The Tao itself is fluid, undefinable, able to fill in the nooks and crannies of every place, person, and thing.  It is the foundation and component of every proper being, flowing around obstacles, acting without acting, doing without doing.

Satanism on the other hand, was solid, definite, and obstinate.  Any barrier is shattered by it, every lie made humble.  It makes no excuses for itself.

It was a lot easier than this.  Taoism does not reveal itself bluntly, it does not state that it is ’so and so.’  What can be named is not the Tao, the Way is purposefully obscure- not impenetrable, but not definite either.

My inner Satanist is having a hard time with this.  This is a really big gear shift.

Cranky today.  These transitions are not going to be easy.

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.

Work was slow, so as I was nursing what was either sleep derivation or the remaining high from the night before, I read all of The Tao of Pooh. Now, it has been a while since I have studied Taoism, but from what I remember, this book succinctly explains that whole tradition.  It sounds a little reactionary and heavy-handed at times, but overall it is a fantastic introduction to Taoism and its place in Eastern thought.

I meant to cap off my month of Satanism by doing some more rituals, most notably a destruction ritual which I have yet to perform.  But at the end of the night, I couldn’t feel vindictive, I couldn’t feel anything other than amazement and gratitude.  I don’t know if I have exhausted my curiosity about this particular path, but this was an incredibly illuminating and rewarding experience, the fruits of which I will enjoy throughout my life.

More to come.

Warning, hither be spoilers.

The world in The Book of Eli is a post-apocalyptic wasteland.  Everything is burnt and lifeless, and existence is predictably nasty, brutish, and short.  Water and food are scarce, and over thirty years after the end of the war that devastated humanity, literacy is a rarity.

In the midst of this is a man called Eli (Denzel Washington) who carries what is purportedly the last surviving copy of the Holy Bible.  The vast majority of scripture was burnt up during a war, and were actually targeted for destruction at some point before or after the initial conflict, and it is hinted that this may have been the cause of the war.  None of this is made explicit, since it really isn’t important to the overall story, but we will touch more on this later.  Eli is driven by an unseen voice to take the Bible into the west, to find a place that will help to preserve it and its teachings, which Eli condenses into, “Do to others as you would do for yourself.”

His foil in this narrative is a man named Carnegie (Gary Oldman, of course) who is one of the few survivors of the war to have lasted so long and be literate.  He is also the head of a small, ramshackle town, and his leadership is secured via tight control of some natural water springs, which he rations out to the people.  His knowledge of where to get water and the large amount of immoral, burly men he keeps in his employ are some of the few things keeping Carnegie in power.  But he thinks that he can expand his meager fiefdom, he thinks that he can win the hearts and minds of the people without resorting to force, and he believes that he could do this if he had a copy of the Bible.  “It’s a weapon,” he claims.  Within it are the words and ideas necessary to unite people, to give them a reason to live rather than just survival, to give them morals, to make life better.  To this end he sends out his murderous and illiterate minions to find any remaining books in the wasteland, paying them in alcohol and women.

This is where I came to my first issue when reflecting on the movie- how could there be nothing left of the largest religion in the world (assuming Christianity hadn’t been beaten at this point by Islam) only thirty years after this cataclysmic war?  And even if we assume that Christianity and it’s ethic have been wiped out, could Carnegie really utilize the Bible in such a way?  Could it be as precious and important as he says it is?  These are the two challenges that will help us get to the heart of why I see Satanic themes in this movie.

Let us first begin with the decline and death of the Christian religion.  It is implied that at some point during the time of the war, an impressive number of Bibles are burned.  Such things tend not to occur without a fair bit of anti-religious fervor, so I think we can safely assume that along with these book burnings there was a period of intensive anti-Christian sentiment, such that perhaps a few Christians may have been burning along with those Bibles.  At the very least they would be assaulted, driven out, or ostracized.  From the time of the war onwards, it would be difficult to call oneself a Christian.  Add to this the war itself, which inevitably goes nuclear, and you start to get the idea.  After the nukes go off some kind of giant hole is opened in the ozone layer or something (again, the movie is vague) and anyone unlucky enough to be a fan of the great outdoors cooks, or goes blind.

After all of this, life really starts to get difficult.  We are left with whoever remains after religious persecution, a massive war, nuclear destruction, and a hostile climate.  We can assume that after all of this, those left are not outwardly religious, still fearing persecution.

