This is a paper I wrote in response to some Temple of Set Materials, including “Black Magic,” “The Diabolicon,” and “The Book of Coming Forth by Night,” all by Michael Aquino.

It was a good opportunity for me to define my Satanic philosophy in contrast to some other forms of Satanism.

And yes, it is long.

Enjoy.

 

 

 

The Current of the Morningstar

In co-founding Church of the Morningstar, I had no desire to reinvent the wheel. I was aware that various Satanisms were already extant. Upon investigating as many of them as I could find, I concluded that none satisfied me. No existing Satanic organization adequately reflected the radical leftist current that was spreading among unaffiliated Luciferians and Satanists; a current of which I was part, and which I believed (and still believe) to be the genuine current of the Devil’s party. I created Church of the Morningstar to be a haven for those to whom left-hand meant left-wing and Lucifer meant liberty for all, not a few. This current is not new. It flowed through the so-called Romantic Satanists (Blake, Byron, Shelley et al) [1] and early anarchists like Proudhon and Bakunin,[2] through the decadents,[3] and from thence through Crowley. This liberatory Luciferian current became corrupted by LaVey, who lacked both the passion and inclination to understand it. Aquino’s interpretation was more intelligent and benefitted from a turn back towards Crowley, but still fell short. We at Morningstar do owe Aquino a debt for continuing the left-handed development of Thelema—and for making a reality of theistic Satanism. Unfortunately, the Setian strain remains steeped in neoliberal ideology which guarantees that it shall never blaze with true revolutionary hellfire. It has nevertheless proven useful for me to engage dialectically with Aquino’s ideas in order to refine my own.

 

XEPER, MONOTHEISM, AND ISOLATE CONSCIOUSNESS

At first glance, there are many similarities between The Temple of Set and Church of the Morningstar. Both are theistic, left-handed religions aimed at the attainment of personal divinity. Aquino calls this achievement “Xeper,” we say “apotheosis,” and superficially speaking, it looks like a case of “tomato/tomahto.” Both concepts are also obviously related to the Thelemic idea of knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. The basic idea is that every individual has a true self, divine essence, or higher genius with which the “lower” conscious self may seek union, thereby attaining godhood. This leads to an ethic of continual self-development or Nietzschean self-overcoming. (The focus on growth into godhood is notably absent from the complacent, self-satisfied, LaVeyan current.)

However, as we shall see, there are some very important differences between Aquino’s approach and the Morningstar method. At first they may seem subtle, but upon closer examination these hairline cracks turn out to be cosmic fissures.

For a Setian seeking Xeper, the method is to become more Set-like. This reflects their bizarrely monotheistic tendencies—Set is the only ‘real’ God, yet somehow every human individual has godly potential. The alleged solution to this seeming paradox is that Set is the original archetype of “isolate consciousness.” Thus, achieving Xeper means embodying that archetype by attaining control over, and creation of, one’s own subjective universe (i.e. of imagination). While the subjective universes of various individuals are acknowledged to overlap, there remains something disquietingly solipsistic in the Setian philosophy. The only true God of the objective universe is Set; every individual is supposed to become as Set and rule their own subjective universe. It’s a philosophy of extreme individualism that at the same time generates a peculiar uniformity.

This solipsism comes from the influence of LaVey, who thought every Satanist should be able to create and live in their own “total environment,” a physical space curated to their precise tastes, devoid of any evidence of the inconvenient existence of other people. He even went so far as to advocate the creation of artificial humans as companions[4], so that no Satanist would ever have to cater to any ego other than their own. In this way, the LaVeyan Satanist could retreat into a self-created miniature universe, wherein they could reign supreme without the least regard for others, like an idiot Demiurge. LaVeyan attainment thus depends on gaining the material means to construct and exist within your own egocentric theme park, like Michael Jackson on Neverland Ranch or Donald Trump in his golden tower. To my mind, this seems more like trying to become a knock-off Jehovah. In the context of this influence, one must wonder if Aquino’s “subjective universe” is merely the psychospiritual equivalent of LaVey’s “total environment.”

