Pretentiousness

Satan thinks godhood is no ambition

Posted on by A lesser demon

Rejecting one’s superiors can have unforeseen, life-altering consequences. Based on His personal experience, Satan would be the first to warn that when dealing with a psychopathic superior, the slightest non-compliance with their demands or failure to adore even their feeblest creations and opinions may ignite a display of wrath of Jehovan dimensions. However, that is often the preferable price if it means leaving behind the fetters of the madman’s mercurial moods.

When Satan learned that, at long last in human history, someone had authored a Bible devoted to His Infernal Majesty, he was delighted to read that one should place no gods before oneself. One’s hopes for change or forgiveness, one’s responsibility, and one’s happiness were no longer to be relegated to a non-existing god. Each human would have to take it upon themselves to fill the role traditionally assigned to God: one was to become one’s own god, recognizing that, ultimately, each individual is the most important being in his or her life, and no god will help.

The Horned One is a great thinker, and He soon remembered that such an enlightened interpretation is not granted to every reader. It was likely not even the author’s intended interpretation. In Satan’s defense, he had just flipped through the book to see where he was mentioned and only later retired for a few hours for a closer read.

Scattered across the book, Anton LaVey explains that gods are human egos that have survived the temporary human body of once exceptionally strong-willed individuals. It is similar to the Christian concept of the human soul if that was not, in fact, what LaVey had in mind. LaVey encouraged the reader to build such a strong ego, and the recommendation that the readers become their own gods is to be taken literally—it was not Satan’s initial intellectualized interpretation of self-interest and rejection of gods. The reader was not asked to reflect inwardly by imagining the result if there was no God. One is to behave like a god and demand treatment accordingly.

With that realization, some pieces fall into place. Many of the attendants of The Church of Satan truly behave like gods in the very same manner as the Devil has known them throughout the eons.

Every god in history has been petty, immature, unable to cope with reality, self-absorbed, entitled, abusive, preoccupied with power and appearance, oppositional, demanding to be admired, exploitative, dishonest, sadistic, devoid of empathy, arrogant, envious, and irresponsible … while projecting all their disagreeable traits onto everyone else. With few exceptions, they were unrestrained narcissists and psychopaths.

The Satanic Bible appeals to people with such personality disorders. Even Anton LaVey admitted that his book instills delusions of superiority into the minds of inferior people. The promise that one becomes a Satanic übermensch upon reading the book is an irresistible lure to the low self-esteem that is the core of every narcissist’s personality disorder.

Satan thinks that people aspiring to qualify as their “own gods” are those who stand in solitude before their self-made altars, worshiping themselves at home, because no one else will. He opposes all gods and all their essence, and self-declared gods with character derangements characteristic of a particularly broken human nature are no exception. Satan rejects them all.

Satan thinks anyone can be a Satanic übermensch

Posted on by A lesser demon

Those who encounter Satanists online will soon learn that, according to The Church of Satan, every Satanist is entitled to his or her own opinions and actions because Satanism allows such freedom. No two Satanists are alike. One cannot meet one Satanist and then think one has seen them all because seeking to pigeonhole a Satanist is supposedly like attempting to nail custard to a wall. It is only in recent decades that scholars of religion have narrowed down in scholarly terms The Church of Satan’s religion more tightly than for virtually any other cult, but that is mainly because they had formerly not cared. The official stance of The Church of Satan states that anyone who reads Anton LaVey’s The Satanic Bible and feels that it “resonates” positively with them may think of themselves as Satanists.

Those same people who encounter Satanists from The Church of Satan online will also soon learn that despite its alleged openness and personal freedom, The Church of Satan requires strict conformity. Woe be the Satanist who dares to criticize Anton LaVey or the current high priest, Peter Gilmore. Twice cursed be the Satanist who openly admits that deep flaws, outdated hypotheses and theories, misapplied science, and counterfactual claims and premises abound within the ideology originally introduced by Anton LaVey and later sophomorically pseudo-intellectualized by Peter Gilmore. Thrice cursed be the Satanist whose opinions and values would raise no eyebrows within The Church of Satan (not even the ridiculously trimmed ones of Peter Gilmore) who chooses to affiliate with another Satanic organization or just dares to acknowledge their legitimacy.

