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In The Infernal Names LaVey list many different ancient gods who became devil that he encourage the Satanist to invoke during satanic ritual as they represents the 3 types of Greater Magic. Satanism is a carnal religion so devils from different cultures has a symbolic meaning to it.

Wolfie: ‘Tom, MatthewJ1, Satan is the inverse of Christ. Satan stands for atheism because Christ stands for faith. Satan stands for egoism because Christ stands for self-sacrifice. Satan stands for misanthropy because Christ stands for universal love. Satan is the natural symbol for the foundational principles of LaVey's philosophy. The natural symbol.’  

Cool response – cheers. The inverse of faith is not atheism. It is rather skepticism or doubt. As an aside, I like this quote by LaVey in regards to truth and skepticism:

‘It has been said, 'the truth will make men free.' The truth alone has never made anyone free. It is only doubt which will bring mental emancipation.’

I thought it might be useful to get some clarity and scope here by just quoting LaVey a bit more. Anyway:

It is a popular misconception that the Satanist does not believe in God. The concept of "God", as interpreted by man, has been so varied throughout the ages, that the Satanist simply accepts the definition which suits him best. Man has always created his gods, rather than his gods creating him. God is, to some, benign - to others, terrifying. To the Satanist "God" - by whatever name he is called, or by no name at all - is seen as the balancing factor in nature, and not as being concerned with suffering. This powerful force which permeates and balances the universe is far too impersonal to care about the happiness or misery of flesh-and-blood creatures on this ball of dirt upon which we live. LaVey TSB, Page 22.

‘Most Satanists do not accept Satan as an anthropomorphic being with cloven hooves, a barbed tail, and horns. He merely represents a force in nature - the powers of darkness which have been named just that because no religion has taken these forces out of the darkness. Nor has science been able to apply technical terminology to this force. It is an untapped reservoir that few can make use of because they lack the ability to use a tool without having to first break down and label all the parts which make it run. It is this incessant need to analyze which prohibits most people from taking advantage of this many faceted key to the unknown - which the Satanist chooses to call "Satan."’ LaVey TSB, Page 34.

Can you see how this is working out Wolfie?

Here’s more: https://www.churchofsatan.com/interview-washington-post-magazine/

"I don't believe in 'supernatural' magic," he says. "I believe in 'supernormal' magic, meaning that when certain frequencies are sent out into the ether they affect the human subconscious in much the same way that certain circus tunes make elephants march." LaVey then runs through a medley of "rain songs" - "Singin' in the Rain," "Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella," a dozen more.

Wolfie, LaVey is an unusual type of occultist. He is not a theist, but he is not really an atheist. He occupies an interesting third side position. He is interested in that which is hidden or Other like an occultist is.     

He actually believes that he can perform magic and achieve tangible real world benefits as a result of performing magic. He is not appealing to some supernatural power. He is actually working with something which he refers to as supernormal. It is worthwhile reading this entire interview linked above as he is sort of unpacking some of his views.

Note how he uses the word “force” and the word “powers” quite often in TSB. There are the powers of darkness referred to above. Somehow, magic then becomes a sort of current or electricity, like a “music” running between the subconscious of people, or perhaps more precisely, the current or connection between the conscious actions of the ritualizing magician and the subconscious of the ritual target.  

By what sort of language could you describe these “forces” and these “powers" by the way? Would you forgive an old Nietzschean ham, if he used mad Freddy’s favored expression, ontologically, as intended?

But if that were the case, wouldn’t you then need to imply a sort of unconscious subject for that to be possible, ontologically speaking?  

So what? He makes it clear that it's Christianity that made devils out of man-created ancient gods. The primary goal of those invocations was blasphemy against Christianity and liberation from it. Certainly, one can extend it to the opposition to all religions and forms of spirituality that try to suppress natural instincts but TSB primarily focuses on Christianity, which was the dominant religion at the time the CoS was created and still is.

Do you honestly think that Satanism is relevant outside the Western World? Theoretically, one could argue so if one is desperate enough. But in practical terms, I just don't see TSB having much appeal to the people not brought up in the Christian culture. I'm imaginative enough though to visualize a Buddhist or a Hindu invoking the infernal names as written in TSB but I can't see what the fucking point would be.

I went looking for the LaVey underneath the carnival attraction and I found him pretty easily. All I had to do was read Nietzsche and Ayn Rand.

The entire reason LaVey is important is because he, and he alone, committed himself to the project of bringing synthesis to the thesis and antithesis represented by Ayn Rand (Apollo) and Friedrich Nietzsche (Dionysus). To this day, LaVey stands alone in this achievement. That's LaVey as Odin. LaVey as Loki is all the carnival showmanship.

Also, doubt is the beginning of the journey away from faith but atheism is the end. Atheism is the clear conviction that faith must be rejected. Doubt is merely the suspicion that maybe faith might have to be rejected after further research and consideration. 

