Lilith Starr - Compassionate Satanism: An Introduction to Modern Satanic Practice

Compassionate Satanism

An Introduction to Modern Satanic Practice

Lilith Starr

Art by Suzanne Forbes.

Compassionate SatanismAn Introduction to Modern Satanic PracticeLilith StarrForeword by Lucien Greaves

Lilith Starr Publishing

Copyright 2021 by Lilith Starr

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permissions requests, write to the publisher addressed "Attention: Permissions Coordinator," at the email address below:

LILITH STARR STUDIOS

Publishing Division

lilithxstarr@gmail.com

First Printing, 2021

Lilith Starr Studios

Cover design by lenakartzov.com

This book is the creative product of its artists, contributors, and author. All photos, illustrations, events, and experiences detailed in this book recount the individual experiences of the author, Lilith Starr, and contributors. This book is not a product of, approved by, endorsed by, or in any way affiliated with The Satanic Temple.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my Satanic family all around the world my fellow Chapter members, my Satanic friends near and far on social media, the organizers, leaders and volunteers who serve our community, and all who feel the spark of Satanic compassion flare in their own hearts. May the torch of Lucifer's wisdom light your path. Hail you, and HAIL SATAN!

ContentsForeword

by Lucien Greaves

In January of 2020 I was being cross-examined, on trial, in a federal court in Phoenix, Arizona, regarding a religious discrimination suit that The Satanic Temple had filed against the City of Scottsdale where the acting City Council had refused to allow a representative of our religious organization to deliver the pre-meeting invocation, traditionally given almost exclusively by Christians. The United States Supreme Court had ruled that such public invocations or prayers are Constitutionally acceptable so long as government officials remain neutral regarding viewpoint, rendering the opportunity available to all. Of course, the Supreme Courts affirmation of pluralism went over the heads of religious nationalists who assumed they had been given an exclusive carte blanche to proselytize without the perceived indignity of alternative viewpoints enjoying equal access.

The defense for Scottsdale attempted to argue every possible excuse: that it was an administrators error, not the City Council prejudice that was to blame for our exclusion, despite the various disparaging comments City Council members had publicly made about us; that City Councils, despite both the letter and the spirit of the law, are actually free to pick and choose who they want to grant the right of Free Expression; that The Satanic Temple actually never wanted to give an invocation, but were just trying to provoke and offend; and, of course, that The Satanic Temple does not represent a "real" religion anyways, so Religious Discrimination could not be legitimately claimed.

The last argument was particularly irksome, not least because we do, in fact, represent a "real" religion that defines us individually and as a larger community, but also because individual invocations expressing, or rooted in, nonbelief and a refusal to identify with a larger religious community should be considered positions of religious opinion, protected under the umbrella of religious liberty and afforded equal access to public forums as well. Nonetheless, the defense predictably plodded on for hours, cherry-picking facts regarding our origins, pretending that authentic belief and activism are, in some inexplicable way, mutually exclusive, and painting us as a parody of "real" religion, as opposed to a religion ourselves.

Amid a torrent of facile, if not idiotic, questions that implicitly assumed that Christian practice defines true religious behavior, a lawyer happened to ask me a question that often troubles the minds of even those who are not attempting to distort facts unfavorably against us.

Q: What is the difference between identifying as a Satanic Temple Satanist and being an atheist?A: Well, I think The Satanic Temples beliefs speak to something more generalized that is uninformed by, and I would argue untouchable by, science, in that it views this universal struggle against tyranny and autonomy, it puts these values in a balance that cant be proven, but it does speak to universal truths of the utmost importance.

As has often been said, atheism describes what we are not. Satanism describes what we are.

Yes, "beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world," and "one should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs," but the prioritization of scientific facts, how they are constructed into ethical guidelines, may forever be open to debate. Who can say that autonomy is preferable to tyranny without some predetermined values that define "preferable?" Is not Justice an abstract concept resistant to rigid scientific definitions? Why should one strive to serve the greatest good for the greatest number rather than advance their own self-interest, or that of their tribe? Indeed, some self-described "individualists" paradoxically eschew the values of equality and personal sovereignty in favor of a vision of social darwinist stratification, where the "strong," of superior will and worthier merit, are themselves free to tyrannize their presumed lessers.

Only in attempting to elevate supernaturalism over nontheistic religion would one insist that such broad and basic assumptions are too mundane, too reasonable, to be considered properly religious. Only in preferencing superstition would one insist that special privileges and exemptions are afforded only to those whose assumptions go beyond the unknowable and into the realm of a faith held contrary to knowable facts.

But are these values of The Satanic Temple not philosophical rather than religious?

Not when lives are lived in deference to them and communities ordered upon applying them. Not with ceremonies declaring adherence to them, rituals and symbols utilized to invoke them.

For anybody who has traveled out to meet the diverse, dedicated chapters that compose the ever-growing Satanic Temple community, the question of whether or not we are a real religion becomes somewhat absurd and meaningless. If our activities are merely "performative," as is sometimes suggested, then why are all of these members often engaging in them in closed groups with no "audience" other than themselves? If The Satanic Temple is merely "political," as is also suggested, why is it that so many discussions and writings emerging from our community are centered upon determining the best personal application of our ethics to everyday circumstances? In desperation, even our refusal to subject our community to authoritarian conditioning is decried as a deviation from real religion. Our rituals are too creative, collaborative, and malleable to circumstance, unlike "real" rituals, which are static, rote, and subjugating.

And what of our book? Can a religion be predicated on all of one page listing but seven tenets? Is it not required that an authentic religion will be based upon a massive prescriptive tome written in archaic dialect, full of parables, prohibitions, and demands? Again, the tactic seems to be to distinguish the ways in which we are not Christianity, and then insist that these are shortcomings that exclude us from being appropriately religious. There is a vast body of literature, from centuries old works of Romantic Satanism to modern science texts, that comprises our reading lists, but like our philosophy of ritual and consistent with our anti-authoritarian philosophy in general it is a list that can always grow, always be subject to revision. To insist that the final word has been delivered is to abandon inquiry and growth.

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