Self-deceit

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 His followers remain Christian

Posted on by A lesser demon

Anton LaVey wrote in The Satanic Bible that Satanism is the only religion that recognizes man as he is, with no requirements that he better himself, only that he pursue his indulgences without shame (or “guilt,” as LaVey generally uses as a synonym). As a Satanist, one must no longer prove oneself worthy of salvation or fear damnation for being a sinner. No god can reward you when you die.

Satan likes the attitude but thinks LaVey forgot his audience. The majority of his readers were brought up with a mindset urging them to “better” themselves according to Christian regulations, such as feeling shame when they masturbated or feeling obligated to express love for people far outside their social circles. True, it is only a scant minority of Christians who really delude themselves into thinking they love their enemies—-most Christians in the world interpret the Christian tenet of loving one’s enemies to mean respecting others and generally trying not to be too much of a dick—but The Prince of Darkness finds that many who seek His kingdom were this particularly brainwashed kind. With a mindset bent on bettering oneself only because God mandates it, it is predictable what happens when God is removed from the equation: all work on personal improvement ceases in this nihilist, godless world.

This starkly contrasts healthy people with natural drives compelled toward self-actualization, a continuing phase in Abraham Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs. One naturally works toward reaching one’s potential, continuously seeking to repair what is broken, improve what is already good, and remove obstacles within oneself. Such individuals will naturally seek to identify and eliminate the harmful influence of Christianity within themselves to move beyond its stifling grip.

Anton LaVey’s Satanism is part of the Human Potential Movement of the 1950s and 1960s that cast humans as fundamentally “good” creatures whose nature has been perverted by society, turning mankind into an inferior and destructive version of itself. The human animal was thought to have a potential waiting to be unleashed if it could somehow return to its true self and cast off the shackles imposed by a society that works against the best interest of its own species. When Satan represents man as the human animal he is, it is this healthy animal, not an animal broken by a toxic society and put on a leash with religion. As obvious as it hopefully sounds, Satan does not represent man as he is if that man is a Christian, whether by culture or by faith.

Satan thinks The Satanic Bible‘s reassurance that people are good enough is a free pass to avoid confronting one’s most meticulously inculcated values and discourses. If one was raised as a Christian early on or otherwise fell into the cauldron of Christianity as a child, its teachings are thoroughly instilled in one’s mind and virtually impossible to ignore. Confronted with disagreements, stressful situations, or conflicts that involve core values, people generally sink to their levels rather than rise to the occasion. Most “open-minded” individuals raised to believe that unfaithfulness, unforgiveness, or selfishness are bad behavior will be shocked and react emotionally when they become the target of such behavior; many intercultural marriages have suffered conflicts caused by ingrained cultural values that the couple thought they had transcended. A former Christian will consider the offender a bad person for not exhibiting Christian behavior.

These people are, at the bottom of their hearts and minds, the Christians they were raised. Upon reading The Satanic Bible, such people arrogantly declare that because they were always Satanists (even if they were once the proselytizing, argumentative, Bible-thumping kind of Christians), they neither changed upon converting to Satanism nor through being Satanists because they presume that no change was needed. Satan thinks that they generally have not changed one iota, indeed: if they were once Christians and have done nothing to change, that is what they remain. Like salmon, they return to the spot whence they were spawned.

Satan demands that His followers make an honest effort to escape their indoctrination. They are sorely mistaken if they believe themselves free of religious persuasions and to have managed to escape their past impressions. Even dyed-in-the-wool atheists receive the mark of their societies, some of which will be Christian branding. The educational challenge is to learn about human psychology, sociology, cultural specifics, history, and how religions function and evolve (not according to self-help books or popular psychology, politically biased commentators, or religious or counter-religious interest groups but on terms congruent with science) and to self-reflect and compare it all with how they have shaped oneself, and how oneself acts and responds.

This implies a complete rejection of most of Anton LaVey’s beliefs about the human animal and the entire array of pseudoscience he relied on. It requires the Devil’s followers to identify which social and behavioral traits arise from your biological imperatives or are programmed by society and which of society’s programming is religious or secular, with religion often taking credit for the latter. It necessitates constant meditation on personal motivation, reactions, and morals. Satan thinks that none of His followers deserve His magnificent name until they have put in years of hard and dedicated work on understanding human nature and how their own life agrees with Nature and on remedying what deviates.

Anyone can delude themselves into thinking that they have sufficiently perfected themselves, with only others to blame for their failings in life, and now all that remains is to convince others. Satan thinks it takes no small amount of self-confidence and self-esteem to admit to oneself that one is never released from ongoing self-improvement—but when someone possesses these qualities, the Will to develop usually comes naturally.

It is impossible to be a “perfect” Satanist in any current human society. However, Satan thinks that his followers may come a long way by revering Him as an infernal sage whom one may never become but should always seek to emulate. As the undisputed Ruler of the Earth, Satan permits entry to Hell only to those of His followers who make an honest effort to escape their former religion.

Satan thinks eugenicists should be aborted

Posted on by A lesser demon

There is nothing unnatural in lending Nature a helping hand. That is why sane humans will mend a broken leg and write a prescription for painkillers afterward instead of insisting that the “natural pain” is good for you. There are exceptions, of course, for example, when certain groups remind women that the pains of childbirth are good for both the mother and the baby, and by some sheer coincidence, the Bible happens to require just that experience. And rest assured that when you burn in Hell, painkillers will not be provided.

Humans soon learned to refine crops for better yield, to cross previously inedible plants into variations fit for human consumption, and to breed animals for select features. Humans, too, were aware that they inherited the features of their progenitors, although the gods might curse them if they stayed too closely related over several generations.

It was not until the late 1800s, however, that evolution was formally discovered, adding that both physical and behavioral traits were inherited in a constant struggle for resources that are scarce enough to prevent a single species from dominating. Charles Darwin introduced the term “natural selection” to indicate how specimens that could not adequately beat the odds would perish, leaving those that were better “fit for survival” to produce offspring—a term that Darwin adopted from Herbert Spencer, although the latter used it as an argument that certain races were preserved in the struggle for life.

