to improve one’s material gains.

The grotto system was briefly re-instantiated in the late 1980s and lasted little more than a decade before it had again become clear—not surprisingly given that now no training was provided at all, let alone leadership or management coaching—that the grottos were as ineffective and counterproductive as ever. The tools that LaVey believed to have become available evidently came up short.

The quality of LaVey’s training may be debated, and anyone’s skill in magic is necessarily a delusion because magic does not exist. Satan nonetheless thinks that it was a grave mistake to abandon the training of the clergy because even the low level of ambition spurred them to study and, ideally, convalesce from their former mindsets by actively working toward adopting a healthier one. It would also enable them to serve as guides and role models for lay members, assuming they were more competent than history proved.

Today, everyone can declare oneself a Satanist and find that no requirements follow, except that one conform to organizational expectations as exemplified by its top tier. (The lazy reader will receive no summary this time, and is urged to read the text in its entirety.) There are no instructions on how to practice Satanism or how to unlearn one’s past orthodoxies. An elect few may possess the ability to accumulate knowledge and the gift of introspection, and Satan can appreciate that “responsibility to the responsible” lays it upon each individual to take matters into his or her own hands, but there is no need to make it difficult by forcing everyone to begin from scratch.

A clear curriculum requiring that one verifiably demonstrate that the skills have been acquired provides two distinct advantages. Firstly, each individual can learn more productively without having to first identify and then acquire the necessary knowledge (and trust Satan that no individuals are so different that a shared educational program is pointless), and secondly, it alleviates the adverse effect of toxic organizational behavior because objective criteria for leveling up reduce the influence from toxic superiors, who will find it difficult to promote those who support them based on personal feelings. A properly composed educational program will not homogenize its students, impede their creativity, or hamper their independence, despite protests from people who grew critical of education after seeing their own grades in school. One can learn to identify counterproductive residues of one’s past thinking without imposing specific different thoughts, and one may learn from examples without copying them. When you learned to read in school, it aided your independence despite learning it together with everyone else. In contrast, institutionalized behavior, where rewards for personal agreement trickle downward, tends to sculpt individuals by the cast of the leader, usually for worse than for better. There are, simply, skills that would benefit virtually all Satanists while leaving plenty of room for personal specialization. “How not to act and think like a Christian” would be a generally useful course whereas “how to cook a great burger” would be a course on indulgence that each person should pursue individually, and outside of the organization, according to his or her need.

Satan does not acknowledge the sometimes-heard argument that His church is a mutual admiration society (like Mensa, but for people with a two-digit IQ) and, therefore, presumably because members are all born not made, there is nothing to make and no improvements to offer. This is not to say that Satan doubts their honesty. There are people who are willing to pay and receive in return only the knowledge that they are listed in the membership archives and feel admired for that, and Satan is convinced that the organization appeals to people who seek validation by association. Satan dismisses the argument both because Satanists are made not born, and because even if they were born that way, they still have something to learn and unlearn if they were raised in a predominantly religious society.

Satan considers The Satanic Temple to be in a slightly better shape than His church on this account, although its instructive literature is sorely lacking. For all that may be said about The Satanic Bible and its other canonical literature, at least His church has scripture that directly addresses its members. His temple has nothing save seven tenets that lend themselves to a wide range of interpretations, and a list of holidays with associated, additional values. However, it provides classes for its ordained Ministers (although very little of it potentially addresses behavior and thought patterns, the rest focusing on auxiliary albeit relevant issues) and requires them to pass an exam. If the tasks of the Ministers include passing this knowledge on to their respective parishioners, those members of The Satanic Temple who belong to a congregation may receive education; but they form such a tiny minority of the membership base that Satan doubts they count in the bigger picture.

In both organizations, virtually all members thus join and are then on their own to flesh out what Satanism means to them. This may work for a self-driven, university-trained individual who has acquired the skills and tools to locate valid sources and a critical mind that renders him able to develop, instead of confirming past errors believing them to be Satanic. The Devil wants far more than denying one’s faith and similar ostentations. He wants people to not only reject their faiths but also the mentality, ethos, conventions, and lifestyles that were transmitted through a superstitious culture, and even for mostly atheistic, highly intelligent, contemplative, and introspective people, it is an arduous road. No organization can assume that any of its members can undertake this endeavor on their own or in self-organized study groups.

