CONVERSATION STARTER
Hey friends,
Calamity Politics writer T.K. McNeil shares a bit of his tiger poking personality in this great piece about LaVeyan Satanism. Just the kind of thing we like to do here at www.calamitypolitics.com. Read on. –D. S. Mitchell
Satanism: The Devil’s Advocates
Trevor K. McNeil
Shades of Grey
Things are rarely as they seem. Even the notion of “seeing is believing” can be problematic, due to the very personal way humans process information. The perception we have of LaVeyan Satanism for one.
Mistaken Identification
All we have to do is look at mistaken “eye-witness” identifications. Many eye-witness accounts are later proven incorrect, based on DNA evidence. Not to mention the wide variances in meaning for very straight-forward words. I’m just asking that you keep an open mind while I explain LaVeyan Satanism’s core beliefs.
Did You Say Satan?
One such word, guaranteed to evoke a specific response is Satanism. For good reason things are not as clear at they might seem. There is a gulf of difference between what is called “theological” Satanism and the more philosophical interpretation known as LaVeyan Satanism.
Schools of Thought
In opposition to LaVeyan Satanism, Theological Satanism, what most people think of when they meet the term, is an extreme minority religion that is a mirror image of Christianity in which rather than worshiping God followers worship the Devil in the literal sense. It is fair to think of this form of Satanist basically as inverted Christians.
Sins of Theological Satanism
They are also the ones most likely to commit acts of violence like rape, murder, animal abuse and vandalism, especially church burning. They are also an extreme minority, not only in terms of the general population but also among Satanist themselves. The reason that they have become so large in the public imagination is a concerted campaign of lies and misinformation in the early 1990’s.
Satanic Ritual Abuse
Despite the hysteria around Satanic Ritual Abuse, of which there has never been a single confirmed case, which is more than can be said of other religious sects. From doomsday cults to radical Mormons to mainstream Catholicism, LaVeyan Satanists are a lot more sane and considered in their beliefs.
Essentially Atheism
Essentially Atheists in terms of spiritualism LaVeyan Satanists, by far the most common in the modern context, have no literal belief in the Biblical Satan. They are not agents of evil nor do they really believe in it in a metaphysical sense. Generally, this form of Satanism uses the figure of Satan symbolically to represent rebellion and freedom.
Evil Backwards Spells Live
The origins of modern, LaVeyan Satanism go back to The Church of Satan and its founder Anton LaVey. It can be difficult to understand how anyone can see anything good even in the metaphorical figure of Satan and LaVey was one of the first to figure out why.
Grilled on Television
When called upon to explain himself during an appearance on the Joe Pyne Show in 1970, LaVey put it this way: “Everybody that’s made rules and regulations concerning the devil or the devil’s work, the devil’s activities have been people that have been very righteous people, people during crusades.” He later went further, stating that “for centuries both church and laymen have defined the Devil according to their needs, all the while playing the game of muzzling the enemy.”
The Loyal Opposition
Opposition is very important in the LaVeyan world-view. As LaVey said during the same interview: “I’m supplying a much-needed opposition. The meaning of Satan is, “adversary or accuser.” Furthermore, LaVey stated “the original concept of the word ‘devil’ comes from a word meaning god.”
A Symbol
As to the exact nature of Satan, LaVey said “Satan is to us a symbol rather than an anthropomorphic being.”
The Human Touch
LaVeyan Satanism is surprisingly progressive and profoundly humanist, particularly for an ideology formed in the late 1960’s. Just as with Christianity, LaVeyan Satanism has a set of guidelines known as The Seven Tenets.
Seven Fundamental Tenets of LaVeyan Satanism
1. One should strive to act with compassion and empathy towards all creatures in accordance with reason.
2. The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
3. One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
4. The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forego your own.
5. Beliefs should conform to the best scientific understanding of the world. We should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit our beliefs.
6. People are fallible. If we make a mistake, we should do our best to rectify it and resolve any harm that may have been caused.
7. Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
Ressurection
Anton LaVey died in 1997. Yet there are those who carry on LaVeyan Satanism into the 21st century. Primary among them is the Satantic Temple. Founded in 2013 in Salem Massachusetts. The Satanic Temple (TST), is essentially a left-wing activist group fighting for free-speech rights, individual rights, religious freedom for all religions and a rigid separation of church and state policy as dictated in the United States Constitution.
