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A Brief Introduction to Satanism
by
Dark Entropy
If you think that real Satanists actually accept the popular theory that the biblically foretold Apocalypse has anything to do with their very own traditions or culture, then you’re really on the wrong path to Truth. This belief is even less true for modern Satanists… since believing in an “Anti-christ” requires the obvious - the belief that there’s a “Christ” to begin with. If you remove the latter there’s no need for the former to exist.
Satanism has two approaches: the modern, in which Satanism is actually a variation of atheism, and the traditional, in which followers accept that there is a Satan but by no means believe this specific “Satan” is a fallen angel of the entity known worldwide as “Jehovah/God”.
Let me start with the modern approach to Satanism. For the modern Satanist there’s no God, nor is there a Satan. They simply don’t exist - they never existed.
To understand this type of Satanist, a brief history on religion and its machinations is in order:
At the dawn of time, Humanity defined religion as a complementary part of its effort to evolve and become strong. So, the belief in a God, no matter what form or shape, was the worship of a mighty super-being that was necessary for people to keep a strong image of the goals they wanted to achieve in their lives. A “God” was described as more or less the ideal human, created in Humanity’s wishful image. The ideal human was one who could possess or acquire every ability in nature - super-powers, if you will. A God could fly because the ideal human should have been able to fly. A God could travel in space and time because the ideal human should have been able to travel in space and time as well. A God could dive and live deep down in the sea because the ideal human needed be able to live deep down in the sea… A God could do everything “impossible” on behalf of the Human spirit… otherwise there was nothing ideal for which to strive. Today, this is usually thought of as the pagan approach to spiritualism, more or less defined across ethnic religions. Furthermore, in a multi-theistic society, different Gods can have different habits and be all-knowing about the specific part of nature they represent. This is because humans have habits and need to acquire adequate scientific knowledge in order to have a successful life and keep themselves out of trouble. Since humans also understood early on that a human can’t acquire every possible type of knowledge around, because this would be too complicated, they gave to each and every one of their different Gods a specific part of knowledge – or a “specialty”. The ancient Greek God Neptune, for example, was the designated God of the Sea, so he had the ability to work his wonders in that domain, whipping up the waters with fierce winds and then calming it down. Since Greeks were sailors from the very first ages of their civilization, defining such a God was kind of mandatory. Likewise, other people designated other deities to “rule over” what mattered in their lives, dreaming up super-powers for the Gods they ensouled their world with.
Now it’s time to leave these multi-deities behind and dig into the monotheistic approach to religion. Jews, the first monotheistic people on the planet, had to move from country to country to find a land suitable to host them (aka “the Promised Land”). They needed to stay close to their traditions and to keep their population clean from ethnic mixes, because otherwise their people would break up into any number of factions during the migrations, scattering the Jewish people among various lands and territories. If this were to happen the dream of the Promised Land would end unfulfilled. So. they needed to have only one higher ideal of the Jewish people, thus the definition of a single God - Jehovah. This Deity was hostile to other ethnic Gods (“Thou shalt have no other Gods besides me”) because what the Jews really needed during that period of time was to stay glued together, and the only way to do that was to declare all other doctrines and dogmas false while claiming their own was the only true one.
They were somewhat successful in finding an area in which to establish themselves, but not so very successful at keeping it under their control. This was probably because their rather egocentric approach to their God, that of the one ideal human, prevented them from evolving like thinking men and women do. They didn’t create pieces of art; they didn’t study philosophy or sciences. Except for the study of their own holy literature and the temple of Solomon, the Jews had no real signs of culture, and without culture there’s no success in establishment of a people - nor does lack of culture inspire the required leadership needed on the battlefield.
When Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, the Jews had no other choice but to redefine their God according to their current needs. They needed a faith under a God that could be exported to other religious believers in order to gain enough spiritual “room” to find accommodation, as a people on the prowl, in other dominions. This new adaptation came to be the well known approach to Christianity around the world, which was half successful. When Christianity failed to keep the promise of the “accommodating religion” to the Jews, they helped Mohammed to define another clone instead - the Muslim religion. Islam is a direct counterpart to Christianity, even though it was based on the same old Testament, and this was to weaken the Christian faith, which had proven to grow a bit uncontrollable.