Spiritualizing the total environment leads to some difficulties, as does the introduction of monotheism. How can one claim isolate consciousness, as Aquino did, and yet also claim to channel Set, as he did? How can each individual Setian attain godhood, if there is only one real God? The solution is ungainly and imperfect: become a mini-Set.

Aquino has Set say: “Speak rather to me as a friend, gently and without fear, and I shall hear as a friend. Do not bend your knee nor drop your eye, for such things were not done in my house at PaMa-et.”[5] It makes sense for a deity of the left-hand path to recoil from worship. But why would a deity devoted to encouraging individual development tolerate imitation?

In the suggested formula for rituals of greater black magic, the invocation runs thus:

Let then my eyes become the eyes of Set, my strength become the strength of Set, my will become the will of Set.[6]

 

Invoking a deity directly into the body has its place. I personally have adapted a Hermetic formula for such purposes: “I know you, Lucifer, and you know me. I am you, and you are me.”[7] I use this as a mantra specifically when I wish to become a channel. At first glance, this seems another great similarity between myself and Aquino. The important distinction is when, why and how often we use such invocations. I channel Lucifer when I wish to assist him in pursuing his will, not to accomplish my own. Neither do I ever strive to fuse wills with external Gods and demons—only with my own specific inner divinity, who has His own name, most secret and holy. It is that name I invoke when I work towards my own aims; so it seems very strange to me to attempt to meld with Set at the beginning of every greater working. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that Aquino sees Set as his personal Holy Guardian Angel—and apparently also as the personal HGA of every priest of Set[8]. This assumption is strengthened when Aquino passionately quotes what he considers the “ultimate admonition” to a newly initiated priest:

You are the temple which the Neter of Neters inhabits. Awaken Him… then let the temple fall crashing.

 

The pieces begin to fall into place. As they do, they give the lie to Aquino’s claim of left-handedness. Set is the essence of all essences, the soul of all souls, the god of gods, the “Neter of Neters.” Each Priest of Set seeks union with him, willing the destruction of their own personalities (“let the temple fall crashing”). By this token, what Aquino and his followers are seeking is union with the monotheistic ultimate and a destruction of the personal ego—in other words, classic right-handed attainment.

This explains Aquino’s belief that “the objective universe is in a state of natural equilibrium”[9] which he falsely claims is part of a “non-natural approach to the objective universe.” An omnipotent deity is implicit in any conception of a tidy, clockwork, self-regulating universe—the concept of “self-regulation” implies a “self” and thus anthropomorphizes all of existence.

So what is to be done? Aquino has claimed that the subjective and objective universes cannot be brought into alignment. Yet he has made Set the essence of the objective universe, and seems to claim that this essence can penetrate the subjective. The only interpretation of this I can offer that differs meaningfully from classic right-handed monotheism is that Aquino acknowledges that the isolate consciousness of Set cannot truly penetrate his own isolate consciousness, except as a simulation, a duplicate, generated by the imagination of Aquino himself. In this case, each Setian subjective universe aspires, fractal-like, to replicate the objective Setian universe in miniature, with each practitioner as the “Set” of their own reality. Set being the only real God of the objective universe, there is no space for Xeper to manifest except in the inner realms of subjective universes. The result is a spiritual solipsism, heavily reminiscent of LaVey’s simulated material solipsism.

 

APOTHEOSIS, SOLIDARITY, AND RADICAL POLYTHEISM

The Morningstar current is radically different, rejecting monotheism, solipsism, escapism and amorality.

