The Satanic has long been linked to the feminine. This connection, rooted in interpretations of the serpent of Eden and the story of the Watcher angels, was originally a polemic strategy to legitimize the oppression of women.[1] Throughout the witch-craze of the Renaissance and Early Modern eras, this bond strengthened by the construction of the Satanic witch.[2] Following the 19^th century rehabilitation of Satan as a heroic figure by the romantic poets[3], many early feminists began  to view Lucifer as a liberator of women[4]. By the time that Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan in 1966, the connection between the Satanic and the feminine was indelible. However, Anton LaVey’s Satanism was hardly feminist—in his book “The Satanic Witch” LaVey instructed women to use their physical charms and sexuality to gain indirect power by manipulating powerful men[5]. The Satanic Temple, a contemporary Satanic organization, has superficially pushed back against these misogynist tendencies. The Satanic Temple describes itself as feminist and uses the Venus symbol as part of their logo, yet the testimonies of Jex Blackmore[6] and other female apostates of TST seem to indicate that The Temple is feminist only in name. As much as Satanism is grounded in sex-positive and ostensibly feminist counter-readings of Christian tradition, it is also filled with problematic gender dynamics and troubling images of the feminine. Through these charged archetypes of infernal femininity, I intend to critique existing Satanic discourses and dynamics around gender, while arguing that the call for gender liberation is embedded in the most foundational myths and texts of my religion.

First, to address some misconceptions: Satanism is often thought of as an aggressive, highly masculinist religion, mostly of interest to disaffected middle-class young white males. This perception is not entirely accurate. Surveys included in the book “The Invention of Satanism” indicate men outnumbering women nearly two to one in Satanic milieus—however, these surveys were conducted online, were non-random, included just 140 participants, and provided only two gender options.[7] A similar online survey currently underway, having 66 respondents at the time of this writing, shows that 33.33 percent of Luciferians identify as female, 27.3 identify as male, and the other 39.37 identify as non-binary, genderfluid, agender, or “other.”[8] This may reflect the rapidly changing nature of Satanic demographics, the non-representative nature of online survey samples, or both. Despite a lack of good hard data, it’s easy to observe that Satanism today is rapidly becoming more diverse as it becomes more popular, especially as it increasingly appeals to LGBT people.[9] Yet while Satanism is becoming more diverse, Satanic leaders, by and large, are not. The most prominent leaders and spokespeople in the movement are still mostly white males.

The archetype of the Satanic witch neatly illustrates the gender problems of Satanism. The witch is a powerful and appealing character in many ways—she is independent, a keeper of secret knowledge, fully capable of defending herself, and incredibly powerful. Furthermore, this power is not contingent on her physical attractiveness, despite what LaVey may have thought—a witch can be young or old, beautiful, plain or hideous, and her mystic power remains regardless. She feels no obligation to be partnered, to be heterosexual, or to reproduce, although she feels free to do any of these things. However, there is a troubling side to this archetype as well. In the witch’s sabbath (a term carrying antisemitic baggage) witches were supposed throng around the masculine figure of the Devil, dancing nude before him and submitting to his sexual whims. (While I would hotly contest the idea that Satan is a male, this is the image presented in the archetype.) This trope wouldn’t bother me nearly so much if I didn’t see its influence on real life gender dynamics, but sadly, I do. The pattern plays out again and again in Satanic organizations: groups made up predominately of women are nevertheless led by and centered around men, whether Anton LaVey or Lucien Greaves. It is a dynamic that is very gratifying to the male ego, and provides opportunities for sexual predation.

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“I will face God and walk backwards into hell.”

It sounds like some 19th century Romantic Satanist or anarchist– Byron or Shelley or Proudhon or Bakunin. But it’s actually a shitpost.

I’d also argue that it’s a legitimate Satanic sacred text at this point.

Allow me to explain.

Satanism, at first glance, doesn’t have very many sacred texts. I mean, there’s LaVey’s Satanic Bible, but I am not sure even LaVey ever called it sacred, or intended it to be canonical. There are also scattered works by various later Satanists attempting to comprehensively articulate Satanism, or even claiming to be inspired text. Most of them are poorly written and not very widely read.

But you know what’s way more influential to Satanic thought than any of those? Paradise Lost, which is a Christian text. And it’s “just a poem,” anyway. Right?

Except… did you know that Milton considered Paradise Lost to be divinely inspired? According to its author, it’s a received text.

Let’s leave Paradise Lost (and all the later works of Romantic Satanism that it accidentally inspired) alone for a second as we meander towards my point from another angle– that of music.

Hymns are another type of sacred text often analyzed by academics and theologians. At first glance, Satanism doesn’t have any of these. Or does it? There are now numerous musicians and bands who are sincere Satanists writing intense devotional music. Isn’t “Lucifer’s the Light of the World” by King Dude worthy of analysis as a Satanic sacred text– and a neat, lucid bit of Satanic Biblical exegesis at that? What about Behemoth’s album “The Satanist,” Adam Nergal Darsky’s defiant exploration of deepening religious devotion after a close brush with death by cancer? Shouldn’t we analyze this as religious text, including the lyrics, the music, and for that matter, the music video? What about the entire opus of Selim Lemouchi with his band The Devil’s Blood? He considered every last one of those songs to be infernally inspired, and they represent passionate, ecstatic and mystical declarations of a practitioner’s personal faith.

