Our paths to modern Satanism are varied. Why Satan is our ongoing blog series where we tell about our individual journies in our own voices. We are hoping that these stories provide inspiration and comfort to those taking this path less traveled. If you would like to participate and share your story, you may email your contribution to namah@renosatanic.com or, if you prefer, fill out our form.
*Submissions may be slightly edited for length and clarity.
My Trip to the Dark Side or How I Was Finally Enlightened
Okay, that title for this essay just jumped out at me and I totally went with it. Yes, I said the word “totally”.
You know, if someone had me told me, back in the day, that I was going to be on a Satanic path, I would have scoffed. Not only did I grow up in a very Catholic home; I went to a Catholic school. I was an altar boy. And, I thoroughly knew all about good, bad and all the other stuff. Let me explain.
By the end of high school, I was already disillusioned with the religion that I was brought up in. I joined the Army as soon as I could, at age 17. That was also when I left the Catholic church.
Of course, I still knew right from wrong. Only now, I didn’t really care as much. I stuck to the Golden Rule, most of the time. I knew that the Devil was bad. So, I felt that things were okay.
I got married exactly a year after I was discharged from the military. It was while my wife got pregnant that I started to think about religion again. I felt that it wasn’t right to raise my child without any knowledge of God, Jesus, and the Devil. I reasoned that, if my child didn’t believe it later on, then he or she could leave when they were old enough. I felt it was my responsibility, as a parent, to teach my child about the Bible.
My wife and I joined a fundamentalist church that stressed the importance of reading the Bible daily. It was here that I learned how to study. This was different from the school studying that I had done. I learned how to reason. This was also the time that I learned to think critically.
In my study of the Bible, I found contradictions. One, that was impossible for me to overlook, was the treatment of women in the Old Testament. It was horrible. This is what a loving God wanted? Then, along comes Jesus; and he is friendly with all the outcasts of society – especially the women. Why didn’t things change?
Well, I am not going to turn this into a church sermon. Suffice it to say, that things went back to the same old same old after Paul commanded the exact opposite of Jesus’ example. It didn’t make any sense to me. How misogynistic can you be? This was the proverbial tip of the icebreaker. My doubts went deep. The result? My wife, son, and I left that religion – and Christianity altogether.
During this time, my wife and I were team drivers for a trucking company. We drove all over the U.S. and a good part of Canada. I have seen many wondrous and amazing sights while crossing both countries. Ask me to show you some of our pictures sometime.
While I was driving, I started connecting with what I was experiencing. Nature! I started reading some of my wife’s pagan books and felt an immediate connection to the pagan path and this planet. Yet, looking up at the Milky Way and seeing the Aurora Borealis, it got me to thinking that there must be more to everything than this earth. I know the god of the bible does not exist. However, what was I feeling when I looked up in the night sky?
I then started to think about all the other savior mythos that we read about in history: Mithras, Hercules, Romulus, and Jesus to name a few. One has to wonder why this pattern keeps repeating itself. Is someone or something trying to connect with us earthlings?
In my answer, I realized that if, at least, every other person on this planet started acting like these savior examples, this world would be far different than what it is now. In other words, I am my own savior. I am the one that I have been waiting for. There is no sky daddy that is going to magically appear and fix everything. It is up to me to save me. There is no plan B. This earth is all we have.
This thinking led me to looking into Satanism. (I had noticed in the news how active Satanist are in the community, especially on an issue that is very important to me: separation of church and state.) We are all we have. It also confirmed, to me, that there is no one else and it is up to us to make our society better.
Rod
Would you like to read more stories about our personal journies to Modern Satanism? There’s more here…