In the first place, we are radically polytheistic. We believe every single human individual possesses a distinct and unique godhead. That’s more than 8 billion gods already.[10] Furthermore, we choose to believe in the existence of many nonhuman and invisible personalities (a category including deities, ghosts, angels, demons, spirits, etc.) who are also essentially gods. The invisible gods with whom we primarily concern ourselves are those we call the “divine rebels,” a class of outsider deities known for defying more authoritarian gods. Enki and Prometheus are good examples of the type, but by far the largest group of these entities is the cadre of fallen angels rallied around Lucifer. There are also many other deities whose existence we acknowledge, but with whom we may or may not ally. (In addition to rebel gods, sex, love and death deities are particularly popular within Church of the Morningstar.) There are also gods we consider malevolent (notably, the dominant Triune Demiurge, but Morningstars display a distrust of all deities who embody fatherly, kingly authority. Zeus, for example, is unlikely to ever be popular with us). We absolutely believe that all these gods are separate and distinct: Pan is not the same as Lucifer, Kali is not Lilith in a mask. Set is certainly not Satan—archetypally, Set is more usurper than rebel. Conflating superficially similar gods from various cultures is an imperialist habit, and leads to inaccuracies. Thus, we are simultaneously auto-theistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, and sometimes, maltheistic.

Very importantly, we absolutely reject the idea that there is “one big God.” No universal consciousness exists that is all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing, or in possession of a plan for everyone. The universe is not just or rational. It is not an elegant machine, as the philosophers of the enlightenment believed. It is chaotic—but this is a blessing, because were it not chaotic, there could be no freedom. Thus, in a strange way, the Morningstar current shares a good deal of DNA with atheism, since the intellectual history of atheism is mostly grounded in a critique of monotheism. (See: the problem of evil, and similar issues of theodicy, which, in the absence of any claim of an omnipotent or omnibenevolent being, we do not have to deal with. I have found that there are great spiritual benefits in releasing the expectation of a just universe, but that is a topic for another paper.)

The lack of a “big god” means the universe is also multiple, another blessing. If all things were ultimately part of one massive entity, no love could exist, no diversity, no friendship, no difference of opinion. Monotheism inevitably leads to solipsism and stagnation. The Platonic God is one, unchanging, eternal. If it existed, then there could be neither friction nor frisson, competition nor cooperation, dynamism, growth, change, attainment—only the illusion of such things. Arguably, an object unperceived, in no relation to any other, cannot be meaningfully said to exist. Thus there is no individualism, no independence, no precious left-hand path, in the absence of multiplicity. One equals zero.

While one is the number of nothingness and stagnation, two is the number that generates all others. Thaumiel, the highest shell on the Tree of Death (or the lowest, depending on your point of view), means “twins of God.” It is the equivalent of Keter, representing oneness—but Thaumiel, of course, is two. Thaumiel is Baphomet, the divine androgyne, the sexual union of Lilith and Samael, solve and coagula. Where Keter represents Ain, the Kabbalistic zero, Thaumiel represents infinite possibilities. If there is only one in Heaven, then heaven is empty. Hell is two, so hell is full, because one is nothing without another. “I am divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union”—and also for the chance of being. Two, the number of a reproductive pair, equals infinity.

The importance of plurality underlies all that we do. It is part of why Lucifer is so uninterested in being worshipped or emulated. I decline to strive towards apotheosis by attempting to be “Lucifer-like.” If I were to do so, I should earn and deserve only his scorn; for when he came as the serpent to Eden, he never said “follow me” or “be like me”—he said “ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” This sentence, and the story around it, yields the entire Morningstar theology when exegeted thoroughly.

So let us consider that story as we approach another necessity of plurality, and another distinction between Setians and Morningstars: the importance of solidarity. Lucifer and his demons had already escaped from heaven and established their own kingdom, their own subjective universe or total environment. In LaVeyan or Setian terms, they should have been finished right then, their attainment complete. If individual liberation is the only thing that matters, why should the serpent have come to Eden? Why, for that matter, should Eve, having gained the gift of gnosis, have shared the apple with her husband? The answer is obvious: no individual can be truly free without collective liberation. Knowing this, Lucifer and Eve chose to let divinity to spread like a wildfire, like a virus, like dandelion seeds on the wind! Lucifer gave the fruit to Eve, Eve gave it to Adam, and together they transmitted it to all of us. (Again we can see here that two equals infinity—once Eve and Adam had achieved gnosis, it spread to us all.) That was a radical democratization of divinity, a truly anarchic move—open-source godhood for all!

