Curiosities, Vol. 18: Religious Inversions
Plus: the differences between male and female sexuality
Happy Sunday, kittens!
Front of mind today is the response to my most recent piece The Limits of Satanism, in which I detail my expansion beyond the religion of Satanism into a multi-faith existence that embraces a range of traditions.
I knew from the outset that the piece would be unsatisfying for a great many people. Christians salivating for my conversion want me to disavow Romantic Satanism entirely. On the other hand, some Satanists likely chafe against my criticisms of “adolescent Satanism” and my conviction that public acts of reactionary blasphemy are not what our culture currently needs. I anticipated dissatisfaction from most quarters.
Most interesting to me, though, was the response to my account of secular Buddhism as filling a previously unmet need in my life. Several readers voiced befuddlement. Here’s one characteristic message I received:
Buddhism sounds so sterile to me. Saying "I am emptiness" just sounds like depression. I know that's not what you're saying, and also that it's a little rude when no one asked me, but I do think it's important for people to know that we don't all have to think and feel only encouraging things about other people's journeys, though they remain other people's journeys.
I so appreciate this feedback, and I don’t find it rude at all! This commenter is right – we shouldn’t feel obligated to have only positive feelings about other people’s religious journeys, especially one as public as mine.
The concept of “emptiness” will require a thorough unpacking in a later post, but for now, I want to explore a related subject: deep engagement with religious traditions yields curious inversions. My time in Satanism brought this reality home for me, and now I see it everywhere.
When standing on the outside of a tradition, its internal universe is utterly incomprehensible. Religion, from the outside, will always be a black box. It is only when we cross the threshold and step into the river of the tradition that what so confounded us from the outside starts to make sense. Stepping into the river inverts our preconceived notions of reality like Alice passing through the looking glass.
From the outside, Satanism appears to venerate the most vile figure in religious mythology and celebrate lies, destruction, and evil. It is only when one steps into the religious waters of Satanism that one sees the richness of the literary and esoteric traditions that venerate Satan, not as the personification of all evil, but as the heroic unbowed will fighting against insurmountable totalitarianism.
From the outside, Christianity has historically been seen as a hideous death cult that practices cannibalism and fetishizes the most brutal form of torture in the ancient world. How could such macabre fixations have anything to do with love and redemption? But, by stepping into the streams of Christian tradition, previously hidden metaphysics are revealed to us, and we see the connection between drinking Christ’s blood and the redeeming power God’s love.
So, too, with Buddhism. The teachings of No Self and Emptiness are existentially terrifying and, as many readers commented, sound like mental illness. But, after 3 years of daily meditation practices, I experience these teachings as some of the most profound and insightful I have ever known. They are not causes of despair, but catalysts of freedom and transcendence.
This is not to say that all religions that seem destructive from the outside are not, in fact, dangerous to human flourishing. Not all traditions are made equally. I believe that some religious traditions are intrinsically destructive and must be resisted. But I also encourage an open curiosity when it comes to religions that are profoundly different from our own sensibilities. The only way to truly grasp a different worldview is to immerse oneself in it.
This week’s content
- House of Heretics: Adolescent Satanism
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