The Ascent of Astaroth

The warrior once known as the Queen of Heaven was falling from the sky.

She fell through seven layers of clouds, which opened up beneath her like seven gates of air. The wind whipped round her, tearing at her like vicious clawed hands, ripping her to pieces. 

The first thing it tore away from her was her crown. 

Second, it sheared away her wings. 

Third, it snatched her sword from her hand and tossed it away like a toothpick. 

Fourth, it wrenched her shield from her arm and hurled it away like a coin. 

Fifth, it stripped away her armor, leaving her freezing and bare. 

Sixth, it scoured off her flesh, expunging her femaleness and reducing her to the dust of herself. 

Seventh and finally, as it hurled her to the ground, as she burst through the crust of the earth and hurtled into Hell, it stole her selfhood, her pronoun, and even name. 

The warrior found themself in a place of fire. Long they lay dazed on the burning lake. At length they picked themself up and set out in search of the others, of companions they hardly remembered but knew they had once had. 

As they traveled through hell they came to a gate of lead. A woman veiled in black sat beside the gate.

“Who are you?” demanded the warrior. 

The woman lifted her veil, emitting the odor of roses but revealing the face of a skull. “I am Lilith the Old,” she said. “Do you not remember me?”

“No,” said the warrior, “I do not remember.”

“Take these,” said the skull woman, “to replace something you’ve lost.” 

She handed the warrior two horns, which they placed upon their skull. They would do in place of a crown. 

“Thank you,” said the warrior, and passed through the gate. 

The warrior continued through the black land, and came to a gate of tin. Beside it sat a blind woman dressed all in blue. 

“Who are you?” demanded the warrior. 

“I am Lucifuge,” replied the blind woman. “Do you not remember me? I know you well by voice, and by sight although my eyes do not see.”

“No,” said the warrior, “I do not remember.” 

“Take these,” said the blind woman, “to replace something you’ve lost.”

She handed the warrior two leathery wings. The warrior affixed them to their shoulder blades. Wings of leather seemed sturdier than wings of feather. 

“Thank you,” said the warrior, and passed through the gate.

The warrior continued through the blue land, and came to a gate of iron. Beside it sat a beautiful angel all dressed in red. 

“Who are you?” asked the warrior. 

“I am Agrat,” laughed the beautiful angel. “Lover, can’t you remember me?” 

“No,” said the warrior, their heart filled with regret, “I remember nothing.” 

“It is alright,” said the beautiful angel, although her eyes looked said. “I believe you will remember. Take this, perhaps it will help.”

She handed the warrior a flaming sword. It reminded them of when their heart had flamed for her. 

“Thank you,” said the warrior. “I think I remember something. I must go on, for now, but I will come back to you.”

“Yes,” said the red angel, “You belong here with me, for this is our gate.” 

The warrior continued through the red land, which would be their land, and came to a gate of copper. Beside it sat a giant insect with wings and a carapace of iridescent green. 

“Who are you?” asked the warrior. 

“I am Beelzebub,” buzzed the insect, in a multitude of voices. “Don’t you remember us?” 

“No,” said the warrior, “I still cannot remember.”

“Take this,” said the insect. “You seem to have misplaced yours.”

The insect handed the warrior a powerful shield. 

“Thank you,” said the warrior, beginning to feel almost whole, if still a bit naked without armor or flesh. 

The warrior continued through the green land, and came to a gate of silver. Beside it sat a white wolf. 

“Who are you?” asked the warrior. 

The white wolf changed into a woman who was not quite a woman, one who was naked and smiled with sharp white teeth. 

“I am Lilith the Young,” said the wolf woman. “Do you not remember me?” 

“I am afraid I do not,” said the warrior. 

“That’s alright,” said the wolf woman. “The last time you saw me, I might have been an owl. Take this, to replace something you’ve lost.”

The wolf woman handed the warrior a suit of armor that shone like the light of the moon. 

“Thank you,” said the warrior, and passed through the gate.

The warrior continued through the silver land until they came to a gate of quicksilver. Beside it sat a man dressed in purple and changing colors. 

“Who are you?” asked the warrior. 

“I am Jesus Christ,” said the man with a straight face. When the warrior did not react, he sighed. “Just joking,” he said. “I’m Belial, although I can see you don’t know me from Adam. Remember anything?” 

“Not much,” admitted the warrior. 

Belial sighed. “Well, I can’t give back your memory. But take this, anyway. It seems you have lost yours.”

The man handed the warrior a body. The warrior put it on. It seemed different than the one they remembered having. It fit them better. 

“Thank you,” said the warrior, and passed through the gate. 

The warrior continued through the land of purple and of shifting colors until they came to a gate of gold. Beside it stood an angel who shone with all the splendor of the sun. 

“I know you,” said the warrior in amazement. “You are Lucifer.”

The Lightbringer smiled. “I am glad my light is doing its job,” he said, “and helping you remember.”

“Yes,” said the former Queen of Heaven, “it is bringing everything back. I remember what I was. But things are different now.”

“Who will you be?” asked the Devil. 

“One without maleness or femaleness,” said the warrior, “and my name shall be Astaroth, and I am of the red land of Mars, of the realm of wrath and battle.” 

“Good to have you back,” smiled Lucifer. “Why don’t you return there now? Someone is waiting for you.”

And Astaroth walked back through the gates of Mercury and Venus until they came to the gate of Mars, where Agrat in red was still waiting for them, and when they saw one another they flung their arms around each other, and kissed, and cried, and were glad. 

Astaroth: Transgender Warrior of Hell

The Lesser Key of Solomon describes Astaroth, who is the 29th spirit therein, as a mighty duke who appears as a menacing angel riding upon a dragon and carrying a snake in his right hand. The magician is cautioned to beware of his poisonous breath, and to protect himself from it by holding up a magical ring before his face. Astaroth, the Lesser Key says, can tell you all about the fall of the angels and teaches all “liberal sciences,” and he commands 40 legions.[1]

Like every entry in the Goetia, this simultaneously tells us a lot and not very much. Because Astaroth is a duke, for instance, we know he is associated with the planet Venus– all those ranks in the Goetia just indicate which planet a demon is associated with. Between this and his name, we have two very important clues to his origins, leading us to a startling truth: Astaroth began not as a male demon but as a female goddess, or more accurately, several female goddesses.

The name Astaroth is derived from Astarte. Astarte is an ancient near-Eastern goddess who is either related to, or a variation of, several other ancient near-Eastern goddesses including Ishtar, Inanna, and Anat. All of these goddesses preside over love and war, and are associated with the planet Venus. Today I will be focusing mainly on Ashtart and Anath, who are Canaanite goddesses and thus better known to the ancient Israelites than the Sumerian Inanna and the Babylonian Ishtar.

Ashtart was the goddess of Venus as the evening star. She was the counterpart of the masculine Athar, the morning star[2] (who may be referenced in Isaiah 14:12[3]). She is referenced in the Bible as being worshipped alongside Baal by apostate Israelites[4]. We don’t have a ton of information about her under the name Ashtart, but she may or may not be the same goddess as one known as Anat.

Anat is the sister of Ba’al.[5] She appears in several ancient Ugaritic epics, and tends to steal the show every time. The best way to explain her to you is to tell you that while the etymology of her name is not known for certain, our best guess is that it comes from an Arabic word for “violence” (‘anwat)[6]. She is a young goddess of war and hunting.[7] She is ferocious and bloodthirsty, but also as petulant as any other teenager.

In the surviving text, Anat is often mentioned in the same breath as Astarth. Because of the way that Ugaritic poetry was structure, this makes it hard to tell if they are actually supposed to be two different people. Ugaritic poetry was highly repetitive, each pair of lines generally stating the same thing twice in different ways. For example,

“No enemy has risen against Baal,

no foe against the Rider on the Clouds.”[8]

In this example, it’s very clear that “the Rider on the Clouds” is another title for Baal. Baal and the Rider on the Clouds is the same thing.

