Yeah, that's a Bob Dylan song.
This blog post isn't about vintage music, but something personal to me... and might give you a hitherto unglimpsed insight into my psyche, my being.
If our current year culture has proven anything, it's shown us that creating a vacuum and just leaving it open indefinitely doesn't work. If there's an opening, a void for any length of time, it will eventually be filled by something.
For the radical-left, that void has been replaced by their new religion - secular progressivism. When I was much younger, I probably would have thought that would be an improvement to something like Christianity. But now I look fondly on the days when the Christian church, God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit were a vital part of American culture.
As we'll see, Satanism is not the antithesis of Christianity but the other side of that same coin; it's shadow.
What we see before us today is as shallow, vacuous, and silly as what we replaced the time capsule with under the statue of General Robert E. Lee. Here are some of the contents: a rainbow pride flag, empty vial of the covid-19 vaccine, BLM sticker, photograph of a left-leaning political activist, and face mask.
WTF?!? Is that our legacy? Is that going to influence and inspire the youth to become good, responsible people in a functioning society?
I've always been anti-authoritarian, skeptical, questioning, independent, an outsider... determined to make up my own damn mind about what I think. I was born to walk the Left Hand Path.
While in Junior High, I discovered the writings of H.P. Lovecraft and Anton Szandor LaVey. As some of you may know, LaVey founded the Church of Satan and wrote about his life, experiences, and philosophy in such books as The Satanic Bible, The Secret Life of a Satanist, The Devil's Notebook, and others.
LaVey respected and loved life, children, and animals. The pseudo-Satanists in Texas who view abortion as their sacrament aren't practicing real Satanism. Hell, they don't even believe in Satan! To them, Satan is a grift, a cultural-Marxist agenda to take down "the patriarchy" and American family, not unlike BLM.
There's room for all types of belief in the Church of Satan, or there was when LaVey was still alive. They used to call him and his supporters "right-wing" and "fascists" just like the left calls moderate conservatives (such as myself) today. All because we recognize the value of tradition, faith, personal responsibility, and meritocracy... albeit, with a dark side.
To everyday people, Satan might be cartoonishly represented as a red guy with horns, tail, goatee, and trident. But Satan also represents that dark force in nature, as primitive as it is powerful.
Satan symbolizes that alien (eldritch?) spark of divinity that sets us apart from other animals. Our consciousness has more purpose than merely an acute realization of our own suffering - or hedonistic desire for pleasure. By correctly harnessing consciousness, I believe we can become our own God. That doesn't mean we replace God, Satan, or the pantheon of your choice. Rather, we're attempting to create a soul or spiritual vessel that can outlast the death of our material form.
I've read both the Old and New Testament in the bible, and I believe there's plenty of room for interpretation. If you've never studied Esoteric Christianity, the Fourth Way, Gurdjieff, or Ouspensky, then I suggest you look into it. I discovered those subjects during my brief, college-age stint in the Temple of Set, an offshoot of the Church of Satan, and years of research expanded my understanding of both Satanism and Christianity.
What I'm trying to say is there's a fair amount of Venn diagram overlap between LaVeyan Satanism and Christianity. More so, I would say, than Satanism and the far-left's secular progressivism.
Obviously, this is merely an overview. Perhaps I've created more questions than I've given answers. Feel free to ask me here or in an email, if you're curious.
Hail Satan!
VS
p.s. I have such sights to show you, hoss! Where do I begin? I have a new satire blog called Your Dungeon Is Racist. The Kickstarter for Crimson Escalation is winding down. I'm also organizing an old-school RPG convention in July of 2022 called VENGER CON.
God is no respecter of persons. You long for deism because you can't grapple with your own insignificance in a limitless cosmos. Recognize that you are literally stardust contemplating its own awakening in the presence if the collective intelligence.
ReplyDeleteAs a person who had studied "the Arts" many years ago after being told during my upbringing that I was not allowed to look at any of that stuff, when I got older I promptly did and accumulated a massive library that I haven't looked at in at least 10 years. I was always questioning. In the bible belt that's not allowed so I stayed in the proverbial broom closet. I read up on Crowley, Buckland, Regeardie, Waite among many others. I did read up some of the left hand path including ASL's stuff. A little of the Mike A. stuff as well. As long as your not one of those self made Slaytanic cat and dog killers we used to have around here you're alright by me. Almost all of them were unemployed, working at a gas station or some kind of grocery store or retail and trying to score with middle school girls and create a secret evil cult until they go to jail while also "going to take over this area" plans then you're okay by me. One had a bicycle and the rest "needed a ride" all the time. When I asked them why didn't the dark one give them lots of money and at least a car (and one of them why didn't Satan cure his speech impediment) they all got mad at me and sent dark curses. They couldn't ever kick my ass and middle school girls don't normally do violence. Now I was in my late teens to early 20s and these guys were all middle 20s trying not still be cool. You show absolutely no signs of being one of them so like I said, your okay.
