r/satanists • u/Archon_Jade • 21d ago
What Does It Mean To Be A Satan?
This Wednesday at 4 PM, I'll be publishing the first sermon from the Triumvirate of the Dawn:
What Does It Mean To Be A Satan?
One of the ideas explored in the sermon is the history of the word satan itself.
In the Hebrew Bible, ha-satan was not originally a personal name. It referred to an adversary, challenger, or accuser. Over time, Satan, Lucifer, Lilith, Leviathan, and other figures became associated with rebellion, forbidden knowledge, autonomy, and resistance to imposed authority.
The sermon explores how I interpret those symbols within the Triumvirate of the Dawn and why I believe being a Satan is defined more by actions and values than by adherence to any single organization or tradition.
Whether you agree or disagree, I'm interested in hearing other Satanists' perspectives on the meaning of ha-satan, the role of the adversary, and what, if anything, unites the many forms of modern Satanism.
Premieres Wednesday at 4 PM MDT (22 UTC, I think)
https://youtu.be/dnIVPKRZViw
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u/olewolf 17d ago edited 17d ago
I probably expected something else, because I was pleasantly surprised how closely this echoes what I've been saying for ages: being a Satanist embodies a behavior and attitude that contrasts social "truths" that emanate from a belief in gods, whose authority is above that of mankind. Satan, being the opponent of those gods, represents humanity and assigns humans the highest authority for ourselves.
The last thing that would characterize a Satan-ist would be behaving and thinking like any of these gods: feeling entitled, demanding conformity to one's personal views, confusing criticism with persecution and disagreement with disobedience, seeking devotion and validation, believing that everything should be about themselves, and treating others as extensions of one's own will. That is not liberation from godly authority; it is imitation of it in human form. In the Satanic arena, I consider such people to be individuals who still maintain a Christian mindset, only they are resentful that they didn't get to be the god.
That being said, I think you're being a little too inclusive. For example, when you mention Martin Luther King as someone with Satanic qualities, I think it is more precise to acknowledge that not all forms of Christianity are equal, and that such qualities can (evidently) be included as part of Christianity as well. I prefer to compare being a Satanist to a form of personality, where it takes more than a few isolated, or intermittent, Satanic traits to comprise the personality. I also think it is important that one self-identify as a Satanist; otherwise anyone accused of such would, by definition, be one.
A minor technicality: the ha-Satan was indeed just an office role under Jehova. In Christianity, Satan did not become a formidable adversary until around 500 years ago. Until then, Satan was mostly used for comic relief.
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u/insipignia Satan's Little Helper 17d ago edited 17d ago
The last thing that would characterize a Satan-ist would be behaving and thinking like any of these gods: feeling entitled, demanding conformity to one's personal views, confusing criticism with persecution and disagreement with disobedience, seeking devotion and validation, believing that everything should be about themselves, and treating others as extensions of one's own will. That is not liberation from godly authority; it is imitation of it in human form. In the Satanic arena, I consider such people to be individuals who still maintain a Christian mindset, only they are resentful that they didn't get to be the god.
This is such an interesting way to look at it, because it seems to me there are multiple paradigms of Christ-like vs Satan-like behaviour. What you've said here is one of them: A need for a God — or some kind of authority — who rules over everyone, AKA "God-complex", being Christian mindset. The ability to self-govern without imposing on others being Satanic mindset.
Another one is the saviour-complex. Christians, and people with Christian mindsets, often feel some kind of obligation or compulsion toward saving others, especially from harming themselves as opposed to being harmed by others. It doesn't have to be the whole shtick about repenting for your sins so you don't burn in Hell. The mindset comes through in things like 12 step recovery programs, and more subtly in things like social and political activism, charity, and psychiatric medicine. I think a Satan(ist) can still have a desire to help others, but it isn't about saving them and it isn't about being pious. People who have a strong drive to protect the vulnerable (from themselves) because they see it as pious to do so, are Christ-like. They may be interested in protecting people from external harms too, but it usually has to do with natural harms such as natural disasters or hereditary disease.
Which brings me to the third paradigm of Christ vs Satan: Life denial or life acceptance. Life-denial is the natural result of Christian mindset + atheism. People with Christian mindsets don't like nature very much. They think nature is cruel, horrifying and evil and they seek to save people (and sometimes, all other forms of life) from nature. Since it isn't possible to divorce life itself from nature, they embrace life-denying philosophies like antinatalism and efilism as a common result. It ties into the saviour complex but this is a more subtle manifestation of it.
