Satan is Death

This page is about the representation of Death called Satan, simply describing how Death is represented as Satan and the possible benefits that exalting this symbolism this can bring in life!

1. Death is Taboo
2. Satan Represents Death
3. Vitalize Your Life

1. Death is Taboo

“We divert our attention from disease and death as much as we can; and the slaughter-houses and indecencies without end on which our life is founded are huddled out of sight and never mentioned, so that the world we recognize officially in literature and in society is a poetic fiction far handsomer and cleaner and better than the world that really is.”

"The Varieties of Religious Experience" by William James, p103

The psychologist William James, above, spoke 100 years ago that normal Human beings hide death away. David Clarke devotes a chapter of his sociological study of death to the way that we in the West, have hidden it away. We clinicalize death, so that only trained professionals have anything to do with the practical side of slaughter, bodies, funerals and burials [Clark, 1993]. This denial of reality extends far and wide amongst the masses. Dead bodies do not litter the floor of battlefields in films, in computer games also corpses fade away majestically, and one's future death is hardly featured in public angst, except where the subconscious, desperate, finds expression in dreams.

The invisibility of death, the taboo of it, and the strong (largely) subconscious desire to avoid it during our reproductive years, fuels popular religion. The major religions of the world do, and always have, denied death and comforted people with the lie that we survive death. Hades, Heaven, Paradise and Nirvana are all names for the afterlife, despite the theological and philosophical impossibilities that arise.

2. Satan Represents Death

Everything Dies
Satanism is about reality. In reality, all living beings die. There are no known exceptions. Satanism, in embracing life and indulgence, is in affect striving against death. However, death will eventually win, it is inevitable. Satan, representing reality and the Human condition, symbolizes the victory of death. This eternal truth is more meaningful and potent than deceitful symbols of life, reincarnation or other spiritual pipe dreams.

Deadism
Although I have never seen this as a principal or aspect of a Satanic group, or any other group, I have seen it occur in enough individuals for me to include it here and name at "deadism": the belief that you are a deadite. In the third Evil Dead film, "The Army of Darkness", the Deadites are an army of the dead. Beyond the spelling, this theory has no relation to that film or its ideas!

A deadite is a person who strongly feels that if souls exist, then they don't have one. Vexen is a deadite. We believe that if Heaven exists, we cannot go there. We believe that our time will come, that there is no afterlife for us no matter what theology we take a paradigm shift into. We believe that if Satan and God will commandeer armies in the Biblical wars of Revelations, that we are to fight on the losing side of Satan. In Nordic ragnarok we are the forces of Wotan, of Loki, who fight with inhuman strength against Odin . We will not release our attachments to this world and attain Buddhist or Hindu Nirvana.

Not only are we rejected from these eschatological rewards by our love of life, but we reject the rewards themselves as confusing errors and spiritual pipe dreams. If after death there was an all-pervading, universalistic non-dualistic entity that granted eternal life to everyone, regardless of their beliefs, I would have to accept (and Deadism would not be a valid belief), also I do choose life over death. Deadism is a relevant and coherent belief principally in dualistic belief systems.

As we shall see in part two of this text, teleological deadism is nihilistic and pessimistic but only in a way that focuses real life and happiness and not in a way that induces suicide, as life here and now is more urgent (no afterlife).

• Deadism may be an unforgivable sin according to my interpretation of comments by open theologian Greg Boyd

• Justification for Deadism is that we do not believe God is moral, nor that Heaven is good.
  See: God Is Dangerous

3. Vitalize Your Life

Having accepted the truth of the inevitable victory of death over all personal endeavours, what is the result? Should a person reject this truth and retreat into New Age mysticism, or the spiritual pipe dreams of popular religion, and try to hide the uncomfortable truth that life is only a temporary result of biology, and not a divine creation? The answer is no; on the contrary: failure to accept death is negative.

“Sogyal Rimpoche, a Tibetan Lama who has written on the subject of death and dying, examines the issue thus: 'At the moment of death our life becomes clear. Death is our greatest teacher. But, unfortunately, people in the West think of death only when they are dying. This is a little bit late'”

"Buddhism" by Clive Erricker, p136.

Obviously Sogyal Rimpoche hadn't met many Satanists when he spoke of Westerners. Satanism shows us that accepting the inevitability of death is life-affirming. If you are subject to imbalance or herd mentality, you may be indoctrinated with commentary about death and Satan that are negative and restricting. If you cannot overcome these, you cannot accept Satan as a symbol of death, and perhaps a different religion is more suitable for you than Satanism...

The social psychologist David Myers states:

“Research shows that reminding people of their mortality (say, by writing a short essay on dying) motivates them to affirm their self-worth”

"Social Psychology" by David Myers, p66

He reflects the opinion of Nietzsche, 100 years earlier, who said:

“The certain prospect of death could sweeten every life with a precious and fragrant drop of levity - and now you strange apothecary souls have turned it into an ill-tasting drop of poison that makes the whole of life repulsive”

Friedrich Nietzsche₅

Nietzsche teaches that to teach that there is life after death, and to live in fear of eternal judgement, is to make sour and bitter the honest (and fragrant!) accepting of death. To face the fear of death, and accept it, and then to continue to live your life is a process that many adults go through. It is life affirming.

• It will inspire people to introspectively meditate on what they think the point of life is, and more important on what they want from life.

• It will inspire people who are too introspective to curb their "too much, too deep"₁ approach to the eschatology of life, and embrace positive action to make life better.

The victory of death over life is inevitable. Both the introverts and extroverts gain from the acceptance of Satan as the clearest symbol of death, worthy of exaltation: It is the denial of social mores and fear surrounding the concepts of death (the direct fear of death is of course healthy), and focus a person on their life in a more balanced manner. Not wanting to waste their life, positive and enriching lifestyles are embraced rather than ones that are either too compulsive or too introspective. Compulsion is a lack of freedom and vitality, and nihilistic internal despair is a lack of Satanic energy. By accepting Satan, you are accepting a savior from death, whilst alive, so that the cost of admitting the power of death is paid by an enriched life. To look to the skies for redemption from death is an imbalance, a distortion of healthy life-embrace for the emotional drunkenness of a belief in afterlife. The stupefying affect of a belief in afterlife denies the truth of the matter, whereas life-empowerment through the acceptance of death is revitalizing. The effect of this acceptance is purifying.