Satanism is a truly ridiculous concept. Satan, a character most famous for his appearances in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, is supposed to be a nasty, horrible, unpleasant individual, a real shit. Why would anybody choose to follow him?
Imagine this. You’re working in a restaurant and some dickhead customer starts getting lippy because there’s mayonnaise on his sandwich. You understand his dilemma, mayonnaise is fucking gross, but he’s being rude with you and acting as if it’s your fault. You can’t speak your mind to him because you need to keep the job, but you determine to remember his face in the hopes that you will someday be able to wreak vengeance on him.
Ok, now fast forward 5 years. You have since become a millionaire and bought a big house on the outskirts of town. One night you are sitting at home, watching a good film and sipping on a glass of fine Beaujolais wine. Ahhhh, what bliss! But hark, there’s a knock at the door. Low and behold, it’s the shithead that complained to you about the mayo in his sandwich. You remember him, but he has no recollection of you; complaining to service workers is a habit of his and he doesn’t keep track. It turns out that he got separated from his friends on a camping trip and he has had to walk 30 miles back to the city alone. He managed to say hydrated by drinking his own piss, but he’s starving and he’s asking if you could spare some food. You tell him that you were about to sit down to dinner and you invite him in. Once he’s sitting at the table, you stroll into the kitchen and return with a jar of Hellmans and two spoons. Bon Appetit, cunt!
I presume that you’ve realised that in the above scenario you’re a Satanist, the shitty customer is Christianity, and the mayonnaise is Satan. Let me clarify; Satan sucks for everyone, but Christianity is so shitty that it’s actually worth debasing yourself by pretending to like mayonnaise in order to defy it. I hope that makes sense; I think it’s a pretty tight analogy.
You might then ask whether Satanists are really worshiping Satan or just pretending to worship him in order to scare/upset Christians. Well, it’s a little of column A, a little of column B. The Satan of Satanism isn’t quite the same Satan that appears in the New Testament; he has been upgraded. To a Satanist, Satan represents freedom rather than evil
Let me clarify; Satanism and Devil worship are not the same thing. To Satanists, Satan is a good guy. There are relatively few people who actually worship the ‘evil’ Satan that appears in the Bible, and those that do are morons. To worship that Satan, you would have to believe the stories about him, but believing the stories about him would mean that your Holy Book would be the same Holy Book as the Christians. This would make you a shitty Christian instead of a Satanist.
So if Satanism is not about the pursuit of evil, what is it? Well, it’s impossible to pin it down at this stage. Most modern forms of Satanism are derivations of LaVeyan Satanism, which is, at its roots, a pragmatic reevaluation of morality. It’s basically Nietzschean philosophy dressed up for Halloween. Labeling this mode of thinking as ‘Satanism’ prevents most people from taking it seriously, but this very repulsion allows Lucifer’s hordes to delude themselves into believing that they are edgy elitists and not just a shower of fedora-goths. (LaVeyan Satanism is atheistic; Satan is thought of as a symbol rather than a deity.)
The really shitty thing about Satanism is that it’s not nearly as cohesive in practice as I’ve so far made it out to be. It’s an absurd, if entertaining concept, and like all ‘religions’, it acts as a magnet for absolute morons. I joined a bunch of ‘Satanic’ discussion groups on facebook (for research purposes), and I have been absolutely horrified with the stupidity of the people posting in those groups. I’m talking serious idiots here; cretins of the lowest order. Most of the people who publicly declare themselves Satanists are cringey teenagers or aging, uneducated slipknot fans. Think of a 40 year old white guy with 2 ball-bearing necklaces, a lip piercing, and a 19 year old girlfriend that he met in a Dairy Queen after the ICP concert; a guy whose facebook profile pic is a moody black-and-white selfie with a superimposed pentagram. The people who want you to know that they’re Satanists are a lowly bunch indeed.
Also, the self-centeredness and focus on power of Satanism make it really attractive to far-right dickheads and racist scumbags. Fuck those people.
