The story of Eden is important to most Satanists. A lot hinges on the fruit of knowledge and on what that signified. For many of us, you could call it our central mystery.

Different Satanist tendencies can often be classified based on how they interpret that fruit. 

Luciferians tend to be very focused on intellectual and spiritual knowledge. That’s nice. I have a lot of history with that tendency and I still relate to it. I’ve even joked that “Luciferian” is a five syllable word for “bookworm” or “nerd.” 

But of course, in the Bible, “to know” has a lot of connotations. Famously, it stands for “carnal” knowledge– we’ve all know what it means to know someone in a “Biblical sense.” (It means you fucked them.) Certain strains of Satanism place a lot of focus on carnal knowledge. That’s cool too. I do that as well. 

But I think it’s a mistake to forget that the fruit stands for all knowledge. It has many dimensions of meaning. Remember, it was said to give knowledge of good and evil. That’s pretty broad– and also implies a type of knowledge a lot of Satanists don’t seem to think about much, which is to say conscience, ethical knowledge. 

It’s OK to follow your heart and focus on whatever you like, but I think it’s a mistake to focus on just one type of knowledge and knowing. Gnosis doesn’t have to come from just reading a ton of books, or just from meditating a bunch, or just from hedonistic indulgence. If you tend to be particularly cerebral, or particularly carnal, it may be profitable to balance your approach. You might be missing out.