Toleration over Common Sense?
Like most Neopagans, I believe that toleration
in general is A Good Thing. Unlike some, however, I also think
it can be foolish, when exercised too much towards those who
would like to destroy us. For example, when I go to a Pagan festival,
I don’t mind Buddhists, agnostics, or liberal monotheists
showing up to check us out. Yet I feel violated when Christian
fundamentalists arrive with intent to spy upon us, to convert
us, or to interfere with our activities. I have much the same
reaction when I see Satanists at our festivals or in “our”
bookstores trying to recruit new members.
Some Satanists/Setanists (or “Setians”)
will claim from time to time that, like Neopagans, they are an
“oppressed” religion, that they are “misunderstood,”
that they are the victims of the Christian press. They will quote
the old saying, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,”
and argue that we should become their allies. All of which makes
sense only if you are ignorant about both Satanism on one hand
and Paleo-, Meso- and Neopaganism
on the other.
Varieties of Satanic Belief and Practice
As I have written elsewhere, there are several
kinds of Satanist: One type is the Liberal Heterodox or
hippie/punk/gothic Satanist. These are the anarchist sorts, generally
young, who stress the revolutionary or Luciferian side of the
Satan myth. They are essentially rebelling against subservience
to the Christian God, the sickness of Christian morality, and
their parents. A sizable proportion of them might have become
Neopagans if they had heard of us first, and some of them do
so later on. Some of them alternate between calling themselves
Satanists or Pagans, depending on whom they are addressing, much
to the annoyance of real, adult Pagans. As far as I can tell,
they seem to grow out of being Satanists when they finish adolescence
(which can, alas, take decades for some).
Another type of Satanist is the Conservative
Orthodox or fascist sort: generally middle-aged, uneducated,
and unsuccessful (the basic vigilantee or militia type), though
their leaders can be quite clever and successful. These are the
right wing Satanists who like to stress the might-makes-right,
dictatorial side of the Satan image. Major denominations would
include the Church of Satan (“COS”) and the Temple
of Set (“TOS”), both of whom are careful to distinguish
themselves from the other types. Note that right wingers (whether
Satanic or other Christian sorts) often present themselves under
more appealing terminology, such as by calling themselves “Libertarians.“
A third kind of Satanist is the sincere
sociopath or crazy kind. These folks are obsessed with the
death, torture, rape, and madness parts of the Christian Satan
archetype. Usually from extremely dysfunctional families, these
people have grown up being told that they are evil, so they try
to fulfill everyone’s expectations. They tend to commit
various horrible crimes in Satan’s name, and sometimes belong
to one of the other sorts of Satanism as well. Right wing Satanic
leaders, when speaking for the public record, always deny that
the sincere sociopaths are “real” Satanists, much as
other Christians disown criminal behavior by people calling themselves
Christian.
A fourth kind of Satanist is the smooth-talking
(or sometimes just whiney) Internet Satanist, of which there
are a couple of dozen or so (posting under multiple psuedonyms)
in the world. This sort relies on the short memories of Internet
surfers and the ignorance of beginning Neopagans to slip into
their minds a wide variety of shallow, ingenuous arguments (usually
based on deliberately blurring the distinctions between Mesopaganism
and Neopaganism) that “Satanism and Paganism are really
the same thing.” This is usually combined with declarations
of personal and group innocence, pious denunciations of criminal
behavior by “psuedo-Satanists,” and sanctimonious appeals
to their freedom of religion — none of which has anything
to do with Neopagan polytheology. If you don’t fall for
their nonsense, or even worse, argue with them, their veneer
of civility vanishes swiftly in a firestorm of invective, slander,
and occasional email bombing.
Of course, being the Christian Dualists that
they are, most Satanists of the four sorts I’ve mentioned
so far insist that, “There are no categories of Satanists
— there are Satanists and nuts” (Tony Levy, aka “Anton
Szandor LaVey”). In other words, “us real ones”
vs. “all those other fake ones.” Sound familiar? Each
Satanic organization and individual insists that it and it alone
is the arbiter of who is or is not among the elect and actively
despises all the others. That “all” is important,
for while members of any religion may want to know who is or
isn’t a fellow religionist, and may even have a low opinion
of some other faiths, the wholesale dismissal of all
other paths as evil or inferior is perhaps the defining characteristic
of a Christian (or Islamic or Zoroastrian) Dualist. Keep this
in mind, especially when reading the Aquino quotes below.
