Year of Faith

I’m not sure if I managed to get at the central feeling, the core purpose and idea of Satanism. So far I think I have managed to come away each month with the basic, unique feeling and purpose of each religion. Discordianism was all about the beauty of chaos and creative, inspired spontaneity. Jainism was about asceticism and the pursuit of a higher, purer state of being. The central ideas of the Baha’i faith were the oneness and progressiveness of every religion and of mankind and their search for Truth. But the best I can summarize of Satanism is that it is a reaction.

Satanism just seemed to be reacting to Christian hypocrisy and fundamentalism. The Satanic Bible mocks church goers and Christian philosophy much to the same tune as Nietzsche- pointing out their lack of follow through and the oppressive “slave” morality that tends to develop. It puts forward arguments against dogmatic ideas, but as far as a positive, purposeful idea, I feel it is kind of lacking.

The reaction however, is pretty powerful, and is certainly felt by many people these days. When I first discovered Satanism and the Satanic Bible it intrigued me. It made sense. It had none of the contradictory, useless rules and theology that the mainstream religion had. It was a powerful reaction, a rebellion against all the things that I saw wrong in the world. A reaction to what is wrong.

Perhaps this is the real core of the religion. It is a reaction, an important reaction to those parts of religion that just don’t jive with our nature or our reason. Perhaps Mr. LaVey goes a little far in a few parts in giving too much credence to the triumph of psychology, but his criticisms are an important indication that the Old Ways are not working anymore. We are growing beyond the limits that used to be prescribed for us, we are aware of our ego and of our own needs now, and that these are not something that need to be demonized.

Faith is not enough to sustain us any longer. We require fact and reason, something that can be demonstrated right before our eyes. It does not necessarily follow that the alternative is then a life of indulgence instead of abstinence, but that we shouldn’t rule our lives with a set of ideas that make no sense, that have no backing other than blind convictions.

Satanism isn’t so much against authoritative ideas, after all it posits it’s own morality and philosophy. Satanism is against bullshit. Perhaps that is the important grain of Truth in Satanic religion.  No more victims of ignorant religions.

I don’t have a problem agreeing with the Satanist in his distaste for organized, dogmatic, hypocritical, and deceitful religions. I have thought similarly of many religions in the past, though now I tend to think there is something that can be learned and salvaged from such ideas that have been made too literal or too fundamental. This has been one of my motivations for this year long project.

I have never had a problem with the Satanist screaming down all the disciplines that posit some empty promise of eternal knowledge or a better life if one abstains from the pursuit of wealth and the physical world. That is, not until I realized the Satanist would be pointing his accusing finger at philosophy as well.

In Plato’s Apology, Socrates decrees that the goodness of a man’s soul is maintained by wisdom and reflection, not by wealth and material gain. What makes a person real and genuine is not his or her appearance or status, but their virtues, which are found only by cultivating wisdom. This is a philosophy that I myself have put some stock in, yet it seems to be under attack by the Satanic philosophy of enjoying everything as much as you can before you die.

So at first I thought my own philosophy of living would go relatively untouched by the Satanist way of life, that I could coast by with indulging every once in a while. I was wrong.

Not only did I indulge in a variety of things and possibilities that I would not normally have considered, I did so with this consideration in mind- that this was the alternative. This is what life is like without any philosophy. With no rules, different virtues and no exceptions. Life with one thing in mind- to get the most out of it.

This kind of lifestyle was never appealing to me. I would much rather spend my time getting to know just one person in a coffee shop for hours on end rather than getting my eardrums kicked around in a club full of pretty, gyrating strangers. I would rather sit down and figure out what the hell Kant, Hegel, or Nietzsche were talking about than be waking up next to someone whose name I couldn’t remember.

Spending a month essentially ignoring this side of me and embracing that which I had previously denied was quite the experience. Being intoxicated on more than one kind of substance, many times over, was fun, and I may have been getting a handle near the end on why people do it all the time. I used to think that people who spent all their time pursuing such pleasures were missing something essential in their lives. I may still hold on to this belief, but periodic indulging has proven to be something I am actually okay with. It will be something I will miss this month, where I will be required to abstain from such enjoyable activities. Apparently they inevitably produce suffering because they never last, and we are seeking something that will always be there, something that will always fulfill us.

Go figure.

But make no mistake, Satanism is not synonymous with anarchism. They advocate questioning the authority of rules and old dogma, not laws and morality entirely. Satanism is not completely against philosophy, just the bits that tell you to abstain from something for the good of your nature or soul. “God forbid that you would enjoy yourself a little, Michael,” teases the Satanist. “Read your books, spend your time studying and meditating. Just don’t forget what you have learned here, that you should not just take someone’s word as the final matter. That you should not just shut yourself away from without trying it out first.”

