Before someone can really even attempt to understand Satanism, they'd first have to understand what Satanists opinions are on history. I will attempt to disclose them at length in this essay. Unlike other essays, when I wrote this one I was just going to use references at the end. It might be true that my method used in later chapters is a bit clunky at times, but it makes referencing the materials easy for me, and it saves those truly interested in it the time from having to flip around a book. I later on went and rewrote this essay for a book format, and decided to keep some of the sources listed at the bottom, while newer sources are listed on the top. Also, I read a comment about one book in which the person complained, "there's no footnotes, and we all know what those kind of books are." Thus, this chapter's for you bud.
Reading Carl Sagan's, "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark", there is a theme to it, despite other areas where Sagan flounders, that is quintessential of Satanism. That is that if we want to properly view the Universe, we have to stop believing in the supernatural. The problem is getting the people to reject irrational explanations and resort a social and intellectual means that can be quantified and evaluated, put under scientific scrutiny. The problem with this World isn't so much that we don't know what is true, for it is not the truth itself which sets you free. It is the ability to discover what is the truth that makes us free. The dilemma of mankind has always been in figuring out how to give people that ability.
One of those problems was identified by Socrates, so long ago:
"When the citizens hold a meeting to appoint medical officers or shipbuilders or any other professional class of person, surely it won't be the orator who advises them then. Obviously in every such election the choice ought to fall on the most expert."
The unfortunate problem is that many people who are delving into the realms of politics, religion, economics, etc., (wave to Jerry Falwell), are not qualified. The world of religion should remain with a great big chasm between the affairs of the State. That's not to say that the people of the state can't be religious, but that the religion of the state should not be the state itself. As Joseph McCabe, Mark Twain, and Socrates knew, clergymen aren't good at much else.
John Boswell, The New Republic, March 18, 1985 v192 p. 38, tells us in a book review of Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages, on the subject of the importance of Satan:
"This is not to suggest that later generations of Christians invented the devil to fill a psychological need. No matter how much he may embarrass modern Christians, the devil was indisputably real to Jesus and the early church.... He has loomed so large in the Western imagination not because he is so crucial to Christian theology, then, but because he is so needed by Christian people..."
On the subject of scapegoating:
"Indeed, as Lucifer eloquently documents, the devil was often given the attributes of minorities (e.g., blackness), who then seemed even more threatening because they were "diabolical"..... The tendency to project evil seems to me an ineradicable part of human nature's good as well as its bad. Projecting greed as the predominant character of Jews, or promiscuity of gay people, or laziness of blacks, or sorcery of ugly women, has always been harmful for both subject and object."
An important book on the subject is Malcolm McGrath's book, "Demons of the Modern World". He says that modern cultures have differential values between the physical World, operated by mechanical laws and phyics, and a different World of interior perspective, a symbolic universe of our own creation. The important point he notes is that this is not a natural distinction, (fitting in nicely with the bi-fold consciousness theory), but that this distinction must actually be taught, and generally this occurs in childhood. Interestingly, the World of demons seems to have been initially started in Mesopotamia much the same as a child draws pictures of his nightmares. This distinction often breaks down dramatically during stress, which leads to demon hallucinations.
As Hypatia said:
“Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing. The mind of a child accepts them, and only through great pain, perhaps even tragedy, can the child be relieved of them.”
As far back as her days went, she understood that people had a hard time making the differentiation. I find it probable that during the Middle Ages, where the average mentality was at about the level of a small child, this is exactly the case, as even the artwork from the period relates a very grim and distressful feeling. As Averroes wrote, "Theologians are not competent to interpret the doctrines contained in the prophetically revealed law. For this, reason must be employed." Let's follow this twisted tale back to its origins and see what it leaves us with.