Imaginary Satanists and Ritual Abuse
Accusations
Another category of Satanists is the imaginary global conspiracy of child-molesting, kidnapping, human sacrificing,
cannibalistic, multigenerational criminals who haunt the dreams
of fundamentalist Christians and third-rate tabloid journalists
— I’ve even been accused of being one myself! The primary
evidence for this conspiracy comes from people who believe themselves
to be “ritual abuse survivors” and from Christian preachers
who claim to be ex-leaders in the Conspiracy. Of course, the
accusations of incestuous orgies, human sacrifice, and cannibalism
come from an ancient
urban legend and have been falsely laid against
many minority religions over the centuries, including the early
Christians, Jews, “witches,” and various heretical
groups. These claims have always served to whip up public hysteria
against the chosen target groups (see Satanic
Panic by Jeffrey Victor). Today the targets are modern
Neopagans, New Agers, and Satanists, all of whom are deliberately
equated with each other by fundamentalist preachers.
Some of the people who call themselves “survivors”
do appear to have been through some kind of horrible experiences
that their minds have chosen (perhaps with help, see next paragraph)
to interpret as Satanic rituals, just as others with similar
stories have interpreted their experiences as encounters with
UFOs. However, verifiable evidence of organized Satanic abuse
activities has
yet to be found. Some, of course, will insist that the
inability of law enforcement agencies — from the FBI and
Scotland Yard down to the smallest local constabulary —
to ever discover tangible evidence of the Global Satanic Conspiracy
just “proves” how powerful the Conspiracy really is!
It doesn’t. The conspiracy can’t be found because
it is imaginary!
According to those who believe in the “False
Memory Syndrome” explanation, claimed abuse survivors of
fantastic events may be “Therapeutic Abuse Survivors”
— having been misled by therapists and/or hypnotists accidentally
or deliberately implanting false memories, sometimes on top of
accurate or imagined events of abuse happening to oneself or
one’s friends. Recent brain research supposedly indicates
that false memories are fairly easy to create, since even true
memories consist of tiny fragments of perception (an eyelid shape
here, a nose dimple there) routinely combined by our minds into
the full images we think we “remember.” Indeed, a growing
number of people who were formerly claiming to have been ritual
abuse survivors have in recent years recanted their claims and
sued their former therapists for the damages such claims have
caused to their families, friends and communities. Visit the
Satanic Ritual
Abuse Page for details on all the arguments.
One reason the “False Memory Syndrome”
theory, which is also invoked in discussions of non-fantastic
claims of abuse, is so controversial is that it’s all too
easily cited by both the innocent and the (presumed) guilty.
Indeed, the sorts of crimes suspected of being committed by “Satanists”
are, in fact, well within the “might-makes-right” and
“do as thou whim” attitudes that many modern Satanists
do have and promote. I’m sure that more than a few Satanists
over the years have taken advantage of their “moral freedom”
to commit crimes, even against their own children. I just don’t
believe that these jerks and psychos constitute an organized
conspiracy. Considering how much difficulty the Satanists who
post on the Net have agreeing or cooperating with each other
about even the most trivial issues, the odds of Satanists
ever having a successful conspiracy to order a pizza, let alone
to “rule the world” as they and others
fantasize, are slim to none.
As for the professional “ex-Satanic High
Priests,” they seem to be short on evidence of their claims
too. Oddly enough, although some of these preachers have confessed
to multiple felonies on widely broadcast radio and television
shows, and in “best selling” Christian books, it seems
that none of them has ever been arrested, nor have any of them
gone to local police and confessed their crimes. Subsequently,
none has ever served prison time for deeds that would normally
put them away for the rest of their lives. Apparently, if you
claim to have reformed yourself and become a good Christian,
you no longer need to pay your debt to society, no matter how
terrible the crimes you’ve admitted committing. Any of you
attending public lectures by supposed “ex-Satanists”
might want to bring this up with local law enforcement officers
and insist that they be arrested — I for one would love
to see such liars forced to testify under oath in a court of
law. At this point, all of the major “ex-Satanists”
and “ex-baby-breeders” have been exposed
by Evangelical Christian journalists as frauds, in such books
as Selling
Satan (about Mike Warnke) and The Todd Phenomenon
(about John Todd aka Lance Collins). Unfortunately, little
matters like facts don’t stop the fearmongers from repeating
their lies.
