Diane Vera’s “Greetings to the Legions of Hell” refers to Iblis, Lucifer, Belial, and the Ancient Serpent. I’m wondering whether these are seen–in the Church of Azazel’s paradigm–as distinct entities, or aspects of Satan. In other Satanic idioms, the spirits associated with the four directions are sometimes aspects of the Satanic Whole, but the CoAz “is polytheistic with a leaning toward hard polytheism” (from this page), and the Rising Gods of the West seem to be portrayed as distinct entities, though less important or perhaps less multi-faceted than Satan/Azazel. I’m just wondering how the Church of Azazel, and perhaps other Theistic Satanists on this forum, view the names/spirits associated with the cardinal directions.

I was raised in a purely secular household. My father is a staunch atheist and materialist, rejecting mysticism and the possibility of deities and spirits; my mother was raised a Baptist but seems to be more or less an atheist now. As a child, I attended Sunday School for a little while, but not for very long, and I remember very little about it, mostly just the routine of colouring pictures of Noah’s Ark and the like.

I participated in Beavers, Cubs, and Scouts, which constituted the bulk of my religious participation. The Boy Scouts of Canada is a Christian organisation. Each meeting concluded with the Lord’s Prayer, and the troop participated in community events which sometimes occurred in this or that church. But I did not attend church services otherwise.

I began to be curious about religion in high school, but didn’t explore it in much depth. I did try praying to God a few times, but saw no results and abandoned prayer.

It was not until I was 21 and dropped out of university due to chronic headaches that I became more seriously intrigued by religion and spirituality, perhaps because my illness forced me to question the world around me and the value of supposedly scientific medicine. My room-mate at the time was dabbling in neo-paganism, but the first thing I explored was LaVeyan Satanism, for reasons I cannot now recall. I read the Satanic Bible and The Devil’s Notebook and felt a flash of recognition. It didn’t take me long, however, to discover that LaVeyan Satanism was shallow and that once you’ve read The Satanic Bible and a handful of other things there’s not much left to do. It’s a short path and offers no opportunity for advancement, and as it is atheistic it offers no connection to spirituality.

At the same time, I began to be interested in magic and witchcraft. I experimented, but found myself incapable of sensing the magical energies that were supposedly involved.

I happened to be working on a short story set in 10th century Viking Iceland, and in the name of verisimilitude I began researching the religion of pre-Christian Scandinavia. I became intrigued by the mythology, symbolism, and customs of the reconstructed religion known as “Heathenry” or Asatru, and began to experiment with it. I made offerings to various deities such as Odin, Thor, and Frey, but–as in my experimentation with magic–could not sense the “presence” or acknowledgement of the deities. I became discouraged.

Over the next few years I read much on the subject of spirituality, mostly in the domain of neopagan and reconstructionist religion, including Wicca, Druidry, Heathenry/Asatru, Kemet (Egyptian religion), Roman religion. I experimented with all of them but remained incapable of feeling a connection to any of these systems. I also attempted to learn Buddhist meditation, which met only with frustration because I could not still my mind.

Sometime in the last few years I became aware of Diane Vera’s website on theistic Satanism. I explored the writings there, and attempted a few times to communicate with Satan, to no avail.

I encountered the Quakers, a Christian sect who often take a sceptical approach to the Bible, who focus on finding “that of God” within each person and on charitable and social work and advocacy. Some Quakers take their inspiration from sources beyond Christianity, even to the point of calling themselves Pagan Quakers or Buddhist Quakers. The idea seemed appealing but I had no beliefs on which to base a Quaker approach.

In January 2007, upon seeing the first few episodes of the new CBC comedy Little Mosque on the Prairie, I suddenly, to my great astonishment, became interested in Islam. I began to research the religion as best I could via the internet, and bought a copy of the Qur’an; I became concerned by the vehemently conservative attitude of the overwhelming majority of Muslims and Muslim websites. An acquaintance at university who is a Sufi from Dubai knew of my interest and directed me to a few websites by and for “progressive” Muslims. On one such discussion forum I met Muslims who are not puritanical, but who are nevertheless mostly unwilling to entertain much scepticism about the Qur’an or other founding narratives of Islam.

(When I was in junior high school, I read Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses for the first time, which takes a sceptical and humanistic approach to the Qur’an and Islam. It has formed a large part of my attitude toward sacred texts, namely that they are written by humans with political concerns and are anything but infallible documents. At the time I began researching Islam, I was writing my honours thesis on the novel.)

Through the same forum I met a local progressive Muslim convert, and met with her in person. While she wears the hijab (head scarf), she is otherwise just as liberal as I am and takes a similarly sceptical approach to the Qur’an. She is married to a Catholic (despite the frequent assertion by Muslims that marriage outside the faith is against God’s law). She too has explored various religions. We have had many stimulating discussions. With her I attended the university’s Muslim students’ association’s Friday prayers a few times and was welcomed warmly–more warmly, in fact, than she was when she joined.