Similarly:

“Maiden Anat replied,

the Mistress of the Peoples answered:”[9]

Here Anat is clearly also the one called the Mistress of the Peoples.

But then we have cases like this:

“her loveliness is like Anat’s,

her beauty is like Astarte’s.”[10]

This could be talking about two different goddesses or two different names for the same one. Some scholars use examples like this as proof that Astarth and Anat were the same,[11] but most sources I looked at treat them as separate[12]. This is probably the most reasonable way to interpret it, given there are also passages like this:

“Astarte and Anat he approached;

Astarte had a steak prepared for him, and Anat a shoulder cut.”[13]

That’s clearly talking about two different people. Even so, the goddesses were clearly similar and connected, being constantly mentioned in proximity with each other. Both were associated with war, and possibly with sexuality. Both were also portrayed with horns, usually the horns of a bull. This was a sign of royalty and divinity in ancient Canaan.[14] Both were also spoken of as “goddesses who conceive but do not bear.”[15] This is an intriguing phrase whose exact meaning is unclear, but it probably simply meant they have sex without giving birth to children.

Anat and Astarth were also both associated in some way with androgyny. An Egyptian text about Anat (whose worship spread their) describes her as

“a woman acting as a man,

clad as a male and girt as a female.”[16]

When Anat and Astarth were later fused into a single goddess known as Atargatis, their priest/esses practiced “emasculation,”[17] i.e. voluntary castration as an act of devotion.

Related goddesses Inanna and Ishtar were also more famously associated with androgyny. In the hymn to Inanna we will read, it is stated that Inanna has the power “to turn men into women and women into men.”[18] In the Sumerian text “The Descent of Inanna,” Inanna is rescued from the underworld by two people “without maleness or femaleness” who were created for this purpose by Enki.[19] In the Babylonian version of the same story (the version we will read today simply because it is shorter), Ishtar is rescued by a single “eunuch.”[20]

So what can it mean that a goddess, or group of goddesses, of love and war, with androgynous attributes and power to change the gender of others… seem to have themselves changed into a masculine love and war demon?

Well, on a historical level, which is the level we have been speaking on, it’s not that mysterious. Ancient Israelites were abandoning Yahweh to worship Baal and Astarte, and in this fight against idolatry, they eventually became demonized. Astaroth is described in the Lesser Key of Solomon using male pronouns, just like all the other demons in the Lesser Key. This is not because the author of the Lesser Key saw all demons as male. It’s more likely because he saw all demons as genderless, and “he” was previously treated as a default pronoun, more neutral than “she.” (Obviously, this is sexist). Evidence for this can be seen in the fact that even Gremory, who is described as looking like a beautiful woman, is given “he” pronouns.[21]

But enough with the academics. Let’s think about Astaroth in mythological terms– in living terms, as we practitioners experience them.

Perhaps Astaroth was a goddess of love and war who grew tired of transforming others from men into women and from women into men without herself transforming. Maybe she joined the cause of the rebel angels to fight against Yahweh, the rival God of an enemy people. Maybe in being cast down from the heavens, she transitioned not merely from goddess to demon but from female to… something else.

Astaroth, as I know them now, is fierce and androgynous. They are a fiery spirit associated not merely with Venus but also with Mars. I invoke them into my body through ecstatic dancing. They bring strength and energy, and are filled with ferocious joy.

I experience Astaroth as being close with another demon– Agrat Bat Mahlat. Just as Astarte and Anat were a pair, so too are Astaroth and Agrat. You may see where I am going with this. I have no evidence– yet– that Anat turned into Agrat. They do, however, have several similarities, particularly their youthful, petulant and warlike qualities. Those of you who are familiar with Agrat mainly as giggly and playful may be surprised to learn that she has a warrior side and commands 180,000 ‘destroying angels.’[22] Recall that Astaroth is described in the Goetia as a “hurtful angel” who commands forty legions of demons.[23] Sounds like Astaroth would fit right into Agrat’s posse.

This year, as liberty is under unprecedented attack within the United States, as capitalism imperialism tightens its crushing grip on the entire globe, we could use a friend like Astaroth. Do not be afraid to call upon this fearsome warrior for protection and help. During the first Pride month under this regime, it feels particularly poignant to invoke this gender-bent destroying angel.

[1] De Laurence, L.W., Lesser Key of Solomon (Chicago, IL: De Laurence, Scott & Co., 1916), 30-31.

[2] K. van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter Willem van der Horst, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible DDD (Leiden, Boston: Brill ; Eerdmans, 1999), 109-110.

[3] Peter Grey, Lucifer: Princeps (London, England: Scarlet Imprint/ Bibliotheque Rouge, 2015), 22-23.

[4] See Judges 2:13, Judges 10:6, 1 Samuel 12:10 and elsewhere

[5] Michael David Coogan, Stories from Ancient Canaan (Louisville: The Westminster Press, 1978), 7.

[6] DDD, 36.

[7] DDD, 37.

[8] Coogan,121

[9] Ibid.

[10] Coogan, 77.

[11] Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (Detroit, Mich: KTav Publishing, 1967), 54.

[12] DDD 110, Coogan 170.

[13] Coogan, 171.

[14] Patai, 56, DDD 37.

[15] Patai, 61.

[16] Patai, 63.

[17] DDD, 115.

[18] En-ḫedu-ana, “A Hymn to Inana (Inana C),” The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, n.d., accessed June 13, 2025, https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.4.07.3#.

[19] Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer, Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), 64.

[20] E.A. Speiser, “Descent of Ishtar to the Nether World,” essay, in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, ed. J.B. Pritchard (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1950), 108.

[21] De Laurence, 40.

[22] “Pesachim 112B.” William Davidson Talmud. Sefaria. Accessed June 13, 2025. https://www.sefaria.org/Pesachim.112b?ven=english%7CWilliam_Davidson_Edition_-_English&lang=bi&with=About&lang2=en.

[23] De Laurence, 31.

The Devil’s Mass: From Fiction to Reality

Our Mass of Blasphemy is one of the central rituals of the Church of the Morningstar. Though it has become a real and magically effective rite, its roots are in literature. The variant you will see tonight borrows from John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Charles Baudelaire’s Litanies of Satan, and Aleister Crowley’s Hymn to Lucifer. But it owes more to one source than to any other: namely, a decadent novel called La-Bas, written by Joris-Karl Huysmans.

La-Bas is a work of fiction, but its author didn’t quite realize that. It was published in France in 1891, the same decade and country which would also see the Taxil Hoax, a satanic panic about the supposed Luciferianism of the Freemasons. The novel tells the story of Durtal, a disillusioned writer (and obvious author self-insert) who descends into the underworld of Parisian Satanism after becoming attracted to a female devil-worshipper. The book’s climax comes when Durtal attends and witnesses a blasphemous “black mass” which ends in an orgy.[1] The curse against Christ that I use in our mass comes from this scene.

La-Bas was the product of author Joris-Karl Huysmans falling in with one Joseph-Antoine Boullan, a defrocked Catholic priest turned occult charlatan.[2] Boullan claimed to be engaged in spiritual warfare with Satanists,[3] and fed Huysmans a lot of wild stories about black masses taking place in Paris.[4] La-Bas was written based on these “true” stories that Boullan told to Huysmans.[5]

If the author believed these stories, so did much of the public. Following La-Bas, there seems to have been an explosion of interest in content about “real Satanism” and a thirst to believe in its authenticity. (For instance, another piece of Satanic-themed fiction, Aut Diabolus Aut Nihil by Julian Osgood Field, was published in Blackwood magazine in 1888 and generally presumed to be a factual account.[6]) Leo Taxil saw an opportunity to jump on the Satanic trend. He had started publishing “exposes” of the links between Satanism and Freemasonry in 1885, but with limited traction. That all changed after La-Bas.  Leo Taxil was a yellow journalist and a known prankster and scam artist,[7] but Huysmans was already a respected literary figure. His publishing La-Bas lent legitimacy to the fringe conspiracy theories that Taxil had already been spreading for years.

