The Satanic Bible
Page 16
forgotten that things were not better until history
presented the churches with a clear choice: reform
or die. 96
2. Atheism
As the record of El is mythological - the fables
of the J/C Holy Bible - all the atheist need do is
dismiss that document as superstitious fiction to
96 Fowles, John, The Aristos. Boston: Little, Brown, 1964,
extracts from Chapter 7/Christianity.
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prove his point: El is nothing more than an old
fairytale.
The problem here, however, is that the atheist
is all too anxious to limit the question to mere
acceptance/rejection of Biblical mythology. He does
not demand that his position also stand the test of
other conventional religions, like those of Asia or
Native America. That is too much trouble, and it
jeopardizes the simple smugness he enjoys with his
Abrahamic coup de grace.
In academia the term “scholasticism” refers to
reasoning deliberately towards the support of a
predetermined conclusion. Facts are acknowledged
and accepted only if they support the argument, and
ignored or denounced if they do not.
Scholasticism became [in]famous during
medieval and Renaissance times for the J/C-
supporting “learned” arguments of Christians such
as Augustine and Aquinas (both duly sanctioned by
Catholic canonization).
Theoreticians not feeling the necessity to
support “scripture” were not so honored: Niccoló
Machiavelli’s name was given to the Devil as “Old
Nick”, and Galileo was forced to deny his science to
remain alive.
Today one still searches in vain for a professed
atheist who has announced his position only after a
non-scholasticisic search through all possible doors
to the truth. It is precisely this precariousness which
makes their proclaimed confidence so brittle - and
why they often react to challenges perfunctorily.
3. Agnosticism
The J/C agnostic doesn’t assert the conviction
of the atheist - generally because of laziness. He is a
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procrastinator who would rather not risk a wrong
decision - or the antagonisms following any
decision. “Kick the can” and change the subject!
C. Satanimal
1.
Satanism
In 1966 the Church of Satan got off to a
somewhat uncertain start, and this was echoed in
the original Satanic Bible as well.
The problem was that as religious metaphysics
seemed the de facto domain of institutional faiths,
the ostensible opposition to it defaulted to the
physical position.
As the Satanic religion was oriented towards
human affairs rather than laboratory science, the
euphemism settled upon was “carnality”.
So in this context Indulgence meant just being
a “happy animal”, luxuriating contentedly in all
those pleasurable “Seven Deadly Sins”.
After a few years of Eyes Wide Shut frolics,
however, Satanists noticed that something
important was missing. The Satanist, in studying
and practicing both Lesser and Greater Black Magic,
assumes the prerogatives and powers of a god: that
is to say the “knowledge of Good & Evil” as acquired
by Adam & Eve.
But unlike those unfortunate slaves and their
progeny, the Satanist does not suppress this
knowledge or accept guilt and punishment for
possessing and asserting it. Rather he glories in it
and seeks to expand ad improve his exercise of it.
This is, obviously, Indulgence in the far more
exalted sense of the Diabolicon.
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2. NonRedemption
In “Might is Right” and the second original
“Lucifer” essay, a need for “redemption” was
acknowledged, with the Satanic caveat being the
assumption of self-, rather than Jesus/Mohammed-
redemption.
The implication seemed to be that although
sins remain sins, the Satanist reserves the right to
judge himself, including preemptive pardon. “I can’t
be sanctimonious like other priests and ministers,”
sorrowfully admitted Anton LaVey in Satanis. 97
Then he grinned: “But I can do anything I want!”
With time and experience this license was
realized to be inadequate if only hedonistic.
Assuming the prerogative to define Good & Evil
clearly carried with it the responsibility to do so
conscientiously.
Before too long the Church of Satan found itself
in the ironic, almost comic position of being the
champion of the highest possible concept of
morality. Now its contrast to conventional religion
highlighted their insincerity, hypocrisy, and cold-
blooded callousness to the point of torture, murder,
g e n o c i d e . N o s u c h d e p r a v i t y w o u l d b e
countenanced in a Satanist! In 1972 Anton said in
the Church’s Cloven Hoof newsletter:
Other religions have had thousands of years
to construct a wall of righteous immunity with
which to surround themselves, though they have
fought, one against the other.