I found Islam elegant in the simplicity of its theology and its profound respect and reverence for God. I found the form of the prayers easy to do and not something that felt forced. In the spirit of the theology, I found the popular worship of Prophet Muhammad slightly disturbing, as Muslims are not supposed to worship anything or anyone but God Alone. I found the obsessive-compulsive legalism off-putting and the narrow-minded literalism repulsive. I became concerned by the way Muslims treat women, apostates, non-Muslims, and gays. The Qur’an is a text in the same vein as the Old Testament–violent, xenophobic, and tribal. While many Christians in the West have moved beyond a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible, Muslims have not. Muslim exegesis is in fact more strictly literal and draconian now than it was in the Middle Ages.

Reacting against this puritanism in modern Islam, I have recently turned my attention back to Theistic Satanism. At the same time, however, I find myself unwilling or unable to abandon Islam entirely. I wonder whether I might in fact practice both religions simultaneously.

The following ritual is one I came up with tonight (12 June 2007), after reading Diane Vera’s pages on Theistic Satanic ritual (see A recommended standard ritual format). It follows the form of Islamic prayers, remodelled with Satanic language. I have spent the last few months studying and practicing Islam, but find Islam as-is unsatisfactory for a host of reasons that belong in a separate post. The ritual forms of Islamic worship, however, I find highly appealing. They comprise both worship and meditation. To reformulate those prayers in a Satanic context not only combines what I like of Islam with what I like of Satanism, but also constitutes a deliberate act of blasphemy against the rigid orthodoxy of Islam as a rejection of those rules I see as unappealing and anti-human.

Preparation:
- Altar composed
- Wudu (Islamic ablution)
- Listened to some Bach organ music to set the mood (Toccata and Fugue in D-minor, and Passacaglia and Fugue in C-minor).
- Prayer rug laid out (facing altar in the West, which happens to be directly opposite qibla [i.e., the direction of Mecca])
- Incense and candles lit

Satanic Salat
(Salat is the Islamic unit of prayer. It is copied here, substituting the name Al-Shaitan for Allah. I believe they are essentially interchangeable and say more about the one speaking the name than the one referred to by it. The only other change is that instead of asking for forgiveness for sins, I reject the concept of sin.)

Takbir: الشيطان اكبر
(“Satan is Most Great”)

Invocation to Satan
(Inspired by Diane Vera’s Invocation to Satan and by Al-Fatiha, the first chapter of the Qur’an.)

بسم الشيطان الرشيد البديع
(“In the Name of Satan, the Great Teacher, the Innovator”)

Praise be to Satan,
King of Hell,
The Master, the Innovator,
Lord of the Earth;

I worship You, and I pray to You:

Guide me to the path of Enlightenment,
The path of those whom You invite to become as gods,
And who do not blindly submit.

الشيطان اكبر

Ruku (bowing): سبحان بي العظيم
(“Glory to my Lord, the Magnificent”) (3 times)

الشيطان اكبر

Standing: سمع لشيطان لمن حمده. ربنا و لك لحمد
(“Satan listens to those who praise Him. My Lord, all [my] praises are for You.”)

الشيطان اكبر

Sujoud (prostrating): سبحان ربي الاعل
(“Glory to my Lord, the Most High”) (3 times)

الشيطان اكبر

Kneeling: “I reject sin. I reject sin.”

الشيطان اكبر

Sujoud (prostrating): سبحان ربي الاعل
(“Glory to my Lord, the Most High”) (3 times)

الشيطان اكبر

[This is the end of the salat.]

Greetings to the Legions of Hell
(As in Diane Vera’s model)

Repeat the Satanic Salat.

I then sat on the prayer rug, facing the altar, and meditated, attempting to focus on the Legions of Hell (Serpent, Iblis, Lucifer, and Belial). I have very clear mental images and conceptions of Lucifer and Belial; the Serpent/Leviathan and Iblis are less clear at this stage. It seemed I could almost feel the four of them around me, and the overarching presence of Satan, and the darkness of the Pit/Underworld. Through my closed eyelids, the flickering of the candles around me invoked the Fires of Hell, which felt peaceful.

When I became distracted, I closed my meditation and the ritual with the formula: الله الشيطان لعليم
(“God [who is] Satan Knows All”)
and الشيطان اكبر

I listened to some slightly more mellow, lighter Bach organ music (G-minor Fugue), then extinguished the candles and turned on the lights, and listened to some Aqua to bring myself back to the mundane (and absurd) world.

—

Some thoughts on the experiment.

I found the use of music very effective, especially such sublime music as J. S. Bach’s elegant organ fugues. It’s a bit cliché, but they seem to evoke a Satanic atmosphere.

The blending of Islamic prayers with Satanic references felt a bit strange, though part of that is the fact that the ritual formulas are easier to say with the word “Allah” than with “al-Shaitan”. I was also at first very conscious of the fact that I was doing things “wrong”, particularly facing away from Mecca. But it didn’t actually feel wrong to me; it’s just that I was aware that I was breaking the rules of Islam. Allah and Satan are, to me, the same entity, just wearing different faces and names when interacting with different types of people.

