What is Satanism?

I saw this article today. And the thought came to me. I really don't know anything about Satanism.

"The worship of the devil." "Lucifer?"

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/phoenix-city-council-wants-satanists-exorcised-...

Apparently is a new religion, and has two main forms, theistic and atheistic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanism

http://www.dpjs.co.uk/satanism.html

I've gotten used to wikipedia being pretty solid, but this is an article where it's still rather weak. Even at the outset, "Contemporary Satanism is mainly an American phenomenon, the ideas spreading with the effects of globalization and the Internet," neglects significant Scandinavian Satanism.

Medway's Lure of the Sinister is a pretty decent history, demonstrating both the oldness and the newness of Satanism.

Unfortunately the US Satanic panic (documented in Victor's book of the same name) of the late 20th century produced a lot of sensationlist--and frequently libelous--claptrap like Raschke's Painted Black. That literature has all muddied the waters considerably for people looking to understand or even perceive actual Satanists. That had wound down by the millennium anyhow, but after 9/11 all the American religious fear-peddlers gravitated to Islam, which gave Satanism a little breathing room for self-definition.

The most recent conspicuous developments in Satanism seem to be those associated with The Satanic Temple, which, while a logical development of the sort of Satanism espoused by Anton LaVey, actually seems to have as much or more in common with meta-religions like Pastafarianism and Discordianism.

I approach Satanism by trying not to impute my ideas of Satan into a religious system. A concept of intentional evil, motivated to lure men and women to sin and destruction.

The title "Lure of the Sinister" might suggest otherwise? Of course neither a book nor a religion should be judged by its cover title.

>3 richardbsmith:

Yeah, I don't think Medway is asserting a recruiting agent for Satanism, just pointing out that it has its attractions.

I don't think atheist v. theist is a useful first-order differentiation among Satanists. It's true that individual Satanists differ as to their metaphysical perspectives and imputations of entity to Satan, but by and large, this is not a cardinal criterion for participation in their milieus. They really don't tend to be about sincerity of belief one way or the other.

Is Satan then for Satanists, a type of symbol for self assertion. Something like Milton's Satan reigning in hell rather than serving in heaven?

Is this a humanistic faith system. If faith is a correct adective.

In wiki, which you suggest is not in this case a good source, one form is associated with Gnosticism and the other attempts to argue for individualism, epicureanism, naturalism and an amoral universe.

The wiki article suggests they use satan at its root meaning, the adversary of Abrahamic religions.

And of course I have no idea what the group in Arizona espouses.

Some Satanists are humanistic, some are frankly nihilist, and others are quasi-Gnostic. But again, one of the things that makes Satanism interesting as a religious form, is that theology and belief are not their primary staples anyway.

www.religioustolerance.org has a section on Satanism.

librorumamans,

Thanks again this morning (first for Emily)

I should have thought of Religious Tolerance. And often it comes up in any search.

From that site.

"David Shankbone interviewed Peter Gilmore, the Church of Satan's high priest. Shankbone wrote an excellent synopsis of Church beliefs and practices:

"LaVey's teachings are based on individualism, self-indulgence, and 'eye for an eye' morality, with influence from Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand; while its rituals and magic draw heavily from occultists such as Aleister Crowley. They do not worship—nor believe in—the Devil or a Christian notion of Satan. The word 'Satan' comes from the Hebrew word for "adversary" and originated from the Abrahamic faiths, being traditionally applied to an angel. Church of Satan adherents see themselves as truth-seekers, adversaries and skeptics of the religious world around them."

Among the choices given to describe Satanism, this seems to be the most targeted.

Others definitions seem to include everyone but me and mine.

"Defining Satanists as followers of a religion other than Conservative Protestantism: Fundamentalist and other evangelical Christians generally believe that there are only two powerful supernatural forces in the world: their God and Satan. A few of them believe that if a person does not worship their God and hold their beliefs, then they must be worshiping Satan. The latter are, by definition, Satanists."

And the group that worships the Christian devil are apparently small in number.

>9 richardbsmith:

Yeah, that Gilmore quote is on the money.

For what it's worth, my own religion is routinely assailed as "Satanic," with greater cause than is the case for evangelicals denouncing Hinduism, etc. And since we neither dictate nor delimit the forms under which our adherents aspire to the divine, it is almost certainly true that an extant minority worship "the Christian devil" or something that's dressed like him. In one of my more waggish moments, I quipped that Thelema is "more Christian than Christianity, and more Satanic than Satanism."