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While I'm not in the business of mincing my beliefs down into microscopic classifications for the sake of labeling myself, I do still read into the existing subsets of Satanism to better understand where my beliefs and practices fit into the grand scheme of things. I'm not searching for a single hook on which to hang my hat, but instead I'm examining all schools of Satanic thought to see what similarities they share with my own beliefs. I'll collect those parallel aspects in the entry below, and update it as necessary. -K45

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Esoteric Satanism

"When we refer to ourselves as esoteric Satanists, what we are saying is that the kind of Satanism we practice differs substantially in style and content from not just the major Western religions like Christianity, but from ‘orthodox’ Satanism as well. Most Satanists are strictly rationalist. The Satanic Temple’s humanist Satanism, for instance, rejects anything that could be considered “superstitious”, this includes divinatory (or ‘fortune-telling’) practices like tarot, astrology, palm-reading, scrying, or pendulum-reading, as well as any sort of magickal practice whatsoever. Furthermore, they also reject any interpretation of Satan that isn’t strictly rhetorical, including not just a traditionally theistic Satan, but also any metaphysical Satan such as Satan-as-Void, Satan-as-Dao, or Satan-as-Spiritual-Self. As esotericists, most of us practice some kind of divination and almost all of us practice magick. I would argue that in this way esoteric Satanism is necessarily non-rational. 

Most esoteric Satanists do not have a strictly rhetorical understanding of Satan. We believe that Satan is ‘out there’ in reality.We are substantially different from theistic Satanists in that we do not believe that Satan is a deity, like a bat flying around in the ether. Rather, in most (but not all) cases, Satan is a metaphysical principle equated more closely with darkness, void, magick, or something that mediates between being and nothingness. However the individual esotericist or coven of esotericists decides to cash this out, it will not involve conceptualizing Satan as a literal entity even if we concede that Satan does in fact exist on some level." 

-Evyn Aytch, Satanhaus