"If I am a Satanist, I am also a Middle-Earthist, a Buddhist, a Christian, a Stephen Kingist, a pagan, a Dostoyevskyist, and a Shakespearist. All of these stories provide a tapestry of myth that brings meaning to my life." This is the pluralism to which we should all aspire.
That "adolescent Satanist" spirit is exhausting me. Romantic Satanism is very much a counter-reactionary movement, at this moment, that rarely looks inwards at what we positively believe and what that truly means. Instead we are constantly trusting our values outwards like a spear in an effort to protect ourselves from encroaching hostility. Given the rising tide of anti-liberalism and growing authoritarianism this is understandable, but I want more. This constant outward projection leaves no hearth to come home to as every space turns into a war room.
To me, there is a needs to be a conscientious effort to shape our positive values. We need to mature past needing an other to define us. In doing so we create a home community of shared, nuturing values. It opens up space to have more than on facet of being and opportunities to be part of more than one community. It's not healthy for anyone to have their religion as their one outlet.
I honestly think your great project is about establishing healthy boundaries between religion and the rat of society by asking practitioners of all creeds to look inwards and find what is truly unique and valuable about your beliefs and then share that strength with others.
I was never drawn to Satanism because from the outside I mostly saw the reactionary, subversive side and I did think it polarized us further. While I can respect the iconography and message, without belief in something more, I didn't think it stood up to the power of religion. I, long time athiest who was raised Catholic but started reading Sam Harris at 12, am still very much searching for that deeper sense of the divine too. As much as I hate the "god-shaped hole" argument I think it's true to some degree for many of us, human nature yearns for meaning. I'm just beginning to explore secular Buddhism, so hopefully that's grounding for me. Beautiful writing, Stephen!
Thank you for sharing, Clare. I’m right there with you. It’s a relief when other atheists are honest about the “god shaped hole”, much as that argument makes my skin crawl. I hope to see more atheists be publicly honest about the challenges we face.
Speaking of Buddhism, let me know if you’d like a free month of Sam Harris’s Waking Up app. Just hit me up on discord.
Loving this. So much. I took the same path, but it let me to paganism. This is open to many sects and variety. And yet, as a religion, I have to use the “other” checkbox. Well written, friend.
I am so glad for you and your writing and to know I'm not the only one with many similar thoughts. I am still searching too but I think I have truly found my home in my Substack writing community. I am so grateful for Mr Greaves and voices as strong as yours that also help me orient my thoughts and ideas concerning my own spirituality. Thank you so much friend!
So with you on continuing to find our way down this winding path…middle, left, left center…WHATEVER. I think the point is to KEEP GOING!
Also, much like the mindfulness practice itself, noticing when we get distracted, or fall off our path, and then we gently bring ourselves back, reorient.
Thank you for an excellent article. I began left hand path magical practice after a time of studying the via negativa and that dark, rarified transcendence expressed by people like pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite. I was never interested in apotheosis (I would make a terrible god!) or that steely individualism of Satanism. I just wanted to know what was out there, and to see if there was some kind of karma-free state, to ask is it possible to kick myself out of the whole shebang. Transgression as a spiritual practice also interested me. I developed what I called high transgression vs low transgression. I’m now a TST member. As for the 3 am test, that’s so beautifully put. I don’t know of anything grand that gets us through 3am. Just small things, like having to let the cat in
I’m just beginning my deconstruction of my religious upbringing and leaning towards/learning about TST, satanism, esoteric and occult theories. Great article!
Fascinating read. Thank you for sharing this. I dug it, especially this line:
“I still believe that blasphemy has a valuable place in this world. But right now, “fuck you” isn’t a solid foundation for the good life or building a better society.”
When we can uphold apparently contradictory ideas, that’s a kind of wise state worth knowing.
