Trinity Denied Issue 2 - The Baphomet, Good vs Evil, Prose, and More
Introduction
Welcome to Trinity Denied Issue #2. Another writer has contributed to this issue--Nick Post. Thanks go to Nick for his submission, "The Elf". This issue will consist of several topics, and it's best read if you've already read Trinity Denied Issue #1. Without the first issue the reader might confuse my definitions of "Satanic", "Satanist", and even "Satan", which could damage their entire interpretation of this and future issues...In fact, one who hasn't read Trinity Denied #1 and only knows of the Christian[New Testament, of course...In the O.T., "Satan" held its original meaning] usage of the word "Satan" would probably find no sense in any of this, and we wouldn't want that.
Remember that Trinity Denied is a pro-Satanic newsletter, NOT an anti- Christian publication. Occasionally, however we will use other religions as contrast and might even attack them outright. Often we feel it's our turn to take the offensive, and we gladly will. Christianity will be thoroughly attacked in the "Good vs. Evil" article. Fair warning. Feel free to complain/praise through E-Mail or whatever. In fact, if we make a mistake, feel free to rant all you want, as printing lies is not our objective.
Why?
This article was called "Why?" simply because calling it "Why do I wear a symbol of the baphomet?" would look kind of lame. The purpose of this article is to clarify the meaning of a much-misunderstood and unjustifiably "hated" symbol. The other purpose is to explain why I wear it. Perhaps justifying it is not necessary, maybe I shouldn't have to...But it is nice to see someone light up every so often when a few misconceptions crumble in their mind.
If you don't know what a baphomet is, here you go: The Baphomet is the inverted, circled pentagram, with the bearded, horned goat. Quite often it is seen as a menacing, "evil" symbol of "darkness". Quite often people have given me disapproving glares because I wear such a symbol, quite a small one actually, on a chain around my neck.
But what exactly does the baphomet symbolize? In the "normal", upright pentagram, three points stand up, and two point down. The figure of the man, "Adam", fits perfectly into this symbol as it represents the spiritual side of man. The inverted pentagram is the opposite; it represents the carnal side of man, man on earth, man as a creature of nature. The pentagram is contained in a circle, not a circle of protection, but a circle of continuity and the constant motion of nature.
The word "Leviathan" in Hebrew characters fit in the concentric circles. Leviathan is the "Serpent of the Deep", the West. "Leviathan" is generally associated with whales, nature's largest animals. And finally comes the goat. The scary, frightening, evil deathgoat of despair and destruction. Actually, the goat represents Baphomet, taken from the symbolism of the goat, best embodied in the God Pan--the goat-like(satyr) son of Hermes in Greek mythology. Pan is in effect "The God of Nature", the god of fertility, wildlife, etc. Although he was considered quite the permiscuous sex fiend, he was no destructive fearsome goat from hell. According to myth many were terrified of him as he strolled through the forests[including the Christians, who incidentally took him under their wing and slapped the word Satan on him], which is the basis of the word *PANIC*[yes, "Panic" is derived from Pan]. The goat image is also known as the "scapegoat"...The goat of which the troubles of man fell, which made "atonement with God". Now the term applies to anyone who takes the blame of others.
Further analysis of the inverted pentagram can bring up two more symbols...Two points up for "Duality Defied", and three down for "Trinity Denied".
All of these small meanings add up to the powerful image the baphomet provides. The baphomet is an excellent way to represent the force of nature, and I like to wear it. Do I wear it to advertise my religion? Maybe, but not so much advertise as proclaim. ["Yes, I am a Satanist, and I've probably been one as long as you've known me" vs. "I'm a Satanist, why don't you become one too!"] Do I wear it to scare people? Of course not! Satanism is not a fear-based religion. At the simplest level, I wear it because I saw it in a catalog for a nice low price, and decided to order it. I like it. It's a powerful icon, and I *LIKE* it. That's a good enough reason for me.
The Elf
I weep, I cry, I wallow like a pig in the mud of my dismal void. It seems as though life itself has ceased to comfort me in my search for happiness. I now grovel before the tall and great figure of Death. "Why, oh why must I continue this agonizing, preposterous existence of mine," I ask as tears spill from my eyes as blood would flow from the beautiful and preferable puncturing of the containment of life itself, the jugular. My pallid question stands as firm and tall as a mountain, and I run with stupidity. Ah, but my stupidity is my only hope, the hope that if I run, my problems and pain will be too far to confront. But as the world, my depression is a sphere, no matter how far I run or where I hide, I'm always in the center. Even with my profound findings, I continue running.
