[Bitscape shuffles around, trying to make sense of the assorted 12 centimeter diameter discs and their cases, which surround him.]

cdplay 2

Hmmm. I could have just played the ogg. Oh well. cd is going now.

<muttering>
"Satanic witch indeed...."
</muttering>

Ahem.

Let this be a lesson. Never throw up stupid links, lest you take your own facetious advice and follow them.

Last night, on what I suppose was a whim, I went to the bookstore on the way home, and found my nose in a couple of books which I've long had a certain curious interest in, but never had the guts to actually pick up and read. (Actually, I did try to find one of them at the public library several years ago, but had no luck. Even in enlightened Boulder. tsk tsk tsk.)

The Satinic Bible, by (the late) Anton Szandor LaVey. The Satanic Witch, same author. After reading about a dozen pages out of each, I purchased them both. If this scares some readers, too bad. Deal with it. lol.

<sidenote>

I have recently made slight alterations in my book buying / reading policy to better reflect reality. I no longer attempt to motivate myself by saying, "As soon as I finish the book I bought last week, I will allow myself to buy this new book I am interested in. But not until then!"

While it sounds like a good and rational way, the results have historically been mostly pathetic. A common result of exercising such restraint enevitably ends up turning the "old" into more of a burden than a joy to read, making it even less likely that I will finish even if I love the book itself! An end to such silly guilt trips, I say!

My new policy is that if I find a book that's really worth reading, I purchase it (provided it is within the limits of my semi-defined budget), regardless of what other items are pending in the queue. Then, if I find myself awake and bored late in the night, I pick up whichever one happens to fit my current mood, and leave the rest for another night. So far, I like this way much better. Instead of being "swamped", I have "an abundance of selection." :)

</sidenote>

Now, I'm going to take a wild guess. "What?!? Bitscape?!? Reading the writings of Satanism? We always knew he was a little freaky and wierd, but getting into this devil worshiping stuff?!? What has Lucifer done to his poor little mind?"

First, as even any second-rate Satanist would tell you (at least of the LaVey's Church of Satan variety), I do not worship "the devil", per se, because Satanists do not believe there is any such being. Rather Satanists call themselves that because they wish to stress their adherence to the ideas, values, and concepts represented by the figure of Satan.

Secondly, reading the writings of Anton LaVey does not make me a Satanist any more than reading the Bible would make me a Christian! Well, um, duh. Feels silly to even be saying such a thing, given the obviousness of it. Perhaps I am overestimating the level of "Oooh, he's reading Satanist literature; must be on his way to worshipping the devil and sacrificing babies in blood" ignorance in the readership of this web page. If so, I apologize.

Now that we've got that advance bit of preventative flame retardant out of the way...

What have I learned from these books so far? I suppose it could be labelled as Yet Another of Bitscape's Delvings into Peculiar Religions of the World. LaVey's writings don't have quite the air of arrogance that some of his web followers I've read in the past have exhuded. (Or maybe my perceptions have just changed.) Actually, a lot of his writing has an absoultly wicked sense of humor (some places more subtle than others). Heh. Fitting.

So, what do Satanists believe? They believe in, to quote the Nine Satanic Statements, "indulgence, instead of abstinence... vital existence, instead of spiritual pipe dreames... kindness to those who deserve it, instead of love wasted on ingrates... man as just another animal... all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification!" Yeah, that stuff.

The Satanic Bible is basically (based on what I've read so far up to page 64) a trip through the reasoning behind all of these philosophies.

The other book, The Satanic Witch, while obviously intended for the female reader, is proving to be quite fascinating (in a guilty pleasure, Demonic self sort of way). This is going to make no sense to anybody who hasn't read the book, but I'm going to write it anyway, and I'm going to be brief, because it's getting close to time to leave.

I have deterimened, based on the descriptions in chapter 2, that I fall somewhere between 4 o'clock and 5 o'clock on the "LaVey Personality Synthesizer." (the system itself makes a moderate degree of sense to me when comparing against my observations of human beings). Therefore, I would be most likely to be attracted to (or "bewitched" by) someone between 10 and 11 o'clock. A reflection of my demonic self.

Further reading reveals what I would have suspected about my car -- that unlike some people, whose cars are reflections of their Demonic Selves, my dear little Tobias is a Familiar. A reflection of my Core Self. (Were my car a reflection of my Demonic Self, I would have been much more likely to give it the name initially suggested by a certain content vulture who will go unnamed, lest he not like the idea of his name being included in a rambling about such evil things.)

If I were to go out on a limb, and extend the concept to an area not discussed in the book (what do you expect? It was written in the 70s.), I would say that my web design is largely a reflection of my Demonic Self, in more ways than one. Not only is my web persona in many ways the opposite of my "Majority Self", but its visual and aesthetic properties are also indicitave of the 10 or 11 o'clock style. (Ok, so I'm totally bs-ing now.)

If we were to take the LaVey's text as gospel, what might we infer from this? That a potential mate (or bewitching predator) need not fear competition from Bitscape's car (as might be the case with some males), but when it comes to his web page, there would be little hope of tearing him away, because it could be said, in a sense, that he is "in love with" posting online content.

But everyone around here already knew that already! So what else is new? :)

Blah. Enough of this nonsense. I'm going to try to grab a bite to eat on the way to Clockwork Orange. Now that is a wicked good movie. Onward!