The major sort of problem with modernity could be encompassed in the post Cartesian idea, I think therefore I am and thus I am what I think. I like to say, "I am therefore I think (or can)." I liked what you wrote: "I, the person, stand apart from whatever ideas I hold about the world. Am I the symbols that inspire me? Am I the systems of thought I adhere to? I don’t think so." For me this is a key insight, for as much as what we think and our conceptual apparatus defines us we are more. It is not just mind and body, we have being. If your interested I wrote on this subject from an Eastern Christian perspective, but I think you would find it quite interesting: https://nasmith.substack.com/p/beyond-thought-rediscovering-our?r=32csd0
I appreciated reading this and empathize with your words. I resonate more with the philosophy of Satanism rather than some of the actions of those in charge. Your perspective is very helpful for me.
I really like this. I know all too well the feeling you get at 3:00 A.M. I know exactly that feeling of panic and existential dread. I've looked to meditation and reading Stoicism as a additional philosophy and sort of secular spiritualism to guide me. However, I do like Satanism iconography and philosophy. I mean, Stoicism and Satanism seems at odds with each, and that points to Bapthoment's opposites, as the author points out.
That being said, I feel like the "adolescence Satanism" bit feels disingenuous. I get it. I don't think anything gets accomplished when someone rubs their balls on a grave, but being hyper-focused on the name Samuel Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic ignores the good accomplished in other aspects, such as Grey Faction, ASSC, and even, yes, the SAMAC, which does offer and actual service that people have used.
I don't disagree with the author on most poinits, but the augment seems to me to suffer from a little bit of tunnel vision.
Thanks so much for reading and for your thoughtful response! I agree regarding Stoicism and Satanism. The central image of the Baphomet allows for a flexibility in pairing traditions that seem, on their face, contradictory.
And fair enough re: adolescent Satanism. I appreciate the pushback. It would take quite a bit more ink to explore my reservations with it as a form of public protest, but I also certainly don't want to diminish the good work that TST does, which I have supported from the very beginning. While I stand by my reservations, it is also possible that I am burned out from my time in leadership, which can impact my view of certain things.
I've heard a few people expressing feelings of burnout among leadership is a common refrain. The congregation head of my state seems to be checking out. Probably something the heads need to deal with sooner rather than later.
Yes. Burnout in ministry across many religions is a serious problem. TST leadership is a very intense type of burnout, and it hits a lot of people. It's something that the organization will have to find ways to rectify.
AND you’re a Satanist? So glad I found your work (though not sure why Notes served me such an old article… I guess the algo knows what will grab my attention). I have lots of thoughts!
That chin-out self-identification as a Satanist that is the result of bigoted attribution by others is what lead my wife to become a satanist after we watched “Hail Satan?” mid-pandemic. I’m happy with how TST uses our membership fees generally (while also agreeing that some of the divisive trolling is probably not the route out of our present polycrisis).
I expected you to possibly mention more of the unions of opposites that us Bipolar people encounter in your treatment of Baphomet. My first hand experience with mania/depression, high/low energy, expansion/contraction, belonging/alienation, confidence/doubt, I/we, (etc) were a big part of the reason I asked the occult scholar and noted satanist Mitch Horowitz about Baphomet right near the beginning of the episode when he appeared on my podcast, Nodes in the Net. (https://open.substack.com/pub/creekmasons/p/nitn-60-high-priestess?r=1t12wr&utm_medium=ios)
Another thought. Lucien Greaves made an interesting appearance on the Duncan Trussell Family Hour Podcast. It was funny: he didn’t quite seem prepared for such a warm welcome and such friendly questions, haha. I figured he’s used to the press being on the offensive and has picked up some armor. One point in the chat that I found really telling, though, was when Duncan asked “What would a world in which Satanism grew to become the dominant religion look like?”
Lucien seemed to have never considered it. Eventually he said something along the lines of, “well it never would. That would be a new form of fascism. The Satanic Temple would just have to find a way to rebel against itself.”
