But Venus is not just a showgirl; she uses her natural ability and tendency toward spectacle and showmanship to grow her belief system, find followers, and broaden the community of online Satanists. Her beliefs are explained and are as prevalent as Vera’s, but visitors to her site have the added delight of basking in her dark sensuality as she explains the finer points of satanic belief. She is truly a fine hybrid of LaVey and Theistic Satanism.
As a whole, Satanism exists as a chaotic and decentralized belief system. Venus explains it well in one of her many online tutorials, “In Satanism, it is a chaotic approach. You have to make your own path; you have to blaze your own trail.” I had the opportunity to chat with her and some of her fellow Satanists in their chat room. There were individuals from many different belief systems, with varying theories, but who came together to discuss their philosophies and educate each other. Venus is on the chat room 24/7. She has truly made a life of her belief; “the Internet is face-to-face for me. I don’t see cyberspace as some kind of imaginary reality. For me it is real, and I speak with my fans every day.” The Internet, in its ability to connect billions, has enabled Satanists, occultists, pagans, Wiccans, and various other independent and alternative religions to find others with common interests and beliefs. Their numbers are scattered; their church is digital.
Outside of her online presence, Venus leads a normal life a bit different than what one would imagine a Satanist might live (influenced, of course, by the popular media portrayals). “Outside of the Internet I live a pretty normal life. I have three cats, my husband who loves me—and he’s not a Satanist, though he’s been involved with the occult for over 30 years. Nowadays, I enjoy playing with my cats; I enjoy taking care of my garden; I look forward to when my husband comes home from work and I can give him a kiss and a hug.” And when asked about her online dancing … “He likes that I dance; it keeps me in shape, gives me energy and makes me happy so he does not mind at all.” Overall, her marriage and life sound like a success story weaved from alternative sources; a marriage based on mutual acceptance of alternative beliefs with entrepreneurship and a little eroticism thrown in to boot. When viewed through only the medium of a computer, Venus can appear to be that dark, foreboding, witch-like figure that has come to stereotype practitioners of the occult—people who largely seem to enjoy the dark side of life. “For me, Satanism is something that I can use to manifest my dreams and desires. Satan is a god of this world, so I have come to respect nature, animals and wildlife. I enjoy the sunrise and I look forward to the night. I am not depressed in any way; I’ve always been a happy person, and I enjoy laughter and I like to feel comfortable that there are those who are into black metal who might be obsessed with those things, and even though I like black metal, I don’t really get into their scene. I’m 32 now and I’ve grown out of those things, pretty much.”
While Satanism today surely exists, it does not exist as a centralized belief system with dogma and founding texts. It is marked by diffusion, infighting, individual philosophies, and ever-present and oppressive stereotypes. They assign themselves satanic names in an apparent effort to undercut their traditional Christian names and preserve online anonymity. Despite Theistic Satanism’s belief in a number of gods and goddesses that inhabit and walk the earth, Satanism is marked by darkness rather than light. Satanists live in the shadows and use folkloric symbols and ideas to create the illusion of evil, even within organizations that claim no evil practices but simply celebrate Satan as the greatest friend to mankind. Today’s Satanists, fully able to exist in a world where they are free to practice without fear of state or religious intervention, appear unable to break away completely from the Christian symbol of Satan as an evil entity that represents the darkness and malice in the world, despite member protests to the contrary. Its members are, on the whole, fringe members of society living their lives outside the “norm” of American life. But it appears they prefer to embrace the darkness of the Christian idea of Satan rather than embrace him as the bringer of knowledge (light) to man in his various manifestations of Prometheus, Lucifer, and Lilith. Their belief system, in all its various incarnations, is primarily one of rejection: rejection of God (light) in favor of the adversary (dark); rejection of traditional values in place of moral relativism; rejection of society for the individual; and rejection of compassion for the self. Satan, is, after all, the adversary.
However, there exists duplicity in the idea of adversary and rejection—in the idea that those who reject have thus been rejected. The murderous and illegal practices of folkloric Satanists need to be put aside, as they cannot exist within the framework of any civilization as an accepted form of religious practice; however, the symbolic Satanists and the Theistic Satanists are almost forcibly drawn down the dark path (or Left Hand Path) of life because of the duality that is inherent in the dominant Western religions such as Judaism and Christianity. Such duality would not be found in the Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, where the darker recesses of humanity are embraced as part of the experience of God. Take, for instance, the Hindu goddess, Kali:
The temple image displayed the divinity in her two aspects simultaneously, the terrible and the benign. Her four arms exhibited the symbols of her universal power: the upper left hand brandishing a bloody saber, the lower gripping by the hair a severed human head; the upper right was lifted in the ‘fear not’ gesture, the lower extended in bestowal of boons. As a necklace she wore a garland of human heads; her kilt was a girdle of human arms; her long tongue was out to lick blood. She was Cosmic Power, the totality of the universe, the harmonization of all the pairs of opposites, combining wonderfully the terror of absolute destruction with an impersonal yet motherly reassurance.36
Both good and evil, destruction and creation, exist as one cosmic force of God in the Hindu tradition. Western culture is one of duality and opposites, where one side can only be embraced in opposition to the other, thus a “Right Hand Path vs. a Left Hand Path.” Satanists exist at the periphery of a culture that is steeped in the Christian tradition; their embrace of the dark side of life leaves them in opposition to the Christian’s symbol of the light of God. This does not necessarily have to be the case, but it does exist as the paradigm in which our Western culture operates.
