Becoming your own god

Satanism is a choice that an individual makes every moment of their lives, thus to say that Satanism is a state of becoming, one that is happening in an eternal cyclical moment.  If the Satanist one moment performed a ritual declaring their personal Satanism, then made the choice to unquestioningly follow a group or pre-packaged dogma, then they stopped becoming a Satanist.

Satanism is unfortunately full of self-proclaimed leaders who claim ownership of the Left Hand Path or attempt to impose on others their personal interpretation of what Satanism is to them.  Such people are like spiders spinning webs to catch unthinking flies, that they will devour to their own benefit, but to the loss of the deluded slave that was caught in the trap.

One Satanist recently declared they was the leader of Theistic Satanism based on a claim of 10,000 followers of their blog.  Another Satanist declared they was an authority based on a large number of views and followers of their YouTube channel.  Such claims are forms of marketing designed to blind and seduce the individual for the gain of another at the expense of self.

I recently exchanged comment with a self-proclaimed guru who desired to impose their own personal Satanic standards upon everyone else, one who considered harming others should be a Satanic ideal.  Satanists made an effort to break away from restrictive dogma such as Christianity, only to find in the liberated boundaries of Satanism other people desiring to create and impose rules or standards of their own relative truths upon the individual.  When the individual gives up their own standards, beliefs and dreams in exchange for that of an external authority, they give control of their minds to others.  The hidden agenda of anyone seeking to impose standards on others is a form of control, since if all individuals reject their own standards in favour of externally created standards it becomes another form of dogma such as exists with the Roman Catholic Church.

I like the Satanic idea of “self becoming their own god through the manifestation of personal will” which is undermined if the individual places an external authority above themselves in their own mind or life. The path that the Satanist walks is a crooked path, covered on all sides with traps that will seduce and capture, a journey that the individual walks every moment of their life, a series of choices in a becoming of godhood through the manifestation of personal will.  The blind unwary individual can in one moment fall into the abyss of slavery, thus Satanism is a path for the attentive questioning fighter, a path few manage to attain.

Modern Satanism redefines itself

If Satanism was dealing with one simple archetype, for example the Satan of the Jewish Book of Job, the opposer, or adversary, life would be simple.  However, life is complicated, because both Satanist and Christian dumps the Book of Job Satan with other archetypes: Lucifer; Loki; the Serpent in Eden; Enki; Set; Prometheus; European horned archetypes such as Cernunnos and many others.  It is like mixing many coloured paints, which produces totally different colours.  The anarchic process of mixing Satan up with other archetypes has surged with the advent of the internet, even those redefining Satan as a fictional entity called Cthulhu.  

Much to the dismay of some traditional-minded Satanists a number of new manifestations of Satan and Satanism are emerging including the best known version called The Satanic Temple.  When the Satanic Temple revealed its image of Satan for a proposed public statue as a Baphomet surrounded by children, the Church of Satan described the statue as paedophilic, whilst less biased observers considered the statue beautiful, inspired and creative.  

The proposed statue of Satan for the State Capitol in Oklahoma. Copyright of The Satanic Temple.

Why are the children depicted in the statue joyful in the presence of Satan? My personal interpretation is a liberated child is a happy child.  With ruler and religion giving attention to enslaving the minds of children to restrictive and oppressive ideas, it is often the case a miserable repressed child emerges.  Satan since the story of Adam and Eve has been depicted as a liberator of humanity, offering fruit of knowledge, and willing humanity to break free of the chains of slavery.

The Satanic Temple offers an insight that the liberty to express religion under a founding principle of separation of State from religion is threatened by the building of Christian monuments on State property, it reminds the world that Satan is a liberator against tyranny.  Shall the child have the freedom over their own sexuality, minds and beliefs, or must these gifts be taken from them by authoritarian rulers forcing their narrow-minded truths upon everyone else?

Most Satanists know of two Left Hand Path ideas: “do what thou wilt” and “be your own god.” Combined these ideas might become “manifest your will to become your own god,” which the Satanic Temple statue of Satan surrounded by happy children symbolises to me, and appears to be manifesting a new direction that Satanism may move towards.

