I’ve long found myself having conversations about Satanism with Buddhists, and had these conversations be strikingly fruitful. So I thought I’d offer some food for thought here re: parallels between these two religions. Obviously, they are strongly opposed regarding a number of important things. But it’s for this very reason that I think the surprising convergences are interesting to reflect upon.
How does magick “work”? I have enough background in Chaos Magick to consider this a non-urgent question – that it works is more the point. It occurs to me, though, that misunderstandings about magickal mechanisms may aggravate misconceptions Satanic denominations have about one another. Toward the end of addressing such issues, the current entry discusses the extent to which magick is “one’s own” power – i.e. how much of magick is the magician themselves “doing something,” vs. how much comes from an external entity/force/ etc.?
What exactly do we actually mean when we throw around labels like “Satanist”, “Luciferian”, and related terms? What follows is a meditation on what “counts” as “Satanism,” issues I have with the theist / non-theist distinction, and other such label-related thoughts. There’s also an interesting tidbit or two re: what I was up to occult-wise before Tenebrous Satanism came along…