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| Ecce Homo, according to TST, the perfect sub |
I was pretty
enthusiastic about the Satanic Temple (TST, for short) when I saw the
documentary "Hail Satan?" I was so into it I wanted to join the
Edmonton chapter, but I soon realized it was a sad gathering of soy losers.
Looking back, I think my infatuation had to do with my bitter hatred against
the fascist Evangelical movement in the US. I figured that the enemies of my
enemy must be my friends. Plus, I fully support the leftist politics behind the
Satanic Temple, and their fight for equality, social justice, and LGBTQ rights.
But soon I realized there's something rotten about TST, and it has to do with
their hijacking and banalization of noble Satanic symbols and traditions, with
no regard to their spiritual significance.
TST reeks like a public
toilet or the sour sweatness that infuses a crowded bus. Its members are
animated by the fearful hysteria of special needs kids singing around a
campfire, hoping to keep the monsters away. There's nothing Satanic about this
movement. The central, traditional Satanic virtues are aristocratic pride,
uncompromising individualism, colossal arrogance, elitism, sadism, a glorification
of war and strife, and a romantic, creative outlook on life coupled with a
delight in solitude. Now, the first tenant of TST reads: "One should
strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in
accordance to reason." A true Satanist would recoil in disgust at this. If
you squint a bit, behind that tenant, you can see the defeated, grotesque
figure of the perennial slave, the marginalized loser, the creature born with
the sole task of tasting all flavors of pain. And that resentful slave is the
exact opposite of what traditional Satanism is all about. In fact, that pitiful
slave is precisely the Christian scum which has been the whip boy of the true
Satanist throughout the ages. The repugnant slave is now hiding under the guise
of his master. What a farce! What a bad joke! One can't help but wonder, how
did this sad transformation come about? In what follows I describe a few
factors that must have contributed to this absurd state of affairs.
It is well-known that
the fascist Evangelical right in the US has nothing to do with real
Christianity. Following their Protestant outlook, the right-wing Christians
hate the poor and equate poverty with sin, while success and wealth are seen as
a blessing. Now, gradually this so-called Christian entity started to take on
some seemingly Satanic attributes: strict hierarchal social order, intolerance,
arrogance and disdain for the weak and vulgar. If you want, it started taking
on the attributes of the Ancient Roman ruling class, the class that had been
the target of the early Christians. Now, with this analogy in mind, the rise of
TST is starting to make sense. Under the veneer of Satanism, the logical
opposite of evil Christians, the old Christianity is reformed. The cries for
equality, justice and inclusion are heard again. But this is just socialism
with a Satanic face. Satanism is in no way essential to this movement. It is a
paradigmatic Christian movement. Very edifying in this respect are Nietzsche's
remarks about the Christian roots of socialism. One of them reads: “The
socialists appeal to the Christian instincts; that is their most subtle piece
of shrewdness” (Will to Power)
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| Watain, one of the black metal bands carrying the banner of true Satanism |
Although a ruling
political class can exhibit virtues associated with Satanism, Satanism in and
of itself is strictly apolitical. By definition, the Satanist values his
private space, his solitude, the realm where his authentic freedom can blossom.
Others are usually a hindrance. The fun begins when the noises of the herd die
down. Following Aristotle, Nietzsche reminds us: "To live alone one must
be either a beast or a god." And self-deification is something the
Satanist strives for. By contrast, any political enterprise starts with the
question of the common good, of an optimal organization of society. Now, any
such endeavor, by definition, would make the Satanist vomit, as he knows his
own good is not the good of the
crowd. Those two values are incommensurable because of the unbridgeable gap
separating him from the vulgar slave. To put it differently, the Satanist
strives to be a monster or a god, he wants to transcend his own humanity. Being
human is a limit to be overcome in the spiritual quest for freedom. Now, any
political project hinges on the premise of our
common humanity, that we're all more or less the same, a homogeneous mass,
we have all the same pains, the same hopes, and aspirations, the same things
that make us happy. For the Satanic beast, this postulated uniformity is pure
blasphemy and should be rejected in all its shapes and forms.
And this is why there's
no strict contradiction between being a true Satanist and a leftist, though
surely there's a psychological tension between the two. These two commitments
belong to different spheres. One is private and the other is public. In the
public sphere, one's humanity is assumed and one fights for the common good of
all humans. In the private sphere, humanity and its limitations are questioned,
man challenges the idea that he's a creation and becomes himself a creator.
This is why creativity, originality and a strong artistic impulse define the
authentic Satanist. He doesn't bow down to whatever values happen to exist in
the degenerate community he contingently inhabits, but he creates his own
values. For more on this issue, see my posts Punching Nazis, Black Metal, and the use of Ideological Symbols and my review of Berdyaev's Slavery and Freedom.
In conclusion, TST is a
repugnant abomination, mixing Satanism with political activism, cheapening
noble Satanic symbols with their vulgar practices thus obscuring their original
spiritual meaning and power. The herd instinct of these weaklings to organize
and form chapters and nests around the world is completely foreign to the
Satanic spirit. I think it would be more honest and honorable for this movement
to just be a political leftist movement and just drop the "Satanic"
gimmicks. But honor and honesty are hard to expect from slaves who constantly
use deception for attention and survival.
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