Manny the Satanist

Technically this happened this past April, but as of this third week of May, I have finished my graduate program and I now have my Master's Degree in Library and Information Science.  By all intents and purposes and consideration by my librarian peers, I'm now considered a librarian. I have Satanism to thank for this.  Why?  I'll try to explain this the best way I can. As some of you may know, I grew up going to the Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall.  This is a religious Christian organization that suppresses individual freedom and they expect you to dedicate your whole life to Jehovah, the Kingdom Hall, and to gathering more members for the Kingdom Hall until the day you die. One of the topics of sermons that I would keep hearing over the years is about how one should basically avoid going to university because it was considered the "Devil's Playground of Sin" (well, they didn't use those exact words but that was basically the idea they were trying to co...

June is Pride Month.  On this month 6 years ago, the United States Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide.  Ever since then, every June has been Pride Month. Now, when it comes to Satanism and gay marriage, our stance should be obvious: we fully support it. Basically, our philosophy is all about individual liberty and we generally support politics that help champion our individual freedoms.  So if two adults of the same sex want to marry each other, let them be!  It’s their choice to do so. Out of many religions I’ve seen over my 30 years on this planet, Satanism is the first religion I’ve seen that actively accepts people of all sexual orientations.   The Satanic Bible  explains this stance where Anton LaVey states that “Satanism encourages any form of sexual expression you may desire, so long as it hurts no one else” (pg. 69). The following quote is the one that I feel shows that Satanism supports gay marriage in The Satanic Bible .  In this...

This is another opinion blog post that I’m doing here.  I’m going to be basing this on what I’ve read in Speak of the Devil: How The Satanic Temple is Changing The Way We Talk About Religion (2020) by Joseph P. Laycock.  I wish the TST had something akin to The Satanic Bible or The Satanic Scriptures but I couldn’t find anything like it on their website page of list of literature, so Speak of the Devil is what I’ll be going by. This is based on my best interpretation of what TST is like in my perspective, and I really tried my best to learn when I read Speak of the Devil .  Anyways, here it goes. The main thing to remember is that The Satanic Temple and The Church of Satan are not the same thing.  These two groups are often confused for one another all the time and it’s gotten a bit annoying for both organizations and its people.  The CoS was started in 1966 by Anton Szandor LaVey while TST was started in 2013 by Malcolm Jarry and Lucien Greaves.  While...

When people think of Satanism, they think of a cult that worships an anthropomorphic devil.  They think of black robes, drinking the blood of babies, sacrificing animals and virgins, sex orgies.  Well, that’s all wrong.  That’s basically all the crap that’s been fed by the Christian church and entertainment outlets for thousands of years. Satanism is a religion and a philosophy.  For starters, we are atheists.  This may come as a surprise to many people.  We are a carnal religion rather than a spiritual one.  We don’t believe in a literal God or a literal Satan.  In fact, we don’t even believe in or follow the Christian interpretation of Satan.  Satan is more of a symbol and mascot for individualism, freedom, individual liberty, pride, and the dark force that exists in all of nature.  Satan is the role model for what we Satanists are about. In Hebrew, Satan means “accuser, opposer, adversary,” so in that sense, we Satanists are the accus...

What's up, fellow Satanists and others who have found this blog somehow? My name is Manny.  For now this is the name I’ll identify as. I’m a 30 year-old Satanist from the Bay Area in California.  I’ve wanted to find a platform where I can express my thoughts and feelings when it comes to the subject of Satanism, specifically LaVeyan Satanism, the one and only real Satanism as codified in 1966 on Walpurgisnacht by Anton Szandor LaVey.  Because of the current misconceptions about Satanism and due to the fact that certain family members of mine would give me so much trouble if they knew of my newly discovered identity, I could never talk about Satanism on my personal social media accounts.  For now, this blog will do.  I’ll eventually make this blog look more presentable and infernal. I guess let’s start from the beginning. My parents raised me as a Jehovah’s Witness starting around the age of three right up until the age of nineteen.  Well, mostly my mom did....