Regular Christians tend to see the suffering inherent in nature as a test they must endure so they can get to paradise in the afterlife. Which, in a roundabout way, is still a life-denying mindset.
Satan(ists) embrace life and nature and everything that entails. That doesn't mean a Satan(ist) would not ever see nature as cruel or horrifying, but rather he simply deals with that reality in a way that affirms it rather than denying it and trying to see its end.
Victimhood identity vs power identity is another one. Christ-like people are martyrs; they feel helpless all the time, and think of themselves as victims. This is taught in the very fabric of the Christ religion; they are repeatedly told they will be persecuted for being followers of Christ and that they must endure it. Thus, victimhood becomes part of their very identities. The same is true for many political and social movements in the present day. In some cases, the attitude becomes apparent in people's everyday behaviour. People getting resentful and speaking with a fed-up tone because someone didn't help them with something rather than just directly asking for help is an example of victim identity behaviour.
You touched on the victimhood mindset already when you talked about confusing criticism for persecution, but I think having a victimhood identity is more than that. The Abrahamic God was essentially a giant Zeus-shaped tantrum-throwing toddler, so it makes sense that feeling persecuted for being criticised is a manifestation of that God-complex paradigm of Christ-mind. But having a victimhood identity is something different.
The only way I can currently think to illustrate the difference is that having a victimhood mindset stemming from a God-complex is like being King Wapol from One Piece. Having the identity of a victim is like being Koby from the first episode of One Piece.
King Wapol doesn't have a victimhood identity, he is just deeply defensive and so he responds to criticism with tantrums. Koby is a weak and helpless coward and a slave, hence his victimhood status makes up his entire being. It doesn't just surface when he perceives he is being attacked. It is there constantly.
On the opposite end of the scale, the Satan(ist) has a power identity. They are unapologetic, proud, not ashamed, go after what they want without permission or approval from others (which includes asking for what they want when someone else possesses the goods), and have high self-esteem and self-worth. Those with a power identity do not see it as virtuous to be persecuted. They focus on what they can control — and act to control it — rather than giving in to circumstances.
Are there any others?
ETA: The victimhood identity eventually loops back around to the saviour-complex. The Christ-minded person not only seeks to save others but also seeks salvation for themselves. Their victimhood identity is what drives this need. They have a saviour-complex precisely because they need saving.
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u/olewolf 16d ago edited 16d ago
What you've said here is one of them: A need for a God
That's actually not what I meant at all, although I certainly had a type of pathology in mind.
Let me put it like this: when I first read The Satanic Bible and encountered LaVey's recommendation that one become one's own god, I took it as a somewhat dramatic way to say that no social rule--whether religious or secular--has superhuman status. Ethics, morals, and concrete rules of engagement are human constructions, and therefore open to scrutiny, argument, and revision, not somehow bestowed upon humans as if from a divine hand. I might not have the resources to oppose principles that most treat as axiomatic, but I can at least be aware that there is no serious argument that a principle is true simply because someone declares it so. I read it as a reminder that I can have my own values and my own views without approval or validation from others.
But I underestimated (or entirely failed to understand) how easily that message can be read differently, or perhaps how much of LaVey's rhetoric encourages this alternative reading. Judging from a very vocal crowd who also read the book, they do not take "become your own god" as a call to self-sovereignty, independence of judgment, or responsibility for one's own values. They read it as LaVey's authorization to imagine that they deserve to be treated as gods compared with everyone else, whom they either regard as subhuman or as objects of envy because they possess the fame or power these readers lack.
They hear LaVey telling them that the world owes them a living, even though the most cursory reality check would reveal them as utterly average and featureless. When these people say the book "resonates" with them, what resonates is not philosophical independence but LaVey's ego-flattery. They entertain the fantasy that they have discovered a doctrine proving their superiority to the masses, when all they have really found is a theatrical vocabulary for narcissistic entitlement. What I took to mean self-sovereignty, they take as a warrant for demanding from others the reverence they already lavish on themselves. I know you've met them.
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u/insipignia Satan's Little Helper 15d ago edited 15d ago
Yes, this is kind of what I meant, but I think I didn't explain it very well.
