June 11, 2011
Earlier today, on another blog of mine, I posted Cimminnee Holt and the definition of “Satanism”. Cimminnee Holt, a grad student at Concordia University in Montreal, has written a paper titled Death and Dying in the Satanic Worldview, recently published in the Journal of Religion and Culture, “a peer-reviewed journal published by the graduate students of the Department of Religion at Concordia University.”
She uses the word “Satanism” in the Church of Satan’s sectarian sense, to refer specifically to the Church of Satan’s ideology, rather than as a general term encompassing many other Satanism as well. Why?
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Posted in LaVeyan Satanism, Satanism's criminal fringe, Theistic Satanism | 2 Comments »
June 9, 2011
On a website called God Discussion, with the ability to send its blog posts to Google News, there’s a post titled “Theistic Satanism Booming on the Internet, says Catholic Conference: But Why Would anyone want to Worship the Devil?” by johnthomas didymus, June 7, 2011.
First, thanks to the author for linking to a page on my Theistic Satanism website. Alas he also linked to, as an alleged authoritative source, a page about “The History of Satanism” on the website of the Satanic Kindred Organization. That page contains some serious errors which are echoed in the God Discussion post.
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Posted in Against Satanic Panics, anti-Satanism, crime, LaVeyan Satanism, Satanic panic, Satanism's criminal fringe, Satanisms and society | 2 Comments »
Tags: religion, Satanic Kindred Organization
May 2, 2011
Who and what is Satan? The vast majority of the lore we have about Satan comes not from His worshipers, or from others who celebrate Satan, but from His enemies. Hence, in my opinion, the key to understanding today’s mythology about Satan is to ask these questions: (1) Who and what are Satan’s avowed enemies (SAE’s)? (2) What are SAE’s threatened by?
I believe in Satan as a deity. But I do not believe in the literal truth of any myth about any deity. I believe that the true essence of any deity is probably beyond human comprehension, but that there are real spiritual forces/entities that may manifest to us via our myths.. So, what kind of deity would manifest via the Satan myth?
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Posted in Church of Azazel, Satan, Satanism, Satanisms and society, Theistic Satanism | 5 Comments »
March 19, 2011
Lately, challenging people’s prejudices has gotten much harder than it used to be. Once it was easy and fun. Over the years it became much more difficult. Lately, it often seems to have become almost impossible. For whatever reasons, it seems that most people today are a lot less willing to consider new ideas than most people were, say, back in the 1970’s.
Nevertheless, even today it is still possible to make progress in counteracting specific prejudices, if one is willing to be persistent about it.
Here’s a brief history of some of my major successes and failures at challenging people’s prejudices over the past few decades:
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Posted in anti-Satanism, gay rights, New York City, Pagan, prejudice, Theistic Satanist interfaith discussion, trends, Wicca | 4 Comments »
Tags: NYC Pagan Pride festival
March 15, 2011
Another post by Anya Kless has called my attention to the following: (1) Fun Facts For the Deity-Owned by Laura Patsouris, Patheos, January 26, 2011, and (2) God-Owned: Humans as Pets by P. Sufenas Virius Lupus, January 26, 2011.
I can relate to the experience of being “God-owned,” although I’ve tended to use different terminology to describe it.
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Posted in New York City, Pagan, Reconstructionism, religious trends, Theistic Satanism, Theistic Satanist interfaith discussion | 6 Comments »
Tags: Anya Kless
March 13, 2011
Anya Kless, author of Lilith: Queen of the Desert, has written a very interesting blog post titled Samael: God of the Left Hand. Among other things, she confesses:
I don’t know if I’m ready to say that anyone who works with Satan is actually working with Samael (or one of His faces), but it seems quite possible. Considering the eye-rolling I used to do about Satanism, it’s actually rather ironic that, if the Satanists are right, I’m working with Him. Gods are funny that way.
I am, of course, relieved to see that past-tense “used to.” She also references a website called “Severity of God” (about Samael) by a LaVeyan Satanist who is also an Aztec reconstructionist.
Anyhow, Anya Kless’s post is an interesting compilation of lore about Samael, plus a brief account of some of her own personal spiritual experiences involving Samael.
