Around this time last year I came to a realization that I was a Satanist. I can’t think of a time when I wasn’t, or when my innate disillusionment with theistic religion wasn’t coloring my interaction with faith. For a few of you, admitting I’m a Satanist is probably enough for you to stop reading, or to say I’m going to Hell (an odd attack considering that if I believed in it I’d probably be fine with that eternal assignment) or generally avoid me because I’ve crossed some invisible line of decorum.
For everyone else who wants to know what I’m on about, allow me to explain.
There are as many versions of Satanism as there are Satanists in this world. Theistic, non-theistic, etc. No matter the form, virtually all branches of Satanism focus on ideas of personal accountability and empowerment. Knowledge, awareness, and action are defining elements of Satanism, whether or not you believe in a supernatural being. If you’re worried that I’m about to espouse the dark virtue of the beast, know that I fall firmly into the camp of non-theistic Satanists. So any virtue I proclaim is my own.
Of the non-theistic set, two organizations are the most prominent: The Church of Satan and the Satanic Temple, hereinafter referred to as CoS and TST. Cos is older, founded by the infamous Anton LaVey, and TST is quite a bit newer, co-founded by (now equally infamous) spokesman Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jerry. And in the spirit of being opinionated outsiders, neither group is particularly friendly toward the other though this is often more from the perspective of CoS finding TST to be an upstart group co-opting LaVey’s legacy than it is TST antagonizing CoS.
You can’t own the concept of the devil. Not even Christianity can fully lay claim to him but somehow this doesn’t stop the Church of Satan groaning whenever TST is spotted doing anything newsworthy. Since LaVey’s passing, CoS’ prominence has faded (due in part to the winding down of Christian fear mongering that Lavey was a cult leader) and any notable Satanic activity is largely relegated to metal shows and exaggerated theistic portrayals in film.
LaVeyan Satanism lost its leader and a great deal of its edge the further society got from the earliest stages of sexual revolution, leaving in its wake a fair number of middle-aged Libertarians desperate to be taken seriously whilst doing precisely nothing with their organization. Satanism in this regard was dormant, crushed by the Satanic Panic and fragmented by its shift in leadership. It was inevitable really, as much of LaVey’s functional Satanism was tied to his showmanship and style. Without him things sort of coasted, with only nominal activity and supportive literature.
So it’s easy to see why CoS would not welcome any group of Satanists less enamoured with a cult of personality while catching the public eye. Certainly not a group that read LaVey’s heavy focus on Libertarian political theory in the Satanic Bible and rejected the premise. Acting in your self interest is not separate from the needs of society. To proclaim otherwise is uselessly selfish. You achieve nothing being utterly isolationist and that’s the Satanic Temple’s appeal.
Less verbosely, the Satanic Temple is the group that challenges religious displays on public/government property by proposing their statue of Baphomet take residence beside them and who fight to uphold bodily autonomy against theistic control. TST is more than activism, but it’s true that their activism was part of why I’d started trending ever hellward philosophically.
I don’t believe in the devil. I don’t believe in any supernatural power. I appreciate coincidence, patterns, and atmosphere but I find the existence of otherworldly, all-powerful beings improbable. As Stephen Fry said in response to what he would say if confronted by God “bone cancer in children? What is that about? How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault.”
I do believe in the ability of people to do good works and to create an empowering group that upholds ideals Christians often proclaim but do not follow through with. I’ve long believed that practical selfishness is not simply taking as much as you can and to hell with everyone else, but to change how life functions to better benefit yourself beyond financial, immediate gain. True selfishness transcends the immediate and is instilled in who we are. To prolong your life, to protect yourself, the world around you must function accordingly. So actually focusing on your well being is interwoven with society.
No man is an island and all that.
Which is why Satanism is appealing. Virtually every form embraces the ideas of focusing on yourself, of respecting yourself, and acting for yourself. To uphold bodily autonomy you have to protect those rights. To provide quality education for future generations (like your children) you should be aware of how bad and overtly theistic information creeps into education. To live freely you must fight back against oppressive attempts to rewrite the history and existence of diversity.
So to live a rewarding, happy, free existence requires work. And that work, coincidentally, makes it easier for others to live just as freely. Passing convenience along should be the norm, not actively disenfranchising those worse off than you.
The Satanic Temple stands out, particularly in contrast with CoS, in how the seven tenets encourage personal and societal progression. The tenets:
One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
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.
My take on TST’s perspective is we own our bodies and should respect that other people also own their bodies. Because of this, we should strive to learn and grow and to better serve ourselves and our communities. We should hold ourselves accountable and understand why problems and pitfalls occur, taking responsibility for our actions. And most of all, upholding our autonomy means we will inevitably be fighting for the autonomy others — this does not exist in a vacuum.
You don’t need religion to believe these things, but it’s agonizingly apparent that in the current American religious climate we have to state the obvious. There’s no grand plan that makes suffering, injustice, and deliberate acts of violence and villainy acceptable. No spectral power designates you as better or worse than anyone else, only those in power want you to believe it so to more easily rule you. The struggle for justice is eternal, even if we likely are not.