From here many more will die because they cannot find proper resources or become resources for others.  Food, water, and shelter become precious.  People will start to become territorial, and fierce fighting will ensue, greater than the looting and conflict that we see in the aftermath of natural disasters.  The population will continue to decrease, and only those who are able to find enough food, and are able to defend themselves, will survive to continue the species.  These very necessary survival traits will therefore be taken up by the next generation, who are the primary inhabitants of The Book of Eli.

At this point it seems doubtful that a Christian religion or ethic could survive in practice.  We have already seen a drastic decrease in the number of the pious simply because there has been a general decrease in population, but from here I suspect it gets even harder.  Let us assume that some outwardly Christian people have survived into this aftermath, and can fight off everyone else looking to survive, and those who still hate them and their book.  They would have to be well supplied, since they would be morally opposed to taking anything from anyone by force.  They would have to be in a large group, since they would constantly be trying to fend off attackers, or would have to have some method of self-defense, like a unique tactical position or heavy arms.

How could such a group survive for more than a generation in such an environment?  What resources they had they would be sharing with the less fortunate, which would be everyone, and they would only be resupplied by what they could find or barter.  They would have to survive repeated raids, which will only increase as more and more survivors learned about these generous and well-stocked suckers.  It seems unlikely that anyone with a real Christian, “Do unto others as you would be done by,” attitude would survive at all.  The rule of the land would be ’survival of the fittest,’ and would favour those who would not be afraid to take what they needed in order to survive.  It doesn’t seem unreasonable to think that when we meet our protagonist Eli, all traces of this compassionate religion are gone.  Well, almost.

So we are in overtly interesting times, where life is fast and short, or long and cruel, and compassion is in short supply.  In the midst of this Carnegie thinks he can make everything better, that he can begin to remake civilization, if only he had the good book.  Is this a well-thought out approach, or a spiritual pipe-dream?  Personally I think he’s on to something.  If he has the charisma and leadership skills to sell these things to the people, then I think the Bible would do nicely.

Carnegie is a slight, patient, and aging man.  He has not secured his position through strength, he does not intimidate physically, but through his guile, his leadership, the ways in which he punishes and rewards.  He is willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants.  I think he would have no trouble pounding the dusty pulpit.

But let us look at the Bible itself, does it have what it takes to unite people, to draw people, to make them moral?  Of course it does.  The Bible can readily give people something else other than this terrible life to think about.  There is the hereafter, God, Jesus,  and numerous angelic and hellish hosts. It gives manifold excuses for man’s suffering, be it man’s fall from Eden, God’s malevolence, or one’s own personal sins coming under the judgment of God and Christ.  It offers a moral path that feeds from and into both the hereafter and man’s lot on earth.  There are stories and parable beyond mention, each with its own lesson and moral.  There are entreatments to love thy neighbour as thyself, guidelines for living for a simple and primitive time, the promise of rewards to come, especially for the downtrodden, the meek, the poor, and the vanquished.

This kind of good news would be an overwhelming relief to people living such a hellish existence- that life doesn’t have to be this way.  Think of how eager such people would be to spread the word, to draw people in from other settlements.  It could give hope, standing in the wasteland like a candle in the dark.

And it would be absolutely abhorrent.

All of this shows exactly why Satanists comes down so hard on the Christian faith.  It is all myth and fairytale to keep people under control, or at the very least, can easily be leveraged against the desperate and gullible.  It can force people to look beyond the here and now, and to think of a place that doesn’t exist, to wait until they are dead to be able to enjoy themselves, or to await judgment.  It alleviates the responsibilities people have to themselves to not live like dogs, to fight tooth and nail for every bit of existence in a world that gives no quarter.  All of the Bible’s stirring rhetoric can be channeled into manipulating people, to make them fall into line on bended knee.

Carnegie wouldn’t even have to believe a word of it, in fact it would probably be best if he didn’t, all the more easier to twist what was in the book for his own ends.  All he would have to do is sell it, and his position would be made all the more secure by his new title of ‘Prophet.’  He wouldn’t even have to worry about people taking issue with his message, since he would be one of the few people left in the world who could read it.  He could just use it to keep himself in power, and to ensure the division between those who know, and those who do not.  It might as well be in Latin.

