[Image: http://i.minus.com/i9oZF2sVy5CF2.png]
[SIZE="6"]Foreword[/SIZE]
Let's talk about the big elephant in the room.
Some of you have probably seen my new Satanic signature by now, and I'm sure some of you are thinking things along the lines of "repent, heretic!" "burn her!" "exorcism! exorcism!" and what have you, but hey... with all the Christian propaganda floating around in people's sigs, I figured the other side of the argument deserved a fair shake propaganda-wise.
It was mostly a joke, which I find hilarious by the way. Way more than I probably should... But not entirely a joke.
Right, so I'll dive right into it:
[SIZE="6"]Satanism[/SIZE]
Satanism is divided into two factions:
Left-Hand Path | Right-Hand Path
Satanism is divided into two factions:
Left-Hand Path | Right-Hand Path
If I were to tell you the two are similar then I would be outright lying to you. In fact, the two factions generally despise one another. They are so far apart in fact, that it's really hard to even group them all together as a whole as Satanism. It's all way too generalized.
It's a lot like the Left/Right in Politics, though grouping both Liberals and Conservatives into the same category would be a catastrophe for any kind of descriptional purposes. They're quite different and indeed have very different ideologies.
As far as things go, the RHP is the lighter more easygoing side whereas the LHP is the more sinister and extreme side.
The popular culture "Satanism" is actually "Occultism" and I'll get into that in a bit. You can guess what one that's grouped into though. But let's go ahead and jump right into the paths. We'll do the more simple one first.
[SIZE="5"]Right-Hand Path[/SIZE]
The Right-Hand Path is what things like The Church of Satan (LaVeyan Satanism), Temple of Set, etc. etc. are based around.
To, what I imagine, will be your great surprise, these actually have absolutely nothing to do with devil worship, the occult, sacrifices, wearing black or anything of the sort.
They, generally, are even more watered down than even Christianity. Bunch of little sissies if you ask me. They're like the vegans and wiccans that think you shouldn't harm anything.
To try to summarize it, it's something like so:
1. Avoid taboos.
2. Do what makes you happy.
3. Enjoy sex.
4. If someone bothers you in your home, ask them to stop. If they do not stop, then destroy them.
5. Do not harm other humans or animals except to protect yourself.
6. Do not prey upon children.
7. Do not attempt to engage in sexual activity unless the "mating signal" is given.
8. Random magical chantra jibberish nonsense. Respect it, blah blah. Coo-coo nutjobs, whoo. Not too much more insane than prayers, reciting Bible verses and crap though, if you want me to be completely honest here. I should mention, the RHP only practices "white" magic.
That's the Right-Hand Path. Not so bad really. They're against murder, pedophilia, rape, and animal abuse or even killing animals for that matter. They don't even do socially weird things around others. They basically dropped some of the more annoying or redundant Christian ideologies, prescribed a little of their own moral superiority, and threw in a dash of crazy spell casting chantra nonsense instead of prayer (though, don't get the wrong idea... they don't use it for worship or prayer, it's just some weird bull****), and there you go.
[SIZE="5"]Left-Hand Path[/SIZE]
Ah, the LHP. The darker more sinister side of things. Basically, just the more extreme of the two. And there are a lot of factions grouped into the LHP.
In short, we can group the Left-Hand Path into these 3 beliefs:
1. Reject societal convention & the status quo.
2. Question religions & moral dogmas.
3. Embrace sexuality.
In other words, it's pretty close to Atheism and worshiping Science over Religion. Some do involve theism though, and eh, I'll talk about those later. I don't like those very much. They're just as stupid as the mainstream Religions, if not even moreso, if a bit "cooler."
What is generally considered the true LHP is something like the Order of Nine Angles. there's also some stuff like Occultism, Demonology, and a few other various sects of various belief systems within the LHP. Some are theistic, some aren't. The theistic side of things tends to be within the LHP however. We're just going to cover the best one first, since well, cause I say so.
[Image: http://i.minus.com/i6GfVSeS57GAy.png]
[SIZE="5"]Order of Nine Angles[/SIZE]
These are some of the most extreme of all of the groups. They believe in bettering themselves and solving the problems with society, the things that are making our species weak.
The values are as follows:
- 1. Self-excellence & wisdom.
- 2. Transcend physical & mental limits.
- 3. Practical acts of risk, prowess & endurance.
- 3a. For instance, roughing it for 3 months in a forest with no supplies or any other human contact to aid in the evolution of the individual. The new individual will be fierce, free, and worthy of survival, possessing a particularly essential new attitude and outlook towards life.
- 3b. A multitude of martial, combat, and survival training.
- 3a. For instance, roughing it for 3 months in a forest with no supplies or any other human contact to aid in the evolution of the individual. The new individual will be fierce, free, and worthy of survival, possessing a particularly essential new attitude and outlook towards life.
- 4. Change our evolution and societies, create a new human species and civilization appropriate for the new type of being.
- 4a. This also condones eliminating the weak, cullings that remove the worthless and those detrimental to further evolution.
In the end, it actually has woefully little to do with worshiping demons, or even theism at all for that matter. It's a little extreme, but this is actually the one I would prescribe to.
Actually, I think I'm just going to skip Demonology and Occultism since they should just be categorized in their own little bracket and don't really match the rest of the Satanism described so far whatsoever. You can look those up if you want, but it's what you traditionally think of, so you probably don't really need to. Occultism and Demonology are probably what you think of when you hear Satanic and Satanism.
[SIZE="5"]My Signature[/SIZE]
[Image: http://i.minus.com/ibbqKWqhrefcJp.png]
It was the first thing I mentioned, and now that I've cleared most of the worst misconceptions when it comes to Satanism, I think it's time that I may as well explain my signature.
My signature is what the Templar died for. Taf mem vav pe bet - "Baphomet." Put through the Atbash Cipher it reads alef yud pe vav shin - "Sophia;" Greek for "Wisdom."
In short, they worshiped wisdom, and not some human made religious text or prescribed moral dogmas. Wisdom. Knowledge.
They worshiped Science over Religion in other words - they were Atheists. It's not a religion. It's as much a religion as "off" is a TV channel. It's more of a belief system, not so much religious belief but moreso of a global outlook and a completely different set of standards.
Well, specifically for my signature... it's not actually a true Baphomet, because if it were then she'd have some big honkin' titties, in all her futa glory. But that wouldn't be allowed on the forum, so this is the censored version.