The Devil Is My Friend
This week, we’re pulling back the curtain on the many misconceptions about Satanism, exploring demon conjurings (spoiler: they can be kinda cute!) and the beef between the Temple of Satan and the Church of Satan. Meeting three different types of Satanists — Atheistic, Theistic, and Satanic Witches — we mostly learn that the devil is our friend. Plus, we dive into the meaning of The Devil card with Hannah Graves, creator of Cult Mother Tarot, learning how to work with its dark and disciplinary energy.
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Michelle Tea: Welcome to Your Magic, I’m Michelle Tea, and today we’re doing something a little different on the pod. While we haven’t abandoned our original format - I love chatting with and reading tarot cards for artists I’m a fan of - we’re going to be bringing you some episodes that instead take a deeper dive into some of the magical concepts and practices I’m intrigued with - like Aliester Crowley’s Thelema tradition, the veneration of saints, psychic mediums, and moon magic. I’m also interested in looking at how magic practitioners navigate the very non-magical aspects of life on earth, whether it’s battling internet scammers or fighting to keep abortion legal. And we’re debuting our new, themed episodes today a focus on the dark lord himself - Satan, and those whom love him.
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Michelle Tea: Most of us know enough about Satanists to know what they’re not - like the accused witches of 17th century Salem, they, too, are not boiling babies in cauldrons and selling their souls at the crossroads. Some of us remember the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. We know that the cavalcade of talk show guests insisting that teenaged heshers with pentagrams inked on their stonewashed denim were making human sacrifices in your own backyard not only wasn’t true, it had consequences - like the West Memphis Three, a trio of goth-hesher teens from Arkansas who spent most of their lives in prisons for murders they didn’t commit.
So, we know actual, practicing Satanists are not, like, murderers . But, what are they? Who are they? What do they practice, and what do they believe?
In my explorations, I’ve found that there are three styles of contemporary Satanism being practiced today. First, Atheistic Satanists. Then there are your Theistic Satanists. And finally, my personal fave, Satanic Witches.
Let’s start with Athiestic Satanists. They don’t really believe in Satan - they’re atheists! However, these folks have found that the devil and all he represents - wild sexuality, skepticism, hedonism, science, questioning authority, personal liberation - it all synchs up nicely with their own values, and comes with a ready-made eternally goth/metal aesthetic, plus the added bonus of messing with the Church, which can be fun, especially for those who’ve survived a childhood of non-consensual Jesus. Entities like The Satanic Temple use Satan as a rallying cry to fight against Christian forces working to erode the separation of Church and state in America.
Theistic Satanists, despite their name, don’t really believe in Satan, either - but they do believe in the power of ritual, both psychologically and to connect to the mysterious energies of our universe. These folks do engage in ceremonial magic, black masses, and other private practices, and are more likely to be found hailing Satan in the privacy of their own homes, rather than before a statue of Baphomet they’re fighting to erect in the town square.
And then there are Satanic Witches. Far less organized than the Atheists who can gather under the auspices of the Temple, or the Theistics, who find like-minded ritualists at The Church of Satan, Satanic Witches are on their own, finding one another on the internet, if at all. Unlike the other Satanists, Satanic witches, do believe in Satan, and they seek a relationship with the dark lord, as well as his many demons. And, sometimes, they get it.
I found three practicing Satanists, one of each ilk, all of whom generously agreed to talk to me about what the devil means to them.
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Seth Katz: My name is Seth Katz. My pronouns are he/they, or she in the gay way, she in the way that men refer to boats, and I identify as an atheistic Satanist.
Michelle Tea: Atheistic Satanist sounds like a contradiction in terms. What is it?
Seth: I don't worship Satan or any God, nor do I believe that Satan exists as some God-like entity. I believe in Satan as this representation of concepts like knowledge, power, freedom, autonomy versus, you know, this Judeo-Christian God that represents a lot of the patriarchal, stifling ideals. And in his spoken and written about as being this kind of judgmental, almost hoarder and keeper of love and respect and knowledge that one must earn.
Michelle Tea: Yeah, the Judeo-Christian god definitely has a lot of classic toxic masculinity. Not an appropriate role model for our day and age. But, Satan? Interesting . . .