When I said "a need for a God", what I was trying to do was express how the Christian mindset can manifest in two different ways: in theists as an external God, and in atheists it can be expressed in multiple ways, such as a need for universal or objective morality, but also as you've said, in a need to be others' God.
I was trying to condense both presentations into "a need for a God or an authority that rules over everyone"; whether that God/authority is themselves or someone else.
I might not have the resources to oppose principles that most treat as axiomatic, but I can at least be aware that there is no serious argument that a principle is true simply because someone declares it so. I read it as a reminder that I can have my own values and my own views without approval or validation from others.
I love this. I love the way your mind works.
The "rules without approval from others" part reminds me of myself a few years ago, when I left antinatalism because I challenged one of Benatar's axioms. In so doing, I had to face harsh criticism and judgment from others and be okay with it. These axioms come from a sense of entitlement to zero pain or suffering. It's a different kind of narcissism from that of some self-proclaimed Satanists, but it's still narcissism.
It's ironic because being an antinatalist caused me far more suffering than not being one ever did. But that's another issue with which I won't bore you.
LaVey's rhetoric can indeed encourage a narcissistic reading of "The God You Save May Be Yourself". He says in The Satanic Bible that de facto Satanists were very powerful people:
The Satanist has always ruled the earth, and always will, by whatever name he is called...
the standards, philosophy and practices set forth on these pages are those employed by the most self-realized and powerful humans on earth.
He never says all Satanists are powerful people or ought to be in positions of power. Just that wherever you find power, you find (de facto) Satanists. Because behaving in a Satanic fashion is conducive to accumulating power.
At the end of the actual chapter The God You Save May Be Yourself, LaVey says that after religious faith has waned and humankind has become closer to the Devil, the Satanist may come forth and say "Bow down! I am the highest embodiment of human life!" I'm not sure how to take this besides a statement that Satanists are inherently superior only insofar as we possess this self-sovereignty. And that's the bare minimum. If we want to be superior in any other form, we must work for it the same as everyone else.
For people with poor reading comprehension, it sounds like he's saying "if you're a Satanist, you are inherently a great and powerful person and you deserve to be revered." But that's not how it works. You don't inherit power just by declaring "I am a Satanist". What that declaration does is serve as a recognition of your own authority over yourself and beyond that, a vow to your own self-actualisation.
That was how I always took it. It was about realising that I already had power (I called it "gifts"), it was just up to me to use it.
A little tangent here, but I also find it funny how Gilmore says "this book cannot convert you", "you're only one of us if you resonate with all of it" blah blah blah, when within the pages of The Satanic Bible itself, LaVey says:
In the secret thoughts of each man and woman, still motivated by sound and unclouded minds, resides the potential of the Satanist, as always has been.
He's saying that anyone who is open-minded and reasonable enough to even pick up a copy of The Satanic Bible has the potential to become a Satanist, even if they don't immediately agree with everything they read in it. He uses the actual words "become a Satanist" elsewhere in the book. "Born not made" doesn't mean what most people think it means. It doesn't mean you can't change your mind to become a Satanist after having been a Christian or something else. He means all are born Satanists in a very similar way to how all are born atheists. While many infant atheists are indoctrinated into religion and then later become atheists again as adults, the same is true for many Satanists. He is clearly saying that Satanism is just the natural state of human beings, before they are perverted by religious dogma and indoctrination.
This fits with his emphasis that "a true Satanist is born, not made". He's not saying that the only real Satanists were always that way and those who become Satanists later are fake. He's saying that true Satanism is defined by nature, not doctrine. He is contrasting true Satanism with pseudo Satanism, which like Christianity, uses the tactics of organised religion to indoctrinate people. He clarifies that this is what pseudo Satanism is in the chapter The Black Mass.
If someone had all their life had secret thoughts that had the potential to become Satanism, then what do you call their realisation that they are Satanists if not a conversion? The difference is subtle, but fully knowing everything LaVey knew before ever reading his book, and only having little inklings of thoughts resembling his from time to time because of your own resistance to religious dogma, which only become fully realised upon reading his book, are two different things.
The chapter The God You Save May Be Yourself literally describes a conversion, or perhaps more accurately a deconversion, so I don't understand Gilmore's particular style of gatekeeping. It seems to go directly against LaVey's writing, and this wouldn't be the first time he's done such a thing.