Satanism is quite funny, but the term Satanism is used and understood in such drastically different ways that it has become nonsensical and impractical. It means entirely different things to different groups of people, and due to their common levels of ignorance and opposing understandings of the term, these different groups of people are very unlikely to take the time to try to understand each other.
I’m sure there are plenty of people who disagree with what I’ve said here. Let me know what you think. Leave a comment below, email me, or message me on facebook.
Now, get outta here!
Nocturnal Revelries 
I totally hear you on this; I wrote down my similar impressions of the modern Satanists in a recent blog post of my own, “Devil Take the Hindmost.” Satan laughing spreads his wings…
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I’m not a Satanist, I too think the whole thing is pretty absurd to begin with. However, I don’t think that many people who paint “Satan” from the New Testament as an evil character have actually read the book. He’s really only in one story and that’s the temptation in the desert where he tempts Jesus with things that he can’t give. Old Testament Satan is really just the only person that looks at the God character and says “oh really? Let’s test that.”
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I don’t doubt that people who do so haven’t read the book. The majority of Christians haven’t read the book.
I would say that Satan AD is evil by virtue of the fact that he is, by definition, the adversary of God. The God of the New Testament is supposed to be a nice guy, so Satan, being his adversary, should be a nasty guy.
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I have to agree. Just about every self proclaimed Satanist I have ever encountered has been an absolute egotistical asshat and typically stupid and/or mentally unbalanced as well. Unwarranted self importance, arrogance and hubris dialed up to 11. And that’s without the neo-Nazis – the best thing about them is how they embarrass all the other much more fine and upstanding non-Satanist neo-Nazis.
Actual Satanism itself is rather interesting though, especially if you broaden it’s purview to include things like Luciferianism, and the Judeo-Christian Demonolatry of so much of the grimoire tradition.
It also seems to me that much of so called “Traditional” Witchcraft is firmly in this camp, especially where it involves Cain(Qayin?) and Azazel and Lilith and all the various other mischief makers from Genesis, and of course the Watchers and the Nephilim, much expanded upon in the Book of Enoch, add a great deal more to this fascinating mythos.
I mean if the Church has spent centuries demonising your gods and practice and and framing it as if you are the minions of Satan and persecuting you for it, why not just own it and have a little fun at their expense?
A recent guilty pleasure of mine has been the new series, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which is nothing like as awful as you might imagine it, and really has a well researched an amusing take on Satanic Witchcraft. But I digress..
As for LaVey, by far his most entertaining work is not the Satanic Bible, which is just derivative hack work, but The Satanic Witch which has very little to do with occult witchcraft, and a great deal more to do with his own personal proclivities. Well worth a look if you have the time.
And Temple Theology is a pretty interesting rabbit hole that I have only recently started exploring – Margaret Barker is a serious theologian who really knows her stuff and so much of it looks to be rooted in all this business, Solomon’s Temple, fallen angels, Enoch etc. Fascinating.
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I’ve been planning to The Satanic Witch for a while now. I have been thinking of waiting until I get a copy of The Satanic Warlock by Robert Johnson to pair them, but I really don’t want to pay for the latter and give money to the author. Maybe I’ll just read LaVey’s book for now.
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I’ve not come across the Johnson book before. I don’t really have much of an attention span for Satanism these days. I’d say The Satanic Witch is where LaVey’s humour shines through the most though. I need to pick up another physical copy really.
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Satanic Warlock, as far as I understand, is a pick-up manual for fedora goths.
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Hm, that Satanic Warlock sounds like just another pickup artist manual with a Satanic gloss. I suppose there is a chance it might be good and well written, but I’m not really very optimistic.
The Church of Satan was always a cash cow, but it was very much LaVey’s cash cow, and without his antics, what’s the point? To truly complement The Satanic Witch surely it should have been written by a woman?
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Yes, great minds think alike. You nailed it. It’s looks absolutely terrible.
Tips fedora
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