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Introduction
No full textThis introductory chapter provides an overview of the history of Satanism. As an open identity, Satanism only became possible in a time when Christianity’s hold on legal systems and social norms weakened. In that sense, Satanism is a direct product of secularization. As a religious practice or coherent system of thought, Satanism did not exist any earlier than around the year 1900, when pioneers like Stanislaw Przybyszewski and Ben Kadosh appeared. However, strands of Satanic thought can be found in a series of instances prior to this, and some of these early ideas remain influential today. The chapter also looks at the establishment of groups like the Church of Satan, the Process Church of the Final Judgement, the Temple of Set, and the Order of the Nine Angles. While never a numerically significant religion, Satanism’s controversial and confrontational character makes it an excellent case study for discussing broader methodological and theoretical issues
Satanic feminism : Lucifer as the liberator of woman in nineteenth-century culture /
No full textThe notion of woman as the Devil's accomplice is prominent throughout Christian history and was used to legitimise the subordination of wives and daughters. In the 19th century, rebellious females performed counter-readings of this misogynist tradition and Lucifer was reconceptualised as a feminist liberator. Per Faxneld shows how this surprising Satanic feminism was expressed in a wide range of 19th-century texts and artistic productions.Specialized.Previously issued in print: 2017.Includes bibliographical references and index.The notion of woman as the Devil's accomplice is prominent throughout Christian history and was used to legitimise the subordination of wives and daughters. In the 19th century, rebellious females performed counter-readings of this misogynist tradition and Lucifer was reconceptualised as a feminist liberator. Per Faxneld shows how this surprising Satanic feminism was expressed in a wide range of 19th-century texts and artistic productions.Specialized.Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on August 21, 2017)
The Death of the Author and the Birth of the Luciferian Reader : Ur-images, Postmodernity and Semiotic Self-Apotheosis
No full textThe Satanic Reds, "FAQ for Satanic Reds - Social Realist Organization" (circa 2001)
No full textThis chapter addresses the organization known as the Satanic Reds, which was founded in the latter half of the 1990s by Tani Jantsang and Philip Marsh. The organization has been described as a ”virtual audience cult,” and even though it is clear that several people have contributed in shaping it, the organization has been especially influenced by its two founders. Jantsang and Marsh have spoken for the Satanic Reds in a large number of texts, making it known, among other things, for its strong Internet presence. The chapter then looks at the “FAQ for Satanic Reds—Social Realist Organization,” which deals briefly and more or less concisely with a number of subjects, among these the organization’s views on the Devil, its political ideology, and its relationship to other esoteric and Satanist groups. In connection with the interpretation of the Devil, the FAQ also expresses one of the common motifs of older occult discourse on the satanic: the concept of Satan as misunderstood by Christian theology. Ultimately, the FAQ and other texts connected to the Satanic Reds are characterized by viewpoints and terminology taken from Asian, especially Indian, philosophy and religion, as well as frequent appeals to the natural sciences
Crouching Secularity, Hidden Religion : Some Reflections on Studying East Asian Martial Arts in the EU
No full textRhetoric about cultivating the self, mystical inner energy, and meditation permeates European discourse on East Asian martial arts. They have often functioned as a contact point with Buddhism, and contributed to a broader sacralisation of bodily exercises. However, few studies of them have been produced by scholars of religion. To analyse martial arts spirituality as a form of lived religion, participant observation, and interviews are necessary. Mapping the milieu through large-scale surveys is also important, as is analysing books, leaflets, and websites produced by participants. The broader popular culture that martial arts are embedded in constitutes a significant context, as does the discourse on martial arts in newspapers. Martial arts spirituality can be analysed as a sub-field of the new age/holistic/alternative spirituality milieu and need to be related to local processes of secularisation. As martial arts are products of dynamic borrowing between “East” and “West”, global history provides a further useful lens
Michael W. Ford (The Order of Phosphorus, etc.), The Bible of the Adversary (2007)
No full textThis chapter begins by describing how Michael W. Ford founded the Order of Phosphorus (TOPH). Ford’s writings, as well as his organizations, have a pronounced eclectic approach, weaving together several religious tenets, such as Zoroastrian, Sumerian, and Western Judeo/Christian esoteric elements. The Bible of the Adversary (2007) is a key text in Ford’s Luciferian ideology. The chapter then considers an excerpt from The Bible of the Adversary, located in the section called the Book of Taromat, attributed to the element Earth. Ford follows the common occult understanding of Earth as connected to manifestation and foundation. Ritual, then, is a way to manifest the individual will of the practitioner, a goal reflected in Lucifer as the very epitome of self-realization. The didactic context of the Book of Taromat, wherein the ritual scripts are located, suggests that the intended audience is new to Luciferian ritual practice
