satanism
A Concise Appraisal by Ecclesia Apostolica Jesu Christi
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Satanism is commonly referred to as devil
worship and is the general term for worship of the biblical Lucifer, or Satan
(Genesis 3: 1 – 15; Isaiah 14: 12). The history of satanic cults and devil
worship is a difficult one to recount. Evidence and sources prior to the
seventeenth century are scanty; even the post seventeenth century data are
difficult to access because of the witch hunts whose victims oftentimes owed no
connection to either witchcraft or indeed devil worship. These were frequently
political acts, or the behaviour of mean-spirited folk towards those they
happened not to like. Devil worship was therefore probably exaggerated when
witch hunting was in its heyday. Satanism nonetheless existed then, as it still
does today.
Though witchcraft and Satanism are both
part of the occult, and some evidence links them in certain instances, they
should not be confused. Many of today’s witchcraft covens align themselves with
non-Christian, pre-Christian or pagan deities. Satanism is distinguished from
witchcraft and other forms of paganism in that it is dedicated to the
antithesis of the God of the Christian Bible.
Aleister Crowley, born Edward Alexander
Crowley in Warwickshire in 1875, was the self-proclaimed “Wickedest Man in the
World” and the “Great Beast 666.” He also considered himself to be the “avatar
of the Age of Horus” which was supposedly a 2000-year-old aeon, beginning in
1904, that would supplant Christianity with “Crowlianity.” Crowley had
rebelled against a strict religious upbringing and was thus initiated into the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1898, after leaving Cambridge University.
He left the Order after a row with its founders and then travelled to Mexico,
India and Ceylon, where he was introduced to yoga and Buddhism which replaced
his interest in the occult until an experience in Cairo in April 1904. Crowley
was asked by his wife, Rose, to perform an esoteric ritual as an experiment.
During the ceremony, she entered a trance-like state and became the medium for
the words of a communicator. “They are waiting for you,” she said to Crowley. “They,” she said, being
Horus, the god of war and the son of Osiris, according to the beliefs of
ancient Egypt. The communicator told Crowley to be at his desk in his hotel
room between noon and one o’clock on three specific days. He agreed and in
these periods he wrote, via automatic writing, a document called The
Book of the Law. This tome spoke of a race of supermen and condemned the
traditional Judeo-Christian religions, pacifism, democracy, compassion and
humanitarianism. “Let my servants be few and secret: they shall rule the many and
the known,” the communicator revealed. The message continued: “We have
nothing with the outcast and the unfit; let them die in their misery. For they
feel not. Compassion is the vice of kings; stamp down the wretched and the
weak: this is the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the world.
… Love one another with burning hearts; on the low men trample in the fierce
lust of your pride, in the day of your wrath. … Pity not the fallen! I never
knew them. I am not for them. I console not; I hate the consoled and the
consoler. … I am unique and conqueror. I am not of the slaves that perish. Be
they damned and dead. Amen. … Therefore strike hard and low, and to hell with
them, master. … Lurk! Withdraw! Upon them! This is the law of the Battle of
Conquest: thus shall my worship be about my secret house. … Worship me with
fire and blood; worship me with swords and with spears. Let the woman be girl
with a sword before me: let blood flow in my name. Trample down the heathen; be
upon them, O warrior, I will give you their flesh to eat. … Sacrifice cattle,
little and big; after a child … kill and torture; spare not; be upon them!”
The same communicator confirmed that
Crowley was the “Beast 666” who had come to destroy Christianity, something his mother
had told him earlier in his life. Crowley apparently tried to ignore what he
had written with his guided hand, but it would not go away, and from 1909 on he
began to take it very seriously. He said: “After five years of folly and
weakness, miscalled politeness, tact, discretion, care for the feeling of
others, I am weary of it. I say today: to hell with Christianity, Rationalism,
Buddhism, all the lumber of the centuries. I bring you a positive and primeval
fact, Magic by name; and with this I will build me a new Heaven and new Earth.
I want none of your faint approval or faint dispraise; I want blasphemy,
murder, rape, revolution, anything, bad or good, but strong.” In 1898 Crowley
had joined the Order of the Golden Dawn where he made the acquaintance of his
temporary mentor, MacGregor Mathers, leader of the occult group. Taking on the
name of Brother Perdurabo (“I will endure”) and beginning his experiments with
drugs, Crowley’s voracious bisexuality and his interests in the darker forces
gave him a sinister reputation. He was very much a figure of decadence who
loathed Christianity. The Golden Dawn taught a form of magic that was derived
from the Kaballah and Rosicrucianism. There are certainly similarities to Freemasonry and Theosophy. However, the magic
espoused by the Order of the Golden Dawn soon proved to be insufficient for
Aleister Crowley who was convinced that more potent magic could be harnessed
through sex and drugs.