In insinuating that the Bible is this kind of weapon, The Book of Eli shows one of the central practices and principles in Satanism- criticism of religions that demean man’s ego and fill his head with nonsense in order to cloud what is really going on.  It also shows that Satanism is more than just the pursuit of earthly delights, that it is about survival of the fittest, social Darwinism, and acquiring what is necessary in order to survive and prosper.  In other words- those who were willing to fight for their survival in The Book of Eli would be exhibiting signs of a Satanic philosophy.  Now I’m not trying to suggest that the murdering and raping bandits that seem to make up the majority of Eli’s fellow wanderers are Satanists.  What I wish to do here is show how the Satanic philosophy could survive this kind of scenario where Christianity could not, and show how Satanism is about self-preservation, about celebrating man as an animal, an animal with very real needs and desires.  We can be prone to violence when provoked, and should be willing to defend what is ours.  A Satanist would not be surprised to see society fall apart as it does in The Book of Eli, as they don’t have any illusions as to how thin the barriers are that hold back our real nature.

I’m not going to say that this movie should be interpreted this way necessarily, I’m sure there is a Christian argument out there that wholly endorses The Book of Eli as an example of everything Christianity does right.  In fact I will admit that I was downright stirred, spiritually, at the end of the film- when Eli begins reciting Genesis.  It’s… beautiful.  It may have been the twist ending, the music, I’m not sure, but Denzel gives real weight to those opening lines.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Hard to argue with that when everything seems dark and hopeless.  Regardless, the point of this esay is to show that in The Book of Eli are examples and demonstrations of Satanism that I have learned thus far.

One could say that it is a Satanic parable.

Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his “divine spiritual and intellectual development,” has become the most vicious animal of all!

-The seventh Satanic statement

I’ve been using this month as an excuse to binge, to investigate all of my indulgences, to follow what I’ve desired but never sought.  But this isn’t all what Satanism is about, it’s about being capable, hence being fit.  Satanism is about power.

I didn’t care about exercise because I saw it as something vain.  Now I care about it because it makes me feel like a more practical, powerful human being.  It makes me feel a little closer to godhood.  I can feel myself standing a little taller.  I am starting to feel unabashedly sovereign, like I am the master of my fate, like Lucifer- the morning star, the rising star.

I hope I still feel like this next month.

I’m seeing people that I never usually socialize with, almost every evening is full of new experiences, and I am genuinely enjoying myself.

That sounds weird, right?  It implies that I don’t usually enjoy myself from day to day, and for the last little while I guess that has been true.  But now I feel free, free from my own insecurities, free from second-guessing myself.  I feel empowered- like I could pursue any of my desires.  I was concerned that this month would make me self-centered, that I would feel egotistical and self-important.  At this moment I really couldn’t tell if I’m feeling any of those things.

I feel alive.  I’m exercising more, and kicking myself for not looking into some martial arts courses for this month.  If I had another month to do this I would set up a training regime and look into some books on the official Church of Satan store. Still so much to do.  It’s going to be hard to break these habits next month.

Planning some large purchases for myself at the end of the month, things that I don’t really need but would make me feel good, things I wouldn’t usually get for myself.  Money is tight now, so the actual purchases will be creeping into my month of Taoism, but I figure a bit of bleeding over is fine if my onus for it comes from the appropriate month.

That’s what I’ll be telling myself, anyway.  This might be the only time I have to spoil myself for a while, need to make the most of it.

It’s not like I’ll be able to take any of it with me.

Satanism is I suppose, by it’s very definition, not included.  I fancy the Satanist in this situation could be much like the Greek goddess Eris at the wedding banquet of Thetis and Peleus.  Uninvited and pissed, the goddess of discord barges in with a golden apple that has engraved in it, “To the fairest one,” and throws it amongst the most vain and callous goddesses of Olympus, who all lay claim to it.  In order to dissuade the celestial cat fight, Zeus appoints the mortal Paris to choose the prettiest of Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera.  They all try to bribe him with various goods, Aphrodite offers him Helen of Troy, he picks to get laid, and we all know how well that worked out for everyone.

