One Year a Satanist, or An Essay About a Christian’s Conversion
I recently passed my first anniversary as a Satanist. I converted sometime in mid-July 2024 – and no, I didn’t think to mark the exact day it happened. To be fair, it wasn’t as if a light switch flipped in my mind. It was a slow, gradual change – or rather, a realization. It was a long time coming.
Allow me to set the stage for this spiritual lycanthropy.
I was raised from infancy into adolescence in Baton Rouge by my mother, who had divorced my father when I was very young – too young to fully understand what had happened. I stayed with my grandparents on the weekends, and they would take me to a Southern Baptist Church on Sundays – which I, of course, despised. What child didn’t? Every kid my age would much rather spend Sunday morning in their pajamas, watching Cartoon Network, and eating cereal (which I refused to add milk to because I took too long and it would get soggy).
One particularly rough morning, I was being more of a little shit than usual, crying that I didn’t want to go to church. My grandfather snapped, “Crying is a sin.” That stopped me – not because I agreed, but because it shocked me. I knew my grandfather had lied to me. Despite that, I forgave him and remained Christian.
Even after accepting Jesus into my heart – led through the Sinner’s Prayer by my grandfather in the passenger seat of his Cadillac when I was five – I wasn’t exactly a model Christian. I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome when I was eight, back when autism still poorly understood and barely a part of the mainstream conversation. Looking back, I’d already internalized some very Satanic ways of thinking, without ever having cracked open the Satanic Bible. Chief among them: the Satanic twist on the Golden Rule. I arrived at this through logic alone – if everyone treats others how they want to be treated, then if someone is rude to me, they must want me to be rude right back!
I stayed a Christian for most of my life, rarely challenged in my beliefs by others and the internet was still in its infancy. In my teenage years, my mother married a devout, non-denominational Christian who reinforced my religious views for the next decade. He shaped many of my early ideas about faith. One of his favorite sayings was, “The Bible said to turn the other cheek, but it doesn’t say anything about what to do if they wind up for another swing.” In his view, letting someone strike you once gives them a chance to reflect. Anyone can lash out in anger – but if they wind up again, they’re trying to kill you. Thus, you should defend yourself. Another one of his gems: “Stealing a rope, making a weapon with it, and premeditating violence were all applicable answers to the question, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’”
To him, anger had its place – and could be righteous in the channeled properly. I’d argue that’s a very Satanic idea: Wrath is good. It helped me feel better about my own anger issues growing up. I still get frustrated easily sometimes, though I’ve since tempered it with Stoic values – focusing only on what I can personally control.
Fast forward to my thirties. I began questioning my faith in the late summer of 2023. I explored other philosophies – starting with Stoicism and expanding to Absurdism, Epicureanism, Zen Buddhism, and Taoism. I listened to podcasts on Musashi’s Book of the Five Rings and modern research on consciousness. Thanks to my autistic “superpower” of hyperfocusing, I dove deep into these topics – cherry-picking what resonated and discarding the rest. Eventually, I arrived to Nietzsche, and that’s when everything really started to shift.
All my life, I’d been taught that Nietzsche was evil and nihilistic. What I discovered instead was one of the most life-affirming philosophies I’d ever encountered.
That’s when I heard the Devil metaphorically whisper in my ear: “If they lied to you about all of these philosophies… can you really trust what they’ve said about Satanism?” The answer was obvious.
With my apologies to Magister Bill M, I found and downloaded a PDF of The Satanic Bible. I’ve since bought a physical copy from Amazon, but at the time I wasn’t willing to send money to what I perceived as “the Enemy” just to satisfy my own curiosity – and I had no other options. I live in the middle of nowhere, Texas. The public library didn’t have it. The nearest bookstore was sixty miles away, and I didn’t have reliable transportation. I know that all sound like excuses, but that’s how I felt at the time. Again: I have since purchased a physical copy. I may even buy another – my spouse has been hoarding that copy on their nightstand for the past six months.
The PDF I found had a few typos but it included all five introductions written for it over the years, plus some bonus essays and anecdotes tacked on the end. One story in particular stuck with me: a Magister discovering the book The Command to Look buried in a library archive, so fragile he had to wear cotton gloves just to handle it. I devoured it all – the introductions, the Bible itself, and those essays – in three days. I’d found what I was searching for.
For the first half of 2024, I dove everything Satanism-related. It only took me a week to realize that The Satanic Temple was full of shit. The dramatic difference between their FAQ’s anti-COS statement and the Church of Satan’s receipts against the TST spoke volumes. I later learned about TST’s failed lawsuits and controversies – mostly from Queer Satanic’s reporting. While I don’t agree with all of their views on the CoS, I’ll give credit where it is due.
Then, on July 11th, 2024, my stepfather died of a heart attack. He was 54 and had avoided going to a doctor for years. That last year with him – after I moved back home in 2021 following the COVID lockdowns – was rough. Lack of blood flow to his brain made him erratic and difficult.
A week after his death, I finally watched a video that had been sitting in my YouTube queue for months: Esoterica’s episode on Yahweh. I learned how the Christian god could be traced back to a Canaanite storm god idol – a literal graven image. I was floored. Everything I believed about Christianity shattered. It had all been a lie – and always had been. I don’t blame my former peers. They don’t know. In many cases, the truth is deliberately hidden from them. The con must go on. Even if they were told, most wouldn’t accept it. Like Morpheus said in The Matrix: some people can’t handle being unplugged. They’d rather live a beautiful lie than face an ugly truth.
A few days later, I was talking philosophy with my spouse (who is trans non-binary), and Satanism came up. A little drunk and feeling bold, I conducted a test. In the bedroom of the house blessed by the most spiritually powerful man I knew, I threw up the horns and shouted, “Shemhamforash! Hail Satan!” with as much fervor as I could muster.
I waited.
Nothing happened.
No lightning bolts. No demon from under the bed. No Holy Spirit vacating my body. Just silence.
I have been a Satanist ever since. My spouse – a former Jehovah’s Witness – converted shortly after.
So what happened over the last year? Did I suddenly lose everything? Did my finances crash? Did Christians rise from the floorboards to guide me back to righteousness?
Nope. It’s just been more of the same. Except when I’ve applied Satanic philosophy and lesser magic, then things actually gone better than they would have if I’d stayed a silent, meek Christian. Don’t get me wrong – I still have far to go deprogramming my mind of the bullshit I’ve been fed over the years. But I have zero regrets.
That is my story. I trimmed out a bit to avoid bogging the essay down – my practical experiences applying Satanism can wait for another entry. But I will say this: openly wearing my Baphomet pendant in public has opened doors that wouldn’t have otherwise.
If there is one thing you can take away from this essay, dear reader, let it be this:
The writings of Anton LaVey were far more honest with me than Christians ever were.
Is that a damn good enough moral for you?