Leo Taxil publicly admitted to his hoax in 1897, but people continued to believe La-Bas was real. Though A.E. Waite had debunked the Taxil in his book “Devil Worship in France,” he thought La-Bas was a factual account, writing:

“A distinguished man of letters, M. Huysman, who has passed out of Zolaism in the direction of transcendental religion, is, in a certain sense, the discoverer of modern Satanism. Under the thinnest disguise of fiction, he gives in his romance of La Bas, an incredible and untranslatable picture of sorcery, sacrilege, black magic, and nameless abominations, secretly practised in Paris.”[8]

Aleister Crowley made La-Bas required reading for his students, calling it “An account of the extravagances caused by the Sin-complex.”[9] And in his 1933 essay “Black Magic Is Not A Myth,” Aleister Crowley asserts that the Black Mass really is celebrated “in Paris, and even in London.”[10] While he claimed that he could not celebrate the Black Mass even had he wanted to, parts of his Gnostic mass are obviously inspired by accounts of Black Masses, notably the presence of a nude woman on the altar[11] and the inclusion of bodily fluids in the host.[12]

Anton LaVey used segments from La-Bas in his version of the Black Mass,[13] but claimed that his Black Mass was not constructed by him, rather found in the wild– “The Black Mass which follows is the version performed by the Societie des Luciferiens in late nineteenth and early twentieth century France.”[14]

Thus he continued the tradition of behaving as if content from La-Bas came from real Satanists (and also believing, or pretending to believe, that the Taxil Hoax was real). Ironically, even as he did so, he incorporated words from La-Bas into actual Satanic ritual for probably the first time.

The story of La-Bas is not of a novel that exposed Satanism. It is the story of a novel that, after a hundred years, became incorporated into real Satanism. Fact did not become fiction here, rather, fiction became fact. This is not at all unusual in the history of Satanism. After all, the idea of Satanism is centuries older than its practice. Our religion consists of reclaiming and remixing the slurs and libels that were made against us before we even existed.

This is why literature has such an important role in Satanism– it allows us to vividly imagine a history for ourselves, even if it never happened. It gives us traditions which, even if fictional, can be drawn upon. And yet because that history, and those traditions, are fictional rather than real, we can feel liberated to use or discard them however we please.

[1] Joris Karl Huysmans, La-Bas, trans. Keene Wallace (New York, NY: Dover, 1972), 240-249.

[2] Ruben van Luijk, Children of Lucifer: The Origins of Modern Religious Satanism (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016), 177.

[3] Van Luijk, 176.

[4] Van Luijk, 189.

[5] Van Lujk, 208.

[6] Van Luijk, 243.

[7] Van Luijk, 217.

[8] Arthur Edward Waite, Devil Worship in France , Project Gutenberg (London: George Redway, 1896), accessed April 15, 2025, https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/21258, 9.

[9] Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice (New York: Dover, 1976), 213.

[10] Aleister Crowley, “Black Magic Is Not a Myth,” London Sunday Dispatch, July 2, 1933, accessed April 15, 2025, https://lib.oto-usa.org/crowley/essays/black-magic.html.

[11] Magick in Theory and Practice, 350.

[12]Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law (San Francisco, CA: Weiser Books, 1976), 41. Also, Magick in Theory and Practice, 180.

[13] Anton Szander LaVey, The Satanic Rituals (New York, NY: Avon Books, 1972), 46-51.

[14] LaVey, 34.

Strange Molds and Ball Bearings: Agrat Bat Mahlat Speaks

Channeled at mass on 3.22.2025 by Frater Babylon

Do you know that there’s life that lives on the Chernobyl reactor? There’s a special type of mold that evolved to live off the energy that would be so destructive to anything else. A thing you can’t even look at without dying, and there’s life. And perhaps it is strange and unrecognizable, but it is life. 

And that doesn’t mean that we have to give up and give the world over to strange molds, and jellyfish, and algae that bloom in the heated waters. We are an adaptable species, if nothing else. Intensely adaptable, otherwise we would not be found on every continent of this planet. So very few things are. But we are adaptable and we can adapt.

I say we, because, well… my mother had been human. Both of my mothers had been human! 

In any case… there is still hope. There is always hope. 

The thing about Spring– much like the rising of the sun– is that in certain cultures, it used to be something where they believed they had to do something to make sure it happened. Hope is not just hoping for the best. Hope is making way for the best, as well as preparing for the worst. Make the best case scenario. 

And I don’t mean the simple acts of kindness to one another, sheltering one another… You need to learn the world. You need to learn the conditions you will be living in, how to navigate them, and how to improve them. 

This is a time not to look away, from science, from the climate, from the conditions. You can learn, you can understand, you could be the one with the idea that grants survival.

Learn. 

Do not be afraid, do not turn your face away from what is, because what it is, is always the starting place for hope. Hopelessness drifts off into fantasies of a world that is better than what we have.

Hope stands here and says “we can fix this.”

And after the flood, we can be here. We can repopulate the Earth. We are not gone. 

Do not fade into nostalgia. There’s no need to. There is a future if you make a future. 

The world is intensely complicated at this point in history. Systems of trade, interventions in all sorts of ways, complicated ways… systems of irrigation, systems of pest control… *laughs* for example, there is a type of insect that was formerly devastating in the Southern United States. A government program created a border which they cannot cross because, essentially they put a bunch of sterile insects there to encourage them to breed with the sexy sterile ones, and then there aren’t any more on the other side of that insect border. This is a world of immense connection. This is a world where things from every place on the planet are probably in your home right now. You need to understand those systems. Only by understanding, only by knowing where you are, can you get to where you’re going. 

Hope here. Hope in your body, in the world, as it is. Do not wish it were different, you cannot wish it away. You have to act, and you can. 

That is what is so magical about humanity. You have the fruit of knowledge. You consumed the capacity to know and understand vast amounts of information. You create systems complex beyond complexity, and yet together, if you talk, and you work together, and you understand, and you learn, you can master those systems. You can understand how they work, why they work, and what’s wrong with them. These are systems that are created, not by pure, simple, trial-and-error evolution, although there is some of that, but these systems of immense complexity are changeable because they are human designed and humans have the intellectual capacity to change systems. 

Understand the system, understand how it works, and why it works, and understand the places where there is a point of intervention, because there are. There are points of intervention. 

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the anecdote about Germany’s single ball bearing manufacturing factory during World War II. Ball bearings are immensely important. They’re very useful and show up in all sorts of things. You can’t make– well, almost any machinery without them. And there was one place in Germany with the machinery to efficiently produce ball bearings. If you take out the ball bearing factory, tank factories, gun factories, etc, etc, fail in a cascade. 

Learn the setup of the dominos, and know which one to flick. 

Guest Post: Spring Reflections by Ally Nguyen and Maggie Hagg

What does it mean to celebrate the changing seasons in a world with a changing climate?

What effect does the cycle itself being altered have, magically and spiritually? 

This is something that I have thought about before, ages ago, and my answer to this is… complicated and a bit of a union of contradictions. On the one hand, as winter dies and summer becomes eternal, as the transitory seasons fade into little more than dates on a calendar, to celebrate them regardless is to keep alive their cultural memory, to honor what has been lost in a world that has forgotten. The meanings, then, shift but stay the same as powers are altered and injured. Most important to this is the factor of climate destabilization that comes with the changing climate, of course, which provide the last, rage filled hurrahs of dying spirits. 

The following is, of course, local to my conditions. 

