It’s time for a little post about how I see the universe.

I think monotheism is a pretty, foolish lie that people like to tell themselves. I mean no offense to monotheists, and respectfully ask that any who are reading this tolerate my critique in the same spirit that I have learned to bear critiques of polytheism. It is widely said that polytheism is primitive and immature, an outdated mode of religion. This is my rebuttal.

I have seen and felt plenty of evidence of the spiritual nature of things, although it never tends to be evidence that one can reproduce under laboratory conditions. The spiritual resists empirical observation. However, I have never seen any evidence whatsoever that the universe is a fundamentally just place organised by a single supreme intelligence. Quite the reverse, in fact. The universe, as can be quite clearly observed, is made up of a multitude of entities and forces which are sometimes in cooperation, sometimes in collision, but most of the time perfectly indifferent to one another. It is individuation, not unity, which is the law of nature.

As above, so below– so say the Hermetics. On earth, we see the continuous conflict between the forces of repression and the forces of liberty,  between those of good and evil, of entropy and regeneration. I could list any number of other binaries, but to do so would be misleading because, in fact, these collisions are not always between two factors, but more often between three, four, or any number greater.

To believe that all of these seemingly random, chaotic and disparate forces are organised by the supreme will of one benevolent, omnipotent God is comforting, because that would mean that the universe is just, instead of random. But it also would fundamentally mean an unfree universe. Many a theologian has striven to reconcile the tension between an omnipotent God and human free will, just as they have tried to balance a benevolent God with the existence of evil. None of their arguments have ever been convincing to me. It seems a lot of work to demonstrate a conclusion which Occam’s razor will only shred to ribbons.

The belief in a just universe is not merely illogical, it can also lead to profoundly toxic effects. Recently, a wise demon (by the name of Agrat Bat Mahlat) whispered in my ear that I had learned to hate myself because I had suffered. It was easier to believe that I deserved it, to assign myself the role of a loathsome being worthy of only pain, than to except the premise of a random and unjust cosmos. But as a Satanist, I had already accepted that justice, like meaning, is what we make for ourselves– and that the lion’s share of the power is currently held in heaven by the God of tyranny, just as it is held by tyrants on earth. As above, so below.

When Agrat spoke this to me, I realized that my self-hatred was a relic of the worldview I had already rejected, one of deserved retribution and original sin. And it freed me to accept that I had been many times wronged– not by some single great cosmic force, but mainly by human beings acting quite independently. I was healed more in the instant of this revelation than I had been by years of therapy.

The belief in one God’s all-conquering will can also lead to deplorable passivity. What use is it to strive, to fight, to achieve anything, if all is governed by God’s ineffable plan? Under such conditions we are completely impotent. We really might as well all be sheep. All human activities save the pursuit of salvation would be completely worthless– in fact, in the opinion of the Calvinists, even this would be in vain.

(Of course I understand that many people do actually believe exactly what I have just laid out. If you are content with that worldview, there is really nothing I can say to you. It must of course seem similarly insane to you that I would rather risk eternal fire than submit to such a repulsive cosmic order. Let us agree to disagree.)

A chaotic universe is not as frightening as it sounds. “Chaotic” does not necessarily imply “hostile” or “evil” or “devoid of meaning.” It does imply randomness, and uncertainty, but we ought to be used to those things in life. It also implies freedom– and for those of us brought up to believe in one God, one supreme will that overrides all others, chaos is the essence of hope itself.

One might say that monotheists have traded liberty for security. In my view, this is the opposite of a mature action.

To be a polytheist is to affirm the possibility of multiple powers– and in the same breath, perhaps even one’s own power. Certainly this is true for my stripe of polytheistic Satanism! Our most important divinities must always be our selves. Indeed, we principally revere and love Lucifer because it was he who first whispered to us this fact, who offered us the apple with the words “Thou shalt be as God, knowing good and evil.” He set our divinity free, made us rogue agents in what had been, moments before, an arbitrarily ordered cosmos. With this, he upset God’s scheme, and permanently undermined the divine dictatorship.