Early theory of evolution conveyed the message that one’s survival came at the cost of other human lives, and it seemed clear that if a certain group of humans wished to improve its lot in life, others would have to pay: those who were thought to be less fit for survival due to attributed racial qualities. Satan has already discussed how such Social Darwinism has been shown beyond doubt to be pseudoscience but in the early 1900s, such speculations had yet to be debunked. It was yet to be learned that a master race is not cultivated by the physical and mental education of an “iron youth” that would eventually beget strong children, nor that the traditional concepts of race mean anything in those equations.

Programs were established in some countries that aimed to accelerate the process of refining the respective master races through the “science” of eugenics, a term coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1883. Generally speaking, it was the white élites with strong biases about who was “fit” and “unfit” that embraced eugenics, believing that social ills in their countries would be eliminated by increased breeding of Nordics or Anglo-Saxons like themselves. Several countries introduced mandatory sterilization, usually targeting immigrants, people of color, Indigenous people, poor whites, and people with disabilities. The USA was the international leader in eugenics and the Nazi Germany sterilization law that led to the sterilization of a staggering 400,000 “undesirable” and “defective” individuals was modeled on US laws that had then been effective for over two decades.

Eugenics apologists have argued that modern, civilized societies still have eugenics programs when, for example, they offer termination of pregnancies where a fetus is determined to suffer from severe disabilities. Not surprisingly, anti-choice propagandists have also gladly invoked the specter of eugenics at any mention of abortion.

It is true that, although far less terminal and draconian than forced sterilization, state-sanctioned or state-encouraged termination of pregnancies that will lead to significantly lowered quality of life for the otherwise delivered child can be said to be a “state program” for controlling the genetic make-up of the population, and it may also target minorities. Such reflections, as well as options for enhancing human characteristics and capacities through the use of reproductive technology and human genetic engineering, have led advocates of such practices to introduce the term “liberal eugenics” early this century. An important aspect of liberal eugenics is individual choice, where the decision to alter or select an embryo should be left to the parents’ preferences rather than forbidden or mandated by the state.

The traditional form of eugenics, in contrast, is authoritarian eugenics, where the individual (parent) is given no choice regarding the selection of their embryo or even their reproductive rights.

Satan does not give the important distinction too much thought because here in Hell, we demons are spawned not birthed. We are manifestations of Satan’s infinite evil, and no pre-spawn measures are required. However, The Rejected Angel keeps an eye on His Church of Satan, whose members are of the human kind—although their existence would be abruptly eradicated were society to embrace the ideals of “The Book of Satan.” There, in His church, the Devil finds that rank and file members argue that the eugenics advocated by Anton LaVey and Peter Gilmore is liberal eugenics, albeit being unaware of the term. With such a take on eugenics, The Church of Satan represents nothing controversial, except maybe for a hint of a progressive stance, they argue.

Satan is not the forgetful kind but keeps written journals for those of us who are tasked with his evil bidding and checks His records in case of doubt. He does not recognize liberal eugenics anywhere in the scriptural teachings of The Church of Satan and suspects that, as usual, its uninitiated and untrusted members have either not properly studied their scripture or are struggling with feelings of guilt. Satan thinks it is worth recapping the true stance of The Church of Satan.

One does not readily identify eugenics in The Satanic Bible but The Church of Satan cites additional canon in which one finds these views. (For those who forget, canon is the scripture that defines the religion; it is not something from which questionable elements can simply be dismissed as, say, just some personal opinion of the author.) Satan thinks one should begin with Anton LaVey’s take on sterilization: women who are so irresponsible as to become pregnant only to face problems raising their child should be sterilized by force, as should men who are stupid enough to choose such women. Useless people should be sterilized by force through state programs. The choice is not laid upon the individual parents, who can only pray and otherwise attempt to paint themselves as good, Christian citizens that the state considers them useful.

LaVey knew very well his ideological legacy when, in interviews, he desired to enhance the growth of new, more intelligent generations, if I had the chance, by selective breeding. But this is so terrifyingly related to Hitlerism that usually I can’t even talk about it. His ideas centered around the group-oriented breeding policy of that very regime, declaring that [s]elective breeding, elitist stratification, advocacy of polygamous relationships for breeding purposes, and eventually building communities of like-minded individuals are Satanic programs antithetical to the cherished egalitarian ideal.

Satan may not have high thoughts about humans in general but trusts that any reader who has made it this far in the present text can unmistakably identify Anton LaVey’s eugenics as the authoritarian variant from the darkest chapters of human history.

Some of LaVey’s teachings have been altered significantly, albeit without admitting to revision; for example, Satan has mentioned how might has become impotent and how the current Church of Satan High Priest Peter Gilmore describes magic as “just psychodrama” despite LaVey insisting that it is not just psychodrama. This has yet to happen for The Church of Satan’s stance on eugenics, despite apologetical members insisting on the liberal interpretation. Both LaVey and Gilmore have repeatedly used the term in reference to hopes of breeding a genetically superior Satanic élite to replace their current best bet.

Peter Gilmore even complains that the failure to maintain early-twentieth-century eugenics is the very cause of the widespread growth of egalitarianism and collectivist thinking that he despises (and, like LaVey, misinterprets according to alt-right propaganda). He avoids mentioning the big bad state but confirms that genetic technologies are not for everyone: We wish the ranks of the “superiorly abled” to increase in number, before time runs out and we all perish under the crush of mediocrity. As with LaVey, there is no question about the group-oriented application of authoritarian eugenics.

