Sunday, July 19, 2009

A Critique

Ladies & Gents,

Often the Church of Satan is accused of being a great big organization where members must never question the hierarchy. This is not true. I recently received a letter from a loyal member who disagrees with me and just to prove we are open to criticism I will post that letter here. Of course while he is welcome to voice his views, I, too, am welcome to voice my responses.

Now, I am about to slam this member. This is not normal. Generally when a member comes to me to question something I did or has even a disagreement with me I respond with kindness. I love our members, truly. They are part of the reason I do what I do and I feel a loyalty and devotion towards them that I cannot explain. When they need me I want them to know I am there, 100%.

In this case, however, the member in question choose to lie, to be rude, and to be arrogant and to think by flattering me I would simply fold. 'not my style.

However, I will not publish his name because I am a benevolent deity :)


I would like to express a critic on you blog: http://magistrayrainetwo.blogspot.com
O course I do not want to hurt you, and I understand that being a Magistra you have a more direct knowledge of the problems of our Church than an active Member like me, based in a country far from the Satanic way of life.


My feelings do not play into my work for Satanism. In fact if they are doing more than serving the interests of Satanists I am rendered incapable of doing my job, so please don't consider them.

However you are positively correct in saying i have more direct knowledge of the problems of our church than you. Having over 29 years experience in advocacy for alternative/occult religions gives me a point of view based not just on times served, but the changing societal times.



Anyway my consideration is that to answer to all the attacks from the other religionists is a wrong strategy that could ruin our reputation instead of bettering it. It is important to remember that if somebody attacks another, the attacked will generally react.



If I answered ALL the attacks from other religionists I wouldn't have time to cook dinner or get laid. On any given day I read about 25 attacks. 3/4 of them are from either individuals or churches that have so little power that to respond to them would be granting them more than they deserve. The other 1/4 get a token, pre-packaged response that simply defines the difference between Satanism and the Christian heresy of Devil Worship.

An extremely small amount get a personal message because I feel like it. Yup. No other reason---well, actually, as I have informed our High Priest, I do it to keep my claws sharp. 'funny, he didn't send me a little note.

Then there are the ones that I am asked by CoS administration to deal with.

The rest are either responded to because they have legal or social power, or because the case went national. These are the ones that are the most necessary.

So bottom line--I DON'T Respond to ALL the ATTACKS, and if you think that I am ruining our reputation, which would actually hurt me deeply, please list the times I have done so and if you are accurate and can substantiate that notion I will consider retiring after 29 years.

Christians have the problem of child molesters, we have the problem of the criminals who do not understand us but want to join us. Every Church has its problems, of course. What we should do is to clearly say what we are and what we are not, without making captious definitions and distinctions that are useless and can lead also a Magistra like you to do incorrect, captious statements. I do not bother you definition of “ritual abuse” like I do not bother the distinction between “Satanico” and “Satanista” that the head of the Bambini di Satana, here in Italy made on his internet site and at which, after my email, stopped to give the great emphasis that it did not deserve.


You wrote a whole email and fixed something? Really. A whole one? You changed the "ico" and "ista" on "Bambini di Satana?" And here I am wasting my time on things like legislatures, prisons, and court cases. My meaningless life spent attempting to keep murderers in prison by preventing them from insanity defenses based on pretending their crimes were based on Satanic religious freedoms! My futile and meaningless desires to keep devil worshipers from using The Satanic Bible in jails in order to further damage our reputation. Oh, wait. You claim I already have ruined our reputation with "incorrect, captious statements." I have no idea what a captious is but I am guessing it means wrong. If you are claiming I have made wrong statements about SRA or Ritual Abuse I would love to be properly educated by someone who wrote an email and changed the world.


Besides it is not attaching traditional Satanism that our reputation will increase. We simply can say the we do not worship the Devil like a theistic entity.

We can? Really? I am fairly sure if you read this blog you will find I have mentioned that little tidbit about a gazillion times. Likewise I have said so on television, in college classrooms, in newspaper articles, on witness stands, in depositions, at police academies, and on the radio. Wait! Oh! Shit! I neglected an email. I stand before you a failure.


My last consideration is that some letters that you posted are for a certain part discussions between Satanists that, you know very well, the herd is not able to understand, and I think that in publishing those emails you insisted in violating the rules of this board.

Really?:

From Me:
I hope you two don't mind that I used our exchanges on my blog. I thank you at the end but do not mention who said what. If in any reason I have offended or overstepped, please forgive and let me know so I may fix it.

Thanks, & HS!

From YOU:

#69419 - 04/17/09 02:40 AM Re:

My blog
Dear Ygraine, excuse me because I am so late in answering to you, I have been without connecting to my email for long time. You were not lucky, I usually read my emails.
Of course you can use our exchanges


From the other poster:

No problem, Magistra!


And now I am not supposed to publish the private message in my box that criticqued my performance:

With esteem.
Sincerely,

Name of Presumptuous, Sanctimonious, Satanist removed.
P.S. – This email is reserved, you are not allowed to publish it.



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Members, come to me with your problems. Let me help. Come to me when you disagree and show me how to do my job better---I can only be grateful. Come to me with lies and presumptions, unsubstantiated views, and flase flattery? Well, you can see where that goes.

Hail, Satan!

Y~












1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Magistra,

I guess you're damned if you do and damned if you don't!

I wouldn't let that "critique" get you down. You know the work you do on behalf of the CoS is valuable and much appreciated!

Sincerely,
Robert W. aka Ushiwakamaru

Featured Post

 7th Annual Wicked Witch of the Year Lizzie Hendrix