Crowley left his former tutor, MacGregor
Mathers, a broken man as he embarked on a psychic war against him. They both
conjured up demons to attack the other. The violent eruption concluded with
Crowley claiming that Mathers was killed in a magical duel by a vampire he had
conjured up. The would-be usurper proved to be too perverted and bizarre for
the Order and was cast out. He formulated his own ideas, seeking aid from what
he termed the Secret Chiefs (supposedly divine beings with supernatural
intellects). The revelation that came to him in Cairo was via a demon
named Aiwaz.
Crowley welcomed the First World War as
necessary to sweep away the old age and usher in the new one. After going
public with his revelations, he was made head of the German-based Ordo Templi
Orientis that he had joined in 1912. The OTO emphasis on sexual magic was
precisely what Crowley had been searching for. He founded his cult of Thelema
in Sicily in 1920, but was expelled in 1923 amid accusations of, among other
things, blood drinking, drug taking, and child sacrifice. He is known to
have favoured the German war effort during the Second World War and, whilst
abroad, once notoriously wrote in The Fatherland: “The
sovereignty of England must be destroyed once and for all. England must be
divided between the Continental Powers. She must be a mere province, or better
still, colony of her neighbours, France and Germany.”
The major axioms of Satanism as it would
later develop in the 1960s were contained in Liber Legis, or The Book
of the Law. The credo of the book was summed up in the now infamous phrase “Do what thou
wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” Crowley’s next important literary
contribution was The Equinox (1909). Many of the ideas contained in this
latter work became the basis for modern Satanism. Weighing 3.5 lb per
volume, these were the journals of his newly formed Order of the Silver Star aka
Argenteum Astrum. In 1929 came Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice.
His American publishers, Dover, made a selling point of the claim that the book
contains Crowley’s admission that he himself carried out ritual killings of
children, a point not lost on a certain Henry Bibby at the end of the century.
Having recommended to his readers the choice of “a male child of perfect
intelligence,” Crowley later acknowledges that some of his acolytes might be
squeamish when it comes to ritual sacrifice and offers the following conscience
clause: “Those magicians who object to the use of blood have endeavoured
to replace it with incense … But the bloody sacrifice, though more dangerous,
is more efficacious; and for nearly all purposes human sacrifice is best.” Crowley offered
no comforting disclaimers. He described his opus as a course of training, to
help people from all walks of life “fulfill themselves perfectly.” And he promises
that “the
student will discover … a practical method of making himself a magician.” Within the same
work, Crowley makes reference to unspecified progressive forms of blood
sacrifice and he advocates self-mutilation, the offering of blood and
virginity, and animal sacrifice by crucifixion. Crowley notoriously baptised a
frog and called it “Jesus Christ” and then crucified it. This was in 1916,
while living in New Hampshire, USA, during his induction ceremony to raise
himself to the rank of magus. The remainder of Crowley’s life is a long legacy
of perversion and evil. He believed that degrading sexual practice and drug use
destroyed the consciousness of any sense of morality. This in turn enabled the
consciousness, deprived of any sense of “ought” or “law,” to come under the
influence of powerful supernatural beings. Former Labour prospective politician
and National Children’s Home employee, David Hallam, commenting of Crowley’s
opus, said: “People who are inadequate might pick up something like
Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice and believe that they can
control peoples’ lives by using magic, believing that if they do this to a
child, they will have power. I cannot understand why anybody would want to
publish a book advocating the ritual slaughtering of children. No doubt there’s
a massive market for occult material. But publishers must remember that these
are often handbooks. People are picking them up for a purpose.” Jerry Johnston
in The Edge of Evil (after the Enyclopedia of Occultism and
Parasychology) has it that Crowley’s own son died a ritual death.
All but forgotten at the time of his
death as a poverty-stricken heroin addict in a run-down Hastings boarding house
in 1947, Crowley was rediscovered two decades later by drug-crazed hippies and
also popularised by Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin who bought Boleskine House, near
Inverness, where Crowley attempted to invoke Aiwaz. John Symonds, Crowley’s
biographer, recalled that “he merely attracted a host of evil spirits.” Richard
Cavendish observed in A History of Magic that “though he was
an almost forgotten man at his death, interest in Crowley has revived and he
has more followers now than in his lifetime.”
