Church of Azazel

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The Church of Azazel was founded by Diane Vera in 2004, and is a newly organizing school of thought and practice within theistic Satanism. Our approach to Satanism is both devotional and philosophical. We aim also to do what we can, on a practical level, to counter the growth of Abrahamic fanaticism in the world at large, and to promote a world in which freedom of thought is respected. The Church of Azazel has a polytheistic theology, with some crossover with both modern Paganism and the Western occult tradition, plus a few ancient ideas, found in many different cultures, which most modern Pagans overlook. Our beliefs are neither purely "reverse-Christian" nor purely Pagan. Our paradigm is a systematic synthesis of ideas from many different religions, both ancient and modern, unashamedly including some "reverse Christian" themes but by no means limited to them. Our pantheon includes Satan/Azazel, whom we see as a very multi-faceted deity, and a set of five distinct deities whom we call the Rising gods of the modern West: Lilith, Prometheus, Ishtar/Astarte, Pan, and Lucifer-of-Sophia. We worship Satan/Azazel. By "worship," we do not mean self-denigration. We mean reverent love, adoration, and awe, directed toward a Being who is manifest in our own innermost selves as well as outside ourselves. (For the occult snobs out there, that's bhakti yoga.) Members of the Church of Azazel should be people who feel drawn to Satan on a deep level. We believe that worship (often highly emotional) must be counterbalanced by philosophical thought. By the word "philosophical," we are referring to the art of thinking clearly and deeply - an art we aim to cultivate, both among our own members and in the larger Satanist subculture. We believe that Satan wants us to think for ourselves. To that end, we encourage Satanists to learn informal logic, debating skills, etc., and to think carefully about our worldviews and their foundations. We also encourage our members to take practical action, at least in small ways, toward at least one of the following goals: (1) politically opposing the religious right wing, (2) debunking Satanic panics, (3) raising the intellectual level of the Satanist scene, (4) promoting religious tolerance, or (5) countering the growth of the more fanatical and intolerant forms of Christianity and Islam themselves. Also important to us is epistemology. Because the realm of the gods is almost completely unknowable to humans, we keep our theology deliberately sparse. We are very conservative about identifying Satan/Azazel with any god in any other culture, and we avoid making any pronouncements at all about what might have happened amongst the gods in the remote prehistoric past. (See The here-and-now principle in theology and On gnosis, sacred texts, channeling, attaining knowledge, and the role of faith.) Moreover, we avoid thinking about the gods in cosmic terms. (See Post-Copernican natural theology.) We reject the idea that the cosmos has any overall "meaning" or "purpose"discernable to us humans. It is up to us as individuals and as groups of people to give our lives whatever meaning we want, based on our own deepest passions. Unlike LaVey's Church of Satan and some other Satanist groups, the Church of Azazel does not have a socioeconomic agenda. But we do take a stand against the religious right wing and in favor of those social trends, such as feminism (or, at least, moderate feminism) and the gay rights movement, that are most loathed by those kinds of Christians who most strongly push belief in an all-evil Devil. We also oppose Satanic panics. And we reject the silly, noisy "elitism" of so many blatantly un-elite Satanic groups, in favor of a more genuine meritocracy which need not make so much noise about itself. Please visit the Church of Azazel section of Diane Vera's Theistic Satanism website for more details on our Core beliefs and principles, membership, and much more. http://www.theisticsatanism.com/ (Unless otherwise noted, all contents of this myspace are copyright © 2004 Church of Azazel. All rights reserved.)