What is a Satanist or Setian?

So this is quite hard to define since there are many philosophies and many of them are at odds with each other. It is important to understand the significant differences. Also to be aware that many of these groups would not like to see everyone who self-identifies as a Satanist in the same group.

Theistic Satanist or Atheistic Satanist

The most obvious difference between these two groups is whether they actually believe Satan exists. A Theistic Satanist believes Satan exists and is either a powerful deity in their own right or at least a spirit guide with an objective existence.

Theistic Satanists can also be called Traditional Satanists, Spiritual Satanists or Religious Satanists. They will often worship or pray to Satan as an entity in the hopes of receiving guidance and support.

Atheistic Satanists still use the symbol of Satan, but for them it is mostly just a symbol of questioning authority, bucking the trend and sometimes doing the unpopular right thing. Sometimes Satan is seen as an psychological Archtype.

Luciferian

For most Luciferians, the important indicator of their mind set is that, the name of their devil they use is the lightbearer. Lucifer is often associated with illucidation, enlightenment and guidance. While Jesus might be considered by some as a saviour so is Lucifer. Up to this point Jesus symbolises a saviour saving people from death with providing fruit from the tree of life and Lucifer becomes a second saviour who in the form of a serpent saves us with fruit from with the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Lucifer is often associated with Prometheus who is tortured by Zeus for teaching mankind how to use fire. Lucifer is thought to grow initiates to independence rather than keep them subservient.

Lucifer is sometimes associated with venus who is occasionally called the morning star as at some astrological points it appears on the eastern sky before the Sun rises and appears as if it is bringing the sun rise and dawn.

Most Luciferians think of Lucifer more as a spirit guidance than the recipient of devotion. Most practice a form of ceremonial magic, but obviously the Qabalistical names are often dropped for more relevant ones.

The term was applied to Waldesians, Templars and Cathars, but non of these groups assumed the definition “Luciferian” themselves. However often members of the modern Sabbatic Craft and members of the Temple of Set assume that title deliberately.

Some groups approach Luciferianism through the guise of gnostic Christianity. They believe that the creator deity creates the world around us to hide the pure nature of reality. The pure nature of reality being light with which Lucifer is associated. One such group is the Fraturnitas Saturni (or Saturn Brotherhood). They are often associated with Thelema to which they adhere.

LaVeyan Satanists and Church of Satan

One of the first Satanic groups was established by Anton LaVey as the church of Satan in the 1960s in San Fransisco. LaVey establishes his philosophy in the Satanic Bible where he establishes an atheistic Satanism. Satan is perceived as an archtype. He rejects mind body spirit separation and promotes materialism.

Layvan Satanists often perform ritual magic to throw aside superstition and fear religious views and he Satanic bible has some random enochian angel calls confusingly sandwiched between pages of nihilism. LaVey has inconsistent attitudes to magic, sometimes seeing it as an undiscovered science and sometimes as religious superstition to be thrown aside a long with Christianity. He was heavily influenced by Aleister Crowley and Thelema.

Layvan philosophy is based on Ayn Rand and Nietzche. Rand’s philosophy is called Objectivism and is based in rationalism, involving the rejection of all religious ideas. Nietzche encourages man to establish his own moral rules rather than allow them to be opposed by an external source.

Politically LaVeyan philosophy is technically right wing suggesting that we should NOT support the weaker members of society as it allows them to remain weak and weakens society as a whole. It advocates a Social Darwinism. It refers to needy people as psychic vampires and ingrates and if allowed to continue they will only become more needy. It suggests that feeding them will only seek to weaken you and you energy should be spent on those that deserve it.

The LaVeyan attitude towards sex is that one should not be guided by guilt from society, but even from its earliest days it advocated that homosexuals must only practice homosexual sex and should not allow society to push them into heterosexual relationships and asexual individuals could declare themselves as celibate so long as they were not coerce into it by guilt or concepts such as sin.

The Satanic Statements in 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 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.

Recommended Rules:

1. Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.
2. Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them.
3. When in another’s home, show them respect or else do not go there.
4. If a guest in your home annoys you, treat them cruelly and without mercy.
5. Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal.
6. Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and they cry out to be relieved.
7. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.
8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.
9. Do not harm little children.
10. Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food.
11. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

Temple of Set

The Temple of Set established by Michael Angelo Aquino established itself as a schism from the Church of Satan encouraged by the atheistic approach and inconsistent attitudes towards ritual magic. Aquino was entirely concerned with ritual magic, in particular Thelema. Aquino was a theistic Satanist and believed that Satan spoke to him and informed him that his true name was “Set” and identified with the Egyptian deity of the desert by that name. Members of the Temple of Set are normally called Setians.

The focus of the group was much more concerned with mystic pursuits and self deification than with establishing any philosophy or moral code. The main guiding voices in the church were Aquino and Don Webb. LaVey’s daughter Zeena became leader of the group for a short period of time before leaving and suggesting that many of the group free themselves from any organisations and following a more Tantra oriented path.

Aquino wrote a number of books which helped convey the groups core philosophies. One such book is named Going forth by Night (obviously a parody of Going forth by Day the Egyptian script which contains most of the “Book of the Dead” or funerary texts written on the walls of the tombs). This book associated the mystical pursuit with the Egyptian deity/word Khepera which it writes as “Xeper”.

