Satan is an archetype derived from the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Hebrew word, “Satan” means adversary. The archetype represents everything that opposes God’s will, everything evil, corrupting, harmful, destructive, selfish, amoral, and hedonistically excessive.
God is the archetype of everything good, lawful, moral, altruistic, helpful, constructive, and productive. Satan as an archetype represents the opposite of that.
Satan as an archetype is traditionally associated with the story of Lucifer as the origin of Satan. The story goes that Lucifer was one of the archangels—the Bringer of Light.
Lucifer rebelled against God—not for any legitimate reason. Lucifer rebelled because he wanted to supplant God and put himself in charge of the universe in God’s place.
This was a purely selfish act. Lucifer is not a Prometheus character who sacrificed himself to bring knowledge to humanity. That is a modern corruption of the story that wants to portray Lucifer as something he wasn’t.
Satan wasn’t trying to help Adam and Eve when he tempted Eve into eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was not Satan’s intention at all. He would not have lied to her to get her to eat the fruit if he really intended to help her by giving her this knowledge.
He told her that she would become as a god if she ate the fruit, which we all know didn’t happen. Her eyes were opened to the knowledge of good and evil, but she did not become as a god and neither did Adam. Satan knew this beforehand and lied about it so he could pervert God’s creation and turn it against God.
Lucifer—and Satan by extension—is purely selfish in his motives. He is what we would refer to in the modern day as a narcissist. He’s power-hungry, manipulative, seductive in all the worst, most toxic ways, and he doesn’t care who gets hurt as long as he gets what he wants.
He’s everything God is not. God is kind, loving, purely good, selfless, truthful, and primarily focused on building societies, people, and historical movements that make the world and humanity as good as they can be.
I’m not saying that all societies, people, and historical movements have always turned out this way. Even many religious societies, people, and historical movements have turned out to be wholly evil, corrupt, and destructive.
I’m saying that God as an archetype represents these positive characteristics, motives, and trends. Satan represents the opposite of that.
So what can we learn by examining the rise of The Satanic Temple and the Church of Satan? Satanic after-school clubs have been popping up even in elementary schools. The Satanists say they want to counteract the presence of “proselytizing” organizations in schools.
Satanists have lobbied to have their displays included in Christmas celebrations at government institutions. Satanic organizations have attained tax-exempt status as faith-based organizations.
Let’s take a closer look at what these organizations are teaching and how they compare with what we know about the original Satan archetype.
Spokespeople for both The Satanic Temple and the Church of Satan claim that the core, fundamental belief of their organizations amounts to ethical, skeptical, secular atheism.
These organizations claim that Satanism doesn’t believe in Satan as a spiritual force to be worshipped or appealed to. Some spokespeople for these organizations even go so far as to claim that anyone who does believe in a spiritual force to be worshipped or appealed to, either good or bad, is insane. This is taking the matter a hell of a lot farther than most religious people would take it.
The core tenets of the Satanic belief system—according to these people and their various websites—are that each individual is responsible for behaving ethically and altruistically. These foundational tenets include justice, wisdom, rationality, and compassion.
Adherents to these organizations claim that the Satan archetype represents standing up to the authoritarianism of God, organized religion, and society oppression. Adherents claim that Satan represents the conscious choice to follow rational, scientific thought instead of blindly obeying the written laws of religion that may or may not have any basic in critical thinking.
The sad truth is that the figure of Satan really does represent evil, manipulation, carnal excess, and the opposite of all these ethics. Satan does not represent rationality, ethics, justice, or any kind of secular morality. These organizations wouldn’t have to represent themselves as faith-based if they were truly secular.
Satanism is not the same thing as atheism. We have the word atheism for a reason. The word atheism has a specific meaning. It means to be completely non-spiritual and without any guiding spiritual force, regardless of what that force is.
Satanism does not mean that at all. Satanism is a theistic belief system. It places Satan—the ultimate force of evil—in God’s place as the guiding spiritual force.
Satanism holds as its prime ethics the virtues of evil, destruction, manipulation, deceit, debasement, and subversion.
There are countless mainstream atheist organizations dedicated to secular ethics, the separation of church and state, scientific thought, and the limiting of government over-reach. Let’s ask ourselves one question. What’s the difference between these atheist organizations and Satanic organizations? The difference doesn’t lie in their foundation core beliefs—not according to the Satanists.
The only real difference is the dress code. Satanism is atheism dressed up in a Goth aesthetic style with a particular musical playlist in the background. Church of Satan founder Anton Szandor LaVey confirms this by stating that his organization is, “just Ayn Rand’s philosophy with ceremony and ritual added.” (Lewis, 2002)
The Satanic Temple and the Church of Satan are trying to bring Satanism into the mainstream. They’re trying to get these organizations recognized as legitimate belief systems that can co-exist alongside Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and every other recognized mainstream belief system.
By doing this, the adherents of these organizations are turning Satanism into just another mainstream organized religion—the very thing these people say Satanism is rebelling against. These people want to discredit mainstream, organized religion by turning their own organization into exactly the same thing.
These people want Satanism to be taught to children in schools. These people want Satanic Christmas displays included on the lawn in front of the state capital. These people want tax-exempt status and other legal exemptions for being a faith-based organization while at the same time claiming that they’re against all faith-based organizations.
