Satanism has certainly lost it's influence, at least beyond the minds of the ignorant. It had it's uses but it's kind of fallen out of (into?) grace the way I see it. It's just so overpopulated and over explored, it's hard to even call it occultism anymore.
I'm inclined to agree with you. It's almost mainstream now; tame, and boring; having lost its 'forbidden' charisma, its mystery, and its 'evil' nature, with so many self-professed modern satanists pontificating about it in either a pseudo-intellectual way (e.g. satan as archetype of certain mundane human traits and/or as a philosophy of individual 'liberation' blah blah) or as some sort of egoistic materialistic and carnal way of living or as some sort of self-indulgent nihilism.
Reading a mainstream academic book like
The Devil's Party: Satanism in Modernity, published by Oxford University Press in 2012, is enough proof.
groups like CoS, O9A, ToS, etc are being crushed by focusing and image and politics. The minority remaining can't reconcile the modern psychological views of
I agree about the CoS, ToS, etcetera - but not about the O9A, although I can understand why some might lump the O9A with them re 'image' etcetera given the internet shenanigans of certain self-professed O9A people over the past five years.
Personally, I think the O9A still stands out, given that
" (i) the O9A incite and legitimize what those other contemporary occultists and/or self-professed satanists do not, such as human culling, terrorism, involvement with political/religious extremism, criminality, practical physical challenges, and ordeals both esoteric and exoteric;
(ii) the O9A consciously and ruthlessly – via their logos, the code of kindred honour – divide human beings into two types: those 'like themselves' (who possess a certain type of personal, satanic, character or whom they judge have the potential to develop such a character) and all the others, and which others they refer to as mundanes. Thus, according to the sinister tradition of the O9A, mundanes can be treated as a practical resource, as marks (victims, dupes) and as potential opfers.
All these things most certainly make the O9A – as an esoteric philosophy (a sinister tradition) and in terms of its praxises and in terms of those influenced or inspired by it - actually or potentially harmful, destructive, pernicious, baleful, malicious, mischievous, sly, bad in moral character, hard, difficult, misleading, amoral, dangerous, heretical, and extreme." Source -
What Makes The Order Of Nine Angles Unique?
Over the past year or so several O9A folks have re-emphasized what the O9A is all about, as in reaffirming the necessity of culling, and as in making it clear that involvement with politics is just an esoteric technique, as in being a temporary 'insight role' than can provide a useful personal learning experience.
The O9A have also re-affirmed the centrality of the seven fold way with its personal exploration of the occult, of the supernatural, of undertaking ceremonial rituals; and also that, for them, Satanism is:
"the acceptance of, or a belief in, the existence a supra-personal being that has been exoterically called Satan; and an acceptance of, or a belief in, this entity having or being capable of having some control over, or some influence upon, human beings, individually or otherwise, with such control often or mostly or entirely being beyond the power of individuals to control by whatever means."
The last part - "beyond the power of individuals to control by whatever means" - certainly serves to distance the O9A from the majority of modern self-professed satanists who believe "they can somehow control the forces of the cosmos" and that "reality is what they make it or what others have made it, or perceived it to be". Beliefs lambasted by Anton Long many years ago in polemics such as
Pretenders, Frauds, and The Order of Nine Angles and
Toward Understanding Satanism.
