What's happening now: Not an "apocalypse," but important battles nonetheless

Lots of people today, including some Satanists, believe we are living in the era of an imminent Apocalypse. I personally see no reason to expect a full-fledged "apocalypse" - although I do believe that we are living in a very significant era. I also do believe that we need to take our enemies (e.g. the Christian religious right wing) seriously and work to counteract them.

We live in an era of increasing religious polarization. But religious polarization has had its ups and downs over the past few centuries. What's happening now is yet another upswing.

As for war, today's wars (which typically kill tens of thousands of people) are actually not nearly as bad as many of the wars of the 1900's (which killed millions).

And Christianity is not dying. Far from it. Christianity is growing in some places, shrinking in other places. The more middle-of-the-road sectors of Christianity are shrinking, but the more fanatical forms have been growing in many countries around the world, including the U.S.A., these past several decades. Perhaps Christianity will eventually die, but if so, that's likely to take at least another few centuries.

What is new is the growth of today's new religions plus
subcultures like the goth scene. Also new is today's increasing freedom for sexual minorities (at least in some countries). We are also living in a technological Golden Age. For all these reasons, one could say that we are living in the most "Satanic" era ever. And all these trends are likely to continue, albeit with ups and downs.

In the meantime, the Christian religious right wing is a formidable foe -- although, fortunately, it also has formidable opposition.

Jared Lee Loughner

A couple of weeks ago, I posted the following on the group blog Talk To Action, about suspected mass murderer Jared Lee Loughner, who is believed to have shot Arizona Congress Representative Gabrielle Giffords:

• Jared Lee Loughner and the "sovereign citizen" movement - Tue Jan 11, 2011


• More about Jared Loughner's politics, plus some conspiracy debunking resources - Tue Jan 18, 2011


• Religious right wingers blame Jared Loughner's actions on atheism and occultism - Tue Jan 18, 2011

In the first two posts I discuss what is known about Jared Loughner's political beliefs by people who are actually knowledgeable about various fringe political beliefs -- solid information which did NOT get much attention in the mass media, being drowned out by ill-informed debate over whether he was a leftist or a follower of the likes of Sarah Palin and Glen Beck.

In the third post, I discuss the background of the claim, by many right wingers, that Loughner is/was a Satanist or Pagan.

Talk To Action is a group blog for people who oppose the religious right wing. If you choose to post a comment there, please be sure to read their Guidelines first. (In particular, note that the majority of the people who post on Talk To Action regularly are liberal Christians. Do NOT post anything there that is disrespectful toward any of the Abrahamic religions in general, as distinct from the religious right wing in particular. And, even regarding the religious right wing, what's desired at Talk To Action is solid news and analysis, not name-calling.)

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.

Neo-pentecostal exorcism of "homosexual demons"

What does the Devil mean to those Christians who most fervently believe in the Devil? An interesting example can be found in the news story Apparent Gay Exorcism in Conn. Church Causes Outrage by Andrew Ramos, WPIX, via the Los Angeles Times, June 24, 2009. Some excerpts:

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (WPIX) -- A video which shows an exorcism of a teen to drive out apparent "homosexual demons" has sparked outrage among several gay rights activists.

The video, which was posted on YouTube, features church elders from the Manifested Glory Ministries Church in Bridgeport performing the exorcism on the boy who is said to be 16-years-old.

...

Although the exorcism appears to be the first one of its kind captured on video, advocacy groups for gay youths say the practice happens all the time.

"I think it's horrifying," Robin McHaelen, executive director of True Colors, told the Associated Press, referring to the video posted by Manifested Glory's now-defunct YouTube page. "What saddens me is the people that are doing this think they are doing something in the kid's best interests, when in fact they're murdering his spirit."

Complete story here.

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.

Some news from Italy, about Satanism and about the Catholic Church

I recently came across an interesting article on the CBN website, part of Pat Robertson's empire: Is the Devil Gaining a Foothold in Rome? by George Thomas, April 21, 2008.

First, I'll skip ahead to and quote in full the most interesting part, about Marco Dimiti, the leader of a Satanist group in Italy:

But Marco Dimiti says that the Catholic Church's portrayal of Satan is part of the problem.

To many Italians, Dimitri represents the devil. He heads the Children of Satan, a group that reportedly has more than one-thousand members.

"We don't have a cult of devil worship, that would be absurd because the cult of the devil would be the cult of evil - but for us, good and evil are subjective to each individual," says Dimitri.

In 1996, Dimitri was accused of raping a 2-year old boy and a teenage girl in satanic rituals. He was jailed for 14 months before being exonerated by the Italian courts.

"True Satanism puts man at the center of the universe - and is a noble expression," Dimitri said. "I want to say to Father Amorth what I say to all exorcists. Leave people in peace!"

The rest of the article features claims by Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican's Chief Exorcist; Father Pedro Barrajón, a Catholic priest who serves in Rome; and Silvano Lilli, an evangelical pastor in Rome.

One claim is: "There are an estimated 800 satanic cults operating in the country [Italy], with more than 600,000 followers." Yeah, right. I wish.

And then Lilli says: "The devil's diabolical influence is growing in so many areas of our society. ... He needs to be driven out." He doesn't explain what he means by "the devil's diabolical influence." If he's a typical religious right winger, that means things like feminism and gay rights, I guess.

Then Amorth talks about how he does exorcisms.

After that is a discussion of the "Beasts of Satan" case, about which see this collection of news stories on my Against Satanic Panics site.

See also Italy's recent Satanic panic - and its impact on the Roman Catholic Church worldwide, and see also the collection of news stories about Exorcism, the Vatican, and the recent Italian Satanic panic on my page about Exorcism, "spiritual warfare," and anti-occultism.

Next in the CBN article are several paragraphs bemoaning the rise of "magicians, fortunetellers and faith healers" as rivals to the Church.

After that are the several paragraphs I quoted earlier about Marco Dimiti.

The article ends with more exorcism-talk by Amorth.

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...