31 thoughts on “The eleven Satanic rules of the earth”

1. LaVey legitimized his religion by highlighting what he claimed was its rational nature, contrasting this with what he saw as the supernaturalist irrationality of established religions. It seems to me this is entirely correct. Let’s dump the irrational nonsense from the past and replace it with rational thought!

2. OMagain:

   LaVey legitimized his religion by highlighting what he claimed was its rational nature, contrasting this with what he saw as the supernaturalist irrationality of established religions. It seems to me this is entirely correct.

   Although he did drop the ball with stuff like this:

   7. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.

3. keiths: Although he did drop the ball with stuff like this:

   Yeah, there is all that side of it too. But nobody is perfect ;P

   And let’s face it, replacing 100% nonsense with 10% nonsense has to be progress!

   And I think there is a world external and a world internal and when we change the world internal it cannot but change the world external. So I tend to see such things as you describe as editing your own internal scripts – valid as far as it goes (in your internal world) and to you, as you filter the external through the internal, you’ve also changed the external world. And you have, but only yours.

   As, you know, they genuinely believe. So mote it be!

4. keiths: Although he did drop the ball with stuff like this:

   However that does include within it a get out clause – if it does not work, deny it’s power! 😛

5. OMagain:

   However that does include within it a get out clause – if it does not work, deny it’s power! 😛

   It reminds me of the claim that God answers all prayers — it’s just that the answers aren’t always what the supplicants are hoping for. Here’s an example of that kind of rationalization:

   Therefore, we are often unprepared for the answers we receive from God. His answers frequently do not look at first like answers. They look like problems. They look like trouble. They look like loss, disappointment, affliction, conflict, sorrow, and increased selfishness. They cause deep soul-wrestling and expose sins and doubts and fears. They are not what we expect and we often do not see how they correspond to our prayers.

6. Well, 7 is silly and 4 is unnecessary, but this list still beats the 10 being pushed by mainstream Christianity.

7. keiths: It reminds me of the claim that God answers all prayers

   I don’t see it like that. I think it’s a different thing. LaVey mentions this by saying that we have externalised god when it was always internal, it was us all along!

   “If man insists on externalizing his true self in the form of “God,” then why fear his true self, in fearing “God,”—why praise his true self in praising “God,”—why remain externalized from “God” in order to engage in ritual and religious ceremony in his name?

   How I see it is more like this. Sometimes I say today I will look for and photograph mainly red things. And when I go out and about I gradually start to see more and more red things, until there seem to be an unusually large number of red things today.

   But that’s just a consequence of the ‘program’ I am currently running. We ignore most of the external world, and filter in things rather then filtering them out. Therefore attuning yourself deliberately to different aspects of the external world seems to change that world. But of course it does not, all it does is change the operation of the filters.

   So magic works. We change ourselves, then we change the world which then changes us. Inserting a deliberate conscious choice into that loop can only help progress you towards that goal.

   I just think ‘magic’ is a terrible name for what boils down to self-improvement 🙂 basically.
   A friend on facebook recently posted a picture of his mother during a fertility rite that he claims caused her to become impregnated with him. I resisted asking if his mother and father actually had sex or just trusted to the ritual 😛

8. Patrick: Well, 7 is silly and 4 is unnecessary, but this list still beats the 10 being pushed by mainstream Christianity.

   They could have done with 9 from the start for sure. You’d think an all seeing deity would mention that somewhere….

9. OMagain: They could have done with 9 from the start for sure. You’d think an all seeing deity would mention that somewhere….

   5 is right up there with “Don’t enslave people.” in the list of Most Obvious Omissions in the 10 Commandments.

10. Patrick: 5 is right up there with “Don’t enslave people.” in the list of Most Obvious Omissions in the 10 Commandments.

    Perhaps FMM could reveal to us what god’s rationale was for not including that. Sure would have saved untold misery. But I guess FMM’s god is not about helping humans, just teaching them lessons via things like cancer and slavery.

11. If you want to rebel against dogma, you don’t try replacing it with another set of rules. You promote rational thinking, active discussion, respect for differences in opinion and aim for people that are able to assess moral issues on their own.

    Pass

12. dazz: You promote rational thinking, active discussion, respect for differences in opinion and aim for people that are able to assess moral issues on their own.

    1. Promote rational thinking and active discussion
    2. Respect differences in opinion
    3. Aim for people etc etc.

    Seems what you wrote is no different to the list in the OP except you did not number your list.

