The above link is to an article which appeared in the January 5, 2018 edition of the Los Angeles Times. The article’s title certainly got my attention, but then again it did appear under the “Entertainment” heading. However, the title got the better of me, and so I read it.
To see why it was classified as “entertainment” is probably a stretch for most of us. With the description of a ritual at the anything-but-proverbial witching hour involving a male “blood smeared and stripped down to nearly “sky-clad’” who was offered up “in service to the goddess Lilith as an avenging angel for crimes against women”, there is more here than meets the eye or “the devil is in the detail” as some of the article’s subjects might say.
Then I began to write. There is a bit of scattershot in my response as the article hits on religion, the U.S. Weltanschauung, feminism, Harvey Weinstein and Co., occult, Charles Manson, etc., complete with an impressive array of assumptions and a perspective that, a priori, are probably shared by a limited few (hopefully anyway).
The following items are taken at random from the article above, and are in no real order, except perhaps by their ability to shock and perhaps to entertain a few of you. The reader, if he or she wishes to dig deeper, will have to get the entire context and order by reading the article (What a plug for an article that is personally troubling to me, to say the least).
The “he” and “she” referenced below are the primary “source” for this article, a couple (and one helluva couple indeed) of practitioners of this new fad.
My comments come after the article quotes and are in normal font.
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“atheistic Satanism” This is an oxymoron, if you stick to more traditional definitions of atheism as a belief that there are no gods. Even the Greek construction of the word suggests as much: “theos” meaning god, and “a” being what Greek students call the “alpha privative” meaning absence of whatever follows it. So, atheism means essentially godless or without god.
According to The AmericanAtheist.Org website “Atheism is one thing: a lack of belief in gods.” This is a more benign interpretation of the term and serves the cause well. It suggests that atheism is almost transactional, i.e., it could be equated with having a lack of belief in unicorns or golden geese, meaning that until you are forced to consider the proposition of a god, you simply don’t know, and you live your life not knowing and not caring. How is that different from agnosticism? I think I will go with the traditional definition.
So, I guess in the article “atheistic Satanism” means a lack of belief in Satan, but with a practice of certain rituals that have been adopted over time and in association with Satan or Satanism, received the label “Satanic”. This makes no sense whatsoever.
“If satanic rituals of old were centered on smashing Christian orthodoxy and middle American propriety — or, more basely, taking drugs and getting laid — this form of Satanism explicitly uses a huge range of ideas to give shape to the inchoate rage felt by so many — especially women and other marginalized groups.” I would suggest that satanic rituals were stolen from Christianity and inverted into practice. Most of those known to the public involve perversions of Christian rituals, the inverted cross and goat as Satan (“lamb of god”) being two of the more obvious.
Rage and Satan are made for each other, so actually, this point makes sense. But will it make women and other marginalized groups feel less so? If they do not act in some way to release the rage, these rituals will have no meaning.
“In these times,” he added, “a lot of people want to not feel helpless. And Lucifer was the original rebel angel.” Great CV line! I guess that Jesus Christ, an example that many reading this may be familiar with, as an outcast and rebel amongst his own Jewish community and people isn’t worth consideration. A consummate anti-hero is just not good enough in times of renegade rage.
Yes the article is seasoned with quotes and references to the current state of the country, as if the 2016 election was the direct cause of all the anxiety and rage driving people to explore the new Satanism. To that I say “post hoc, ergo propter hoc”, and point to a comparison with that statement and block chain technology: Blocks can only be altered after the fact by going back to the transaction and altering it in a way that changes all subsequent blocks in the chain. If the new Satanism arose because of one event, it seems trivial, which makes the fad trivial. Or, more likely, the climate for the fad has been a long time in the making. Back to the rage.
“‘Satanism is not now and has never been about seeking inclusion in the herd, but celebrating being apart from it,’ she said”. The ultimate in anti-social behavior. These days, with so many finding their dictionaries to look up words like “sanity” and “genius”, I guess looking up “anti-social” would not take that much longer.
“L.A.’s chapter of the Satanic Temple has a mission statement that promises to ‘encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will.’” Judging from the many quotes above, as well as the author’s context about the changes in Satanism generally, no one interviewed seems to have taken this mission statement seriously. Of course, in times like these, what is one man’s tyrannical authority is another’s leadership. Confused terms and inverted rituals are a breeding ground for the very things the mission statement opposes. Still, the mission statement could fit nicely in just about any context, religious or otherwise, with very little if any changes or additions.
Words and things can be hurtful if not used with their meaning in mind. This is a recasting of the current spirit of the times regarding “safe zones” etc. Knowing your terms well and using them accurately is key to good, logical thought. Language and symbols are deep expressions of a culture religion, race, etc., as are rituals. Rituals use symbols with deep meanings and language that tie the past with the present in a commemorative act, be it solemn, joyous, or comic.
To play at being a Satanist, or to skew the term in different directions can be both deceptive and dangerous, possibly evil if done intentionally. Yet if the rage described in the article is against male domination, guys like Harvey, etc., why is Satanism needed at all? Or is the new Satanism merely implied political activism? Well as the article says, all of this is an extreme subculture.
Yes, the article did appear in the entertainment section. And maybe an entertaining read about another cult from Southern California is all that is involved here. But why the rituals and blood, why the mission statement, the descriptions of the new generation of Satanists? If anyone plays at something it is because what they play at has meaning to them. Add to that play ritual and symbols of which the article is heavily laden, and you have something real, and to me, at core (Satanism) dangerous and evil.
Beyond the entertainment of the article I see the results of the effort as a serious threat. To those discussed in the article who are not playing, I would say of their efforts that the title of Chapter 13 of C.S. Lewis’, That Hideous Strength may very well be the fruits of their efforts: They Have Pulled Down Deep Heaven on Their Heads.
