Satanic Hysteria @ MindSay

So one of the very lovely people i've become close to over the past few months has suggested i read the Satanic Witch by Anton Lavey (Founder of the modern Church of Satan).

I havent read it, but i bought it and its currently sitting in my locker at work (And so shall be discovered by those in search of free smokes <theifs!> and lighters)

Now it shouldnt bother me, but I am too well aware of the idiocy of people.

See the word Satan, and you're a scary devil worshiper. God forbid you even flaunt it.(I know. I got pissed off at an ex cos he flaunted his hairy Satanic ass, and it was just annoying. He was consumed with selfishness. Worst part is, i'm probably no better. But the optimistic dreams of a bipolar teen are quickly banished by the cynical reality of the selfish)

But my issue is, I dont believe in Hell. I don't believe in Satan. I dont believe in there being white or black magick. I believe that is a modern invention. Magick is just magick, theres lesser and higher. Not good or bad. nothing is really good or bad inherently. It just is. Like life Just is, Magick Just Is. Its something we employ and name, a name that replaces the meaning of our power as individual items of a collective whole. I mean, its obviously not nice if you sit there and curse someone because they bug you. But white magick invented a way of making yourself feel better, by saying, you know. this person is an asshole, so im going to nicely ask the gods to give them what they deserve. but because you are judging this person to be bad, or wrong, are you not delving into an area of gray magick? Because even though you put it into the hands of a higher power that "knows better than you", you're still doing it for the selfish satisfaction of watching them pay for their deeds.

A judgement that is still not yours to make. No matter what. They have their own reasons for being jerkoffs, and if you dont like it then you dont have to look at it. Just deal with the fact there needs to be jerkoffs to balance your holiest self, filled with the pompous, idyllic right to judge them as jerkoffs.

But this is besides the point. I havent come here to judge the way people twist lore to suit their selfish selves.

I've come to deal with the issue of reading a book by a satanist, when i have no belief. Really its just a written assurance of my beliefs, and understandings of this books.

From what little i've read, it talks about a women's "Pact with the Devil". I got to thinking, if i dont believe in the traditional devil, how can i seriously take this book?

After much thought, i realized, the Devil is just the materialistic world. its the world of selfishness, lust, materialism, envy, sex, and all the boo-hoos of the christians that wanted to rule the masses (and might i say, successfully have, and still do)! And i realized, the pact with the devil is a womans acceptance of her traits and ability to use this world to her advantage.

Yes it's selfish too, but without one there cannot be another. I am a giving sort of person but i realize too the importance of being selfish. That way i dont lose my job. i dont lose my ability to progress through life, i don't get into or stay in unhealthy relationships too long. Selfishness is a way of self preservation, and i'm okay with that.

But even more than that, i realize this is a book of self discovery and acceptance. If you can accept a book like this, then you will rise from the ashes of what could have been a great civilization, one thats riddled with women in the wrong role, a role less effective than that which nature planned for them.

So i willlingly go forward and read this book, accepting what it has to tell me. I'll be reflecting on it in here, i assume. I will admit, i find it hard to swallow, only because of the mindless lore thats been drilled into my head all these years of my life. but we will see how my perception changes, how much broader it becomes. Part of me is still worried about the darkside, even though i'm very practical and aware that there is no such thing. It just is, like everything else in this world.

Whats good to you, can be bad to another.

And i've really thought about this.

There's a video that, upon first watching it when I was fourteen, scared the crap out of me: "Adult Education" by (of all people) Hall & Oates. I was never a big fan of this duo, but this song in particular hit home for me because I was at the age when I was first discovering and exploring my sexuality. Yet that's not the only reason why this song still gets to me. It was the video!