Seth: I think a lot of young queer as a lot of young punks sort of come to Satanism, this sort of like reclamation kind of way. I mean, folks were referring to me and thinking of me as satanic in this kind of negative sense for a long time, because I am androgynous and alternative, I mean, I remember once here in San Francisco and getting on the bus go into the Haight and I like on a good day, look like some of these 13 year old brother and I was wearing like fishnets a black dress. And this guy pulls out a metal cross and he's like waving it at me.
Michelle Tea: Okay, this is wild, because back in my own youth - 1980s, Boston Massachusetts - I, too, was a bit of a spectacle on public transportation. With my gigantic hairdo, black and snarled, and my black lipstick, black lace dresses and blasphemous jewelry (you’re not actually supposed to wear rosary beads, okay), I attracted a lot of attention. The famously mouthy, famously Catholic citizens of Boston took one look at me and decided that I was obviously worshipping Satan, and they wasted no time in, like warding me off, via basic harassment, the flinging of trash and the occasional wad of spit.
When I came upon The Satanic Bible at an indie bookshop, I just had to poke my nose in it. By that time I was savvy enough to know that much of what the world insisted was bad, was actually good, and much of what was trumped as good was plainly corrupt. A quick peek into the pages of The Satanic Bible confirmed this newish bad-is-good philosophy: it seemed that Satan and I were in agreement about many things!
‘Satan represents indulgence, instead of abstinence!’ Begins The Nine Satanic Statements. Well, teenaged alcoholic me could not agree more! ‘Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it, instead of love wasted on ingrates!’, it continued. ‘Satan represents vengeance, instead of turning the other cheek!’ It’s worth noting that all Nine Satanic Statements end in exclamation points, making them more like The Nine Satanic Vociferations, as if they were written to be recited while pumping one’s fist into the air. Regardless, I was into it, and after purchasing the book took to reading it, publicly, in the primary site of my teenaged harassment - the Boston MBTA. And guess what? It worked! Like a rope of garlic repelling vampires, the site of me flagrantly clutching a Satanic text, a black-clad book with a hot pink pentacle on the cover, it was too much for the regional Catholics. Their bal3lsy confrontations turned to passive-aggressive whispers; instead of throwing trash, they threw condemnation with their eyes and scowls. Yes, they made faces at me and stage-whispered so that I could hear what they thought of me, but I didn’t care. They could hate me all they wanted, I just didn’t want to get my ass kicked. I may have looked scary, but like most goths, I was a crybaby weakling. The suggestion that I maybe just might have an actual relationship with the Lord of Darkness - someone I didn’t believe in but the Christian did - made me untouchable to the more violent among them. In my new, cozy zone of relative public safety, I grew quite fond of the Devil, and did become, in my way, a bit of a Satanist, like Seth Katz.
Here’s Seth again.
Seth: So it kind of started as like fashion satanism, where I was like reclaiming Satanism in the beginning as this sort of thing where it was like, people are thinking, I'm a witch and a satanist anyway. And then it kind of naturally evolved into getting more interested in it, folks were talking about Satanism as this sociopolitical concept, you know, as a performative concept.
Michelle Tea: The go-to organization for Athiestic Satanists is The Satanic Temple. Their hilarious but heartfelt and always-a-spectacle activism can be enjoyed in the documentary Hail, Satan!, which I really recommend. I love the work they do. You know who may not love them so much? Members of The Church of Satan. Though neither the Church or the Temple really believe in the demonic entity known as Satan, I was told by a key member of The Church of Satan that Satanic Temple members aren’t ‘real’ Satanists. This isn’t just the petty one-upmanship that plagues so many subcultures (well, ok, maybe it is); to Church of Satan members, being a Satanist means you are engaging in specific rituals meant, if not to raise Lucifer (the Church and Temple are in agreement that no such entity actually exists), than to use ritual for deep psychological growth and catharsis, and even to make contact with certain universal energies. The Church of Satan is engaging in magic. The Satanic Temple, however, conducts their rituals in public, and it does seem that the intention is more theater - punking the church and scandalizing the squares.
