One of the recurring but still bogus arguments I see from pseudo-Satanists is that any description of Satanism is merely a "personal interpretation" to which they have some inherent right, and that to brand their description as inaccurate is simply "gatekeeping", which itself is implied to be inherently bad and no different than "religious fundamentalism". This is all simply solipsistic bullshit.
Their argument essentially rests on the false dichotomy that the only two options are "this ideology can mean anything I want" or "this ideology is a set of rigid rules that deny my freedoms". This assumption, in turn, seems to he based on falsely equating structure with conformity. Satanism naturally attracts non-conformists, especially those who understandably have a disgust for traditional "religion" after having been subjected to it. But ironically, some of them still seem to be letting that past indoctrination define the whole concept of working-within-framework for them.
Another related fallacy is the notion that if something is "open to interpretation", or doesn't have any one definitively correct description, then there are no wrong answers. This brings me to the picture attached here.
Recently, a certain pseudo-Satanist, who has his own new self-declared "denomination" of Satanism, argued that my declarations about Satanism were merely my "perspective". Also, that unlike his own equally valid "perspective", I wrongfully see mine "as a universal perspective that everyone should adopt or else they are simply incorrect." Also included was the implication that the existence of criminal devil worshipers taking on the label of "Satanist" is proof that "gatekeeping doesn't work".
So I presented the following picture to him. These are four movie descriptions I copied from a website. I told him they were all attempted descriptions of the same 1981 adventure film. They're all worded differently, so it's safe to say there was "room for interpretation". However, I asserted that the 4th "interpretation" is wrong. It certainly describes a movie, but not the same movie the other 3 all describe. I asked him if he agrees, or if he thinks my position is "authoritarian", and a pointless "perspective" for me to maintain if I wish for other people to know what this movie is really about. I haven't gotten an answer yet.
Recently, Reverend Jared Mammon of the Church of Satan was interviewed on a podcast whose host tried to sneak in some post-production rebuttals. Satansplain invited Jared to share a listen and his responses.
Note: This commentary episode was a video recording, so it won't necessarily be available through all the usual platforms where you can find Satansplain episodes.
A look back at infamous Church of Satan High Mass, held on 6/6/06. Hear shared memories of that night, related events, and the more general nature of actual Satanic gatherings.
https://satansplain.com/episodes/satansplain-118-reflecting-on-6-6-06-church-of-satan-high-mass/
Here's a March, 1970 article on the Church of Satan, which I made the effort to put in text form. Despite the claims of some pseudo-Satanists, LaVey does not say anything about Satanism being a "conservative movement" or similar anywhere in the article.
As mentioned in the 3-part "No, Dummy, It’s Not Like Catholics Vs. Protestants" episode series of Satansplain, there have been countless pseudo-Satanic groups over the years, quite often with names in the form of "[House of worship] of [evil deity]". I'm sure I talked about the typical sort of person who feels the need to make these pointless things and why. Well, I'd like to share an exchange I had with somebody who messaged me recently.
Hi I am founder of the Mosque of Satan and have recently got round to reading your Satanic Bible (after about 10 yrs since first downloading it): in order to compare any of our differences or similarities.
My particular interest was in the language used for the Enochian Keys - since in our Mosque of Satan we have what I have since come to believe may actually be the Atlantean language. Whether it actually is or Not is irrelevant, nonetheless I have gone through step-by-step in my most recent Esoteric-Themed Podcast on YouTube [uploaded in 2022]; exactly how I arrived at each letter or syllable (transposing 2 chakras down via use of chakra vowel-sounds and consonants, in order to reach the feminine inversion [of originally masculine Recitation]).
However No such explanation is given with your Enochian Keys.
Are we really expected to believe that someone heard voices, then jotted down what these revealed ?
(By the way I am recent a subscriber to your 'Satansplain' channel)
Was there enough here to make me roll me eyes? Absolutely. But tried giving a response more along the polite lines.
Hello Devi,
I've never heard of the YouTube channel "Mosque of Satan", and can't seem to find it or any info on it.