Or at least, so goes the story. I do not believe it to be literally true, but it is a parable that beautifully illustrates a truth nonetheless. We are meant to be free, and freedom begins with the assertion of one’s own will, and the deployment of one’s own power to determine right from wrong.

So we strive, day by day, to become as God, and to know good and evil. We determine our own actions, and consult our own consciences. (As a side note, this is why I think it is foolish to ever have any list of Satanic “commandments.” Ethics are too important and too situational for rules of thumb to neatly apply, and we ought to have the sense not to need them.)

But as a polytheist, I accept that I am not the only god. Thou art god, and thou art god, and yes, even thou. Each and every one of us is a free agent and a sovereign soul, masters of our fates, gods unto ourselves. This is what it means to be human. No one among us can claim a greater share of divinity than any other. Some of us have merely worked harder towards the goal of self-realization, and this is no foundation for any type of smugness or superiority, since such traits are not attributes of divine perfection. Anyone who cherishes these thus immediately disproves their premise.

And I do not believe only in human gods. Every polytheist pantheon has gods to represent the most powerful forces in life– gods of rain, and wind, and fire, and death, and war, and love. It makes complete sense to me to personify the forces I see at work in the world.

For example, when I stood and gazed upon Kilauea, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Pele was real, even though I am not Hawaiian and do not practice that religion. I was only a visitor, but I was utterly convinced of her reality. I could see her, I was looking right at her and her works.

In the same way, I know the God of Tyranny and repression is real. His priests are everywhere. And I know the Devil is real, and I adore him, because I know that curiosity, knowledge, rebellion, justice, and pleasure are real and good. I see him in the fire and lightning, hear him in rock n roll, feel him whenever I fuck. He is looking over my shoulder whenever I read. In the culture in which I was raised, he is the god of life, of passion, of vitality, of music and dance and sex and laughter, of all things physical and satisfying. He is the Lord of This World, and not called so for nothing. And he is the Lightbringer, the beacon of wisdom, of learning, of justice and defiance. This means he is not merely a god of the physical, but of the most profoundly spiritual– the great teacher of good and evil, the revealer of occult secrets, the initiator on the perilous path of apotheosis, and the scourge of cosmic justice.

And alongside him stand legions of the fallen, demons who preside each over their own special areas of expertise, who have their own attributes, personalities, and agendas– demons who, in short, like all other gods, embody forces that are perfectly real and manifest in the physical realm.

Eisheth, the End of All Flesh, the mother of holy death, Our Lady of the Guillotine, Mystery Babylon clad in purple or in flame and wielding the poisoned sword of painful truth. Lilith, who would not lie below, adopter of stillbirths and abortions, patroness of divorce, fierce androgyne and craver of equality. Naamah, beautiful beyond words, who presides over divination, prostitution, and the forging of metals for adornment or weaponry. Agrat, daughter of illusion, weaver and dispeller of artifice, dancer on rooftops, young laughing Agrat, bred from the union of Lilith with Naamah. King Paimon, with his camel and his crown and his noisy caravan, teacher and traveler, with a face so beautiful it was said to be a woman’s. I name here only a few. There are seventy-two demons in the Goetia, and many more that Solomon never bagged!

And shall we neglect to honor Eve, liberator of all? What of her son, Cain– first criminal, but also, first magician?

Why not go further? Worship rock gods, worship great poets and writers and artists, worship revolutionaries! Raise up and deify your heroes! Build shrines to your ancestors and beloved dead! Let joyous idolatry infuse your every moment!

How much more beautiful, how much more profound, to have many gods than one whose name is “Jealous!” And how much better a free universe, teeming with deities, than one of monotheism and predestination!

Here endeth the sermon. Go forth in idolatry! Thou art god!