The American Interest The Americanization of the Devil By: Peter Berger Today’s Satanists are not engaged in the worship of evil. What they are engaged in is a classical American exercise: civilizing something that was originally anything but civil.
On December 14, 2013, The Economist published a short piece which definitely qualifies depiction as a religious curiosity. The Economist does not often deal with religion (though its editor John Micklethwait, with Adrian Wooldrige, who currently writes the column “Schumpeter” in the magazine, co-authored an excellent overview of the global religious scene – God is Back, 2009). This piece is titled “_Religious Pluralism: Beelzebubba_ (http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21591622-satan-threatens-heartland-beelzebu bba) ”. It deals with a new candidate for First Amendment litigation, The Church of Satan. Here is what happened: In 2009 the Oklahoma legislature passed a bill authorizing the erection of a monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the state capitol. Anticipating possible challenges on constitutional grounds, the bill stated that the Ten Commandments are “an important component of the moral foundation of the laws and legal system of the United States of America and of the state of Oklahoma”. The costs of this project were not borne by the taxpayers but by private donors. The legislators relied on a precedent: In 2005 the US Supreme Court ruled that a similar project in Texas was constitutional, because the Ten Commandments had “an undeniable historical meaning”—in other words, a state-sponsored history lesson is okay, state-sponsored religion is not. Trust some lawyers to argue that the Oklahoma case is profoundly different from the Texas case and therefore in violation of the constitution. Not surprisingly, the American Civil Liberties Union, that noble band of Kemalist legal warriors, brought suit against the Oklahoma history lesson. But as of this month, a new wrinkle has appeared in this episode: A campaign of the New York-based Church of Satan (the story refers to it as “the Satanic Temple”) announced its intention to place a monument to Satan next to the Ten Commandments. The CoS promised that the monument would be “ public-friendly” (whatever that means), “something that children could play on.” (“ Mommy, I think Satan took my ball!”) The Satanists are obviously worried about possible litigation, and hope that the Supreme Court would take their side. The Church of Satan was founded in San Francisco in 1966; in 2001 it moved (tongue in cheek. I would think) to Hell’s Kitchen on the West Side of Manhattan. The founder was Anton LaVey, author of The Satanic Bible. The web site of the CoS defines its basic worldview as “acceptance of Man’s true nature—that of a carnal beast, living in a cosmos that is indifferent to our existence”. All religion is an illusion, a flight from the “acceptance”. Satan is not to be LeVay himself understood as a real being out there in the cosmos (that would be another illusion), rather is “the symbol that best suits the nature of we who are carnal by birth”. (English syntax does not seem to be part of this nature.) But then, rather surprisingly, the manifesto goes on to say that Satan represents “pride, liberty, and individualism” describes his movement as “Ayn Rand with trappings”. I doubt whether Rand, that rigorous rationalist, would have approved the ritual practices of LaVey ’s “individualism”: Imitations of the legendary Black Mass, performed in darkness, with black candles, a naked woman lying on top of an altar, the officiating priest performing a ceremony over (or on) her body. The naked woman is apparently optional, as is a “lust ritual”, the details of which are not described (though mention is made of another optional activity, “ masturbation to climax”—mercifully to be undertaken, if at all, solo). The preferred time for this liturgy is on April 30, supposedly the date of the traditional Walpurgisnacht, or “witches’ Sabbath”. Speaking of which, the CoS has an elaborate priestly hierarchy, with “witches and warlocks” in second place right after the high priest (LaVey and successors, both male and female). The mention of witches reminds one of another new religion, that of “ witchcraft”, renamed Wicca. There are some similarities, but the two movements are really quite different (though both resemble the way children dress up for Halloween in scary outfits). Wicca was founded in the 1950s by Gerald Gardner, [This is only a small part of the story, most Wiccans are NOT Gardnerians BR Note] a retired British civil servant. Its website uses the full title “Church and School of Wicca”. It emphatically states that its adherents are “not Satanists”. The supposed roots of the movement are in the pre-Christian paganism of Celtic Britain, which has left its most impressive monument at Stonehenge. I don’t think that LaVey would have approved of any of this. However, at least in that respect similar to his community, the Wiccan ethic is similar in its radical individualism. Emblazed on the website is its basic moral maxim: “If it harms none, do what you