But even before there were self-avowed Satanic musicians, there were the Satanic poseurs– the Motley Crue’s of this world, churning out foot-stomping head-banging Satan-hailing anthems. These songs have been appropriated by religious Satanists today, much in the same way that we have appropriated Paradise Lost. They are Satanic texts now, even if they were never intended to be.

What about film? A lot of Satanists have appropriated The VVitch as a Satanic document. Black Phillip, and his brief speech at the end, have become icons of faith and ideology.

The definition of text has grown, you see. We live in an era of hypertext– links leading to links, criticism interacting with culture, religion blending with entertainment and reproducing itself on social media. And in this era, we need to think about what counts as sacred texts, and what is open to academic analysis, very differently… especially in the case of Satanism which is, itself, unique.

Until very recently, we Satanists were not producing texts of our own. Everything that is foundational to our religion was yoinked from other religions. (I often say that the real Satanic Bible is… the actual Bible, read from a Satanic perspective. It’s not sympathetic to our god, but it’s a big part of where his mythos started, after all. I’m hardly a Bible thumper but I pound on Genesis 3, the story of the Fall from Eden. I believe that text contains every Satanic value, mystery, and kernel of wisdom that a Devil-worshiper needs, if only you explore it thoroughly.)

It’s not unusual for religions to grow from each other– just look at how Christianity grew out of Judaism, and Islam from both. The difference is that, as far as anyone can tell, Satanism didn’t even exist for centuries after the concept of it was invented. The idea of Devil Worship was a paranoid invention of certain Christians, and they harped on this supposedly horrible concept for so long that it became real. This is an incredibly unique origin story for a faith.

Like our religion itself, many of our texts were originally not Satanic. The Bible is obviously not Satanic, neither are the Books of Enoch nor Paradise Lost nor even the Lesser Key of Solomon. The Litanies of Satan were not written by a Satanist. Aleister Crowley, the Great Beast 666 himself, was not precisely a Satanist, but his works are indispensable to us now.

Thus Satanism is a remarkable pastiche, a collage of influences and discourses including texts from other faiths, both canonical, apocryphal and pseudepigraphal, Western Esotericism, folklore, fiction, poetry, philosophy, anarchist theory, blues and rock music, and, last and potentially most importantly of all– the internet.

This has occurred partially because the religion is so new, and also partially because from the very beginning Satanism has resisted having a canon. We are far too contrarian and independent-minded to recognize any one text as the Word of Satan Himself. To us, that seems like a bad idea.

While I’m on this topic, I might as well mention that in a conversation with Lucifer (because yes, I’m a mystic and feel that I have those, and you have no obligation to believe me), he told me that he has influenced and inspired many texts, but that he will never, ever reveal which ones, for the explicit reason of avoiding the production of a canon. Satanism has no canon, needs no canon, and wants no canon. That made me love him even more, of course. And it makes a lot of sense to me that he’d rather whisper a suggestion in a poet’s ear than speak in his own person through an ordained, authoritative prophet. So, you know–by that logic, better if you don’t believe me about talking to Satan, really. I’m just some guy on the internet.

Speaking of random people on the internet, I started this blog entry by citing a shitpost, specifically, a tweet. The original full text of the tweet was “If the zoo bans me for hollering at the animals I will face God and walk backwards into Hell.” Not very Satanic, is it?

Yet this phrase was appropriated, reblogged, retweeted, reposted, and used as the title of Tumblr blogs, ad nauseum, including widely in the online Satanic milieu. I myself have literally flung those words at a missionary trying to witness to me. It has become virtually a Satanic proverb– all puns on “virtually” intended.

What about the words “We are all God’s children and he left us in a hot car?” It’s the title of a song. It’s also the name of a shitpost-y Facebook group. It’s also legitimately something that Millennial and Gen Z Satanists now say to philosophically express our disgust at the state of the world, a contemporary maltheistic parable in the shape of a meme.

The definition of sacred text and religious discourse must widen, especially in the case of Satanism, a religion that did not grow significantly in numbers until the advent of the internet. This is fitting. Even in its pre-internet forms, aspects of Satanism bore a certain resemblance to the concept of “trolling.” The Satanic affinity for memes, pranks, eye-catching and virally graphic symbols, satire, surrealism, and frankly, pornography, bears a strong affinity to the nature and culture of the web itself.

But Satanic online texts are not relegated to the realm of shitposts. Hardly! You are obviously reading a Satanic text on the internet right now. Satanists have taken to the internet to blog about our personal faith journeys, theorize on theology and morality, share occult PDFs and reading recommendations, and form affinity groups that sometimes extend to the offline world. Without, so far, much by way of churches, monasteries, academic journals, publishing houses or seminaries of our own, most of our theorizing takes place on the web.

The development of Satanism is happening when and where academics are by and large not looking– online and through pop culture, especially in the form of music.

This has been a shitpost.