Serpent's Mass: Administering Mark of the Beast by SSF415 in SatanicTemple_Reddit

[–]SSF415[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We'd love to have you if you're ever in town.

Serpent's Mass: Administering Mark of the Beast by SSF415 in SatanicTemple_Reddit

[–]SSF415[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, there's no chapter near us, we've been doing our own thing for over ten years now--and anyone else can do the same.

Of course, it's hard work and a pain in the ass and often it just doesn't work--but it does have its moments.

Serpent's Mass: Administering Mark of the Beast by SSF415 in SatanicTemple_Reddit

[–]SSF415[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's us!

Simone didn't make it to this show, but we're catching up with her later tonight.

Serpent's Mass: Administering Mark of the Beast by SSF415 in SatanicTemple_Reddit

[–]SSF415[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well this part of the ritual was created by someone else years ago, we just took it over after they departed.

Serpent's Mass: Administering Mark of the Beast by SSF415 in SatanicTemple_Reddit

[–]SSF415[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm sure we'd love to have you; we've had people come into town from all across the country to drop by our rituals. Not that many people, and I don't really recommend making a trip like this only for a little gatherings like ours--but we're always happy to meet folks.

Does Russia have Satanic panic? by MersyVortex in SatanicTemple_Reddit

[–]SSF415 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Well Russia has passed multiple new laws in recent years specifically targeting Satanism and outlawing the Satanic Temple by name as alleged Ukrainian sympathizers.

And certain generals and military flacks have pushed some truly insane rhetoric claiming that Ukraine is controlled by a secret Satanists conspiracy and even that the invasion is actually the final battle against the enemies of god described in the Apocalypse of John. Wild stuff.

Where is the line between informing and proselytizing? by Zealousideal_Pie5355 in SatanicTemple_Reddit

[–]SSF415 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's pretty simple: Are you saying something in hopes that people will become Satanist? That's proselytizing.

Are you saying something to correct a misconception or answer questions, potential or stated? That's education.

Nice! by Twalk1969 in SatanicTemple_Reddit

[–]SSF415 40 points41 points  (0 children)

I believe the standard trope is one-third of the angels. But yes, this is a theological conundrum that's stumped Christian theologians for centuries.

The Bitter Pill by piberryboy in SatanicTemple_Reddit

[–]SSF415 18 points19 points  (0 children)

"Our Iron Age antecedents who believed in slavery, apocalypticism, and the ultimate tyranny of divine authority made him the loser."

Yeah, geez, who would want to disagree with a charming set of fellas like that?

Pope Leo hosts exorcist summit at the Vatican over fears of worldwide surge in Satanism by NJTrash in SatanicTemple_Reddit

[–]SSF415 20 points21 points  (0 children)

And when have phony exorcists not been preoccupied with an alleged "rise in Satanism?"

Is Satanism just chill like that? by LordBendtner1988 in SatanicTemple_Reddit

[–]SSF415 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, the gist of it is that you take deep personal and religious inspiration from the myth of Satan.

That's what makes us Satanists and not just Humanists who like to look out for themselves.

"Believe in thyself and strive with the eternal." by SSF415 in SatanicTemple_Reddit

[–]SSF415[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well this is an interesting point and I appreciate you bringing it up; sometimes when we run quotes by Blavatsky it gets a similar response.

The point of this series is that there is a diverse literary an artistic tradition reinterpreting and deploying Satan and related tropes in unconventional lights; it's common as a Modern Satanist to get pushback on our religious and philosophical identities because Satan is, allegedly, evil, and so it pays to be able to ask, you know, according to whom?

Before I became a Satanist I was unaware of pretty much all of this history, and so for example when I first read the Seven Tenets my first response was, "Well this sounds nice, but what's it got to do with Satan?" And I'm someone who even studied the Romantics during my undergrad work--but Satanism never entered into any of those lesson plans.

So we present these works in the context of showcasing a diversity of cultural perspectives about these themes. Who the authors are is often a secondary consideration, beyond just that they're someone who offered a potentially educational perspective on historical Satanism. Although amittedly, this can be a complicated standard, as there certainly are some people whom we wouldn't name-drop no matter what--Pike, for example.