Jack Parsons, a rocket scientist,
started a branch of Crowley’s Thelemic Satanism in Pasadena, California. He
later changed his name to Belarian Armiluss Al Dajjaj Antichrist, and pledged
himself to fulfill the work of the Beast 666, having supposedly been Crowley’s
appointed “spiritual son.” Much of present-day American occultism can be traced
back to the formation of Parson’s Pasadena chapter of the OTO during World War
Two. In March 1946, Parsons was to try to call down the biblical Whore of
Babylon into the womb of a living woman by a combination of strenuous
copulation and incantation for three days. The female was a member of Ordo
Templi Orientis. Keeping detailed records of Parsons unsuccessful black
magic rite was friend and scribe Lafayette Ron Hubbard. Four years later
Hubbard lay the foundations for his own religious cult, Scientology which, in turn, spawned the
DeGrimstons, a British couple who were to establish the overtly satanic Process
Church of the Final Judgement that took root in the counter-culture of the
early 1960s. Founded by Robert Moore and Mary Anne MacLean, who were later to
rename themselves the DeGrimstons, according to their literature, they
worshipped a trinity of Jehovah, Lucifer and Satan. The role of Satan as
executioner was further expressed in the following utterance by the church: “My prophecy
upon this wasted earth and upon corrupt creation that squats upon its ruined
surface is: THOU SHALT KILL!” The Process venerated Adolf Hitler and their chosen symbol
was four Ps conjoined in a derivative of the swastika. Process literature
contained articles on the Black Mass and necrophilia, illustrated with Nazi
symbolism. Charles Manson was visited in jail and asked to contribute an
article for the “Death” issue of the Process magazine. Author Maury Terry says
the Process took inspiration from the Order of the Golden Dawn and Crowley’s
OTO.
On 12 February 2001 Henry Bibby (alias
Edward Crowley) was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Old Bailey for
carrying out a Crowleyite ritual of child sacrifice on an innocent
twelve-year-old victim. He was obsessed with the Satanist and changed his name
to “Edward
Crowley” in 1998. He had stabbed the boy, Diego Pineiro-Villar, over
thirty times in Covent Garden, London, on 8 May 2000. Police found a holdall
that Bibby had kept with him. It contained a small number of legal documents
about his change of name, and a chilling sketch that police believe was drawn a
few weeks before the attack. Entitled Delendus Est Pineiro, which
roughly translates as “destroy Pineiro,” the pencil diagram makes references to
child sacrifice, black magic and Greek mythology. The symbols relate to
quotations from Crowley’s works. There are a number of references to child
sacrifice. The most notorious came from Aleister Crowley’s Magick in Theory
and Practice. It reads: “For the highest spiritual working one must accordingly
choose that victim which contains the greatest and purest force. A male child
of perfect innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory and suitable
victim.”
Ordo Templi Orientis, once headed by Crowley, today boasts a
membership of three thousand in forty countries, half of whom are in the USA.
There are many more rival organisations describing themselves as the OTO.
Aleister Crowley held an exceptionally high degree in Freemasonry and modern
witchcraft’s three initiations are transparently derived from the three degrees
of craft masonry. Crowley’s influence on wicca cannot be overestimated, but the
Edwardian occultist was quintessentially a black magician who was to become the
major inspiration behind the modern rival of Satanism. Someone who helped to
perpetuate the cult of Aleister Crowley is the American film maker Kenneth
Anger. Born in 1930 in Santa Monica, California, Anger grew up in the shadow of
Hollywood and participated in his first film rôle at the age of four years.
From his late teens he became obsessed with homo-erotic themes and diabolism.
This led to him becoming, in his own words, “a disciple of the Satanist Aleister
Crowley.” His most infamous film is Lucifer Rising which was begun
in 1966, but production came to a halt when its lead actor died and the person
to replace him then stole all the central footage. Anger released the remaining
footage in 1966, followed by a 25 minutes’ version in 1973. The completed 45
minutes’ version was finally released in 1980.
“Few groups will openly describe
themselves as being black magic practitioners or Satan worshippers. They will
hide themselves behind something less ominous sounding like Wicca, paganism and nature worship. It all
appears so harmless on the surface, but underneath the ugly traditions can be
discovered. Traditions which would frighten off the sincere enquirer immediately. … One of the best known names
in an ever-increasing gallery of infamy is Aleister Crowley who founded the
so-called religion of Thelema. … I make mention of Crowley and his pathetic
life because so many of today’s magical orders fashion themselves upon him and
adopt ‘Thelema’ as a gateway to pure devil worship and classical Satanism. …
The black arts, needless to say, attract a massive number of rogues and
charlatans who impose upon the credulity of misguided seekers. Power over
others is always the motive behind the devious jargon and rigmarole of their
magic.“ ~ (From Satan To Christ p13-14).