To the Western Christian who does not possess knowledge of the Hindu religion, the image of Kali and those bowing before her would most likely represent devil worship; but to the Hindu it is the same as worshipping the God of the Cosmos—the same God that is responsible for light is responsible for dark. This has been one of the central difficulties of Western theology since its maturity during the Middle Ages—the question and problem of evil in the world when a benevolent and loving God is the ruler of all things. Theologians have wrestled with this question and continue to wrestle with it today because evil and darkness do exist. In the Hindu tradition darkness is not separated from light, while Christianity has divided the two to represent God and Satan as polar opposites. At the basis of Satanism there exist difficult theological questions: God created Satan; did he therefore create evil? God allows Satan to operate in the world, so is Satan a servant of God meting out punishment, or does this benevolent God not care about the destruction Satan wreaks? In the book of Job, Satan and God strike a bet like two rival businessmen dealing in souls, and God allows Satan to ruin Job’s life in an effort to prove that Job loves God and would continue to serve him despite loss. This hardly seems the act of the God Christianity touts. But the existence and practice of Satanism ultimately calls into question the dualistic nature of Western and Christian thought.
If practicing Satanists (with the exception of folkloric Satanists) appear to reject society, it is because they have to due to the dualism inherent in Western culture. Therefore, they change their names, get tattoos, wear dark clothes, and rejoice in things that push away from the “light” and the “good,” even though they do not necessarily advocate evil. If Satanists largely appear to reject society, it is bec
ause they have been rejected and are unable to exist outside the Western paradigm. LaVey made a spectacle of his satanic belief in an effort to shock the United States, but later in his career he ceased this kind of showmanship in the hopes of developing a true following of philosophic devotion. Today, Vera and Venus, likewise, are more content to follow their philosophic ideals and reach out to people who cannot seem to find acceptance in or accept the Christian philosophy. One member I chatted with was a 17-year-old girl who had become disenchanted with Christianity and was looking for a new path; she came to Venus’s chat room in an effort to have some of the bigger, more spiritual questions answered that sometimes get overlooked in the dogmatic, theocratic Christian denominations. She is free to follow her path and try to find acceptance in a different paradigm.
Theistic Satanism, overall, is a benign, polytheistic belief system that embraces the old gods of the ancient pagans, as well as the deities represented in the Bible. They exist on the outskirts of traditional society and, therefore, are easy targets when the United States goes on one of its recurring witch-hunts. With the exception of people like Venus, who make themselves public figures, Satanists adopt false names for the sake of anonymity and tend to avoid publicity of any kind. Christianity holds no meaning for them, and they are, therefore, free from the constraints that have largely shaped the Western world. “Satanists in general have strayed from the typical, traditional Christian views on demons,” Venus says. “We have had good relationships with Satan and with demons so we have come to our own understanding of these things, and you may find that in general, our beliefs and ideas on demons aren’t the same as what Christians teach. I try to be respectful of other religions, regardless of that. I understand that religions are supposed to be meant to help people to live up to their potential, and to do good things in life.”
CHAPTER 13
The American Gothic
The ground of Gettysburg is mottled with long brown grass that lies on its side in crests and valleys so that it resembles a fast-flowing river. Frogs and cicadas in the nearby swamp raise a buzzing din that can be heard from the visitors’ center all the way to the High Water Mark. Giant rocks pepper the fields, left behind by the retreating glaciers of the Ice Age 13,000 years ago like gravestones planted in the ground for a time of death and loss that was certain to come. This is the site of the greatest battle of the Civil War and the deadliest battle in U.S. history, and a symbol of the American struggle for unity and independence. It is also the most haunted place in the United States.
Every year ghost hunters flock to this battlefield, upon which so many died in the throes of agony and emotion, to investigate the inns, battlefields, forests, and restaurants. Some of the most celebrated ghost videos and pictures have come out of Gettysburg, where people report that at night soldiers appear and then disappear, walking through the fields and up and down the stairs of the inns.1 It is a place with history, and places with history have ghosts.
Actually, it would seem that history is a prerequisite for a haunting. Contemporary places do not have the aura of the past and are, therefore, not usually associated with hauntings. “In a setting where legends of the romantic past are expected, personal contact with the supernormal is sanctioned, even encouraged.”2 Ellis refers to these places as “holy ground,” a title that contemporary places cannot claim. While there have been ghost sightings in supermarkets, supermarkets are not generally considered haunted. Why? Because there is no history—they are not “holy ground” where generations have come and gone, where the drama of life has unfolded decade after decade, century after century. The supermarket does not fit with our narrative of a haunted place. Our narrative is the way in which we experience the story of our society. The supermarket may not be a haunted place, but Gettysburg certainly is, regardless of the reality of ghosts. A place is not necessarily haunted by spirits, but it is most certainly haunted by its past.
