The Path of Progressive Satanism

Milchar

History needs to be studied but not to be overrated. History is what's gone and never can return. There will be neither Pagan civilizations, such as the Ancient Greeks and Romans, nor heroic epochs of knights and Vikings. They have to be studied, but can't serve as a guide for today and tomorrow. There is no job for Vikings in the epoch of computers.

Trying to revive the ancient Pagan rituals using the remained descriptions of them is an atavism of the past. Those rituals were conducted by totally different people in totally different situations. A modern person's goals are not the same as theirs and can't be achieved the same way.

Even the meaning of 'magic' has changed since the ancient time. Many things that were viewed as magical in the past are now ordinary applications of science and technology, such as weather forecast, hypnosis and many issues of medicine. If ancient Scythes or today's Papuans had seen our electronics, they would try to make it work with their shamanic methods, and we laugh at them. But our attempts to revive the ancient Pagan rituals are the same laughing stock.

Each historical situation is unique. This is why any attempt to restore something that existed in the past is condemned to fail. We can only try to understand what the ancient men said, and to think how their ideas might be or not be useful today. However, any ideas become obsolete sooner or later, as life is changing.

In the lands where Paganism was not violently wiped out (such as Japan and India), we can see that it has changed so much that it's not appropriate now to call it Paganism. When a present-day Japanese is lifting to a Shinto temple on the upper floor of a skyscraper, he does not feel the same as his great-grandfather, who could not even imagine the modern lifestyle. Also B.-Sh.Rajneesh's rituals with cars and electronics are obviously not the same as the orthodox Brahmanism.

But why do the occultists, who pretend to possess a higher knowledge than common people have, often ignore the things that are well-known to everyone, and still keep on using the methods of the past in their practice? Why do they light up candles in the age of electricity? If they answer that candles are more natural and have more magical power — I'll laugh and say: repeating the things that have been done many times is much easier than inventing something new. But using old methods without understanding how they work and without trying to improve them is not a Satanic way.

The origins of such conservatism of occultists are obvious. In the Middle Ages, every useful knowledge was extracted from the remains of the ancient Greek and Roman culture. Such regression of knowledge is a rare case in history. But by the 18th century, the Europeans reinvented everything that had been known to the ancient Romans and later forgotten during the centuries of Christian obscurantism. This is why since that time the orientation should have been turned from the past onto the future. However, it began only after the industrial revolution, which made the "natural" lifestyle to look not so attractive as some centuries ago. Occultists are now tuning their methods to the present, though too slowly. Anyway, everything useful that could be borrowed from our pre-Christian past is already taken. Now it's time to think about our post-Christian future.

Every philosophical idea is a product of its time, because it's based on the level of knowledge by the moment when it was developed. A modern philosopher knows much more about atoms than Democritus knew ;-) Now a revolution in philosophy is coming, induced by psychology and psychoanalysis. For the first time in known history, the human personality becomes a subject of scientific study instead of mere philosophical speculations. All the classical philosophy of the 17th-19th centuries will turn obsolete soon, because it knows about personality not more than Democritus knew about atoms.

This is why each philosopher's ideas can be understood only in the context of the historical, social and political situation and the level of knowledge at the time of his life. Minding this, we should take the ideas of some authors, respectable in the community of Satanists, with more criticism.

Max Stirner's ideas were topical in the 19th century, when most people were still thinking that the existing social order is the only possible or the only reasonable one, at least for the "civilized" (European) society. He denied such notions and showed an alternative, but it was a utopia that ignored the psychological factors. Now it's easy to prove that an anarchical society is unfeasible due to the very nature of human.

If F.Nietzsche lived today, he would write an absolutely different philosophy. Superhuman is not an abstract idea now; theoretically, it's already clear how to create a superhuman in the near future. Thinking that conservators never let it happen is a fallacy. Superhumans will give a great advantage in all spheres, including the military one, to the state that has made them first. Of course, in the long-term outlook superhumans can force out ordinary humans from Earth, but politicians usually don't look so far and care only of today's problems. Nuclear weapons are as mortally dangerous for the humankind as superhumans would be, but they were created as soon as it became technically possible and politically desirable. Don't forget about the necessity of experiment in science and about scientists' curiosity itself (as Enrico Fermi said: "First of all this is a very interesting physics"). The scientific interest is sometimes more important for a real scientist than even the instinct of self-preservation. It's not difficult for scientists to get funding for an inoffensively looking theme of research that really will mean creating a superhuman. As some centuries ago conservators were unable to stop Galileo and Copernicus, nor are they able now to stop genetic engineering, cloning and superhumans finally.

A.LaVey's ideas are also not a wisdom for eternity. In some decades, people will wonder: why he teaches such banal and obvious things as sexual freedom, and pays so much attention to such absurd doctrine as Christianity? But future historians can tell them that it did not seem so obvious for most people of the 20th century.

