That was one hell of a month.

I had planned on reading a lot more Satanic literature, but unfortunately the big pile of books I ordered from ebay have still not arrived, and so most of my understanding of Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan come from The Satanic Bible, The Satanic Rituals, and The Devil’s Notebook, all by Anton LaVey.  Further compounding this issue is that I was busy almost every night, pursuing various desires and sins, and so I didn’t have a lot of time to read or write.  But that is kind of the point, right?  Experience over study.

I was quite satisfied by my experience with Satanism.  I would have liked perform more rituals, read some more varied literature, and gotten some face time with some honest-to-goodness Satanists, but frankly I don’t think I missed anything by doing this month solo.  I will probably revisit this religion at the end of the year, and may write about it a bit more throughout the project as ideas strike me, but for now I will leave my final thoughts as I dive into Taoism.

Satanism is Adolescent

This is what has been going through my head these past few days when I’ve been thinking about how best to describe Satanism.  This isn’t meant as a critique or a putdown, I’m not trying to say that it is stupid and ineffectual or hopelessly idealistic, but that this word captures everything that sticks out for me as being particularly Satanic.

Understand that I’m actually very defensive of adolescence in general, I don’t tend to use the term lightly and I’m usually miffed when other people do.  Just because someone is young doesn’t give their point of view any less merit.  Perhaps this is all left over baggage from my own tumultuous years.

Didn’t Woody Allen say that all literature was a footnote to Faust?  Perhaps all adolescence is a dialogue between Faust and Christ.  We tremble on the brink of selling that part of ourselves that is real, unique, angry, defiant and whole for the rewards of attainment, achievement, success and the golden prizes of integration and acceptance; but we also in our great creating imagination, rehearse the sacrifice we will make: the pain and terror we will take from others’ shoulders; our penetration into the lives and souls of our fellows; our submission and willingness to be rejected and despised for the sake of the truth and love and, in the wilderness, our angry rebuttals of the hypocrisy, deception and compromise of a world which we see to be so false.
There is nothing so self-righteous nor so right as an adolescent imagination.

-Stephen Fry, Moab is my Washpot

In any case, the point that I am trying to make is that Satanism is adolescent in many ways.  As religions go it is very young, it is rebellious through and through, it is self-serving, and it doesn’t mean anything more than that.

The Church of Satan was formally founded in 1966 by Anton LaVey for a variety of reasons, among them being a response to the wide-sweeping and hypocritical Christian Church constantly condemning what LaVey saw as natural human emotions and behaviors.  The Church of Satan is, at its heart, a rebellion and condemnation of the old Abrahamic faiths, and of most other religions in general.  It is very simple to imagine LaVey as Satan, standing in Hell, or upon the Earth, and calling out God and His followers for the incredible mess they have made.  I think this imagery is simple and effective because it is an accurate representation of what is happening in the Satanic Bible.

But when I was growing up, this is what was happening all the time.  Most of my friends in high school who gave the idea of God and religion a few seconds of thought arrived at the same points espoused in Satanism.  God is bunk, if not bunk then He is cruel, if He is not cruel then He is powerless or as stupid as the people who follow Him.  In the end it is better to do as Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost did and stand on your own two feet in Hell rather than bow down before such a convoluted and wasteful deity.

Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?

-Epicurus (maybe)

This is a very, very old observation about God, and Satanism offers nothing new.  It brings up theodicy, praises it, and then thinks it right to do away with God and those who go along with faith in their hearts but are blind to the world.  All well and good, but nothing I could not, and have not already, done myself.

However it does provide a sense of community and direction for those who wonder what to do now that their Sundays are all freed up.  If you can’t be satisfied with humanism then Satanism offers ritual and fantasy through magic and social manipulation.  Since there are all these suckers out there ready to get pulled by their faith and their wallets, Satanism will teach you how to take advantage of them so that you can get what you want and prosper.  It teaches you to look out for yourself, to fight the Christian slave morality that insists others or the hereafter come before yourself.  “Fuck that,” the Satanists say.  “There are no second chances.”

Again, I think this is completely correct.  We cannot know if there exists anything other than this life, and anyone who says so is probably lying.  And after spending a month living like there is no tomorrow, I must say that I can really recommend it.  Satanism isn’t advocating that you abandon all responsibility, but that you shouldn’t feel guilty about doing things just because they feel good.  Finding these things is an important part of being human, and denying them can be dangerous.

While I cannot find any fault with this approach, it does still feel very young.  It’s impulsive and self-serving, and only works because the world is full of people who don’t hold these views.  It’s all well and good to pursue one’s tastes and desires to the fullest, but it’s not a feasable principle for society at large.

This is where Satanism deviates substantially from most major religions, which have their origin with folks who were seeking to create a more stable and peaceful society, who often came to prominance in times of political or social strife and disharmony.  This is not the case with Satanism.  There may have been social problems and conflicts at large at the time of its inception, but it was not created to help deal with them, it was created as an excuse for like-minded peole to get together and have a good time.

So those are some of the major things I took away from Satanism.  There is more, a lot more, and I’ll try my best to cover some more thoughts as they come.  I just wanted to get something on the blog.