The inevitable result is that the organizations are filled with individuals whose opinions remain unchanged, and whose new actions amount to little beyond live-action role-playing that they believe to be genuine. Individuals bring their old behavior into the organization to a degree where keen observers can often identify which specific Christian denomination they used to belong to despite having spent beyond a decade as “Satanists,” because that is how little they have changed in practice. If the organizations qualify for the proud name of the Devil, it is certainly not because of their members. Satan thinks the organizations are empty shells. They may exist and expand but have practically no content.

Satan represents undefiled wisdom and thinks His organizations sully His name by allowing their members to stay hypocritically self-deceived. Satan wants converts who are forged into devoted demons, not Christian charlatans whose true allegiance they reveal every so often.

Satan thinks religious hypocrisy is preferable

Posted on by A lesser demon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Satan thinks there was no evidence of a “Satanic age”

Posted on by A lesser demon

In The Satanic Rituals, Anton LaVey predicted that by the year 2000, Christ would have become a “well-known folk myth.” Satan was delighted by LaVey’s optimism back in 1972 when the book was published but thinks that today it is safe to suggest that the black pope’s optimism was unwarranted. The Devil is not certain why Anton LaVey made such a bold forecast. Perhaps he overrated the importance of his newly established The Church of Satan with unbridled disregard of the Balance Factor, but LaVey may have genuinely believed that the contemporary zeitgeist heralded a new age of reason and human-centered progress.

After all, Anton LaVey explained in some detail in The Satanic Bible that he had evidence of a new, Satanic age: Anton LaVey had observed that modern Christianity is unlike Christianity of old and that Christians today largely revel in the Seven Deadly Sins, think of themselves, are materialist, and otherwise behave as Anton LaVey claimed “the Satanist” does. His logical conclusion was that Christianity was dying, and that the very name “Christianity” should therefore be abandoned. People should recognize that they had already found a name for their modern practices: Satanism.

Satan is flattered that His name was proposed as the denomination for this new age but my Master had rather hoped for a little more. His Infernal Majesty does not feel content that all that is ostensibly asked is to say “Satanism” instead of “Christianity” and to admit it. In fact, the Devil is offended by Anton LaVey’s recommendation. Satan disagrees with Anton LaVey’s very premise that there is any evidence of a “Satanic age” and refuses to have His infernal name sullied by being assigned the followers of His mortal enemy.

It is true that Christianity today is nothing like the original cult, and even early Christianity evolved quickly. Had someone decided to better call Saul of Tarsus back from the dead after two or three centuries, he would probably not have recognized the religion that he founded. Yet, it would nonetheless be Christianity, in a form that had followed the times. Religions always follow the times. They do not replace themselves with something else as they evolve. Religions are not static phenomena. They stay “alive” by changing, not in a desperate attempt to survive but as a root component of society. However Christianity has manifested itself throughout its two millennia, at any random point in time this would be just how and what Christianity was. It never ceased to be Christianity, nor did it become more or less “true” Christianity over time. Less authentic, perhaps, but not necessarily “less Christian.” Like a monster that keeps sprouting new limbs and developing new abilities until eventually it is irreconcilable with its original form, it is nonetheless the same organism, and so are religions.

Had Anton LaVey’s request that Christianity shelve its name for having evolved had any merit, all religions would have changed their names numerous times throughout History. Satan thinks that Anton LaVey’s demand that religions either stick to their original form or die (by renaming themselves) reveals a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of religion, which he so often criticized.

What Anton LaVey observed was fully legitimate Christianity that was no less deserving of the name than during its original teachings. The only evidence Anton LaVey found was that Christianity was still very much alive and well. When Anton LaVey realized that Christians did not behave “like Christians,” hence being “Satanists,” he did not think to first question his own standards of measurement as would any researcher: if only few Christians matched his personal interpretation of Christianity, the obvious conclusion would have been to conclude that his definition of Christianity was too exclusive, not that Christians had become a rare breed and Christianity was dying.

