Thelema and Laveyean Satanism
“It’s all right to conform to a person’s wishes if it ultimately benefits you. But only fools follow along with the herd, letting an impersonal entity dictate to you. The key is to choose a master wisely instead of being enslaved by the whims of the many.”
(Anton Lavey)
I consider Laveyean Satanism a kissing cousin of Thelema. It shouldn’t be surprising given Anton Lavey drew heavily from Aleister Crowley’s work in creating the Church of Satan.
One of the things that stands out in Satanic values is how unapologetically non PC they are.
They joyously embrace things that make many people rooted in Judeo-Xtian values and their liberal secular humanist offshoot cringe.
And that’s what made them sexy.
While San Franciso hippies were hanging out in the Haight stoned out of their brains, undisciplined and dressed in rags, the Bohemian sophisticated, and aristocratic members of the COS were partying in style in Victorian Houses in San Franciso.
They offered an erudite and transgressive alternative where one choose to share, “ kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted on ingrates!”
Instead of some diffuse and poorly defined humanistic Love that deceptively hid its own Will to Power, they directly embraced the Will to Power which subsequently could lead to sophisticated forms of Love.
The appropriate Thelemic phrase here is “Love Under Will.”
Lavey, in his own creative appropriation of Crowley, was in many ways, more honest and truer to the Beast in both style and substance than those who try to turn Thelema into a form of edgy humanism.
If your Thelema looks more like Unitarianism than the Church of Satan, both in style and substance, you might want to read the instruction manuals (The Holy Books) again.