Somehow, in an oddly ironic way, I find myself in a forest. The scent of fir and moisture infumigate the atmosphere. The unforgettable odor of a damp towel comes to mind as I inhale the reeking aura of stench. Lifeless hues of green and black writhe before my eyes. I soon realize that I am in a place of perplexion. With each soft step I take, a sickening squish vomits its stomach wrenching sound into my ears. I continued walking until a sharp, exasperating scream destroys the gruelling squish noise, and I abruptly stop.
"Get the hell off of me you elephant," a voice shouted. I lifted my right foot and peered at the ground. A small humanlike creature lie grimacing on the ground, writhing in pain. "Fool! Now you must die," it yelled. Finally, I thought. Something with the heart and kindness to kill me! "You're much too kind, little creature, but do you really think you could take my life," I asked inquisitively. "Kind?", the little creature said bewildered. "Why, I'm an elf, I can do anything. My concern now is that you suffer for hurting me, you wretch! Yet you seem overjoyed that I must kill you." The elf was obviously irritated. "Well, yes," I answered. "My life is too miserable to continue and my wishes were and are to die from it." A thoughtful countenance contorted the face of that wee creature and he began tapping his foot. "Well then, isn't that a pity," he said with a sarcastic tone. "You can't face your sadness, so you feel you must die. Young man," he cried with a parental sound, "I will kill you not. Instead I will force your sadness to confront you, and you will die, but only from sadness. You obviously thrive on depression, consequently, without it, you cannot survive being happy. By dealing with sadness, you will see happiness. So be it!", the elf shouted loudly.
My heart immediately felt as if it had exploded. My body seemed to melt and I shrieked in utter agony. I had never experienced that much pain in my life. My sad heart was ripped out through the cold flesh of my body and a joyful one replaced it.
I then found myself in my house. I felt as if something was missing, and started to laugh insanely. I roared with decibels high enough to shatter glass. I'm so happy, I thought and continued laughing. I started to cough now from the prevalent laughter. I could now taste blood. I gagged out my chuckles, spurting blood onto the walls. Wheezing and choking I laughed as I watched mucus fly from my mouth, covered in blood. Alveoli sacks from my lungs emerged. Also, the fleshy tissue of lung lie scattered on the floor. A realization struck me in the midst of my joy. I could not breathe. The warmth of my blood streamed down my chin. Fear smited my soul, I was dying. I had never feared death before, in fact, I welcomed it, and now I was fearing it. "That cursed elf! I'm too happy to die! I want to continue my life!" I continued shouting curses to the elf mentally and then felt a nothingness, the embrace of death.
[Note from the editor...The Satanist views life as "the great indulgence". Death is the end to all indulgence, the cold end to all that we treasure. Only when the only indulgence to life is its end does a Satanist welcome death. Only when death itself is an indulgence would suicide ever be considered. We don't want to die; and we acknowledge that. We will struggle to the very end to live, to the brink of nonexistence before we let it take us. We realize that many may "welcome death", but many who say so would grow pale with primal fear if ever confronted by death's cold prospects.]
Good vs. Evil : Semantic Warfare
(I apologize if some of this is redundant, as I wrote it in the period of a few days as several new ideas would surface every so often.)
The war between "Good vs. Evil" has existed since the beginning of time. It's seen everywhere, on television, in the movies(i.e. "Star Wars"), in the news, in the Bible. For as long as someone was able to point their finger and accuse this war has raged.
The Christian Bible has tried to clarify the difference between the two, and surely all Christians must be taught that the devil is the father of lies, the keeper of hell, and less directly, evil incarnate. Generally "evil" is blamed on the devil by today's Christian.
But really, what is "Good", and what is "Evil"? As mentioned in Trinity Denied Issue #1, the words are too elastic to ever be taken too seriously. The meanings change with time, and the war shifts to accommodate for it. At one time, many believed that freeing a slave was a sin, an "evil deed", if you will. The "Quakers" were considered quite the heretic radicals by other Christian religions, especially when they went out of their way to combat slavery. Homosexuality has long been an "evil deed" according to most Bible- Thumpers, as hey, God after all taught Sodom a lesson. (This reminds me of an amusing Super-Christian I was in a history class with last year. Our teacher was discussing the morality/acceptance of homosexuality, NOT religious acceptance but societal, and she more or less said "Of course it's wrong. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. All gays are going to hell." I don't know, kind of amusing. Church and State, you say?) Today it is less frowned upon as old-fashioned Christian values become less and less influential. Premarital sex will always be "The Original Sin"...But as time moves on and Christianity loses its precious footing, people worry more about possible disease than the moral implications involved.
