Book Discussion Popular Satanism Collection

[HoldAll]

The main reason for this thread is to provide a discussion forum for the books I just posted here:

Collection - Popular Satanism

This post is somewhat embarrassing. I originally began to collect those books in an attempt to highlight my feeling that cheap hacks had recently begun to exploit the word 'Satanism' solely for its shock value, spewing out 'dark' fluff with little or no substance. However, a few of them seem to...

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I am beginning to think that these books are in a way indicative of a trend, or rather a bundle of trends, where less-than-serious authors routinely plunder ancient traditions and churn out crazy-quilt occult concoctions like there was no tomorrow. Take "Enochian Forbidden Demonology Spellbook: 50 Forbidden Enochian Rituals to Communicate With the Demons as noted in the Ars Goetia" by Liber Occultis (seriously?) - in principle an interesting idea to use Enochian in conjunction with the Goetia but the lurid cover and the fact that it's part of a series called "Enochian Occultism" encompassing 34 (!) books so far isn't exactly confidence-inspiring.

By pure accident (thanks to @Yazata for pointing it out to me) I discovered that someone had hijacked good old A.E. Waite's "The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts" (first published in 1898 and later called "The Book of Ceremonial Magic"), the copyright of which having long lapsed of course, and passed off this scholarly book (written by a pure white-lighter and good Christian) as a genuine black magic grimoire, now dubbed "The Complete Book of Black Magic and Witchcraft".

Something's going on here, or rather several things but I can't put my finger on it. Who is buying those books? Is there really a demand for 34 low-brow tomes on Enochian magic? Is Satanism becoming the new Wicca? Will some hack write a Picatrix for Dummies?

This may very well be an issue for the General Discussion section but I'm mostly worried about those new book publishing trends, that's why I opened a thread here.

 

[MofoMojo]

It's a little crazy. There are definitely some low brow efforts out and there, not only from the republishing side of things but just AI perspective. I can't say why AI has a special place in my heart, but the potential to do wrong is so easy and abusable. It's incredibly difficult to put that genie back in the bottle so a discussion around that is meaningless and largely without merit.

There's nothing stopping someone from feeding in a few books and then having a lengthy conversation with AI to spit out something new. Heck, I've used AI to write book jacket synopsis details for some of my Calibre collection where a simple synopsis just wasn't available or was SORELY lacking. It does a freakishly good job, enough to the point I've considered writing a plugin for Calibre to automate this. I just don't want to learn python and I'm lazy.

I don't have much care about books on Satanism, it just doesn't interest me, nor does left-hand path stuff but I'll still collect up books on Goetic and Goetia/Grimoires just for the sake of it. There's really NOT that much out there that hasn't already been published so I'm pretty leery of seeing new things in that space. I guess I don't have much more to add, other than to agree, it's only going to get worse with self-published straight to E-Book methodologies available. It's almost such that if a book is only available via e-methods then is there really any value in it? Self-published print on demand books could be thrown in that category too.

I guess I don't know what I'm here to really say... but there... I said it.

 

[Morell]

This issue goes far beyond Satanism. Asetinaists, when I was among them, noticed same trend about Vampiric books and about occult in general. Not to mention that New Agers were generators of books even before this new publishing period.
Now thinking about it, there are also AI generated tarot decks.

The trend to me seems to be smell of easy money. The more books you write, the more visible you can be, it raises your reputation as a writer, especially if you don't have too many negative reviews... the more books you sell and the more money you get.
Who's buying? Someone will always buy. Someone will always like the book...

Also I think that there is the egoistic desire ro achieve something, even if it is helping people or other good intention. And publishing books is ironically now very easy way to get that achievement, even though it's not usually that good in reality, but thankful people are rewarding the person...

 

[HoldAll]

It's a little crazy. There are definitely some low brow efforts out and there, not only from the republishing side of things but just AI perspective. I can't say why AI has a special place in my heart, but the potential to do wrong is so easy and abusable. It's incredibly difficult to put that genie back in the bottle so a discussion around that is meaningless and largely without merit.

There's nothing stopping someone from feeding in a few books and then having a lengthy conversation with AI to spit out something new. Heck, I've used AI to write book jacket synopsis details for some of my Calibre collection where a simple synopsis just wasn't available or was SORELY lacking. It does a freakishly good job, enough to the point I've considered writing a plugin for Calibre to automate this. I just don't want to learn python and I'm lazy.

Thank you for your input, I didn't even think of AI when I saw all these Enochian lightweight potboilers. There is a book out there that claims to be the first grimoire ever written entirely by AI but it was so boring that I didn't even read or upload it. I admit though that it's a fascinating idea that finally somebody would have succeeded in finding a practical low-magic way to employ Enochian for real-life results (Damon Brand's "Success Magick" isn't really convincing, he could have written the entire book and made up his sigils entirely without resorting to Enochian) with the help of AI; after all, neither Dee nor Kelley ever practised the system they received from those Angels.

