I was arguing with a Church of Satan troll on the site formerly known as Twitter who claimed that “There’s no tradition of Satanism prior to 1966. Anton LaVey was the first to codify a religion by that name.”
Though I have great respect for Anton LaVey’s popularization of the idea of Satanism and more than a little agreement with his critique of Christianity, the meme above the fold captures my position on non-theistic satanism in general; so leaning on the name of the religion to deny the very long history set me off.
Definition of Thiestic Satanisim.
In my opinion a theistic Satanist is anyone who believes in the literal existence of one or more demons at least one of whom is called “satan” and who worships, channels, treats with or invokes said demon(s) believing them to be both real and opposed to the Christian God.
Historical Support of continuity
“Deny a 5000 year tradition all you want, but the libraries of the world brim with evidence of your folly. The Vatican has literally thousands of occult texts in a collection open to scholars, but any major scholarly collection will provide ample evidence.” I said as I begin to take him to task.
The historical record of people making deals with the Devil is extremely extensive. Archeological evidence of offerings to Lillith and Samael date back to biblical times with offering bowls to Lillith found in the Levant well before the time of Christ and seals with the name Samael found even earlier.
The advent of printing meant that we still have the Ars Goetia, the Dictionaire Infernal, the Grand Grimoire and the Key of Solomon all talk about demonology in a Christian context. It’s fair to say that the church of the time labeled them Satanists, though they often had more nuanced religious identities going. It is also true that modern demonolaters use these texts to summon the exact same demons today.
However the writings of a mystic like Hermes Trimagestus reveal a lasting influence on modern practitioners of the Left Hand Path, introducing well known terms like “harmony of the spheres” and the phrase “As Above, So Below” so frequently invoked in both Satanism and wicca.
Authors like Jaques Collin de Francy‘s early 19th century Dictioinaire Infernal drawing on earlier works like the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum still being in use to shape the modern conception of demonolatry show the unbroken tradition of worship and reverence for the same hierarchy of demons over time that goes down to the present day.
This is, by the way, why I’ve always found it absurd to say that “These people were just Christian heretics” as though they might well have identified themselves as sorcerers, alchemists, Gnostics, or christian mystics, they invoke almost all of the same demons we do today.
Literary Evidence of Satanic beliefs
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of literate people privileged enough to publish. If you look at the theater of Shakespeare’s time both “MacBeth”, and “The Tempest” as well as Marlowes “Faust” were massive stage hits is reflective of a widespread belief in Black Magic and the possibility of demons in the early 17th century.
While MacBeth has the witches implanting a “dagger of the mind” to force MacBeth to kill the king and fulfill their prophecy… Given the extreme influence of Shakespeare on literature and drama to this day it’s almost unreasonable not to imagine that members of the audience might well try to emulate these magical practices at home. After all, who among us hasn’t chanted “Double double toil and trouble” cooking?
Obviously the vast majority of victims of the inquisition were innocent, but it’s incredibly naive to think that a 99% Christian culture with extreme superstition and widespread belief in witchcraft *wouldn’t* have malcontents praying to the devil. Shakespeare and Marlowe had already given the playgoing public the notion of a deal with the devil and magical powers; and the art of the time definitely features a lot of those themes too.
Was it Real, though?
Art & literature thought so. Sociology implies it ought to be so, but the illiteracy of the era renders the evidence that survived extremely biased. We can quite definely say there’s evidence of elite devil worship in the late 16th and early 17th century in the form of propaganda against those individuals and church records of their executions and excommunications .
We don’t have to take the churches word for it, though. We have solid historical evidence of black masses in France in the time of Louis XIV where actual ritual objects survive.
Since the scandal involved the kings mistress the *actual* chalice and anthemae are in Versailles. It happened, repeatedly, and it just might have been eye-witnessed by our old pal the Marquis de Sade.
The Original Satanic Athiest: de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François Marquis de Sade wrote extensively and accurately about black masses in Justine with a degree of detail that strongly implies he attended one and though he himself died an atheist his work extensively features occult conspiracies within the church.
The Marquis de Sade, not Anton LaVey is the original non-theistic Satanist exploiting the Satanic tradition for sexual shock value in order to sell selfish and sadistic philosophy embodied in quasi-pornographic books except de Sade had the honor of being made a judge after the French revolution and being officially permitted by the state to embody his horrors on those who betrayed the revolution. It ultimately drove him insane.