First, some back story... The spring of 1984 (the time when this song hit the top ten on the charts and was getting a lot of air play on the radio) was at the hieght of a Satanist hysteria in the Midwest and the South. Not only did we have The Bomb that could bring about the end of the world at any moment to worry about, families were being warned that there were Satanist groups out there preying on children. For some reason Satanic Ritual Abuse was running rampant. People were going through therapy claiming that they were abused as children by Satanists. And, for some reason, anyone could be a Satanist. Dressing all in black could mark you as a possible Satanist. So, the perfect way to rebel in order to get attention (plus get sent home from school), was to dress in black, wear gaudy jewlery, and carry Dungeons-n-Dragons material with you where ever you went. I lived in the buckle of the Bible Belt (Springfield, Missouri, the headquarters of the Assembly of God church) and it was not a friendly place to be for an imaginative, rebellous teenager in the 1980's. I have to admit, however, that some of the scare tactics people used at the time to convince us that there was this Satanist threat, really did a number on me. Until I learned that it was just another bull shit way for adults to get children to behave, I developed anxiety over seeing any kind of symbolism as something seemingly demonic -- basically anything that was unusual, artsey, or culturally different was experienced as forbidden and, therefore, felt forboding. Still being a child, I was prone to follow suit and make up my own fantastic lies about The Satanic Threat. At the time I didn't know shit about Satanism, never met anyone who was a Satanist, and was totally ignorant about real magical ritual.

Well, all that innocence changed after my mother sent me to a cult deprogramming camp for a week in May of 1984. After I was caught sneaking out late at night to play Ninja with my friends (and, of course, we were all dressed in black -- we were pretending to be Ninjas, afterall!) my Mom was convinced I had been seduced by the Devil. I don't want to go into the gory details of my supposed "deprogramming" but what I want to tell you is that it taught me how to lie and pretend to be someone I wasn't just to please my Born Again Christian mother. I had not been in congress with The Beast nor was I out drinking goat urine nor was I performing Satanic rites with the neighbors. I would've never known ANYTHING about Satanism or magick at all if it hadn't been for that fake deprogramming experience. So later in life I became the very thing the community feared; a Witch. But that's a whole 'nother story...

When I hear or see the video for this song, I am reminded of those times, and how I used my first initial negative reaction to the video as a way to scare the beejeezus out of my community! I first thought the video was a recording of a Satanic Wedding! I considered the old fart with the baseball cap to be a Satanic High Priest. The cave that they're in, I was convinced, was an underground temple where bloody sacrifices were made and virgins were deflowered in the name of Lucifer! Weeks later I learned the truth; I saw Hall & Oates talking about the video on MTV, how it was a symbolic experiment on the part of the director, Tim Pope. Everything was, innocently enough, made up as a metaphoric emotional journey of old man passing on his adult wisdom to a young teenage couple about to copulate for the first time. Instead of showing a stereotypical class room scene, the musicians and actors are seen in the womb of Mother Earth -- a place where all things begin and where life is nurtured. In the first sequence, the symbol for Leo is shown on a paper lantern. In another opening sequence, there's a lighted disco floor with six symbols for food, fertility, time, the seasons, and the elements. When the couple is standing before the old fart, he holds a makeshift Statue of Liberty before them and he seems to be blessing them with it. John Oates later said the video resembled the "Survivor" TV show on acid. What I got out of it? A great music video that I could use to add fuel to flames of the Satanic hysteria around me.

I later regretted boldy claiming that I knew it was a portrayal of a Satanic Wedding. It got me into more trouble for watching it, plus I was barred from listening to pop music for a long while and my mother tore apart the posters of Duran Duran in my bedroom (that made me weep like a baby for that). Now, as an adult, I can laugh about those earlier times, and laugh at myself for being such a silly girl! I now know REAL Satanists and they are nothing like what I was taught to believe about them. Satanists don't abuse children or themselves, what they're about is rebelling against conformity out of the common sense of post modern American Atheism practiced with ritual psychodrama (a group working method, in which each person becomes a therapeutic agent for others using strong elements of theater, often conducted on a stage with props and masks). In fact, as I've gotten wiser in my later years, I've grown to realize that the true abusers of children are often people with Christian backgrounds -- people who sacrifice their teenagers to God and forbid them from engaging in their natural instinct to explore their sexual feelings. When you're taught to regard your genitals as ugly or dirty, everytime you have sex later in life, you're going to fulfill the prophecies of your God-fearing, body-hating parents.

I know, I know, this is a lot to swallow, all inspired by me looking back on a memorable music video from the '80's! But it serves to show that, even now, as an adult I can still learn from my past and can appreciate things I didn't know about then as an adult now. Does that make sense?

Here's the video in its full glory. Watch it and tell me what you think about it.  I'd be interested to see what a newer generation has to say about the song and the accompanying video (I still like it and count it as one of my favorite songs from the '80s):

Adult Education