Satanic war sinks three Satanist forums

Bloated Satanist egos erupted into a full-scale war between three Satanic forums in recent months that has now seen all three forums sunk.  Disaffected Satanists quit or were evicted from the leading Satanist forum, Satanic International Network, after disagreeing with a new direction that its owner was taking it.  The exiles then created their own forum “COD” and then waged a war of trolling, denial of service attacks and hacking against SIN and an allied forum run by Sect of the Horned God.

The Sect of the Horned God forum was the first forum to call it quits at the turn of the new year, consolidating all its internet outlets into one location, closing down its largely inactive and vulnerable forum.  SIN then quit its host after suffering constant problems from trolling and hacking from its opponents against an increasingly moribund site, and is now offline.  A successful denial of service attack and other technical problems has now sunk the COD forum.

Lucien Greaves and Satanic politics

The individual Satanist is unique in their political outlook, no Satanist is of the same viewpoint on politics, it is thus hopeless to get all Satanists to agree one common political accord.  Each individual Satanist manifests their political viewpoint in a different way, some Satanists become activists pursuing their political goals into the media and political spotlight.  Lucien Greaves and the Satanic Temple are political Satanic activists who successfully push their ideas into media publicity stunts that challenge the common held viewpoints of society and its authority figures.

Some Satanists accuse the Satanic Temple of being unSatanic in their publicity campaigns that challenge societies worldviews.  I counter that the Satanic Temple express the Satanic ideal.

Individual manifestation of will

Every Satanist is a unique individual with their own goals, needs and relative truth.  Each individual Satanist manifests their personal will in ways that reflect their own unique personality and abilities.  Lucien Greaves is a creative individual who desires to manifest his personal Satanic will through political activism.  Other Satanists may manifest their personal will in music, or building a successful business.  It is irrelevant how a personal will is manifested, but that the individual Satanist fully does so without regard to what others may think.

The spirit of adversarialism

Satan means opposer or adversary, the Satanist in expressing their personal will crashes like waves of the sea against the limits of conformity and oppression.  Lucien Greaves is an artist, who uses his skills and personal will to create works of marketing genius that capture the media and public attention, forcing a mirror to the mind of society to review its own ignorant slavish ideas.  The USA walks a road to State-sponsored religion by the backdoor with religious statues upon State property, what genius to orchestrate a Satanic statue to reflect back at society the dangerous road it has begun to walk.  Satan in history portrayed as the trickster, one that makes the individual and society face their delusion and ignorance through cunning and clever trick, opening potential for enlightening shifts in viewpoint in the mind of society and individual.

The Individual is authority, and acts on personal agenda

The Church of Satan condemns the Satanic Temple for being unSatanic, but nobody but the individual is the authority on the truth of what is Satanic.  The Church of Satan is moribund, living off the bones of past glories, a fangless dog, irrelevant to the new generations of Satanist, incapable of dealing with the challenges of the modern world.  Only the individual, liberated from the binds of dogma, external authority and tribal thinking is capable enough to move with the changes of the world.  Only the individual is a personal authority over their own Satanism, and though they may claim publicly their deeds are for the common good, knows personally they act for their own personal agenda.

The Satanic delusion of harming others

Many new visitors to Satanism suffer a temporary delusion that being Satanic they must do harm to other people or property.  Some Satanists never grow out of this ignorant idea, often planted into their heads by Christianity and the media, that being Satanic is about killing people and destroying property.

At the heart of the Satanic ideal, regardless of theistic or atheistic viewpoint, is the idea of individualism, and manifesting the innate will of self for personal advancement.  The Satanist casts aside slavery, and advances to riches, power and other individualistic progressions.  There is nothing in the metaphorical Satanic small print of enslaving self to delusional notions of culling people or burning churches down, the churlish delusions of the immature, slave and lowly intelligent.

The confident Satanist is like an experienced martial artist, strong in their ability to defend their personal interests, but avoiding the need of the weak to validate themselves by harming others or property to hide inherent powerlessness.  Instead, the powerful Satanist strives to improve themselves, and manifests the concept of lex talionis, eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth, only when another individual does harm to the Satanist.  The business rival who stole a client of mine this week will know my lex talionis when I start targeting his clients to take them from him.

Left Hand Path Conference being organised

An International LHP Conference is being organised for July 2014 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA open to all individuals of the Left Hand Path.  Further details here.

Envy is for losers

The widespread media attention about the proposal for a Satanic statue at the Oklahoma State Capitol by The Satanic Temple revealed the sad state of internet Satanism, with many internet Satanists showing envy, which in my opinion is a trait of a loser.

