Christine O'Donnell's alleged "little midnight picnic on a satanic altar"

Lately, quite a bit of mass media publicity has been given to Christine O'Donnell's claim to have "dabbled into witchcraft" and "had a little midnight picnic on a satanic altar" on one of her first dates.

It is clear that the "witch" she allegedly dated was not a serious practitioner of either Wicca or Satanism. As far as I am aware, no serious practitioner of any variant of Wicca or Satanism would have a picnic on one's altar.

To put her claim into context, we should note her tendency to confuse Satanism with not only Wicca but also rock fan culture. Back in 1997, in the Washington Post (15 June 1997), Christine O'Donnell made some pretty far-fetched claims about the alleged mass popularity of Satanism among young people. (See Remembering Christine O'Donnell: Praising Helms, Missing Lenny and Squiggy, and Worries of Rampant Satanism, Right Wing Watch, September 15, 2010.)

See also more about Christine O'Donnell on one of my other blogs.

P.S.: I just now posted comments (here and here) in reply to some nonsense about Satanism in the comments area of this page about Christine O'Donnell on Crooks and Liars.

Exposing the Christian theocratic crazies (to Deady)

Deady has called my attention to an Alternet post titled Right-Wing Crazies Who Fight Witchcraft and Demons Are Taking Over a State Near You by Bruce Wilson.

I'm already well aware of it, being a regular reader of the excellent Talk To Action group blog, which has special sections titled Resource Directory for New Apostolic Reformation and Sarah Palin & The New Apostolic Reformation.

To everyone: If you happen to be in a good position to educate any mainstream journalists, religion scholars, or other mainstream published writers about the "New Apostolic Reformation" and its theocratic ambitions (and its actual attempts to infiltrate the power structure), I would very much appreciate anything you can do (after educating yourself about this matter, of course). This whole issue needs a lot more exposure.

For more about the religious right wing in general, see Resources for learning about the religious right wing on the website of New Yorkers Against Religion-Based Bigotry.

Satanism and politics: Question for Julian Karswell and other LaVey-based Satanists

Recently Julian Karswell, a LaVey-based symbolic Satanist, has posted friendly comments both here on this blog and on my LiveJournal blog. I appreciate his friendly attitude, although he and I evidently disagree on many things.

Like many of today's public or semi-public LaVeyans, he seems to see his Satanism primarily in societal and political terms, as an advocacy of political views consistent with LaVey's attitudes. Of course, this implies a definition of "Satanism" itself as "the worldview of Anton LaVey," a definition I staunchly reject.

I was intrigued to come across the following admission on Julian Karswell's website, regarding one of his societal goals: "This cannot be achieved under the name of Satanism."

In general, I've noticed that LaVeyans (and even some non-LaVeyan Satanists, for that matter) have a knack for picking political agendas which, in most cases, not only "cannot be achieved under the name of Satanism," but which also cannot be achieved without the support of all those right wing Protestant fundamentalist/evangelical Christians who believe that Karl Marx was a Satanist.

This leads me to ask two questions:

1) If your social and political agenda "cannot be achieved under the name of Satanism," then why call it "Satanism" at all?

2) What kind of political or social agenda could be achieved under the name of Satanism -- or, at least, would not be significantly hurt by association with the label "Satanism"?

I'll leave it to Julian Karswell, and to any other LaVeyans who happen to be reading this, to try to answer the first question. I'll try to address the second question, which I personally find much more interesting.

To what kind of social or political cause could the figure of Satan, seen in a positive or at least non-negative way, actually be relevant and appropriate in a way that large numbers of people could appreciate?

The only conceivable such cause, in today's world, would be one which calls public attention to the threat posed by the growing power of those religions which believe in a Devil (as a figure of absolute evil), i.e. the more conservative forms of Christianity and Islam. A successful "Satanism"-related social movement would need to focus on - and satirically revel in - the way in which many of the values of modern secular society are vilified by fundamentalists, both Christian and Muslim, as "Satanic." (Sort of like the Church Lady, for those old enough to remember.) It would need to appeal to a significant fraction of the many people who do not believe in a Devil.