will”. I have not explored just when and how Wicca came to America, but it seems to me that it found fertile ground here, prepared by the more radical feminist and environmental versions emerging from the late-60s counterculture. To paraphrase LaVey, Wicca might be called “environmentalism with trappings”. Its worldview is a kind of nature mysticism. Human beings are part of nature, and should experience themselves as such. The feminist angle is that both gods and goddesses are revered. There is a great variety of rituals, only some with an overtly sexual dimension. All of this is a long way from the witchcraft that surfaced here and there in pre-modern Europe and so upset the Inquisition. These primeval witches would not have disavowed Satanism; indeed, Satan played a significant part in their rituals. Satan is a very old figure in the history of man’s religious imagination. He almost certainly originated in Iran and was at the center of the teachings of Zarathustra (who is better known by his Hellenized name Zoroaster). The world is seen as the arena of a cosmic struggle between two powerful supernatural beings, one good, one evil—Ahura Mazda and Ahriman. Human beings are enjoined to take the part of Ahura Mazda against his adversary. For several centuries Zoroastrianism was the official religion of the Persian state. It was dislodged from this position by the Muslim conquest. Little of it survives in its home country, though its emigrants, now known as Parsis, are a small but influential community in India. But it seems that Zoroaster’ s archaic dualism has left a profound imprint on Iranian culture and religion. (Perhaps all the way to our own time: Is it lurking behind the Ayatollah Khomeini’s favorite name for America, “the Great Satan”?) Some centuries after Zoroaster, Mani, another Iranian prophet, founded the religion named after him. It spread far beyond Iran and was a serious rival of Christianity in the late Roman Empire. Manicheanism morphed into the various strands of Gnosticism [Also waaaaaay too simplistic and even a downright wrong reading of history - BR Note]during the same period, then spread into different parts of Europe. A climax of this diffusion was the Albigensian heresy. In the High Middle Ages it flourished in the territory of the Counts of Toulouse, then known as Langue d’Oc. We now know this area as the south of France; it became that as a result of the crusade which exterminated the heresy and with it the culture in which it was embedded. This is an exceedingly long and complex history. I cannot possibly pursue it here. I just want to make one point about it: Satan, in all his incarnations, has been very serious business. He figures in the Hebrew Bible as shatan, (“accuser” or “adversary”)—most memorably in the Book of Job, where he tries to turn a righteous man away from God. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, called him diabolos (“slanderer”), from which our English “devil” is derived. The same diabolos reappears in the New Testament, where he tries to tempt Jesus. The three monotheistic religions have never quite known what to do with Satan. I would think that he features, however marginally, in the “theodicy” that always haunts monotheism—the attempt to reconcile belief in an omnipotent and benevolent God with the pervasive presence of evil in the world. The adversary of God is then the personification of evil, whose final overthrow will be the fulfilment of the creation. If we look for Satan in this (as yet) unredeemed world, I don’t think that we will find him dressed up in the costumes of contemporary Satanism or witchcraft. More likely he will wear the uniform of Hitler’s SS. Satan is serious business, because evil is serious business. Contemporary Satanism or witchcraft is not engaged in the worship of evil (as the SS definitely was). What they are engaged in is a classical American exercise, civilizing (if you will, defanging) something that was originally anything but civil. The late sociologist John Murray Cuddihy spoke about the Protestant smile, that expression of post-Puritan niceness that is the outward sign of the inward grace of American civility. This Protestant smile can even be pasted on the face of Satan: If we are going to have a devil, it had better be a nice devil. Thus, as we have seen, both American Satanists and witches claim to be “churches”. That, of course, is a claim for First Amendment protection. If (heaven forbid) I were a federal judge, and a case came before me involving such a claim from either the Church of Satan or the Church of Wicca, I think that I would be compelled by the constitution to accept the claim. That would obviously be different if the First Amendment were invoked by an organization that incited the killing of Jews. That would be a violation of the basic values on which the constitution is based, a real evil that the courts have the duty to suppress. A federal judge is not in a position to decide what is or is not a serious “church”. A blogger is not under such a constraint. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. 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