True Satanism

This page: What are people saying when they claim that others are not "True" Satanists? What is a True Satanist? What is "traditional" or "real" Satanism compared to LaVey Satanism?

Contents:

1. True, Real and Traditional Satanism!
2. Forms of Satanism
3. Traditional Satanism
4. True Satanism
5. Conclusion

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True, Real and Traditional Satanism!
Debates where people start capitalizing the word "true" or "real" and follow it with the word "Satanism" are almost invariably heated debates. Misinformation, immaturity, insecurity and ignorance are either just around the corner or have long since propelled people into pointless arguing.

A feature of fundamentalism, intolerance, closed-mindedness, and other aspects of traditional religious mentalities, is that sectarian groups claim to be "truer" adherent of a belief system than other groups. Christians do it, Muslims do it. Even educated fleas do it₁! And what, exactly, are these educated fleas doing? They are sucking the life out of their beloved philosophies, falling into age-old traps of human nature.

In Satanism, people mean one of two things when they speak of "true", "real" or "traditional" Satanism, and what they mean will reflect their original beliefs and mindset. They might mean:

• LaVey Satanism
• Theistic Satanism

Christians will often accuse others of not being "true" if the other person does not have the same beliefs. So, born-again Christians will say that other branches of Christianity are not "true" Christianity. Likewise for all closed-minded belief systems. However, within Christianity, as within Satanism, there are many groups with many different beliefs. It's not possible for atheistic Satanists such as myself to say that theistic Satanists are not true Satanists - merely that they're a type of Satanist that has differing beliefs to my own.

Forms of Satanism:

• Righteous Satan Theologies are belief systems that include a dominant and worthy evil force, some of which hold that "God" is the oppressor of whosoever is gullible enough and Satan is the god of the strong. Click the link to list such beliefs

• If there is a God, it is evil. Some agnostic, theistic or atheistic Satanists hold that if there is a single God, it is evil

• Introduction to LaVey Satanism. Atheistic Satanism, by far the most popular kind, believing in the self as the only thing worthy of being called "God".

Traditional Satanism
There are historical groups such as the Knights Templar and individuals such as Nietzsche and Aleister Crowley, who are said to be Satanists. However true this may seem on reading their history and texts, they definitely did not call themselves Satanists. The Church of Satan, founded by Anton LaVey, was the first organized group to self-identify as Satanic, before then there were no others. Since the foundation of the Church of Satan two other major "Satanic" churches emerged, both of them founded by ex members of the Church of Satan. The First Church of Satan, theistic Satanism, collapsed in 2003, and the Temple of Set, also theistic Satanism, lives but remains obscure.

Given this history, there is no possible meaning of the term "Traditional Satanism" unless it refers to LaVey Satanism or Christian Satanism. However, there are next to no Christian Satanists (black sheep). Although it is historically more accurate to call LaVey Satanism Traditional Satanism, even I sometimes call Christian Satanism by the same name. So the term is ambiguous.

True or Real Satanism
LaVey described adherents of his own atheistic philosophical activist Satanism as True Satanists. Universally the prefix "True-" is used to condemn those of differing beliefs and to forcefully assert the legitimacy of one's own beliefs. It is perhaps true that in the case of Anton LaVey he was qualified to lay claim to the term "True", as he was indeed the founder of Satanism, even though some before had similar outlooks none claimed that term or even used it.

• Weber founded sociology, although others before him studied similar subjects
• Freud founded psychoanalysis of the subconscious, even though those since him have moved further
• Likewise, LaVey's Church is entitled to call itself "True" Satanism especially as there are no other contestants except individuals whose beliefs were named by LaVey, in some cases before they were even born!

Conclusion

• Beware if you find yourself using the term "True Satanism", that you're not being a bigot when other people are entitled to call themselves "Satanists"

• When others use the term note that some Christians and other closed-minded people will not be able to think outside of their own box and use "True" to mean "That which agrees with me". A Christian considers theistic Satanism to be "True Satanism" because a Christian believes in Satan