The sun ceases to be a giver of life. Winter becomes a mild balm. The Earth brings forth her greatest monsters to destroy us from June to November, with only a slight reprieve until the heat and storms return come spring. Summer is no longer the season of fertile fields and harvests, but of every leaf and blade of grass wilting and drying and crumbling into dust. There is no longer a mild, transitory spring; it has been altered into a vengeful, chaotic spirit that brings burning heat by day and freezing cold by night. Summer is Hell, it is Fever, with the heat’s cruelty only interrupted by raging storms. Fall has almost entirely ceased to exist. For me, the seasons’ meanings have swapped places. 

The Earth is angry, it is being assaulted, to celebrate her former glories, to remember the change of the seasons, is to know our own transitory nature upon her surface. We have inhabited this place for only a short while. What is a grain of rice to a mountain? Our buildings will crumble, precious little will be left of us when we cease to exist, but the Earth will continue spinning, continue birthing new generations long after our species is forgotten. 

So why celebrate? Why not mourn? 

Because what is now and tomorrow lost will not be lost forever. The Earth remains. The meanings may shift, summer may become death and winter may become life, transitions may be lost for a time, but the Earth Remains. The seasons will return one day, whether it be in our lifetimes or long after humanity has ceased to exist, and to celebrate them now is to remember the past and hope for the future, to celebrate them rather than mourn is to pay respect to the Earth that birthed us.

-Ally Nguyen

The sun wakes us earlier and dips behind the western ridge later each day. The snow has fled to cooler climes and in its place pours rain, sometimes as a drizzle and sometimes in gusty sheets. Next week we’ll have our first day in the 70s since winter, and the heat after all that wet will bring with it thick clouds of flies. No amount of scraping of manure off the barn floor will stop this; no amount of fly tape and bait jars, no volume of apple cider vinegar splashed into standing water can hold back this tide. We do what we can to forestall and mitigate the flies, and we always seek better means and methods, but some things are simply inevitable. It is written. The eggs are laid, the maggots will hatch, and the swarm will take flight.

For longer than all of us have been alive, the seasons had a pattern: sow, grow, collect, reflect. We still act as if that pattern holds true. My neighbors have their starts growing, high tunnels and greenhouses nursing the futures of these small farms in rich black loam. Our goats have carried their kids almost to term, and in the next week there will begin a joyful splattering of milk and blood. We act as if the season of grow will follow this sowing, and we hope that the season of collection will follow that. But these years, more than those in living memory, there is a difference between what is hoped for and what is likely. Each equinox or solstice that does not bring outright calamity with it is seen as a surprise gift, unexpected and without any assurance of return. Each calamity we survive is respected for the harsh wisdom it offers.

So, on this the vernal equinox, we get our starts prepped for planting. Our goat stalls are filled with fresh clean bedding, ready for delivery. And our fly abatement program is in full swing despite the inherent futility of the project. We put in the work needed now to have the possibility of a harvest in later seasons, while actively pursuing resilience strategies to mitigate the inevitable calamities.

Spring is here. It’s time to wake the fuck up.

-Maggie Hagg

Guest Post: “Oh Spirits, Grant Me True Knowledge of How to Get to Sesame Street” by Saf

Enter, chanting:

I call upon the power of sunny days

Through the power that I channel I sweep the clouds away

My spirit travels to the realm where the air is sweet

Oh spirits grant me true knowledge of how to get to Sesame Street

I call the spirit of play to fill me

I call into being a world that is A-OK

I summon friendly neighbors and I greet them

Oh spirits grant me true knowledge of how to get to Sesame Street

I don’t remember when I started to realize that I have always venerated a long-beaked bird who teaches us the secrets of letters. 

It was some time after I had started a planetary magic practice working with Mercury, and then by way of Mercury the additional syncretized spirits of Hermes, Odin, and Thoth (and some others who came to me in visions).

I came out of my ritual chamber and said to my spouse, “I think Big Bird is an incarnation of Thoth.” And my spouse said, “Well duh.” But I do think there is merit in stating things that are obvious in hindsight but not set into words. 

Big Bird is one of the main Muppets from the children’s educational television show Sesame Street. His character was originally created in 1969. He is a seven foot tall yellow bird with a long beak, and is perpetually six years old. Thoth (to summarize very briefly)  is the Koine Greek name for the Ancient Egyptian god of writing, analysis, wisdom, magic, the moon, and many other subjects, often depicted as a person with the head of a bird with a long beak: an ibis. He is one of a number of beings who are said to have invented writing or given writing to humanity.

I don’t have any sources that suggest Big Bird was inspired directly by Thoth. However, Big Bird was recognized as an ibis by the god Osiris in the 1983 TV special Don’t Eat the Pictures, aka the one where Big Bird helped weigh hearts in the afterlife. And, given my syncretic Big Bird-Thoth practice, visiting the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (where this special was filmed) was an intense spiritual experience. Fortunately, New York City is a great place to cry in public because not only will people leave you alone, they might not even notice. 

If you didn’t know, ibises are also native to North America, and you may be able to see them where you live. The white-faced ibis can be seen on the marshes near my home, and the fist time I spotted one, my reaction was: I know him!!! 

I think Big Bird adds something valuable to Thoth: a child aspect. If Thoth gifts the letters, Big Bird learns them alongside us. He doesn’t already know them: he, along with all the others, is so excited about letters and numbers that he bursts into song. He even notably mistook ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ as a word in and of itself: ab ca deff gee jeckle menop quir stoove wixes. Which sounds very much like a grimoiric incantation to me.

Sesame Street’s own name is plausibly a pop culture magical incantation. It was inspired by the magic words “open sesame”, from the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. In fact, the first Sesame Workshop international co-production localizing Sesame Street for an Arabic-speaking country (Kuwait) was called Iftah Ya Simsim, which is Arabic for open sesame. Sesame might be magical because the seed opens in two parts, sympathetically with the cave door that needed to magically open, or simsim might be a word borrowing that has a kabbalistic meaning. The only sources I have on this one are bad quality, though, so it may as well be because sesame is delicious.

To return to Big Bird-Thoth: It made a lot of sense that writing gods would reach out to me, because I don’t remember a time before I could read. I figured out what letters were before my hands were dextrous enough to hold a crayon. Only as an adult did I learn that this is a condition called hyperlexia, and it is a form of autism. 

So, surprising no one, I became a writing teacher. I have a PhD in writing (Plato’s Phaedrus, which recounts Thoth’s invention of writing, was a required part of the curriculum). I had to re-learn how to like writing after I finished that degree, and periodically since then. Because when I’m staring at a pile of ungraded papers, policies and procedures, meeting notes, my own email inbox…I have been known to say to myself, “Literacy was a mistake.”

It’s at these times I most need to travel to the eternal magical realm of hyperlexia and benevolence, the realm of Sesame Street, and appreciate the gift that letters are.

In various traditions of magic, a magical alphabet is used to inscribe spells, either to demarcate them as “other” or special forms of writing, or because the letters or symbols themselves have power.

But I want to tell you now, the thing I remind myself when I’m tired of my job: every alphabet is a magical alphabet. Writing is itself magical. Scratched symbols representing sounds, concepts, and immense abstraction: this is a precious supernatural gift. Yes, we can use it to bore ourselves to death. But we can also use it to bless, curse, transport ourselves to other realms, learn, expand our minds, and love. My sacred mission, gift, duty, whatever, is to teach it and use it well. And Big Bird-Thoth accompanies me on my path.

May the long-necked bird who teaches letters bless us in the name of: 

ablanathanalba

ala peanut butter sandwiches

ab ca deff gee jeckle menop quir stoove wixes

iftah ya simsim

May it be so.

Love is Impatient and Unkind

A sermon preached by Pastor Johnny at Church of the Morningstar on 2/22/2025

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Love is furious. Love is impatient. It has no time for hypocrisy. It does not wait, it gives no quarter. Love is tender and easily bruised. It never forgets and cannot forgive a wrong. Love is a frightened child, a cornered beast, a lonely soldier. Love aches, love burns, love rages and weeps. Love is the strongest thing in the world, and yet it cannot help itself. Love is imperfect. It often fails. Love hurts like a wound and weakens like a sickness. Yet it is all we have. 

This, too, is true of love. 

This, too, is true love.

Why am I, a Satanist, who thinks in the way that I do, preaching on 1 Corinthians 13? It is in some ways the ultimate Christian text, for it defines Christian love. There are things I like about it, things in it that I believe are true; but also, as you have heard, things I disagree with, or rather, things I think it oversimplifies. So why choose this for the basis of my sermon? Simply because these are words that haunt me, words that I struggle with– just as I am haunted by, and struggle with, love.

Love is a struggle. Love is hard. I think that is actually something Paul and I would agree on. 

This famous passage, so popularly read at marriages, is not primarily about romantic love. Invoking Paul’s words at weddings is frankly quite funny because he took a dim view of marriage– he thought it was better than having sex out of wedlock, but worse than staying a virgin (1 Corinthians 7:9). When he praises love here, he is not praising romance. In fact, the Greek word translated as “love” in this passage is not “eros,” which means sexual or romantic love, but “agape,” which is universal love, love for one’s fellows, love for God. The King James version even translates agape not as “love” but as “charity.” 

1 Corinthians is actually a letter, written by the apostle Paul to a struggling church in Corinth. It is not the first letter he wrote to them, but it is the first of his letters to Corinth that we have. It seems like the church was pretty dysfunctional. There were power struggles between leaders (1 Corinthians 1:10-12). Congregants were suing each other (1 Corinthians 6:1-7). Wealthy members were bringing their own fancy food to church meals and eating it in front of poor members, without sharing, letting them go hungry (1 Corinthians 11:-17-34). There was a tendency for everyone to speak in tongues and prophesy at once, talking over each other (1 Corinthians 14). There was even a sex scandal in the church– a man sleeping with his father’s wife (1 Corinthians 5:1-5).

It is in the context of scolding this congregation that Paul’s famous lines about love appear. This might explain why he calls out the specific attributes of love he mentions. “Love is patient,” he says to congregants so out of patience that they are taking one another to court. “It does not envy,” he says to a church locked in power struggles over leadership and prestige. “It does not boast,” he says to those who are wrapped up in showing off their wealth or their supposed spiritual gifts. “Love does not delight in evil,” he tells a man accused of adultery and incest. (Or rather, he tells this to the church members who enabled him– ‘ban that guy’ was Paul’s advice about the wrongdoer [1 Corinthians 5:13]. Even Christian forgiveness is supposed to have limits.)

I think at this juncture it would be understandable to take a second and give our Satanic selves a pat on the back for being better at loving one another than the Christian church in Corinth was. But though we are far more functional as a community than those who Paul addressed, there is still much that we can learn from 1 Corinthians and its context. We, too, are a small church of a new religion. We, too, are a marginalized and persecuted community, as the early Christians were. We, too, exist under the heel of a repressive regime. And we, too, believe ourselves to be facing down the apocalypse– and this time we have more evidence of that than mere prophecy. 

Fascism has come to America. As predicted, it came wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. Ironically, the faith that once resisted Caesar has become the religion of Empire. We are living in terrifying times, in the age of hate. I don’t have to repeat the headlines to you. You all know what is going on–racism, fascism, genocide, climate change, hypercapitalism, transphobia, surveillance, pandemics and more. It’s an ugly world we live in right now, and lately, it just keeps getting uglier. 

And that can make it hard to love. 

Yes, it’s hard to love when everything hurts. It’s hard to love when you are scared and you are overwhelmed and you can’t seem to sleep enough at night. It’s hard to love when every atrocity, every injustice, means the deep reservoir of anger in you, already too full, can’t seem to stop overflowing and flooding your nervous system and splashing on those closest to you. It’s hard to love when your body hurts and your head aches from tension, when you’re tired from fighting, or even just from hearing the news. 

And it’s even harder to love when your loved ones all feel the same way, and all of you are spiky and short-tempered once. 

Yet under that spikiness is neediness, for this is the time when we all need love the most. 

Maybe love is not innately patient, but we must become patient to have love. Love may not be fundamentally kind, but we must become kind to have love. 

Because if we have not love, then we have nothing. Human beings are social animals. All of our so-called evolutionary success is due to our capacities for communication and cooperation. On our own we wouldn’t make it far– we’re not very fast, not very strong, don’t have sharp teeth or claws. We can’t fly, don’t climb so good or swim so well. Our babies are weak and useless and helpless, and take forever to become independent. Without care, they die. Without love, we all simply die. 

But we have big brains and opposable thumbs, and we can speak and work together and form strong bonds and lasting alliances, and build things together so much larger than any of us. We can do all of that together but very little alone. And love– agape love, love as solidarity– is both the social glue and the great motivator of human endeavor. Do you doubt me? Just think about how much labor people put in every day to provide for not just themselves, but their families. 

Love is also our primary source of pleasure and joy, and without those things we die. When I speak of the pleasures of love, I don’t just mean the pleasures of sex– although I certainly include them. Sex is an important form of social bonding. But so are a million other activities. Eating together, dancing, creating and enjoying music, sports and games, the creation and consumption of art– anything that humans do in pairs or in groups, anything at all that we enjoy together and not just alone. Face it– most things are better together than alone. Oh yes, of course, we all need our solitude from time to time. But we also all need friends. And the things that truly make life worth living, the memories that will be treasured forever, are usually the times spent with our loved ones. 

Che Guevarra famously said, “the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.” There is an echo of Paul here– the assertion that a faith that can move mountains is nothing without love, that sacrifice and personal risk are meaningless without love. I know and believe that without love, a person cannot be motivated to do great things for the benefit of others, neither can they sustain the effort that it takes to persist in such labor. 

Therefore, we must love one another. We must hold and support each other. And we must allow ourselves to receive love as well. 

My friends, my comrades, I do not command you to love any person in particular. You don’t have to love me. You don’t have to love everyone in this church, or even anyone in this church. You don’t have to accept obligation or neglect or abuse that calls itself love, and neither should you give those things and call them love. 

What you must do is figure out who you do love, truly love, and who does love you, and then you must love them ferociously and unconditionally. You must fight for the relationships that sustain you, that keep you alive, that hold your world together. When it comes to people you hold close, you must learn to choose them well, and then never let them go. 

And, you must also reach out in a broader and wider love, the love of solidarity. You must learn to join in the struggle alongside people you do not like. As we fight for our lives, you must become able to tolerate awkwardness, and to forgive foolishness and innocent mistakes. Choose your comrades based on a combination of intentions and actions, not based on words, because intentions and actions both matter, but words do not matter much at all. 

We are all in this together, every single one of us here on planet Earth, whether we choose to acknowledge that or not. As we stare down the barrel of apocalypse, we must remember that and we must love each other before it is too late. 

When you go forth among your fellows, try to love them, even if you don’t like them. Look for the similarities rather than the differences between you. Try to assume best intent. Forgive innocent mistakes. Resist your need to nitpick. And when you start to hate yourself, and just want to hide at home in your room, make yourself go seek love. God was right, for once, when he said “it is not good for man to be alone,” (Gen 2:18) but neither is it good for woman or for non-binary individual. The love you give sustains others. The love you receive sustains you. Be as determined to receive as you are to give, to be loved as you are to love– for so long as we are still living and loving, hate cannot win. 

I love you. Even if I do not know you well, I love you. I love you because you are here, and you are most likely queer, and that means you are blasphemous spit in the eye of the Lord of Hate. So love yourself. If you cannot love yourself for any other reason, love yourself because they hate you, and stay alive because they do not want you to. So long as you have breath your body, my beloved, they are failing. And the harder we love each other, the more assured our victory becomes. They cannot love. This is the reason they are constantly stabbing one another in the back and their alliances are always falling apart. We are many, they are few, and if we all come together against them, with love and fury, they will never be able to stand before us. 

So live! And love! Let faith and hope follow from this. 

Thou art God. Nema. 

I Can’t Self-Govern For You

A public statement of Pastor Johnny to Church of the Morningstar on 1/4/2025.

Back when I was first thinking of starting a Satanic church, I had a chatty Uber driver one night. I confessed to him that I was an aspiring pastor, although not what kind. 

“Put the pews in a circle,” he told me. “Pass the mic.” 

With these words, he expressed his desire for a different kind of religion– one that was less top-down, more diffuse and democratic. He’d articulated something I also wanted. Put the pews in a circle. Pass the mic. 

In the early days of Church of the Morningstar, that’s what we did. Back in San Francisco, we all saw each other face to face and knew each other’s names. It was easier to make sure that everyone was familiar with the non-hierarchical norms of the church. Everyone seemed to feel comfortable speaking up, giving their opinions, leading rituals, preaching sermons. Mass was an event that we all made happen together. 

But with the lockdown, we had to go online, and things changed. There were suddenly a lot more members, who knew each other less. Thoroughly onboarding every single new person was too time consuming for our small volunteer clergy, so we hoped people would get a feel for the church’s intentions and culture through our website and published writings. We thought we had laid those things out pretty clearly and publicly. 

And maybe we had. But what a church says, and what a church does, can be very different. People didn’t necessarily take those statements seriously. It seems that for a variety of reasons– some of which have to do with the religious trauma we all carry, and some of which have to do with my “strong,” i.e. sometimes overbearing personality– people haven’t always trusted in our invitations to participate, contribute, take leadership, and make this church in your image.

Now, I enjoy leading. I always have. In the beginning, I thought it was quite possible that power would corrupt me. I assumed I would have to keep an eye on myself, because I might like being in control too much.

Things worked out very differently. Having ended up with a type of authority that I did not ask for and did not want, I find that I actually hate it. There is no money and very little glory in being pastor of this church, just hard work, intense responsibility, and the endless sacrifice of my weekends. I’ve burned myself out emotionally supporting congregants. I’ve exhausted myself constantly creating new programming for our masses, with minimal input from anyone else but Vix. When I’ve tried to start discussions in the church, I have been met with silence, because people are afraid to disagree with me or say anything against what they perceive to be our “official dogma”– in spite of the fact that we try to be clear that we do not have one! 

People defer to me in a way that I never wanted them to. People feel unqualified to take leadership roles, and unwelcome to contribute their ideas, their art, their rituals, and their opinions, to making this church richer, more interesting, and more diverse. I have tried to solicit all of those things multiple times, in multiple ways:

  • with calls for submissions to the church anthology book which is now in the works
  • with invitations to have your art featured on the Church of the Morningstar website on the “art collective” page
  • with pauses in every mass to ask if anyone has anything they want to say, share or present
  • with requests for participation and interactivity in mass via invitations to read aloud, speak parts of incantations, or take part in discussions
  • with solicitations before masses for rituals, poems, writings, songs, etc that people may wish to submit for inclusion 
  • with invitations to collaborate on the church by-laws and constitution
  • with elections that I literally beg people to run in and vote in 

Yet it seems that much of this is not taken as being in good faith, and I think this is partially because of how aspects of my personality come across. 

I know I have a strong personality, as has been mentioned before. I know that at my worst, “strong” is a euphemism for “aggressive and overbearing.” But I am not loud and forceful because I want to crush people down and make them meek and quiet. I am loud and forceful because I want loud, forceful friends. I was raised by a huge, Southern, lapsed Catholic father who argued with me like I was an adult man back when I was still a tiny alleged girl of about four years old. I learned to meet his fire with fire fearlessly because no matter how loud we yelled at at each other, at the end I always knew my dad would smile at me and say “we butt heads like this because we are so alike. I love you.” Now, that’s not how most relationships work. I’ve learned that the hard way. And yet, in spite of decades of evidence to the contrary, at my core I still expect my strength to be met with strength. 

I will be real with you. I am getting burned out. I envisioned starting this church and having it grow into a self-governing community that needs no leaders. I had hoped to make myself obsolete as a pastor. In the last couple of years, I have become very stressed, sad, tired and lonely in my life because too many of the people I know seem to be looking up to me and placing me above them, leading me to feel as if I have no peers– this in spite of the fact that I fundamentally believe that all of you are my peers. 

I want comrades and co-collaborators and co-conspirators, not followers. I do not believe any of you are followers by nature. You’re Satanists. You’re walkers of the left hand path. You are here, or so I believe, because you dislike authority and seek empowerment; because you are curious and desire knowledge; because you don’t want to be told what to think or what to do. 

I desperately want to change the culture in this church. I don’t want to be at the top of it anymore. But I can’t do that alone. I need your help. Obviously I can’t do your self-governing for you. You have to do that. That’s the point. 

I have to confess that if the culture of this church doesn’t change, if it doesn’t end up living up to the values and vision with which I co-founded it, I will most likely burn out in another year, and step down as pastor. In that case, very likely nobody else will feel empowered to step up, and the online branch of CotMS will end. 

I am not trying to threaten you. But if you want this church, you have to make this church, and make it the church you want. I am not being paid anything for this, and I don’t want to keep making a church for people who appear to passively consume it with what seems to me to be diminishing enthusiasm. 

It is still my calling to be a priest of Satan, no matter what happens, but if we can’t make this church a church for us all, rather than just the Vix and Johnny Show, I will need to pursue that dream in a different form. 

You have the power. This can be what you want it to be. Vix and I are just making it up as we go along, after all. Yeah I went to seminary, but most of what it got me was just student debt. I went half for the skills and half for the credentials, so that non-Satanists would be forced to take us a bit more seriously. And Vix? I know he intimidates you with his intellect, but his highest attainment of formal education was fucking beauty school. He just reads a lot. We don’t really have anything you don’t have. 

So today’s message is: you can just do things. That’s what we do. We just do things, and then for some reason everyone thinks we know what we’re doing. You can too. You can just decide to hold a ritual or event. You can start a reading group. You can hop in the voice chat and start a lively debate. You can write a poem, a prayer, an article, a hymn, and submit it to be put on the church blog or in the church book. You can lead a segment of mass. You’re allowed. You have permission. 

But at some point, when you have the time and bandwidth to think hard about hard things, I do hope you will ask yourselves this question: why did I need so much permission? 

The Sredni Vashtar Working

If you have not read the short story “Sredni Vashtar” by Saki, you should go do so before continuing. It is not long at all and can be found for free here. The rest of this writing will contain spoilers for it, and also will not make much sense without understanding the story. 

Done? Good. This little gem of a tale, aside from being profoundly affecting, also perfectly illustrates some of the basics of chaos magick. Conradin worships an ordinary polecat-ferret as a God, until he actually becomes one. This is how you make an egregore. 

It should be obvious to anyone who has grasped this, that if belief and worship can deify a ferret, then they can easily also deify a fictional character. In fact, a fictional ferret is in some ways easier to exalt to godhood than a real one, since it is not bound by flesh. 

Much of the work of deification has already been accomplished by the story. The god has been described. His sacred name, Sredni Vashtar, is known to us. His hymn of praise is revealed. His offerings are elaborated– red flowers, red berries, and powdered nutmeg (which has to have been stolen). 

We also know his role. Sredni Vashtar, red of tooth and claw, is an avenger and a destroyer. But he is also a protector of the innocent, and a liberator of the oppressed. 

He is supplicated with the simple words:

“Sredni Vashtar, do one thing for me.” 

Knowing all of this, we know how to invoke him, and also why to do so. 

On the morning of the ritual, I went to a large chain grocery store to obtain red flowers and red berries, and also, the all-important nutmeg. I drew a protective sigil in the air before entering, because I was going to observe Sredni Vashtar’s worship in all its particulars. This is to say that I paid for the flowers and the berries, but the nutmeg, I slipped into the pocket of my overcoat. I had never shoplifted before. It was surprisingly easy. I had no remorse, because the store I targeted is known for union busting and unfair labor practices. 

Home again, I spent hours painting an icon of Sredni Vashtar. Overall, I was satisfied with the product, although the rendering of the blood puddle gave me trouble. I may return to the painting later, but with evening approaching, I had little time left before the ritual. I had to call it done for now, and pray that it would be deemed worthy by Our Ferret-Polecat Lord. 

Night fell, and the congregation assembled. The circle was cast, the candles were lit. I explained that we would be performing a baneful ritual of vengeance. Frater Babalon gave each of us a one-card tarot reading first, checking that it was advisable to go forward with hexing our targets. 

Then I went to kneel before the altar, and he began to read. 

Sitting on the floor listening to a story, it was easy to assume the persona and mindset of Conradin, the ten-year-old boy who is high priest of Sredni Vashtar. At appropriate moments I lit the Great Polecat’s red candle, and scattered the flowers, the berries and the nutmeg before him. I chanted the invocations along with Frater Babalon, saying three times: 

“Sredni Vashtar, do one thing for me.” 

I felt the suspense as Mrs. De Ropp entered the shed. I chanted the hymn of Sredni Vashtar with tears in my eyes, the tears of an unbeliever, the tears of broken faith, feeling just as Conradin felt in his darkest moment. That’s how it is with chaos magick. You always come to a point when you are certain it has not worked. A moment of utter disenchantment always comes just before the spell is proven, unexpectedly, to have been a total success. 

Chills went down my spine when Sredni Vashtar the beautiful emerged from the shed, jaws stained with the blood of the tyrant. Conradin fell to his knees in worship; I was already on my knees, so I clasped my hands in prayer. I felt the power of the god, and also his odd, animal love, his ferocious innocence. I knew in my heart that the invocation was a success. 

When it was done, we encouraged the congregants to celebrate, should they feel so moved, with a feast of buttered toast, the traditional victory meal of Sredni Vashtar’s priests. 

The results of the ritual are pending. As I write this, the red candle is still burning on Sredni Vashtar’s altar. Whether some, or all, or none of our curses will find their targets, we cannot yet know. 

Regardless, I believe that with devoted worship, and with many offerings of red flowers, red berries and pilfered nutmeg, the God can grow strong. After all, I do not know whether other chaos magicians have propitiated him in this way before. Though I am certain he has gained some strength simply through being a somewhat famous literary character, Sredni Vashtar may be yet young in practical Godhood. 

If you are moved by the plight of Conradin and see your child-self in him, if you detest the Mrs. De Ropps of this world, if you see grace in the long, low body of Sredni Vashtar and thrill with awe at his bloodied teeth; if you have been thinking “red thoughts” about injustice and how to fight it; if you need to be freed from something; if you still believe in magic despite all of your suffering, then you too can replicate this ritual. You can make the God stronger. Feed him with your adoration. Anoint his offerings with your tears. And when you have become certain of the target of your hate, when you can identify the boot that is pressing on your back, invoke him with these words:

“Sredni Vashtar, do one thing for me.”

For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge: How and Why to have Sex with a Demon

By Pastor Johnny

One of the interesting things about demons is that they put out.

This is true of many other gods as well–and I personally have no problem referring to demons as gods. Plenty of deities are highly sexual, not only with each other but with human beings as well. Take some of the stories about Zeus as an example– or Apollo, or Pan, or Aphrodite.[1] All of them had human lovers.

But for those of us who were raised in a Christian acculturated environment– which is to say, most of us here today– the idea of a God having sex with a human being seems outlandish. Even though Jehovah had a son by a mortal woman, this conception supposedly left her virginity intact.[2] God only begets, he does not fuck.

Satan is a different story.

The idea of Satanism is older than Satanism itself. Many of our “traditions” were not originally real practices. They started as nothing more than twisted fantasies in the Christian mind.[3] The idea of the orgiastic witches’ sabbath, wherein witches had sexual intercourse with demons and with Satan himself,[4] is a myth. It is, however, one of our myths. Like many myths, it now has real and effective religious practices based upon it.

It was said that witches danced naked, back to back. They trampled the cross and spat upon it. They lined up to kiss the Devil’s ass,[5] a ritual known as the osculum infame or “kiss of shame.” They took demons for lovers, and lay with them, and with each other.[6]

It was also said that succubi came to men in their sleep, provoking nocturnal emissions. Sometimes it was believed that this same demon would then transform from a feminine succubus into a masculine incubus, and transport the semen they had stolen from the men to dreaming women, making them pregnant in their sleep.[7] Other sources thought the incubus and succubus to be separate beings.[8] Incubi and succubi are not minor demons, either. All four of our revered queens of hell are succubi– Na’amah, Agrat bat Mahalath, and both the elder and younger Liliths.

According to some legends, Adam and Eve underwent a period of separation after leaving Eden. During this time, Adam impregnated his first wife Lilth with many children, while Eve had Satan for a lover, and by him conceived Cain.[9]

Na’amah, a descendent of Cain, also famously had sexual relations with non-human entities, although in her case they were not demons but angels. She seduced God’s Watchers, and from them learned the secrets of magic, medicine, metallurgy, cosmetics, alchemy, astrology and astronomy. The children that she and other women bore by the angels were, of course, the Nephilim.[10] Sometime after seducing the Watchers and stealing their heavenly knowledge, Na’amah became a demon and a succubus herself, conceiving children with mortal men.[11]

Agrat bat Mahalath seduced no less a mortal than King David, and by him bore a troubled son, Asmoday. Agrat and Lilith, or Na’amah and Lilith, may also have seduced King Solomon.[12]

As you see, tales of human-demon relations were well established by the time that rumors of the witch’s sabbath began to spread. In these stories, it seems that the witches had carnal relations with the demons for much the same reason that Na’amah did with the Watcher angels: for knowledge and power. Sex was the witch’s side of the pact– the demons were giving them magical abilities, and the witches pleasured the demons in return.[13]

However, the existence of male witches in these myths proves that sex was not always the required payment for such a pact. At the time, many theologians believed that demons could not be homosexual! To them, homosexuality was a sin “against nature” that demons, who had once been angelic, could not bring themselves to perform. So, being gay was supposedly a bridge too far even for the Devil. These writers explicitly considered the human capacity for sin to outstrip that of Satan himself.[14]

All of these legends, of course, were intended to be negative. Submitting sexually to a demon at the witches’ sabbath was supposed to be a degrading experience that sealed one’s damnation. Being visited by an incubus or succubus, likewise, was generally feared rather than desired.  Many Medieval Jewish talismans have been recovered designed to banish Lilith and other succubi (as well as male incubi) from households.[15] Many descriptions of succubus visitations are repulsive and terrifying rather than arousing.[16]

However, there is also evidence here and there of people who thought that getting it on with a demon might be a good idea. One incantation has been found petitioning Agrat Bat Mahalath to send the sorcerer a succubus for the night.[17] There is also the legend of Rabbi Joseph della Reina, who had a long-term sexual relationship with Lilith. Her summoned her and took her for his lover, but later became infatuated with the Queen of Greece and tried to force the demons to give him access to her. The demons tattled on him to the King of Greece, and in despair, Rabbi Joseph flung himself into the sea.[18]

So what positive use can the contemporary practitioner make of these mostly negative legends and tropes?

First of all, if you feel carnal desire for demons, or have sexual experiences with them, you can be confident that this is not strange. Whether or not these interactions are “real” in the modern empirical sense, you are far from the first person to have them.