I think that speaks to your dissatisfaction with the limits of rebellion as a core principle. Eventually, (hopefully,) we do the differentiation necessary to find ourselves, and then we have to figure out how we’re going to self-actualize. The polytheistic “Middle-Earthist, Buddhist, Christian, Stephen Kingist, pagan, Dostoyevskyist, and Shakespearist” approach is exactly the kind of integration of the most personally resonant elements of the religion buffet that individuation calls for. I dig it and have done something similar (though of course with a different pantheon.)
Long comment! Haha. Anyway.
Overall, I really appreciate what you’ve done with this essay. Towards the end, you expressed some concerns about your affection and honest introspection coming across and I just want to confirm that they certainly did for me.
I re-stacked your excellent article with an admittedly long comment, but thought I'd come over here and share some of it for your readers, as well, because judging by their responses, I think they might find some of the connections I've made interesting.
Anyway, you've written a wonderful article here and I thank you for it.
Okay, quoting from my re-stack:
"There are some very interesting connections between the Satan that this writer is writing about and Saturn as understood by ancient astrologers.
In the article you’ll learn about the character Baphomet, a “sabbatic goat” that is “an occult yin and yang, representing the marriage of light and dark, angelic and demonic, masculine and feminine, up and down. This reconciliation traces al the way back to the Emerald Table of the mythical occult figure Hemes Trismegistus: “as above, so below.”
Now, if you’ve consumed any astrological media, it’s more than likely you’ve heard astrologers repeat “as above, so below” as one of core principles of astrology.
In addition, Baphomet is the main character on the The Devil card in the Major Arcana of the Tarot and this card is usually connected to Capricorn, which is ruled by, you guessed it, Saturn.
Second, I’ve learned in my Hellenistic astrology course that each of the aspects (sextiles, squares, trines and oppositions) are related to the natures of the planets and the opposition is related to Saturn.
(You can see this in the Thema Mundi’s ordering of the Zodiac, which puts Cancer in the 1st House, ruled by the Moon, and the Sun in the 2nd House, ruled by the Sun, and these are both opposed by Saturn in the 7th House in Capricorn and Saturn in the 8th House in Aquarius).
Thus, this writer speaking about how Satanism for him was about the “reconciliation of irreconcilable worldviews and treading the interstitial space between them” feels like very Saturnian work to me.
There’s MUCH more to this, including how Saturn, just like Satan, is scapegoated—-also a word associated with Capricorn. (In my article on "Saturn as a Threshold Guardian," I write that “st” words are Saturnian, thus “scapegoat” fits the bill wonderfully! Plus, again, Basphomet is a goat, Capricorn is a Sea-Goat …)
For those of us who take on the challenge of working with Saturn and perhaps even befriending it, well, there are great treasures to be discovered. However, it can often feel very alienating as most people, especially those drawn to more conservative, mainstream explorations of culture, just don’t understand why we would take such a challenging road.
In the worst cases, this can cause them to turn on us, to scapegoat us, merely because we are different from them and because they are looking to deny their responsibility for their problems and we outsiders make a convenient target of their projections. And meanwhile, they will continue to demonize poor Saturn or, in mainstream religious terms, Satan!
Around and around we go.
--
I'll close by sharing a link to the aforementioned post I wrote about Saturn as a Threshold Guardian. This is a rather fun one where I did kind of a personal essay with lots of photos about a journey I took here in central Japan a few years ago, but it digs into the Saturnian archetype which I see as very much related to what I read here about Satan.
"If I am a Satanist, I am also a Middle-Earthist, a Buddhist, a Christian, a Stephen Kingist, a pagan, a Dostoyevskyist, and a Shakespearist. All of these stories provide a tapestry of myth that brings meaning to my life." This is the pluralism to which we should all aspire.
Agreed!
