History of Satanism

Literally Satanism

Artistic Satanism

Satan in Paradise Lost, as illustrated by Gustave Doré

From the late seventeenth through to the nineteenth century, the character of Satan was increasingly rendered unimportant in Western philosophy and ignored in Christian theology, while in folklore he came to be seen as a foolish rather than a menacing figure.[81] The development of new values in the Age of Enlightenment-in particular those of reason and individualism-contributed to a shift in how many Europeans viewed Satan.[81] In this context, a number of individuals took Satan out of the traditional Christian narrative and "reread and reinterpreted" him "in light of their own time and their own interests", in turn generating "new and different portraits of Satan".[82]

The shifting view of Satan owes many of its origins to John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), in which Satan features as the protagonist.[83] Milton was a Puritan and had never intended for his depiction of Satan to be a sympathetic one.[84] However, in portraying Satan as a victim of his own pride who rebelled against God he humanized him and also allowed him to be interpreted as a rebel against tyranny.[85] This was how Milton's Satan was understood by later readers like the publisher Joseph Johnson,[86] and the anarchist philosopher William Godwin, who reflected it in his 1793 book Enquiry Concerning Political Justice.[85] Paradise Lost gained a wide readership in the eighteenth century, both in Britain and in continental Europe, where it had been translated into French by Voltaire.[87] Milton thus became "a central character in rewriting Satanism" and would be viewed by many later religious Satanists as a "de facto Satanist".[82]

The nineteenth century saw the emergence of what has been termed "literary Satanism" or "romantic Satanism".[88] According to Van Luijk, this cannot be seen as a "coherent movement with a single voice, but rather as a post factum identified group of sometimes widely divergent authors among whom a similar theme is found".[89] For the literary Satanists, Satan was depicted as benevolent and sometimes heroic figure,[90] with these more sympathetic portrayals proliferating in the art and poetry of many romanticist and decadent figures.[82] For these individuals, Satanism was not a religious belief or ritual activity, but rather a "strategic use of a symbol and a character as part of artistic and political expression".[91]

Among the romanticist poets to adopt this view of Satan was the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who had been influenced by Milton.[92] In his poem Laon and Cythna, Shelley praised the "Serpent", a reference to Satan, as a force for good in the universe.[93] Another was Shelley's fellow British poet Lord Byron, who included Satanic themes in his 1821 play Cain, which was a dramatization of the Biblical story of Cain and Abel.[88] These more positive portrayals also developed in France; one example was the 1823 work Eloa by Alfred de Vigny.[94] Satan was also adopted by the French poet Victor Hugo, who made the character's fall from Heaven a central aspect of his La Fin de Satan, in which he outlined his own cosmogony.[95] Although the likes of Shelley and Byron promoted a positive image of Satan in their work, there is no evidence that any of them performed religious rites to venerate him, and thus it is problematic to regard them as religious Satanists.[89]

Radical left-wing political ideas had been spread by the American Revolution of 1765-83 and the French Revolution of 1789-99, and the figure of Satan, who was interpreted as having rebelled against the tyranny imposed by God, was an appealing one for many of the radical leftists of the period.[96] For them, Satan was "a symbol for the struggle against tyranny, injustice, and oppression... a mythical figure of rebellion for an age of revolutions, a larger-than-life individual for an age of individualism, a free thinker in an age struggling for free thought".[91] The French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who was a staunch critic of Christianity, embraced Satan as a symbol of liberty in several of his writings.[97] Another prominent 19th century anarchist, the Russian Mikhail Bakunin, similarly described the figure of Satan as "the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds" in his book God and the State.[98] These ideas likely inspired the American feminist activist Moses Harman to name his anarchist periodical Lucifer the Lightbearer.[99] The idea of this "Leftist Satan" declined during the twentieth century,[99] although it was used on occasion by authorities within the Soviet Union, who portrayed Satan as a symbol of freedom and equality.[100]

Rock music

During the 1960s and 1970s, several rock bands-namely the American Coven and the British Black Widow-employed the imagery of Satanism and witchcraft in their work.[101] References to Satan also appeared in the work of those rock bands which were pioneering the heavy metal genre in Britain during the 1970s.[102] Black Sabbath for instance made mention of Satan in their lyrics, although several of the band's members were practicing Christians and other lyrics affirmed the power of the Christian God over Satan.[103] In the 1980s, greater use of Satanic imagery was made by heavy metal bands like Slayer, Kreator, Sodom, and Destruction.[104] Bands active in the subgenre of death metal-among them Deicide, Morbid Angel, and Entombed-also adopted Satanic imagery, combining it with other morbid and dark imagery, such as that of zombies and serial killers.[105]

Satanism would come to be more closely associated with the subgenre of black metal,[102] in which it was foregrounded over the other themes that had been used in death metal.[106] A number of black metal performers incorporated self-injury into their act, framing this as a manifestation of Satanic devotion.[106] The first black metal band, Venom, proclaimed themselves to be Satanists, although this was more an act of provocation than an expression of genuine devotion to the Devil.[107] Satanic themes were also used by the black metal bands Bathory and Hellhammer.[108] However, the first black metal act to more seriously adopt Satanism was Mercyful Fate, whose vocalist, King Diamond, joined the Church of Satan.[109] More often than not musicians associating themselves with black metal say they do not believe in legitimate Satanic ideology and often profess to being atheists, agnostics, or religious skeptics.[110]

In contrast to King Diamond, various black metal Satanists sought to distance themselves from LaVeyan Satanism, for instance by referring to their beliefs as "devil worship".[111] These individuals regarded Satan as a literal entity,[112] and in contrast to LaVey's views, they associated Satanism with criminality, suicide, and terror.[111] For them, Christianity was regarded as a plague which required eradication.[113] Many of these individuals-such as Varg Vikernes and Euronymous-were Norwegian,[114] and influenced by the strong anti-Christian views of this milieu, between 1992 and 1996 around fifty Norwegian churches were destroyed in arson attacks.[115] However, the legitimacy of such actions as Satanic endeavors, rather than simply rebellious actions done for publicity, is something that has been doubted by even some of those who contribute to the genre.[116] Within the black metal scene, a number of musicians later replaced Satanic themes with those deriving from Heathenry, a form of modern Paganism.[117]