Pan-Satanist
Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans
The Semitic word ‘Satan’ means ‘to be an adversary’ or ‘to accuse’, and thus it accurately describes my attitude towards the Semitic theistic god Yahweh. The word Antichrist describes one who denies that Jesus is the Christ, who casts doubt on the Father and the Son (cf. John 2:22), and in this way also describes me. According to these theological definitions, therefore, I am a Satanist. This is a very important term for me, because I regard the theism of the Abrahamic religions as an evil that must be eliminated from the world so that the human race may survive, and the term ‘Satanist’ accurately reflects which side of this struggle I stand on. But that is not all. I regard the entire system of reality and its omnipotent laws—the universe, nature—as a mystery which is simultaneously terrifying in its power and immensely fascinating, which in philosophy signifies the experience of the divine (mysterium tremendum et fascinans). And this is an unholy and utterly amoral divinity. That is why the best word to describe my worldview is Pan-Satanism.
Pan-Satanism does not, however, mean the worship of a human-like divinity – it means a profound recognition of the godless order of the universe.
If, according to Christian theism, the wages of sin is death, and in the natural order of the world death is essential for the development of species—without death in nature, the human animal would never have come into being—then this means that sin is a force of nature, which is why the Pan-Satanist worships sin.
If morality is a human set of norms defining what is good and what is evil, then nature is amoral. Nature knows neither good nor evil. In nature, what matters is what allows species to survive. It does not matter what we consider good or evil; what counts is utility. Strength and cunning matter in the struggle for existence. Since man derives his greatest strength from his mind, which has given him an advantage over other animals, he should use his intelligence and knowledge to gain that advantage. The laws that govern human societies should be based, above all, on the principle of utility.
Laws and ideologies that are contrary to nature, whose harmfulness or uselessness has already been proven by history, should be eliminated and abandoned.
Amorality is a force of nature that has proven its utility over millions of years of the evolutionary development of organisms. The Pan-Satanist venerates the amorality of nature.
Egoism is good because it is useful, and even essential. Thanks to egoism, organisms are able to survive in the natural world. They would perish if they did not look after their own interests first and foremost. It is from egoism that love for one’s family stems, because what matters most to an individual is the survival of their offspring, so that their genes may endure. Love for one’s partner is a gift of nature, because this emotion creates the bond between partners that is essential for forming a family capable of ensuring the survival of their offspring. A Pan-Satanist venerates the egoism of nature.
Pan-Satanism does not, however, teach self-deification in isolation from the unity of all things.
The consciousness and reason that allow you to call yourself a god are gifts of godless nature. It is as a result of the operation of its eternal and omnipotent laws that your brain and your mind came into being. All the traits you possess, you inherit. Everything that makes you up comes from nature. You are not a spirit dwelling within a body. Mind and body are one, and you and nature are one. You would have no intelligence had it not been bestowed upon you. It must therefore be understood that all those qualities of yours which cause you to marvel at yourself, convinced of your uniqueness and divinity, come from impersonal nature. If I am divine, how much more divine is that which created me? The point here is to understand that whatever we mean by the concept of divinity when describing ourselves in this way, it belongs far more to a broader phenomenon. Infinitely broader and astonishingly non-obvious.
The starry Abyss into which I gaze at night, its infinite vastness, its very existence, and my own existence, and my awareness that I am looking into it and realising that I am looking... ...this is absolutely not obvious to me. Am I to treat the unimaginable powers of the physical laws of the universe, through which everything that exists came into being—galaxies, stars, black holes, and myself with my consciousness—as something obvious, which simply is? Are my amazement and my wonder to be limited and reduced to anthropomorphic self-glorification? I see no glory in belittling.
It was we humans who invented the word ‘divinity’, and if what I have written about is not divinity, then what is? What is the theistic personal god Yahweh, who feared that ancient people would build a tower of bricks reaching to the heavens, in comparison?
And as I have written before, Pan-Satanism allows one to perceive the profound meaning, utility and perfection of the organisation of all things precisely in that which is called evil, amorality and misfortune. Death is called ‘the last enemy’ by Christian theologians (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:26), but for a Pan-Satanist, death is a friend; it is a good, because without death in nature, man—who today can call himself a god—would never have evolved.
A profound understanding of the true, godless nature of things and one’s place within it leads to a sense of wonder at the meaningfulness of all phenomena and circumstances. Abrahamic theism teaches that the world is evil and must be destroyed by fire so that a new and better one may arise. That is why theists are mortal enemies of Satanists who believe that the world is good and its amoral laws are perfect, as evidenced by the evolutionary success of life on Earth over millions of years. In nature, harmony always prevails; therefore, I believe that any theistic threat to this harmony will eventually be eliminated in one way or another.
In light of the above, it can be seen that a characteristic feature of Pan-Satanism is its cosmocentricity. The worship of a personal deity outside oneself or in the form of oneself is alien to it. Anthropocentrism is not a feature of Pan-Satanism. The Pan-Satanist draws wisdom and power from the amoral and pre-human instincts inherited from godless nature, which bestows them upon all organisms according to their needs; organisms that owe their evolutionary success to obedience to its amoral laws, and from the awareness of being part of the eternity of the universe, of which thousands of human gods, now forgotten by time, could only dream.
LCFNS
