Satanism: Inside the Incoherence

About this sermon

Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com Spanish translations by Vélez Translations, http://www.veleztranslations.com When I was younger, and before my conversion, I lived on a daily diet of dark and heavy music. Not only was I listening to it every chance I could, but I was playing it on my guitar. And one of the things that was so appealing about it for a skinny and unassuming teenager like me, was that it was noisy and unambiguous, that it can get you a lot of attention the way being loud and obnoxious can get anyone attention. There’s no subtlety to it. And not only does it have this impression of being attention getting, but it’s the right kind of attention which is that it makes you appear dangerous. A song I used to like came on the radio recently and I hadn’t heard if for a long time, but after being removed from it from so long it gave me enough objective perspective that I thought it was just kind of laughable now. Heavy music like that is such an obvious attempt to look and sound scary or tough. And what’s even more telling is that these dark and melancholic chord progressions that they use throughout their music, it’s not like they discovered them. People have known about these scales and modes as far back as Gregorian Chant, which is the foundation of Western music. But while they knew about them, they used them sparingly because they recognized that that lack of subtlety was a cheap way to provoke a reaction out of your audience. One of the bands I was really into near the end of my infatuation with this kind of music is a band called Opeth who’s Wikipedia bio describes their demonic vocal shifts – which is to say, it’s obvious what you’re going for here. You’re trying to sound evil and scary. And I recently played a few seconds from one of their heaviest songs for my kids, aged 0-11 and their reaction was to laugh at it. They thought it was satirical because there’s no way someone could be seriously trying so hard to sound scary and tough and if they are, then it’s a pathetic exhibition of insecurity because anyone who tries that hard to sound intimidating is compensating. And this is, I think a fitting description of what attracts people to Satanism or demonic preoccupations. Opeth, and groups like them are the soundtrack of Satanic culture. They get a thrill out of the scariness or the danger or to be seen as dangerous because of it. They get a thrill out of mocking or thumbing their nose at God because doing, apparently, dangerous things and surviving is thrilling. That’s what thrill seeking is all about. But that brings us to the first absurdity about Satanic tendencies. If mocking God makes you look or feel dangerous, it can only be because there’s an actual danger in doing so. It concedes, to some degree, that God actually exists because if he didn’t, there would be no reason to put so much effort into mocking him. That’s the reason that nobody spends any time or energy blaspheming Thor or Odin. Because why would you if you were convinced that they don’t exist – which is what the Church of Satan claims about God. They claim to be atheistic. But again, I’m an atheist as far as it concerns Odin, Thor, Krishna, or Moloch which is why I don’t spend any time thinking about them. I don’t use their names in vain, I don’t devote myself to dishonouring them or those who have a devotion to them. In short, I don’t fixate any attention on that which is not. Because that would be a waste of my time and this attitude is a reflection of my lack of belief and concern for those deities. But Satanists, and atheists, are obsessed with, especially, Christian formulations of God. And that brings us to a second absurdity in Satanism. It’s entirely derivative. It seems to me that one of the reasons something like Satanism is attractive to some people is because of how unique and original it makes them feel and appear, but the truth is, everything within it is contingent upon something else, namely the Catholic religion. If Catholicism didn’t exist, then Satanism would not exist. It derives its identity from Catholicism. It’s a parasitic enterprise that needs to feed off of something that is truly original in order to borrow its rites, its symbols, even its use of the Latin language in order to sound like it’s grounded in something ancient and esoteric itself when in fact, it’s just plagiarism. The Satanic Black Mass is derivative of the Catholic Mass, but designed to be a mockery of it which is interesting that such a thing is tolerated in modern society considering the one thing that we don’t like to tolerate any more is intolerance. Read the whole transcript at https://brianholdsworth.ca