Silly Witch Talk

The Devil you thought you knew.

jaketechstasy:

I blog, I rant, I complain, but in my vast columns of facebook lecturing, you will never find a one-sided argument with the purpose of bludgeoning my own perspective into your skull. I believe in many things, from God to aliens, music to social democracy, free trade to free downloading, hell - I even believe the Maple Leafs could win the Stanley Cup in my life time (perhaps hoping rather than believing). But above all, I believe in the freedom of choice, in selective hearing, in the human perspective on a greater scale. That being said, I now present to you a blog that will undoubtedly stir both some positive feelings, and also quite negative ones. Who is…

THE DEVIL?

By the end of this rant, some of you will think I am he. Haha! I digress…

I seek only to provide the reader with fact. And through fact, may he or she arrive at their own conclusion.

The Devil, contrary to google images - is not a red-skinned demon with horns and hooves. Rather, according to Christian mythology, ‘he’ has many identities, from a snake, to an angel, to a dragon, to a formless entity that dwells in the darkest parts of a man’s soul. He has been labeled as both evil, and misunderstood by some. Some say that the angel Lucifer became Satan, after his supposed fall from grace, whereas many scholars and translators claim Lucifer and Satan to be two completely different entities. Let’s lay out some topics.

The Holy Bible

The Bible has many references of Satan. The name ‘Satan’, or ha-Satan in Hebrew, means ‘The Accuser’ or ‘The Opposer’. Christianity depicts Satan as a challenger of man’s faith in God. This perspective could either be enforced or misunderstood in the book of Job. Job, a man of undeniable faith in God’s eyes, has the big man in the clouds on quite a high horse. God basically gloats to his divine council of Job’s picture-perfect faith, but is challenged by another council member - ha-Satan (THE DEVIL!! Oooh, ahhh!!!), who claims that Job has everything a man could ever want. Therefore, Job has no reason to stray from faith. But ha-Satan brings to light the scenario of Job losing everything, even his good health and family, a time in which the man would undoubtedly lose faith in God completely. Stroking his magical white beard (if he had one that is), the Lord agrees and appoints ha-Satan to test Job. From this story we are to understand that ha-Satan may not act independently from God, but rather could arguably be God’s right-hand man. As Job begins to get the shit-end of the stick from the big man, God eventually concludes that he has made a mistake, feeling guilt for putting his faithful believer through such tribulation. He says to ha-Satan “You have incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason” (Job 2:3). Perhaps this is true - but throughout the Bible we see many instances in which God reveals himself as quite the misguided being, killing the first born of Egypt to prove a point, destroying Sodom and Gomorrah for the reasons of mankind committing homosexual acts, gambling and adultery, and even his ill-advised attempt at swaying the innocent Job. If God makes mistakes and must be forgiven, must not Satan? It is said by many Christians that Satan was the snake in the garden of Eden who tempted Eve, but this claim has no biblical legitimacy in terms of recorded text. It could have also been lost over the many translations (or added in some). In the Revelation, Satan is all of a sudden a Dragon, and is cast out of heaven, apparently all-evil over night and sentenced to a smoking pit for a thousand years. According to this book, it were Angels who posted his bail in the end. In the written text he may have reigned his own forms of destruction across the Earth in revenge against God for being cast down, but he was released by Angels. As were the four horsemen, and all of the floods, plagues, mass genocide etc. But it’s okay right? They had a bad day, and we forgive them. But Satan, that motherfucker is an asshole (apparently). The next time an oppressive regime (like the Nazis for example) exterminates six million people, and the same day I rob a bank and piss on a few door-handles, I’ll remember I’m worse. It is in the Revelation that we finally see all the supposed connections come together -  “the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan,” ( Rev 12:9, 20:2). 

