Sitting in a swivel chair, staring at a blank screen. What’s something to talk about? What’s an interesting matter to work on? Something informational? Something that’s widely misunderstood? That’s sounds good, but what’s so widely misunderstood? In an informational essay, is it not good to write about a conflict that happens often in the world? Yes, so what is such a large conflict that happens in the world today? Religion.
People are constantly fighting each other over the simple reason of religion. Why? Because they do not always understand, or they do not agree. An informational essay is meant to inform its readers. So if this essay is to be about a widely misunderstood religion, then what religion? What religion do most fear? That’s an easy question to answer. Satanism.
To begin with, one should know a brief history of Satanism and its founder, Anton Szandor LaVey. Anton not only wrote The Satanic Bible, but also founded the Church of Satan. He took Satan’s symbol as the ultimate evil and changed it to a symbol of personal freedom and individuality. One of the most mocked, and also interesting, aspects of this religion coming about, is that Anton hadn’t started this religion from having a higher, or supernatural, entity coming to speak with him, much like how most other religions came about. Instead, LaVey confesses that he used his own insight to synthesize Satanism. He understood the human mind, and used the bases of earlier philosophers who promoted materialism and individuality.
Skipping past LaVey’s early life, one should first take a quick peek at the rules set up by the Church of Satan and The Satanic Bible, in which some of the aspects will be looked at further later on in this essay.
The “Nine Satanic Statements” start the off The Satanic Bible, and gives the foundation of what Satanism is, and are as follows, coming straight from The Satanic Bible:
1. Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence.
2. Satan represents vital existence instead of spiritual pipe dreams.
3. Satan represents undefiled wisdom instead of hypocritical self-deceit.
4. Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted on ingrates.
5. Satan represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek.
6. Satan represents responsibility to the responsible instead of concern for psychic vampires.
7. Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his “divine spiritual and intellectual development,” has become the most vicious animal of all.
8. Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification.
9. Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years.
As one can see, these all play off natural human instinct, so one may find Satanism to be a natural choice, and easy to follow and understand. The next set of rules are named, “The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth”. These were found to be too frank and brutal, so they were only issued among members, hence they won’t be shown in this essay.
Moving on past those, one might think that Satanism has no rules and the Satanist just run wild. This assumption is wrong. Sins have been acknowledged. In fact, there are the “Nine Satanic Sins” in which a Satanist is to never break. These rules help one become one with themselves, indulging in their human flaws, their needs, their wants. “Do unto others as they have to you” is one of the sayings that Satanism has come to own, whereas Christians often follow, “Do unto others as you wish to be done unto you”. You are to be kind to others, until they are unkind to you. That is one thing that Satanism allows and encourages. It’s a normal feeling, which is why Satanism allows this.