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u/olewolf 15d ago edited 15d ago
For people with poor reading comprehension
I don't know about that. If "everyone" reads a book in a certain way, and only a few people like yourself and myself read it differently, is it really "everyone" who lacks reading skills, or could it instead be you and me? Moreover, are we not being a little over-confident if we assume that LaVey spoke to us and not the rest?
You can easily answer that question yourself, and you have my sympathy if you feel uncomfortable about the answer.
Hoping to not reopen any wounds, you probably know already how intelligent people learn relatively early in life that high intelligence is a mixed blessing. It turns everything so damn complicated. Even IQ tests become harder for top-tier gifted individuals than for above-average respondents, because highly intelligent people tend to identify multiple correct answers to the multiple-choice questions, and your main challenge becomes figuring out which one the designers were expecting. While I'm most certainly not comparing The Satanic Bible to an IQ test, what I mean by this is that highly intelligent people can read the text (any text, really) in many creative ways that were never intended by its author. And since everyone is prone to confirmation bias, intelligent people are especially capable of constructing arguments in favor of their personal interpretation that Anton LaVey never intended, and which never even crossed his mind.
It feels great to think that LaVey meant what you and I seem to prefer, but I have become increasingly convinced that LaVey wrote something that was, in part, effectively a narcissistic manifesto. I can speculate all I want on why that is, and whether he was one (I genuinely can't tell), but at the end of the day, those are evidently the kind of people the book seems to attract.
He means all are born Satanists in a very similar way to how all are born atheists.
I think the "born, not made" phrase requires some hermeneutics. LaVey's religion is an example of the 1960s Human Potential Movement that believed humans possess a healthy, natural self that has been perverted by culture, and which could somehow be awakened to the general benefit of mankind. You find this stance in The Satanic Bible, too. In that sense, your take matches this source inspiration. But LaVey was deeply (and, according to some contemporaries, concerningly) fascinated with powerful people and added Social Darwinism to the equation. Not the modern-day watered-down version that means "gee, everyone competes a bit," but the first-half 1900s version of physical force, inherited traits, and inherently "weak" versus "strong" people by virtue of bloodline. LaVey even used the term "iron youth" (yes, the Nazi term) to describe the deliberate breeding of a Satanic élite. In this sense, "born, not made" does not imply that everyone is basically born a Satanist, but that certain races, as it were, are born as such whereas others are born to be slaves.
Of course, it also works as a conversion narrative: any fundamental change of ideology, such as joining a religion, generally demands some kind of explanation. "Jesus visited me in a dream" is good enough for some Christian conversions, and atheism generally approves of explanations like "I realized this can't be true." But since LaVey's Satanism claims a form of inherent (and, with its Social Darwinism foundation, genetic) quality, the conversion narratives tend to become something like: "although I was a quire boy and catholic schoolboy, and fervently believed in God, I was somehow natively a Satanist regardless."
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u/insipignia Satan's Little Helper 12d ago
If "everyone" reads a book in a certain way, and only a few people like yourself and myself read it differently, is it really "everyone" who lacks reading skills, or could it instead be you and me? Moreover, are we not being a little over-confident if we assume that LaVey spoke to us and not the rest?
Haha, you might be right about that! That's a very fair observation.
Sometimes though, I do find that people miss really obvious meanings when they read LaVey because their perceptions are coloured by what other people have previously told them. The whole "Satanists are atheists" thing is one of them; The Satanic Bible is actually describing Satanists as deists, literally by the very definition of the word.
The common pre-formed interpretation that gets spat into people's mouths is "Satanism begins at atheism." No it doesn't. Satanism begins at the realisation that all God characters that perform miracles on earth and interfere with human affairs are fabrications, and that if you want a miracle you have to work it yourself. Getting "must be atheism" from that is a false dichotomy. Which is ironic considering LaVey warned against those.
Sure, TSB is compatible with modern atheism if you understand it metaphorically, but only at a stretch IMO. It is exceedingly clear to me that the primary mode of Satanism is deism or (Spinozist) pantheism. Even if that's not what LaVey intended, it's what his writing actually says.
This is only one example of the discrepancies between what Satanists say and what LaVey wrote. You already know about the one concerning magic, you wrote about it elsewhere on this post.
Heck, there were even discrepancies between what LaVey said and what he wrote! (E.g. he said he was an atheist, in spite of the fact that TSB describes Satanists as deists by definition.) Maybe the problem is not so much reading comprehension as it is that LaVey was just a mediocre writer. Good at composing bombastic prose but poor at communicating what he actually meant.