But Satan does not exist to create chaos, he is an adversary, a  counterpoint to these faiths, an example of what they tend to vilify and avoid.  So I could get right in and start something here, throw in my proverbial golden apple and dig into that centuries old hate-on these religions can have for one another.  I could talk about the implications of one God spreading very different images of himself and his requirements for being good and faithful to the same people, I could talk about the difference between a religious cause and a political or cultural cause for violence between different groups of people.  I could talk about the sheer masturbatory nature of these kinds of talks and events.  But I think Satan, rather than being the one to crash the interfaith dialogue, would be the one passing it all by to go to the really great party down the road, perhaps the same one that all the hypocritical clergymen and women would sneak into under the security of the night.  The Satanist isn’t concerned with these kinds of things.  The senility of their ideas robs their opinions and stances of any weight, “their words … are scattered, and their mouths are stopped with dust.” Let these people have their spiritual pipe dreams and their conferences, whilst the people who know go out, have fun, and live!

Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the wise to talk; one thing is certain, that life flies; one thing is certain, and the rest is lies; the flower that once has blown for ever dies.

-The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, first translation by Edward Fitzgerald

]]> http://yearoffaith.net/2010/01/world-religion-day/feed/ 2 http://yearoffaith.net/2010/01/let-me-explain/ http://yearoffaith.net/2010/01/let-me-explain/#comments Mon, 18 Jan 2010 05:08:43 +0000 Michael http://yearoffaith.net/?p=95 Yesterday I did mushrooms for the first time.

I’m just going to let that sentence hang there, until I get comfortable knowing that I am going to share this with the Internet.  This might take a while.

It was a good experience.  I was with friends, people I trusted and could rely on if things went bad.  I had a couple of ounces, neatly cut up, and chewed with nervous anticipation.  The taste wasn’t overpowering or particularly unpleasant.  They were dry and unremarkable, really, not like the distinctive smell or taste of pot.  But the high I experienced was about the same.

About an hour after I ate my 2 ounces, my compatriots seemed the be having a hell of a time, and I was feeling only sort of buzzed.  So on the advisement of experienced (though admittedly disabled) fellow trippers I did another ounce.  This was a good idea.

Like I said, the high wasn’t unique, it was almost identical to how I’ve felt after smoking or eating pot.  I felt good, sensitive, but never out of control or particularly detached.  No hallucinations.  Just good.

Once the trip subsided I went to a party and had my first clove cigarette, followed throughout the evening by my second and third.  Those things definitely give me a buzz, and combined with a couple of drinks, some pot, and lots of friendly flirting, I maintained a steady warm feeling through the entire evening.  I was happy. It was really quite perfect.

This is not something I would ever do normally.  I don’t begrudge people their chosen intoxicants, and I’ve always been kind of curious, but I’ve never had a reason to really take that step and just enjoy these kinds of things.  Satanism is all about experiencing things that you think, for whatever reason, are forbidden or taboo (so long as no one is harmed) and repeatedly asks the question “Why not?”  I’m still not sure what my hangups about drugs are, because there was definitely a feeling that taking mushrooms was breaking some kind of unspoken rule.  But I took that step on Saturday, and now that I have, I’m glad.  It gave me a chance to talk about the project and reflect upon it with my friends, as well as experience something new and rewarding.  I came away feeling refreshed, relaxed, and eager to keep the project going.

It has definitely been the highest point of the year so far.

And then I realize that this is a stupid thought, and move on.

It’s… odd, at times.  I feel free, or at least much more uninhibited than I usually am.  I don’t overly concern myself with trying to please people, and I don’t feel guilty or awkward about trying to get what I want.  I’m not the leader of the dionsyian parade or anything, but I’m not holding myself back as much as I used to.  If I have the opportunity to drink wine, I do.  Get drunk?  Sure.  Smoke weed, why not? Mushrooms?  Never had them before, so of course I will.  Make out?  Absolutely!  Sleep in?  Fuck yes.

In short, life is exciting.

Which has led me to ask myself- Why as I holding back before?  Why didn’t I drink?  Why didn’t I try to pursue these pleasures that interested me?  A lot of it was lack of confidence in myself, which has changed for the better in these first few weeks, but there is something else to.  I’m trying to write it all down, but it’s hard to put my finger on it.

I just feel… good.

Really good.

I’m getting all the components together for a proper ritual.  I know they aren’t, necessary, stirctly speaking,  but I’m very skeptical about this part of Satanism and I think it would help me get into the mood if I get all the pieces into what I think is the right order.

That’s all for now.

Hail Satan.