Hug a Satanist day

There has been a vast upswelling of religious intolerance and hatred towards the very best and most loving souls that the occult community can offer, according to the always correct and always awesome David Griffin. He reports that Satanists and Left Hand Path practioners, some of them actual pagans, are now fearing for their lives, religious freedom, in fact their very solar bodies, thanks to the evil that calls itself the Hermetic Golden Dawn. And we know that it must be true because David Griffin never lies.

The fear that the Left Hand Path people feel is all the result of news that one was attending to super fantastic con-fab being hosted by Griffin, and the Hot Tub Installer Association of Nevada. The news sparked off snide comments by several feared internet jokers and a major story on a news site read by both the President of the United States and the Queen of England. Such humor and outrage had never been seen before by Satanists and Left Hand Path people, and now they quiver under their beds, fearful that they might be pantsied by the evil followers of the Golden Dawn hate squad.

In light of this horrible and very startling development, the Feed the Demonic Cat Now Fund declares that today and everyday henceforth shall be Hug a Satanist day.

It is only with our hugs, and sweet wet kisses, that the Satanists and Left Hand Path people will feel free to spread the good news of their loving care and kindness. After all, as one famous Satanist instructed, Satan is the best friend that humanity ever had.

So go forth today and hug that lonely Satanist that you see at the Quickie-Mart. And the one that haunts the library. And if you can get an appointment, hug the Satanist career guru and motivational speaker who is now too scared to go forth and make a living selling the joys of Satanic business practices.

This brand new holiday is brought to you by the Feed the Demonic Cat Now Fund--a big thanks to David Griffin for teaching us that disliking and joking about Satanists is the most evil thing that a person can do. Thanks, David Griffin, we are all now better people now.

And what would Hug a Satanist day be without merchandise? Here is a T-shirt that you can buy that asks the most important question, "Have you hugged a Satanist today?" All proceeds from product sales go to the Feed the Demonic Cat Now Fund, keeping Denver safe from hungry demonic cats since 1999.

Am I a Demonolator?

Looking over my list of things I want to blog about in the near future, I realized that the question of "Am I a Demonolator?" is going to come up at some point...so I just as well get it over with.

And in all honesty, most of my regular readers and friends have already made up their minds about this question--for those people who feel that they already know the answer, feel free to wander off because nothing that I am about to say is going to change your mind.

Now, for the rest of you, mainly those who just accidently stumbled across this blog while googling "demonolatry"...

I do not consider myself to be a demonolator. But I can see how someone might believe that I am. And they might be right...of course, that last part probably needs some explanation. So here goes...

My preferred definition of Demonolatry is the ACTIVE worship of demons and/or the use of entities commonly known as demons to perform magic as the PRINCIPAL AGENT in the ritual and/or the consulting of demons as the PRINCIPAL SOURCE to learn magical techniques.

Please note my emphasis on the "active" part. I don't consider the passive use of demons in magic to be demonolatry. And there is a lot of passive use of demons in ceremonial magic, even in the holy grimoiric and Golden Dawn varieties. Also note my emphasis on demons having to be the "principal agent" or "principal source."

By "principal agent," I mean that the highest name used in a ritual or spell is actually the name of entity classified by the grimoires or folklore as a demon. In other words, the controlling force in the ritual is a demon, not one of the Christian/Hebrew names of God, nor is it a pagan deity. Please note that if the pagan deity has been demonized by the Church, then it is a demon if you are using the grimoire version of the deity--but not a demon if you are using a pagan version of the deity.

And by "principal source," I mean that you are calling directly on the demon, without using compulsion of the Christian/Hebrew godnames, and using a demon as the principal agent to control and empower the ritual.

The reason for this emphasis is the simple fact that modern-day Christianity is basically the King James translation of the Bible with a dollop of Dante and Milton tossed in for good measure--basically, any god other than Jesus (and his Father) is a demon, and goddesses are automatically demonesses. Yes, there are exceptions, but at the most severe level--all magicians are demonolators as far as radical Christianity is concerned. (In fact, the more radical the sect of Christianity, the more likely that only Christians of a particular sect are considered to be truly saved Christians, with the majority of Christians also being Satanists simply because they do not belong to the right church.) Therefore, if you are a magician, then you too are a demonolator to quite a few people...people whose opinions I generally ignore.

So my dear reader, you can see how some people could consider my worship of Bast as proof that I am a demonolator by their definition of the terms; but by my definition, I am not even close to being a demonolator because I am using a non-Milton/non-grimoiric form of Bast. (For the non-literate people: Milton classified all the Ancient Egyptian deities as fallen angels serving in Lucifer's war machine--a point that annoys me as a modern pagan.)

There is also a guilt by association that some might accuse me of. Yes, I have friends in the demonolator community. Yes, I have borrowed working techniques and ideas from some of them. But if you insist on guilt by association, then I am also a radical member of the Tea Party branch of the Republican party who believes that all laws should be based solely on the Bible because some of my friends on Facebook believe such things. Therefore, guilt by association has to be tossed out...because everyone is guilty of something by that standard.

Another related question is: Are demonolators Satanists? To this one, I always have to ask: Have you met and encountered first-hand many Satanists? Because those people who brag about being Satanists generally only worship themselves and/or are doing it for pure shock value, and would not know what a demon was if it bit them in the ass. Therefore, even if I was a demonolator, I would not want to be called a Satanist. (This connection is along the lines of saying that all users of the Elder Futhark [runes] are Neo-Nazis--a suggestion that might get you punched in the face by a big bearded Viking dude.) Of course, as a magician, according to radical Christians, I am automatically a Satanist even if I do not believe in his existence--therefore, I suppose to many people demonolators are automatically Satanists, even if the idea would get them punched in the face at some point. And please note that one really needs to know the context that the name/term Satan is used by a demonolator to be able to answer this question...just for that individual (there is no blanket answer here as far as I am concerned)--plus, I know one demonolator that uses Lilith as their Principal Agent--that makes them a Lilithist, not a Satanist (they like to point out that Satan in the Old Testament is a name of an office, and not an individual--therefore worshipping Satan is like worshipping a nameless lawyer).

And if you read this far, I bet that you still have the same opinion on whether or not, I am a demonolator as you did before you started reading it. The demonolators and radical Christians who thought that I was a closet demonolator before still think that--pointing out gleefully that I am just playing word games here. The pagans and Wiccans who thought that I was a pagan and/or Wicca are still thinking that. And my three favorite critics are still considering screaming at the top of their lungs that I am a very evil man. In other words, no opinion has ever been changed by a blog post...simply because you are not going to use my definition of demonolator if it does not already fit your world view. Which begs the question of: Why even bother? Answer: I love Google.

Extensions of the Godwin Law

Over on Nick Farrell's blog an anonymous commenter wrote the following (which I thought was interesting enough to repost):

Soror SD wrote: "Anyone who talks about Golden Dawn or SRIA as being 'Satanic' has immediately lost any debate they attempt to raise."

This reminds me of Godwin's Law, the internet concept that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." (source: Wikipedia). More relevant is the corollary to Godwin's Law (often considered the law itself), that "once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress." (source: Wikipedia)

I therefore propose Griffin's Law: "When a claim is made that someone is a Satanist, the thread is finished and whoever accused the other of Satanism has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress."

I would also propose the Law of Griffin Dementia: "Whenever a claim is made without documentation that some individual or group has made death threats or put out a hit on a poster or blogger, the thread is finished and the person making the claim is to be banished with laughter."