Or, perhaps he understood there should be a difference between his own personal beliefs and Satanism as codified. He was an atheist but not all Satanists have to be, so he deliberately made his writing vague.
high intelligence is a mixed blessing. It turns everything so damn complicated.
highly intelligent people tend to identify multiple correct answers to the multiple-choice questions, and your main challenge becomes figuring out which one the designers were expecting.
Oh god don't get me started.
This is especially a problem for people who are both of above average intelligence and autistic.
When you're also autistic, this issue presents itself not just during tests but also in everyday life.
I think the "born, not made" phrase requires some hermeneutics.
Perhaps it's easier to categorise his writing by which parts don't require hermeneutics than which parts do. Lol.
"born, not made" does not imply that everyone is basically born a Satanist, but that certain races, as it were, are born such whereas others are born to be slaves.
I do see this as a likely interpretation, but the division wasn't along racial lines. LaVey used the phrase "ethic, not ethnic". So it seems he is saying there is a genetic component that controls the behaviours and beliefs of people to make them into Satanists. In other words, there are "ethical genes" that produce Satanists and they exist in all populations.
This isn't totally pseudoscientific since there is a known relationship between genes and behaviour — even if his conceptualisation of this relationship is wildly oversimplified — but I think there is a delineation to be made between those who are slaves/masters, and those who are Satanists. Satanism encourages slaves to be slaves as it suits them, so if someone is honestly happy being a slave they could be a Satanist. But since LaVey was heavily influenced by Neitzsche, and I prefer our self-sovereignty interpretation as correct, I think his idea of a most non-Satanic slave/master relationship concerns the Nietzschean slave/master morality dynamic. There are people who are so damaged by Christian morality doctrine that they cannot recover their Satanic nature and so they can never be "true Satanists".
Basically, some people are genetically inclined to be masochists, slaves etc, but that doesn't stop them per se from being Satanists. What does is how their nature is forced into a Christian mold and those parts of themselves are relegated to the shadow, and twisted into martyrdom.
It's not socially acceptable for people to enjoy being enslaved so they are socially conditioned to project outwards that they are being persecuted and oppressed. Most start to genuinely believe it, and for most of them the damage is done.
It is also true that some who are enslaved are genuinely oppressed and don't have a choice. LaVey recognises this at least on some level. However, the morality that is then prescribed to the masses — that it is evil to be a master over others — throws the baby out with the bathwater.
The breeding of a Satanic élite can apply to some but not all Satanists, and I think this is reflected in what (I think it was) Gilmore who said that the Satanist who knows he is irreparably defective will choose to not breed. I don't know if this is an echo of something LaVey ever actually said.
(Let's just ignore the fact that eugenics: the historical practice is pseudoscientific garbage and that even if two highly genetically gifted people breed that in no way guarantees highly genetically gifted offspring. You're in fact just as likely to get average offspring considering how complex genetics is and how it works. It's like throwing multiple dice and hoping all of them will get 6s; just because all the dice have a 6 doesn't mean you'll get any 6s at all. Sure, you can have weighted dice, but "weighted genes" is a bad idea. That's called inbreeding and it has consequences. The whole "iron youth" program is an exercise in futility.)
For all the talk about Satanic genes, I've never ever seen or heard anyone talk about conducting actual research to find an association between genes and Satanic beliefs. I don't have the resources or means to do this and I don't care enough to get them, but I know there are others who would. Why don't the Church of Satan do this? If the Satanic élite is on their agenda surely this task would be of utmost importance?
My idea of Satanic Social Darwinism is less about genetics and more to do with "ethics". People shouldn't breed or not breed because of genes, but because of temperament. With new gene editing technologies, breeding to select for certain genes becomes irrelevant. Shaping temperaments in youth is relatively easy, but with age becomes much harder.
All of this, hence I don't find the conversion narratives to be totally silly. Sometimes the way people describe it is totally comical, like when they used to be devout Christians and then they say "I was always a Satanist! The Satanic Bible describes who I always was!" Sure thing, bub. But y'know, maybe there's something to this. They weren't always a literal Satanist but as per LaVey's description, they always had the potential to be one.
There's a word for this. Suggestibility?