The infernal names were selected for the reason they were considered evil by the dominant religion - that is Christianity. You seem not to understand that the main aim of all those rituals, ceremonies and invocations was going against the status quo and that status quo was Christian morality. They were supposed to be a tool to help the "magician" to liberate himself from the moral programming and in the end reject it altogether. In the cultural environment where these "infernal names" are not regarded as evil or are meaningless invoking them would serve no point. The rituals would have to be rewritten completely so as to be in opposition to the sacred norms in that specific culture. The core would remain the same though; subverting the sacred order of things.

You mistake forms for the essence. You're so mindfucked that I doubt any explanation will help you crawl out of the rabbit hole.

Ritual is also separated from ceremony. Ritual is to obtain a goal while ceremony is to maintain a culture or event. This is also explained in TSB.

Since you are not a Satanist yourself it's understandable why it does not matter to you but it does to Satanists...

Quote from Anna You're so mindfucked that I doubt any explanation will help you crawl out of the rabbit hole.

Your constant repetitions of the same shit instead of addressing the counter arguments and accusing everyone of not reading TSB while giving no evidence to back up that assumption of yours doesn't make you look intelligent but rather stubborn like a donkey. I read your way of pseudo-argumentation has a special name. It is called an argument by pigheadedness. Google it.

Having no faith or religious belief. That's me. Nullifidian.

Nullifidian. Egoist. Misanthrope. Shadow-worker.*

Satanist.

*A shadow-worker is a ritualist who focuses on integrating the ego with the Jungian shadow so all of one's personal power is available for constructive use.

Meanwhile:

Tom, your comment that religion is about culture and identity, not faith, interests me. I think many in the Asatru community would agree with you, though maybe not publicly. Both you and they would seem to be talking about tribalism, which employs religion as a way of elevating culture and identity to an archetypal level. I myself reject tribalism because it's incompatible with egoism and misanthropy.

Incidentally, I love the fact that Dracula made the list. I wish Cthulhu had.

The Infernal Names[edit]

• Abaddon—(Hebrew) the destroyer
• Adramalech—Samarian devil
• Ahpuch—Mayan devil
• Ahriman—Mazdean devil
• Amon—Egyptian ram-headed god of life and reproduction
• Apollyon—Greek synonym for Satan, the arch fiend
• Asmodeus—Hebrew devil of sensuality and luxury, originally "creature of judgment"
• Astaroth—Phoenician goddess of lasciviousness, equivalent of Babylonian Ishtar
• Azazel—(Hebrew) taught man to make weapons of war, introduced cosmetics
• Baalberith—Canaanite Lord of the covenant who was later made a devil
• Balaam—Hebrew devil of avarice and greed
• Baphomet—worshipped by the Templars as symbolic of Satan
• Bast—Egyptian goddess of pleasure represented by the cat
• Beelzebub—(Hebrew) Lord of the Flies, taken from symbolism of the scarab
• Behemoth—Hebrew personification of Satan in the form of an elephant
• Beherit—Syriac name for Satan
• Bilé—Celtic god of Hell
• Chemosh—National god of Moabites, later a devil
• Cimeries—Rides a black horse and rules Africa
• Coyote—American Indian devil
• Dagon—Philistine avenging devil of the sea
• Damballa—Voodoo serpent god
• Demogorgon—Greek name of the devil, it is said should not be known to mortals
• Diabolus—(Greek) "flowing downwards"
• Dracula—Romanian name for devil
• Emma-O—Japanese ruler of Hell
• Euronymous—Greek Prince of Death
• Fenriz—son of Loki, depicted as a wolf
• Gorgo—dim. of Demogorgon, Greek name of the devil
• Haborym—Hebrew synonym for Satan
• Hecate—Greek goddess of the underworld and witchcraft
• Ishtar—Babylonian goddess of fertility
• Kali—(Hindu) daughter of Shiva, high priestess of the Thuggees
• Lilith—Hebrew female devil, Adam's first wife who taught him the ropes
• Loki—Teutonic devil
• Mammon—Aramaic god of wealth and profit
• Mania—Etruscan goddess of Hell
• Mantus—Etruscan god of Hell
• Marduk—god of the city of Babylon
• Mastema—Hebrew synonym for Satan
• Melek Taus—Yezidi devil
• Mephistopheles—(Greek) he who shuns the light, q. v. Faust (Greek)
• Metztli—Aztec goddess of the night
• Mictian—Aztec god of death
• Midgard—son of Loki, depicted as a serpent
• Milcom—Ammonite devil
• Moloch—Phoenician and Canaanite devil
• Mormo—(Greek) King of the Ghouls, consort of Hecate
• Naamah—Hebrew female devil of seduction
• Nergal—Babylonian god of Hades
• Nihasa—American Indian devil
• Nija—Polish god of the underworld
• O-Yama—Japanese name for Satan
• Pan—Greek god of lust, later relegated to devildom
• Pluto—Greek god of the underworld
• Proserpine—Greek queen of the underworld
• Pwcca—Welsh name for Satan
• Rimmon—Syrian devil worshipped at Damascus
• Sabazios—Phrygian origin, identified with Dionysos, snake worship
• Saitan — Enochian equivalent to Satan
• Sammael—(Hebrew) "venom of God"
• Samnu—Central Asian devil
• Sedit—American Indian devil
• Sekhmet—Egyptian goddess of vengeance
• Set—Egyptian devil
• Shaitan—Arabic name for Satan
• Shiva—(Hindu) the destroyer
• Supay—Inca god of the underworld
• T'an-mo—Chinese counterpart to the devil, covetousness, desire
• Tchort—Russian name for Satan, "black god"
• Tezcatlipoca—Aztec god of Hell
• Thamuz—Sumerian god who later was relegated to devildom
• Thoth—Egyptian god of magic
• Tunrida—Scandinavian female devil
• Typhon—Greek personification of Satan
• Yaotzin—Aztec god of Hell
• Yen-lo-Wang—Chinese ruler of Hell