And the vast majority of such people are leftists, liberals, or political moderates. For the most part, they are not right-wingers. Thus, LaVey's right wing views, on many issues, are completely counterproductive in terms of a social agenda that is, in any way, publicly identified with a label like "Satanism."

By the way, Julian Karswell's campaign "against charities involved in social intervention," if successful at all, is likely to affect primarily secular charities. It is not likely to have much effect on religious charities, especially fundamentalist/evangelical-oriented charities, except perhaps to cause some reshuffling of personnel. Thus, its main social impact would be to strengthen fundamentalism.

P.S., 5/17/2008: Julian apparently lives in the U.K., judging by the U.K. references in many of the posts on his blog. As I'll explain later, it does make sense to me for Satanists in the U.K. to support what are now considered right wing positions on various issues, such as immigration policy. But things are very different here in the U.S.A. More about this later, probably on my Wordpress.com blog.

South African newspaper boycotted, and columnist fired, for defending rights of Satanists

The following news is a few months old, but I found out about it just now.

According to a news story titled South Africa: Old Hands Save Many an Editor's Blushes by Anton Harber, AllAfrica.com (Washington), 16 April 2008:

Rapport editor Tim du Plessis recently caused a storm by hiring controversial columnist Deon Maas, and then firing him quickly. In that case, Du Plessis distanced himself and his paper from Maas's view that Satanism should be treated as just other religion, but printed it, and then backed down when facing a boycott from readers, distributors and advertisers. I viewed that as an unfortunate victory for intolerance, because it was a provocative column that did not actually degrade or threaten anyone.

I looked around for older news stories confirming this, and found the following:

• Spreading the word on satanism by Jaxon Rice, Thought Leader (South Africa) - includes a translation of Deon Maas’s original article


• Another translation of Deon Maas's column


• The devil made Tim do it by Robert Brand, Thought Leader (South Africa) - opinion piece followed by comments


• Commercial pressure leads Rapport to scrap column Mail & Guardian (South Africa), 15 November 2007


• Writer fired after Satanism row, News24, 15 November 207


• Outrage at journalist’s axing by Lynnette Johns, November 17, 2007

In the contested column, Deon Maas wrote, about a girl who had gotten arrested on drug charges:

What is disturbing is the fact that the police, after searching her bedroom, are also investigating her for Satanism.

...

What someone obviously forgot to tell police spokesman Inspector Paul Ramaloko, is that Satanism is a religion and that our Constitution guarantees everyone the freedom to practise the religion of their choice.

So far, so good. And this, alas, is apparently what got a lot of conservative folks in South Africa outraged enough to organize a boycott.

But Maas's column also contains some errors. He says:

The slaughtering of innocent pets, the tearing up of Bibles, the general oppressiveness that you have to live with, black painted fingernails and the fact that you generally have to be awake after midnight to practise your faith are all factors that make Anton LaVey's philosophy somewhat unacceptable to me.

None of the above activities are required in LaVeyan Satanism. Indeed the "slaughtering of innocent pets" is specifically prohibited in LaVey's Satanic Bible. Likewise in most other forms of Satanism.

Maas also says:

If Muslims think they have a hard time, they just need to consider Satanism. They really get a bum deal. Satanism still makes a better headline than Islam, even though they blow less stuff up and do more damage to themselves than to those around them.

In LaVeyan Satanism and most other forms of Satanism, Satanists aren't supposed to damage themselves.

Maas's column does include a reasonably accurate presentation of part of LaVey's list of "Satanic sins."

Copyright © 2008 Devil's Domain Press. All rights reserved.

Welsh religious right wing

Although the religious right wing does not seem to be as powerful in the U.K. as it is here in the U.S.A., the U.K. does have a religous right wing.

In Wales, there's a new political party called the Welsh Christian Party, whose first big issue is to change the Welsh flag to get rid of the traditional dragon emblem, which, to these folks, symbolizes the Devil. See WELSH and SATANIC...