[Attack paragraph] Could it be that the true Christian "evil" is reason? Could the true foe to all that is holy be the potential for strayers from the herd? Sure it could. Reason is the true enemy of the church, not the devil, not "evil". Reason makes a person think "How could a loving, forgiving God condemn those he loves to eternal torment?" Reason makes one think "How can a God say 'Thou shalt not kill' and 'When man smite thee on one cheek, turn him the other', and also say [paraphrased, but quite accurate!] 'Hey, I remember what he did, why don't you go into his city, and kill every living thing you can, spare nothing, spare no animal, spare no infant, spare no women.'"? Reason shakes at the very foundation of Christianity and screams "I'M COMING TO GET YOU!@#"
[More Offense] As mankind advances, "sins" lose more and more meaning and become less and less serious. Many a holy-roller would say that's an indication of the apocalypse, man is becoming more tolerant of "evil" so the numbers of "God's Children" will round down to 140,000 or so. Kind of cruel, "making room for the good guys." I would say it's less of an apocalypse and more of a revolution, a final Renaissance to break free from the shackles of the Christian religion. Call it what you will. Trinity Denied exists to take part in that revolution.
There are quite a few sins in the Christian religion, fornication, murder, adultery, etc. As mentioned, these are clear-cut, but some become more permissible as time passes. Others are "forgiven" quite easily, through confession, through prayer, etc. Guilt keeps the sinners in line. Guilt is a feeling exploited by many religions...But you won't find it in ours.
During the crusades, both sides(Catholic and Muslim) saw each other as "evil". The Catholics were the "infidel" and the Muslims were thought of as "the devil's children," the war was "justifiable." Each side thought they were doing the right thing. Who was right? Who is right today, as Catholics and Lutherans and Jews and Muslims and Latter-Day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses quarrel over the kingdom of heaven?
The Mormon religion started because Joseph Smith(supposedly) asked "God" "Which church should I join? Who is 'right'?". And of course "God" said "No one is right, here, start a new religion with these gold tablets and magical glasses of diamond and silver."
So should every Christian convert and become a Latter-Day Saint because it is their belief that they are "right"? Of course not. "Right" and "Wrong" are just as elastic, but I as a Satanist will use them instead of "Good" and "Evil" any day. For example, killing someone without reason is "wrong" to me. Why? You are destroying a person for nothing, ending an entire existence for nothing. A careless, needless act that destroys or harms the innocent is "wrong" to me. My definition of "doing wrong" falls somewhere along "Doing something without reason that harms or bothers another living being[including yourself if you do not find pleasure in such behavior] with no positive results."
And of course we have "Black vs. White". In the magical world, many believe in the concepts of black and white magic, black magic usually being selfish and perhaps destructive. Sound a little familiar? In the struggle between darkness and light, "light will always destroy the darkness", right? And so we have the black magicians and the white magicians and another struggle, except it's not always called "Good vs. Evil". And so many believe that whatever they "put out" will return threefold. If you throw a curse upon a person and they die due to it, expect your curse to return three times to you.
And so returns guilt. Guilt is a heavy chain burdened too much upon those who don't deserve it. Christians beg forgiveness because of guilt, white-light magicians fear their own magic because of it. The true "threefold" is guilt itself. If you throw a curse upon someone and spend the rest of your life in guilt-ridden wait for your punishment, will it not eventually come? If you truly deserve to be guilty, then you should wallow in your guilt and pay for your wrongdoing, but one should not feel guilty when they are merely carrying out their desires and possibly helping many others[i.e. cursing a much-hated individual].
The Satanic magician does not believe in black or white magic. The energies that supplement our charms and curses are not "Good", nor are they "Evil". They exist, and can be used for any purpose. "Good", "Evil", "Black", and "White" are terms people swallow and live by, but they are not necessary. An intelligent magician will not fear what he requests, and will not make himself righteous by claiming that he is a practitioner of only "white magic". If a Satanist knows his spell will be damaging in the end, he will not cast it. And if a Satanist curses a person who does not deserve it, the person will remain unharmed.
