"Hail Satan?" (2019)

[Yonadav]

What is your obsession with Satanism being some rejection of mainstream culture?

Once again, a clear indication that you have no clue what you're talking about.

Thank you, this answers my question. For you, Satanism is not a rejection of mainstream culture. 

So, as I said earlier, the Satanists in the movie ad are for the most part no different from mainstream culture. We agree on that, then. 

I don't see the point of being a Satanist if your life and goals are the same as a Methodist.

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From your recommendation, I looked up LaVey's book just now. It's very new; I had only known about more traditional Satanism before. From the influences listed, and the goals, it does look like a very American sort of "philosophy." Self-interest and Ayn Rand. 

So it is a variation on mainstream US culture.

I read Lavey's book in the late 70s. I knew several people who were reading it. We were all reading it for its shock value. Our primary use for it was to leave it laying out in some prominent location so that people could see how radical we were. I have never seen anyone use it for anything but that.

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I remember a beach that I used to hang out at on the Big Island of Hawaii. It was extremely popular with the local hippy crowd, and not with the tourists. There was a group of old guys there who were refugees from the 60s. They all imagined themselves to be gurus. They were big fans of Aleister Crowley, among others. They all imagined themselves to be deeply knowledgeable about esoteric things. They spent most of their day smoking pot and accusing each other of not understanding stuff the way that they themselves did. Their supposedly esoteric knowledge seemed to be of a pretty pedestrian nature, but they thought that it was deep. I was under the impression that they had not actually read very many books, but the few that they had read made them experts. They had little formal education, and had never spent any time studying with any masters. I doubt that they could have studied with any masters, because that would have required them to actually humble themselves and drop their pretense of knowing things. These guys were old men who never grew up.