Sheep in Goats' Clothing

 

Can a Satanist bend their knee to a despot? That’s a silly question; Satanists can do any and everything they want (within the laws of humanity and of nature). Instead, let’s start with a definition and then pose a better question. Let’s call Satanism a murkily-defined set of highly individualistic, antinomian, and (small L) libertarian ethical beliefs and philosophical-spiritual paths that wander in the general direction of rebellion against so-called “divine authority.” Should a pilgrim seeking such progress suborn their will and wit to that of a monarch, guru, or despot, secular or religious?

 To answer this question, we first have to decide whom, exactly, to include in our √(n+1) of Satanists. The deepest single division in Satanism is that between “theistic” and “atheistic” Satanists. I do not care for the language “a/theistic Satanist” to describe this divide, because there’s a much better way to sum up the distinction: there are Satanists (non-theistic, largely materialists) and Satan-worshipers (theistic, usually in a Christian sense, but believe that Satan is either the maligned party in his divine employment dispute or that sadism and mayhem are pursuits in their own right). Richard Ramirez, infamous rapist and murderer known as the “Night Stalker” was a Satan-worshiper. Ricky Kasso the Acid King, was a Satan-worshiper. At the tender age of 17, Ricky stabbed another teen (who had stolen a large quantity of PCP from him) to death while screaming “say you love Satan!”

 

Anton Szandor LaVey, enthroned

Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, was a Satanist, the first of our kind (although he certainly had forerunners in the Romantic and “freethought” movements). Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jarry, founders of the Satanic Temple, are Satanists too. To the best of my knowledge, none of them have ever killed anyone, although if scorn could kill, I think that Greaves would have inadvertently put Arkansas state senator Jason Rapert into the dirt long ago.

 For the purposes of our question regarding obeisance to tyranny, we’ll leave out Satan-worshipers for two reasons. First, because they worship a deity – it just happens to be the most antinomian deity at hand for a person from a Christian background and/or living in an aggressively Christian country. As far as Satanists are concerned, there isn’t a lick of difference between worshiping one deity or another (an oversimplification, but true for the purposes of this post). In one sense, Satan-worshipers have answered the question for us without being asked. They happily bend their knee to the so-called King of Hell. Anti-authoritarianism isn’t baked into Satan-worship the way it is with Satanism.

 

Satan by Harshanand Singh

That “King of Hell*” title, by the way, brings us to the second reason to leave Satan-worshipers out of this specific conversation: Satan-worshipers have something that Satanists of my stripe do not, a thing both advantageous and harmful. They have scriptures. (Un)holy books. Sources. To some extent many view the holy books of Christianity, twisted and from a reverse POV as they are, as a source that can be referenced. This is where distinction leads to further distinction, I might add, because non-theistic Satanists who are members of the Church of Satan also have a canon, i.e. the writings of Anton LaVey and a few other approved authors. (Regrettably, that canon leaves a lot to be desired from the perspective of 2021, especially when it comes to LaVey’s views on sex and gender and his taste for long passages “written” in “Enochian.”)

 I refer to non-theistic Satanisms that are post-Church of Satan in their social, ethical, and political outlook as Reform Satanists. Reform Satanism is, generally, more interested in compassion and community engagement than CoS. The symbolic Satan of Reform Satanism is not necessarily the Satan of the Bible – nor is the Christian Bible or the Torah or any other religious source considered canonical to our beliefs. Here I must separate myself from the Satanic Temple a bit. The Satanic Temple has started to build a canon (just as it is building a religio-organizational hierarchy, a ministry, and other infrastructure of either organization or tyranny – depending on one’s perspective). Even its canon, however, is built of texts (like August Comte’s The Revolt of the Angels or Stephen Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature) that trend toward the rational or artistic, rather than spiritual. Still, they are texts that, in a perfect world, invite interpretation, discourse, and debate, rather than fundamentalist adherence to their literal, word-for-word truth. There are many Christians who view the Bible that way, incidentally, but even the most loosey-goosey, New Age Christian believes in an all-powerful, all-good God, a belief which requires the embrace of that most poisonous of human follies – faith.