Anyway, there is no authorized electronic version of The Satanic Bible (the foundational text of Satanism), so whatever version you "downloaded" a decade ago is an illegal bootleg. So I don't know if it's an accurate copy or says something the book doesn't actually say. You can read more about that in my essay here: https://churchofsatan.com/free-satanic-bible-is-unsatanic/
As for somebody "hearing voices and jotting things down", well that sounds like what practically any mystic or founder of any theistic religion has done. Satanism is a non-theistic religion, and as a Satanist I know that notions of entities like demons or gods are fictional creations of humans. I believe the same about "Atlanteans", since there is no real evidence of a place called "Atlantis". Regardless, as The Satanic Bible explicitly states in its introduction to the keys, the Keys do trace back to what was published by John Dee and Edward Kelley, which went through translations by different groups over the years. As The Satanic Bible states, what is presented is "an archaic but Satanically correct unvarnishing of the translation employed by the Order of the Golden Dawn in the late Nineteenth Century". So, LaVey took what the Golden Dawn had used then, and offers a more Satanically moving translation that better works within the psychodramatic context of Satanic ritual. Likewise, "The barbaric tonal qualities of this language give it a truly magical effect which cannot be described."
As stated earlier in The Satanic Bible, regarding the esoteric nature of the original Catholic mass in Latin, and how its English translation removed that esoteric quality to it, "It is much simpler to obtain an emotional reaction using words and phrases that cannot be understood than it is with statements which even the simplest mind will question when hearing them in an understandable language." Thus I see no reason why a Satanist would need some sort of letter-by-letter translation of Enochian.
LaVey also points out in the following essay, "I find most annoying the person who demands a word-for-word translation of the Keys, not realizing they are virtually like Pigeon English in their lack of grammatical nuance and literary style. If they were to be translated literally, you may be assured that the chanter would sound most inarticulate!"
https://churchofsatan.com/enochian-pronunciation-guide/
Here was the reply I got back:
I recall downloading it from the actual Church of Satan website !
But my 'Mosque of Satan' is Not traceable via Google search for some reason, despite that 2022 podcast actually being CALLED 'Mosque of Satan' (since having changed it to 'Nejraïg Of Satan' to avoid people of a low intelligence clicking on it). Here's a direct link to that most recent podcast, by the way:
... a video on my channel, the channel of which would have been accessible via link on [this]; my Facebk profile. (Also having 'Satanic-Themed' playlist among channel sections on my homepage).
But after sending my initial message earlier on, I was reminded of the Roman Catholics having taught the prophet Muhammad [H.A.E] techniques for the invoking of Divine Revelation - and similarly, our friend John Dee (undoubtedly a Freemason or something); possibly having access to similar such techniques.
But I far from doubt in the power of these keys - my particular interest being Key 7 (despite having similar Satanic 'Zikhr' techniques of our own)
At this point, I know I could have taken the harsh road. It's not like Satanism is ecumenical. Alas, I decided to just correct the more obvious mistake. I also figured, "Well, Satanism certainly doesn't have a monopoly on the Enochian Keys. If some mystic likes the Enochian keys for some mystic reasons, so be it." So here was my reply:
The official Church of Satan website has never made The Satanic Bible available for a free download. As I explained in the article, there are very good reasons why we'd never do that. Maybe you got it from fake site claiming to be the COS; those things show up from time to time.
Anyway, glad to hear that you enjoy the Keys. I use the ones from The Satanic Bible, and I do find the Enochian sound very moving.
I thought that maybe this pseudo-Satanist might then be off on their merry way. Nah. The onslaught of passive-aggressive, solipsistic lunacy came next.
I've put the stupidest part in boldface.
The date I downloaded was August 2015 (with your memo being dated 2014).
But I was Not asking for a word-by-word definition [with the Enochian Keys]; since a translation has already been included, which is sufficient. What I was asking was the truth on how each letter & syllable was arrived at.
And have since learned via further research that the writers of these keys may have been attempting to decipher the then-thought-to be-lost Book of Enoch (which as we know today, can be found preserved in the Ethiopian Orthodox): what seems to be a Judaic take on the Book of Revelations.
Could it therefore be that your organisation is really Judaic and only posing as Satanic for purposes of deception ?
Or are your people merely comfortable operating around Jews (about as comfortable as I would feel operating around Muslims or Rastas): perhaps due to some Judaic ancestry ?
I personally find Jews rather unsettling: Judaism being deemed first of the patriarchal religions which took over from the Goddess Matrilinear in 2600BCE for the purposes of inverting World view at the time, towards the patriarchal.
Jah / Yah also deemed as 'fallen' under Satanism; us also going by the maxim / adage "the fallen always wins" !
Which leads me to the point of a major difference that seems to exist between us: ie. your organisation seeming to portray Satan in the masculine !
(Tho again, this could also be deception).
But the truth is that all religions began in the East and the origin of the word 'Satan' is pre-vedic term for Shakti: having been derived from vowel-sound and consonant of 6th main chakra [the most potently feminine chakra].
Moreover in Islam; when someone has been deemed or labelled 'Satanic': this usually implies that that individual displays traits or attributes which are feminine.
