IMO, Dr. Evil missed the point of 82_82’s anecdote by a mile. As do these ASS-ites if they are sincerely trying to use Satanic imagery & principles to show how silly Evangelicals are, and to prove that rationalism conquers all. These images, words, beliefs, and all the rest come from somewhere. Whether we call it the archetypal realm, another dimension, or the human (collective) unconscious, whatever the reservoir actually IS, it’s vastly older, deeper, and larger than the gossamer-like veneer of scientistic rationalism, or so-called secularism, that’s being promoted by these . . . whoever they are.
So whatever’s being stirred in the unconscious, invoked, evoked, by the imagery in the video, by 82’s hoodie, or by the “barbaric” names of Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, and so on, drives people into real forms of behavior that have real consequences.
This latest manifestation of the “satanic” makes me think about how Satanism is probably the least defined and least understood of religions, and how little we know about its practitioners. Do they worship Satan or do they only worship scientistic rationality which “Satan” is a joke-symbol of? Or both, or sometimes one & sometimes the other? Or, as I think was the case with Crowley, do they claim to be approaching the subject matter scientifically and rationally, when in fact they are being driven by exactly the same sort of religious fervor which they despise in evangelical Christians?
Is Richard Dawkins a Satanist (or only a satanist)?
The Christian view of Satanism is as lacking in nuance or complexity as the satanist view of Christianity (as if there were only one kind!). In the simplest terms, from what I can glean, Christianity is (supposed to be) about submission to the divine principle, surrendering one’s own will to God’s. Satanism is (supposed to be) the opposite, the rejection of any power that is not oneself, autonomy, self-determination, and so on. Since Christians can only view Satanism through their own lens, they presume it is about worship of Satan as a deity. And since I’d guess many if not most (if not all) Satanists are Christians rebelling against their programming, they’d be right (Crowley evidently worshipped Aiwaz and called him the devil, etc., etc). Secular-type satanists, the scientistic, Dawkins-types, seem to view Christianity through that lens and so they only see its contradictions and fanaticism, but fail to see the kernel of truth in it, that serving the constructed ego identity really IS akin to devil-worship (a destructive path both to self and others), and that only by surrendering to the greater part of our being (what is unconscious and so gets dressed up in religious iconography) will we ever become whole.
One thing seems clear to me: satanists (or Satanists) can only be this brazen, and this effective, in selling their religion to parents because the reality of ritual abuse has been so well debunked. If these are really secular satanists having a bit of a laugh while seriously intending to restore reason to American education, they are also the sort of people who would scoff at the idea of ritual abuse or that Satanism as an actual religion has anything truly diabolic about it. Would an organization which knew the truth about ritual abuse promote itself in this way, unless they were complicit with it, or at least approving of it? Who on earth would want to associate with something that horrific except real “Satanists” (who may not worship Satan either, for all we know)?
And what about the parents who, I presume, are going along with this and thinking it’s a cool idea? Are they open to the idea that satanism is just another kooky religion and that, in its true form, it is all about freedom from dogma and rationality, self-determination and empowerment, or whatever it is being sold here? If so it can only be because they are clueless about the reality of Satanic practices throughout history and chalk it all up to Christian hallucinations.