ReplyDeleteI have to say, my greatest religious experiences in life were mushrooms trips and that one time I did salvia divinorium. The salvia totally changed things.
DeleteI appreciate your perspective, ironically we walk similar paths even though I am a Christian. I was raised Christian in the 70's and 80's and the "Satanic Panic" was a formative experience of my youth. For a few years I was forbidden to play D&D. This put a huge stumbling block in my faith and challenged me as a child to reconcile what I knew to be true, D&D was just a really fun game not devil worship, with the faith that I was taught by my parents and I really did love. I looked at all the anti-D&D tracts like Dark Dungeons and many others, but I found it ridiculous, I could not as a child [or an adult for that matter] find the correlation between old and new testament warnings and commands against practicing magic, or idolatry with playing a game. Likewise, as a family we've played numerous games of Monopoly, where the goal was to drive everyone else into bankruptcy while becoming rich and taking control of everything. Nothing un-Christian about that! Anyway long story short my parents eventually came around and realized it was foolish and I was able to play D&D again, even played it at a Church youth group. But this whole experience did create in me an anti-authoritarian spirit that asked questions and demanded answers. As a result I'm constantly calling the Church to account. Christians and Jews both claim the title "Children of Israel" The word Israel means struggle. I take that to heart especially as look back on the often bloody history of Christianity and people like Martin Luther, John Calvin, William Tyndale, among others. I have been fighting authoritarianism since childhood and I will likely be fighting to the day I die. Sadly most Christians just seem to embrace it, but Jesus himself said “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions use their authority over them. It must not be this way among you!" [Matthew 20]
ReplyDeleteHaha! Sorry, you brought back a BAD memory. My dad used to insist on family game night for a few years, and he would force us to play Monopoly.( even my mom groaned at the prospect) He always played cuttroat and ALWAYS to win!
DeleteBecause of those experiences, I hate playing boardgames with friends. Because I too am wired to PLAY TO WIN and cant just enjoy myself.
The only good thing to come out of that mindset was when my dad finallylearned to play chess. I was only 12, but we were evenly matched and played for hours. (I would get headaches from concentrating so long) Sadly, those chess matches are about the only happy memories I have of him, and the only time we ever bonded.
Thanks for sharing your story. We were not meant to live as slaves.
Delete@widow That's super sad, dude. I hope my kids have fond memories of our time together when they're older.
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And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
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"Everything is permissible for me"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"--but I will not be mastered by anything.
Hail Satan, Venger!
ReplyDeleteDescribes Hippy BS created in San Francisco around the same time as Kwanzaa, then says actual, traditional Satanism is "Not the real thing." That is so darned funny.
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DeleteWhile I share your distaste for the package of philosophies and beliefs you call secular progressivism, you're off-base on the idea of that shared distaste meaning there's anything substantively similar between Christian and Satanist theology or practice.
ReplyDeleteChristianity, traditionally understood, is about serving Someone greater than oneself and seeking union with God through self-sacrifice, self-denial, and the sacraments.
Satanism is about glorification and ultimately, worship of oneself. Also, the idea that animal sacrifice is barbaric is hardly a traditional view held by pagans, lol. Y'all got that from 2000 years of Christian-influenced moral philosophy.
Anyway - God bless.
A common enemy is substantive.
DeleteIn a superficial way, but you have to remember that our commandment as Christians is first and foremost to pray for and to love our enemies. The definition of "enemy" (in the sense of implying a certain kind of action in response) is thus not quite the same.
DeleteI'd rather see my enemies turned back to the righteous path than destroyed. I assume most Christians would want the same.
DeleteNo doubt the Satanic Temple is pseudo-Satanism—prog activism posing as religion. But so was the Church of Satan—essentially Ayn Randian/Nietzschean atheism posing as religion. It seems bizarre to call your path Satanism if you don’t believe in a being called Satan. LaVey denigrated belief in Satan as “Devil worship”, but that’s like denigrating Christians by calling them “Jesus worshippers” while calling yourself Christian—it makes no sense. Becoming your own god and achieving immortality sound great when you’re 20, but as you get older and you become more aware of limitations, impermanence and death, it starts to look delusional. Anyway, that’s what happened to me.
ReplyDeleteBTW, it’s good to see you posting about these topics; I hope you do more of it.
LaVey's later period was more Ayn Rand + Nietzsche atheism. His early stuff, like The Satanic Bible, is more accepting of the supernatural... viewing Satan as more than a mere symbol.
DeleteThanks, I hope to post more on the topic soon!
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ReplyDeleteI enjoy reading about peoples' journeys such as this. Although I ended up in a far different place than you (though admittedly, many Evangelicals would consider your faith path and mine nearly the same lol), I am happy that you have arrived at the place where you belong.
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