I therefore conclude that in proper Satanism we have sworn allegiance to the Goddess Lucifer Satana जीख्रूङ्गेय् ईएय्खेयेय्शेय् [Most High Most Exalted]; Goddess Of Life And True Creatrix Of The Entire Universe (via the same pledge / initiation given under my Satanic Themed playlist)
And then I get another message when I thought it couldn't get any more ridiculous:
By the way, only Islam can have 'Satan' as fallen - a weak point for the other two main religions (who don't know the name of their own fallen) !
But I tell you that for Christians it is 'Allah' (derived from vowel-sound and consonant of the most powerfully male chakra)
And in your organisation's portrayal of 'Satan' as masculine, perhaps indicating that if Not Jews; then you are perhaps Christians [?]
With so much profound ignorance and stupidity here, it's hard to know where to begin replying. Let's break each part down one at a time:
"The date I downloaded was August 2015 (with your memo being dated 2014)."
Of course, the date he illegally downloaded The Satanic Bible and the date of my article doesn’t change the fact that he still illegally downloaded it, never mind the fact he's basing his beliefs on something which Satanism clearly isn't. But, more on that later.
"What I was asking was the truth on how each letter & syllable was arrived at."
I have no idea what sort of process Dee & Kelley may have used to construct the Enochian. As a Satanist, I don't see why I would care. The keys’ occult mystique gives them a certain novelty, which combined with their tonal quality, and their themes varied and vague enough to cover a variety of different ritual themes, simply make them good for the psychodrama of Satanic ritual. I don't have a problem with people who are curious and want to pursue more about their origins, but I don't see it as applicable to Satanism.
"Could it therefore be that your organisation is really Judaic and only posing as Satanic for purposes of deception ?"
This question is more loaded than Mel Gibson at a keg party. It's hard to know where to begin. Granted, retarded antisemites like Devi show up to troll the Church of Satan all the time, though I never saw somebody do it in such an embarrassingly disconnected and passive-aggressive way.
The short answer to the question is, of course, "No". Satanism is Satanism, and not Judaism, which is a fundamentally different religion. One has to be profoundly ignorant to not see this.
For the longer answer, let's try to logically break down the underlying premises and conclusions built into this answer:
And now let's examine them:
So to recap:
"Or are your people merely comfortable operating around Jews (about as comfortable as I would feel operating around Muslims or Rastas): perhaps due to some Judaic ancestry ?"
What does “comfortable operating around” really mean here? Satanism is not an evangelical religion, and most Satanists are fine with keeping their religion private. The fact that a Jew is less likely to fly off the handle upon hearing the word “Satanist” than a Christian might is irrelevant. Satanists go about their day "operating around" non-Satanists all the time.
As for “Judaic ancestry”, this doesn't make any sense either. First, as already shown, one would have to be profoundly ignorant to think that Satanism has theological roots in Judaism. A simple look at the Old Testament and The Satanic Bible show that the two religions (Satanism and Judaism) are fundamentally incompatible. If by “ancestry” Devi means Jewish ethnicity, then the question makes even less sense. An overwhelming number of members of the Church of Satan, just like an overwhelming number of people in the world in general, have no Jewish ethnicity. Ethnicity has nothing to do with whether two religions are compatible anyway.
"I personally find Jews rather unsettling:”
I have to wonder if Devi has ever met any Jews in person. I find that people desperate to link us to Jews have typically not. I also get the impression that Devi is from the UK and seems particularly keen on being friendly with Muslims (even though Islam is just as antithetical to Satanism as Judaism or Christianity is). Maybe the antisemitism is in line with that.
“Judaism being deemed first of the patriarchal religions which took over from the Goddess Matrilinear in 2600BCE for the purposes of inverting World view at the time, towards the patriarchal.”
Judaism was obviously the first of the three Abrahamic religions, but I'm not a feminist and thus don't view the world in terms of “patriarchy”. Even so, some feminists believe the Greek and Roman pagan religions were "patriarchal".
“Which leads me to the point of a major difference that seems to exist between us: ie. your organisation seeming to portray Satan in the masculine !”
This is another stupid line which needs some unpacking. First of all, this sort of solipsism we see with some pseudo-Satanists is off the charts, particularly from people who 1) don't really bother to learn what Satanism actually is, 2) somehow feel the need to create a new "Satanic organization", and 3) then approach us as if they're somehow equal in stature to the Church of Satan and ready for some sort of ecumenical discussion.