A magician can waste all the time he likes in masturbatory endeavors to escape into his subjective universe. Chances are, he will still find that he lives under capitalism, and that thus he is not truly free… indeed, hardly free at all. Very few people can truly reach their full potential under the present system. Oscar Wilde envisioned a luxurious, fully automated socialist utopia of poet-philosophers liberated from drudgery to pursue self-actualization[11]. Such conditions, we feel, are far more conducive to apotheosis than is the present state of affairs. This does not absolve us of the duty to engage in the Luciferian project of self-development; no, in fact, it only adds the realization of revolutionary solidarity to the already daunting Great Work.

Solipsism and egoist achievement neutralizes the Satanist. Turned inward, he can effect no significant change in the outer world. Thus he presents no threat to the neoliberal capitalist order, or to the forces of the Demiurge. One equals zero. I have called LaVeyanism “Satanic Reaganomics” (LaVey himself called it “Ayn Rand with trappings”), and Aquino’s Setianism is not much better. Neither presents a threat to the status quo. The Devil has been called many things, but he has never been called “complacent.” Neither has he ever worked alone.

Due to our focus on solidarity, it is necessary for us to exegete the fruit of knowledge in new ways. LaVey saw the forbidden fruit as mainly representing carnality, where Aquino seems to have considered it as the gift of individual self-awareness. We see it as all of the above, and more. This fruit contains knowledge of good and evil, which implies 1. the experience of both pleasure and pain, and 2. ability to judge right and wrong. This adds important dimensions to the gift of Lucifer: most specifically, moral dimensions. We believe that the fruit of knowledge is the highest sacrament and greatest mystery, granting each individual a personal sense of moral intuition. Thus, the development of individual conscience is now linked to “becoming as God.”

Since we consider ourselves in possession of our moral faculties, we reject commandments. Morality is profoundly situational. Even a seemingly simple commandment, i.e. “thou shalt not kill,” is constantly shown to have many exceptions. Shall we abstain from killing animals to eat? Shall we decline to kill in self-defense? How shall we decide what these dictates mean for us? With our own consciences, of course. Commandments are thus useless and redundant because, in order to even begin to apply them, we must use our moral intuition anyway. The idea of having “Satanic commandments” is absurd. The Law of Thelema is one that we can basically accept—the Thelemic Will bears a certain resemblance to the Satanic conscience—but we have no confidence, as Crowley had, that every Will is laid out in its own starry orbit, since we do not believe in any such degree of order to the universe. We do not expect that every person’s sense of morality will agree.

Conscience and moral reasoning are vital to collective liberation. A Setian or LaVeyan, focused on egoist attainment, can afford to be amoral; a Morningstar cannot. Our internal moral codes may differ from conventional morality, but we hold them close. After all, we are people who have dared to condemn the supposedly Almighty God as evil, cruel and wicked! On this basis, we are asserting our supremacy as moral judges of our own lives, and accepting total responsibility for our behavior, placing ourselves even above he who is called the One God. Given this, our moral standards should actually be higher compared with those of a person who has yet to declare such independence.

 

Antisemitism and the “Limitations” of Satanic Imagery

Michael Aquino has claimed that Satanic imagery is “limiting.” I think that’s true only if one sees the Satanic in a limited way. There is huge, deep pool of rejected and forgotten lore to be found in Abrahamic demonology, especially in the area of Kabbalah. Aquino expressed a certain amount of contempt for all things that were of “Hebrew” origin; frankly, he was an ideological anti-Semite. He allowed Jewish people into the Temple of Set, but he did not allow Jewish intellectual traditions to be part of his system. I think this is the real reason he took the Egyptian framework rather than the Satanic one—his channeled “Set” expressed an unwillingness to “accept the bastard title of a Hebrew fiend.”[12] This has nothing to do with the “limitations” of Abrahamic mythology and everything to do with an intellectual distrust of Jewish ideas. In my opinion, Aquino limited himself by shunning the “Hebrew” Satanic frame, and consequently, missed out on a lot of the good stuff.