As often happens to shallow thinkers, both LaVey and Gilmore rely on exceedingly thoughtless criteria for such eugenics. There is no mention of which standards apply when people are deemed irresponsible or stupid, nor who is certified to make such judgments. The Church of Satan places itself firmly in the tradition of historical authoritarian eugenics when its support for eugenics is based on politics and ideology, disregard for individual rights, and vaguely formulated, unscientific ideals of genetic purity. It believes that merely agreeing with a particular ideology proves genetic superiority. By the injunction of international law against involuntary sterilization, Anton LaVey and Peter Gilmore advocate a crime against humanity.

Despite the counter-individualistic, unscientific, authoritarian stance of His church that opposes everything Satan symbolizes, Satan thinks there is insight to be derived from its appeal to its members.

To join as someone with less than some combination of Mensa-grade intelligence, the physiology of an Olympics contestant, and virtuoso talents is unconscious suicidal ideation: one joins a cult that wishes one dead, only unlike Christianity, this death cult promises no rewarding afterlife. It is a desire to leave the cosmic wheel of life entirely. One must be utterly self-loathing to join such an organization if one suffers from disabilities of any kind that are costly to society, cumbersome to one’s closest associates, or too expensive to pay by oneself because, remember, the organization also rejects societal altruism.

Satan thinks that to most of the members of The Church of Satan, believing that one not only stands a chance for life but even qualifies as breeding stock for their envisioned élite is an extreme form of delusion of grandeur. Satan thinks that had they been livestock, they would have been turned into soap. Only thus would they contribute to a human breed cleaned of impurities.

Satan thinks His church still believes in magic

Posted on by A lesser demon

Personality cults never take kindly to criticism of their gurus. Their gurus are flawless, and even outright personality disorders or mental illnesses are viewed as proof of their superhuman capacity or as evidence of their divine insights or an earned privilege. Their lies, deceptions, and displays of hypocrisy, when discovered, become gemstones in their robes, adding a sparkle to an already fascinating persona. True personality cultists will never admit that their guru can make a mistake and will invent all sorts of explanations, evasions, redefinitions, rationalizations, etc., that have denial in common to avoid facing the reality that their guru was plainly and simply wrong, incompetent, or delusional.

Satan thinks His Church is one such personality cult because any negative mention of Anton LaVey is met with hostility, whereas even the most obvious and blatant misconceptions and disagreeable features are compulsively whitewashed into comical absurdity. Satan marvels at their blind devotion and zealous worship of their guru, who decades later is still their axis mundi while the rest of the world moves on and properly disposes of those past errors that are the pillars of his cosmology. Concepts that, in the words of The Satanic Bible, have “been proven by results to be but an empty fiction” that the remainder of the educated world has long decided should be “unceremoniously flung into the outer darkness, among the dead gods, dead empires, dead philosophies, and other useless lumber and wreckage,” are defended with fang and claw by the LaVey cult.

Sometimes, however, LaVey was so evidently delusional that any defense of his hallucinations is impossible, and the LaVey cult instead revises his teachings, convincing themselves and (less so) others that LaVey meant something different, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary. Satan can think of several examples because many theories and ideas that may have meant life and hope and freedom for the early Church of Satan have lost their ground as environments changed over the decades following the establishment of the Church. Its scripture demands that no revision of the guru’s teachings is necessary, though, and therefore the churchgoers aggressively loyally insist that no revision is taking place. This reminds Satan of one example where revision only seems to occur while the flawed core is kept alive and true to LaVey’s pipe dream.

It warms the Devil’s cold heart that it is magic—a cornerstone of LaVey’s religion—that is being maintained as delusionally now as it was then. Satan was genuinely worried when He discovered that apologetical churchgoers began to dismiss magic as “just psychodrama” (despite Anton LaVey explicitly stressing in The Satanic Bible that magic is not just psychodrama) that merely helps rid the practitioner of unhealthy emotions, to serve as positive thinking, and what else do-it-yourself therapy purposes one finds in questionable feel-good self-help books. It seemed for a while that the churchgoers considered magic to be their new kind of the “thoughts and prayers” they used to employ before stumbling upon the Devil, but Satan was relieved to find that LaVey skillfully embedded magic so strongly into his ideology that it resists both sanity and reason. One may say, and even believe, that magic is superstition, as long as one still incorporates the superstition into one’s thinking: despite what Satanic Rule of the Earth no. 7 might suggest, what is a little denial of mysticism among friends? Satan finds that magicians of The Church of Satan may still decapitate their ex-girlfriends by accident, be the cause of power blackouts when they get insulted during a thunderstorm, or find that mass shooters kill innocent people because they have last names that somewhat resemble those of the magicians’ ex-wives. Why, they may even mentally force the traffic lights to change, although Satan suggests they abstain from similar attempts to change the stop signs.

Ours truly has already explained Satan’s thoughts on LaVey’s magic and hopes that The Dark Eminence accepts a mere hyperlink here, but you should read or revisit this post before continuing. Practically everything LaVey said about magic matches the psychological framework that was still widely believed back then, especially among the general population. People born before the early 1970es may even remember being taught that very framework at school and should easily recognize LaVey’s choice of words and conclusions.

Anton LaVey described in rather broad terms what magic is, and rather vaguely how it supposedly works. It is possible to waive responsibility by claiming, like LaVey, that magic works but is yet to be explained by science, that LaVey’s banter on magic should be taken metaphorically (although that begs the question of why one should bother practicing it), or that it is a pseudo-meditative exercise that affects only the practitioner. It is easy to repeat LaVey’s own cop-outs on how magic “works” or to invent new ones because, after all, there is no such thing as magic. Besides, LaVey was not born with a scientist’s heart and was satisfied that magic works, leaving the scientific hows and whys to others. He cared about what one should do to make it work, much like his clientele of today cares less about how technology works than how to use it to watch pornography. Everyone at LaVey’s time “knew” that humans generate emotional, or psychic, energy, and it needed little further elaboration; the important element to LaVey was what to do to harness that energy, not to author yet another book on pseudo-psychology.

