Culture & Ethics
Religious freedom
Freedom of religion and belief in international human rights texts, including minority religions, nonbelief, and religious expression.
Results for “religious organization”
High Satanic Church
The High Satanic Church
The High Satanic Church is an independent theistic Satanist religious organization and online congregation centered on the worship of Satan as a real deity. Its public website describes the Church as theistic, devotional, and unaffiliated with both the Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple. The organization maintains public material on beliefs and practice as well as member accounts, lodges, writings,…
Devotional Practice
Religious experience and discernment
Religious discernment concerns how experiences are interpreted and assessed. An immediate event, a theological explanation, and a claim about another person require different kinds of evidence.
Theology & Cosmology
Religious syncretism
Religious syncretism concerns the combination of ideas, figures, and practices from different traditions. Similarity of names or imagery alone does not establish identity or historical continuity.
Organizations & Traditions
The Satanic Temple
The Satanic Temple is a non-theistic religious organization whose public principles and activism differ from those of the Church of Satan and from theistic Satanist devotion.
Theology & Cosmology
Religious Satanism
Religions that give Satan a central symbolic or divine role, with substantial differences in belief and practice.
History
Romantic Satanism
Romantic Satanism concerns literary and political readings that give Satan a positive role in opposition to tyranny or conventional authority. It should be distinguished from membership in a religious organization.
Culture & Ethics
Satanic holidays
The different holiday calendars published by the Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple, with dates and organizational meanings.
Theistic Satanism
Theistic Satanism
Theistic Satanism is a family of religious positions in which Satan is understood as an actually existing spiritual being, deity, intelligence, or metaphysical presence, rather than only a literary symbol or political metaphor. It is not a single church or creed. The term is best used as an umbrella for practitioners and groups whose beliefs differ on the nature of Satan, the status of other spirits,…
History
Modern theistic Satanism
Modern theistic Satanism refers to contemporary religious currents in which Satan is understood as an independently real deity, spirit, intelligence, or metaphysical presence and is approached through devotion, ritual, prayer, magic, contemplation, or other religious practices. It is part of the wider field of modern Satanism but differs from explicitly non-theistic movements that use Satan primarily as…
Devotional Practice
Ritual in theistic Satanism
Ritual is patterned action given special religious, symbolic, social, or transformative significance. Ritual can mark time, establish sacred space, communicate with a deity, express commitment, create community, memorialize the dead, enact a transition, or focus attention on a chosen purpose. In theistic Satanism, ritual commonly includes devotional action directed toward Satan or other spirits…
Culture & Ethics
Ethics in theistic Satanism
Ethics in theistic Satanism concerns the moral principles, responsibilities, virtues, prohibitions, and methods of judgement developed by Satanists who regard Satan or related beings as real rather than purely symbolic. There is no universal Satanic ethical code. Theistic Satanism is decentralized, and its practitioners may draw on personal conscience, religious devotion, philosophical individualism,…
Culture & Ethics
Left-hand path
The left-hand path is a modern esoteric category used for religious and magical currents that emphasize themes such as individual self-direction, antinomianism, self-deification, initiatory transformation, or deliberate engagement with symbols rejected by dominant religious culture. It overlaps with some forms of Satanism, Luciferianism, Setianism, and modern occultism, but the terms are not synonymous.
Organizations & Traditions
Global Order of Satan
A nontheistic Satanic organization whose public principles emphasize self-determination, compassion, and responsibility.
Devotional Practice
Initiation
Entry into a religious or esoteric path through ceremony, instruction, recognition, and lived development.
Devotional Practice
Offerings
Offerings are objects, substances, actions, or works intentionally presented to a deity, spirit, sacred power, or religious community. Across religious history offerings have included food, drink, incense, flowers, animal sacrifice, money, vows, music, labor, art, and acts of service. In theistic Satanism, offerings are commonly used to express devotion, gratitude, hospitality, dedication, or…
Texts & Sources
Reading religious primary sources
Primary sources provide direct evidence for a text, community, or historical setting. Reading them well requires context, precise citations, and comparison with other evidence.
Organizations & Traditions
Temple of Set
The Temple of Set is an initiatory organization whose identity centers on Set and Xeper. Its relationship with Satanism requires attention to both historical origins and later self-description.
Organizations & Traditions
Ordo Templi Orientis
An initiatory organization associated with Thelema and the public celebration of the Gnostic Mass.
Organizations & Traditions
Church of Satan
The Church of Satan is the organization founded by Anton LaVey in 1966. Its official account describes Satanism as atheistic and gives Satan a symbolic role.