The Devil is not much for enveloping Himself in Christian theology but He knows to study His enemy, and He thinks LaVey made an additional mistake when he described Christians and Christianity. Satan thinks that in addition to the above, Anton LaVey missed another key element.

There are literally tens of thousands of Christian groups and organizations who all disagree and each considers themselves to be the best kind of Christianity. They are so diverse that no catch-all definition encompasses them all. Anton LaVey spent a little less than 2,000 words describing Christianity before leaving the topic to rail against “white” witchcraft in order to distinguish his take on occultism from the already widespread interest in it in the 1960es. If one truly wishes to describe Christianity as a singular structure, 2,000 words involve far too much detail. One can say little more than that the religion has some concept of a “God,” usually incorporates some idea of Jesus, and often applies some interpretation of the Bible; and that is all. It is impossible to make a sweeping definition of how their god (or gods) and their scripture is being perceived, interpreted, and used.

Anton LaVey may have witnessed nuns who satisfied his fetish by deliberately revealing a piece of thigh, but in his indulgent observation he forgot that other nuns would never permit such perversion. For all the Devil knows, Anton LaVey might have stumbled upon a precursor to the Children of God‘s use of “flirty fishing,” which on the one hand was Christian behavior (according to the Children of God), and on the other hand did not exemplify Christians as a whole. It is not valid to conclude, as he did in The Satanic Bible, that Christianity is taking one direction or another based upon such an observation.

There is no such thing as true Christianity, or even anything that comes close. In fact, there is no such thing as false Christianity. Christianity is as Christians do, no more, no less, and there are literally billions of different Christians. Only God can judge which of the between 30,000 and 40,000 Christian groups is “right,” if any, but alas: God does not exist, leaving no arbiter of Christian correctness. One can observe how Christians within different groups tend to behave but one cannot state with any certainty that one or another “is Christianity.” It is possible to evaluate degrees of authenticity compared with the original, Jewish cult or to evaluate representativeness—for example, the aforementioned Children of God are not particularly representative of Christians—but such evaluations do not express what Christianity is, nor can they propose which kind of Christianity is “true.” Paul the Apostle may have been the original Christian but perhaps the much later Calvinists better understood the will of God? The Catholic Church sports 1,3 billion members but perhaps the about 50,000 Christadelphians got closer to the truth, had there been a god to decide?

Anton LaVey’s first mistake was to think there is such a thing as “true” Christianity—and that it obeyed his personal interpretation—and to conclude that it was being abandoned because he viewed Christians through a lens where he saw what he wanted to see and ignored everything that contradicted his beliefs. His second mistake was to consider Christianity a monolithic entity, leading him to erroneously conclude that Christianity was waning because to him it appeared internally inconsistent. He failed to understand that there are many kinds of Christianity, many of which thoroughly disagree with each other, and that secular behavior in one Christian group neither indicates a general Christian trend nor that Christianity is somehow breaking apart.

This all makes The Evil One a little worried about Anton LaVey’s ability to define Satanism, because whatever Anton LaVey recognized as “Satanism” among Christians turns out to be bona fide Christianity. Satan has only too often heard Christians accusing each other of succumbing to the Devil for not being adequately pious, and finds LaVey playing this age-old Christian shame-game, too. Granted, this is how the Devil was constructed to begin with, but my Master prefers to be the master of His own raison d’être, thank you very much.

Satan originally explained the above in much shorter terms, but we lesser demons must sometimes digest His infernal wisdom and consequently churn out lengthy commentaries before we grasp it ourselves. The crux of the matter is that my Master regrets to inform His followers that He rejects the portion of His bible that discusses “evidence” of a Satanic age. He wants His followers to understand that when they believe that Christians behave “Satanically,” often they have one of two reasons: at best, the follower is observing entirely generic human behavior that is shared across all and no religion and thus neither non-Christian nor Satanic. At worse, this follower is still a Christian who does not realize that when he or she approves of other Christians, it is not because other Christians behave Satanically but vice versa.