That "adolescent Satanist" spirit is exhausting me. Romantic Satanism is very much a counter-reactionary movement, at this moment, that rarely looks inwards at what we positively believe and what that truly means. Instead we are constantly trusting our values outwards like a spear in an effort to protect ourselves from encroaching hostility. Given the rising tide of anti-liberalism and growing authoritarianism this is understandable, but I want more. This constant outward projection leaves no hearth to come home to as every space turns into a war room.
To me, there is a needs to be a conscientious effort to shape our positive values. We need to mature past needing an other to define us. In doing so we create a home community of shared, nuturing values. It opens up space to have more than on facet of being and opportunities to be part of more than one community. It's not healthy for anyone to have their religion as their one outlet.
I honestly think your great project is about establishing healthy boundaries between religion and the rat of society by asking practitioners of all creeds to look inwards and find what is truly unique and valuable about your beliefs and then share that strength with others.
Incredibly well said. I agree with every word.
I was never drawn to Satanism because from the outside I mostly saw the reactionary, subversive side and I did think it polarized us further. While I can respect the iconography and message, without belief in something more, I didn't think it stood up to the power of religion. I, long time athiest who was raised Catholic but started reading Sam Harris at 12, am still very much searching for that deeper sense of the divine too. As much as I hate the "god-shaped hole" argument I think it's true to some degree for many of us, human nature yearns for meaning. I'm just beginning to explore secular Buddhism, so hopefully that's grounding for me. Beautiful writing, Stephen!
Thank you for sharing, Clare. I’m right there with you. It’s a relief when other atheists are honest about the “god shaped hole”, much as that argument makes my skin crawl. I hope to see more atheists be publicly honest about the challenges we face.
Speaking of Buddhism, let me know if you’d like a free month of Sam Harris’s Waking Up app. Just hit me up on discord.
Thank you! Will definitely take you up on that once I'm done with my current in-person meditation class
Loving this. So much. I took the same path, but it let me to paganism. This is open to many sects and variety. And yet, as a religion, I have to use the “other” checkbox. Well written, friend.
Thank you for sharing!
I am so glad for you and your writing and to know I'm not the only one with many similar thoughts. I am still searching too but I think I have truly found my home in my Substack writing community. I am so grateful for Mr Greaves and voices as strong as yours that also help me orient my thoughts and ideas concerning my own spirituality. Thank you so much friend!
Thank you for reading, friend 🤘
So with you on continuing to find our way down this winding path…middle, left, left center…WHATEVER. I think the point is to KEEP GOING!
Also, much like the mindfulness practice itself, noticing when we get distracted, or fall off our path, and then we gently bring ourselves back, reorient.
I love you, Stephen, KEEP GOING 🙏🏻❤️🔥🤘🏻
Thank you, friend. Love you too ❤️
Thank you for an excellent article. I began left hand path magical practice after a time of studying the via negativa and that dark, rarified transcendence expressed by people like pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite. I was never interested in apotheosis (I would make a terrible god!) or that steely individualism of Satanism. I just wanted to know what was out there, and to see if there was some kind of karma-free state, to ask is it possible to kick myself out of the whole shebang. Transgression as a spiritual practice also interested me. I developed what I called high transgression vs low transgression. I’m now a TST member. As for the 3 am test, that’s so beautifully put. I don’t know of anything grand that gets us through 3am. Just small things, like having to let the cat in
“Like having to let the cat in.” I love this and it’s so accurate.
Thanks so much for reading and sharing!
I’m just beginning my deconstruction of my religious upbringing and leaning towards/learning about TST, satanism, esoteric and occult theories. Great article!
So glad you found it helpful!
Fascinating read. Thank you for sharing this. I dug it, especially this line:
“I still believe that blasphemy has a valuable place in this world. But right now, “fuck you” isn’t a solid foundation for the good life or building a better society.”
When we can uphold apparently contradictory ideas, that’s a kind of wise state worth knowing.
Thanks so much for reading, and I’m glad it resonated!
As a practicing Christian I liked and learned from
This essay. Thank you !