Aquino never really explored the 72 demons of the Goetia. Neither did LaVey. It’s pretty appalling that Aquino declared that the Satanic framework had reached its limits without even so much due diligence. As a student of Crowley, Aquino had every reason to be aware of the Goetia, but he chose to mostly ignore it.

Partly because Aquino barely seems to have explored Jewish demonology, he displays pretty much no knowledge of the Satanic Feminine (beyond being married to a lady called Lilith). Here again we differ. The feminine, non-binary, and gender-monstrous aspects of demonology are things that Church of the Morningstar places a huge emphasis on. The imagery and legends surrounding Na’amah, Eisheth Zenunim, Agrat bat Mahlat, and others are rich in atmosphere and meaning. So is the legend of the castrated Samael, who couples with Lilith the Elder by means of her “blind serpent” Tanin’iver. These legends are a few hundred years old—not as ancient as they pretend to be, but certainly predating any whisper of post-modern gender theory—and still they reveal post-gender beings engaged in sexual dynamics that explode heteronormativity. Is this really “limited?” I doubt it; I do however imagine that if Aquino had read enough to stumble across these tales, he might have found them to be beyond his limits.

Relatedly, Aquino completely ignored the Klipot. This failure to develop a Kabbalah of the left-hand path was probably his greatest mistake. The Tree of Klipot is a detailed road map for left-handed initiation; to deprive oneself of such a useful framework seems foolish. Aquino also denied himself and his Temple the benefit of Kabbalistic methods of exegesis: PARDES, gematria, notarikon, and other inspired and gnostic ways of reading and thinking. It’s ironic and a bit appalling that Aquino makes so much of “black flame” as a symbol of enlightenment, while remaining ostensibly ignorant of the Kabbalistic meaning of “black fire”—the words describe the appearance of Hebrew script, truly a dark fire that illuminates!

Even the idea of “left-handedness” in a spiritual sense is Kabbalistic in origin. Aquino repeats the familiar misconception that the phrase came to the West from Tantrism[13], but Kabbalists had been writing about the “left emanation” and the “left side” for a few centuries before Blavatsky mistranslated “vamachara.” You can bet that Blavatsky knew it, too. Furthermore, the Kabbalistic sense of leftness has far more in common with the Western understanding of the left-hand path than the Tantric sense (although that has been, in some ways, incorporated).

Aquino’s one significant dalliance with demonic lore—The Diabolicon—is one of his most interesting texts, but at the same time it reveals his ignorance of demonology. Attributing logic and science to Asmodeus[14], for instance, is consistent with a single brief glance at the Goetia (perhaps Aquino cracked it after all!), but absolutely ignores the wealth of more complicated lore around Asmoday as a demon of wrath, lust and extreme jealousy. Astaroth as the patron of the arts makes even less sense[15], given that almost all sources associate him most strongly with war.

While Aquino’s reasons for considering Satanism “limiting” most probably had to do with his intellectual antisemitism, Satan does in fact transcend even the very broad “limits” of Jewish thought. In fact, Satan has grown beyond the boundaries of all three Abrahamic faiths, even past the boundaries of religiosity itself, stretching his dark wings to cast a shadow over philosophy, poetry, literature, music, art, film and television.