Wolfie: ‘MatthewJ1, LaVey was a con man. Trotting out particular passages this con man wrote is simply evidence of being taken in by the con.’

What a lot of bullshit. I have been following your posts here and looking at all of these fucking images you have made and they all more or less rely on LaVey’s codification of Satanism.

You’re quite happy to refer to the authority of LaVey’s writings when you are trying to make a point in your favor, but if anybody else does so then they have been taken in by a con. You are therefore implying that all of LaVey’s writing is a con? How fucking dishonest and disingenuous.

You are quite happy to say this, and implicitly rely on the authority of LaVey’s writing for defining Satan and Satanism: ‘Satan is the inverse of Christ. Satan stands for atheism because Christ stands for faith. Satan stands for egoism because Christ stands for self-sacrifice. Satan stands for misanthropy because Christ stands for universal love. Satan is the natural symbol for the foundational principles of LaVey's philosophy. The natural symbol.’  

And you were saying this a month ago: ‘I find I want to say up front what must be obvious: my thought is Neo-LaVeyan. The label per se doesn't matter. I just want to acknowledge my debt to the man and admit to the fact that my ideas never stray very far from the path he laid down.’

I guess you can change your ideas completely in the space of a month, unless you yourself are the con artist or else you have been taken in as well... You’re argument is weak sauce and bullshit. You rely on his “con” just much as I do and many others who describe themselves as Satanists do.

Wolfie: ‘Also, doubt is the beginning of the journey away from faith but atheism is the end. Atheism is the clear conviction that faith must be rejected. Doubt is merely the suspicion that maybe faith might have to be rejected after further research and consideration.’ 

More bullshit. I can have faith in many things, which don’t necessarily have anything to do with the existence of a deity. The diametrically opposed tendency - in every case - is doubt and skepticism. I can have fucking faith that there is a Santa Claus, which skepticism and doubt is the exact opposite of.

Atheism is not the end – that can be just as much a faith as any other damned thing a person has faith in. The only intellectually honest position a person can hold is agnosticism, right...

Wolfie: ‘The entire reason LaVey is important is because he, and he alone, committed himself to the project of bringing synthesis to the thesis and antithesis represented by Ayn Rand (Apollo) and Friedrich Nietzsche (Dionysus). To this day, LaVey stands alone in this achievement. That's LaVey as Odin. LaVey as Loki is all the carnival showmanship.’

This comes across as a really clumsy type of Hegelianism. You are trying to shove Rand, Nietzsche and LaVey inside this artificial structure and it doesn’t work. Why? Because once again you are going outside of the context of Satan to build some sort of Satanism. Your fucking position isn’t grounded in Satan and an ontological view of Satan. LaVey has put such a view in TSB, as I quoted in my post above.

This Hegelian conception is yours and yours alone and it doesn’t really work. The Nietzschean Apollonian/Dionysian thing is not a substitute for actually having a proper philosophy of Satan and deriving Satanism out of it.   

Whenever I would find LaVey in his Odin aspect, I would read carefully, consider carefully, experiment, do further research, and learn. So yes, as I have always said, and continue to say: LaVey is my muse and mentor. (LaVey in his Odin aspect.)

Whenever I would find LaVey in his Loki aspect, I would laugh and ignore it.

I've been saying all this from the beginning and I'm still saying it.

As for my use of the word "atheism," I've dropped it in favor of "nullifidian," so as to avoid the sort of objections you and Tom have raised. I've made this adjustment as a direct response to feedback from you and Tom. Rejection of faith or religious belief is what I always meant, and now I have a word that denotes more precisely what I mean.

Here's my deepest sense of who Satan was for LaVey: Satan was LaVey's truest self. LaVey knew very clearly what he himself stood for, and he made Satan stand for exactly the same things. That's why the Nine Satanic Statements begin with the words, "Satan represents." What does Satan represent? Satan represents what LaVey represents. Satan is LaVey, who is elevating himself to an archetypal level.

Excuse me? It was stated many times that all gods are created by men. If this is not a rejection of religious belief, then I don't know what is.

Now something that relates to the hair-splitting between Matthew and Wolfie.

While LaVey writes that it's not the truth but the doubt that sets man free, he goes on to say that the doubt opens the door through which the truth enters. And then he goes on that one doubt follows another, then another until the bubble of lies and fallacies bursts. So the doubt is not the end in itself, it's the process that ultimately leads to the rejection of faith.