Satanism is about living, so LIVE!*

*EVIL spelled backwards.

The Symbol of Baphomet was used by the Knights Templar to represent Satan. Through the ages this symbol has been called by may different names. Among these are: The Goat of Mendes, The Goat of a Thousand Young, The Black Goat, The Judas Goat, and perhaps most appropriately, The Scapegoat.

Baphomet represents the Powers of Darkness combined with the generative fertility of the goat. In its “pure” form, the pentagram is shown encompassing the figure of a man in the five points of the star- three points up, two pointing down- symbolizing man’s spiritual nature. In Satanism the pentagram is also used, but since Satanism represents the carnal instincts of man, or the opposite of the spiritual nature, the pentagram is inverted to perfectly accommodate the head of the goat- its horns, representing duality, thrust upwards in defiance; the other three points inverted, or the trinity denied. The Hebraic figures around the outer circle of the symbol which stem from the magical teachings of the Kabala, spell out “Leviathan,” the serpent of the watery abyss, and identified with Satan. These figures correspond to the five points of the inverted star.

This symbol was used long before the Church of Satan, indeed the description of the figure of Baphomet goes all the way back to the Templars. When they were all round up and interrogated most of them described the goat-headed being as some kind of object of worship. Though it is also said that that the name ‘Baphomet’ may be an anglicized bastardization of the name Muhammad, and thus may have been indicative of Islamic influences into their otherwise Christian worship.

Regardless, the sigil of Baphomet remains to be one of the chosen symbols of the Satanic Church, I wore it on a necklace for the month of April. I didn’t really receive any odd looks or comments, except for one fellow who thought it was a reference Pan (could any of my Pagan friends help me with that one?). Then again, I don’t live in the southern states, nor did I frequent any Evangelical gatherings, so I shouldn’t really be surprised.

I enjoy wearing religious symbols, one of my goals for this year was to acquire a piece of jewelery representing each of the religions, though the Baphomet necklace has been my first purchase towards this end. Perhaps I can find another way to incorporate these symbols into my daily life.

The symbol of Baphomet in the inverted pentagram sums up the Church of Satan rather well. The refusal of Christian dogma, the invocation of ritual magic (the Kabalic symbols) and gratification of the self and the ego (the goat and inverted pentagram). It will always be a way of letting everyone know that you have no problem living the life that most people deny themselves for no good reason.

I have a confession to make: I utterly failed at Satanism.

In addition to not posting at all this month, I managed get through April without even reading the Satanic Bible. I blame Satanism for being such an uninvolved faith—with no rituals or practices to hold to, it’s very easy to go days without even thinking about religion. I may not have succeeded in daily meditation or prayer, but the guilt over missing days at least made me think about religious matters.

(I am, of course, merely inferring the lack of ritual, since I haven’t read the book.  I’m sure Michael or Andrew would have told me.)
My token efforts  this month involved eating too much junk food and being lazy because hey, that’s what I felt like doing.  Other than rationalizing away that can of Coke as a religious duty, I let faith out of my life entirely.

I’m disappointed in myself, but also intrigued how I can’t seem to get past my prejudice toward certain “faiths”.  Michael makes a good case for Satanism as a religion, but going in I didn’t take it seriously and as a result didn’t put any effort into it.  My distaste for the name, the narcissistic theme, and the juvenile melodrama of the Satanic Bible never wavered.  This does not bode well for Scientology.

You may note that the header image went straight from Baha’i to Buddhism, as the lack of enthusiasm extended to this blog.  Sorry about that.  Buddhism looks fit to inspire a lot more activity.

One of the best things about Satanism is the real lack of religious day-to-day ritual, prayer, meditation and what not. Every day I can wake up and go about my life and not have to worry about fasting, any daily prayers, or making time for half an hour of meditation. I don’t have to attend a church, listen to a sermon, or go door-to-door saving people’s souls.

Sure, I have the option of doing rituals. If I get annoyed or frustrated I can perform a destruction ritual to let go of those excessive and unwanted feelings. In a way, it is almost therapeutic, but it is never required. It is never pushed on me as something I must do every week, or every day. I can participate in religious ritual if I so choose, and if I think it is going to help me.

However, this open-endedness of Satanism has made me rather…lazy. I can appreciate why many religions require their adherents to pray or meditate once a day- this keeps the religion alive in people’s minds. Going through the motions of a prayer allows your mind to focus on your religion, to reflect on it and its significance in your life. With Satanism, it is up to me to reflect and meditate on the religion, and admittedly I am not the best at self-motivation.