Satanic Temple

This group is entirely an atheistic Satanist group and they rarely practice any form of ritual magic. Their concern with the LaVeyan group was that it was too Right-wing and encouraged members to be more concerned for themselves. The Satanic Temple is more concerned for the world at large and seeks to fight forces such as religiosity to allow for greater freedoms. This is most obvious in the US where the group is VERY politically active. They frequently have staged protests against anti-abortion movements, prayer in schools, homophobic and transphobic views in churches and Christian monuments in public places. While the group is primarily atheist, it still establishes itself as a religion to demonstrate the absurdity of allowing some religious freedoms. The group tried to establish that for religious reasons it should be allowed access to abortifacts in areas of the US where abortion was banned, but was unfortunately blocked.

The group achieved fame through many demonstrations such as establishing that their statue of Baphomet should be placed along side a monument to the 10 commandements. They frequently erect Satanivities next to nativities when done in public places. They famously performed a queer sex ritual on the grave of the mother of Fred Phelps the head of the Westboro Baptist Church. During the inauguration of Donald Trump they hosted one of the largest Satanic Masses having nearly double the attendance of Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Left-Hand path and the Black Brother

Aleister Crowley goes into detail in Magick Without Tears where he establishes that while a Thelemic Mystic might achieve Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, but then need to abandon the path. For many crossing the Abyss and becoming a Babe of the Abyss is such a destruction of ego that it is not their aim or desire. The Left-Hand path practitioner does not want to be so reduced and so does not continue the path at this point. They are not a Black Magician casting evil spells, but a brother in Thelema up to this point. Crowley mourns their future and feels they will eventually reach a state of entropy, but they may then choose to resume.

The main difference between the Left-hand path and right-hand path in Thelema is the desire not to destroy the ego for the Left-hand pathers whereas the Right-hand pathers seek the ecstasy of returning their entirety to Babalon’s cup, a form of death of self that yields unity with everything.

The term Left-Hand Path actually originates from Tantra where it refers to a person whose practice involves committing some taboos such as making themselves impure for vedic practice with graveyard dirt or using bones of the dead. Sometimes the use of sexual carnality during spiritual ritual, drinking alcohol and eating meat, which was discouraged for the purity required for vedic practices.

Some authors such as A. E. Waite and Dennis Wheatley assumed that the Left-hand path was simply any magical practice that relied on Satan and demons rather than Theurgy and Qabalah, but this seems to be a gross simplification.

The Black Lodge

The Black brother should be distinguished entirely from Black Magicians of the Black lodge. Frequently, the black magicians of the black lodge are theorised to exist to fight the magicians who are trying to promote freedom and light. They are usually entirely a figmant of the imagination, but useful as a tool to unite a group to fight an outside enemy. Ocassionally, the energy and capacity to manifest stuff in a working magic group allows things like shared fears to quickly manifest dangers on an energy plane. The Black Lodge does not usually exist, but a group that is very capable of manipulating energy, can easily make the very threat they fear become real on an energy plane. This is most easily done by sharing ideas while everyone imagines and visualise what that might look like.

It is normally feared that the black lodge consists of evil satanist magicians who are well adept at conjuring demons, ghost and energy attacks on the current group. This is often referred to as psychic wars.

Undesirables

While most of these groups exist for good reason and there is stuff we can learn from them Satanism by its very nature has often attracted some undesirable groups.

In some cases murderers such as Jacob Delashmutt, Joseph Fiorella, and Royce Casey have identified as Satanists and their ritualistic murders have contributed to a growing fear of hidden Satanic cults in contemporary society. The Satanic Panic grew with many more murderers being accused of Satanism whether they confessed to it or not.

Some groups were born out of Church of Satan or splinter groups which sought to do harm or teach harmful things for example The Joy of Satan Ministries taught a neo-nazi philosophy crossed with Satanism (based on Yezidi religion) meets Realian UFO conspiracy theories. The group is thoroughly racist and sometimes deliberately evil.

The Order of Nine Angles (or ONA) is often mocked as a Sith cosplay group. It actually encourages sins and crimes such as murder and rape. When interviewed no immediate connections to murders have been found, but members are said to join police forces and the military in order to commit the killing they believe is part of their goal. The order is associated with convicted pedophiles.

Such groups provide no help in palming the Satanic Panic which was at its greatest extreme in the 80s had people occasionally convicted and given longer sentences because of unfounded accusations of Satanism. Michael Aquino of the Temple of Set was accused by a small girl when encouraged by hypnosis of ritualistic rape in his house in Russia. However Aquino had been in Los Angelos at the time the act supposedly took place and the accusations demonstrated an true innocence when it came to how such an act might be performed. It was not uncommon for children to be hypnotised to remember Satanic events which never occurred. One such incident resulted in a famous book called Michelle Remembers which is often cited as the original story responsible for the Satanic Panic. While it does not hold entire nations in the grip of fear anymore, conspiracy theories such as QAnnon indicate that it is still a serious issue.

See also other types of Magical Practitioner.