This brings us to the last, and by far the
largest, category of Satanists: the fundamentalist Christians
themselves, who spend all their time inflating the image
of Satan, feeding psychic energy into the archetype, and publishing
detailed descriptions of the sorts of evil acts that devil worshippers
are supposed to engage in — descriptions that some other
sorts of Satanist are only too eager to imitate. Ironically,
the attribution of godlike power (as in, for example, the supposed
ability to perform “counterfeit miracles”) to their
Satan by fundamentalists, who pride themselves on being so orthodox,
is historically a sign of Christian heresy — monotheists
are not supposed to admit that their Evil God is as powerful
(or even nearly as powerful) as their Good God.
The Unwisdom of Welcoming Satanists
Neopagans are constantly having to explain
to the general public that Satan is a figure in Christian and
Islamic (and Zoroastrian) mythology, that our deities are far
older and more powerful than their Satan/Shaitan, and that you
have to be a Christian, a Moslem, or a Zoroastrian in order to
worship or even respect the Devil because nobody else believes
in him. We know full well that many Christians actively try to
blur the distinctions between Satanism and Paganism in the public
mind, and we should know that having a cozy relationship with
Satanists is going to play right into such Christian smear campaigns.
So why are some Neopagans tolerant of obnoxious,
unethical, or nasty behavior when the people involved are calling
themselves “Satanists” when we wouldn’t cut other
fundamentalist Christians engaging in the same kind of behavior
so much slack? Granted, Satanism is a part of the occult community
— being the “occult” or hidden side of Christianity
— and many Satanists do practice various sorts of ceremonial
magic. As we know, however, the occult/magical/metaphysical community
comprises a wide variety of organizations and individuals —
good, bad, ugly, and just plain weird. We don’t have to
be friendly to all of them, nor do we have to accept them all
as equals or allies. Neopagans have enough trouble interacting
with Mesopagans (such as the Thelemites, Odinists, and
Voodooists), many of whom engage in activities of which many
Neopagans disapprove, without allying ourselves with and
defending a bunch of jerks, fascists, and psychopaths who have
publicly and proudly announced their allegiance to the supreme
figure of Evil in Western mainstream culture.
I don’t care if it’s possible to
come up with superficial arguments that the Devil “isn’t
really such a bad fellow,” or to claim that you’re
really worshipping the Norse deity Loki, or the Egyptian god
Set (who supposedly was “originally” a Not-Completely-Bad
Guy 4,000 years ago), or various Lovecraftian critters, and that
all these spirits were “victims of bad public relations.”
Such arguments don’t change the subconscious images that
most people (including the Satanists themselves) have of these
entities, nor the nature of the psychic energies that they tap
into. Nor does it matter that public representatives of Satanic
organizations are frequently charming and charismatic indviduals
— most con-artists are. If some Satanists are really “proto-Pagans,”
we can give them the information they need to mature without
having to pretend that their juvenile sophistries deserve respect.
Speaking of juvenile sophistries, lets review
the facts about the origins, philosophy, and character of Satanism
and its practitioners…
The Origins of Satan and His -isms
Satan as a demigod was created by the early
Christians to slander the Paleopagan horned gods and to fulfill
the necessary role of the Evil God who fights their Good God.
They took the ancient Jewish prosecuting attorney of Yahweh’s
royal court, made this “tester” a metaphor for the
Jews who didn’t accept Jesus as their Messiah, then for
the secular authorities of the Roman Empire who considered the
Christians to be “atheists,” then still later for differing
Christian sects opposed to the forces of orthodoxy. See The
Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels, and Satan:
The Early Christian Tradition by Jeffrey Burton Russell
for details (though Russell willingly plays the theologians’
ingenuous games as described below).
In order to explain why the early Christians
were being successfully perscuted by the traditional Jews and
those few Roman Paleopagans who considered them treasonous threats
to the Empire, Satan’s nature and power had to be continually
inflated until he essentially became the Evil God. This mythic
role was one of several ideas “borrowed” from Zoroastrianism’s
dualism via the cult of Mithra, Christianity’s primary competitor
for political control of the Empire, and that dualism’s
influence on Jewish (Essene) and Paleopagan Gnosticism. Although
early Church theologians were careful to never call Satan
a deity, and indeed to insure that those who more honestly considered
him one got labled as “heretics” (the most famous of
whom were the Manichaeans and later the Cathars), they nonetheless
treated Satan (as they did the Virgin Mary) as divine in all
but official title.