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Michelle Tea: The Church of Satan is where the theistic Satanists gather, and it has a rather glamorous history, I think. It’s charismatic founder was Anton LaVey, author of The Satanic Bible, lover of exclamation points. He seems to have been born with a bald head, iconic goatee and eyebrows that only grow more arched and sinister as he aged. He founded The Church of Satan in 1966 at 6114 California Street in San Francisco, a single-family home painted black that was the headquarters of American Satanism until the patriarch died in the late 90s and the house was shortly thereafter demolished. A real showman, LeVey had a pet lion and was often photographed seemingly mid-ritual, candles aflame, in a hooded cape that provided him with both a widow’s peak and a pair of horns. Sometimes he wore a classic Catholic priest’s outfit; sometimes he held a snake. Often there is a blonde woman in the picture with him. One such bouffant-topped femme was the actressJayne Mansfield; she’d met LaVey at some point after being kicked out of the San Francisco Film Festival for going commando beneath her pink dress. The two embarked upon a madcap romantic, Satanic affair; LaVey anointed Mansfield The High Priestess of the San Francisco Church of Satan, and put a curse upon her ex-husband Sam Brody.
The Church if Satan have been been around for almost sixty years, still thriving even without their charismatic figurehead. I wanted to know exactly what they were up to, ritually speaking, and found a member who would speak to me.
Bill: My name is Bill M, I am Magister with the Church of Satan, I've been a member of the Church of Satan and a Satanist for over 20 years.
Michelle Tea: Magisters are folks who have passed through four of the five stages of initiation in the Church of Satan, so Bill is almost at the top. He also has a podcast, The Devil’s Mischief, on Radio Free Satan, and is a great person to explain to me what the Church of Satan - the first group to call themselves Satanists and have an actual religion called Satanism - is all about.
Bill: It's not Satan worship, it is Satanism. So it's embracing the life enriching things which have traditionally been given the devil's name: pride, lust, earthly success, rational self interest, atheism, humor, nonconformity, science, personal passions being selective about whom we love, we feel that most religions have traditionally condemned these things as being shameful sins, but we take them as empowering ideals.
Michelle Tea: Listening to this it’s hard not to just be, like, yup, I’m a Satanist. Those are definitely my values. And I appreciate, as a witch who regularly performs devotions to deities even though I don’t know that I actually believe in them, that the Church honors ritual for ritual’s sake, for the psychological power in performing them, and even, it seems, the aesthetic power of Satanism, that power I felt while reading the Satanic Bible in public all those years ago.
Bill: I think there's just a general human need to ritualize, to express things through, you know, ritual and symbolism. A lot of these hardcore atheists are really big into Star Wars or Star Trek, and I think they kind of get their own ritualistic release through that. And a lot of even non-religious people in general, you know, whether they get it through really following a sports team and wearing the logo and chants and all that stuff, you know, I think all of this comes down to a very basic human need to rituals.
Michelle Tea: I too am a basic human with this need to indulge in rituals, and listening to Bill describe what goes down in a Satanic ceremony, I was struck by how similar it is to the probably amateur magic I’m doing on my own at home. Like me, Satanists adopted ringing a bell to begin your ritual from any number of occult traditions. Like most western witches, the Satanists invoke the four elements, or four directions, though they call it the Four Quarters, attributing a demonic entity to each direction - Satan from the South, Lucifer from the East, Belial from the North and Leviathan from the West. To bring the element of taste into the ritual - important for such a hedonistic tradition as Satanism - they drink from a chalice. The bells and the invocations and chalice-swigging all serve to bring participants into that fantasy realm where emotions rise up and logic steps back; primed for drama, they begin the ritual conjugations.
Bill: In Satanism and in Satanic Ritual, we have three one of three different conjugations, conjugation of lust or compassion or destruction. Lust ritual, you know, pretty straightforward, you want to track your object of desire destruction. This you can call a hex ritual destroying an enemy and the opposite of their compassion when you want to heal somebody. You just show your your grief for somebody. We incorporate the Enochian Keys. You know, that have been used by Golden Dawn, we have our own different translations of that that that work for us.
Michelle Tea: The Enochian Keys deserve its own episode - and they might get one! - but basically it’s an occult language dictated to a couple of 16-th century occultists by angelic beings. And, as Lucifer himself is said to be a fallen angel, it seems appropriate that the Keys have been adopted for ritual by the Church of Satan, though it does give me pause that a religion that professes to not literally believe in the supernatural works with a supernatural alphabet shared with an Elizabethan psychic by otherworldly entities? It is likely that the Satanists use the Enochian Keys to add another layer of esoteric drama to their rituals, but I found myself wanting to touch base with someone who touches base with, like, actual Satanic entities.
