I’ve been a Satanist pretty much since I decided to travel the LHP. Well, not really “decided”, more like “discovered” the path as my spiritual option to finally have a religious channel through which I can freely practice what I believe. I have discovered the utility of Chaos magic admittedly quickly; that was the thing that made me discover that magic was indeed real. But I actually started with an interest in witchcraft, and then I discovered Satanism. I was a self-proclaimed atheist for a long time and rejected Christian thought in order to be distinct. In that time, I decided to think of Satan as a title and archetype more than an actual entity. Then I wondered if that actually made sense.
Originally Satan was a title but over time there’s been a bit of an evolution in the way Satan was portrayed. It’s kind of like evolving the term “god”. It was a title to describe a powerful spiritual entity, and over time more uses, such as avatars or “the One God” became entities that humans assigned that name. In other words, anything can be a god, depending on your belief.
So I think I’m shifting my belief in Satan as an entity now, however looking on the internet I’m thinking that it’s more from a Demonolatry perspective. In other words, he does exist as a demon god, but he’s not quite a patron deity in the pantheon I perceive. Personally I’m drawn more to Baphomet as a patron, I think because Baphomet taught me to be comfortable with my gender identity that I’ve always had a social struggle with (something like an androgynous female) and to embrace duality and sexuality. Which was good for me because I had a tendency to reject things that was actually important to my identity (such as femininity and emotional acknowledgement of my beliefs)
I’m probably going to study Demonolatry a little more before jumping into it (I like occult studies as much as the actual magic). I was always interested in demons but for some reason never got around to considering the religion of demons. I guess some callings are louder than others, I’m hoping they all lead me to my destination.
Ave Satanas!