In 2016, then spokesperson for The Satanic Temple, Jex Blackmore, made a statement in support of the movie, The Witch (2015) directed by Robert Eggers.
Blackmore praised the film for its portrayal of witches and witchcraft. Blackmore stated that the film reclaimed the archaic concept of the witch as dangerous and that, “It is my hope that we can encourage people to see this film and really undergo a transformation and inspire a Satanic experience.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4nhmTR9bc0)
This is followed by the message, “Join the Satanic revolution,” along with the URL, embrace-satan.com.
I find it ironic that the scenes of witchcraft in this movie depict the witches murdering children and using their pulverized bodies as potions in their rituals. This is apparently the Satanic experience we’re supposed to undergo.
The Satanic influence portrayed in this movie shows the main characters turning against each other, attacking each other, losing their sanity, and eventually completely succumbing to violence and madness.
The one central character who survives until the end of the film makes a pact with the Devil and goes off into the woods to join the witches, presumably to continue murdering children to use their pulped remains in her rituals.
At the same time, much of Blackmore’s and The Satanic Temple’s political activism has centered around advocating for abortion rights. What message are we supposed to take from this?
Anyone can put any words they want on a website or repeat these soundbites in interviews. The only way to know what an organization or individual truly stands for is to look at their actions.
This obsessive focus on abortion seems eerily similar to the traditional Satanic practice of infant and child sacrifice. I can’t be the only person who is making this connection.
Blackmore has publicized having abortions in front of live cameras, taken abortion pills in the middle of interviews, and organizing protest with fetishized babies played by adults wearing diapers.
Blackmore was removed from the position as national spokesperson of The Satanic Temple after advocating violence in its protests. Blackmore stated that, “We are going to storm press conferences, release snakes in the governor’s mansion, and execute the president.” (Burton, 2019; Blackmore 2018 ; Nesler, 2020)
I really don’t see any difference between this and the traditional depiction of Satan as a force of destruction, violence, corruption, manipulation, and deceit. These organizations are portraying themselves as mild-mannered secular humanists on their website and in interviews.
Their actions tell us the real story that they are anything but. These are the actions these people are actually advocating for. This is the example they hope to set for the rest of us to follow. This is the Satanic experience they hope all of us will have.
Blackmore subsequently broke from The Satanic Temple over these differences. The Satanic Temple was very quick to control the damage to its image based on Blackmore’s stated objectives and to reassert the organization’s stated beliefs in ethical non-violence.
I find it extremely telling that The Satanic Temple didn’t condemn or contradict any of Blackmore’s comments on The Witch. Spokespeople for the organization did not come out and say that scenes of child sacrifice, brutality, and corruption in the film were an inaccurate depiction of the Satanic experience the spokespeople hoped we would all undergo.
The organization’s leadership did not remove Blackmore for these comments being antithetical to the organization’s core beliefs. Spokespeople for The Satanic Temple did not come out and say that Blackmore’s public abortion activism was anything other than what they all agreed with.
Another national spokesperson for The Satanic Temple carried out a protest by rubbing his bare genitals on the gravestone of a Christian leader’s dead mother. This national spokesperson was not removed from his position or publicly condemned for his actions.
Is this the example of compassion, ethics, and justice that we’re all supposed to follow? Is this what the Satanic belief system really represents?
The national spokesperson is supposed to represent the whole organization. If he behaves this way and no one in the organization speaks against it, then we have no choice but to assume that the whole organization thinks as he does and would do the same thing in his place. They think this is appropriate protest behavior and they all support him in doing it.
It becomes pretty obvious when we look more closely at Satanism exactly what it represents. It represents the exact opposite of everything God stands for. We don’t have to consider either of these archetypes as real, concrete beings with ultimate power to control the universe and the events of history.
Many people consider the Judeo-Christian tradition to be an archetypal, metaphorical account of humanity’s battle between good and evil portrayed by the characters of God and Satan.
The bottom line is that each and every one of us struggles between the forces of good and evil on a daily basis. We don’t have to be religious to face these challenges. We don’t have to assign them supernatural powers or attach them to any spiritual mega-being outside ourselves.
One force leads to good. The other leads to destruction.
Each one is characterized by a specific set of traits. One is ethical, selfless, productive, caring, humble, honest, and just. The other is selfish, violent, manipulative, destructive, conceited, and lawless.
You can dress these two trends up with whatever words you want. You can call them God vs. Satan. You can call them self-improvement vs. self-sabotage. You can call them anything.
The result is the same and the destination is the same in both cases. The only real way to tell these two forces apart is to look at their actions and their results. Words deceive—especially when the person using those words is actively trying to deceive their listener. Saying one thing on your website and in interviews and doing the opposite in reality is deceptive. Saying you’re just, peaceful, and ethical on your website and then acting violently and spreading corruption in reality is deceptive.
God as an archetype doesn’t mislead humanity about life being difficult. This is the authoritarianism Satanism would have us rebel against.
Satanism does in fact adhere to the traditional model of what Satan represents. I don’t see these people helping the poor or building thriving, compassionate communities.
The Satanists are more concerned with abortions and spreading their message to school children. Which part of that do I misunderstand?
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