That’s right, a Satanic Goddess. Can you imagine what it’d be like to date one? I’ve heard that we Satanic women are far and few in-between, and I can only speculate the reason since the claim itself is rather unverifiable due to the clandestine statistics of the matter. Luckily for you, I’ve done both: dated a Satanist and a non-Satanist. As a matter of fact, I’ve only ever dated one Satanist, but the experience stood out to me as one of the most—well, I’ll tell all about it. Before I do however, I’d like to remind everyone that this is the account of one experience, and in no way am I saying that every experience is going to match mine. I’ve dated men, and I’ve dated one woman. The boys were all pastor’s sons with the exception of one—Yes, I seem to attract a certain personality type, don’t I? It should come as no surprise to you, as I am exactly what I am… Let’s get our hands dirty. There are three main courses of a relationship that we’re going to break down here: physicality, intellect, and spirituality.
That accident lives in my memory as if it happened just yesterday, but the thing that I remember the most was the shock I had over the first thing to run through my head. I was nineteen, I’d just gotten my license, and I’d rear-ended someone. They looked pretty pissed. I looked pretty pale. I knew what had happened: it was my fault. I’d gotten carried away, I’d been careless. I’d made some assumptions about the behavior of others, and my assumptions were faulty because I lacked experience in reading others on the road. There was nothing else to do now but call the police and bear the penalty for my poor judgement, but all the while I couldn’t shake that single thought in my head: “I wish I could get a re-do.” Oh, what I wouldn’t have given for that! My father was going to slaughter me. My freedom was about to be jailed. My record was tarnished, and never would I be able to go back in time and change what’d happened because that’s just not how life worked. It’s a curse of being young, but it’s a burden that lessens as time makes us stronger, and I’m lucky: I’ve learned a great deal over the years but in its place I’ve picked up a different sort of burden. Now? Now I suffer watching youth make the same dangerous decisions I did, and youth, exciting as it is, rarely allows someone to slow down, take a breath, and listen to the sage advice that’d make life a little easier.
Everyone has those days where your emotions want to run away with you for one reason or another. The religion I was raised in taught me a lot about how to suppress emotions but never really control them. My Satanism includes the responsibility of self, and that includes being able to be responsible with your emotions. I found my own thoughts written in the pages of the Satanic Bible when the founder described his opinion that letting emotions die in darkness only poisoned the body.
It's important to acknowledge and let yourself feel, whatever emotion it could be. Emotions are real, they're happening for a reason. Don't ever let someone tell you that your emotions are invalid...the cause may be, but your emotions are not. Still, responsibility is a two sided coin. We are responsible for letting our emotions breathe, but we cannot allow them to run us. Our choices and decisions, our words and commitments must be our own. To this end, I thought I may share some tactics with you about how to handle those emotions without doing something such as: "Telling your problems to others who do not want to hear them." Let's begin. There is something about Satanism, especially “traditional” atheistic Satanism codified by LaVey, that screams “narcissistic elitist egomaniac.” Of course, knowing we ‘LaVeyans’ as you do, you will know that this isn’t actually the case, but it does nevertheless dominate the opinion of society when we are center stage in its field of view. I struggle to pinpoint exactly where this comes from and in the end I find myself somewhat comfortable with the notion that it stems from all of the inspiration that Anton LaVey had from works such as “Anthem” and “Might is Right.” Dystopian struggle is a favored theme by many, and the idea of conquering the general glum and gloom of daily life to achieve what you want out of it is one of the things that we take pride in as Satanists. We spend our time in the pursuit of happiness, bettering ourselves, and enjoying this world in a deep capacity. Such being the case, it really doesn’t come to me by surprise then that there is something even more top secret in Satanic society, a stricter taboo of discussion than even SRA itself: Satanists with disabilities.
There are quite a few questions that a person can ask a Satanist that are downright offensive because they automatically assume that the Satanic witch is an unscrupulous, morally defunct, and psychopathic monster who partners with the evilest of evil kings in order to enjoy a few simple pleasures before their ultimate demise and eternal damnation in an empire of fire and brimstone. Need I really comment on how far from the truth this really is? I think instead I’ll choose not to dignify it with a response. The question that I get the most from those following the Right-Hand Path about magic for some reason happens to be: “What about the morality of it?” The morality? I understand that this is a valid question that comes from a genuine place, but it never fails to remind me just how misinformed the world is to the Satanic craft.
Everyone has a relationship with money. Usually we can’t get enough of it. A funny thing begins to happen as you acquire more of it too: it slips through your fingers faster! That’s because you’re paying off debt acquired when you didn’t have it, are upgrading your equipment for the future when you expect not to have it, and in the end spend enough of it away to guarantee that you won’t have it in the present either. For me money has been much less about give and take as it is for most, and I’ve been frugal since the day I was born. I remember having a big pink plastic piggy bank with a curly rubber tail that I’d wind around my little fingertips while wondering how many pennies, dimes, nickels and quarters were shoved in there. How many more could I fit? Would I ever fill the jar? It was over a gallon in volume and fill it I did.
