The Meaning of Being a Witch
Being a Rant about 'Satanic Witches'

I have noticed lately that there is a massive amount of Wiccan sites out there that say something that I and others find very offensive. This is the idea that:
1. Satanists quite literally worship Satan and work with a system that is a complete inversion of Christan practices.
2. That there is no such thing as a 'Satanic Witch'.
3. Being a Witch and a Satanist are mutally exclusive.
4. That 'Wiccan' is synonomous with 'Witch', 'Witchcraft', and 'Pagan'.

These opinons are wrong on so many levels I just had to complain about it.

Rant the First

Throughout this page I will be using the following terms in the following ways:
'Satanist' and 'Satanism' will henceforth refer to the practice of LaVeyan Satanism, based on the book The Satanic Bible and sundry other books written by Anton Szandor LaVey.
'Gothic Satanism' and 'Gothic Satanist' will refer to the sterotypical image of the Devil-worshipper as someone who holds a Black Mass that involves the eating of babies, defecating on the Crucifix, saying the Lord's Prayer backwards, and other strange things, all led by a defrocked priest. This form of the Black Mass will be referred to as the 'Gothic Satanist's Black Mass'.
That being set aside, I will continue.
It will be patently obvious to anyone who has read The Satanic Bible that Satanism is not the thing most claim it is. It does not even involve the worship of the Devil as Christianity imagines him. The Satanic philosophy is essentially 'Do as thou will shall be the whole of the Law', rather like Crowley's Law, except there isn't the ending "The Law is Love, Love under Will". Essentially this means that one should not do things destructive to yourself or things that make you unhappy. This can be taken further to the point that one can say that Satanism is the worship of yourself, and in a way this is true. The Satanist belives that he should not waste time making others feel happy unless it is in his interests to do so. People are only worth bothering with if you like them and they like you. There is no hand-wringing over 'what will others think', there is no reason to worry about it. Why care?
The primary reason the Satanist will refer to himself as a Satanist is for shock value and because 'Satan' represents the repressed side of humanity's psyche, what a psychologist would call the Shadow Side.
There are no animal sacrifices. To a Satanist, that would be unthinkable. An animal is a paragon of virtue - it does exactly what is best for it and what it wants, damn the consequences. Children are off-limits. The only acceptable form of human sacrifice, the book says, is that of one who has annoyed you severely and deserves it. This may be a joke, I don't know much about LaVey.
To put it simply, Satanism is not at all like it is imagined to be. The Gothic Satanist is rather like those imagined in the whole 'Satanic Ritual Abuse' fraud. These Gothic Satanists would hold huge Black Masses similar to the imagined Witches' Sabbath. The altar would be a nude woman, the desecrated Host was a plate of feces and a chalice of urine. A defrocked priest would preside over the occasion, and would lead his congregation in the backwards saying of the Lord's Prayer, they would partake of their Host, and occasionally have sacrifices of children. There would be huge orgies. They would eat the flesh of unbaptized babies. Pretty much anything people said about the Witches' Sabbath during the Witch Hunts can be dropped right into a description of the Black Mass.
In short, what the movies tell you is, as usual, wrong.
The Nine Satanic Statements
From The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey

1: Satan represents indulgence, instead of abstinence!
2: Satan represents vital existence, instead of spiritual pipe dreams!
3: Satan represents undefiled wisdom, instead of hypocritical self-deceit!
4: Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it, instead of love wasted on ingrates!
5: Satan represents vengeance, instead of turning the other cheek!
6: Satan represents responsibility to the responsible, instead of concern for psychic vampires!
7: Satan represents man as just another animal,sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his "divine spiritual and intellectual development," has become the most vicious animal of all!
8: Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification!
9: Satan has been the best friend the church has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years!

Rant the Second
There are such things as Satanic Witches. Obviously the people wringing their hands and saying "There are no Satanic Witches' are referring to Wiccans, which is of course true - you cannot be a Satanic Wiccan, although a Wiccan may adopt some of the philosophy behind Satanism. But a true Satanic Witch? Gods, yes! There's even a book on practicing Satanic Witchcraft, titled imaginitavely, The Satanic Witch which is aimed at women but should be read by men as well. It covers such things as ways to tell if you would be a good Satanic Witch, 'Bitchcraft', and sundry other areas.
Wiccans are sometimes in such a rush to say that they are not 'Gothic Satanists' that thye will use the blanket term of 'Witch', which is in many ways accurate but in other ways completely off target.

Rant the Third
Wicca and Witchcraft go hand in hand but are not the same thing. True, many Wiccans practise Witchcraft; some do not practice because they are very good at it and don't need to practice it anymore. Words are not working for me here, anyone who understands a pun, or indeed, basic English, will have understood that.
While many Wiccans do perform spells and magic, there are many who do not, choosing to focus instead on the religious aspects which are, sadly, a neglected part of the whole. I myself worked in this way, forgetting all about the magical aspect. For pretty much all my time as a Wiccan, I have done maybe ten spells. And yet, I felt rather dissatisfied with the whole thing in some way. Magic has filled that, magic and devotional services. I am just now getting into the concept of prayer, which I was trying to find a way of doing. There are two books I am going to get to help with this, Book of Hours: Prayers to the God and Book of Hours: Prayers to the Goddess. Already in my posession is Her Words: An anthology of poetry about the Great Goddess which contains, among many beautiful prayers, Goddess-oriented versions of the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary. I await with bated breath the time when a companion volume to this book, with poems about the God, comes out, but I may be waiting for quite some time.

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