Their priests can nefariously use their
prestigious positions, for, even though their deceit
is visible, so are the deceits of those who are
97 Satanis, the Devil’s Mass. 1970. DVD: “Something Weird
Video” #ID1615SWDVD.
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empowered to criticize them. Hence nothing is
said. Our Priests’ shortcomings will also be
visible, but many voices will be raised in criticism,
for such criticism is justified when it attacks the
Devil. Our Priests must be superior human
beings.
To attack our detractors is easy. Any Satanist
will find them to be small and unfair game; he will
receive no trophies upon bagging the limit. Such
sport can be entered into by the most fledgling
Satanist, armed with a modicum of logic and a
pantheon of Satanic deities from which to draw, in
a tournament of fantasy.
The Priest of Mendes, however, is a lion in
the path of those whose only justification for living
rests on their adherence to the side of “goodness”.
The Satanic Priest will be observed in all
aspects of his “evilness”, whether it be a pick of the
nose or an unmown lawn.
Our Priests and Priestesses - like Cæsar’s
wife - can do no wrong.
The Priesthood of the Church of Satan
requires far more perfection of its candidates than
do the priesthoods of other religions, for the Priest
or Priestess of Satan is the foundation of modern
Satanism.
As we grow, there is less room for marginal
persons within the Church. As we progress,
standards of leadership are tightened - not only
because we become a brighter object of scrutiny,
but because of incr
easingly higher qualifications
possessed by new members. 98
The pleasures of Indulgence thus transitioned
from nonchalant hedonism to the sophisticated
Epicureanism of the ancient Hellenistic cosmopolis:
the supreme pleasure to result from the wisest
Good: what Plato had sought through the dialectic
of his Dialogues.
98 LaVey, Anton in The Cloven Hoof, March 1972.
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It was important to Plato that virtue be raised
to a level of rationality. It was not enough for
people to be unconsciously or instinctively virtuous;
they must “taste of the knowledge of good and evil”
and then knowingly choose the good.
Plato stratified thought as Eikasia (primitive
emotion), Pistis (ordinary active/reactive thinking),
Dianoia (precise, logical, enlightened thought), and
Nœsis (intuition and apprehension of the Agathon):
In classical political thought there was a
concern to locate authority beyond anything that
anyone could appropriate, either in wisdom or in
justice, or, as in the Platonic Agathon - the
supreme Good which is beyond definition.
The Agathon can accommodate as many
formulations as there are human beings, and every
person can make his own report.
As there will always be a transcending or
conceivable Good beyond the good(s) of particular
individuals, the Agathon is ineffable and
indefinable, and necessarily transcends the spatial
and the temporal limits of finite powers of
perception.99
To be a god, then, carries with it the
responsibility of wisdom, of ethics, of serving the
Holy Grail that is the Agathon. It need hardly be
noted that El and his entourage failed in all of this
atrociously, shockingly, disgracefully.
So if you take upon yourself the name, dignity,
and legacy of the Prince of Darkness, you will see in
your Xeper, your telos, a divinity breathtaking in its
magnificence. But once you drink from this Grail,
there is no turning back.
99 Iyer, Raghavan N., ParaPolitics: Toward the City of Man.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, page #22.
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3. Telos
a. Symbolique
Telos (from the Greek τέλος for “end”,
“purpose”, or “goal”) originates in Egyptian
Symbolism100 as the principle that the design and
organization of an object, a life-form, or a process
inherently requires preconception based on
purpose.
Conventional academic doctrine is that living
beings’ purpose is selectively the result of
environmental survival needs: Darwinian “natural
selection”: There is no inherent purpose to life-
forms beyond passive/reactive survival, avoidance of
pain, seeking of pleasure, and instinct to reproduce.
b. Lamarck101
Prior to Darwin’s theory of passive natural
selection, the French biologist Jean Baptiste
Lamarck (1744-1829), while not denying such
passive evolution, augmented it with what he
termed “soft evolution” (in modern parlance
“Lamarckism”). Under this theory, characteristics
developed or acquired by a given living being can be
inherited by its progeny, thus adding the element of
intentional purpose to evolution.
100 Plutarch: “First I want to interpret for you the theology of
the Egyptians. Through symbols they reveal certain mystical
ideas that are hidden and invisible, just as nature in its
perceptible forms has to a certain extent expressed with
symbols the invisible reasons for things.” - Schwaller de
Lubicz, Isha, Her-Bak: Egyptian Initiate. New York: Inner
Traditions, 1967, page #271.