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Posted in Church of Azazel, New York City, occult, Pagan, Satan, Theistic Satanism, Theistic Satanist interfaith discussion | 4 Comments »
Tags: Anya Kless, Samael
March 3, 2011
In a comment on my previous post, Preliminary response to Michael Cuneo on exorcism, Raul Gil requested a separate thread to respond to my page about the murder case of Father Gerald Robinson in Toledo, Ohio (U.S.A.) on my Against Satanic Panics site. So here it is.
Raul, thanks for respecting the topicality of the original comment thread.
In particular, Raul wanted to discuss allegations about Catholic priests who secretly practice Satanic rites.
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Posted in Against Satanic Panics, anti-Satanism, Catholic, grand conspiracy ideology, Roman Catholic, Satanic panic | Leave a Comment »
February 12, 2011
I recently ordered a copy of American Exorcism: Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty by Michael Cuneo, who teaches anthropology and sociology at Fordham University in the Bronx, here in New York City. According to various reviews (listed near the bottom of this post), Cuneo’s book is an in-depth study, from an open-mindedly skeptical point of view, of exorcism as practiced by both Catholics and Protestants here in the U.S.A.
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Posted in Against Theocracy, Catholic, Charismatic, Christian, Christianity, civil rights, New York City, Pentecostal, Protestant, religious trends, Roman Catholic | 10 Comments »
Tags: exorcism, Michael Cuneo
February 9, 2011
The recent movie The Rite is loosely based on a (supposedly) nonfiction book that was published two years ago, The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist by Matt Baglio. The book is about an American priest who spent his sabbatical year in Italy training to be an exorcist.
As Laura Miller explains in “Eat your saints, purge your demons,” Salon, March 27, 2009:
Father Gary Thomas, Baglio’s trainee exorcist, half fell into the job; he volunteered when, in 2004, the Vatican asked every Catholic bishop to appoint an official exorcist to his diocese. This startling development can be explained by the fact that for the past decade Italy has been gripped by an intermittent satanic ritual abuse panic similar to the hysteria that swept through the U.S. in the 1980s.
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Posted in Against Satanic Panics, anti-Satanism, Catholic, Charismatic, religious trends, Roman Catholic, Satanic panic, Satanism's criminal fringe, Satanisms and society, Theistic Satanism, Western Europe | 3 Comments »
Tags: exorcism, Matt Baglio
January 27, 2011
(revised February 10, 2011)
Here in New York City, there is a Cult Hotline and Clinic run by the JBFCS (the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services). They provide various helpful services to ex-members of “cults” and to estranged families and friends of “cult” members. They are, as far as I can tell, the only place in New York City that offers such services.
Truly harmful religious groups certainly do exist, and it’s good that there are at least a few places, like the JBFCS Cult Clinic, where people who have been hurt by such groups can get help. But the website of the JBFCS Cult Clinic associates Satanism in general with “cults,” even though the vast majority of Satanist groups (or, at least, most of the ones I’ve run into) do not fit the JBFCS Cult Clinic’s definition of a “cult.”
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Posted in Against Satanic Panics, anti-Satanism, crime, cults, gay rights, GLBT, LaVeyan Satanism, LGBT, New York City, prejudice, Satanic panic, Satanism, Satanisms and society | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Arnold Markowitz, JBFCS Cult Clinic, religion
January 21, 2011
There is a type of “Luciferianism” that basically consists of LaVeyan Satanism, replacing “Satan” with “Lucifer,” plus a few minor twists, in some cases accepting Lucifer as an actual deity, but retaining LaVey’s entire quirky set of social, political, and economic views.
This is very different from the older favorable references to “Lucifer” that one can find in the writings of various Western occultists of the 1800’s and 1900’s. I personally would be more interested in a “Luciferianism” that was derived from the latter.
But a LaVeyan-based Luciferian website has recently been brought to my attention, on a message board run by me, so I’ll comment on it now.
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Posted in jew-haters, privilege, racism, Satanisms and society, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
Tags: egalitarianism, Luciferians, Nazism, socialism
January 14, 2011
In a post titled Hoax Jared Loughner Facebook Profiles Created, January 10, 2011, Richard Bartholomew said the following about a hoax profile falsely depicting Jared Loughner as admiring various leftists:
The list of left-wingers is so stereotyped as to be absurd – Saul Alinsky in particular is primarily famous these days as a figure in conservative demonology rather than for anything else.
