I.
Just to be clear: I'm no great fan of Anton LaVey and I'm not a member or supporter of his Church of Satan [1]. However, if placed between the devil and the deep blue sea and forced to choose between LaVey and the Church of Satan or Lucien Greaves and his Satanic Temple, I'd probably go with the former.
And that's because Satanism as a form of showbiz and ritual theatre appeals more than Satanism as a form of social activism and progressive politics and I think I prefer those who are faux wicked like LaVey to those who are sincerely woke like Greaves.
II.
The Satanic Temple, co-founded by Greaves and Malcolm Jarry in 2012 and based in Salem, Massachusetts, declares in a mission statement on its website that it has several goals based upon Seven Tenets, including the encouragement of benevolence and empathy among all people; opposition to injustice; and the promotion of practical common sense.
None of these things sound particularly immoral to me - and it's no surprise to discover that, actually, Greaves and his associates in The Satanic Temple not only refuse to worship his Satanic Majesty, but deny his existence and believe that religion should be stripped of all supernatural elements, becoming, in effect, just another form of secular humanism [2] promoting reason and liberal values.
Far from affirming an active form of evil, The Satanic Temple wish to reduce human suffering in the name of Love and - as a Nietzschean - I obviously can't go along with that on philosophical grounds [3].
For me, the altruistic values that Greaves holds dear - born as they are of impotence and ressentiment - are essentially the problem and it is not only absurd to persist with such ideals, but harmful to our present wellbeing and future becoming [4].
Does Greaves not understand that it is only those with claws who are capable of showing compassion and that it is the strong who grant and guarantee the very rights with which he is so concerned?
Apparently not ... Which is a bit of a shame, because - to give the devil his due - Greaves is undoubtedly an intelligent and courageous provocateur, it's just unfortunate that, ultimately, he's merely another social justice warrior peddling the same leftist ideology one might hear from Owen Jones or Billy Bragg.
Notes
[1] Anton LaVey (1930-1997) was an American author, musician, and Satanist. A colourful and charismatic figure - once described as a natural born showman - he was the founder of the Church of Satan in 1966. Readers who are interested might like the post published on 24 Feb 2018 in which I discuss LaVey's relationship with Jayne Mansfield: click here.
[2] Greaves tries to differentiate his model of Satanism from humanism by emphasising its rejection of tyrannical authority and adherence to a principle of individual sovereignty (including that of the outsider), but I can't imagine any secular-liberal humanist would find that problematic.
[3]
One of the things that Lucien Greaves dislikes about LaVey's model of Satanism is the fact that it was informed by a reading - admittedly a crude reading - of Nietzsche's philosophy. Click here to read a fairly lengthy refutation of LaVey's doctrines on The Satanic Temple website.
[4] I discuss all this in chapter 4 of Outside the Gate, (Blind Cupid Press, 2010), pp. 89-99.
