The Humanism/Satanism debate

[Helen]

I noticed that over on the other board there was a discussion on whether or not Philosophical Satanism was just Humanism except with a 'cooler' label.
The discussion got diverted and I decided not to join it for that reason, but instead I thought I'd post up my views on this here.

It is said that Humanism can be defined as Satanism without the sorcery/magic.
La Vey said that humanism does not involve ritual and involved no ceremony or dogma. He said that this is what made it not a religion. Not what made it not Satanism. As far as I see he wasn't implying that he was a humanist but that because he practised magic that made him a satanist.
There are bigger differences between Humanism and Satanism than that.
Humanism is philanthropic. Humanists believe that we should be concerned about humankind in general, treat each other humanely, respect each other, be concerned for the state of the human race and the state of the planet for the benefit of everyone and for future generations. So the Humanist is concerned with the greater good.
The Satanist does not share this view. The Satanist is only concerned with what is in it for them and the Satanist only is concerned with the welfare of him/herself and those he or she considers worthy.
This is a difference so fundamental that it makes Humanism and Satanism very different at the core.

I want to move towards a full understanding of 'ritual' here because too often I'm seeing that people seem to think that the only kind there is is the magical kind.
How to define 'ritual' is something that academics are still arguing about to this day but I'll tell you what I think which is to the best of my current knowledge: a ritual is an event, action or ceremony which aims to achieve change or transmit knowledge and when performed regularly serves to reinforce or preserve that knowledge or the effects of that change. And the difference between ritual action and an everyday task is that ritual involves action, movement or objects which serve no inherent purpose in being utilized, other than that which those performing the ritual ascribe to them.
I do not practice magic and and I don't really believe in the supernatural but that does not mean I don't perform ritual. For La Vey magic was changing situations or events in accordance with one's will, which would, using normally accepted methods, be unchangeable. There is nothing in my rituals which could not be achieved using 'normally accepted' methods. I just find that the normally accepted methods do not work for me, because it is the unique and ritualistic way in which I do what I do which makes it work. It involves objects, actions and movements which have no real reason to be involved other than because I feel they help. And it is performed regularly. The change I go for is only ever a change in me , never the world around me. I feel that once I've changed in the way I want then all changes in the world around me will happen through direct action. I don't believe I can change the world purely by will power. I change it because will power gives me the strength to do and say things which make change. My rituals are personal will-power building exercises, as well as self-celebrations (get your mind out of the gutter it's not necessarily what you think). It isn't magic. Me and La Vey would differ here, because he would say it was magic. Lesser magic perhaps. But there is a difference in what I do and in magic and this difference is that it could be achieved by more accepted means. I just choose not to use them because my rituals work better. And there is no utilising or belief in the supernatural.

As some of you know Satanism is a label I haven't been too keen to adopt although for the purposes of some debates on the old board I used the label because it saved time explaining. And it has definitey always been part of what I believe. And I wondered about the validity of non-magical satanism. But I think as long as you have the ritual, ceremony and dogma then the magic doesn't matter. It is that which moves it away from a philosophy and moves it closer to being a religion.
Could this come to be what Philosophical Satanism means? It could be non-magical Satanism. 'Philosophical' because higher emphasis is placed on philosophy and 'Satanism' because it requires ritual, ceremony and dogma.
But this is not Humanism because of the fundamental philsophical differences between Humanism and Satanism. A humanist could perform my rituals and not be a Satanist because they would disagree with Satanic philosophy.

Anyway what does everything else think, can there ever be non-magical Satanism?

[Hadilath]

can there ever be non-magical Satanism?

Why not?*g*

LOL to me, half the point is that one invent's one's own "religion", finds one's own path, whatever....