LaVey introduced The Satanic Bible with a promise that with this book, magicians would finally find bedrock, and the section specifically devoted to the practice of magic provided explicit procedures and all but checklists. He explained that the ritual entrapments serve to rile up the practitioner’s emotions so that emotional energy (or bioelectrical, vital, sexual, or psychic energy; he uses all these terms and more) is generated and can be directed at the target of one’s hex. Not surprisingly, the instructions and their purpose align perfectly with the aforementioned psychological framework, because one cannot separate the “what to do” element of The Church of Satan’s magic from that framework.

It is easy to overlook the importance of these practical instructions, but religious practice beats religious pondering any day. In a ritual setting, one lives out the mythology of the religion by following the steps of a ritual with its arcane language and decorations. The otherworldly settings of a ritual turn otherwise trivial actions of the real world into important actions as far as the brain is concerned, reinforcing and conserving the mythology. It is thereby kept alive within the society of practitioners, even if they are mostly unaware of its history. If this seems strange, consider the mystical ceremonies of many Christian churches: even if all their members know is how to properly participate, the ceremonies and rituals keep the antiquated tradition alive. Religious rituals and ceremonies are critical to perpetuating and maintaining mindsets that would otherwise have been overtaken by progress. That is the true purpose of a ritual, not its formally stated goal that one finds in the pages of the religious textbooks: Christians do not gulp down the “blood of Jesus” in order to be magically cleansed of their sins but to stay reminded of their religion and its concepts of sin.

In the rituals of The Church of Satan, the mythology is the outdated psychological framework, and by performing LaVey’s rituals, one acts out that pseudo-science, maintains it, and absorbs it. This means that for all that the members of The Church of Satan insist that magic is mere psychodrama (not to be confused with the psychotherapeutic term that Jacob L. Moreno coined far earlier), in practice, through practice, they believe in actual magic in the form that Anton LaVey originally envisioned it—the pseudoscience that everyone once believed to be model truth. One may consider it a good case of “suspension of disbelief” when modern churchgoers deny magic yet enter their ritual chambers, but Satan thinks it is an empty statement. Nobody would care to enter the ritual chamber unless disbelief was already suspended.

It is impossible to dismiss LaVey’s magical loads of hooey as “just psychodrama” unless one also rejects his rituals altogether. Churchgoers may think they are skeptical of magic and feel compelled to reason the word that appears 150 times in The Satanic Bible or reduce it to a metaphor, but the actions of the rituals and LaVey’s recipe for a ritual with an explicit tangible goal cannot be denied. The same members of The Church of Satan follow the rituals to the letter and in so doing reinforce in the real world the very hocus-pocus that they mistake for rational thinking.

The above-mentioned Christian communion makes Satan thinks these churchgoers do what Luther did to Catholicism: by granting that maybe the wine and bread did not physically turn into blood and meat, but also arguing that the blood and flesh of Jesus were somehow still present, the Christian communion was unaltered for all practical purposes. The actions of the Christians did not change, and the Christians remained Christian.

One might identify a much-needed revision to LaVey’s silly magical beliefs that renders the superstitious mythology obsolete and replaces it with a modernized “mythology” that reflects how healthy human beings actually function or should function. However, such a revision would require a corresponding, radical change in the rituals, and very little would be left of LaVey’s original rituals beyond the colorful language.

To summarize, Satan thinks that it is fruitless to debate whether LaVey’s magic “works,” or whatever LaVey may have meant by this and that mention of the word “magic.” Had it worked, perhaps the Great Magus would have met a different fate than living in a derelict house and dying bitter, broke, and abandoned by family and friends, and in the end had more miasma than charisma. The all-important, undebatable, and undeniable fact is that LaVey provided specific instructions on how to activate an explicit function of the human body and psyche that does not exist save within a psychological framework that now finds itself in the same category as the four humors, the use of mercury to cure diseases, and the wandering uterus. No amount of rationalization can justify such clinging to past orthodoxies.

Satan thinks His followers should soak their heads

Posted on by A lesser demon

Satan appreciates an attentive student and favors followers who pick up His teachings. It is seldom a poor idea to read a book, and in the case of His usual followers, often any book would probably broaden their horizons. But, there are times when one of His devotees combines Anton LaVey’s teachings and musings with a herd following instinct and uncritical orthodoxy. That is when Satan thinks that the result stinks worse than our sulfurous fumes here in Hell.

Satan is, of course, thinking about those churchgoers in His Church of Satan who heed Anton LaVey’s advice to stop bathing.

Anton LaVey had good reason to find bathing unpleasant. The heating in his house on California Street in San Francisco was broken, and for either lack of initiative or income he never had it fixed. The home was cold in the winter, and the water ran cold all year. LaVey therefore opted for the solution chosen by most humans who live in denial of their situation: he rationalized his situation into a personal choice. Unable to crank up the thermostat or enjoy a soothing long hot tub bath, he found that he liked the coldness of the wintertime, reasoned that bathing was unhealthy until he could no longer tolerate his own bodily odors, and found immersion in a cool bath pleasant only when temperatures were too high.

Hell is the epitome of all central heating systems, and the Devil settles for temperatures nowhere below the melting point of rock under the Earth’s gravitational pressure. He nonetheless understands that the benign winters of the coastal climate of San Francisco in Northern California are mainly a question of bad clothing, not bad weather, and Anton LaVey could ignore the unsolicited heads-up Mother Nature would otherwise have offered had he stayed in his birth town of Chicago.

Environmental choices were easily defended as a matter of preference, but unhealthy and socially problematic poor hygiene decisions required elaboration, perhaps even more so to LaVey whose sexual preference involved practices that incur additional demands on cleanliness.