Although it will be a nice break from the other religions this year, I think it is an overall drawback for Satanism not to have this component. Without these requirements, we are left with people who will know little about their religion. I do not think people would be able to fully understand the whole idea of Satanism if they are left, like I am, to my own devices. Only if they are really passionate about the religion would people fully participate in it, unlike the other religions we have practiced which require a certain amount of daily action. If people don’t feel like they need to set aside time to consider their religion, they may end up blindly following the voices of religious authority, or the actions of their congregation, or accepting principles and rules that conflict with genuine common sense. I think that it is probably a mistake to put that much faith in people.

But to be fair, I think it would be good to remember that in all of the religions I have practiced so far this year, the point has not been to follow the rules precisely, to make sure you do all the proper prayers and rituals. The real point is to have the right attitude, to be a good person no matter what the reasoning behind it.

Many people seem to think that Satanism is not a true religion. People have objected similarly to my choice of Discordianism, and Scientology in the year of faith- always claiming that they are more philosophies, or systems of belief, or blood-sucking cults, rather than real religions. In this post I want to defend the Church of Satan as a true religion, claiming that it has all the necessary components of a religion, and even shedding a few that aren’t so necessary anymore.

(more…)

Satan stands in opposition to all those fake social norms, like being productive and writing posts.

Once again, I am successful in being massively behind the times. April begins our month spent studying and practicing Satanism.
(more…)

While reading A Short Introduction to the Baha’i Faith, I came across a passage that seemed to perfectly summarize the philosophy of Satanism:

Thus human beings can either be turned towards the material world and have their hearts set on the appeasement of their animal nature–the state of being in sin as it is called in Christian terminology–or they can turn their hearts towards God and try to develop their spiritual nature. According to the Bahá’í scriptures, Satan or the Devil is a symbol for the animal side of human nature. It is this animal side that constantly tempts us and keeps us from fulfilling our spiritual potential.

Satanism rejects this dichotomy between the spiritual and the material. All we are, and all that exists, are our desires and animal nature. We have no spiritual potential, only potential has human beings, and we block off part of that potential by wasting time on backwards spiritual hogwash and lost prophets.

Satan is a symbol for the animal side of human nature, because that is what hundreds of years of religion has labeled our natural desires and impulses. We are told that our spiritual well being is more important than that of our carnal impulses, and that we should hedge this part of our beings for a better fulfillment of the self. For as long as there has been religion, man has been denying these needs and the fulfillment of his or her ego.

This is similar to the Discordian approach to life- that somehow, somewhere, we got it into our heads that it was more important to be orderly and predictable than unconstrained. In this religion though, it was not a stuck up Grey Face that got us in this mess, but prudish geezers who promised salvation or enlightenment if we just followed their rules. Any desire or impulse that may take you away from their control, or from emptying your pockets into their coffers, were denied and vilified. Therefore Satan was, and is, the adversary of religious doctrine and dogma, that which you are taught to ignore and surpass for the good of your soul.

Satanism stands as a rejection of “spiritual pipe-dreams” and old biases, a denial of external controls and authority. The Satanist is a man or woman that stands alone, with no need for anyone to tell them who they are or what they need to do. This is a religion that is not afraid to tell you to go out and explore your sexuality, to find all those things that tempt you and partake in them fully. This is the Church that says, “Do not spend your time in preparation for the hereafter, or to dutifully serve a deity that may as well be a reflection of yourself for all of it’s fallibility and human characteristics.”

We are but shadows and dust, no matter what the man on the pulpit tells you. This does not mean that therefore anything goes, but perhaps something more frightening- that you are the author of your own life. You are the force and the will that shape your life and your ultimate fate, and you are the one that should be served in order to make you feel complete and happy.

Thus, Satanists are Gods. We are all our own pieces of ritual and our own focus of worship. We deny any other God, Heaven, Hell, and all the rest- the complete blasphemer’s set. By embracing all that which is denied to other religions, we earn their title of contempt.

And that is why we are Satanists.

I haven’t had the time to update with my final thoughts on the Baha’i Faith, school is once again rearing its delightful head. I assure you it will be long and thoughtful. I hope to conclude with my thoughts on God as well as important bits of philosophy that I took away from the experience, and comment a little on the persecution of the Baha’i Faith.

But for now I have a few links to get things going. The first is an old internet radio show called the Sean Kennedy Show that used to air on RantRadio every Monday night. In one of the first episodes Sean interviews a member of the Church of Satan, the result is I think illuminating and entertaining…but it has been a while since I listened to it.

The Sean Kennedy Show, Episode 9- March 11, 2002 Warning: Totally not work safe.
And this link will point you to the Church of Satan’s official website. Get informed!

Hail Satan!