101 Anton LaVey was an emphatic and unshakable Lamarckian.
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If Lamarckism is allowed to operate according
to human intellectual will, of course, then the
principle of purpose on the individual human scale
is established. This in turn suggests that there may
be a greater element of purpose above and beyond
the individual: one or more neteru who manifest
through that individual, both physically and
consciously.
While outrageously heretical to the Darwinian
establishment, which is rigidly deistic if not outright
atheistic, such a master-principle of purpose was
neither unknown nor repugnant to the ancients,
who by the time it had reached Greece from Egypt
referred to it as telos.
c.
Teleology
Teleology is the doctrine that final causes of
phenomena exist. Further that purpose and design
are a part of or are apparent in nature. Further that
phenomena are not only guided by mechanical
forces (e.g. passive natural selection), but also move
towards certain goals of self-realization.
d. Mechanism
The opposite of teleology is mechanism,
which describes phenomena in terms of prior causes
instead of their presumed destination or fulfillment.
[Modern science is thus mechanistic.]
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13: Metacarnation
A. Consciousness
1.
Metaphysics:
Consciousness as an Entity
S i n c e c o n v e n t i o n a l t h e o l o g y r e g a r d s
consciousness as “the soul in action”, it has
generally been happy to just blur the two concepts
into a single, nothing-further-needed axiom of
religious faith.
Philosophers seeking to escape the label of
such mere faith found that the moment they strayed
from the simple act of self-awareness, they were
actually addressing other issues, such as whether
physical sensory input is/was occurring, whether
such input is reliable, and indeed whether the
mental processing of concepts and information (e.g.
“thought”) should somehow be either a requirement
or evidence of awareness. René Descartes’ famous
“cogito ergo sum” (= I think, therefore I am) is an
example of such off-the-mark confusion; arguments
both pro and con this maxim have all focused on the
act of thinking rather than mere self-awareness.
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2. Physics:
Consciousness as an Illusion
Modern physical science remains adamantly
materialistic; any hint of a metaphysical presence or
activity is tantamount to heresy. If consciousness
exists, therefore, it must be explainable [away] as
the physical brain generating some form of illusory
self-imagery.
In support of this theory, scientists note that if
the brain is anæsthetized, the individual “blacks
out”. Also when the body and brain sleep,
consciousness either blacks out or becomes merely a
spectator to hallucination (e.g. dreaming).
Upon examination both of these scientific
claims fail to be conclusive.
&n
bsp; As ordinary consciousness is accustomed to
being reactive to physical sensory input, the sudden
muting of all such input by anæsthesia throws the
consciousness into a sudden non-sensory mode with
which it has no experience. The result is temporary
inactivity, though below the level of sensory imagery
it continues to receive stimulus signals from the
physical body.
In certain anæsthesia applications, moreover,
the body’s transmissions to the consciousness are
muted while that consciousness remains alert and
communicative. If it were merely a function of the
body’s normal physical sensory processes, this
would not occur.
Where sleep and dreaming are concerned, it
has already been established that the quality and
coherence of the act of thinking is an entirely
different concern than self-awareness per se.
Where ordinary sleep and dreaming are
concerned, once again awareness must not be
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confused with thinking. In short, the random
imagination characteristic of dreams, or the absence
of such experiences if the resting brain has so
lowered its sensory transmissions, has no relevance
to awareness. Being self-aware does not require this
to be continuous.
3. Consciousness/Brain Distinction
Whether the conscious/“soul” (Egyptian
MindStar) is distinguishable from the physical brain
is related to the constitution of bodily “death”, which
is itself not all that simple to determine.
In 1981 a Commissioners’ Conference on
Unites States Laws proposed a model state law
entitled the Uniform Determination of Death Act,
since adopted by some but not all states. It reads:
An individual who has sustained either (1)
irreversible cessation of circulatory and
respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation
of all functions of the entire brain, including the
brain stem, is dead. A determination of death must
be made in accordance with accepted medical
standards.
This suffices in the OU to discard bodies no
longer collectively-metabolizing, but it is an
unsubstantiated overreach of OU materialism to
claim that the absence of brain-electricity proves the
obliteration of the mind/consciousness - which is