Perhaps before I responded poorly to some comments made, but about ten minutes ago near the end of a sex magick working, I realized something, or rather, something in my head asked me:
"What use is it caring?"
Notice it didn't ask me why I cared, I knew why. I was frustrated that people's bias and bigotries were getting in the way of any possibility of an objective conversation, that I came here to compare, not to debate the validity of religious acts hundreds of years old.
But what use is it? I know I won't convince any of you, but for the on-lookers to this site, who feel the need for this yet cringe when hearing their need is "childish", this is a stand
for them. When someone tells me that "I think it's childish", they are making a subjective statement, and an ad hominem one at that. So what if you think it's childish? It's not relevant the the discussion, and voicing such obviously bigoted opinions won't help you understand another religion any better. Not that I am surprised though given how ignorant people are of Heterodox practices, the hallmark of the Philosophy known as the Left Hand Path. Is this good or bad? It really doesn't matter, it only matters to me that people do not lie and misrepresent what the Left Hand Path and Satanism is.
Some of you talked as if this is somehow unhealthy, but the fact is is that every one does it too, but that you just don't realize it. Burning a Bible is more obvious then other forms of taboo breaking or what accounts to symbolically renouncing something, including past relationships. Psychologically speaking, it's the same thing, other than a ritual is more pronounced as it is aware of, and exploits, this psychological effect of symbolism.
Some say that you can deal with subconscious emotions - by "dealing with them." Do you seriously think that is a valid argument against this? Renunciation is a very brutally quick and efficient way of dealing with emotions, I don't see how "you can deal with them" in any way short of psychodrama unless you want to spend lots of money and time to erase an issue that could be dealt with in a much shorter time. What kind of emotions do you think I am even talking about? The links I gave talked specifically about irrational emotions not founded in intellectual thought, but by programming.
Someone mentioned you should get over it by informing yourself, and that is all well and good, but the intellectual mind and the emotional mind are two different parts. The author of the site said in both links, as well in all her pages on blasphemy, suggests that only after
months of research, debate, and only only after one is 100% sure intellectually that x religion is wrong, should they perform a rite of blasphemy,
should they still even then have some lingering emotions. And irrational fears, as I mentioned earlier, are not capable of reason... they must be dealt with through psychodrama.
To chalk this up to childishness is simply your own subjective opinions, as I mentioned earlier. To say that the reasons are "weak" after reading one article, are as well an indication of one's unwillingness to learn about another side, perhaps something very foreign. I probably shouldn't of been offended, people often react very negatively and emotionally to what they don't understand. But to be quite honest, if what I described was childish, then you have no concept of what it is I really do in these rituals.
Let's say that twice I have done things best left off my key strokes. Though be that as it may, I don't see why what I am doing should be compared to teenagers desecrating Churches, which is a crime. To lump me in with them is to forget the fact that what I have done in the past in the context of rituals is law-abiding, and that it was done on my property with solely my property and no one watching. It was purely for myself.
I also find it odd, until I remember that it's taboo to most people, that some are upset by the notion of using symbols as proxies. It is quite common in magickal practice really, even when a "black" (for a lack of a better term) magician casts a death curse, the victim is killed via proxy of of an effigy, poetry, or other imagery. Is this childish? Maybe to you, but it doesn't matter, your subjective opinions only apply to you, and say more about your mindset then it ever will about mine.
The thing people keep forgetting is the book, or anything that is desecrated, is just a symbol. There are millions if billions of Bibles in the world, I can do with mine what I please and no one would be wiser. What the Bible in question symbolizes to me, is not what it symbolizes to you. I made a topic a while ago in the LHP DIR talking about a Bible I found, and you know what? Not a single member of the DIR thought it was childish, I was even given advice on what to do with it. In the topic, I was asked what it symbolized, and I went into a highly personalized miniture story of how, this Bible being my oldest one ever, it represented a certain very early part of my life. So then for this specific Bible, it represented me being tricked by my father, and the complicated spiritual feelings involved in how he converted me to Christianity.
I didn't want to do it because I was angry, I wanted to do it because I wanted to "burn away", through the "fires" of "Hell", the emotions. Hell in a number of religions is a place of purification, where impurity is purged and burned away, and with this the symbolism of fire is born. Let's not even get into how things burned literally go to almost nothing, leaving little trace (if burned into a very fine ash), and what metaphors are made from that.
As I've said, I have not done many rites of blasphemy, I can count them, including a renunciation, on one hand. As I've said before, I've probably done fifty or more Satanic rituals in my life, meaning that less than 10% of my rituals are blasphemous in anyway.
Have any of you heard of The Black Mass, or why Satanic and non-Satanic groups use it? It is a really interesting thing, and the Church of Satan, despite all my other disagreements with them over anti-theism, explains it very well. As well from a theistic view point, blasphemy is not a major component of Satanism:
For most Satanists, I would recommend rites of blasphemy only occasionally, as a way of freeing oneself from irrational fears and inhibitions. For most Satanists, I would not recommend rites of blasphemy as a routine practice. Routine rituals should focus on Satan Himself, not on His enemy or on whatever else you want to free yourself from.
source of quote:
For blasphemy fetishists
So if you guys want to compare religions, talk about taboos/renunciation/blasphemy in the context of religions in general, then let's do so. However if your only intention is attacking the practice itself, and specifically
me and my specific instances of religious practice that is fully acceptable in the scope of my entire school of thought as at least a few did, then you probably shouldnt be in the
COMPARATIVE RELIGION forums.
And quite honestly.. people's inability to see the power in the symbolism... is quite ironic because it is the symbolism many are caught-up on... which is why it works when one finally shatters it (in the context of Renouncements, taboos, and some forms of blasphemy).
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So I'll ask again, has anyone ever renounced or blasphemed something in the context of their religion or conversion, or sought to break taboos? I know this isn't unique to Satanism, I know that the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church had a conversion renouncement and that a number of branches of Hinduism and Buddhism work very much with destroying inhibitions be breaking taboos.
Only that I wanted to talk to other people who have had experience with this.