Contemporary Satanism is divided
into three distinct realities: solitary Satanists, prohibited underground
cults, and neo-satanic groups. The Christian Church has always abhorred
Satanism and its practice. The biblical warnings against all occult practices
are clear (Leviticus 19: 26 – 31; 20: 6; Deuteronomy 13: 1 – 5; 18: 9 – 14;
Isaiah 8: 19 – 22; Jeremiah 29: 8 – 9; et al). Additionally, the Bible
speaks of Satan as being the “god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4: 4) who is the
deceiver of the human race (Genesis 3: 4 – 13) and the arch-enemy of God
(Matthew 4: 6; John 8: 44; 2 Corinthians 2: 11). Satan afflicts the righteous
(Job), reigns in dominion over sinners (Acts 26: 18), attempts to reclaim
Christians for himself (Ephesians 6: 12), and inspires deceptive and lying
wonders (2 Thessalonians 2: 9). Traditional Christianity has steadily continued
to defend the classical paradigms despite some modernists no longer subscribing
to a literal supernatural reality that personifies evil. Yet nobody can deny
the existence of Satanists who worship the Devil. Satanism continues to attract
interest and involvement among people at each of its various levels. It is a complex issue, not easily
dealt with concisely. There are many who merely dabble, mercenaries who use it
for commercial interests, others who use it for hedonistic purposes, and
finally those who immerse themselves with the utmost seriousness in ritualistic
worship of Satan and commit violent crimes in their zealous quest to carry out
their master’s bidding. It is virtually impossible to discover the number of
authentic Satanists because of their axiom of silence and their clandestine
nature.
What, then, is authentic Satanism?
A contemporary British satanic magazine, Fenrir, published by the
Thormynd Press in Shropshire, England, featured an article in its third issue
titled “A Gift for the Prince.” The following are extracts: “Human sacrifice is powerful magick. The ritual death of an
individual does two things: it releases energy … and it draws down dark forces.
Sacrifice can be voluntary, of an individual, or involuntary … or results from
events brought about by satanic ritual and/or planning (such as wars). Voluntary
sacrifice usually only occurs every seventeen years as part of the ceremony of
recalling. … An involuntary sacrifice is when an individual or individuals are
chosen by a group, Temple, Order. Such sacrifices are usually sacrificed on the
Spring Equinox. Great care is needed in choosing a sacrifice: the object being
to dispose of a difficult individual or individuals without arousing undue
suspicion. … The bodies are then buried or otherwise disposed of, care being
taken if they are found, for suspicion not to fall on any of those involved.
Those involved, of course, must be sworn to secrecy and warned that if they
break their oath their own existence will be terminated. Breaking the oath of
sacrifice draws down upon them the vengeance of all satanic groups. … Those who
participate in the Ritual of Sacrifice must revel in the death(s): it being the
duty of the Master and Mistress to find suitable participants.” Earlier in the text the unnamed author describes as the choicest
victims for sacrifice: “interfering Nazarenes [Christians], those attempting to
disrupt in some way established Satanist groups or Orders (eg journalists) and political/business
individuals whose activities are detrimental to the Satanist spirit.” Another satanic publication, called the Black Flame, asserts
that “The end times are here, the final days of the
rule of the cross. The world will be swept by a wave of satanic individuals who
will stand forth to claim their birthright as humans, proud of their nature. …
An elite of the able will move forward towards the true destiny of our species,
to master ourselves and the Universe.”
“All evidence points to the growing
belief that the age of the antichrist has arrived, announcing the final age as foretold
by Paul in his second letter to Timothy: ‘This know also, that in the last days
perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves,
covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful,
unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent,
fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers
of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying
the power thereof: from such turn away.’ (2 Timothy 3: 1-5). It is because we
are living in the last days that Satan is calling his followers to battle
stations. … The final confrontation is approaching ~ the one piece of
information the Satanists cannot shrug off and therefore include in their
pernicious propaganda. … Even the Satanists themselves are aware that the
Second Advent of Christ is extremely close which would explain why they are
being driven to such excess. They cannot win. They must not.” ~ (From Satan To Christ p75-76).
“Behold, He cometh with clouds;
and every eye shall see Him.”
Revelation
1: 7