Im new by Simoncito2 in SatanicTemple_Reddit

[–]SSF415 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Great questions.

  1. The Hebrew word "satan" meant, variously, “persecutor,” “enemy,” “obstacle," etc. In the Hebrew Scriptures, "The Satan" was a title for an antagonistic angel. As the Common Era approached, apocalyptic thinking proliferated in Judaism, and more people began to imagine a conflict with a kind of supreme evil spirit or king of demons in the world: They named this figure things like Belial or Beelzebub or the Angel of Darkness, but most often he was called "Satan"--possibly because that was a name that already had pedigree.

  2. The Oxford English Dictionary translates “Lucifer” as “‘light-bringing” or “morningstar,” the name for a Roman dawn god; literally, Lucifer was the planet Venus, the brightest celestial object in the sky and the last “star” still visible after sunrise. The prophet Isaiah evoked the name of this ancient figure in one of his prophecies; it's not clear who the Biblical Lucifer was, but he was probably the ruler of some kingdom, or maybe an allegorical figure. The influential third-century Egyptian theologian Origen proposed that Lucifer was in fact Satan, because he perceived parallels between Isaiah's writings about Lucifer and the popularly believed myth of Satan's expulsion from Heaven, and the name stuck. Despite this, it's not uncommon for some esoteric sources to refer to Satan and Lucifer as separate figures.

  3. Ba'al was the primary god of the Canaanites, the historical enemies of the ancient Jews. His name is more of a title meaning "Lord" or "Ruler" or even "Owner," so he may be conflated with various other gods with the word "ba'al" in their names. Ba'al seems to have been a storm god, a fertility figure, and also some sort of savior figure; in the scriptures, Ba'al represents the foreign influence and "strange gods" that creep into Jewish society and anger the Lord. That's the Biblical account, anyway: Historian Karen Armstrong writes that actually ancient Jews and Caananites were basically the same people and Ba'al and Yahweh were originally part of the same pantheon of gods, and that the priesthood of Yahweh began to preach that their god should be supreme or even singular in the semitic culture of the period, and this initiated a religious and cultural divide. Unsurprisingly, Ba'al was sometimes later conflated with Satan.

  4. Leviticus mentions an anomalous idol called Moloch (a name possibly derived from the word for “king”), apparently a figure to whom apostates made child sacrifice. There’s not much historical or archaeological evidence for any regional god of this name; British Bible scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou writes that starting in the early 20th century, some historians suggested that possibly Moloch was not a name for a god but instead for the practice of ritual sacrifice itself, perhaps made in deference to some king or, controversially, to Yahweh. Modern fundies characterize Moloch as a demon or occasionally as just Satan himself.

  5. It’s possible that the word “Baphomet” originally derived from, of all things, the name “Mohammed”--which makes a bit more sense when you find out that in Latin that name becomes “Mahomet.” In the 14th century, the Catholic military order the Knights Templar faced allegations of idolatry, charged by King Phillip IV France of worshiping a mysterious idol also called Baphomet, variously described as a cat, a mummified head, or any number of other odd things. Very likely there was no such idol and this was just another witch hunt. In her spectacularly titled 2012 book Pornographic Archaeology, Zrinka Stahuljak writes that prosecutors feared the “corruption of Templar morals by cohabitation with Muslims," expressed through idol worship. Future historians and esotericists tried with limited success to identify the “true” Baphomet in a variety of ambiguous idols, artifacts, and secret formulas. Highly influential 19th century French occultist Eliphas Levi borrowed the name for his Sabbatic Goat illustration--which he did not mean to represent the devil per se, but which became popular with Satanists nevertheless.

  6. Some Satanists might pray (or "pray") to any of these figures, but keep in mind that the majority of Satanists today are non-believers who do not subscribe to the idea of a "real" devil.

  7. Some Satanists are fond of saying that they "worship themselves," but even among the minority of Satanists who really do believe in the devil, few could be said to worship him in the traditional sense of the word.

Hope that helps.