There's nothing eternal in this ever-changing world. Great things live for centuries, while mediocre things are forgotten before the death of their creator. This means that philosophy can never be finished — not only due to the ever-growing amount of information, but also because the humanity itself changes all the time. Today's intellectuals demand for a more advanced philosophy than ancient wise men needed. Even the meaning of the term 'philosophy' has been changing during its history. The highest wisdom of the ancient Greeks looks now like thoughts of a curious teenager. In several centuries, what we treat now as wisdom will also look this way.

What we can call Satanic art or Satanic culture, is obviously not abundant in today's world — at least because the Satanic community itself is not numerous. The desire to treat some Pagan and modern "gothic" cultural phenomena as Satanic culture is understandable, but it should be kept in mind that they differ from the "really Satanic" culture in the crucial point of temporal orientation. The pagan and the gothic culture is linked to the past and would not exist without it.

However, since we live in the modern reality, we need to be fit for it. This is a power point of the gothic culture, which brings the traditional characters of vampires, werewolves and ghosts into the world of computers and skyscrapers. But maybe the modern scenery needs modern characters?

Since the Middle Ages and up to the 19th century, people were scared of the past and the wild nature. This is why the dark characters in the literature of that time came from the past — from the Pagan epoch. But now people are more afraid of the future, which brings new technologies, drastically changing our life, and which requires to think in global and cosmic scale, not in local or national one. So let's give our respect to the gothic culture for its being not afraid of the past, and start creating the Satanic culture, which will be not afraid of the future.

Is somebody surprised at comparing an ancient national culture with a youth subculture, which came into the world only some decades ago? This is another sign of the upcoming future. Hundreds of national cultures are merging into a single international one, which consists of many subcultures satisfying any taste. Formerly people had to accept the culture of their nation, but now they have an opportunity to choose from many cultural varieties. Some subcultures are more different from each other than the cultures of different nations. Everything standing on national roots becomes a thing of the past. This is also why Paganism can now exist only as a philosophy, not as a religion with national gods.

However, by no means does this mean that the Western culture is forcing out non-Western ones, as some people think. The Western culture has also changed much since the 19th century and is no longer "purely European/American" as it used to be. It borrows useful things from many other cultures. Today's Europeans consume Indian and Chinese food, listen to music with African rhythms, play Japanese sports; and so many interesting things we can find in Indian and Chinese philosophy or in Mesoamerican occult practices described by C.Castaneda! Each nation contributes to the single global culture as much as it can.

Our attitude to the past is also changing, and this involves not only the well-known events of history. More and more doubts are cast upon viewing the mythology only as a symbolical description of reality. In the texts of myths archeologists often find correct information on the real events of the past. It's not only Troy that has been proved to be a fact though treated as fiction in the 19th century. Studying the ruins of Mohendjo-Daro, destroyed with a single huge explosion, possibly confirms the existence of the 'weapon of the gods' described in the Indian mythology. The myths about Lucifer can also turn out to be a fact from the history of a yet unknown ancient civilization.

We can learn much more about the ancient history by comparison between the archeological findings and the myths, but first we have to get rid of the religious attitude to mythology and to start viewing myths as historical documents. This is possible only in the global culture, which will not be limited by a single national set of myths.

For us Satanists, it's not enough to merely find our place in the future that's coming tomorrow. We need to decide, how we can influence it already today.

Now it's time for a new religion to come up in place of the obsolete monotheism, and we can invent a new faith for those who need it. If neither we nor other progressive forces do it, than conservators will do. Of course, progress will keep on going anyway, but social doctrines can speed it up or slow down. It took 7 centuries for the Ancient Romans to develop from a primitive tribe to the most advanced civilization in the world. When the Roman Empire collapsed, its knowledge was forgotten, and the Europeans needed twice more time (from the 4th to 18th century) to reach the level of technology comparable to the Roman Empire at its best times. Why? The Roman Paganism set no obstacles for progress — unlike Christianity.

Now scientific research projects are often funded by corporations, not by the government. It might be possible for Satanists to enter the board of a corporation and provide funding for works on superhuman etc.. At least, it looks much more real than trying to get the political power. Every goal can be achieved if it's physically possible, but you need to understand the necessity to do it and the way how it can be done in the current situation.

Despite the orientation to the future, philosophy of the majority of Satanists is a curious mix of the future and the past, and this admixture of the past hinders us from doing maximum possible for the future. This is why we still dream about superhuman instead of creating it with modern technologies, still try to revive the corpse of the pre-Christian tribal culture instead of producing a new post-Christian global one, still light up candles for "magic" instead of studying how the high technologies can be used for gaining personal power. Romance prevailing over pragmaticism is the main problem of Satanists now.

Satan personifies development; therefore, Satanism has to be progressive. Let the past be kept in museums, and so the future will belong to Satanists!