Baneful magick: politicians, collectives, spirits – part 1

Many magicians seem to hold the view that certain targets are not suitable for baneful magick. There seems in particular to be widespread skepticism about cursing such targets as politicians and spirits. My own intuition is that indeed, one is unlikely to get results from baneful magick against targets like these. But I’m not particularly satisfied with rationales I’ve seen elsewhere as to why you “can’t” curse spirits and politicians effectively. I’ll therefore be working through a few of my thoughts on the topic in this entry. I’ll also discuss the issue of whether casting curses against collectives of people is similarly an act of folly.

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Dogmagianism: A better formulation of the enemy of Satanism?

Too often, one finds esoteric Satanists articulating “what is Satan the actual enemy of?” in an unproductive way. Our “enemy” is supposedly some conveniently-identifiable not-us group, e.g., Magians, Nazarenes, Clayborn, etc. Tenebrous Satanism contrarily contends that this fixation on monoliths is counterproductive. Having a “them” to lazily malign blinds us to maladaptive attitudes and behaviors that are the real problem. Instead, Satanists should recognize and oppose said attitudes/behaviors wherever they arise – including among ourselves. I associate these maladaptive attitudes/behaviors with what I call Dogmagianism. This post outlines some of its subtler manifestations.

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Baneful magick: atheistic misconceptions?

An interesting phenomena with baneful magick is people being uneasy with it while also claiming not to believe it “works.” Such a position raises the question: if you don’t believe it works, why do you care if people do it? I suspect there may be an issue here with not understanding what the baneful practitioner is actually even doing. I’d therefore like to try to clear up what I’m fairly sure are atheistic misconceptions.

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Baneful magick and Satanic ethics: on not being a psychopath

In my previous entry on baneful magick, I discussed whether there is a Satanic conception of karma. I concluded that for esoteric Satanists, there may well be such a thing. If so, though, it is a metaphysical principle, not a moral one. If any moral principle restrains a Satanist’s use of baneful magick, it is not to be found in “Satanic karma.” Are there moral principles relevant to Satanists that restrain the use of baneful magick, though? Such is the question at the intersection of baneful magick and Satanic ethics that the current entry will explore.

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Satanic karma: law of the acausal jungle

When a magickal current believes that baneful magick works, but you shouldn’t do it, karma is a commonly-given reason. The Threefold Law is a widely-known concept, even among those who reject it as simplistic or simply false. I think it is safe to assert that most Satanists have little use for moralizing metaphysics of this kind. At the same time, though, the notion of an entirely consequence-free universe seems foreign to esoteric worldviews generally. So is any kind of karmic belief plausible for esoteric Satanists? I would argue yes… but this Satanic karma will deviate significantly from how other esotericists typically imagine the “law of karma” working…

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Baneful magick: series introduction

Something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile now is a series exploring the performance and implications of baneful magick. This includes such things as ethical considerations, metaphysical mechanisms, and rationales for recruiting one entity’s assistance rather than another’s. The current entry provides a tentative summary of some things I’ll be covering in that series.

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Alterations to unproductive Twitter usage

Recently, a build-up of personal issues compelled me to take a break from social media – specifically, unproductive Twitter usage. In order to exorcise some related demons, I am going to say a few things about why. This is almost certain to alienate a few members of my audience. I do not think it’s healthy keep bottling my feelings indefinitely, though. And if I don’t now set different boundaries to control said feelings, my long-term goals may be aversely affected. So, to tie this discussion to this blog’s usual concerns, I will discuss a few of my convictions re: what contributes to a good human life as per virtues posited by Tenebrous Satanism, and my unwillingness to continue being demoralized by online experiences that oppose those convictions.

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On “closed practices”

Having observed discourse circulating on Twitter re: “closed practices” for awhile, I thought I’d pitch my opinion on the topic. I do not by any means reject the concept as such – in some instances, it’s appropriate to apply. However, I have several concerns about how the concept is applied, and the implications of becoming overly hung-up on it.

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Satanism without the Satan: just politics, or something more?

In a few recent conversations I’ve had on social media, some interesting issues have come up re: “What is Satanism?”  In particular, if atheistic Satanists “don’t believe in” Satan, what do they believe that justifies associating themselves with the name? To outsiders, it may well seem that the theistic Satanist “really believes in something,” whilst the atheistic one is “just” trolling – either for one political side, or the other. So is atheistic Satanism “just” slapping Satan’s name on your preferred form of progressive, reactionary or libertarian politics randomly? Such a question leaves me feeling it might be beneficial to walk folks through the logic of “a Satanic ethos”…

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