Writer: CrowsAndFlowers
Subject: Being Your Own God
Link: Tumblr / 23.11.2025
Being Your Own God
Reading on LaVey Satanism, I have a few thoughts about the human animal being its own god. I mean, of course, it can be interpreted as intended (or so I think): we have the need to externalise our ego somehow through something bigger than ourselves, and thus we create gods, therefore the satanist reaction is to make oneself the god, aka internalising ego, aka you must act in favour of your own wellbeing during life.
However, I feel that it is more widely interpreted as “I am God,” given all parts of the text that address pride, anger and ambition as something positive (which it is, but in context). What I mean by this is that the brakes put on these driving forces by the author (when for self-preservation and self-development without harming those who have done nothing wrong to you) are more often than not overlooked in today’s society.
There is a roughness to Satanism that is almost brutally Darwinist and binary (strong vs weak, women vs men natures, etc.), and yet kindness, care and love are central to LaVey, so as long as they are deserved. And it is specified how they are deserved by basically emotionally mature people who respect you. Now, from certain societal perspectives, this specification may ring some warnings in the sense of ‘who gets to choose who deserves what’, as it can very simply turn into a weapon when used by groups of power. But the point of satanism is the individual and their preservation and enjoyment of experience, and basically the freedom to choose how to live one’s life freely.
But this brings me back to God. If the interpretation goes from “I am my own God” to “I am God,” we reach a Frankensteinian line of driving forces without any brakes to stop them. And any animal, conscious or not, believing themselves a God, is like driving towards the edge of a cliff, as it was well written two hundred and seven years ago.
One may have faith that there is something, or that there is absolutely nothing. But that humans are at the top of an imaginary chain created by none other than humans to lift ourselves is hilariously ridiculous. After all, we are just another animal, are we not?