I was seven years old when I first started my first business. It wasn’t a lemonade stand—that sounded really stupid: sitting out in the sun next to a slowly warming pitcher of lemonade when even I had been ordered not to accept food from strangers. Oh, no. Of course it had to do with cleaning because I am and always have been extremely particular about organization. I called it, “Ave’s Household Cleaning” (except it was my name not my pen name!) and it was essentially an elegantly designed effort to get my parents to pay me for doing my own chores. By age twelve I had invoices. I had a logo. I had some bizarre system where I’d look at a room and decide how expensive it was going to be—and for some reason I claimed I charged off of square footage when I had no real ability to eyeball such a thing at such a young age so I actually did what any seven-year-old would do: I made things up. It sounded official enough, and my parents thought I was cute so they actually paid me what I asked for…and when they didn’t I got to learn how to negotiate, a skill that would take me far in the modern world when I fast forwarded a few decades to the present date where I am furiously collecting my purse onto my arm and turning my back on a company that has finally snapped my very last straw. There is a certain type of sensation that only lovers of books understand. It happens when the spine cracks gently and the perfume of toxic binding glue, ink, and crisp paper rises into your nose, and for a moment your eyes close against your will and ahhh, suddenly there it is: the smell of a fresh, new book. All of that information within just waiting to be discovered, all of those wonderful pages just begging to be turned and fingerprints pining to be smeared over the cover can transport you—even if just for a moment!—and only if you’re a book lover, a person who understands this acquired flavor of bliss that tolls your brain to salivate faster than Pavlov’s mutt. There is another type of sensation that comes to those who are perhaps cousins of this breed of human specimen, and it happens with a different type of book, a specific book, a book that in all intents and for all purposes was sold to its steward in a painfully blank state. Journals, I’m talking about journals now. Imagine what can be written on those pages. Imagine what adventures could be hand in the way of fiction or in margin doodles. They are the vaults of memories and experiences, of emotions and of logic, of puzzles and peculiarities. Journals, my dear friends, are whatever in the Hell you want them to be, and that is more than just a little bit exciting.
It was last Wednesday afternoon when I lifted my eyes from my computer screens and saw the friendly receptionist’s glossy smile curving down at me. I knew what she wanted, I had heard her ask the office next to mine—her voice carries, and that doesn’t seem to be the worst trait for a receptionist to have. I let her ask the question anyway, even though I had known the answer several years before she incepted it. “We’re looking for volunteers for our annual Salvation Army event,” she informed me in a cheery tone, and I let my brows curve with false intrigue. “Last year we all took shifts at the mall and we’re planning on doing that again next week since it was such a huge success!” I’m so glad you’re so excited, Rebecca. Enjoy that enthusiasm, and don’t let me pop your bubble. I inform her that while I’m very grateful for the opportunity, I am not interested in participating in this one. She doesn’t need to know my opinion on the Salvation Army. She thinks I’m a good little Christian girl after all, and her surprise is evident only until I match her smile and return to work—this conversation is over, sorry: not sorry. I won’t be guilted into bell-ringing for a cause that I don’t believe in. I’m not going to get into it with her. I’m not going to explain how they discriminate against the needy that they claim to serve, and I’m not going to get into all of the reasons why “Salvation Army” is a laughably good name for an organization built on a cornerstone of hypocrisy.
This one is for the adults out there, so if you’re underage, check your fake ID at the door. You recall recently that I posted about your first enchantment in Lesser Magic and I pointed out some of the things that you should be aware of when you’re meeting somebody for the first time. I talked about what a handshake should look like if your target fit the example, and I briefly brushed on the sort of behavior to exhibit if you wanted to take a spin at being me and being successful in my world. By the end of it you may have come to agree with me that Lesser Magic is far underrated by many of the Satanic population, and I tend to feel at times that those who write it off the most are those who fail the most at utilizing it. There is much more overall to consider when you’re playing a role, and Lesser Magic really can sometimes feel like an act with the entire world as your stage. Done in real-time on a road constructed by bricks you’ve painstakingly laid in the past, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to get an Oscar for your performance if you only take the time to learn about your subject and understand what’s going on behind the curtain in Oz.
It’s true to say that there have been many questions about Lesser Magic and very few posts explaining what it is and how to successfully employ it. I think a major part of this is caused by the familiar quip of “A magician never reveals his tricks,” but more than that you can’t start a discussion about Lesser Magic without also acknowledging that just Satanism it’s different for everyone. That doesn’t mean that the principles aren’t the same or that the methodology is different, but more like… Everyone is allowed to go about it a different way. There are plenty of Satanists that are going to reject every single word after the first letter of this post, and that’s okay. My experience isn’t theirs and they’re welcome to do exactly what works for them. Here forward it’s your new job to remember that this is an account of my own experiences and I cannot and do refuse to speak on behalf of others in this area.