As an example of the elasticity of Good and Evil, essentially "Good and Bad", we'll use chemicals. Take potassium nitrate or "saltpeter". In one instance it can be used to make fertilizer, and was for awhile used to treat edema... So it's a "good" chemical, right? But it can also be combined with a little brimstone and charcoal, and now you have gunpowder. Of course gunpowder's earlier uses weren't "bad" or "evil" either. You can tie gunpowder with the slaughter and conquest of the Native American "Indian", not a "good thing", but is it a "good" thing now that we're all settled in? Saltpeter can also be used to preserve meat, which was once thought of as "good", but now the expression "chock full of nitrates" doesn't necessarily mean "good wholesome eatin'". (A myth is that it works as an anaphrodisiac; that it causes temporary impotence, just thought you'd like to know.) The fertilizer formed is "good" in that all crop-bearing soil seems to need nitrate fertilizer today, but nitrate fertilizer was also used to blow the face of a government building off in Oklahoma, killing quite a large amount of people. Definitely an "evil, bad" chemical? Well, no. Labelling something in that manner just doesn't work as well as people would like it to. Chemistry can be used in many ways, some "positive", some "negative". The energy that supplies magic works the same way. Our "deeds" work the same way.
The war between good and evil cannot be taken seriously, it is a semantic battle teeming with self-righteousness. If both sides believe they are "justified", who is? What's the point? Do not misunderstand the purpose of this article...It was not written to demand a banishment of such dualistic word pairs from our language, but rather to illustrate that while the words make things easy, they are not as clear-cut, defined, and perfect as many would think them to be. I do, however believe that "Good" and "Evil" in the end do not exist. Man will always need a...you guessed it-scapegoat to carry away his troubles..."Evil" is that scapegoat.
Satanism and Animals
One of the many superstitions regarding Satanists is that we sacrifice/kill/whatever animals. While the "Pseudo/Christian Satanist" might participate in such acts, we as creatures of nature will not. Animal sacrifice is senseless and is merely a lazy magician's tool. Bleed an animal and use its energy, rather than fueling your ritual by providing your own innate energy, your own flames of desire. Pathetic.
On the contrary, a "true" Satanist has the highest respect for the animals, for we are animals ourselves. Many religions might deny man's animal tendencies, and maybe even create "sins" to shy us away from them[Ahem]. But we are animals nonetheless. A Satanist would never kill an animal unless for self-defense, or for food. We don't carry this as far as to avoid stepping on black ants or spiders, but in general that is our attitude towards the killing of animals; don't do it unless it is for a reason. We recognize our placement on the food chain, and we don't deny that as humans we are quite omnivorous[omni meaning "everything"] creatures.
And why shouldn't we respect animals, for they are Satanists in the purest form! Animals live to live, and nothing more. The animal's meaning of life? To live. My favorite animal is the domestic cat. The housecat lives for indulgence. The housecat knows its limits and abilities and knows what love and hate are. The cat will love those who love him/her, and will hate those who mistreat him/her. The cat does not deny its natural urges, because it isn't as "advanced" and "proper" as we are. The housecat is a born Satanist.
And are they not natural magicians as well? Cats are quite manipulative if need be. In general the cat can gain whatever he or she wants in due time, and they know it.
And so the Satanist holds high regard for their fellow creatures, and knows to respect them.
Conclusion
And so this issue of Trinity Denied has come to an end. Thank you for reading, and look for more issues and new writers in the near future.
Credits
Trinity Denied Issue #2: The Baphomet, Good vs. Evil, Prose, and More
"Why?", "Good vs. Evil..." and "Satanism and Animals" were written by Andrew Jones.
"The Elf" was written by Nick Post.
All articles belong to their authors.
Distribution
Trinity Denied is as always being distributed by hand. E-Mail subscription is possible, and the newsletter will probably be released in an electronic form soon. If you would like to "subscribe" in person, walk up to me and say "I would like the next issue and all future issues to come.", and there you go.
Who needs E-Mail subscription?--as of now Trinity Denied has its own web page. Read future articles, get links to other Satanic resources, and more in the future. All issues of Trinity Denied will be converted into an HTML format a few days after being released in hardcopy. Trinity Denied's web site is at:
http://members.aol.com/LHumongous/tdenied.html
Yeah, yeah, we're limited to AOL right now. Arr.
Reaching Trinity Denied
Trinity Denied's dedicated E-Mail address is TDenied@hotmail.com. Send letters to the editor, submissions, critiques, and the like here. If you currently don't have E-Mail access, submit to me in person. Anonymous letters are accepted.
No issue of Trinity Denied is complete without a conclude-it-all-with-a-promotional-statement-in-another-language-statement...
Ave Satan's!
One more thing remains to be said...
A IS F...VBUMLGPS ABH YX NS AOM LRP KBXL OLLMOVLYDP RUKOG NPYGZ PDPM LB ZMOVP OMDOWO QPXL RYZR XVRBBE.
end.
