Yesterday while diving down a Wikipedia rathole this callout caught my attention:
“Are you an independent, forward-thinking individual? Do you find yourself questioning well-established ideas and conventions?“
As a matter of fact, yes I am, and yes I do.
Then the page lists these 11 Rules:
- Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.
- Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them.
- When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go there.
- If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.
- Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal.
- Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and he cries out to be relieved.
- Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.
- Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.
- Do not harm little children.
- Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food.
- When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.
I have a mild distaste for the use of the word “lair” in rules 3&4, complete disagreement with rule 7 since I don’t believe in magic and a bit of concern with the instruction to “destroy him” him in rule 11. But otherwise, these rules sound pretty good to me.
I bolded my favorites.
The list is pragmatic. I can’t claim that I follow the rules 100% of the time. Still it gives me something to aim for that undoubtedly would make my life and the lives of people who interact with me, better.
So here’s the catch.
These are “The Eleven Satanic Rules” from the Church of Satan.
Does that make you feel a little put off? Do you feel a bit of revulsion?
Because every time I hear “Church of Satan” or “Satanism”, I think of the 1987 movie “The Believers” which was about a horror movie about a voodoo cult that sacrificed children. There a scene where Jimmy Smits, a detective who had been cursed by a witch, loses his mind as snakes worm their way out of his body. This movie creeped me the f*** out 36 years ago and burned itself into my memory so that today, when I hear “Satan” I think of the snakes coming out of Smits.
Funny enough, the voodoo practices in the movie were not even based on Satanism, they were based on Santeria.
Now, when I occasionally stumble across Church of Satan stuff, I find myself nodding in agreement, or laughing, or both. From my perspective, most of their ideas mirror libertarianism and their humor reminds me of the Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, both of which I approve of and often find myself in agreement with.