It would be intriguing to see whether an AI would ever be able to write a book from the standpoint of an accomplished genuine magician, a book where the conviction, experience and even charisma of the author shines through, instead of digesting a whole lot of information and then just impartially regurgitating it in compressed form.

 

[Morell]

It would be intriguing to see whether an AI would ever be able to write a book from the standpoint of an accomplished genuine magician, a book where the conviction, experience and even charisma of the author shines through, instead of digesting a whole lot of information and then just impartially regurgitating it in compressed form.

If it was taught how the genuine accomplished magician writes, it would do it.

 

[HoldAll]

About those Satanism books: There is also the problem of what scholars of religion call 'claiming legitimacy' - there are few reliable sources (if you can call the Christian Bible a reliable historical document at all, that is) describing what Satan is all about, so the legitimacy of that religion (or ideology/philosophy of non-theistic Satanism) is mainly claimed through the titles of those books: there are four 'bibles' (thus mimicking LaVey's first book), two 'reverends', a 'gospel', a 'holy scripture', and an 'ecclesia', again harking back to LaVey's Church of Satan. Claiming authority, however, is not so easy, it's hard to imagine that one of the authors (on the strength of these leightweight books alone) will ever enjoy a huge loyal following like e.g. E.A. Koetting has.

Not so long ago I made a stab at reading Michael Aquino's "Black Magic" because @Wintruz recommended it and it gave me a healthy respect for Satanism; it's not an easy read but instead a really serious and lucidly written book explaining LHP philosophy. Compared to Aquino's work, the books in that low-brow Satanism collection are just 'darkly' romantic Goth fluff.

 

[MofoMojo]

If it was taught how the genuine accomplished magician writes, it would do it.

100%

It would be intriguing to see whether an AI would ever be able to write a book from the standpoint of an accomplished genuine magician, a book where the conviction, experience and even charisma of the author shines through, instead of digesting a whole lot of information and then just impartially regurgitating it in compressed form.

As silly as this seems, I could 100% imagine combining the conviction, fictional experience, and charisma of a Jim Butcher's "Dresden" in writing an AI-assisted book on magic. The interesting "intersection" here is the AI assistance. You could use it to help write in the style you wanted to personify while you provided the bona fide information and, if you're ethical about it, ensured no hallucinations or otherwise were supplanted into the material.

Heck, I would love to train the AI on his character's style and then just have it re-write some of the classic late 19th and early 20th century authors , like Crowley, Regardie, Bardon, Mathers, A.E. Waite just to read it! That could be interesting.

Ultimately though, the theme really doesn't matter if it's "tried and tested" or not. Given the right framework, If the practitioner approaches it with the right mindset it could be based on the teletubbies and still technically be valid. The Dark Grimoire of Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po.

I'll have to check out Michael Aquino's book. My experience with Satanism is much like my experience with Christianity when it comes to people. Most people I know don't get into the mystical/magical side of either. Ok, most isn't even accurate. All... All is the correct word and yeah, I tend to judge a lot of books by their cover. If it remotely carries that Goth fanfare vibe it's going to turn me off, and I say that as a child of 80s goth.

From an LHP path I probably approach this more thelemically in terms of Black Brotherhood and White Brothehood (not to lump everyone into one of those two sides mind you, just... metaphoric similarities). My position on magick and the "The Great Work" as it were, has changed significantly over the years. In my late teens and early twenties, I didn't look at this as a means to enlightenment. I just spent a lot of time dabbling in it all, and not focusing on any one thing. I think LHP can be an easily strewn about term that perhaps has different intentions depending on its context and use too. Is LHP just simply folks that refuse to cross the abyss or is it just a focus on personal individualism, exploring the self, etc,. That's a rhetorical question. I know the answer is far more complex than lumping people into 2 categories. Everything is eclectic right? You pick and choose what works for you (really works) and dismiss what either doesn't or doesn't interest you. Even Jung said we need to embrace our shadow, not ignore it.

I'll have to read Michael Aquino's "Black Magic". I know this took a different turn from the original conversation but appreciate the opportunity to expand my knowledge, now if I can just become wise in my older age.

 

[HoldAll]

I'll have to read Michael Aquino's "Black Magic". I know this took a different turn from the original conversation but appreciate the opportunity to expand my knowledge, now if I can just become wise in my older age.

Makes me wonder though if there is a definitive book on theistic Satanism, for all those bibles and reverends listed above, one that doesn't simply invert Christianity by claiming the bad guy was actually the good guy. Maybe Zoroastrism or the myths of ancient Sumer or Babylonia are the way to go here (as some authors already have tried), the devil gets pretty short shrift in the Christian bible after all.