I would be very interested in hearing from a theistic Satanist as this seems more interesting than LaVey’s Satanism…
Perhaps these individuals would be less likely to post here however.
Theistic Satanism has a myriad of beliefs, because, like so many other forms of paganism, for that is what it ultimately is, it places greater emphasis on orthopraxy (right ritual and action) than it does on orthodoxy (right doctrine, dogma, and belief).
The first assumption, then, is that certain men have an instrinsic capability to performs unusual feats with their minds, usually a harnessing of supernatural ‘energy’, and which can explore the ‘otherworlds’. The orthopraxy, then, is the right ritual and action which they have arrived at to show others how they, too, may grow in awareness and, ultimately, in knowledge.
A Catholic may believe in the Blessed Trinity because of concepts like the authority of the Church and argument; but such a pagan believes that all men find truth in personal experimentation and observation. As Crowley termed magic, it is a ‘science’ as well as an ‘art’; the science bit being that formulae which work for me also work for you.
From here, we continue to view that a Theistic Satanist is, in fact, usually a polytheist. They do not believe in a single ‘owner-operator’ of the universe who had created it, as a monotheist does, and against whose authority rebelled certain of his praeternatural creation. Instead, they believe that ‘the divine’ is composed of hundreds of thousands of individual personalities, all of them more powerful and wise than are humans, and all of which are highly mysterious.
Lastly, we will see that such people may view YHWH as being a desert god, a localised god (as are all deities to their thinking), and a god who sought to impose upon his worshippers a certain slavery through conditioning.
They trace an evolution in ancient Hebrew thought:
First, ‘you shall obey no god, but me.’
Second, ‘you shall obey no god, but the True God, even myself, for here I am alone; there is no god where I am.’
Thirdly, ‘all other deities which you are aware of are evil and demonic fallen angels’.
The Law is viewed as being the interaction of this god with his worshippers in the way of imposing control over them. He transgressed, they say, the relationship of a worshipped deity who exchanges praise for certain gifts, like making rain or providing relief from anxiety or fear.
Everything after this is a matter of opinion which is personally held by each practitioner, but mostly, they will worship either a set of ancient gods who were eventually viewed as being demons, like Lucifer, Ba’al, or Ishtar; or else, as Setians do, they will resurrect some of the deities of Egypt.
Lastly, it is absolutely essential to bear in mind that Theistic Satanism is largely, although not exclusively, about reviving a belief in Middle-Eastern religions that pre-date the formation of the Hebrews or Persians into monotheists; and of worshipping the deities of those cultures.
They usually have more in common with Yezidis than they would with the sort of stuff you would expect from someone devoted to reliving *The Exorcist.
*Then, there’s the truly nutty of this variety of Satanism who will view ‘gods’ as being ET’s, but that’s a different matter altogether, and I simply detest UFOlogy and therefore am biased against understanding it.