[CoS=Church of Satan; xtian* = christian*]
There is a lot of on-line publications, including CoS' most important 'holy'
book "The Satanic Bible" by Dr. Anton Szandor LaVey. They can help you
understand what do we espouse[?] and appreciate. You can start at
www.satanism.net Howevere these publications are adressed rather people
without any philosophical education than proffessionals from CoV :-) My
site's (down at the moment) contents is more 'sophisticated', as I do treat
this matter more philosphicaly than others.
Anyway, searching the Internet for keywords like: 'LaVey', 'Satanic Bible'
can result in thousands of matches. However you must be aware there is a lot
of 'heretic' denominations within satanism and people inspired by LaVey as
well as Nietzsche. One of such false doctrines is what you mentioned. We
DON'T treat Satan as a personification of Entropy.
If you are is interested in CoS doctrine I can provide you with several
links to official sites, which contain only authorized materials. Please
don't accept forgeries and satanic sects (like Temple of Set - ToS, Order of
Nine Angles - ONA). You should read at least "Nine Satanic Sins", "Nine
Satanic Statements", "21 Satanic Points", "11 Satanic Rules on the Earth" if
not the whole Satanic Bible. One of the best, and official, summarization is
"Satanism: The Feared Religion". You can read (as well as the others) it
here http://www.ripper.inetsoft.com.pl/feared.htm, friend of mine's site.
Our 'articles of faith'
:
- we ARE atheistic,
- we find Satan the personification of everything, which was (and still is)
great, high, wise, clear, natural and was called a sin by xtianity and other
totalitaristic religions; these are for example pride, healthy egoism,
honour, indulgence of senses et cetera,
- we DON'T worship evil, death, destruction and things like that,
- we are relativists, we reject nonexistent absolute definition of good and
evil,
- we DON'T find any human being worse because of race, religion, sexual
orientation et cetera; in other words we are not Nazi, rascists,
homophobes[?]...
- we consider humans animals, sometimes worse than others; in other words we
don't deny our nature, contrary to theistic-driven antropomorphists and
antropocentrists.
- we DO fight intolerance and xtianic memes forcing people to be intolerant,
- we ARE'NT considered illegal, CoS is absolutely legal in many countries,
including USA; please refer to official FBI report stating clearly that CoS'
has nothing to do with any ritual crimes,
- we recognize Life the highest value, this automaticaly forces us to reject
any acts of violence, including ritual murders, child abuse et cetera,
- we espouse[?] the primal meaning of word 'Satan' - The Accuser & Opposer.
We accuse and oppose to totalitarism of any kind, especially majority's
dictature, and herdlike conformism, consumptionism, 'double morality',
- we accept no stupidity, irracionalism, herd-above-Self laws and so on
- we find World subordinant to ours Wills; in other words we do belive that
we can (and should) change the World according to our visions; our Magick is
any successful act of
Will,
- Our biggest interest is self-developement, including academic :-)
- most of us are students, MAs and PhDs, as well as members of Mensa,
- we are elitaristic, we accept natural stratification: the leaders and
followers, nietzschean 'slaves and masters',
- we do conduct black messes, but they are totaly different that it is being
shown in some movies & books; we consider them psychodramas helping us to
reject very good fortified borders and limits, which have nothing to do with
our true nature (viruses of mind);
- we don't have any hierarchical organization except title of 'Reverend'
which is given to a person (like me) who can speak on behalf of CoS, not
only his own; these persons have to be educated and understand our doctrine
very good,
- official membership is not required, however it is useful, as everyone
knows 'who is who'; we can't allow to let Nazists, rascists, 'theistical
satanists', regular criminals and lunatics inside CoS.
- there are no rules for members' behavior, way of dressing, music, shape of
rituals (except violence)...
Satan for us is the personification of wisdom, perfectness,
self-developement, freedom, pride, aglohedonism, indulgence, courage, honour
and Eternal Truth.
CoS was founded by Anton Szandor LaVey, the author of "The Satanic Bible",
and a few more texts. We don't deny inspiration by Nietzsche (in may case
first was Nietzsche), Magister Alister Crowley (Law of Thelema), Niccolo
Machiavelli, Spinoza, Henri Bergson, Jean Paul Sartre, many other
philosophers.
CoS stands definifion of 'religion' as we have our rituals, symbols,
doctrine as well as members.
As far as Nietzsche is concerned I can only encourage everyone to read any
of his books, perhaps the first best choice is "Thus spake Zarathustra"
(avail. on-line), then "Beyond Good and Evil", "Masters and Slaves", "The
Twilight of Idols" and many, many more. I warn you that reading them
requires some dose of classical knowledge like history of xtianity, ancient
cultures.. a lot of thinking and philosophical habits of thinking. Reading
them in German original reveals further depth. BTW: Nietzsche was a Pole in
second generation (family name 'Nicki')
At the moment I am one of the most active Polish CoS' Satanists (second to
my friend Jaryla) on the Internet and the unformal (only by the end of
summer I suppose) Reverend, known wider as [Rev.] Ronan the Great. (BTW: My
nick was given to me by an Irish friend).
It happened that my translation of CoS doctrinal documents is the only
official one in Poland, which is quite an honour :-))
Last thing: most of my Satanic friend interest themselves in memetics :-))
I will gladly answer any further questions.
--- Michal Kulczycki University of Wroclaw, Psychology Dept. ICQ #: 8954988