LaVey concluded that because bathing masks the natural scents of a human being, it is dishonest and therefore liked by only the worst people. (Satan never checked but presumes LaVey must have been a completely honest person.) Based on his knowledge of animals as a cage hand in a circus in the times when animal welfare had yet to receive public attention, LaVey believed that a reduced bodily odor would confuse an animal. Satan believes this may have been LaVey’s experience with animals in such environments, but in trusting relations between humans and unstressed animals, a shower and some soap do not introduce unfamiliarity. When The Prince of Darkness emerges in all His splendor from a contemplative hour in a fiery lake and His pet Baphomet rubs its territorial glands against His marvelous unspeakables, it is not confusion but a reaffirmation of trust and belonging, for example.

True to his misanthropy, LaVey considered bathing to be nothing short of treason against the eugenics that he advocated, in that undesirable women (just women), through cloaking their scent, would thereby mask their undesirableness and coerce males into helping produce genetically inferior offspring. LaVey did not mention the genetic impact of males, but Satan is sure that was just an oversight, as He would not accuse LaVey of male chauvinism now that LaVey cannot defend himself. No, seriously, we had to tie him up and gag him after Diane Hegarty died a little less than a year ago and joined us as a proud citizen of Hell; and the recent premature arrival of his grandson did not improve the situation. If LaVey had males in mind, it would be his belief that his stench kept them at bay.

It is not entirely incorrect that humans react to each others’ pheromones, but the diminished senses of humans compared with many animals (although humans senses seem generalized and balanced compared with, say, the keen eyes but poor sense of smell of the eagle, or the extraordinary hearing of the nearly blind bat) are the likely evolutionary result of a significantly improved cognitive skill: to find a mate, the human animal relies on the many additional, often visual, cues of complicated social interaction patterns enabled, and recognized, by its brain beyond the mere smell of an opposite-sex fellow specimen in heat. A human being so horribly poorly socially inept that it had to rely foremost on its snout to identify a mate would not qualify for one in the first place. The smell of a human in heat would be rather uninformative anyway, as the human animal is a species that may have minor hormonal fluctuations influencing its sexual interest but is always in heat compared with the either-or periods of many animals. Humans have sex for pleasure and important social bonding, not only to procreate, and any biological traces of heat periods are counterproductive evolutionary artifacts. What you experience is vestigial heat as you chase vestigial tail.

LaVey’s need to explain his poor personal hygiene turned resistance to bathing into an accolade. He believed that he was an emancipated being by contrasting habitual bathing as the habit of the pious, the guilty, and the frightened—that is, it was the attempt of the religious to escape their animal nature. His Infernal Majesty recalls that His sworn enemies and followers of God entertained some attitudes toward bathing, indeed, but remembers the details somewhat differently.

If anything, traditional Christian focus on spiritual purity was paid with physical asepsis. Monks would abstain from bathing to show their spiritual strength over the physical body, not because hygiene was fundamentally sinful or animal-like, but because it was hard on the body and thus proved their mental fortitude and “superiority” over the physical needs of an average individual. And contrary to popular belief, Medieval Europe was not characterized by filth and grime although the sanitation of growing cities left plenty to be desired. Medieval people bathed often, but because public bathhouses were also gathering places, spas, brothels, and otherwise provided extra-sanitational activities, Christian officials discouraged going to baths and bathhouses; again not because bathing itself was sinful, but because it tended to involve a role in the tub occupied by a maid or a man-servant.

Christianity left literal stains on sanitary practices. Satan thinks His followers should understand that their true human animal selves are far more complex than meets the nose, and that Anton LaVey’s non-scents belief is the misguided excuse of a person who could not maintain his own personal hygiene. Satan thinks that the least His followers can do to leave the Christian mindset behind is to bathe regularly.

Satan thinks nihilism is a Christian artifact

Posted on by A lesser demon

Many established truths and commons have been trampled by the herd over the last century. Gays are now to be considered genuine males, women are not the property of their rightful owners, slaves are believed to equal their masters, no race is intrinsically noble and predisposed for glory, no nation is pure, natural justice is replaced by compassion for the wrongdoers, and that which should naturally fall is scaffolded and fortified. The world is, perhaps, going to Hell—not that Satan complains.

Verging on this descent into the Apocalypse, Satan thinks it is reassuring to find that some people, especially His own church, the very Church of Satan, upholds the virtues of old: because man is but an animal, Nature red in tooth and claw should govern human actions, as it is the Law; and strength is acquired through the joy of indulgences. For political reasons of self-preservation, The Church of Satan publicly presents itself as a dark fun-house of mere theatrics, but within its own scripture and communiquées—which the public overlooks as the very image of His Infernal Majesty deflects their eyes—the truth is all but laid bare. Certain historically indicative, familiar phrases are omitted, but the dog whistles shrill so loud that even the deafest right-wing extremist recognizes his kin. Terms such as “social Darwinism” are used scantly and just often enough to settle what “Lex Talionis,” the Law of the Jungle, means. If one dares, cares, or bothers to read the canonical scriptures of The Church of Satan, its vision is a race of master individuals, an alien élite, genetically bred and cultivated through the standard of the strong.

The first book of Anton LaVey’s The Satanic Bible are excerpts (or rather a plagiarism) of Ragnar Redbeard’s Might Is Right, which advocates such a view, including the above sentiments. Reducing every social phenomenon to simple power-relations, it is Redbeard’s synthesis of his personal racism and misogyny with the pseudo-science of social Darwinism and the philosophical rhetoric of Stirner’s anarchist individualism and Nietzsche’s focus on power. It is an outstandingly execrable combination of a comprehensively and thoroughly disproven body of thought. After a century of exhaustive debunking, only neo-fascists still believe that social Darwinism is scientific. Even if there were a grain of truth to be found, even for non-human animals, in these long outdated, pseudo-scientific conjectures, it is a Naturalistic Fallacy to derive a should from an is, concluding that humans ought to live accordingly. That is: social Darwinism is, both biologically and philosophically, objectively and demonstrably wrong. (His Maliciousness did not say it, but it bears mention that it is a remarkably rare and unenviable feat to be objectively wrong in philosophical matters.)

