When I was a child, I was informed by my immediate family, my religious neighborhood and the Americal culture in which I was raised. I was taught what it meant to be a man—from never backing down from your position, to fighting anyone who thought I was somehow less than them. We protected women and made choices for them because we knew better. We ordered for them in restaurants, we defended their honor when they were insulted, and we stifled them into sub dominance to us, the men. Women knew their place or were taught it, and if they spoke out against you, it was your responsibility to put them in their place.
That is, until I stopped listening to my male counterparts and actually took a look around. My mother was in an abusive relationship when I was a child which ended in the arrest of and divorce from my father. When my step father rarely tried to follow through with those male tropes we were all taught, my mother quickly shut them down. When I observed her, I quickly realized women had autonomy and a will of their own. They were not prizes for men, but instead equal beings who controlled us, more often in private, much more than we controlled them. I understood this at 5 years old.
My first encounter with homosexuals was in an era where it was common to refer to each other as fags or homos as a school yard insult. We used it less for the direct connotation of the name. The kids simply picked up on the bigotry and stripped it of its actual meaning, leaving enough negative connotation behind to wound others with its use. My best friend at the time had an older brother who asked if I would let him put his mouth on my penis and if I would do the same in return. I had no actual context of sexuality at this point and out of curiosity I consented. We snuck around and hid our regular actions from our parents often, so this was simply one more secret. I thought nothing of it till our mothers came to talk to me, asking if Casey had touched me or if he asked me to touch him. I lied and kept it a secret for years. I was taught that being gay was a negative, before I even knew what being gay meant.
Later I would encounter more friends who would come out to me and ask to share experiences with them. I obliged some of them, and though I have always been attracted to women, I have never been repulsed by men. I never thought of my friends as different because they wanted to experiment or had different tastes than mine, they were my friends. Who we liked was irrelevant. I understood this at 10 years old.
My first encounter with a trans woman was years later. I was going out with some goth friends who wanted to dress me up to look the part as they did. I was a rocker with leather and long hair, so it wasn’t exactly a leap to shift into softer textiles and throw on some makeup. My sisters had been ‘making me up’ since I was a child, so I had no issue, and if I am being honest, I am pretty attractive under a skilled hand. We went to a coffee bar, which at our age and at the time was the place to hang out to score drugs and hook up. There was a woman across the room who was staring at me. At first I thought it was because I was a fresh face on the scene. There were many young girls who were friends with my companions who stopped by to see who the fresh face with them was, so I thought nothing of it. If I have ever been given a clearer mating signal, I cannot think of it. This woman was sending ‘fuck me eyes’ from across the room, and it was a bit intimidating because I have never been so agresively targeted by women before. When I brought it up to my companions, they told me that was Jason. I reacted in shock and in the cultural way I was taught, with revulsion. I have often found myself caught up acting in socially acceptable ways that would bring me shame upon later reflection.
My friends laughed at my reaction, and I immediately stopped and thought about what I was doing. I didn’t act out of revulsion from what she looked like, she was attractive. I didn’t act out of revulsion because of what she had between her legs, I have the same plumbing. I acted out of revulsion because society and culture demanded it. This was a defining moment for me. Was I going to sacrifice my autonomy of thought to the masses, the collective masculine consciousness in which I was raised; the same behavior that I witnessed fail time and time again, or would I stand apart and be an individual? I decided to take her attention as a compliment, and though I never had any interaction with her beyond that night and look, I felt shame for my behavior.
The idiom of questioning all things infers that something is to be learned. We questions all things so that we can come to a better understanding of an issue, not use it as an excuse to dig our heels in and bury our heads in the sand to contradictory positions. But that is exactly what I find so many people doing. They have an established idea that they were taught, or they enjoy and rather than honestly researching opposing views, they seek confirmation bias at best and often don’t research their position at all, simply using the idiom and their Satanic independance to justify their skewed perspective at worst.
The outcome of the questioning is less important than the act of questioning. Because let’s be honest, you may discover that you were justified in your thoughts all along. But unless you go into the act willing to have your perspectives altered, you will never benefit from the act at all. And ultimately this is the point of Satanism, to force the individual to take an objective view of themselves, identify what they believe needs to be corrected or improved upon, and being honest and dedicated to your own self improvement enough to work on those faults. This is not a simple task and can take years of work to even identify the core faults within yourself, but again, this is the strength of Satanism. You will in the best case scenario, become fully actualised as an individual—you will become the Übermench.
We cannot separate our perspectives from our physical and behavioral faults. We are the culmination of how we are physiologically built, our chemical and behavioral makeup and the perspectives we use to filter the world around us through. In the same way you should be exercising and eating healthy so your mind and body is in peak operation, you should be exercising your perceptions of the world around you through curiosity and challenging your preconceived notions. We are much more than the cultural, regional and religious influences we were raised around. We are autonomous creatures with perspective and will, and until we exercise those muscles as well, we are no better than the child who is told what to do and blindly obeys. You know, the proverbial sheep.
So why do we find so many Satanists unwilling to challenge themselves? Is it fear of the outcome? Fear of change? Is it fear that they have taken their perceptions as a part of their identity and by changing them, they no longer know who they are? I admit it can be a terrifying notion, but you must be able to challenge your thoughts as an individual, it is the only way true growth is possible.
At the center of this fear, I believe, is the notion of individuality. The misunderstanding that if your perception changes, you are no longer you—or worse to Satanists, you are part of a herd, or hive mind. But is that not where you are in this very moment? You are part of a hive mind that refuses to see reality as it is, but rather, as you ‘feel’ is should be. This is a toxic frame of mind. You can never be an effective Satanist without understanding the reality that the world operates in. Whether you like it or not. This is not to say reality is based in conventional and preposterous frames of conservative or liberal, right or left ideologies, but in educated Third Side Perspectives that can only be revealed after challenge and research.
It is our individual responsibility to challenge all things, it is the only way we can actively operate in, and manipulate the world around us. If that means our perspectives evolve over time, embrace it, because they have been informed by your research, personal experience and the wisdom of objectively viewing reality. We are Satanists, and we have the ability to master ourselves and others. Accept who you are, work to improve on it, and question your behaviors, thoughts and established dichotomies you are presented with. If we are truly the highest embodiment of human life, lets act like it!
Hail Satan!