Nevertheless, the extreme popularity of Justine, Julliette, 120 Days of Sodom and his other works from the Bastille era led to extensive emulation in the sexual sphere (to the point where the entire fetish of sadism is named for him) it’s no surprise that the black masses and Satanic Sadism flourished after his time.
LaVey’s Contribution:
At this point my troll chimed in that these historical examples of demonolaters, Gnostics, sorcerers, were all “merely Christian heretics mired in the superstition of their era” and that LaVey was the first to package something called “Satanism” into an anti-religion for public consumption. Leaving aside the fact that groups like Order of the 9 Angels were using the label as early as 1944, what did Anton Szandor LaVey actually invent?
LaVeyan Satanism is based heavily in the synthesis of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism with Thomas Payne’s arguments against religion and the line of athiest reasoning from there through to Bertrand Russel. This is then filtered through a sensibility heavily influenced by de Sade’s use of satanic pornography to sell philosophical ideals. (If his ex-wife is to be believed, he was also a follower of de Sade in the bedroom as well)
What little spirituality exists in LaVey sneaks in through Anton’s fascination with Jungian psychology and the psychological necessity of the reinvention of ritual in the modern era; paired with the trendy Hammer horror aesthetic of the middle 60s.
LaVey’s debt to de Sade is made plainly obvious by the fact that his single best publicity stunt was a toned down sexualized Black Mass directly inspired by the one in “Justine”
But, Anton LaVey was distinguished more by his wit and television presence than he was by his originality, drawing as extensively on prior sources as Marlowe had on Goethe’s “Dr Faustus” to produce a novel synthesis every bit as indebted to his predecessors as Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” is to classical literature and the way it was taught in it’s day.
The Satanic Bible is a must-read for because of its later cultural influence, and I will admit that Anton is an entertaining writer with rather a lot of good points about Christianity and its influence on the culture of its time, but given his life history and philosophy he’s a dubious moral guide at best.
In Conclusion: the Left Hand Path Tradition
What modern people call “Thiestic Satanism” is a modern evolution of a tradition that can be traced back to European alchemists of the 16th as mediated by the artists of the 18-19th centuries Like Eliphas Lévi whose 1854 image of Baphomet traces forward as the logo of LaVey’s Church of Satan but also traces back to a 13th century idol of the Gnostic Christian Knights Templar; or Jaques de Francy’s reliance on Johann Wyer to know what to draw.
These people were our spiritual forerunners in every important sense that a religion could be judged by: they were appealing to a consistent cast of demons conceptualized in basically the same way for hundreds of years straight; complete with sigils, enns, and descriptions of their ranks and capacities. This is what I mean by referring to the tradition of Theistic Satanism.
And though we might transact our business in the form of memes instead of grimoires, the rules of demonolatry and intentional magic that the alchemists and mystics wrote down in the 15-17th centuries persist to the extent that their grimoires are still useful for more than historical reference to this day.
I encourage everyone on the Left Hand Path to become acquainted with the many and varied spiritual thinkers who have come before them. Satanisim has no pope or official doctrine for the vast majority; what we have instead is a vast and diverse set of spiritual and literary inspirations.
In my opinion anyone who dismisses this much evidence is disqualified from even being an athiest, since atheists are at least required to listen to the evidence and make a judgement based on non-supernatural assumptions.
I’m of the opinion that the Left Hand path is broad enough to accommodate theistic and athiest Satanists alike; and that there are many points that both kinds of Satanic expression share and can learn from each other.
A Message to my Troll
These people have been praying to the same demons by the same names using the same mantras and close variations of the same rituals for hundreds of years: by what insane definition are they not practicing the same religion, even if you don’t believe in the same deities they do? There’s archeological evidence, literary evidence, first hand historical accounts, artefacts in museums and contemporary scandals. Ignoring that much evidence is the very definition of delusion to your average athiest.
So I’ll leave you with the words of my troll’s hero; who regarded being dumb enough to ignore evidence plainly available to you as the “Cardinal Sin of Satanisim” for anyone of Church of Satan beliefs.
Tell me in the comments, is stupidity a sin and has this troll committed it by ignoring all this?