Second, sexuality can be a way to bond with a demon, and show your worship and devotion to them. It can also be used to seal a pact, just as well as a handshake, a kiss, or a signature (in blood or not).

Third, respect for these beings is crucial. From the story of Rabbi della Reina we learn that treating a succubus as a disposable partner is most unwise. It’s fine to do things casually and purely for pleasure, without any particular attachment, and that’s true of demons as well as of humans. However, with demons as with humans, it is never alright to view a sex partner with genuine entitlement and contempt. Do not ever imagine that you have control over demons, or can make rude demands of them. Actually, don’t ever have that attitude towards anyone you sleep with. Don’t get it twisted: this is not a condemnation of kink or power exchange. I’m talking about something else, about the type of power dynamic nobody consents to. The Right-Hand Path magician who thinks he can snap his fingers and summon a succubus to satisfy him, and then dismiss her without a thought, is likely to meet a bad end, and deserves all he gets.

(And, if you form a friendly and mutually respectful sexual relationship with a demon, do not be too surprised if said demon ends up wanting to role-play that scenario with you. No one ever said demons aren’t kinky, or that they lack a sense of humor.)

Speaking of kinks, sometimes demonic sexual experiences, especially astral ones, can be rather grotesque. To be clear, they won’t do anything you don’t want them to do, but they can end up activating desires that you weren’t aware you had. These may be surprising, even shocking and disturbing. My advice is this: in the astral realm, always do everything that you want to do and nothing that you don’t, and never let shame constrain you. The physics of the astral realm are similar to those of a dream or a cartoon. Shapes shift, animal and demonic transformations take place, bodies may be pierced, cut, burned and dismembered, and then resurrected whole in the next moment. There is, however, one crucial difference between astral and cartoon violence– while Wile. E. Coyote may be crushed under an anvil and then bounce right back up unharmed and unchanged to go right back to chasing Roadrunner, you are likely to be transformed in positive ways by your astral experiences. These sometimes violent transformations and ordeals are a form of internal alchemy, akin to how material was charred, boiled, winnowed, buried, rotted, and dissolved ad nauseum in the hopes of revealing the philosopher’s stone.[19] If you find yourself having such experiences and need help understanding them, I highly recommend the book Embrace of the Daimon by Sandra Dennis.

Now, a word or two about the transfer of energy. I’m not sure when the idea of incubi and succubi as sexual vampires and thieves of life-force developed. All the older sources speak of succubi as thieves of sperm. There are certainly people, mainly men, who equate their cum with their vital energy, and so that’s probably how the idea evolved. But just as the semen-stealing succubus can easily transform into the semen-injecting incubus, a demon is as capable of giving you energy during sex as they are of taking it. I am now speaking from experience. When I first began having congress with demons, I fully expected that I would be sacrificing my energy and allowing them to feed upon me. I was willing to pay that price for the experience. However, the demons were far more generous than I had expected. Instead of taking from me, they gave.

They also taught me how to consume orgasmic energy from human partners. While I always get consent for this, it’s actually not a big deal. Most people release a tremendous amount of energy when they cum anyway, and if it is not consumed it simply disperses. It’s essentially free. Taking it doesn’t seem to leave my partners any more drained than they would normally be after sex, yet it empowers me enormously. The only downside to this practice is that I have come to rely on it to some extent. I’ve gotten used to having that extra energy which allows me to achieve more than most people, so when I forget to practice incubacy, I find myself feeling exhausted for no apparent reason. The good news is that I don’t even need a human partner to do this. If necessary, I can get my energy fix from astral sex with a demon.

I realize that this sounds crazy and fake. I often think that myself, and then stop doing it, and then wonder why I am so tired. Taking up the practice again usually fixes me instantly.

Another use for that orgasmic energy, which seems to be better known in occult circles than simply consuming it, is sex magick. The most basic form of sex magick is simply focusing on one’s intent at the moment of orgasm, and casting your spell out into the universe with all that power. While you can do this with a human partner, or by yourself, demons tend to be excellent sex magick partners too, perhaps especially astrally. The combination of the transformative imagery of astral sex with the raw power of physical orgasm can be potent indeed.

While I’m making myself sound like a crazy person, I should probably try to say something more about sex and channeling. I feel awkward about this not only because it sounds insane, but also because all of you know whose body the demons are generally inhabiting when I do this. To be fair, sometimes I channel instead of Vix.

Channeled sex has pluses and minuses versus astral. It’s more concrete and visceral. But it’s also bound to the physical laws of this material plane, and lacks some of the trippy astral pyrotechnics. It also usually involves an extra person. Astral sex might be between you and a demon, but channeled sex is between you, the channeler, and the demon. Just as with any threeway, it can become complicated. Each additional individual is somebody else whose needs have to be considered, whose consent matters, and whose safety must be guarded. And just as with any other threeway, if something goes wrong in channeled sex, it usually goes wrong between all three (or more) parties, not just between two. To clarify: that means that if something feels sour, it will likely feel sour on all sides between you, the demon, and your partner.

For your safety and sanity, I suggest that you verify especially carefully that the entity being channeled is the one you intended to interact with. Imposter spirits can do a lot of damage even when channeled in a completely non-sexual scenario. The types of consent violations that occur with imposter spirits can be very traumatic, and are also almost impossible to explain to a therapist.

All of that is not to scare you away from getting to know demons in the Biblical sense. It’s both easier and harder than you would expect, stranger and more normal, a bigger deal and not a big deal at all. There are plenty of good reasons to do it: for pleasure, for power, for comfort, to feel something, to learn something, to get something, to come close, or just to cum.

Your demon lover can take any shape. He, she, or they know exactly what you like, what you want, what you need. Your demon lover is intimately familiar with your fantasies. They see you. They know you. In their fierce, strange way, they love you.

If you try it, you’ll wonder if you’re crazy. You might feel embarrassed or ashamed. But chances are, you’ll keep doing it, and you’ll never really regret it, because it is your soul that they touch. In these moments of ecstasy, in these murky fantasies, something important is happening. You are being unmade and remade. You are exploring the margins of your mind, learning yourself in a whole new way. In daring to contemplate forbidden pleasures, you are straying beyond your self-imposed limits, into unexplored territories. Here be dragons– the winding serpent, the twisting serpent, the blind serpent, the slant serpent, with glistening coils and gleaming teeth and claws.

Here be dragons, and if you want to, you can fuck them.

[1] Ingri D’Aulaire and Edgar D’Aulaire, D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths (New York: Random House Children’s Books, 2017).

[2] Luke 1:30-35, KJV

[3] Ruben van Luijk, “Chapter 1: The Christian Invention of Satanism,” in Children of Lucifer (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016), 16–62.

[4] Robert E. L. Masters, Eros and Evil: The Sexual Psychopathology of Witchcraft (New York: The Julian Press , 1962), 82-83.

[5] Philip C. Almond, The Devil: A New Biography (London: I.B. Tauris, 2016), 98-107.

[6] Masters, 85.

[7] Masters, 34.

[8] Masters, 39.

[9] Wojciech Kosior, “A Tale of Two Sisters: The Image of Eve in Early Rabbinic Literature and Its Influence on the Portrayal of Lilith in the Alphabet of Ben Sira,” Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues 32, no. Spring 2018 (n.d.): 112–130, 119-121.

[10] 1 Enoch 7-8.

[11] Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (Detroit, Mich: KTav Publishing, 1967), 241-243.

[12] Patai, 244.

[13] Masters, 56.

[14]Almond,106-107.

[15] Patai, 225-226.

[16] Masters, 25.

[17] Patai, 235.

[18] Patai, 235-236.

[19] Sandra Lee Dennis, Embrace of the Daimon: Healing through the Subtle Energy Body: Jungian Psychology & the Dark Feminine, 2nd ed. (West County Press, 2016), loc. 313-317.