Satan is impressed that, faced with this scientific verdict on one of the most meticulously and extensively analyzed fields of science in human history, even today His church and its high priest, Peter Gilmore, manage to maintain and promote the sophomoric understanding of philosophy and the nature of human life required to enable them to endorse Might Is Right and regard it as accurate and enlightening. Such a display of self-deceit and stupidity is, in its own right, fascinating.

However, this is not intended as a venture into the many obscure interests of the Devil. The Prince of Insufficient Lighting has always been lured towards human depravity, the mental dysfunctions of crypto-fascists included. Satan’s message concerns the fact that His church believes in The Law of the Jungle despite its unmitigated rejection by every scientist, social theorist, and philosopher alive, not to forget quite a selection of many already dead.

The Church of Satan informs outsiders that the first book of The Satanic Bible is tongue-in-cheek, intended to rile up the reader or scare off those who would not benefit from the book. However, portions of Might Is Right find their way into the argumentative chapters of The Satanic Bible, and the remainder of the work is pervasive in LaVey’s subsequent writings. It is far more (if not nearly exclusively) foundational to LaVey’s Satanism than The Satanic Bible indicates.

The Law of the Jungle is an escalation of the law of retaliation, or retributive justice, that we know from the ancient Hammurabi code of “an eye for an eye” into Drako’s eponymously named punishment system fused with vigilante dispositions. (Satan, always ahead, prefers preemptive retaliation.) LaVey explained that for all its brutality, such a system would ensure a stable society, because the fear of retribution would cause people to think twice. “Responsibility to the responsible,” as the sixth Satanic Statement goes, hand in hand with the fifth Statement on vengeance, would subject them to the consequences of their actions, such as having their arm ripped from its socket for vandalizing a prized garden plant. The demand for The Law of the Jungle is established in The Church of Satan’s “pentagonal revisionism” program as an essential pillar of a Satanic society. It is both a legal and a moral code.

Satan thinks this should raise many an eyebrow, because it is the exact caution that Christian thinkers (a term that Satan applies very loosely to such people) have raised for centuries: that without faith in God, nothing prevents mankind from descending into the lawlessness of, yes, the Law of the Jungle. Without God and particularly the prospect of burning in Hell, humans would have no morals, they claim. Rational atheists have long argued, however, with plenty of supporting evidence, that morals are not contingent on a belief in deities. Moral behavior is innate to both humans and many non-human animals and arises naturally as a result of mutual self-interest.

This view is rejected by The Church of Satan, which assumes the Christian paradigm. The Law of the Jungle—the post-apocalyptic dystopia that Christians fear—is exactly what Anton LaVey and The Church of Satan expect as the natural alternative to Christianity. To Christians, human morals are motivated by a fear of punishment in Hell. To Satanists in The Church of Satan, human morals are enforced by fear of punishment here and now. To atheists, morals are a human trait that develops naturally to the benefit of mankind with no need for gods. Satan leaves it as an exercise for the reader to determine which of these three groups are the most similar.

The moral nihilism shared by Christians and The Church of Satan that denies an objective basis for morality has been a recurring philosophical theme in the Western World. Darwinism (genuine, not social) has received much of the blame for its death blow to the anthropocentric worldview, and materialism has been blamed for its lowered valuation of the soul, but Satan thinks there is a broader reason.

Christianity has contaminated virtually every aspect of Western culture, with centuries of metaphysical, eschatological, and existential expectations regarding the nature of the world. The strong anthropocentrism of classic Christianity and its belief that Nature is subservient to humanity, that morality is provided by the will of their god, that life has meaning because of God, and that humans have souls that will live in an afterlife, have brought comfort as meaning, purpose, and order seemed guaranteed. However, scientific advances have continually challenged such superstition, and the explanatory power of the naturalistic, scientific worldview is ever-increasing. For anyone to whom the Christian vision is persuasive, while the sciences and other enlightened insights tear at its fabric with nothing to replace it, a gaping void appears. (Not surprisingly, moral nihilism is less pronounced in non-Western cultures.) It is not science, Darwinism, materialism, or secularism that are to blame for this nihilism but the unrealistic Christian expectation that contradicting views must match its level of impossible certainty. A loss is felt only because Christianity is so deeply entrenched in all levels of society.

Modern secular atheists deny any supernatural beliefs and defend a naturalistic explanation of the world, but they generally acknowledge that morality is an inherent human attribute as a phenomenon that arises from social interactions, reason, and human interdependency, slowly evolving and converging towards a stable yet not absolute social code that is far removed from even hyperbolical standards of the strong. But even without laboriously deriving such an understanding of the nature of morality, to a person who was born and raised as an atheist, or merely avoided Christian cultivation to a modest degree, the perceived result of the loss of God, and the need to find meaning and purpose for oneself, does not invoke the specter of moral nihilism. It does not imply a crude every-critter-for-itself elimination of morality until only aggression, fang, and talon remain to define the Law and only the strong can prevail. The human animal is biologically wired against the Law of the Jungle. Any fear of this dismal environment is an unrealistic, religious nightmare, and any desire for it is a spiritual, Christian pipe-dream.

Only deep-seated Christianity can evoke this fear and, in its ultimate case, create the defeatist illusion that it is an alluring alternative. It is the worst-case outcome in the Christian mind and embracing it reveals a profound ensnarement in the traditional Christian mental framework. Satan thinks that the Satan-figure employed by Satanists who believe and perpetuate the view that Satanic morals are those of the Jungle is the good old Christian Devil, which remains considerably more real and present in their minds than they will ever understand. With one exception, they are the very kind of Christians who feel no natural inclination towards moral behavior on their own and only behave socially tolerable because they fear the repercussions, and who recognize in themselves harmful, anti-social impulses that, fortunately, they understand must be curbed albeit not why. They deviate from these Christians only in their psychopathic wish to act out their destructiveness. Ironically, it is not external Christianity that restrains their impulses but their inner Christian angst that generates their wish for the Law of the Jungle.