Here’s an interesting story for you this morning: the day I was born I was technically given a name, but that name wasn’t mine. I say this because the name I was supposed to receive was changed at the last minute for a silly little reason, and oh—I can’t begin to explain how bad a fit this ‘correction’ was for my personality. You’d have to know my real name and I’m not going to tell you that, so for this shared moment you can think of me as Nicole, even though nobody else does, because it’s a better fit for who I truly am. I do believe that names are entwined with your identity because people base how to interact with you initially off a first impression. You’ve surely met someone whose name was “Mike” and you thought, “Ah, he is a Mike all right,” or maybe you’ve met a “Emily,” and yes, there’s a certain something that Emilys all have in common. My relationship with my identity and my name is a complex one because of a few independent events that had a massive impact on shaping my history. I’m going to share one with you today.
Dear Arrogant Apprentices, Greetings. We’re probably going to be very happy to meet you, so long as we all get off on the right foot. This blog is an open letter to all of those potential “Arrogant Apprentices” out there who demand to be converted or indoctrinated into Satanism and inject themselves into the life of an unwilling Satanist as their unsolicited "apprentice." Although, even if you aren’t one of those "Arrogant Apprentices," you may as well continue since you may pick up a helpful pointer or two in how to get the most out of your adventure. :) We won't convert you. Please stop asking. Let’s get started right away by immediately clearing up your first potential obscene misunderstanding in etiquette: we refuse to convert you to Satanism, and if you ask you will effectively murder any positive first impression you hoped to make with your zealous and emphatic dedication to the subject. This may come as a surprise to you, and you may also be surprised that we refuse to “teach you” Satanism as well. Allow me to explain? You see, when you take this role of “recipient of knowledge,” you are either ignorantly or arrogantly attempting to cast us in the role of “provider of knowledge.” You attempt to require us to accommodate your desires without lifting a finger to accommodate ours, a thing which comes off as entitled, disrespectful, and transitory. We know you haven’t thought any of this through because if you had, you would have approached this a little bit differently. We recognize that you are accustomed to being preached to, and we know you’ve probably heard some disturbing things that either seem intriguing or flat out wrong, but what you must first understand is that we aren’t missionaries. Our day is just as beautiful without having an Arrogant Apprentice hanging on our belt loop, especially when we didn’t actually invite them to even touch us in the first place. (Clearly we are happy to answer questions and provide feedback, but this is altogether different than demanding that we become your priest.)
Caution: This blog post includes content which may be sensitive to some readers and is based on true events. While specific details aren’t discussed, please be aware that the topic is more mature than some other blogs I’ve posted in the past and may be emotionally stirring for survivors of domestic violence. I feel that it is very important to discuss real-world topics now and then because if these topics aren’t discussed they’ll never be addressed, and if they’re never addressed we are not being responsible Satanists. Thank-you.
I’m being insincere when I apologize to you about all of the Halloween commentary lately. I’m sure you can tell that I think this is one of the best holidays of the year, and it jazzes me like few other holidays do—it rivals even my birthday and the winter holidays! Halloween is a big part of the culture where I live, and just like everything else in this country it came from someplace in the past and over the ocean. I like to think pretty liberally about the whole “Remember past orthodoxy” thing and apply it generously to culture, history, business, as well as religion, but for now I’m going to focus on the origins of Halloween because I’m pretty confident that many of you don’t know! Introducing Samhain Did you know that Halloween’s roots can be traced to the Celtic (Located in Ireland, UK, and Northern France) superstitions and a festival called Samhain (pronounced sow-een) celebrated October 31st- November 2nd? The Celts were superstitious folks concerning transitional periods (sunset into night, the change of the seasons…) and the end of harvest and darkening days was one of their most superstitious periods. They believed that at the close of October into the beginning of November was a special period in which time lost all meaning and top became down and the dead were able to ascend to Earth while the living decayed into the Nether. It should feel like no coincidence to you that this time punctuated the end of the harvest season and signaled the beginning of darkening of days: the colder winter months.
One of my favorite essays by Anton LaVey was one called “How to Avoid the DMPs.” It’s a brief essay that can be found in The Devil’s Notebook where he discusses the perspective of entities that are looking, more or less, to elicit the sort of emotion from you that will motivate you to make some action in their favor, whether it be buying newspapers, paying through the nose for medicine, or some other such thing. I especially appreciated this essay after the 2016 election when I woke up with America’s 2016 popular vote, stunned. For a period pre-election I had to isolate myself from social media you see, because this particular campaign was tearing my family apart and I needed to take a step back to prevent it from poisoning the relationships I cherished.
Politics are really quite a personal thing when you take any look at it. People find them complex and boring because they don’t educate themselves and because politics are a violent ocean with deep waters that never stop moving. It’s a massive game of give and take, and some people don’t have the heart for it. That’s fine, however it’s important to remember that regardless of your opinion on the subject, those men and women in your elected government still have a very important power over your life. Yes, your life. They may feel distant because you never really see these people unless you engage yourself, but the effect of their decisions trickle down and affect your student loans, your mortgages, your health insurance, your parental leave rights, and of course, at the end of the road: your social security. |
Who is the Witch?
Once I called myself a Christian, then an atheist, and a Satanist. At the end of the day, I'm just a person who is living her truth one day at a time. I'm interested in religion, its effects on the mind, the occult, and more. Learn more about me on the about page. Hellish History
November 2021
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