Maybe I’m damaged from coming of age during the Satanic Panic 1980s, but I kind of like the idea of Satanists conjuring actual demons. After looking around a bit, I found a legit Satanic Witch – Salem, who uses they/them pronouns and lives in Los Angeles. Salem was ignorant of the Jesus-Devil paradigm until they hit ten or eleven, and their parents got into religion with surprising fervor, speaking in tongues and praising the Christain god, with little Salem along for the ride. But Salem’s parents weren’t just super-enthusiastic holy rollers. They were also an exorcism duo, with Mom casting out the demons, while Dad read from the apocalyptic Book of Revelations. With the sort of hyper-vigilance I imagine a pair of exorcists possess, Salem’s parents began noticing something a bit ungodly about their child.
Salem: Growing up, they've always kind of pinpoint this energy about me. They've always been like, Yeah, you're going to live, so good for God and all this stuff. But like in the same breath, they would always condemn me. You have the demon of homosexuality, you have the demon of, you know this that in the third, you have a Jezebel spirit. You know, it's actually kind of funny is that they're right, like, they're right. Like, I do have like a Jezebel spirit, but like, that's what's always made me feel confident in myself.
Michelle Tea: But, Salem’s parents weren’t only metaphorically correct about Salem’s spirit. The fact is, Salem did have demons. Literally. As they got older, and allowed themselves to respond to their natural attraction to witchcraft, meditations revealed to them that Satan’s actual minions have been by their side since childhood, shielding them from some of the damaging effects of their parent’s toxic beliefs.
Salem: I actually feel like they were protecting me from Christianity instead of vice versa. I felt like they're protecting me from a lot of the dogmatic things that I was being taught because it affected my mental health so bad. I struggle with OCD. And so you know that type of brainwashing really, really fucks with you. It really messes with you. And I feel like. I feel like the only demonic evil presence I had in my life were my parents’ teachings, and the demons that were around me were like, This one's ours, you're specifically from hell like you’re evil like us, you’re a little weird, like, don't don't touch this person.
Michelle Tea: Satanism kept calling to Salem, with the Devil using a famous tool for nabbing souls - pop culture.
Salem: I was working on a Spencer's gift shop and they had a demon tarot deck. And usually, you know, whatever decks you feel being drawn to them. But this felt like a specific energy like a specific person in that deck was like, You come here. And I looked at it and I immediately knew who I was. I just felt it, and so I got the deck. And from that point on, I could feel that demons sometimes like standing next me and it wasn't menacing. It wasn't scary. It was just kind of being like, Hey, I'm here. I got like really into Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, right? Which is about, like, you know, satanic witches and stuff. And I felt like my my, my demon, my spirit guides. He really wanted me to get to because I would pause the show sometimes like take a break and they would like press play and be like, Actually, no, you're going to keep watching this.
Michelle Tea: From that point, Salem really opened themselves to the presence of entities, and the entities came and revealed themselves to Salem.
Salem: I've always felt drawn to Lilith. She's the mother of darkness, you know, she is the goddess of the night. Talking to Lilith, Lilith was like, I'm sending you like basically two guardian demons to watch over you. I said, OK.
Michelle Tea: Through continued magical work, Salem has made contact with many other demons, including quite possibly the lord of them all.
Salem: I have gotten into contact with Lucifer very strongly, and there's a lot of different feelings and theories within what aspects of Satanism and cultism you practice. If Lucifer and Satan are the same. Are they different? Are they different channels of each other?
He's been a really beautiful force my life. Very, I want to say cinematic And then there's Astaroth, and Astaroth off has actually been very prevalent lately because I've been told, like in meditation, how really connected we are.
I feel like they're really personable. I also feel though blessed that I have that connection because I don't feel like they're easy guys to just like talk to.
These demons and deities are happy to see me, and they're not these looming, you know, like, Oh, you must do this like they're very much like again, like almost like I want to give them a hug.
