"Hail Satan?" (2019)

[vulcanlogician]

No doubt there are serious people among American Satanists as well. My skepticism was about Satanism as a deracinated dress-up version, with nothing much at stake. An American Disney Satanism.

I interpreted the dress-up as them parodying themselves.

Again, if you want to put up your statue as an equal or alternative government-approved association for nice people, I see no point in calling on Satan.

Are you kidding me, Belequa? The statue thing is a huge JOKE. It's hilarious to put a statue of Baphomet up at a courthouse in the American South precisely because it agitates the indigenous fauna whilst simultaneously making a point about equal rights. The Satanic imagery is likeise an agitant. It is meant to show that they have no respect for the Christian establishment and its repressive ethos.

It was disappointing to me that nobody here was willing to teach me about American Satanism. I suspect there would be interesting things to learn.

It's okay. I looked into American Satanism at one point. Not that I was interested in it personally... just curious about what it was. LeVey is somewhat interesting. His philosophy is eclectic/bordering on bastardized (which ain't really my thing) but he somehow still comes off as original and genuine. 

There is a bit of antinomian thinking in American Satanism perhaps... in the notion  of a right hand and left hand path. The Christians, Buddhists, (and perhaps Platonic moralists like me) are seen as taking the Right Hand path to Salvation. But the Left Hand Path is different.

[The Left Hand Path rejects] societal convention and the status quo, which some suggest is in a search for spiritual freedom. As a part of this, LHP followers embrace magical techniques that would traditionally be viewed as taboo, for instance using sex magic or embracing Satanic imagery. As Mogg Morgan wrote, the "breaking of taboos makes magic more potent and can lead to reintegration and liberation, [for example] the eating of meat in a vegetarian community can have the same liberating effect as anal intercourse in a sexually inhibited straight society."
They often question religious or moral dogma, instead adhering to forms of personal anarchism.
They often embrace sexuality and incorporate it into magical ritual.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-hand_...-Hand_Path

The word magic, as it is used there is rather esoteric. So don't assume its colloquial meaning.

What makes me call it at least (somewhat) antinomian is the faint breath of moralism/righteousness in it. Perhaps its just a little yang in the yin. But I see more to it than that.

I'm reminded of a passage from Jung's Answer to Job that I think you'll appreciate if you're in the mood.

Dogmatically, neither "good" nor "evil"
can be derived from Man, since the "Evil One" existed
before Man as one of the "Sons of God." ...
Clement of Rome taught that God rules the world
with a right and a left hand, the right being Christ,
the left Satan. Clement's view is clearly mono-
theistic, as it unites the opposites in one God.

Later Christianity, however, is dualistic, inasmuch as it
splits off one half of the opposites, personified in Satan,
and he is eternal in his state of damnation. This crucial
question forms the point of departure for the Christian
theory of Redemption. It is therefore of prime importance.
If Christianity claims to be a monotheism, it becomes un-
avoidable to assume the opposites as being contained in
God.

https://archive.org/stream/ThePortableJu...g_djvu.txt