A deity of absolute evil makes no sense in
a polytheistic system, only in a dualistic
one — which is why all the other ancient Zoroastrian deities
had been reduced to subordinate status to the Big Two, and why
the Christians tried to turn all the Paleopagan deities they
encountered into either “saints” or “demons.”
Indeed, that Evil God is critical to the Christian worldview.
As Alan Watts put it in Myth
and Ritual in Christianity, “A Christianity without
the Devil is, then, lacking in something which is of the essence
of the Christian consciousness.”
Two important polytheological principles need
to be mentioned in passing here: (1) don’t confuse “dualism”
with “polarity” — the former assumes hostility
between opposed principles, the latter assumes harmony and mutual
dependence — and (2) don’t assume that dangerous or
tricky deities and spirits in Paleopagan religions were viewed
by their peoples as being cosmically Evil or in any other way
similar to how Christians and Moslems view their Satan/Shaitan.
All the different forms of Satanism now
active in the West are branches of conservative Christianity,
whether they will admit it or not.
“Satanism” as an organized concept (an “-ism”)
was created by the Roman Catholic Church as an inverted version
of itself, with a little help from leftover Gnostic heretics
(see Jeffrey Burton Russell’s A
History of Witchcraft, for details), in the process of
justifying the European Crusades against the Albigensians and
Cathars, and later the Witchhunts. It was the Roman Catholic
Christians who defined the symbols and beliefs of Satanism in
the first place, and who invented rituals for them to be supposedly
performing, based on the ancient urban rumours mentioned earlier.
Christian ceremonial magicians then elaborated these into actual
rituals, mostly for the purpose of entertaining wealthy and jaded
nobility with “depraved Satanic orgies,” rather like
people today who run “S&M supper clubs.” The writings
of modern Satanists have merely given a “blackwash”
to the fundamentally Christian worldview involved — they
are still allowing the most repressive forms of Christianity
to define the universe of discourse! The Temple of Set and
its doctrines were created to give Satanists another name (Set)
to use in public, while still calling their deity Satan in private.
The many “independent Satanists” who post on the Net
that they don’t actually believe in Satan as a real spirit,
nonetheless show that their atheism/agnosticism/existentialism,
like that of their fellow Secular Humanists, is saturated with
Scientism and Social Darwinism —
both of which are offshoots of Christian Dualism. Which leads
us to…
Satanic/Setanic “Philosophy”
vs. Neopaganism
Satanists/Setanists are obsessed with forcing
everyone into simplistic Christian/Islamic Dualism, just as other
fundamentalists are. That’s why they insist on lumping the
“White Witches” (Wiccans) and Neopagans in with their
official enemies, the Christians — that is, whenever they’re
not trying to recruit us as allies. In The
Church of Satan, supposedly by “authorized biographer”
Blanche Barton, Tony Levy actually went so far as to denounce
several well known Neopagans (including yours truly) by name
in the same paragraph with the “ex-Satanic High Priest”
fundamentalist Michael Warnke and Setanic competitor Michael
Aquino (who had stolen much of LaVey’s membership).
As for Aquino himself, not too many years
ago he was denouncing Neopagans and other Goddess worshippers
as being worthy only of his contempt. Here are some exemplary
excerpts from Nevill Drury’s book, The
Occult Experience (NY: Avery, 1989):
However, where [Aquino] differs from Christians,
mystics and Pagans — whom for this purpose he lumps together
— is in his belief that the psychic dimension separates
mankind [sic] from the rest of Nature. Mystics and occultists
alike are content to subsume their individual self-hood in a
wash of cosmic consciousness — a type of surrender to a
higher force. Christians, he feels, are bogged down with feelings
of guilt and hypocrisy, endorsing “hackneyed moral standards”
in an effort to appease God…” (p112).
“Other religions,” says the Temple’s introductory screed,
are “erroneous in principle and therefore unworthy
of peer status.” If this seems arrogant, Aquino has
his reasons: “All conventional religions, including the
Pagan ones, are simply a variation on the theme of reunion and
submergence of the self within the natural universe. So from
our point of view it really makes no difference whether you pray
to a father god or to a mother goddess — or to an entire
gaggle of gods and goddesses! You’re still wishing for their
acceptance. You’re waiting for them to put their arms around
you and say, ’You belong. You are a part of us. You can
relax. We will take care of you. We approve of you. We endorse
you…’ The Satanist or black magician does not
seek that kind of submergence of the self. We do not seek to
have our decisions and our morality approved or validated by
any higher god or being. We take responsibility unto ourselves.”