 

The Colossus of Nero

So: let’s discuss Reform Satanists and authority. Or, rather, tyranny, which is authority illegitimately derived and/or pushed to abusive extremes, power which answers to nobody but itself. The answer is that obviously a Satanist should be against tyranny. As a non-theistic Satanist, the question I get most often (and which I can assure you other Satanists get) is “if you don’t believe in any deities, why call yourself a SATAN-ist? Why Satan, specifically?”

I’ve answered this question in the form of an obtuse parable involving Batman (yikes), but to break it down in a less weird fashion, Satan is a symbol, and as even the most hardened, take-no-prisoners materialist will tell you, symbols matter. They don’t just matter to the dumb-dumbs in the cheap seats, either. Symbols and the little villages of interlocked symbols we call metaphors undergird our language, our understanding of the way the world works and is structured, and much of how we comprehend, remember, and relay information. You don’t have to be that asshole lobster guy to believe this: just ask Jose Luis Borges, who penned my favorite explanation of why we need symbols and metaphors.

Satan/Lucifer (not necessarily the same being, according to occult philosophers and the Process Church of the Final Judgment) are the ultimate symbols of rebellion. Prometheus and other forebears blazed a trail, true, but it was in second-century apocalyptic Judaism that that archetype found its perfect expression. Early artistic and philosophical interpretations of Satan were no more than mere attempts to explain and encapsulate all “evil;” the rebel/rationalist expressions wouldn’t reach their current cohesion for millennia. Still, there have always been antinomian spiritual paths as well as ones that reject authority and celebrate individualism. The best (if not perfect) history of this entire family of beliefs is Stephen E. Flowers’ masterful Lords of the Left-Hand Path, which I strongly recommend. Reading Flowers, you’ll learn what DNA Satanism shares with Tantra, Yezidism’s Melek Taus, and others.

 

"Satan Arousing the Rebel Angels," by William Blake

If the entirety of a religion’s symbol-system is founded on rebellion against a tyrant, founded in standing boldly before Authority and proudly saying “non serviam,” why on Lucifer’s black beach would you willingly bend your knee to tyranny, religious or secular? Did Satanists break the shackles of faith, irrationality, and subordination to a priesthood, only to willingly don the straitjacket of faith in leadership, irrational groupthink, and subordination to a new priesthood? Obviously not. Thankfully, no non-theistic Satanism has passed the point of no return on its journey in this direction. So far.

 What our inquiry runs up against here is the tension between group identity and individualism. This is a question that is both chewy and thorny, which is why I have bleeding gums and scarred lips. If one is, philosophically speaking, a lone wolf and a free bird (and the eye of the tiger in the heat of the fight), why join a religion or an organization at all? Doesn’t that violate one’s core beliefs – the whole “non serviam” thing? This is a “common sense” (read: very simplistic) question that anarchists are frequently asked. While it oversimplifies things, the question is understandable and worth addressing because, without meaning to, it touches on the issue of pragmatism. With antinomian and individualistic impulses in the “group” so strong, how can or would anarchists ever get things done?

 There are so many brilliant and well-crafted answers to this question that I can’t pick just one. If pressed, I’d say that the principles outlined in Peter Gelderloos’ Consensus are useful in a lot of contexts, and can even be employed in your next miserable work meeting to get shit done efficiently while scaring the pants off of the management class! Both anarchists and Satanists are very practical and quite capable of self-organization to accomplish tasks – if they are given the chance. The argument that self-government, radical democracy, and self-organization “don’t work in the real world” is a front, a fig leaf, something that folks can reach for so they don’t have to examine their real discomfort with anarchism and/or Satanism, which can be summed up in one word: hierarchy.

