Why I’m (NEVER) Leaving the Satanic Temple
My name is Amber, and I’m a Satanist.
“How did you become a Satanist?” We get that a lot.
It’s a rough decision for many, especially those indoctrinated in Christianity at an early age. I can attest to this — I grew up Southern Baptist; there was always gospel music in my grandmother’s house and God was ever present, most ominously in the creepy, late-night religious programming on the only channel the little TV in my room would pick up, where Jack Van Impe and his wife chortled about how excited they were to die in the Rapture on a nightly basis. I found all this traumatic and terrifying.
I remember being around age 7, in the car with my grandmother. I asked her how she knew God existed.
“Well,” she said, pursing her lips like Dana Carvey’s Church Lady, “You’re not supposed to question God.”
“If we aren’t supposed to question God, why are we able to? Why does he let us?”
She switched the ignition and changed the subject, and at that moment I knew without question I would be the religious black sheep of my family.
You know what never goes over well with me? Tests of love and obedience.
I stopped believing in God just a few years ago, when my parents died in the same week of unrelated causes. Spirituality was a major part of my life up until that point, and the decision was very simple. It was like opening a door, knowing the truth was on the other side all along: Nobody is steering this thing. If God exists, he’s been on a smoke break all this time — at least, for the entirety of my life.
I didn’t feel any kind of freedom, rather, I felt like a blank slate. My blankness followed me around for a while, and I recognized religious belief gives you a sense of purpose that other things don’t. Once you don’t rely on SkyDaddy to catch you anymore, you realize there is no other way to find your purpose other than to be the God in your own life. YOU are the conduit. It’s you now, and when you fuck up, you have to take responsibility. When you need something to happen, you have to make it happen.
I’ve been familiar with Satanism since childhood. The Church of Satan never quite worked for me — the idea of self-worship seemed a little silly to me, especially when so much satisfaction can be derived from helping others. Like a lot of you, the first time I read the 7 tenets, I knew I was on to something. Digging into classical left-hand literature — most specifically Huysman’s Le Bàs (a discussion for another time) — drove everything home.
Okay, so I was a Satanist! Holy shit! What?!? How would I tell my husband, my friends, my family members? How would I explain this thing that I was just starting to understand myself?
One night, I walked through the dark parking lot that led up to my building alone, and I had a random thought — I’m a Satanist, and I’m probably the scariest thing in this dark parking lot.
I cracked up, and it was truly a great moment. Just to have that one silly thought that summed up the entire experience for me — people are led to believe SO many ridiculous things, and Satanism is about questioning everything, blazing your own path and creating the happiness and success you’re entitled to in your own life.
“Why Satan?” Well, because so many of us are taught a narrative at critical ages of mind development that pulls us into a lifestyle where we become captives. Fear God, be chaste, don’t seek ungodly knowledge, don’t ask questions, submit, submit, submit. Like many other people, I have no problem with the act of submission when appropriate, but I sure as hell want to consent to it.
People leave The Satanic Temple because they feel they’re going in a different direction, or they’ve come to differing philosophical beliefs. Now and again, it’s out of the kind of sheer butt-hurtedness that spurs most religious dichotomies.
For me, there is no perfect religion, there is no perfect solution and there’s no way to live a perfect life. We even have a tenet about that. It’s about pulling up your sleeves and doing the work to make something as great as it can be, to offer people the kind of connectedness that’s a part of our humanity, and to leave something even greater for the people who come after us.
On days like today, when we learn we’ve been officially recognized as a church by the US government, all the work is worth it, and the voices that have tried so hard to stop our progress, to drown us out and even to harm us, seem very far away.
I’m so proud to be a part of all this today. Hail Satan, Hail Yourselves, and Hail the Satanic Temple.
Love,
Amber Saurus Rex