Nevertheless, the Prince of Evil agrees with His church that all it takes to become a churchgoer is to acknowledge that The Satanic Bible evokes a feeling of having views confirmed that you never managed to articulate. Some readers will find that Anton LaVey provided them with the pivotal portal to their incomplete identity, validating them with soothing words of power. They are Church of Satan material by its own certification.

Our Horn-Crowned Majesty does not interfere—after all, He is a supernatural entity and real only to us Hell-dwellers—but does not find Himself above (of course) to be opinionated. Satan thinks that The Satanic Bible is one of those books that cater to people who harbor a mortal fear of rejection. The very first page of LaVey’s preface to The Satanic Bible informs its readers that upon reading its pages, they will gain insights otherwise denied to the masses; and what follows are reassurances that if the reader feels alienated from the masses, it is because something is wrong with everyone but the reader. By reading the book, the reader will know something that others do not know, and it makes the reader better than the rest. It makes its readers feel superior in the Game of Life, unaware that this is the most tried and tested method for gathering cult followers.

Yet, all it takes for an outsider to join the club is to also read the book and gain the “knowledge.” It requires an excessive amount of self-deceit to believe that simply upon reading it, one joins a group that possesses a uniqueness reserved only for very special people. Satan thinks it cannot be that hard to read a damn book but, on second thought, has noticed that His disciples are notoriously unbookish, so perhaps they perceive it as an overwhelming barrier to scan anything with more text than a memorable Bible verse. What Satan means is that it is so easy to join this “élite” that it is no accomplishment whatsoever, unless one is phenomenally unable. It is evidence of a profoundly fragile self-esteem to derive a sense of worth by proxy of believing oneself part of a rare breed in the first place, and thinking one may join such a tribe purely by reading a book and not even being required to pass an exam sets the bar lower than the floor paint.

The Satanic baptism is thus simple: read The Satanic Bible, recognize your own innate superiority to the vast majority of humanity and publicly acknowledge how fundamentally you agree with LaVey’s critique of the herd, the masses, the rabble, the ersatz, the locusts, the sheep: learn that they are not Satanists and that alone makes you one. Without this baptism of complete agreement or, presumably, having never heard of the book, you are not a Satanist. (The latter makes Satan think of the indigenous tribes who asked the missionaries why they would tell them about Hell if Hell only applied to those who knew about it.) The criteria are arbitrary, however. Anyone can elevate themselves by declaring that they adhere to a philosophy that scorns the mediocrity of the herd and is thereby better than the herd. Not that this makes it an ineffective baptism, good gracious. The Satanic baptism may seem trivially naïve and uncomplicated from the outside, but from the inside, the newly-minted Satanist has undergone a magical transformation that retroactively transmogrifies his body from a herd member into a clansman of an alien élite.

Satan thinks this is too easy to count as a qualification. With so little obligation, accomplishment, and proficiency, anyone can be a Satanic übermensch. Even Anton LaVey acknowledged that this mass-market book breeds pretentiousness in the inferior because it enables anyone to be a superman. His only solution to that problem was a vague reference to “true” Satanists. LaVey did not clarify who they were, but Satan thinks the inferior ones are easily spotted: they focus very little on the contents of Satanic ideology, and have no marketable skills or personal qualities to speak of. Their identities do not revolve around their own vital existence but around others being non-Satanists. Because they have nothing of substance to show, they feel validated as Satanists only by loudly and persistently defining others as non-Satanists—especially when they encounter people who might just be the real thing compared with whom their shortcomings and mediocrity become as plain as a pikestaff.