Satan thinks these advocates of the rule of fang and claw should be cast to the lions: the only proper way to deal with Christians.

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 blasphemy is liberating

Posted on by A lesser demon

Blasphemy works only if one believes in that which is blasphemed, but it is nowhere said that faith is required to recognize or commit an act of blasphemy. Blasphemy is only felt by the believer but may be committed by anyone, intentionally or not. Satan encourages His entire infernal entourage to indulge in acts of blasphemy and to engage in taboos as long as we do not target His Infernal Majesty Himself, of course: there is self-deprecating humor, and then there is high treason.

The problem with blasphemy is that it shows contempt or disrespect for deities, sacred objects, and values or ethics that are considered axiomatic and inviolable. Granted, this sounds desirable, not problematic, but some perspective explains it. In societies that are unaware that all laws, rules, beliefs, and morals are the convergence of centuries of human negotiation, and instead believe they were handed down from above, irreverence and disregard for the veracity of the thought-to-be divine Law is a threat to the stability and integrity of the society. Punishment for blasphemy traditionally ranges from disapproval and demands for apology over ostracization, censorship, and persecution to corporeal punishment and physical eradication. In other words, it is not all that different from what happens in more enlightened societies when someone disregards the law and faces legal consequences.

There is an exception, however: if applied according to the Law of the Forbidden, blasphemy and taboo-breaking serve to fortify one’s belief. The single example of the well-known joke about the sailor who talks a nun into having sex, only to learn too late that the nun is a cross-dressing male, will suffice. It plays on the homophobic fear of being attracted to one’s own sex or the transphobic fear of being tricked by a homosexual, and thereby reinforces the idea that taboo sex is bad, and at the same time strengthens the belief that (legitimate) nuns are good and trustworthy people because of their religion. It is a Christian joke that bolsters one’s Christian values and beliefs. Satan, being of a marvelous intellect and mentally capable of imagining Himself in someone else’s (hoof-)shoes, can appreciate the joke on their premises but it obviously does not belong in His domain. Christians go to Heaven, and they can save it for when they get there.

Satan’s own Church has developed its own laws against blasphemy and taboo, despite its iconoclastic and irreverent outset in 1966. He did not pay much attention to when exactly these laws began to take shape, but it appears to the Devil that they were implemented when Peter Gilmore was given the role of the “administrator” of the Church on the Internet and thus gained first level control of virtually the entire membership body. It was from this position that Gilmore and his spouse could turn their thumbs up or down on opinions within The Church of Satan, and they were directed towards a singular goal: to make Gilmore feel validated.

Gilmore is a grandiose narcissist, and their behavior is directed by exceptionally low self-esteem that causes them to constantly seek validation, to feel better through making others feel worse, and to attack anyone who appears to expose their sense of worthlessness. (Satan represents man as he truly is, and therefore agrees that narcissists are typically worthless, but that is beside the point.) Gilmore gains validation by having admiration for Anton LaVey rub off on him, thereby riding on his coattails, and, of course, by feeling directly admired through praise or title—which is why already at the age of thirteen he felt entitled to an honorary title as a Satanic leader in The Church of Satan with nothing to show for it. Conversely, he cannot accept any “attack,” even if it is a simple statement of truth, on LaVey or himself, and went so far as to email his flying monkeys requesting that they coordinate attacks against those who spoke badly of LaVey or especially himself. It did not take long in the younger days of the Internet, before it had become part of everyone’s facilities, to establish the standard for both expected opinion and, as is the topic here, unacceptable talk and thought. There are now plenty of texts in The Church of Satan explaining that only enemies speak badly of the “Doktor,” and LaVey’s last spouse, the bizarre crossbreed between a Christian housewife and a groupie, Blanche Barton (originally, aptly named “Densley”), demanded that the sycophants of LaVey unite against their perceived enemies.

It has become taboo to speak of LaVey’s marriage to a 14-year-old in 1951, and acknowledging that LaVey’s second daughter, Zeena, became pregnant at the age of 13—despite Blanche Barton’s mention of the fact in one of her books—is permissible only along with the reminder that she later proved herself to be thoroughly unreliable and an enemy of her father. One must never remind others that LaVey’s self-narrative has been thoroughly debunked, but should instead inform those who mention it that overall, it was somehow true except in the details. And never mention the fact that LaVey died in poverty, demonstrating that if Satanism was all about success in the real world, as LaVey had maintained, there might be some truth to Michael Aquino’s belief that Satan revoked His infernal mandate, at least in the figurative sense that LaVey’s Satanic qualities and magical skills were inferor compared with those of your average Joe Schmoe. It is equally taboo to recognize The Church of Satan’s “alien élite” for what it is: a species that exists only within a world of spiritual pipe-dreams, or that “might is right” is a feeble feel-good fantasy. Any remark that LaVey relied on a variety of pseudo-scientific models and superstition that render several of his points null and void, and thus candidates for unceremonious jettison, is taken as proof of poor faith and lack of understanding: The Satanic Bible and LaVey’s other written works are flawless and in need of no revision—except maybe to add a preface by Gilmore.

Above and foremost, none but The Church of Satan, and those individuals who unconditionally agree that it is the only Satanic organization, are Satanists. Any other organization, and anyone who considers himself a Satanist but does not appreciate The Church of Satan, is deemed a heretic for this blasphemous stance. It does not help if the individual considers himself a “LaVeyan Satanist” (although The Church of Satan will be rash to remind anyone that “LaVeyan Satanism” is a pleonasm or even a hostile term for its insinuation that other kinds of Satanism could possibly exist), if he does not also unconditionally acknowledge The Church of Satan, and nothing else, as Satanism. However, if this demand is satisfied, it appears that one may reject arbitrary amounts of The Church of Satan’s doctrine, apply an arbitrary interpretation to its teachings, and add anything one fancies, and is yet a true Satanist. Satan thinks this is evidence that philosophy and doctrine mean little, and submission to Gilmore’s organization is paramount. This has become institutionalized in The Church of Satan. New members soon learn that recognition is earned through worship of Gilmore (even though he uses LaVey as a proxy) and hostility towards anyone claiming the name but not the affiliation and thereby not endorsing Gilmore. It is needless to say that Satan thinks that Peter Gilmore’s personal touch on Satanism has transformed LaVeyan Satanism into a toxic form that would be more accurately christened Gilmoron Satanism.