There are three ways that a Satanist can make a positive Satanic impact: being an individual; create resources that are useful to new Satanists; creatively challenge the worldviews of society.  The Satanic Temple under the leadership of Lucien Greaves has made it an art form challenging the ideas of society with their activity.

Internet Satanists spend too much of their lives trolling internet forums, rather than expressing action in real world life.  Rather than being envious losers it would benefit internet Satanists achieving results in real life activity than constantly seeking personal validation from other internet losers in forums.

Statue of Satan planned for Oklahoma

Satanic publicity machine the Satanic Temple based in New York have pulled off the most audacious project yet that has caught the attention of worldwide media, horrified Christians and has excited Satanists, with the unveiling of a statue to Satan planned for the State Capitol in Oklahoma.

Statue to Satan planned for the State Capitol in Oklahoma (photo is copyright to Satanic Temple.)

The State of Oklahoma controversially ripped up the rules of separation of religion from State in the USA when they agreed to privately fund the erection of a monument to the ten commandments at the State Capitol.  The monument to the ten commandments is now in place attracting widespread condemnation and litigation.

Satanists have taken the opportunity to design a statue, which those I have spoken to consider is beautiful, as per the image with this blog post.  The Satanic Temple have successfully raised over $20,000 to fund the building of the statue, and now all it needs is an artist to produce the statue and for it to be moved into place to bring Satanism to the people of Oklahoma.

Ten Satanic Values

Nobody but self is an authority in Satanism, thus what I offer as ten values that separate an authentic Satanist from the pseudo-Satanist are personal opinion, my personal values of what it means to be a Satanist.

Satanism is full of charlatans and frauds, all who can derail the individual Satanist from personal empowerment.  The following ten values are useful in flagging up the pseudo-Satanists who can do harm to the individual authentic Satanist.

Over the coming weeks I will deal with each value in turn with its own blog post.  The ten values are:

• Individuality.
• Self sufficiency.
• Courage.
• Intelligence.
• Cunning.
• Observation.
• Pragmatism.
• Ruthlessness.
• Opportunism.
• Action.

Satanic individualism and truth

The individual enjoys choice of a life outlook of individualism or conformity to the group.  The choice the individual makes places them on a point between two outlooks, one of individualism where the self is god in their own life, which is the Left Hand Path, or one where self has been sacrificed and absorbed into a group mind, which is the Right Hand Path.  Both points have their extremes, but there is a boundary that identifies the individual as LHP or RHP.

Satanism is firmly in the LHP where the individuality is aspired to rather than conformity to the group mind.  Unfortunately there is delusion and ignorance amongst some who tag the title “Satanist” to themselves.  These sheep, for this is what they are, rather than choosing individuality drown themselves into membership of groups, unquestionably following self-proclaimed authority figures and follow blindly pre-packaged dogma.  The first hurdle the authentic Satanist must overcome is slavery to external influences, cutting through delusion and ignorance enslaving the self to guru, group and dogma.

Truth is relative, each individual must find their own truth amongst the rubbish heap of opinion and trickery.  Nobody in the LHP has overall authority over truth.  Everything seen, read and heard should be tested and questioned, the self finding their own meaningful patterns from the vast complexity of ideas that infest the human consciousness.  Beware the many traps that infest human society, including Satanism, that seek to entrap the individual so that another benefits at the expense of the self.

It does not matter what truth the individual holds, in reality there are no new ideas, just recycled old ideas packaged as new.  If something someone said makes sense to the individual, then embrace the idea as longs as the self has tested and questioned it.  Read widely, expose the mind to many different ideas, and spin a new personal philosophy from diverse ideas.  By questioning, testing and constantly exposing self to new ideas the self evolves.  In Satanism self has no need to validate themselves to anyone, and those that attack the self, asking self to embrace another’s truth without question do so to benefit themselves at the expense of self.  It does not matter what the self believes, it is a starting point along a long road of personal transformation, but the self must always be the god in their own life, body and mind, remembering the individual is central to Satanism, and all ideas must be tested or questioned before embracing them as a truth that the self can live by.

The moment the individual stops being an individual, and stops questioning ideas, is the moment someone else has become the master of self for their benefit at the expense of self.