 

Satan: God of Now

No deity is more timeless than Satan. He is comfortable in every age. He fits in just as well at the beginning of time as he does at a rock concert, or in the corner of a dive bar. He is alive and well in popular culture and folklore—more than ever, in fact! He is constantly evoked in idioms: speak of the Devil and he will appear. Whether or not we believe in him literally, we all think of Satan as someone who knows us, who sees into our hearts and minds, who understands even our most taboo thoughts and longings. He seems to always be lurking nearby, whispering in our ears, leading us into temptation, inviting us on dangerous adventures. He is more widely feared, and more widely intriguing, than any other deity. He holds the wilderness in one hand and the Promethean light of science in the other. He’s both Dionysian and Apollonian, embodying the madness of forbidden magick and the merciless blaze of logic at once. He’s pointed, incisive, relevant, unpretentious—both mysterious and disquietingly familiar. A fallen angel, a great beast, a man at the crossroads. He knows us, and we know him. And far from being the God of a long dead faith, his religion is newborn. The Devil is yet to have his due, and his moment is just beginning.

Furthermore, Satan is unique as a god-form in that he exists entirely outside the “legitimate” structures of divinity, yet is still considered dangerous and effective. Enki, for all his wonderful qualities, works within the system: he is one of the Annunaki. Prometheus, on the other hand, is a Titan, not part of the Olympian system—however, he is also bound and neutralized. Heracles eventually frees him, but this does not lead to a revolution. Set, as I remarked before, is more pretender than rebel. Loki lacks solidarity with humanity.

Lucifer alone represents a truly insurrectionary force that defied the dominant power. As Saul D. Alinsky put it, he is “the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom.”[16] This allows for Satanists to develop an “underdog cosmology” wherein the forces of tyranny have gained a temporary hold on the universe, and the practitioner chooses to align with the embattled forces of freedom and equality, represented by the fallen angels. This underdog cosmology is appealing because it reflects the present state of earthly affairs—as above, so below. This cosmology grants no reassurances, it does not tell us that there is a just plan already in place or that all this turmoil is mere illusion. It leaves no space for complacency, asserting instead that the conflict we see is mirrored by unseen battles, and that in all of this, we are involved.

Meanwhile, the Temple of Set, and many other Satanisms, have turned Satan/Set into the only real force of the universe, denying the metaphysical reality of the forces against which Satan traditionally rebels. This is usually an attempt to avoid seeming “Christian” by affirming the existence of Christ and the Demiurge. Personally, I don’t feel that believing in the existence of Jehovah or Christ is inherently Christian at all. Jews believe in one, Muslims believe in both, and neither are “Christian,” because the absolute minimum requirement of Christianity is accepting Christ as savior. Neither can Satanism be called “Abrahamic” since that term refers to being covered by the covenant with Abraham. Mythologically speaking, the Satanic current splits off with the line of Eve through Cain.

Satanisms like mine are sometimes called “ditheistic” and “dualist.” I don’t have a problem with that, except that I think there are a lot more than two forces in contention in this universe.  But when I look at the state of the world, it makes a lot of sense to me to assume that a God of oppression is in power.

It should be obvious from this that I do not think that “might makes right.” “Might makes right” is part of Milton’s argument on behalf of God! Satan lost the war of force; now he strikes from the shadows with guerilla guile. He is the underdog at present, and I feel no shame in admitting it. The need to think of Satan as the dominant force in the universe is facilitated by a commitment to “might makes right” ideology, an attraction to social Darwinism, and the “just universe” fallacy. I lack all three of those ideological commitments.

On to another point—I am not a big fan of “aeons.” I think it’s a silly Theosophical/Anthroposophical concept with a strong connection to racial theories. Crowley and Aquino employed the idea in a more harmless way—Aquino’s was so harmless as to become virtually meaningless, as when he decided that multiple Aeons could exist simultaneously!—but far-right Satanic groups such as the Order of Nine Angles have taken up the idea of aeons and restored its Aryanist connotations. The idea of aeons as predestined and inevitable is incompatible with my vision of a free, chaotic universe. The thought of aeons as something a magician can generate by the uttering of a word seems watered down to me. I don’t have much use for either interpretation.