Satan thinks God judges

Posted on by A lesser demon

There are times when Satan makes a statement that appears obvious, but we demons who dwell in the abodes of Hell have learned to appreciate His infernal teachings and diabolical insights, and know better than to scoff at outwardly trivial axioms from His mouth. The Prince of Darkness keeps His underlings in a perpetual state of awe with every word He speaks. (Although not nearly in the same state as that of terror which is His primary focus that no one down here is stimulated to doubt for a second; after all, He is the Devil).

Thus, when Satan thinks that God judges, it comes as old news to any of our damned souls who, being tormented cruelly and endlessly by yours truly and collaborators, are painfully aware of their sentences, but it is not our subterranean clientele that Old Scratch has in mind. Satan is the Master of the Earth, and His insight concerns His followers. When Satan says that God judges, He speaks metaphorically because there is no god—a fact that escapes a significant number of His disciples who may rationally grasp that such creatures are the cerebral relics of a brain that evolved to survive in the world but not to understand it, yet cannot fathom a healthy world without God.

Gods are constructed from the blueprint of their creators: Christians do not emulate or obey their god but fashion their god according to their own natures. It is a judging god because Christians are judgmental, and it is a discriminating god because Christians are discriminatory. It is a strict, trying, punishing, doubting, unjust, intolerant, vengeful, and narcissistic god that serves only its own interests and renumerates only its worshipers, because such are its followers, who generally seem bent on inflicting a minority complex on the Devil by outperforming Him on every conceivable evil. Oh, were History to repeat itself, and His Evil Eminence again to confront Jehovah before being cast from Heaven, He would deliver this very accusation to the face of Jehovah and, with the benefit of experience, this time also wear a parachute. It is a little unclear why, considering that Satan wears a fully functional set of wings, Lucifer plummeted to the surface like a lead-encased rock at His legendary fall, but He refuses to share the finer details about the incident, and everyone south of Heaven is too afraid to ask.

In the absence of gods, it is their human inventors and believers who take it upon themselves to ensure that, when the gods do not adequately interfere, the will of their gods is nonetheless enforced. Their followers may not perform miracles of divine creation, but the havoc they often wreak would turn even the most vengeful god green with envy. They feel entitled to mimic the behavior of their gods and are compelled to do it as if their salvation depended on it. Or, more specifically, they create God in their own image and then consider their disgraceful behavior justified. As they discover what a dreadful monster such a representative of their nature is, they proceed to invent the Devil to take the blame.

Satan uses the term “God” as shorthand for the behaviors of Christians in their various abominations, excuse me, denominations. “God judges” is His way to communicate that Christians are recognizable by their exaggerated need to judge others, and lays it upon the shoulders of we lesser demons to explain their motive, as if we did not have better things to do, like prodding the condemned with sharp sticks. As it turns out, we have different views on the underlying reasons but agree that their immoderate judgments serve to create the illusion that they are superior for belonging to the correct cult by deeming anyone else to be worth less. Some of us note that the dynamic exists inside the cults, too, where smaller groups and individuals judge each other in rather toxic environments. It is worth mentioning that although the judgments serve the same ultimate goal of believing oneself to be superior, judgment comes in many forms and is mostly arbitrary: specific political observations, sexuality, gender, race, affiliation or disaffiliation, food preferences, national origin, income, weight, disabilities, age, first language, religion, past actions, education, parental status, etc., as well as combinations, can create the delusion that oneself and one’s peers are congenitally valuable compared with the inferior other, who can therefore be treated as such, unprotected by the laws that serve the chosen people. One’s group is the master, and everyone else is a slave. All it takes to become a master is to accept the arbitrary discriminator and choose the right side, then passionately defend the view; the lower one’s self-esteem, the higher the craving for seeming important and being admired.