Why invoke Satan then? It’s partially stylistic, Satan is the predesignated outsider and adversary. Lucifer’s fall is representative of a perpetual denial of autonomy, of self-determination. Being created just to be subservient is a wretched existence (as Stephen Fry pointed out above) and no one, not even angels, should be forced to endure it. Satan in this action is emblematic of fighting against injustice, whatever form it takes, and of seeking/obtaining knowledge.
It’s why being “worldly” is an undesirable trait for the pious. Striking out on your own, refusing to accept the status quo because you were raised in it, and generally questioning unreasonable forms of governance and power is the antithesis of many common theistic practices. Rebellion and questioning commonly held beliefs are Satanic virtues but can also lead to a considerable amount of in fighting when a personal interpretation of Satanism collides with another.
On a philosophical front, I find that my notions of justice and infatuation with a romantic depiction of Satan coincide with the Satanic Temple’s tenets. Because of that, I support and want to further their cause. I don’t foresee my opinions on my own existence and disapproval of culturally propagated fealty changing any time soon.
On a personal level, I’ve been toying with stylish rebellion all my life. I was in grade school when I started researching and appreciating various outsiders throughout history, most notably queer people. Part of this was a child desperately seeking some anchor in the past, some explanation for things that adults were either unprepared to discuss or were too squeamish about to provide much assistance. I was drawn (predictably) to Wilde, Byron, Woolf, Poe, Baudelaire, Beardsley, Genet, Lorrain, Huysmans, Waugh, and countless others who embody some aspect of what I was seeking. I jokingly call myself a literary Satanist but that’s exactly what I am. I sought enlightenment in dark and complicated places, in the books adults told me not to read (adults who weren’t my mother anyway) It’s also not lost on me how Catholic many of my favorites ended up being in death… Lets hope I can avoid that gnawing fear of the unknown.
Even now, my affectations are modeled on 19th century romantic and decadent literature. Truthfully, my tastes are evenly split between affectation and a genuine refusal to exist as society requires me to. I have a profound love of literature and its power to inspire. Why not allow it to inspire me, to fuel my quest to learn and experience everything, perhaps even too much? For however much I don’t agree with LaVey’s Libertarian bent, I respect his showmanship. My own is Satanic Dandyism, seduction through knowledge and bearing the weight of it in style.
If you were to discuss my flirtations with the profane with my mother it’s clear that this was my inevitable end. I was predestined to be confrontational and dramatic and I have known no other way of existing. My earliest memories involve foppishly comandering flatbed trailers imagined as galleons while dressed as Captain Hook. I had little hope of falling in line with societal expectations even before coming out as transgender.
I refuse to stand down in the face of cultural oppression despite oppression becoming the norm. Living in the South informs a lot of my focus on participating in a non-theistic religion. Religious order and ritual are codified in Southern existence. Be it backwoods folk magic or evangelical dunk tanks (an actual thing in a Church not far from where I live), religion structures everything.
Churches are polling places. Churches are shelter in case of emergency. Churches are community hubs and through all this, seeds of fear and oppression are planted. Curious children are forced to give up their fantasies, teenagers and young adults are deemed too worldly and threatened with exile if they do not conform. Only narrow interpretations of scripture are seen as viable and day by day they are increasingly focused on how much Jesus wants you to be wealthy and disenfranchise the poor and the invalid.
I want a community that fights back against that. I want a counter culture that provides room for questioning authority, seeking knowledge, and fighting for yourself and others. Atheists do this in varying degrees but there’s a certain communal spark missing. Satanism is easily dismissed as provocative and childish but as positioned by TST it isn’t. It’s not candle-lit orgies and warding off psychic vampires. The Satanic Temple’s tenets lay the groundwork for revitalizing how we structure our communities and I for one long to see that come to pass.
Carving out a little societal protection for people who feel othered, abandoned, and downtrodden that doesn’t require them to give up on their sense of self and nonconformity is possible. I view Satanism as a way to achieve that.
If you’d like to talk to be about these views I’m up for it but I ask you to respect my choices just as I respect yours. I will engage in conversations not angled to “save” or “convert” me. To co-opt that ever-popular evangelical battle cry, “these are my sincerely held beliefs.”
I am a Satanist. It’s not my aim to force anyone down this path but to offer an example of the freedom found in seeking community and embracing otherness. I firmly make the distinction between non-theistic Satanism and outright Atheism because I want to subvert community standards and remake them. Atheism can have these opportunities but it often takes the shape of the Church of Satan’s trend toward complacency.
But I will admit there is a performative quality to Satanism that makes my decadent heart sing, and not just because both TST and CoS claim decadent literature as inspirations. Why not instill your community with a little style and mystery?
And, yes. I acknowledge the work of “good Christians” and “committed atheists” and commend them for their efforts. Neither path is really my speed and their existence doesn’t immediately counteract the harm perpetuated by malicious action and disinterested inaction. If you read this and fall into either of the groups above, I’m not coming for you.