(p112-113).
“We consider Set to be our activating
force and the entire notion of good and evil is something which
is determined by human beings themselves. We cannot pass the
responsibility to any god, whether it is a so-called benevolent
god or a so-called evil god” (p113).
Now, these are Aquino’s own words, captured
in print and on videotape. They make it very clear that, however
erroneous and shallow his understanding of Paganism might be,
(1) he clearly does not consider Satanism and Paganism to
be “the same” and (2) that he considers
“Setians” to be Satanists — as he
also states directly in quite a few internal TOS documents —
and so I will refer to them for the rest of this essay. Among
the references cited by Drury are: Aquino’s own “The
Crystal Tablet of Set,” p. 23; “Runes,” Vol. II:
6, 1984; “Runes,” Vol. I:2, 1983; and Aquino’s
monograph, “The Church of Satan,” 1983, p. 193.
Of course, when Satanists want to ingratiate
themselves with (or just annoy) the Neopagan community, they
publish letters or newsgroup posts that deliberately ignore the
important distinctions between Paleo-,
Meso-, and Neopaganism, so they can show how much “like”
Paleopaganism or Mesopaganism their versions of Satanism supposedly
are. The similarities to Mesopaganism shouldn’t be surprising
— most Mesopaganism is Christianity mixed with Paganism.
The fact that Paleopagans often had customs that modern Neopagans
would consider bad ideas, doesn’t mean that ancient Pagans
were “proto-Satanists” worshipping Forces of Evil —
and only a fundamentalist Christian would believe they were.
These deliberately deceptive Christian Dualist arguments lead
some Satanists to claim that Neopaganism “should” include
Satanists in their ranks, “because we’re really the
same.“
Long-time members of the Norse Pagan community
may remember when Stephen Flowers (aka “Edred Thorson,”
author of several books on runes), acting as Aquino’s second-in-command
(head of the “Order of the Trapazoid,” yet another
idea stolen from Anton LaVey), tried to convince them that Odin
was “really” just another name for Set, and so they
should all join the Temple of Set and do Nazi rituals with him
(I have copies in my files of the letters he sent out). This
opinion got the Satanic Runemaster thoroughly (and rightly) rejected
by the majority of the Norse Mesopagan community; rightwing and
racist as they were, this was too much for them to swallow. (Supposedly,
Flowers is no longer making these claims and is now calling himself
an “Odian,” though he is still within the Temple of
Set.) Today, it’s Loki rather than Odin who gets pointed
to, along with other trickster deities, as “evidence”
that our Paleopagan ancestors supposedly worshipped Satan under
other names. This, of course, entirely ignores the fact that
trickster deities are “good, weird, horny, whimsical and/or
confusing” as often as they are “evil,” and shows
once again the Christian Dualist habit of shoving all spirits
into airtight Good and Evil pigeonholes while ignoring ambiguity
and complexity in non-Christian systems.
What about people who call themselves “Pagan
Satanists“? Well, they may exist, just as other “Christo-Pagans”
do. But these Mesopagans no more represent the mainstream
of Neopaganism (or Paleopaganism, for that matter) than the Jews
for Jesus represent Judaism or the Theosophists represent Buddhism.
We wouldn’t accept arguments that Christianity is the spiritually
superior fulfillment, or even a logical variation of, either
Taoism or Buddhism, so why should we accept that the “flip
side” of Christianity — Setanism — is somehow
just another kind of Paganism? For that matter, do these “Satanic
Pagans” even exist outside of the Net? Or are they just
another set of masks for old-fashioned Christian Satanists to
wear when talking to Neopagans?
Lately, Setanists have taken to misquoting
Jung and other modern psychologists about the “shadow side”
of human nature, erroneously equating it and what they call “Dark
Side” deities and impulses (based on the words of that famous
theologian, Darth Vader) with Evil. Then they claim that we are
supposed to “embrace it” (rather than understand and
calmly control it), and all become Satanists.