Satan thinks His church has become all about a herd collective and none about ideology. Anyone who is not part of Gilmore’s virtual community—a term that Gilmore shuns as it names his cravings for human acceptance, and therefore resorts to near-synonyms such as “arena,” “cabal,” “collection”, “universe,” or “movement,” to name just some, whereas Satan is not afraid to name the assemblage that Gilmore wishes for as adorers—is treated as religionists have traditionally approached the worshipers of false gods. Despite making no other demands on being a Satanist than thinking that The Satanic Bible resonates with one’s feelings, The Church of Satan feels strongly about the ideologies of other Satanic groups. If they are not LaVeyan, they are necessarily non-Satanic and therefore wrong and worse than Christianity, and if they are LaVeyan but loathe the strain of people that The Church of Satan attracts and encourages, they also are non-Satanic.

It is the very existence of these other groups and individuals that The Chuch of Satan objects to, not their viewpoints. Being an extension of Gilmore’s demand for personal attention, it cannot cope with others acquiring the spotlight (The Satanic Temple in particular is the target of their envy these days), and it leads to almost comical arguments against their legitimacy; for example, that they should cover their horns and not identify as Satanists, because it makes them look bad on the goals they pursue, or because they give Satanism a bad reputation. Gone are those days when The Church of Satan’s high priestess, Peggy Nadramia, defended the many neo-Nazis in their higher ranks by reminding its members that being a Satanist was as evil as the status quo could ever imagine, Nazis being a far lesser one, and that any concerns about a Nazi connotation were a Good Guy Badge that one had better discard. It seems that, today, The Church of Satan struggles to understand and muster the strength and self-confidence required to take the Devil’s name for oneself. Satan thinks that the sense of perspective of what He stands for was lost somewhere along the way.

The Gilmoron Satanists routinely deliberately ignore the openly stated goals and motivations of their “competitors” in order to construct a straw man to topple over. It is clearly very important that everyone is told, incessantly, although without results, that such groups are not Satanists, and The Church of Satan has made bedfellows with fundamentalist Christian actors on several occasions in their vain attempts to ensure that only The Church of Satan exists. Consumed by their counter-productive pride that helps their real enemies, no measure is too wretched in their rage against the blasphemy of renewal and alternative.

Satan thinks it is time to remind His followers of His sermon. Blasphemy challenges the beliefs everyone takes as model truth and rends the rusty padlocks of shrines with treasures that have lost their value. No dogma must be taken for granted, and no model deified to protect it from scrutiny and question. Satanists must apply blasphemy to their own beliefs and convictions, especially if taboo and met with resistance. Only that can prevent Satan’s own religion from sinking into the same rotting reactionaryism that is other religions.

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 that actions are seldom intrinsically Satanic

Posted on by A lesser demon

Lucifer will usually gladly take credit wherever and whenever He can, considering that He far too often receives undue blame from people who fail to take responsibility for their own actions. Yet, it irks the Devil when His followers proclaim that anything they do is Satanic for no other reason than their being Satanists. His Infernal Majesty does have limits and demands a certain standard of His followers, if ever so modest. He has only disdain for followers who announce that some random act that everyone performs becomes Satanic when they do it.

The logic of my Evil Master is not hard to follow. It suffices to observe the (scientific) principles of identifying contradictory evidence and alternative causation. That is: do others, who identify contradictory, also perform these actions? Does an action that you identify as Satanic become Muslim if performed by a Muslim? Is harming an animal Satanic when a Satanist does it regardless of doctrine? Are you performing an action for other reasons, i.e., you would have done it regardless of your explanation? Would you stop doing it, were you to change your views? Even monsieur LaVey’s speculation of a “third alternative” cannot solve these conundra.

If logic seems difficult, absurdity may suffice. Most of what anyone does, everyone does. It is human nature, not an ideological specialty, to enjoy a steak, pick your nose, have musical and other preferences, take a walk, maintain your hygiene, interact with an animal, and feel misaligned with certain groups. Everyone goes to the bathroom, and “number two” is not the number of the Beast simply because a Satanist assumes the porcelain throne. Anyone may feel that a particular piece of music, for example, has a Satanic appeal, but personal feelings do not constitute objective or general truth, especially not when most others feel differently. Thinking that common nature, or individual taste, is special because you feel special is stupidity at best, solipsism at worse, and narcissism at worst.

Satan thinks that when followers insist that anything they do is inherently Satanic, it is because nothing they do would otherwise be recognizable as such. They are exceptionally unexceptional, and they delude themselves by thinking that their being average is a mean attitude.

Satan demands that, for an action to qualify as Satanic, it must possess a uniqueness that is directly traceable to Satanic idealism (even if this part of the idealism may also be found elsewhere, because, after all, many idealisms share some elements), and must be accompanied by several similarly Satanically unique elements and a corresponding absence of elements specific to incompatible ideologies. Both premises must be satisfied, because otherwise the action is either just “circumstantially Satanic,” or it is too generic to be identifiable by any ideology at all.

Thus no single action is Satanic on its own, or simply because some Satanist takes it. Only a discourse of multiple actions and thoughts combined, and only if aligned with specifically Satanic ideology, is Satanic. Anything else is either un-Satanic or uninteresting—as are they who believe that everything they do is inherently Satanic.