Aleister Crowley, "Hymn to Lucifer" (undated) and The Book of Thoth (1944)
No full textThis chapter studies Aleister Crowley’s undated poem “Hymn to Lucifer” and an extract from The Book of Thoth (1944), which deals with the tarot card The Devil. “Hymn to Lucifer” alludes to the state of humankind in the Garden of Eden before the fall, a condition that is described in negative terms and portrayed as restrictive and stagnant. Even if it happens at the price of death, the Devil represents the possibility for humankind to leave the stagnation of Eden. The view of the Devil, especially in the guise of Lucifer, as the revealer of knowledge has been regarded as one of the classical elements of Romantic Satanism. Meanwhile, The Book of Thoth is a manual designed to give an account of Crowley’s interpretation of the significance of the tarot deck as well as to instruct its readers in a divinatory use of the cards. In The Book of Thoth, the Devil card is said to represent “creative energy in its most material form” and the connection that exists between the card, the Devil as a spiritual entity or principle and the creative force is possibly the main theme of the text
Ben Kadosh (aka Carl William Hansen), Den ny morgens gry (1906)
No full textThis chapter describes Carl William Hansen’s (aka Ben Kadosh) Luciferian manifesto, Den ny morgens gry (1906). Throughout his life, Hansen was a member of several masonic and occult organizations operating in Denmark and was well known (or perhaps notorious) in the Danish occult milieu. Even though Den ny morgens gry appears to be a very original work, it ties in with late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century occultism in several ways. Hansen’s speculations about the pagan roots of Freemasonry, his interest in Pan, and his preoccupation with the idea of a universal life-force and its “phallic” expressions were all recurring motifs in this religious environment. It would also appear that there was a certain amount of affinity between the worldview of Den ny morgens gry and the so-called phallicist literature of the nineteenth century. Ultimately, the book is more or less unique for its time in that it so clearly presents itself as an argument for the cult of the Devil, represented (in part) by the figure of Lucifer
Kenneth Grant (Typhonian Order), "Vinum Sabbati" (1961)
No full textThis chapter highlights Kenneth Grant’s “Vinum Sabbati” (1961). Grant became an influential figure in the British Thelemic movement, and to some extent British occultism in general, after Aleister Crowley’s death in 1947. “Vinum Sabbati” is a short essay on the Witches’ Sabbath, and two principal lines of reasoning are intertwined in the text. To some extent, Grant argues that the witches’ Sabbath had roots in pre-Christian magical ceremony; the main part of the text, however, is an attempt to explain the logic and magical motive behind the rite of the Sabbath. What Grant here calls “the medieval Sabbath” is perceived by him to be a corrupted remnant of an ancient Egyptian religious ceremony dedicated to the god Set. Moreover, the Devil, presiding over the Sabbath, is described by Grant as a reinterpretation of older pagan deities such as Pan or Set, he is the sun and the life force—but he is also that source of creation in which the performers of the Sabbath are trying to reabsorb themselves. Even though “Vinum Sabbati” is one of Grant’s earliest texts, it expounds basic elements of an understanding of the Devil that is never really revised
Blavatsky the Satanist: Luciferianism in Theosophy, and its Feminist Implications
Full text linkH. P. Blavatsky’s influential The Secret Doctrine (1888), one of the foundation texts of Theosophy, contains chapters propagating an unembarrassed Satanism. Theosophical sympathy for the Devil also extended to the name of their journal Lucifer, and discussions conducted in it. To Blavatsky, Satan is a cultural hero akin to Pro- metheus. According to her reinterpretation of the Christian myth of the Fall in Genesis 3, Satan in the shape of the serpent brings gnosis and liberates mankind. The present article situates these ideas in a wider nineteenth-century context, where some poets and socialist thinkers held similar ideas and a counter-hegemonic reading of the Fall had far-reaching feminist implications. Additionally, influences on Blavatsky from French occultism and research on Gnosticism are discussed, and the instrumental value of Satanist shock tactics is con- sidered. The article concludes that esoteric ideas cannot be viewed in isolation from politics and the world at large. Rather, they should be analyzed both as part of a religious cosmology and as having strategic polemical and didactic functions related to political debates, or, at the very least, carrying potential entailments for the latter.Keywords: Theosophy, Blavatsky, Satanism, Feminism, Socialism, Romanticism
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