Speak of the Devil
Like LaVey, the Satanic Temple followers are Satanists in the philosophical/symbolic sense. According to the groups co-founder and main spokesperson, a man known as Lucien Greaves: “Essentially we view Satan as a symbolic embodiment of the ultimate rebel against tyranny.” It is a sentiment shared by Greave’s colleague and fellow spokesperson Jex Blackmore, who said: “I think the Satanic figure in the Bible is one that really inspires rebellion in mankind against a tyrannical God.”
The Devil’s Work?
In accordance with the third tenet of LaVeyan Satanism – “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone” – one of the earliest actions undertaken by TST was the challenging of a state law in Missouri that would restrict abortion rights.
Political Action
Based on the tenets of LaVeyan Satanists, The Satanic Temple filed suit against the Missouri state government. In the suit the Temple was asking for an exemption on behalf of a Temple member who was unexpectedly pregnant. In an instance of judicial malpractice that would make Judge Turpin flinch. The judge in the case deliberately postponed the hearing for nine months so he could dismiss the case, telling Greaves “she can’t be pregnant now, can she?”
Church and State?
So far, the groups most high-profile case was their campaign for equal representation on a section of the Arkansas state capitol lawn which had been set aside for religious monuments and already included a monument to The Ten Commandments. The group tried to get a specially made statue of the figure of Baphomet, a goat-headed, winged, Pagan god, placed in the same area.
Christian Protest
There were protests by locals claiming they did not want their kids going to Hell. Despite that the existence of a literal, physical Hell has been denied by two Popes. First John Paul II and then, more recently Pope Francis. One Arkansas state official claimed it would be “a cold day in Hell” before a Satanic statue would be allowed to stand on the state capital lawn.
Ignorance
Adding a bit of unintentional humor to the predictably over-wrought reaction is the fact that Baphomet is not remotely Satanic. Any more than the Greek god Pan is. The reaction to the image being based on extremely reductivist interpretations of particular symbols such as wings and horns.
Cold Day In Hell
As to the expression “cold day in Hell.” Hell is cold. At least according to Dante’s Inferno. The lowest, darkest most horrible part of Hell, Judecca, the place where Satan supposedly lives, has nothing hot about it whatsoever. In fact, Satan is described as frozen to his waist in a giant block to ice. As of the time of this writing the Baphomet statue is still standing on the capital grounds, a tribute to the political plans of the Satanists.
What’s Religion Got To Do With It?
It is fair to ask if LaVeyan Satanists do not believe in theology what are they doing fighting for religious freedom. It is a question they have heard before. Greaves actually was asked whether the Satanic Temple was Satanic or satirical. He responded by asking why it could not be both. While a glib answer on its surface, Greaves’ response was quite honest and reveals a limitation in modern religious thought.
Religion Without God
Greaves is a proponent for Atheistic Religion, or more gently, cultural religion. As he put it in an interview with Vice: “I think the more people become comfortable culturally identifying with their religions and realizing that they don’t have to pretend to believe things that are simply intellectually insulting today, that they can still have their ethics, their symbols, that they can still use this metaphorically to contextualize their lives, I think we’ll find a lot of people identifying non-theistically with their religions.” This is, in essence, how TST approaches and relates to LaVeyan Satanism.
Trump, God and Satan
Given their aversion to tyrants it is not surprising that Greaves is no great fan of President Donald Trump. Greaves stated that “Within hours of Trump being declared president our membership numbers really spiked.”
Explanation
The LaVeyan Satanist’s explanation for the phenomenon was simple. “It seems kind of obvious that there’s been a complete reversal in the roles of who’s ostensibly the good guys and who are the bad guys. Right now we have Evangelical Nationalists pushing a theocratic agenda in the United States and making great headway to take away people’s reproductive rights, endorse corporal punishment schools, spread pseudo-science or otherwise reject a scientific point of view and really undermining liberal democracy. So, at this point there seems to be an apparent, intuitive grasp of what Satan can mean in an heroic context.”
Under Threat
Satanists, at least LaVeyan Satanists, are not scary creatures of the night lurking in the bushes to steal your children. Or agents of the Dark One looking to condemn innocent souls to Hell. They are, essentially, secular humanists with a cultural appreciation for the rebellious spirit of the theological Satan with empathy, humanity and freedom as their driving principles.
Take Another Look
Despite ascribing to the LaVeyan form of Satanism and meaning no harm to anyone, The Satanic Temple have been the subject of vicious threats from Christian groups. Greaves took on the Greaves pseudonym to protect his children and has started wearing a bullet proof vest during public appearances. Blackmore has had people threaten to burn down her house while she was asleep and to shoot her during public appearances. One going so far to tell her the kind of bullets he recently purchased for the gun he owned.
