Satanism as Weltanschauung, a lecture in 9 parts (plus Q&A bonus)

I’m pleased to release the video of a lecture given on March 1st of this year when I was invited to speak on the topic of Satanism for a class at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Filmed in HD and edited to include quite a few graphics not presented in the original lecture, I’m pleased with the outcome and hope that for those already familiar with Satanism there is enough to still keep you interested and possibly entertained.

Embedded below is a playlist of all 9 videos, to play without interruption.

Below are two parts of the Q&A session that followed:

If you enjoyed the lecture and would like to make a voluntary monetary donation, please do so below:

Satanism as Weltanschauung

Ch. 1 “Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself…”

Rev. Kevin I. Slaughter introduces himself and gives a short biographical background to establish his long-held interest in Satanism explicitly, but also the occult or hidden aspects of culture.

Ch. 2 “A Brief Overview of Satanism”

Rev. Slaughter gives a very brief overview of Satanism, what a Satanist is, and how it is viewed by society.

Ch. 3 “The Satanic Bible”

Rev. Slaughter discusses the first High Priest of the Church of Satan’s book “The Satanic Bible”. He reads “The Nine Satanic Statements” and other pertinent selections from it.

Ch. 4 “The Satanic Scriptures”

Rev. Slaughter discusses the current High Priest of the Church of Satan’s book “The Satanic Scriptures”. He reads pertinent selections from it.

Ch. 5 “Egalité vs. Hierarchy”

The natural world is stratified, the weak, slow and stupid tend to be worse for wear. The smart, quick and strong tend to have a better time of it. In the animal kingdom, the world that we exist in, it is eat or be eaten.

Rev. Slaughter makes reference to Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, and reads an excerpt from Theodore Dalrymple’s book “Life at the Bottom”.

Ch. 6 “Lex Satanicus”

Satanism takes few overtly political positions, and there is absolutely no affiliation between the Church any political party. The Satanic philosophy positions itself as a third side, rejecting the simplistic dichotomies of good vs. evil, republican vs. democrat, liberal and conservative. The one position most clearly associated with politics is Lex Talionis.

Ch. 7 “Magic”

Magic, in the Satanic sense, is not about shooting fireballs or riding on broomsticks, we do not have “spells” that guarantee sex or death – the two things people always seem to want a spell for. When the Satanist performs greater magic, it is an emotional psychodrama, intended to charge the participant with a specific feeling or to put him in a specific emotional state. It’s made clear in the writings that Greater Magic is an emotional working as opposed to intellectual. Like the power of a masterfully written book or piece of music has, this productive fiction is useful and possibly necessary to the human animal.

Ch. 8 “A Few Unkind Words…”

In this part of the lecture Kevin discusses Christian Child Abuse, a blog that collects stories about pedophile priests. He discusses religiously motivated atrocities committed by Islam and Judaism in the name of their religion and accepted by their communities.

The website is found at http://christianchildabuse.blogspot.com

Ch. 9 “Love”

Satanism isn’t merely a reactionary stance, it is about knowing ones self and building real relationships with worthy people. Rev. Slaughter recites a poem titled “Love” that was written by freethinker Robert Greene Ingersoll, to illustrate this and other points in the Satanic worldview.

Kevin has participated in two oratory contests where contestants read their choice of Ingersoll’s work, and won first place in 2010. The video can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8UPNFcnYIM

Rev. Slaughter is an official representative of the Church of Satan. More information can be found on the website http://www.churchofsatan.com

Filmed and edited by Kevin I. Slaughter for Underworld Amusements: http://www.underworldamusements.com

Music composed and performed by Michaelanthony Mitchell

Book Nerd :: “We Are Doomed” by John Derbyshire (updated)

Just picked up the book (at retail even! oy vey iz mir…), subtitled “Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism”… a wondrous title in a world where all major parties and advocates are doing their heavens-best to have the shiniest good-guy badge pinned to their lapels. If it’s not far left utopian top-down social engineering and tax-raising (while neglecting to report their exotically getaway summer houses or slums), it’s the religious holier than thou right bellowing about family values (while scurrying off to fuck mistresses in exotic locals, or pages in exotic orifices).

Book Nerd - We are Doomed

As approprite for a book nerd, my bone folder and plastic jacket cover is ready for application.  I tend to do this for all my hardback books, regardless of possible market value – because you never know when a house guest will sit a beverage down on one of your books (there is a strong correlation between this act and my becoming angry and inhospitable, but without a proper study it would be hasty to attribute a causal factor).

I’ll fess up, I looked through the 5 copies on the shelf, inspecting the jackets and head and tail to pick the most pristine copy. They were all shelves face out in a new release section, so there wasn’t much concern about the head or head band being damaged from people pulling on them as when a book is shelves spine out. Earlier when I had my wife grab a copy of  The Greatest Show On Earth”, I’ll cop to a bit of nervousness that she’d bring home a copy with a ding in the jacket and board or some marring that wasn’t immediately apparent. She did well for me, and puts up with my stuttering “make sure it’s a clean copy” over the phone.

This is all rooted in my comic collecting as a child. It was my age group that heard the sad tales of parents and older folks lamenting that their mom threw away their old comic books, and they’d recall rare and early issues that would fetch a fortune in the secondary market of people willing to pay too much for comic books.

Derbyshire is one of those odd atheist conservatives, a mathematician and has his own weekly podcast. The rest of his CV can be ascertained at one of the links provided…

See the other posts on here that I mention him in.

UPDATE 10/28/09

Book Nerd - We are Doomed - Noted

Looks like I’ll be interviewing “Derb” for the podcast at the HL Mencken Club event!