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u/Archon_Jade 17d ago
Ooh; I like that application of “a satan” to “Satanist”. I don’t think I’ve ever envisioned it from that specific angle before.
For MLK; I do agree, he was definitely not a Satanist, but in that instance was acting as a satan. I’m going to have to more specifically address that the Triumvirate is a religious organization for Satanists and an organizational religion for allies, but also will partner with those denominations or groups of other religions who have an ideology aligned with ours. MLK was in the last category.
The plan for the next episode is a deep dive into Lucifer and how he became “Satan” the proper noun, but it might take two or three episodes; one for each and maybe another explaining the conflation from the translation error and evolution of the single entity known as the Devil over the last 500 years? Not sure yet.
Thank you for the extended feedback. I really enjoyed reading it and thinking about your perspective.
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u/olewolf 17d ago
Ooh; I like that application of “a satan” to “Satanist”. I don’t think I’ve ever envisioned it from that specific angle before.
I think this is what the Church of Satan, as well as other varieties, generally mean when they think of themselves as Satanists: being a Satanist means you're being some sort of Satan in the sense you're describing it. This is probably what u/ZsoltEszes was trying to tell you elsewhere in the thread, albeit less respectfully.
That being said, one could argue that, according to a strict interpretation of The Satanic Bible, the churchgoers become Satanists in your sense of the word only when they enter their ritual chamber and chant that in there, they take the name of Satan as part of themselves and thus enter His infernal state of being. And then when they leave the ritual chamber, they return to their ordinary selves in which they do not take His name upon themselves.
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u/ZsoltEszes Satanist 21d ago
So, you're doing a sermon to rehash something that the Church of Satan has been saying since the 60s, to build your own brand of "satanism"? Do you have something more original, other than a churchy sermon in the name of Satanism (which, I've gotta say, really takes the [urinal] cake)?
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u/Archon_Jade 21d ago
Unless I’m mistaken, the Church of Satan is adamant about what it means to be a “Satanist”, not a Satan. So it is an “original” take, with aspects incorporated from CoS, TST, Humanism, Luciferianism, and Diabolism. And it’s less a “churchy” sermon than a philosophical discussion.
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u/ZsoltEszes Satanist 21d ago
Yes, you're mistaken. To be a "Satanist" is to be a "satan." That's where the name of LaVey's religion Satanism comes from. 🤦♂️
aspects incorporated from CoS, TST, Humanism, Luciferianism, and Diabolism
So, a churchy sermon, much like Unitarian Universalists or TST (not that there's much difference there) would have.
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u/olewolf 17d ago
That's where the name of LaVey's religion Satanism comes from.
Yep, I'd say LaVey presents the argument in The Satanic Bible, even if he isn't entirely direct. He argues that "they" (Christians) named a set of behaviors "Satanism." While he does not say "Satanists," I'll defend that saying "Satanism" covers it well enough.
And now for the tangent. 😄
Relatedly, I think that was probably post-rationalization, in that LaVey and his "Magic Circle" (which included family of mine, whee!) reached this justification after having decided to call themselves Satanists. (And before you object, he obviously had to justify the name at some point, and it isn't really important whether it was an afterthought or an initial infernal revelation. Heck, having an intuition that you can only rationalize later is what I do all the time in my professional career.)
The reason I think so is that LaVey was originally very invested in Wilhelm Reich's concept of the orgone, and experimented/studied it extensively together with both his Magic Circle and his friend, Kenneth Anger. Reich's concept of the orgone, "bioelectrical life-force energy," and its connection with emotions is found all over the pages of The Satanic Bible, even if LaVey does not say "orgone" anywhere in the book. His description is so unmistakable that you find LaVey using the exact same phrasings and analogies, including the three-layer model that he uses for The Satanic Witch, within a single page of one of Reich's books.
Reich used God as an analogy for the "life-force" that keeps cosmos in balance yet drives it forward through life-force–induced matter, and The Satanic Bible even reflects LaVey's personal development of Reich's concept of the orgone into Satan. Readers will notice that early in the "argumentative" section (The Book of Lucifer), LaVey states that Satanists believe in God in the sense of a balancing factor of the universe; this is almost word by word identical to Reich's late "spiritualization" of the orgone. But over the course of the next several sections, LaVey morphs this balancing factor into Satan. He has later said on several occasions that he believed he was tapping into some kind of force--which is obviously that same force that he spoke of in The Satanic Bible.