 

From the marrow of our very specific bone structure to the precious mammalian hair that still grows wild and free on many of us, humans are hominids. Primates. Great apes – well, pretty good apes. There is extensive debate regarding the role of hierarchy in early humans, and on the subject of how egalitarian and anarchistic our hunter-gatherer forebears were or weren’t, but two things seem crystal clear to me. The first is that humans – like many social animals, and in particular our cousins among the apes – feel at home in a strict hierarchy, with roles assigned to individuals and worth (rank in receiving food and/or affection, etc.) assigned by role. And the second is that this is not an ironclad law of “human nature,” and not an inescapable fate. Different forms of non-hierarchical, decentralized living have existed parallel to hierarchies since antiquity.

 Experiments in non-hierarchical organization have flourished in modernity, from utopian religious communities, to communes, to protest camps, to environments that “common sense” would tell you should turn into “Lord of the Flies” – in one case, literally – but do not. That these successful examples of living without a leader have historically been brutally crushed by elites employing police and/or completely ignored most news sources should surprise no one. That is the type of silence and invisibility that only a wealthy ruling elite perched atop a grotesque and teetering hierarchy can buy.

 Now, not all Satanists are anarchists (not even most, I’d wager, although the proportion is probably higher than among any religion other than the Quakers). Many, in fact, are socialists – and one shouldn’t necessarily perceive that as hypocritical. In practice, socialism can be an authoritarian and bureaucratic nightmare, or it can be more community-oriented and so democratic in its approach that it even seeks to democratize the economy. Likewise, Satanists are free to choose their own adventure, as always, and choose their own comfort level with authority. Satanists don’t need to be anarchists to be religiously “pure.”

 

The Paris Commune of 1871

It’s always a bit jarring to remember that nowhere in the Seven Tenets of the Satanic Temple are the principles of anti-authoritarianism or rebellion against tyranny to be found. It does emphasize justice, but justice (by some people’s definition) is quite easily administered within a strict hierarchy. Dishing out “justice” and “law and order” is an essential part of authoritarianism’s branding, in fact. Another oddity in the Tenets; compassion is unimpeachable, but promoting “nobility” in thought and action is a very odd and specific word choice on the Temple’s part. I hate the word nobility. I hate it for its historical connotations as much as the qualities it supposedly identifies, all of which are virtues of a ruling caste (“noble in character, quality, or rank [emphasis mine]”). I’d prefer the Seventh Tenet to say that it tries to encourage “beneficence” in thought and action.

 Scholars from Flowers to Joseph Laycock to Dyrendal, Lewis, and Petersen, authors of The Invention of Satanism,’ have noted that from its inception, Satanism has embraced the ethos of an “outcast elite.” This is one component of Satanism’s informal non-evangelization rule. In The Invention of Satanism, interviews with (pre-TST) Satanists emphasized again and again the appeal of Satanism as “not for everyone,” and a religion for “those who are already [that way].” That’s all well and good, but philosophical elitism all-too-easily becomes social elitism which relies on – of course – hierarchy. Reform Satanism needs to make a deeper, broader commitment to equality, to democracy, and to the leveling of hierarchy. All of the evils I just mentioned – inequality, authoritarianism, and hierarchy – are the same exact tools and tactics of the caustic theocracy and stultifying religions that Satanism supposedly stands against.

 

I try to maintain a sunny demeanor and an upbeat outlook – I have to. Given the state of my health over the last decade**, it would be too easy to succumb to despair, anhedonia, and lethargy otherwise.  Nothing in recent history took the starch out of my metaphorical sails quite like my firsthand experience with organizations – ostensibly anti-authoritarian, ostensibly in favor of equality and of making the world a better place – where I’ve seen what I call “sheep in goats’ clothing.” These folks are well-meaning for the most part. They strongly and publicly identify as rebels and freethinkers. They consider themselves bearers of the light of free and independent inquiry who battle the thickening darkness of religious totalitarianism. That threat is quite real, by the way (although it is only one type of reactionary darkness among the many shadows congealing around us right now).