Michelle Tea: Salem’s relationship with Satan and Lucifer and assorted demons feels very cute to me - like a little world of San Rio characters, kawaii chibi demons. And it is sweet, and nurturing. But these entities are shadow beings, and they have come to Salem to help them work with their darkness. This is very different from the practices of Atheistic Satanists, who seem more like libertarian performance artists - not a bad thing! - than witches seeking magic. And while the Church of Satan acolytes are practicing magic, the ceremonial rituals they engage seem less intimate than what Salem has going on with their own personal army of darkness.
Salem: There is a power in the darkness, there is a power, and I think it's OK to like, embrace the darkness, even if it is negative or mean in the moment. Like because it's just what's a part of you. Naturally, you can't get rid of that. You can't let that go.
And it's inspirational because it's forbidden. We are forbidden to be dark. I don't think people realize that like we are forbidden to be dark and embracing the love of light can be easily swayed to embracing puritanical beliefs and folk Christian beliefs. People don't realize that when you do embrace the darkness, you can embrace something that is different than what society is teaching you.
Michelle Tea: Satan is so many things to so many people - a rallying cry, a powerful myth and the father of a host of demons. I spoke with Berlin-based Hannah Graves, the tarot reader, teacher, no-bullshit witch and creator of the Cult Mother Tarot community. I wanted to know how she worked with and interpreted Devil energy when it comes up in readings.
Hannah Graves: I just I love this card, and I think that for me, it's one of those cards that when you work with it and you work with it over time, it has so many different layers. And so I think a lot of people are aware of the kind of more classic interpretation when we're working with devil energy. It can be very oppressive, it can be very heavy.
We can be dealing with kind of like hard-hitting themes of addiction, depression, anxiety, and I'm absolutely never here to kind of love and light my way through, you know, the impact that some of these issues can have. But I think the more that I've worked with this card and the more that I've chewed on it, and the more I think about where it sits in all major arcana sequence, the kind of more interesting it gets.
Michelle Tea: In the Major Arcana, The Devil card is number 15. It falls right after the balance of Temperance, and gives way to the cataclysm of The Tower, the building destroyed by lightning from the sky. Which then gives way to the clear skies of The Star, and the new beginnings and fresh optimism she promises.
Hannah Graves: We're always going to have, you know, dark places that we're going to go. And for me, the devil becomes kind of then the antithesis of spiritual perfection. And it's only when we can confront that. And the darker realities are kind of who we are and what we're attached to and why that then that lightning strikes the crown. Then we get the release that we need. Then we actually step into the magic of the star is it's kind of for me to card about embracing our limitations.
Michelle Tea: The Devil card is associated with Capricorn, which, as well as being a sign that embodies earthly power and success, is also ruled by Saturn, the planet that shows us - sometimes harshly - our limitations. But, Hannah has a Capricorn rising, so she is no stranger to this Disciplinary Devil Daddy vibe, and how she chooses to work with it, as someone with a playful Leo stellium, is inspiring.
Hannah Graves: When I get really weighed down with this kind of Capricorn vibe and this kind of devil energy or, you know, it feels very heavy or oppressive. Last summer, I bought roller skates and went sliding down the runway at the old airfield here nearly broke both my wrists. But it was like, It's like, kidding you. It's that part of you that just wants to be kind of lit up and excited. And I think that can be a real antidote for kind of how adults the energy of the devil can get as well.
Doing something silly for the sake of it, I think, can be a really good way of kind of confronting all. Trends kind of transforming devil energy.
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At the end of the day - and this episode - we’re left with the reality that we all have a shadow side. The folks I spoke to aren’t interested in ‘love and light’-ing away the emotions astrologer and witch Bran Taylor calls ‘the night rainbow’ - anger and jealousy, petty gossip, vengeance, cruelty, mean streaks, selfish drives. These all exist within us. Whether we want to transmute the energy to radical political work like The Temple of Satan and their political spectacles; ritualize it for psychological growth like the cloak-wearing Church of Satan devotees, invite actual demons in for support and understanding like our Satanic Witch Salem, or simply, or tie on a pair of rollerskates and greet the darkness with something wild and absurd, there are many ways to work with this most human of vibes. At the close of this episode, I’ve concluded that The Devil isn’t only our friend and ally, they’re us.