This question is inspired by the "satanic" music thread. Every one of the tunes I've seen in there are dark, filled with angst and turmoil whether they be death metal or the classical. What about music that could be described as cheerful like for instance Jack Johnson or even Sinatra? How come no such music has really been posted in that thread or, if there are a few examples mixed in, are they dwarfed by all the death metal? It makes me wonder a couple of things: First, do Satanists deep down really believe that Satan fits the Christian portrait of an agent of chaos and evil. Second, are Satanist often filled with angst and turmoil? Does their worldview hinder their ability to experience joy and hope?
Interesting questions, relevant IMO to how one understands Satanism. The Order of Nine Angles have published several essays over the decades (from the 1980s on) about the "exeatic joy", the exultation, of satanism, and also about how "a wallowing in death, decay, horror and filth of uncontrolled decadence is a sign of imitation Satanism."
Here, for example, is a quote from their 1980s article
Satanism, Blasphemy and the Black Mass, which was published in Stephen Sennitt's Nox magazine #2, July 1986 (my emphasis):
"A Satanist revels in life the failures find themselves trapped by their own unconscious desires which they do not have the intelligence to understand nor the will to direct toward a conscious apprehension.
Blasphemy is only effective if it is, for the period in which the individual lives, firstly a genuine shock and a reaction to those values which though accepted are often unconsciously accepted; and, secondly, if it is an appreciation of the positive and life-enhancing qualities inferred by infernal opposition. Thus, while the traditional Black Mass with its denial of the Nazarene is still useful because of the continuing constraints of Nazarene beliefs, it is today supplemented by a Mass which in its unexpurgated version represents a shocking blasphemy to the majority of peoples in Britain and other Western countries.
The Black Mass, and the modern Satanic masses which derive from it, in their genuine forms provoke an invigorating response through the very fact of positive opposition. Negative opposition such as the so-called black mass described by Huymans in La-Bas is enervating. True Satanic opposition codified in a ritual produces the exact opposite a will to more life: and it is this positive, vital, will that is the essence of the genuine archetypical image of Satan, the adversary. Negative opposition a wallowing in death, decay, horror and filth of uncontrolled decadence - is a sign of imitation Satanism: a distorted image of the putrid corpse of the Nazarene."
Here's an extract from Anton Long's article
The Joy of The Sinister, published in 2003:
"What is the most important and interesting thing I can say about the sinister path that I have followed for over thirty years? It is that is teaches us, and enables us, to live life on a higher, different level. That is, to exult in life itself: a sinister life is, or should be, one where there is an intensity; where there is action, in the world; where there is a will harnessed to a goal any goal; a desire to experience, to know; to quest; where there is an arrogant determination to not accept the norms, the answers, the limits of and set by others.
Nothing is too dangerous for us; nothing is forbidden. We experience to test ourselves; to learn.
There is a pushing of ones body to and beyond its limits; enduring, to go beyond endurance to that wonderful bliss of almost exhaustion when a goal has been achieved and one has felt, been, an exquisite harmony of mind and body and ethos through sheer concentration on what is being done.
There is the acceptance of challenges especially by ourselves. And if we have no challenges, we make or create some.
These are the moments days, weeks of exquisite pleasure; these are the moments are an exquisite yearning; these are the moments of an exquisite joy; these are the moments days, weeks of an exquisite exultation."