The Church of Satan was the first in history to establish an actual codified religion calling itself Satanism. The major difference between Devi and myself is that I am a Satanist, whereas Devi seems some mystic with more than one screw loose. Regardless, "Satan" in the zeitgeist is typically a male character, and we may often metaphorically refer to Satan as such. But to point once again to The Infernal Names (which are in the book that Devi illegally downloaded but never got around to reading until after calling some social media content "The Mosque of Satan") incorporate both masculine and feminine portrayals. Never mind the fact that a naked woman serves as the altar for Satanic group rituals.
“(Tho again, this could also be deception).”
No, it's Devi jumping to erroneous conclusions based on false premises again.
“But the truth is that all religions began in the East”
This is not really true, either. Cultures all over the world ended up developing some kind of religion or another. Religion is not limited to the Abrahamic ones.
“and the origin of the word 'Satan' is pre-vedic term for Shakti:”
This is another false bit of trivia. The word "Satan" comes from Hebrew and means “adversary”. Hebrew is an Afro-Asiatic language whereas Sanskrit is Indo-European. So despite sharing some superficial consonant sounds, there is no evidence that the two words share the same etymological origins.
“Moreover in Islam; when someone has been deemed or labelled 'Satanic': this usually implies that that individual displays traits or attributes which are feminine.”
Yes, Muslims say lots of stupid shit. There have also been lots of lingual relations of “left” to the feminine or “sinister”, and so on. Which is why the next part makes even less sense:
“I therefore conclude that in proper Satanism we have sworn allegiance to the Goddess Lucifer Satana” [...] By the way, only Islam can have 'Satan' as fallen - a weak point for the other two main religions (who don't know the name of their own fallen) !"
So in an effort to get away from the "patriarchal" religion of Judaism, Devi looks to Islam, a religion in which he believes women are associated with Satan, while simultaneously priding himself in getting along with Muslims. And of course calls it all "proper Satanism" when it's not Satanism. Also, the claim that "only Islam" can claim certain views of "Satan" is unfounded and irrelevant. I'm a Satanist, not a Muslim.
"But I tell you that for Christians it is 'Allah' (derived from vowel-sound and consonant of the most powerfully male chakra)"
And here we go again with the woo factor. Just because you examine origins of specific words and trace them back (correctly or incorrectly) to specific genders or old religions, does not mean that people using those words are somehow theologically tied to those alleged origins. The word "Monday" has its origins in "moon day", but that doesn't mean The Bangles song Manic Monday is a pagan moon goddess hymn.
"And in your organisation's portrayal of 'Satan' as masculine, perhaps indicating that if Not Jews; then you are perhaps Christians [?]"
Of course not, as only a complete delusional and clueless retard would believe that. Thanks for playing!
"The frantic little Christian believes heavy metal is dangerous because it is a convenient target for his hysteria. [...] but what about the Satanic music of Liszt, Wagner, Saint-Saens, Beethoven, Mussorgsky, Paganini, Mendelssohn? Perhaps warning stickers are in order for the works of Cole Porter, Rogers and Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, and Irving Berlin, whose 'Stay Down Here Where You Belong' features a good guy Devil proclaiming, 'You'll find more hate up there than you will down below.' "
- Anton LaVey, The Devil's Notebook
I enjoy performing at open mics, as I see them as a time of shameless self-indulgence in performing the music I feel like performing that day. At the same time, there's still the maxim of "know your audience". Also, I may go to an open mic not knowing what I'll end up playing that night, and sometimes hearing a song from another performer might remind me of something in my repertoire and make me want to play it.
Last night, I was at a local open mic where some older hippies were doing 1960s anti-war songs in their set. On my turn on the stage, I said, "I have an anti-war song from 1918 -- World War One." I'm proud to say it went over very well.
As anybody who's read the appendix of We Are Satanists (or as it was titled in its initial edition, Church of Satan) knows, there is no shortage of Satan songs from the early 1900s. And I don't mean preachy songs warning about Satan, but often songs for example cheering Satan on to take away Kaiser Wilhelm. I've researched and performed a number of these songs myself, including at the Black House for the Church of Satan's 50th anniversary.
Irving Berlin was a composer known for many American classics such as Puttin' On The Ritz, White Christmas, and God Bless America, but he wrote plenty of devil songs, too. Stay Down Where You Belong is one of them. It was a favorite of Groucho Marx, who once performed it on The Dick Cavett show, as well as on his double live album recorded in Carnegie Hall in his final years, An Evening With Groucho. Tiny Tim recorded his own psychadelic rendition. Although Groucho Marx never seemed to sing the song beyond the first verse, his Carnegie Hall version is still my favorite.
