You can’t have light without dark

Exploring people’s fear of the left-hand paths

Satanists vs. LaVeyan Theorists

What is the difference?  Is there a difference?  Why are you talking about this?

There is a world of difference between these two, yet, they started out from the same seed, the same man.

One of the most common modern figures associated with Satanism is Anton LaVey.  There has been Satan worship before and since but none as organized and sensationalized as his Church Of Satan.  This man may have been many things but he definitely had an eye for marketing his hype to a disenfranchised generation.

Aptly founded on June 6^th 1966 in San Francisco, The Church of Satan appeared to be nothing more than a publicity stunt aimed at attacking the establishment and their blind adherence to the mainstay religion of Christianity.  From the “Black Mass” down to the simple but planned title of his book, “The Satanic Bible”  everything was enticing a reaction and was set up in direct opposition to the Catholic Church.  If they said white, LaVey said black, if they said mass, LaVey would say it backwards.  It would appear as if it were nothing more than rebellion at its basest level.

This is what the press reports as Satanism and what most of the world thinks of when some high-school kids graffiti an upside-down pentacle or a “666″ somewhere.  Childish and dangerous, this is simple rebellion and most kids will grow out of it.  I did.

You come to understand the LaVeyan Theorist if you can actually read LaVey’s book.  Not the hocus-pocus parts but the philosophy behind the rhetoric.  Read it and you’ll find something familiar.  Hedonism.  “Do what ever feels good” with an added twist of “be responsible for yourself and your own actions”.  I wasn’t around back then, but wasn’t that the battle cry for a lot of people in the 60′s?  “If it feels good, do it”  “Love the one you’re with”.  Giving way into the 70′s to “Looking out for #1″.

I have read these chapters in The Satanic Bible over and over and can find no fault in them.  Maybe I’m not reading them correctly, maybe I’m not reading them with an agenda or a closed mind…  All I get from it is, “Be yourself, don’t disturb anyone unless they disturb you first, do whatever you want as long as you are willing to accept the consequences of your actions and think long on the possible consequences before you act.”  I like that.  Either be a stranger, the greatest of friends or the most fearsome of enemies.

This is where it gets sticky.  Not many people I know will agree with this and some will even say I’m wrong.  Well, I am often proved wrong, how else will I learn?

In all I’ve read about the modern witchcraft movement “Wicca”, I would suggest that LaVeyan Theory and Wicca are much more closely related than Wiccans want to admit.  LaVeyan Theorist is a new name and has been used to differentiate “responsible hedonists” from the high-school rebels running around doing stupid things like killing cats in the name of Satan.  Up until very recently they were all just lumped together under the name “Satanist”.  The name scares most people and scares most Wiccans I’ve talked with into shutting down and refusing to discuss it.  The only difference I see between the two is a big one but still only one.  Wiccans live by a creed of “harming none”  LTs make no such promise.  Both deal with energies and magick in the same way.  Both promote personal responsibility.  Both hold the male and female as equal.

And is there truly any way of projecting energy and performing magick without harming ANYTHING?  If I work magick for a new job and I get it, doesn’t that mean that someone else didn’t get the job?  Maybe they needed it more that I did?  Or even more simply put, what if you disrupt the butterfly effect with your actions?  One seemingly benign act by you and a whole series of events is started (or stopped) that might result in some harm down the road.

So the Wiccan Rede is probably better read as “and you not knowingly harm anything in the immediate future, do what you will”  and that is where the two split.  LTs will take the possible harm under advisement and consider the ramifications whereas true Wiccans will see possible harm and stop right there.  I say “true” Wiccans because I would further venture that under the right circumstances, many people that claim to follow the Wiccan path would easily do immense harm to someone.  Say, if their life or their family was threatened?

Is that so much of a difference?  Yes, but can they be said to be totally unrelated?  No.  There are more similarities than differences.  Anton LaVey was a charlatan.  Someone that made his point by dressing the part and acting silly.  Once someone like that is given the attention he craves, he’ll perceive it as power.  Strong men find it difficult to relinquish power, weak men can’t/won’t relinquish power once they have it.  Rather than face the reality of a changing world, he continued to run around under the circus tent until the end.  The “modern day” Satanist is nothing more than a rebellious child acting out and looking for attention but the LT is not much different than you or I.

Wiccans should look upon LTs as that cousin at the family reunion that did time upstate and now has a harsher outlook on life.  Not really a bad person, just a person with different experiences.  Stop being afraid of him, go over and sit at the table with him so you can learn from each other.  Being afraid of, or excluding other other ideas to the point where they are not welcome to even associate in large groups makes us no better than the ones who would exclude us.