So why shouldn't you have your own form of Satanism and call it "non-magical" or Philosophical?
You are perfectly entitiled, as far as I'm concerned, to construct your universe any way you like, and label it what you will:)

LOL having said that, I _would_ , from my own viewpoint, call what you describe yourself doing ritually as magic. But that's from my veiwpoint, which involves the concept that it doesn't really matter what paradigm you have selected and whether you believe that to be "magical" or not, so long as it works for you:)

Personally I can relate to the concept of using ritual to cause change within oneself....and actually I would regard that as a higher....or perhaps deeper? form of magic than simply aiming for an effect in the outside world. Though to me both internal and external realities are inextricably interconnected anyway:)

Which is to say, I do believe that in altering oneself one alters the world around one..but when I say that, I believe I do so with a slightly different emphasis from yours *g*.I see an actual "shift" in the percieved reality, rather than/as well as simply ppl "picking up on"psychological/body language queueing...which is how I read your explanation of your results.


LOL again though...how I see things is purely how I have found works for me:)

But there is a difference in what I do and in magic and this difference is that it could be achieved by more accepted means.

Hmm...well, to me, a lot of things could be achieved by more accepted means. One of my best little achievements in a malefic sense, last lear, could have been achieved just as easily by hiring soemone to "fix" a certain person's motorbike, spike his drink, or whatever....Or wouldn't you count that as more accepted means?*g*

To me, it was magic, regardless of how else I could have achieved the same result:)

LOL I am in no way trying to convince you of the "reality" of magic here, BTW.Just to make the point that speaking for myself as one who uses "magic", I don't find whether or not soemthing could have been done by mundane means to be a defining factor. In fact, as I see the magical process as one of "tipping probabilities" to some extent, by whatever means one choses to believe one uses for that....Then actually virtually all magical eventualitites would be be definition re-producable by mundane means..merely via mundane occurances which would have been less likely to occur had the magical process not taken place.

As to your diferences between your form of Satanism and Humanism...afraid I can't really help there, to me there _are_ similarities between the two as you describe them , but also differences*shrugs*. Not really an area I know so much about..kinda up to you to decide:)

LOL hope some of this was helpful/made some sense:)

[Malekith]

That was very well said Helen. You should bring this post across to the other board. I decided not to post on that topic anymore because I got rather annoyed.

[Helen]

Cheers Andy. I would post it there only I don't know how to transfer it (if that's at all possible) and I can't be bothered to type it out again. If you know a shortcut then let me know and I'll think about it. But I might be just as well to post on the other board that the topic came up here if anyone's interested in looking.

Hadilath, I take your point about magic, I guess it just depends upon your definition.

I also agree that if I want to call my philosophy or religion (or whatever) non-magical satanism or even non-rational Noddyism then that's entirely up to me and there are no laws against it.
However to explain where I 'm coming from I should add here something about the context in which this arose.
This post of mine was triggered by a discussion on the other board in which a die-hard La Veyan type was seeing things very black and white and saying 'if you don't practice magic you are a humanist because La Vey says so!' etc.
Die-hard La Veyans seem, to me, to have a tendency to be of the opinion that Satanism is them and La Vey and everyone else is a fraud. This is of course crazy and while I acknowledge La Vey's genius (if even just for his word-play) and give him major hails for being the keystone of modern satanism, I feel that there is more to Satanism than him and more importantly a lot more room for manouevre in his works than they acknowledge. I've observed (albeit in my limited experience with these types) that there is a distinct lack of analysis and interpretation on their part (something I think La Vey would find deplorable) and I wanted, in this post, to challenge such an unquestioning approach to La Vey's work and hopefully set a cat among the die-hard La Veyan pigeons.
If someone else had posted the question I asked I would have replied in the same manner as you ('you can call it what you like it's your business' in other words) but I would have set a limitation on the "legitimacy" of any person's claim because I do actually agree with the La Veyans' usual assertion that at some point it isn't Satanism anymore. I mean you can't be a Christian and not believe in the resurrection of Christ. But I will defend, to the hilt, your right to call yourself a Christian.
Realistically if the ritual is not there can it be said to be truly Satanism? I mean within the confines of the Satanic Bible, the views of other Satanists, the views of other LHP-ers, philosophical analysis, and our ideas of pre-La Vey satanism.
In the meantime I will continue to do whatever the hell I like and call it whatever the hell I like.
Anyway, I wanted to throw the question out there to get a few different perspectives on that.

[Malekith]

Helen, you should be able to just copy and paste it.