The rules of the Theistic Satanism Blog Network are here.

Alas, the vast majority of high-profile Satanist forums have tended either to (1) not allow much dissent at all or to (2) degenerate into a total cesspool of flaming and petty bickering.

Of course, this applies as much to other fora as it does to those for Satanists. It’s disappointing that people in general have such a hard time handling the fact that other minds view the world differently.

For example, it is much easier to keep a debate between Satanists and Christians rational and civil if the link to it appears on a page with a title like “Theistic Satanist interfaith discussion,” so that those theistic Satanists who aren’t prepared to deal with Christians in a friendly manner can easily avoid it.

It’s also for those Satanists who might be prepared to deal civilly with Christians, but who realise that Christians might not be prepared to reciprocate. It would be nice if there was some way to differentiate. The separate tag for the “troll playground” is along the right idea, but a lot of “interfaith discussion” can become hostile without much warning. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any way to weed out the hostile Christians et al. except by relying on their own self-policing, just as the network relies on Satanists (and pagans and occultists) to police themselves and use their better judgement.

My soon-to-be-defunct public Yahoo groups have long been noted for attracting a relatively mature and intelligent crowd, and for allowing a very wide variety of people, with a very wide veriety of views, to exchange ideas in peace, to a degree unheard of elsewhere in the online Satanist scene. What has made my forums attractive to the more intelligent folks in the theistic Satanist scene has been precisely my ability to keep the peace while allowing wide-ranging discussion and accommodating many different points of view. However, what a lot of these folks apparently have not realized is that the separation of my forums into different topics and audiences – a feature which various folks have complained about as inconvenient, or as a limitation on their freedom of expression – is an essential part of the secret of how I’ve managed to keep the peace to such a unique degree.

That’s how I always saw it. There was an email group for Theistic Satanists only, where such people could discuss the ins and outs of their spirituality without having constantly to defend it to others, so apologetics didn’t crowd out more in-depth discussion for those who had moved beyond Theistic Satanism 101. The confining of political and social discussion to a separate forum was, I thought, brilliant, and I’m glad to see that that structure will be maintained in the blog network. As Diane has noted, politics and social issues tend to overwhelm other issues in almost any online forum, especially if the people involved are such a politically highly diverse group as Satanists, who range from hippies to neo-Nazis. One thing I’ve found annoying about certain other religiously based internet fora I’ve read is that certain socio-political issues keep coming up in discussions of theology, scripture, folklore, and other places where they’re really not helpful.

Regarding the comment policy, Diane suggests appending posts with prescriptions such as “”Comments requested from Satanists and Pagans and occultists only. Please avoid digression onto sociopolitical topics.” I’ll be curious to see how well this works. On Blogger and WordPress, I’m less familiar with the system. On LiveJournal, one’s Friends may not consist entirely of Satanists or Pagans or what-have-you; they may not be prepared to accept the rules of the blog network. For my own LiveJournal, I intend to post some warning to my Friends that I may be using that journal at times for the blog network, and what it entails, and asking them to either play by the rules or not play at all. LiveJournal is popularly known (by those who do not use it, at least) as a den of angst and drama only slightly more mature than that found on MySpace. I don’t use MySpace, so I don’t know how it compares, and I also tend to avoid those on LiveJournal who gravitate toward melodrama and similar nonsense. Some network members who use LiveJournal may encounter difficulties in moderating comments in their journals. I’ll be interested to see how this develops.

In another post, Diane addresses the issue of the network tag “Theistic Satanism troll playground”. I was a bit curious about this tag myself. Someone commented that

I probably wouldn’t read a post with such a category as “Theistic Satanism troll playground”

to which Diane responded

I chose the name “Theistic Satanism troll playground” was precisely to discourage most readers from looking at that page very often, just as the corresponding Yahoo group, Theistic-Satanists-and-others-3, is deliberately the smallest of my public discusson groups on Yahoo. The fewer people are involved in a highly volatile discussion, the less likely it is to get completely out of hand. So, in my opinion, your agreement with my perception that the name is off-putting is a good reason to keep the name, not a reason to change it. Not only do you agree that it is off-putting, but, even better, you seem to agree with me that it is off-putting in a way that is not likely to push people’s buttons, but instead just looks uninteresting.

I hadn’t thought of that, but it makes sense. It relegates posts that have (or will) become troll fodder to a position where fewer people will bother to click on, read, and potentially participate in them.

I also have to admit that I’m somewhat amused to read Diane’s description of her Yahoo groups as a “dictatorship”. While I can’t refute such a claim, it’s still amusing. It’s a good reminder that dictatorship isn’t necessarily a bad word, as those Yahoo groups functioned quite well and remained quite civil as far as I was aware.