 These brave little “goats” always seem to need a leader, though – a strong hand to guide them. A shepherd and overseer, if you will, to help them carry their little candles through the valley of darkness. They crave change, but fear being put “on the spot.” They vociferously denounce certain religious authorities while turning a blind eye to the abusive and jackbooted tactics of another. They flock, and within the flock they form a tiny, convoluted new hierarchy to replace the massive, convoluted hierarchy they left behind. They are sheep in goats’ clothing, soft little followers with groupthink where their skepticism ought to be.

 If you’re building a religion, learn from the mistakes of the past. Study theory regarding what works and what doesn’t. Think about meeting structure and decentralization of decision-making. Look into collective decision-making techniques. Level as many hierarchies as you can, and build strong cross-organizational ties between members and with other local entities. Actively try to deemphasize “status” and thus help minimize its importance.

 

Leadership?

All of this is, however, assuming that you want equality and breadth of participation. If what you desire – as our theoretical would-be goat-herd – is power, then use a different strategy. Build hierarchies. Foster cliques. Use information as a reward and a weapon, and parcel it out in as miserly a fashion as possible. Organizational atmosphere (i.e., “how welcoming you are”) is important. One approach will encourage those seekers who are on the path to Satanism to find a happy home where they can learn – because knowledge is the greatest gift. Another type of organizational atmosphere is status-obsessed and discourages questions or dissent. Before long, that type of group will drive out anyone with a halfway decent brain and a handful of questions. Before long, your “goats” will be exactly the lost and wooly little souls that you can dominate.

 As often as I can when referring to my religion, I point out that there is no established “Satanism,” with a pope etc., but rather Satanisms, multiple paths, often overlapping – sometimes diverging – but headed to the same place: self-deification, self-reification, and the pursuit of the flame of inquiry and rebellion. I love Satanism. It has deeply enriched my life (I am particularly thankful to Lilith Starr for her masterful The Happy Satanist). Since my introduction to and embrace of Satanism in 2000, the diversity of Satanisms has increased, and membership in the religion has skyrocketed. The Satanic Temple is largely responsible for that. It is excellent at certain kinds of organization and planning (which can be hierarchy-based or, in an improvement I would encourage, it could work democratically). All told, Satanism is in a better state in 2021 than I could have possibly imagined decades ago.

 But Satanism has some soul-searching to do (ha ha). The development of a ministry is not, on its face, a bad idea, and the people responsible for TST’s ministry program include some of today’s most intelligent, well-read, and interesting thinkers on Satanism. Still, the way the program was rolled out and is run is deeply troubling to someone like me; someone who despises cliques and bristles at hierarchy and social climbing. It was my impression that many people were first drawn to Satanism because they were cast out by cliques and rejected by the flock. As a consequence, many of us left both cliques and flocks behind without regret. Satanism is currently embroiled in more change than ever: that presents both a challenge and an opportunity. A state of flux means that Satanism can change for the better. That means a Satanism that is flat, fluid, democratic, and dedicated to equality and inclusion. The “outcast elite” are – after all – outcasts at least as much as they are “elites.”

 

*: The False Hierarchy of Demons is interesting. The title means “false” in the sense that it is an imitation and satire of the divine hierarchy of the Christian god. This satire angle has always appealed to me. During European medieval carnivals (and in other contexts) open mockery of hierarchy was temporarily allowed, and often involved the crowning of a satirical “king.” The usual descriptions of hell by Christian writers involve chaos – pandemonium, one might say, which would imply that any “hierarchy” was, indeed, satirical and false. All of this is only true in people’s minds – but it is an interesting peek into human psychology and the symbols and archetypes that Satanism thrives on.

 

**: It’s a long story, but the happy ending is that in June of 2021 I was the grateful recipient of a kidney transplant. I will be grateful to my (deceased) donor and to the transplant team at IMC until the day I die.