Most other Satanic “philosophy”
simply consists of turning Catholicism or other forms of conservative
Christianity upside-down and inside-out (as if that’s going
to be an improvement), advocating hedonism, and adding some warmed-over
quotes from Hitler and misquotes from Crowley, Nietzsche, Darwin,
etc. and a dash of Scientism to
the mix. Way down deep inside, it’s shallow.
The “Heroic” Character
of Satanists
Blanche Barton, in the Introduction to The
Secret Life of a Satanist, described Levy as “cynical,
bitterly misanthropic, and violently determined in his role as
founder” of the COS, as “a frighteningly deceptive
man,” with a “seething, brutal side,” and “at
times, an almost unbearable oppressiveness to his intolerance
and anger.” While the rest of the book consists of fawning
admiration and total acceptance of Levy’s biographical claims,
he hardly comes off as a noble or heroic person. Aquino, on the
other tentacle, who is the brains and money behind the TOS, is
an ex-Military Intelligence officer (so you know just how much
you can trust anything he says) who brags about the ritual he
did in a Nazi ceremonial chamber in Germany.
Face it, most Satanists actively approve
of various types of behavior, both magical and mundane, that
Neopagans consider to be unethical and immoral. A few Satanists
are just as evil — at least in their own imaginations —
as the members of the Inquisition, Hitler’s stormtroopers,
Stalin’s secret police, or Central American death squads.
Most, of course, are no more evil than the average street corner
con-artist, though they try to impress us as being far more dangerous.
However, it’s important to remember that there is nothing
in Setanic doctrine (left wing, right wing, or sociopathic) to
separate the genuinely evil from the merely obnoxious, for anything
you can get away with is approved of by their God of (“Beyond
Good and”) Evil, on the grand old theological principle
of “might makes right.“
Neopaganism is only fourty years old. We can
add another twenty years, if we count the early Mesopagan Wiccans.
Many of us have consciously identified ourselves with historical
victims of Christian persecution (witches, magicians, heretics,
and heathens) as a way, among other reasons, to extend our psychic
history. So it’s a tempting argument to say that we also
should identify with every other group that gets denounced by
fundamentalists. After all, they frequently target members of
other minority groups that many Neopagans belong to, approve
of, or at least have learned to tolerate, such as gay men, lesbians,
transgendered people, polyamorous triads, feminists, science
teachers, Planned Parenthood counselors, yoga teachers, crystal
healers, psychics, astrologers, etc. Of course, Christian fundamentalists
also denounce gamblers, drug dealers, thieves, murderers, rapists…
whoops! Do we really want to defend anyone and everyone whom
fundamentalists have ever denounced? Should we, going right
to the heart of the Satanist toleration issue, offer support
to individuals and organizations who advocate ideas and actions
we consider evil, just because we have no legal proof that they
have yet acted on their proclaimed beliefs?
Over the years, I have met scores of people
who called themselves Satanists — I even called myself one
for eight months when I was a teenager (see My
Satanic Adventure elsewhere on this website). I learned back
then, and subsequent experience has reiterated the lesson, that
most people who practice Satanism are Christian fundamentalists
in drag. Once in a while I would meet a genuinely nice, if
confused, person in a Satanist group, but they usually wound
up dropping out and joining some other path. The overwhelming
majority of Satanists I have known were sleazy, manipulative,
parisitic and unethical. I can’t think of a single reason
why we should make them feel welcome in our community, or why
we should make their activities any easier, or why we should
help their groups to grow and prosper. If the Setanists were
ever to conquer the world (Goddess forbid!), they would herd
us into ovens just as quickly as the other fundamentalists would.
The Religious Freedom Issues
Now, I firmly believe that people are entitled
to have whatever religious beliefs they wish, no matter how wrong
or foolish I might consider those beliefs, because I want other
folks to extend the same freedom to me and supporting religious
freedom is more important to me than living in a world where
everyone practices a religion I like. Therefore, I don’t
believe that members of any faith have a right to enshrine their
religious beliefs into civil law or to force religious minorities
to live according to the majority’s theological opinions.
Nor, however, do members of any religion or quasi-religion have
a right to use their beliefs as a cover for committing what criminologists
refer to as “crimes with victims,” such as murder,
rape, stealing, and polluting, for example (as distinct from
“victimless crimes” covered by most sex, drug, and
gambling laws). The basic “don’t kill, rape, steal,
pollute,” etc., sort of moral code, necessary for the physical
welfare of any group of humans (and the Earth) is not a specifically
religious one but is (or should be) a universally agreed-upon
set of survival principles for post-barbarian cultures.
