Satanism and Hierarchy

Lately there has been a lot of discussion about unifying Satanists in groups. If any of you know me a little, you would know that I don't think much of that. I don't see that it's needed. On S.I.N. on Blog Talk Radio there was a discussion between Jason King, Zach, Dark Fool, Beast Xeno and some other guy (shiva-somethingorother, I'll just call him Dave from now on, since it's easier to remember).

The BTR-show was about hierarchy in Satanism and if it's needed. Obviously, Xeno and "Dave" were on th e pro-side of the argument, and King, Darkfool and Zach were against. The discussion was interesting, but some things irked me to no end. Hence, this blogpost.

This  "Dave" character irritated me. Obviously, he's a Theist, because he was going on about worship. Look, "Dave"; Satanism isn't about worship. Worship of anything is RHP. A Satanist can be theistic, but he (or she) will never worship anything other than him/herself. RHP has hierarchies because they recognize the need that sheep need to be dominated by other sheep. With the LHP, this is obviously not the case. Titles and hierarchy serve no purpose other than submitting the next guy or girl. Satanists have no need for hierarchy for the sake of hierarchy.

No offense meant to Venger Satanis and Beast Xeno though, they are part of an interesting organisation (even though I will never join it, ever). Venger tries to do well, being fair and balanced and staying out of the way, but I still wonder why he calls himself a high priest. What's the function? He can probably do whatever he does without the title, so why bother?

Anyway, I think people get too worked up about hierarchy. If you have a group of people with a similar direction and focus, hierarchies happen automatically through merit. The people who can lead do, and the people that are good at other things do other things. This is stratification. Water seeks it's own level. No need to impose hierarchies for the sake of hierarchies. It's not needed.

On to the issue of titles. Sure, a title like "high priest foobar of the sixth dimension of hatred" might look cool, but what's the damn use? Some people might think that's impressive, but not me. And I guess I am not alone. The only use for titles that I see is for ritual use, and in ritual anyone can be priest, adept, etc. etc. depending on what the ritual requires. Jason King said something to that effect in the discussion, and I wholly agree with him on this. The flexible use of titles just for ritual and not for status is (IMHO) very LHP. It is adversarial of the whole RHP-ish notion of titles as status, and therefore I think that's a good thing.

So, that's what I thought of the whole discussion.

Hail,