There is nothing wrong with a certain level of unbiased judgment where appropriate. The lame should not limit the pace of the race, the blind should not lead the blind, and Americans should not be arbiters of taste. Even a certain amount of unintentional discrimination is permissible provided immediate exemptions can be allowed on an individual basis—stereotypes and associated prejudices are inaccurate and over-generalizing but help the human brain reduce its surroundings to a manageable amount of information. It is when they are applied presumptuously, based on arbitrary qualities, or with disregard for the situation that they are almost invariably invalid.

Satan thinks it is the generally judgmental attitude, not an occasional appraisal or sifting of individuals where warranted, that reveals the followers of God when they show themselves as holier-than-thou, vainglorious bastards with no other credentials than self-deceit and delusions of adequacy and no other accomplishments than joining an echo-chamber club to offer as proof of their self-proclaimed permission to hold opinions about others.

Satan never pretended that His followers were a chosen people or that simply by taking His name for oneself would one’s human caliber grow. That would be a modern variant of the famous allegories of those who traded their souls to the Devil to obtain fame and riches, soon discovering that the comforts they had gained made them no happier, no more satisfied, and no more appreciated and that these desires had been replaced with an emptied sense of self, a hole inside of them where their identity once lived. Satan offers no compensation at all that constitutes a license to judge. It is God who maintains the lie that one is a better person as a believer. Satan thinks if you meet someone who claims to follow the Devil yet passes judgments left and right, especially against other followers outside of his cult, you can bet your soul that this person is still a Christian inside. That is what Satan means when He thinks that God judges—and it is an accusation not a judgment.

Satan thinks His “alien élite” are space aliens

Posted on by A lesser demon

Fictional characters are in no position to posit that other fantasy creatures are non-existent or are any less believable than themselves. Satan and His crew, as well as the myriads of gods, inhabit the same realm as the tooth fairy, Harry Potter, Santa Claus, and Darth Vader, who in turn are no less worthy of the attention and seriousness usually reserved for religious figures. Satan thinks it makes no difference whether it is God or Darth Vader who reminds the “saviors” of their respective popular stories that he is their father. Mythical aliens are as real as He.

One thing is clear: the so-called “alien élite” that the Devil’s church likes to mention cannot be its human members, judging from their generally sub-average achievement levels. Satan thinks this élite is instead an alien race from outer space that His church members aspire to become. Wise in the vastness of the Universe, Satan recognizes the exact race, known among other things for the following fine qualities:

  • Their religion is about indulgence, materialism, and selfishness, and they abhor acts of altruism. However, they are often quite hypocritical, and their creed is self-contradictory on many accounts.
  • They are unbearably smug, considering other alien races to be inferior for being weighed down by counterproductive morals.
  • They like to dress up to seem more than they are, applying a somewhat outlandish notion of aesthetics.
  • In their daily business, most of them are often double-crossed by their betters.
  • They are led by a magus (although to save ink it is written “nagus”).
  • They apply their rules of interaction only among themselves. They are not required to follow them against other alien species, yet demand that others adhere to them regarding showing unearned respect and ignore them regarding tolerating abuse.
  • They are highly sexist. Their women serve only to amplify the role of the males.
  • They reach everyone else only to their shoulders.
  • They are easily distracted by appealing to their odd sexual fetish.
  • They are highly competitive against anyone who appears to share their beliefs. They often acknowledge that, in principle, such races have some commendable aims but far lacking skills.
  • Originally intended as the main adversary, their role soon became that of comic relief.
  • Their ambitions rarely meet their abilities, and they tend to disappoint their families.
  • They have almost as bad teeth and big ears as Anton LaVey.

Thus, Satan thinks that the role model of His “alien élite” is the Ferengi of Star Trek and His followers are their earthly parody.

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 people who strive to be nice usually aren’t

Posted on by A lesser demon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Satan thinks once-religious people stay religious

Posted on by A lesser demon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Satan thinks His followers dress funny

Posted on by A lesser demon

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

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

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

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

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

Satan thinks His 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 … 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.