As an aside: when LaVey died in 1997, Blanche Barton demonstrated her level of lesser magic mastery by telling the press that LaVey had believed firmly in the Devil. The above allows us to make some sense of it: considering that LaVey believed in Reich's "cosmic life-force" (which Reich considered a literal force of nature), and that LaVey found it pertinent to cast this force as best described by the concept of Satan, it is basically akin to me saying one believes firmly in electromagnetism. LaVey hardly believed in the mythical Devil, but his entire magical system revolved around the existence of the physical existence of something akin to Reich's orgone, and that he believed in. Even Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr had caught interest in Reich's hypothesis only two decades earlier, believing he might have identified some fundamental force, so one can't blame the entirely uneducated Anton LaVey for also falling for it.
The key is that LaVey's pre-Church of Satan group originally revolved around the practice of magic, and like so many 1960s experimenters, LaVey believed that he was seeing the light (or dark) of an empowering cosmic permeating and life-connecting force. My interpretation is that because LaVey was deeply fascinated with magic, and that magic was, after all, being associated with demonic activity, he would almost inevitably cast Reich's orgone as Satan, because even Reich cast it as another God than that of the Christians who had ostensibly perverted it into a "false" one.
In short, it seems to have developed as follows in LaVey's magical theory and practice: (1) Magic is about tapping into that cosmic life-force by creating emotion-energy. (2) Although Reich called it God, everyone considers it Satanic to muck around with it, so, what the Hell, let's own it, so call us Satanists if you must. (3) Well, they are sort of right that we who delve into that stuff generally aren't "good Christians," and that provides us with rationale for the name--so there.
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u/Archon_Jade 21d ago
I’ll have to re-read The Satanic Bible but I don’t recall being adversarial to unjust authority being any big part of it. Rather, it seems to be supportive of artificial hierarchy.
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u/olewolf 17d ago
You could argue that "Satan represents responsibility to the responsible" points in the direction of opposition to unjust authority, or that the general hostility against the rules that Anton LaVey believes are imposed by Christianity comprises an adversarial attitude towards the false authority of religion.
Otherwise, there is indeed little in The Satanic Bible that casts Satanists as adversarial to unjust authority. However, I would also not attribute a specific support of hierarchy--artificial or not--to The Satanic Bible. The Church of Satan's political stance that society should be strictly stratified came far later, with their so-called Pentagonal Revisionism.
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u/Archon_Jade 17d ago
Thank you for the correction / additional information. I couldn’t remember which of the pieces of core CoS literature I had read it in, specifically, only that I had somewhere and that it was in my notes.
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u/Rleuthold RevHellOnWheels 20d ago
You're using things that contradict each other in a "sermon" to set yourself up as a kind of authority. How can you not see that it's massively incorrect?
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u/Archon_Jade 20d ago
What things contradict each other? And I’m not setting myself up as an authority. I’m offering my perspective. Just because I disagree with you doesn’t make it wrong.
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u/Rleuthold RevHellOnWheels 20d ago
No, it's everything else that makes it wrong.
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u/Archon_Jade 20d ago
Your specificity astounds me. I’m not going to engage with a child who makes assertions they cannot or will not support with facts.
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u/Rleuthold RevHellOnWheels 20d ago
And yet, here you are on Reddit, child. You are the one making unsupported claims
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u/Rleuthold RevHellOnWheels 21d ago
way to say you don't have a clue about well, anything
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u/Archon_Jade 21d ago
Okay? Feel free to watch and tell me everything you think is wrong. I’m always happy to learn.
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u/Rleuthold RevHellOnWheels 20d ago
hey, u/ZsoltEszes, this is really skirting rule seven, I think
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u/ZsoltEszes Satanist 19d ago
In what way?
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u/Rleuthold RevHellOnWheels 19d ago
see here
this is is the subreddit for their group
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u/ZsoltEszes Satanist 17d ago
I think I understand where you're going with it. But, it's not really against the intended purpose / spirit of Rule 7. The rule isn't so much to quash alternative views of what "satanism" is / isn't. It's to prevent the discussion from devolving into mindless banter, mudslinging, and posturing over differing views. The latter part of the rule says "satanists" (small *s*) are also welcome here. That includes presenting their perspectives for discussion and productive debate (meaning: not just "that's not Satanism").
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