I confess I knew very little of Satanism. I thought it was a group of people dedicated to worshipping Lucifer as though he were a god… which was stupid to me because God already kicked his ass. What kind of idiots support the guy who lost, exactly? Real bright idea there…
But no, apparently true Satanism (or at least, modern Satanism, aka LeVay Satanism) is instead about self-indulgence, and living in the here and now. In other words, let’s get drunk and have sex because yolo!
Since I was apparently wrong about Satanism before, I decided to pick up an electronic copy of their bible, and flip through it. Within minutes I was frustrated by the ridiculousness of it all.
First of all, it’s written in “olde English”, which is completely unnecessary. This was created back in the fucking 1960s… why is everything written like it was made back in the 1660s?
From the opening introduction, Satanists treat “pretentiousness, hypocrisy, and pomposity with the scorn that it deserves.” Really? Because just about everything I read in this book is pompous and pretentious, which is by extension hypocritical, so by your own admittance, I am thus freely allowed to give this book the scorn it deserves, right dipshits?
Here’s the preface written by “The Black Pope” and founder, Anton LeVey (Edited for brevity)
“This book was written because… all the ‘great works’ on the subject of magic, are nothing more than … fraud. …the would-be student of sorcery winds up stupidly pushing a planchette over a Ouija board, standing inside a pentagram waiting for a demon to present itself, limply tossing I-Ching yarrow stalks like so many stale pretzels… attending seminars guaranteed to flatten his ego — while doing the same to his wallet — and in general making a blithering fool of himself in the eyes of those who KNOW!”
So, in other words, you’re saying other people are fools, because you and your people are the elite. What was that earlier about pomposity? And my oh my, aren’t we clever bringing up the metaphors of “stale pretzels” and using words like “blithering”? You’re an American in 1968. Who the fuck talks like this? Sounds awfully pretentious if you ask me. As though you want me to take you seriously, despite the fact that you’re talking like a monologuing supervillain in a comic book.
So literally in the first paragraph, the book is already everything it despises. Why even bother reading on?
I read the first book… Fire – The Book of Satan. I only read the first one because I didn’t have the patience to read any more bullshit. It’s 5 parts, so let’s dive right in.
Note: It never mentions Christianity by name, but it’s very much assumed that Judeo-Christianity is the religion it’s attacking.
Part 1 starts with Satan giving a giant middle finger to everything Judeo-Christian, short of peeing on the bible and spray painting on churches. Part 2 is a long diatribe about how Judeo-Christianity is a lie. Nearly an entire page to describe in pretentious detail what I just did in one sentence: The holy books of Judeo-Christianity, and those that spread the word, are all not true.
Pomposity and pretentiousness indeed.
Part 3 attempts to strawman the “love one another” sentiment from Christian preachings by creating a false dichotomy. “Should I LOVE my enemy as he kills me then?” Yes, that’s what it’s saying, you morons. That’s totally what it’s saying! Seriously, that’s your big argument? To take a sentiment from Christianity out of context to support your ass-backwards logic?
And yes, it is ass-backwards.
“Hate your enemies with a whole heart, and if a man smite you on one cheek, SMASH him on the other! … He who turns the other cheek is a cowardly dog! …and when he goeth his way, he will possess much additional wisdom to ruminate over. Thus shall you make yourself respected in all the walks of life.”
In other words: if someone’s an asshole to you, then respond by being an even bigger asshole! Never mind the fact that you’re expressing your own lack of basic human compassion, especially as a response to a pitiful challenge to someone else. Enjoy all the respect you’ve just gained from your meaningless pissing match. And drive forth thine enemies! What is this shit? Maybe if you spent more time in the real world instead of watching Conan the Barbarian on repeat, you’d have a stronger grasp of reality!
Part 4 talks about how there is no heaven nor hell, the only thing that matters is the here and now. We feel pleasure, and we feel pain. We feel heaven, we feel hell, all right here on earth. So do everything you’re going to do now! In other words: yolo!
And finally, Part 5 promotes the strong and vilifies the weak, all while subtly saying Judeo-Christians are in that latter category while they themselves are the former.
I almost think this book is supposed to be satirical. Some of it I agree with, but most of it I don’t. I’ll continue on with more passages some other time… because “perhaps I’m not giving it a chance.” But for now, I need to just stop before I reason that it’s totally ok to throw my phone at a random toddler.