The reason for the lack of updates lately is simple- I’ve been living, and by that I mean I have been indulging.  I have been slothful, lustful, prideful, and just plain full.  I have probably had more intoxicants in my body this past week than I have in the entirety of 2009, and I am only getting started.  It’s been a lot of fun, but I’ve been paying the price these past few days with some wicked hangovers, so I’m having an early night tonight.  But first, some thoughts.

The Satanic Bible often makes the point that Satan has many names.  The SB is divided into sections titled Satan, Lucifer, Belial, and Leviathan.  Reciting a list of infernal names is required during every Satanic ritual, which are different names for various cultural devils and demons.  But my favourite of the list is Lucifer.

The Roman god, Lucifer, was the bearer of light, the spirit of the air, the personification of enlightenment.  In Christian mythology he became synonymous with evil, which was only to have been expected from a religion whose very existence is perpetuated by clouded definitions and bogus values!

-The Satanic Bible, p. 39

Lucifer in the New Testament is meant to represent the morning star (another meaning of Lucifer) and is used to reference a dethroned Babylonian king, and is not explicitly tied anywhere to the devil.  Nevertheless Lucifer has come to be synonymous with Satan, and thus with Satanism.

LaVey characterizes Satan as many things- as being masterless, as the prototypical adversary, and as the light-bearer, the herald of knowledge and understanding. This is why I have an affinity with the title ‘Lucifer.’ It has a lot in common with how I tend to see humanity.  In the first section of the SB, the “Infernal Diatribe,” LaVey writes a long tirade from the perspective of the Devil, calling down God and Heaven and challenging Christian moral precepts.  But halfway through, the emphasis changes, and Satan is no longer shouting alone.  The diatribe begins as Satan, the fallen angel, addressing God and man, but it switches to ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ and suddenly Satan is identifying himself as one of us, as another human being screaming at the heavens.  Satan is not just some anthropological adversary who exists to challenge God, he is depicted as rooting for us, as urging us on.  He becomes a rallying point for earthly delights as well as our accoplishments and our lust for life, our will to power and to be great.  Satan becomes the pride of humanity.

I think, when seen in this way, Satan can be compared to Prometheus, that old Greek Titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity.  I always see this story as a recognition of our potential, a freeing of our souls from mediocrity.  Satan is often condemned for his pride in the Abrahamic faiths- for refusing to bow down to the first man, or for wishing to become God.  He is that which will not scrape, who will not bow down, he does not flinch in the face of the greatest of all gods.  He is just like Prometheus.  Satan strives for the greatest of all possible things, to be God, and LaVey depicts him as that force which wishes the same for humanity, ceaselessy trying to steal fire.

When on this topic I tend to think about T. S. Eliot’s poem, The Hollow Men, specifically the last few lines,

This is the way the worlds ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

This last line is my personal mantra when considering the future of humanity- “Not a whisper” (whisper, in my humble opinion, is a better choice of words).   I fear that we may all be snuffed out by some errant asteroid or our own bloody mindedness before we really make something of ourselves.  I want us to be endless.  I want us to be able to see the end of our solar system, the end of our galaxy.  This seems in line with what I have learned about Satanism so far.

Satanism is a bang, not a whimper.

PS- The contact form works now.  Much thanks to S.