In his book Projected Fears: Horror Films and American Culture, Kendall Phillips defines the term gothic as being “the tension between the known and the unknown.”3 It is a tension between the light of day and the dark of night, between the known present and the unknown past, and between the mundane of everyday life and the horror of nightmares. In visiting haunted places such as Gettysburg, there is a knowledge, which we seek to gain. Why is it not enough that we read and study about the battle in books? Why is it not enough to have learned the dates and the places and the people? Why do we feel the need to actually walk the ground and see the grass and rocks—hear the frogs and cicadas? Precisely because it is holy ground, the ground where lives were lost, dramas played out, and blood spilled. We walk there because we seek to know more; we seek to have a connection with that history, and the paranormal can give us that connection.
“At its core, the problem of both the living and the dead is their inability to reconcile the known and the unknown, and this problem is only resolved as [we] learn to embrace the unknown and thereby find peace.”4 There is always a disconnection between the past and the present. As people age and pass away, so does their direct knowledge of historical things. As the generation that fought World War II passes away, so do the direct experiences of one of the greatest and most influential times in human history. They possess a knowledge that cannot be found in books or videos. They have experience—direct knowledge—and those who do not are automatically once-removed from that history. As time progresses and the knowledge of that war relegated to books with generational gaps, the readers become even more removed from that direct history. That is why we seek out the holy ground—so that we can walk in footsteps that we did not create before they are washed away by the tide of time. We seek to remember, and we try our best to understand why our world is the way it is now. We seek to reconcile that past with our present in an effort to find peace. When those ghosts of Gettysburg are caught on a tourist’s camera (see Gettyburg Ghosts video) marching through the trees, we are seeing a living history played out before us, a glimpse into the experience of that time on camera. Seeing those ghosts is a personal, individual experience in which the viewer has somehow bridged a gap between the known and the unknown, the past and the present.
Obviously skeptics will seek to condemn such a video as a fraud or mistake on the part of the viewer, but it is nearly impossible to authenticate or debunk this experience. The viewer says it’s real, others say it’s not, but what is real is the desire to visit this holy ground, and the belief that there are spirits that walk the fields, woods, and inns. The belief of those who have encountered something they cannot explain is real; and the belief that they have witnessed something that is a direct remnant from the past is real, regardless of science. Not everybody comes to Gettysburg on an official ghost hunt, but everyone is, in some way, looking for ghosts.
Why do ghosts walk these old passageways and fields? It would seem a senseless act. Could it be they are there to remind us, to form a connection between the living and the dead, the past and the present? In gothic America, we are seeking out the dead so that we can better understand ourselves and the present. Author John Keel refers to this as “Our Haunted History,” in that the world with all its cycles and patterns and incidents is far older than our comprehension. With that age comes history that we are just beginning to understand.
LIZZIE BORDEN TOOK AN AXE…
On August 4, 1892, the horrific murders of Andrew Borden and his wife Abby Borden were discovered. Both people had been hacked to death with a hatchet. Lizzie, their daughter, was the immediate suspect; as the case went to trial, it became a media sensation, sparking waves of controversy, debate, and folklore. It even spawned a nursery rhyme: Lizzie Borden took and axe and gave her father forty whacks; after that, she wasn’t done, she gave her mother forty-one. Lizzie was eventually acquitted of the charges due to lack of hard evidence, though there was plenty of circumstantial evidence. However, she is still largely believed to be responsible for the murder of her parents. Today the Lizzie Borden House is not o
nly a national historical landmark, but also a bed and breakfast that is reputedly very haunted and has been investigated by innumerable ghost hunting teams, including The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) of Ghost Hunters fame.
The Lizzie Borden trial has been compared to that of O. J. Simpson; one that captured the attention of the entire nation. In both cases, the defendant was found not guilty, and in both cases the public by and large believed the opposite. O. J.’s guilt, while not official in the courts, has been solidified in the national consciousness; comedians make references to it, scholars make excuses for it, and journalists make accusations against any and all parties involved. Regardless of the factual evidence of the case and that he was found innocent, the public consciousness has declared and accepted, not only his guilt, but also the idea that he got away with it. The Lizzie Borden case was similar; a gruesome double murder in an affluent part of town involving a family that was slightly out of the norm (O. J. and Nicole were a mixed-race marriage, while the Borden household was notoriously old-fashioned and resisted modern advances such as indoor plumbing), both murders involved bladed objects, and both involved circumstantial evidence that pointed to the defendant but couldn’t prove the case. More important to this discussion is that each of the murders became part of the narrative of the American culture.
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