After some long, emotional discussions with
a former spouse (who is a fervent civil libertarian) I’m
forced to reluctantly admit that exactly the same reasoning holds
whether we’re dealing with Satanists or other Christian
fundamentalists. We don’t have the right to exclude them
from our public events, nor to prevent them from shopping in
our stores, nor to keep them from talking to the media, much
as we might like to. We must honor their constitutional rights
to practice their religion. But we don’t have to be helpful
to them in the process.
If a Satanic group or individual is being
discriminated against in such a way as to make legal action appropriate,
they can ask the American Civil
Liberties Union for help. If they are just having a public
relations problem, on the other hand, they can bloody well hire
their own advertising agency to explain that up is down and Evil
is “really kinda Good.” Either way, there is no reason
for us to spend our limited funds on defending them.
How exactly can we make it clear to Setanists
that they are not wanted in our community? As Deborah Lipp puts
it, “How do we express our disapproval, and give it clout,
without violating their rights?” Her solution: “We
do it just as our Pagan ancestors did — by shunning. We
don’t have to be respectful or friendly to Satanists. Shunning
is ethical and legal, and no one has a civil right to be liked.“
What does shunning as a tactic mean? Here’s
an example, one that drives the more mercenary members of our
community wild: Neopagans who own occult shops should not
sell copies of Satanic literature, provide tools that can
normally only be used for Satanic purposes (granted, a tricky
judgement sometimes), nor allow local Setanists to use our stores
to teach classes or to recruit new members. Of course, we can’t
keep Satanists completely out of Neopagan shops. We have to allow
them to come in and buy other books and products, just as we
would allow Christians, Jews, or Buddhists to do so, because
to discriminate against them economically would violate their
constitutional rights (besides, some of those proto-Pagans might
be among them). But we don’t have to make the practice of
Setanism easier for them. Satanists are perfectly capable of
opening their own shops, and shopkeepers who insist on selling
Setanic materials can justly be asked where their loyalties lie.
Will this policy cost Neopagan owners who take an anti-Satanist
stand money? Yep. Which means that the Neopagan public has
a moral obligation to support anti-Satanist occult shops, even
if less ethical stores have lower prices.
Unfortunately, we can’t simply exclude
Satanists from attending public Pagan festivals, for reasons
both constitutional and practical. As Ms. Lipp puts it, “What
are you going to do, have attendees all sign oaths that they
aren’t Satanists?” Setanists would hardly be bothered
about taking a false oath, now would they? But we don’t
have to go out of our way to make Satanists feel comfortable
or respected, and we don’t have to give them space on our
program schedules. If a group of Setanists want to set up a recruiting
table at a Neopagan festival, an anti-Satanist table should be
set up right next to it, with large signs indicating that the
festival organizers do not approve of Satanism. Knowledgeable
people should talk to anyone who seems taken in by the Setanists.
The same procedures would hold for other conservative Christians
showing up at public Pagan festivals. (As I understand it, the
only way in the United States that you can legally prevent attendance
at an event on the grounds of religion is when that event is
a private, invitation-only party. Those of you with a background
in civil rights legislation may be able to determine if there
really is any way to exclude fundamentalists from Pagan festivals
in your country.)
Those of us who interact with the mainstream
media can and should refuse to ever defend Satanism. We can and should publicly take the stand that Satanism
is stupid, unimaginative, ugly, banal, and often evil —
and that just like the Christian fundamentalism of which it is
an integral part, Satanism is the enemy of the Goddesses and
Gods we worship.
We sure as Hades shouldn’t join
in public relations or civil liberties coalitions with Satanists
any more than we would with the Inquisition or the Ku Klux Klan.
Such coalitions can only benefit (1) the Setanists who will cheerfully
hide behind the (very slightly) superior public image that years
of hard work have won us, and (2) other fundamentalist Christians
who will point to such coalitions as further “proof”
that Neopagans and Satanists are identical. We have absolutely
nothing to gain from letting the Satanists ride on our coattails,
and much to lose.
The enemies of our enemies are our enemies’
enemies — not our friends.
It’s time the Neopagan community closed our ranks against
them. As pluralists, we’re usually willing to let our members,
friends, and even our clergy, belong to a wide variety of other
religions. But Christian fundamentalists, whether they are wearing
crosses or goat heads, are simply not welcome, and never will
be.
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