As I’ll explain below, I’m probably at least partly responsible — though unintentionally so — for today’s demonization of Saul D. Alinsky by conservatives. So, I’ll now speak up in Alinsky’s defense and respond to a few of the more egregious falsehoods that some right-wingers have spread about him.
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Posted in religious trends, Satanisms and society, U.S.A. | 1 Comment »
Tags: David Horowitz, literary Satanism, politics, Saul D. Alinksy, William Blake
September 19, 2010
In response to Bill Maher’s re-playing, on Friday, of Christine O’Donnell’s claim to have “dabbled into witchcraft” and “had a little midnight picnic on a satanic altar” (as reported by New York Magazine, ABC News, the Washington Post, and Think Progress, among other sources), some Pagans have defensively insisted that she must have dabbled in Satanism and not witchcraft/Wicca, and that the alleged “witch” whom she dated must have been a Satanist and not a Wiccan.
In fact, neither a serious practicing Wiccan nor a serious practicing Satanist is likely to have a picnic on one’s altar.
A more sober Pagan response is Speculations on Christine O’Donnell and Witchcraft by Gus diZerega, Saturday September 18, 2010. He even admits the possibility that she might have dated one of the “creeps infesting the Pagan community” who “used his alleged ‘magickal powers’ to try and impress simple-minded women attracted by power that he was hot stuff.” Of course, as Gus diZerega correctly points out, such “creeps” are not representative of the Pagan community.
Anyhow, to put Christine O’Donnell’s claim into perspective, we should note her tendency to confuse Satanism with not only Wicca but also rock fan culture.
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Posted in Against Theocracy, anti-Satanism, Satanisms and society, Wicca, witchcraft, witches | 7 Comments »
Tags: Christine O'Donnell
July 12, 2010
A church in the Bronx that had been burned down by arsonists last year, Glory of Christ Church, has been rebuilt and held its first worship services in the new building yesterday, according to several news stories yesterday and today.
In news stories back in December about the arson itself, there was quite a bit of unfounded hullabaloo about the arsonist being a “Satanist.” In today’s news stories — or at least the online versions — the word “Satanist” does not appear, but one story does describe the culprit as “a Satan-loving arsonist.” Even “Satan-loving” is unfounded.
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Posted in Church of Azazel, crime, New York City, Satanism's criminal fringe, Satanisms and society | 1 Comment »
Tags: arson, Bronx, vandalism
June 30, 2010
Recently I was contacted by someone interested in learning about Luciferianism as distinct from Satanism. In my view, Luciferianism and Satanism are overlapping categories, and most people today who call themselves “Luciferians” really are Satanists too, as far as I can tell. However, there have also existed plenty of occultists who didn’t even call themselves “Luciferians,” but who nevertheless were “Luciferian” in the sense of making favorable references to a being that they called “Lucifer.” In most though not all cases, this “Lucifer” is indeed quite distinct from “Satan.”
Here is a far-from-exhaustive list.
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Posted in Church of Azazel, occult, Pagan, Wicca, witchcraft | 1 Comment »
Tags: Lucifer, occultists
June 28, 2010
Geral Sosbee posted a rambling, off-topic comment beneath my post America’s Most Wanted: The “Satan worshipers” who allegedly killed Kimberly Simon. His comment was about “the scenario today on the world stage with the fbi/cia/pentagon (and their minions, stooges,shills, thugs,punks,assassins,operatives, agents,informants,and police/national guard Gen d’armes, all acting as mafia type figures.” It ended with a bunch of links to pages on his website on which he claims to have been a victim of various fbi/cia-sponsored abuses.
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Posted in Against Satanic Panics, anti-Satanism, George Bush, grand conspiracy ideology, Iraq, Satanisms and society | 5 Comments »
June 15, 2010
Yesterday, Satanic panic promoter (and all-around bigot) Henry Makow published an email from one “Aloysius Fozdyke,” alleged to be a “prominent Satanic insider.” This email was the latest installment in a saga which began, back on January 2 of this year, with the publication of a message from “Aloysius Fozdyke” by a grand conspiracy website called “Love for Life.”
The long, rambling January 2 message is obviously a prank. I mean, just look at the section about the “Order of the Toilet” and its “latrine doctrines.” To me, this reads like a parody of traditional occult orders.
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Posted in Against Satanic Panics, anti-Satanism, Australia, grand conspiracy ideology, Satanic panic | 19 Comments »
Tags: Aloysius Fozdyke, conspiracy, Henry Makow