Baphomet

During the middle ages, the Church was at it’s high rule, condemning anyone not Christian. If you were a woman and a pagan, you were a witch who worshiped the Devil. If you were a Muslim, well…you were a Muslim and therefore Satanic (hmm). If you were a homosexual…you get the idea. The Church needed a scapegoat to tie all of these unwanted sinners together under one unified demonic cult. They created the concept of Baphomet, a goat-headed naked woman with wings that (unfortunately) today has become confused with the concept of Satan. This new pagan deity allowed Christian monarchies to persecute non-believers on a near genocidal scale. By many occultists, Baphomet is seen as a symbol of enlightenment (especially the OTO and followers of Aleister Crowley’s religion ‘Thelema’), representing man’s never-ending pursuit of knowledge, which will ultimately lead to his ascension. Explained to me by a member of Ordo Templi Orientis: “Baphomet is everything beautiful around you. The ambiance, the textures, the twinkling snowflakes on a calm winter day”. Baphomet = Not Satan. Satan = Not Baphomet. Satan and Baphomet = not cool with the Lord apparently. The Lord = not generally cool with a lot of stuff nowadays. 

The Pentagram

This symbol is very often misconstrued as representative of Satan. It absolutely is not, by historical nature. It is more accurately associated with Lucifer, who is arguably NOT Satan and vice-versa. The pentagram is symbolic of the Morning Star - the planet VENUS. It is commonly associated with the angel Lucifer because his name is Latin for ‘Bringer of Light’, and Venus is the brightest star in the sky in the early morning (from darkness to light, hence why the Catholics have beef with Freemasonry #getoveritguys). In Paganism and Witchcraft the Pentagram is representative of the five senses, and because of this, is a common tool in many forms of ritual. Contrary, again, to popular belief - the Pentagram is actually a tool used to protect a person during ritual from unwelcome entities. Pentagram - not related to the Devil. Cool? Sweet.

Satanism

Oh here we go. Don’t get me wrong - I respect Satanism, I think a lot of is actually kind of neat. I am of course talking about modern LaVeyan Satanism, which, rather than promoting human sacrifice to the Devil (when did this ever happen in any texts in history by the way? Oh yeah, God did most of the killing in the bible, my bad), it actually promotes self-empowerment and belief in the human spirit before the spirit above. Anton LaVey suggested that we embrace temptation rather than be embarrassed by the fact that we all want things the Church has a monopoly over. Modern day Satanists in fact don’t even believe in the Devil, but rather empowered Atheism. The Satanic Bible (written by Anton LaVey in 1966) is an interesting read if you have the time - but in reality is a mere simplified borrowing of Crowley’s Thelema and the Enochian system of Magick made popular by John Dee and Edward Kelley during the Renaissance (I was especially disappointed that LaVey went as far as to alter the original Enochian Keys to better fit his philosophy). Where Crowley explores Qabala and facing the Abyss, LaVey promotes love and destruction spells for the average angry teenager. Again, love it - but not a firm believer.

Anyhow, I believe I’ve ranted enough about our quiet friend from ‘down under’ so to speak (which according to Dante’s Inferno is actually icy rather than fiery), so the next time you’re devil bashing with your friends in the Catholic School cafeteria - remember the Devil doesn’t own a winter coat

Your ginger under cover,

Jake Hamilton 

Anonymous asked: how/why did you get into witch stuff? :)

A big part of it was my family. I used to really look up to my older sister, and she dabbled in witchcraft and I pretty much thought that was the shit. She let me borrow her books and tried to teach me some stuff, but gave up because I was an annoying, tag-along little sibling, but it sparked an interest. Also, the only thing I really knew about my great-grandmother until recently was that she did some witchy stuff, including palm reading, so I read up and taught myself how to do that! (I’ve felt kind of a connection to her, cheesy as it sounds, and it idk makes me feel close to her?)

Otherwise, I’ve always had a fascination with magic and the occult, and read pretty much all I could get my hands on. Then I stopped for a while because I thought I was way too cool/mature/rational to believe in witchcraft and magic, but now I have no illusions about my coolness/maturity/rationality so I’m diving back in.