Thanks so much for reading!
The major sort of problem with modernity could be encompassed in the post Cartesian idea, I think therefore I am and thus I am what I think. I like to say, "I am therefore I think (or can)." I liked what you wrote: "I, the person, stand apart from whatever ideas I hold about the world. Am I the symbols that inspire me? Am I the systems of thought I adhere to? I don’t think so." For me this is a key insight, for as much as what we think and our conceptual apparatus defines us we are more. It is not just mind and body, we have being. If your interested I wrote on this subject from an Eastern Christian perspective, but I think you would find it quite interesting: https://nasmith.substack.com/p/beyond-thought-rediscovering-our?r=32csd0
Thanks so much for sharing! I’ll save your article and read it!
I appreciated reading this and empathize with your words. I resonate more with the philosophy of Satanism rather than some of the actions of those in charge. Your perspective is very helpful for me.
Thanks so much for reading! I’m glad you found the piece helpful!
I really like this. I know all too well the feeling you get at 3:00 A.M. I know exactly that feeling of panic and existential dread. I've looked to meditation and reading Stoicism as a additional philosophy and sort of secular spiritualism to guide me. However, I do like Satanism iconography and philosophy. I mean, Stoicism and Satanism seems at odds with each, and that points to Bapthoment's opposites, as the author points out.
That being said, I feel like the "adolescence Satanism" bit feels disingenuous. I get it. I don't think anything gets accomplished when someone rubs their balls on a grave, but being hyper-focused on the name Samuel Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic ignores the good accomplished in other aspects, such as Grey Faction, ASSC, and even, yes, the SAMAC, which does offer and actual service that people have used.
I don't disagree with the author on most poinits, but the augment seems to me to suffer from a little bit of tunnel vision.
Thanks so much for reading and for your thoughtful response! I agree regarding Stoicism and Satanism. The central image of the Baphomet allows for a flexibility in pairing traditions that seem, on their face, contradictory.
And fair enough re: adolescent Satanism. I appreciate the pushback. It would take quite a bit more ink to explore my reservations with it as a form of public protest, but I also certainly don't want to diminish the good work that TST does, which I have supported from the very beginning. While I stand by my reservations, it is also possible that I am burned out from my time in leadership, which can impact my view of certain things.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
I've heard a few people expressing feelings of burnout among leadership is a common refrain. The congregation head of my state seems to be checking out. Probably something the heads need to deal with sooner rather than later.
Yes. Burnout in ministry across many religions is a serious problem. TST leadership is a very intense type of burnout, and it hits a lot of people. It's something that the organization will have to find ways to rectify.
AND you’re a Satanist? So glad I found your work (though not sure why Notes served me such an old article… I guess the algo knows what will grab my attention). I have lots of thoughts!
That chin-out self-identification as a Satanist that is the result of bigoted attribution by others is what lead my wife to become a satanist after we watched “Hail Satan?” mid-pandemic. I’m happy with how TST uses our membership fees generally (while also agreeing that some of the divisive trolling is probably not the route out of our present polycrisis).
I expected you to possibly mention more of the unions of opposites that us Bipolar people encounter in your treatment of Baphomet. My first hand experience with mania/depression, high/low energy, expansion/contraction, belonging/alienation, confidence/doubt, I/we, (etc) were a big part of the reason I asked the occult scholar and noted satanist Mitch Horowitz about Baphomet right near the beginning of the episode when he appeared on my podcast, Nodes in the Net. (https://open.substack.com/pub/creekmasons/p/nitn-60-high-priestess?r=1t12wr&utm_medium=ios)
Another thought. Lucien Greaves made an interesting appearance on the Duncan Trussell Family Hour Podcast. It was funny: he didn’t quite seem prepared for such a warm welcome and such friendly questions, haha. I figured he’s used to the press being on the offensive and has picked up some armor. One point in the chat that I found really telling, though, was when Duncan asked “What would a world in which Satanism grew to become the dominant religion look like?”
Lucien seemed to have never considered it. Eventually he said something along the lines of, “well it never would. That would be a new form of fascism. The Satanic Temple would just have to find a way to rebel against itself.”
I think that speaks to your dissatisfaction with the limits of rebellion as a core principle. Eventually, (hopefully,) we do the differentiation necessary to find ourselves, and then we have to figure out how we’re going to self-actualize. The polytheistic “Middle-Earthist, Buddhist, Christian, Stephen Kingist, pagan, Dostoyevskyist, and Shakespearist” approach is exactly the kind of integration of the most personally resonant elements of the religion buffet that individuation calls for. I dig it and have done something similar (though of course with a different pantheon.)
Long comment! Haha. Anyway.
Overall, I really appreciate what you’ve done with this essay. Towards the end, you expressed some concerns about your affection and honest introspection coming across and I just want to confirm that they certainly did for me.
I re-stacked your excellent article with an admittedly long comment, but thought I'd come over here and share some of it for your readers, as well, because judging by their responses, I think they might find some of the connections I've made interesting.
Anyway, you've written a wonderful article here and I thank you for it.
Okay, quoting from my re-stack:
"There are some very interesting connections between the Satan that this writer is writing about and Saturn as understood by ancient astrologers.
In the article you’ll learn about the character Baphomet, a “sabbatic goat” that is “an occult yin and yang, representing the marriage of light and dark, angelic and demonic, masculine and feminine, up and down. This reconciliation traces al the way back to the Emerald Table of the mythical occult figure Hemes Trismegistus: “as above, so below.”
Now, if you’ve consumed any astrological media, it’s more than likely you’ve heard astrologers repeat “as above, so below” as one of core principles of astrology.
In addition, Baphomet is the main character on the The Devil card in the Major Arcana of the Tarot and this card is usually connected to Capricorn, which is ruled by, you guessed it, Saturn.
Second, I’ve learned in my Hellenistic astrology course that each of the aspects (sextiles, squares, trines and oppositions) are related to the natures of the planets and the opposition is related to Saturn.
(You can see this in the Thema Mundi’s ordering of the Zodiac, which puts Cancer in the 1st House, ruled by the Moon, and the Sun in the 2nd House, ruled by the Sun, and these are both opposed by Saturn in the 7th House in Capricorn and Saturn in the 8th House in Aquarius).
Thus, this writer speaking about how Satanism for him was about the “reconciliation of irreconcilable worldviews and treading the interstitial space between them” feels like very Saturnian work to me.
There’s MUCH more to this, including how Saturn, just like Satan, is scapegoated—-also a word associated with Capricorn. (In my article on "Saturn as a Threshold Guardian," I write that “st” words are Saturnian, thus “scapegoat” fits the bill wonderfully! Plus, again, Basphomet is a goat, Capricorn is a Sea-Goat …)
For those of us who take on the challenge of working with Saturn and perhaps even befriending it, well, there are great treasures to be discovered. However, it can often feel very alienating as most people, especially those drawn to more conservative, mainstream explorations of culture, just don’t understand why we would take such a challenging road.
In the worst cases, this can cause them to turn on us, to scapegoat us, merely because we are different from them and because they are looking to deny their responsibility for their problems and we outsiders make a convenient target of their projections. And meanwhile, they will continue to demonize poor Saturn or, in mainstream religious terms, Satan!
Around and around we go.
--
I'll close by sharing a link to the aforementioned post I wrote about Saturn as a Threshold Guardian. This is a rather fun one where I did kind of a personal essay with lots of photos about a journey I took here in central Japan a few years ago, but it digs into the Saturnian archetype which I see as very much related to what I read here about Satan.
https://thearchetypallens.substack.com/p/saturn-a-threshold-guardian-that
I’m very grateful for your work; you’ve given me a lot to think about over the past few years!