Now back to the topic at hand, Satanism. Modern Satanism was originally defined as an alternate way to practice atheism. Satanism started long before Anton LaVey and sprung from a very human need to define a new approach to something other than the Jewish idea of the ideal human - a more balanced way, most preferably based on current scientific doctrines and human psychology. But how to define this as a religion? That’s where Anton LaVey was successful, in defining the spiritual ideologies of this perspective in the Satanic Bible. Instead of worshiping a God, said LaVey, try to find some rituals and worship the very reverse of the God approach – “Satan” – yourself. Call upon Satan and ask for anything you need. See, no evil possessions, no deaths from a divine bolt from the Heavens - nothing bad happens to you. You can wear the “mask of the beast” and still remain the same respectable and balanced person you were before. So? Get yourself some rituals and stop praying and sacrificing your soul to some elusive Savior God. Just be yourself and preserve the common laws needed for free people to co-exist. That’s the only law you need. Then, there’s no obstacle to your own success. After some time of practicing this, a person would probably come to understand that Satanic rituals are useless when handled like a ceremony of traditional faith because actually they are just a way, a forum, to expose your feelings in front of your spirit and liberate yourself from being smacked down by any false guilt. That’s the way of the balanced self-fulfilling atheist Satanist - and that’s all.
You see, there is no Beast. What someone could feasibly celebrate by referring to the number 666, is the liberation from false guilt generated by ancient doctrines that no longer serve any purpose. Nevermind the “end of time” and the supposed Apocalypse. That’s all fairy tales.
Now for the traditional approach to Satanism. Here the Supernatural does exist and it is the basis of the faith. When you call upon an entity, the point of the summons is what you can gain from such a contact. It is most likely that high order spirits don’t need any worship - it is kind of a deprived act for them. Satan as a spirit doesn’t need, or like, to be worshipped, because there’s no reason for it in traditional Satanism. It’s more of a trade of interests that will or will not happen, without having to kiss any ass. Any magick or contact is useful as long it can expand your current scientific horizons.
Now back to our historical approach.
Populations with common ethnic Gods were able to form civilizations, like ancient Greece, Egypt, China, Japan, the Incas, and so on. Their Gods helped them to expand their scientific horizons, such as the fields of astronomy, mathematics, anatomy, literature, thus shaping and establishing their cultures. Compare this to the Jews who, like I said before, had a few sacred texts that formed the Talmud and then they built a temple for their God. Nothing more. There is nothing to push the individual to break new ground in unknown territories. It’s two thousand years after the coming of the supposed Son of the one and only God and still his followers have gained no information about how he constructed the Universe. We are still missing the process, the construction data, the schematics, everything. If Jesus, instead of walking on water, had outlined a few plans on how to construct a proper ship, then many more lives of ancient sailors would have been saved. Instead of just curing people he could have taught the proper way to study medical science, and so on. Nothing of the above happened. Still, we have an “almighty God” who never gave his followers the schematics of the nature, which he had built himself, while the absence of knowledge continues to create various environmental problems all around the planet. Why? Does this sound like the Master Plan at work from an almighty being? Supposedly Yahweh is actually interested in building his “heaven” for the afterlife. Well, why should people have to suffer, be slaughtered and so on, as is described at the Apocalypse, for that “heaven” to be constructed? An almighty being should be able to create this heavenly place himself in no time. So, well, that story “stinks”.
For the traditional Satanist, Yahweh is an entity, deprived by his own mistakes, who’s unable to create the “new heavenly Zion” without sacrificing numerous human lives and slaughtering the Earth. A grey ghost with an insane plan for the salvation of humanity. So, the traditional Satanist has to, apart from expanding his own human horizons, also keep an eye on Yahweh’s plans in order to block the Apocalypse and the inevitable slaughter of the humans. Guess what? Blocking the plans of Yahweh is the work of Satan. So a person of this faith is thus labeled a traditional Satanist. It doesn’t matter if the contacted entity or the Creator(s) of the Universe or whatever (traditional Satanism is not a monotheistic approach), is called Satan or not. Again, the use of the name “Satan” is symbolical. Entities of the Higher Order are not so psychologically challenged that they can take only one true form or shape or respond to only one specific word or incantation while maintaining their uniqueness or nobility of their own majesty. They are way above that. Thus, they can take any form acceptable for the human mind to process. So in case someone needs specific information, and asks for a two horned beast to bring it to him, then usually the often respectful entity which handles the requested data or science may respond to him as a two horned beast. There are no manifestation obstacles in the real world. After all, there’s nothing wrong with a two horned beast; it’s just only an uncommon variation of the aesthetics. The image is a concrete chimera to utilize faith and through which to channel the contact. So, for the traditional Satanist, celebrating 666, is actually to celebrate the deliverance from 666 and the fight against the Apocalypse in general. To a traditional Satanist, 666 represents the deliverance from the need to sacrifice his own life to a God with a twisted agenda.
But that is basically it. 666 itself doesn’t really mean anything. It’s just a number with a somewhat symbolic significance. Actually, Yahweh would never have tried to put a real Satanic number in his own book… that would indeed have been too risky (really).
Well, I suppose I have given you the two major approaches to Satanism and the number 666. Usually you find a mixture of both in the common follower of Satanism, but more or less they won’t be much different from the above description.
Dark Entropy 646
Satanic scientist.