13. 1. Promote rational thinking and active discussion
    2. Respect differences in opinion
    3. Aim for people etc etc.
    4. Don’t make lists

    Now it’s correct.

    Glen Davidson

14. It just seems to me that this religious-dogmatic way of approaching things is so ingrained in american culture… I don’t get it. It’s like black people converting to islam as a way to rebel against mainstream white oppressors in the past, who were mostly christians. Admittedly I haven’t set a foot in america and I may be talking out of my rear end, no offense intended

15. “ 1. Do not give opinions or advise unless you are asked ”

    Hey, who asked for your advise, LaVey? 🙂

16. What’s the goddam mating signal again?

17. KeithS:

    Although he did drop the ball with stuff like this:

    7. Acknowledge the power of magic

    Of course LeVay doenst litteraly believe in magic! Hes talking about technology. So if you job requires use of extensive databases you need to acknowledge the existence of those databases and the programs that manipulated them.
    You really need to get more current with your scriptural exigesis

18. walto:
    What’s the goddam mating signal again?

    I’m not quite sure either, but I’m pretty sure its not “no”

19. OMagain:

    Sometimes I say today I will look for and photograph mainly red things. And when I go out and about I gradually start to see more and more red things, until there seem to be an unusually large number of red things today.

    I do the same thing with lenses. Go out with just a macro or a long lens and try to figure out a way to capture some essence of whatever catches your eye with the tool at hand. Never managed to extract a life lesson from it, though. Good thought.

20. dazz:
    It just seems to me that this religious-dogmatic way of approaching things is so ingrained in american culture… I don’t get it. It’s like black people converting to islam as a way to rebel against mainstream white oppressors in the past, who were mostly christians.

    An especially puzzling choice given that the slave traders who “sourced” them were largely Islamic.

21. Not to mention more than a few Europeans.

    I have no interest in the morality of ancestors. I want to know what people are doing today, and what they are likely to do tomorrow.

22. Word of warning re 10 and 11. One of them talks about eating non-human animals and the other says something about when it’s ok to destroy humans. But neither talks about eating people.

    I won’t get into the details, but suffice it to say I’m in a bit of hot water with a few of the elders over some Stroganoff.

23. walto:
    Word of warning re 10 and 11. One of them talks about eating non-human animals and the other says something about when it’s ok to destroy humans. But neither talks about eating people.

    I won’t get into the details, but suffice it to say I’m in a bit of hot water with a few of the elders over some Stroganoff.

    Shit, I just realized that I violated #1 when I posted that. (I might have to go away for a while…..)

24. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires.

    Not really all that onerous a command, actually. Kind of like California Psychics promising that you’ll get the best psychic reading you’ve had, or your money back. Not a very rigorous standard.

    You haven’t employed the power of magic to successfully obtain your desires (even if by luck or some kind of effort you did obtain them), hence you don’t have to acknowledge it.

    The problem with it being that people prone to believe in magic will be likely to fear that magic was responsible, thus they’ll fear denying the magic that had nothing to do with their successes and failures. Were it a good skeptical injunction, it would be demanding sufficient evidence that magic worked before asking anyone to acknowledge the power of magic. Provide that evidence, and anyone should acknowledge the magic.

    Glen Davidson

25. Gophers do not attack me and I do not eat them. Yet I kill them without mercy.

    Does this make me a bad satanist?

    Same goes with squash bugs, come to think of it.

26. I think it’s OK since the gophers are attacking your lands or chattels.

    [Note to elders: this advice was ASKED FOR!]

27. llanitedave: Same goes with squash bugs, come to think of it.

    I think #4 covers all that. ;P
    If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.

28. OMagain: I think #4 covers all that. ;P
    If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.

    Devildam right!

29. OMagain: I think #4 covers all that. ;P
    If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.

    Yeah, but the bodies buried in the back yard may draw unwelcome attention.

    Not that it isn’t worth it, often enough, but you’ve got to pace yourself, and keep enough room in the back yard.

    Glen Davidson

30. GlenDavidson: Yeah, but the bodies buried in the back yard may draw unwelcome attention.

    Not that it isn’t worth it, often enough, but you’ve got to pace yourself, and keep enough room in the back yard.

    Glen Davidson

    Proper watering and you can call it fertilizer.

31. Basements seem to work. For a while.