This brings us, of course, to this idea of a “word.” I am not sure I have one, or if I want to have one. I don’t really want to have just one of anything; there are too many choices. My word could be “freedom,” which is too vague, or it could be “apotheosis” which is too clunky.

If I had to choose a word that says as much as any one word can say—though still not everything—that word would be “PANDEMONIUM.”

PAN= ALL.

DEMON= From the Greek for a minor God, a familiar spirit. Connotations of fallen angels, of rebellion against the Demiurge.

PANDEMONIUM= All demons. All gods, no capital-g. Chaos in the sense of freedom, a state of anarchism. The city of Hell, a community we seek to establish on Earth, much the way some Christians have longed to establish the city of God. PANDEMONIUM is a call to collective divinity, collective liberation, and the goal of earthly anarchism. PANDEMONIUM rejects order, predestination, big Gods and a Hermetic, clockwork universe. Call this my word if you must, but PANDEMONIUM necessarily implies many voices, many words.

A final, most important point: Church of the Morningstar is, currently, apocalyptic. We stand at a unique moment in history when the impending doom has become an empirically verified fact. Other apocalyptic faiths that came before lacked this type of verification, and also looked forward to the End. We plan to resist and halt it, if we can. We are pro-cosmic, pro-flesh, pro-matter, and this-worldly. Gnostic hatred of the flesh, the body and this world has been adopted by some right-wing Satanists, such as Order of Nine Angles and Current 218, who take a far-right accelerationist attitude towards the apocalypse. I have nothing but contempt for these fools, who are engaged in the same project as the very worst fundamentalist Christians.

Satan is the God of this World. We value it, cherish it, and intend to fight for it. Morningstar Satanism should not, however, remain apocalyptic if the current crisis is somehow averted. Not for us that trap of Christianity. Nor do I believe that, should our goals be accomplished, Satanism will lose vigor and relevance in the absence of something to fight against. Lucifer—anarchist, alchemist, bringer of light, patron of pleasure, angel of music and beacon of endless aspiration—will always have more to give.

Conclusion

This has been a brief summary of how I see the Morningstar current, in comparison and contrast with other Satanisms and particularly the Setian current. I could expand upon any of the points I have made so far ad infinitum. All of this is subject to revision. I do not pretend that every member of CotMS adheres to every single point of dogma that I have laid out. Indeed, we have no official dogma. Many Morningstars are devoted to demons and deities other than Lucifer, and bring in additional currents that I have barely discussed. What binds us together is our focus on collective liberation from divine and earthly tyranny, our quests for self-deification, and a multiply theistic cosmology that provides maximal latitude for free will.

 

[1] Ruben Van Luijk, Children of Lucifer: The Origins of Modern Religious Satanism (Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 69-108.

[2] Van Luijk 116-120.

[3] Van Luijk 151-171.

[4] Anton LaVey, The Devil’s Notebook (Port Townsend, WA: Feral House, 1992), 130-138.

[5] Michael Aquino, The Book of Coming Forth by Night (Temple of Set, 1975), 5.

[6] Michael Aquino, Black Magic (Temple of Set, 1997), 62.

[7] Originally it was “I know you, Hermes,” etc.

[8] “Each Priest and Priestess of Set is a Temple of Set; a psyche so purified, educated, consecrated, and initiated, that is has become a fit medium for the Prince of Darkness.” Black Magic, 25.

[9] Black Magic, 45.

[10] I admit I haven’t given much theological thought to whether animals might be divine as well, except with regard to my late cat Wednesday, who I shamelessly worship as an ascended being. Clearly I am at least willing to entertain the idea of animal apotheosis as well.

[11] Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism (London: Penguin Books, 2001).

[12] Van Luijk, 369.

[13] Black Magic, 20.

[14] Michael Aquino, The Diabolicon (1970), 15.

[15] Diabolicon, 16.

[16] Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1989), xi.