Satan’s Honor Roll
Don’t believe what you’ve heard — there is a powerful set of ethics on the Left Hand Path
A woman wrote me recently saying that she had dedicated herself to the veneration of Satan and the study of Satanic principles, sometimes called the Left Hand Path. Her husband was bewildered and unaccepting. How, she wondered, could she communicate to him the validity of her choice?
Satanism is the most misunderstood term not only in modern life, but in history. It has grown associated with evil, violence, and maleficence. As I’ve explored elsewhere, this longstanding judgment is a mistake — it is a historical, religious, and ethical shibboleth that grows out of a deeply conformist and habitually reinforced reading of humanity’s founding myths in the West, particularly the ambiguous and intriguing encounter between Eve and the Serpent (devil or emancipator?) in the garden.
I will not use this essay to repeat themes I’ve recently covered elsewhere — for my take on the history, aesthetics, and higher meaning of the Satanic, you can visit my pieces Good, Clean Satanism; The Devil’s Reading List; and Satanism, Seriously. The purpose of this piece, rather, is to address the conflict experienced by my friend above. Her husband suspected that she had committed to a path of evil and even cruelty. Your friends, workmates, neighbors, and relatives may falsely believe the same of you if you are “out” as a Satanist or devotee of the Left Hand Path. (The Left Hand Path doesn’t necessarily mean Satanism but a spiritual or ethical path defined by “my will be done” versus “Thy will be done.”) Other observers may cling to the destructive fictions about Satanists that emerged from the discredited “Satanic abuse” scandals of the 1980s. And you may, at times, even ask yourself: Have I chosen a path with a heart?
The answer to that question is yes. Satanism, in its varied expressions, possesses an ethical code that resonates from within its literature throughout history from Genesis to Paradise Lost to the Romantic poets’ and proto-feminists’ rediscovery of the God of the Outsiders as an emancipator, nonconformist, and creative malcontent. Here are The Satanic Virtues:
