You call yourself free? Your dominant thought I want to hear, and not that you have escaped from a yoke. Are you one of those who had even the right to escape from a yoke? There are some who threw away their last value when they threw away their servitude.

Free from what? As if that mattered to Zarathustra! But your eyes should tell me brightly: free for what?

— Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Rebellion isn’t everything. 

Maybe you’re picking yourself up after a nine-day fall into Pandemonium. Or maybe you’re proudly watching as your children devour your foes at Ragnarok. Even if you’re triumphantly rolling in the mud and singing Beasts of England after driving out your irresponsible overlords — inevitably, the dust of your revolt will settle. 

You must then ask the question: “What now?”

No matter the size of your revolution, whether it is personal or world-quaking, the goal you seek may one day be fulfilled. What happens when your cause is won? Is your story over?

Existential crises lurk behind every hard-won victory. Go ahead and invest all your time, resources, and sense of purpose into a rebellious fight against tyranny. But when foes do fall, you’ll be left with a void. The search for new enemies is motivating, but also limiting. And with weapons constantly raised, you’ll eventually have no one left to fight but yourself. 

Rather than face self-consumption, might you treat victory as a creative new beginning?

Satanism is criticized as merely a refuge for those caught in the throes of rebellion. It is seen as a developmental pitstop for angry teenagers or a holding tank for adults with an infantile fixation for controversy. To be fair, the concept of Satan encompasses terms like “adversary” and “accuser” — certainly part of the language of rebellion. And when people embrace Satanism solely to exorcise past attachments, the religion is limited by the threat of the enemy it is used to oppose.

But Satanism starts with the assumption that white light religions are in their death throes. Despite initial blasphemous passages meant to filter out readers, The Satanic Bible devotes little space to revolt against theism. Instead, the religion of abstinence is regarded as a dead horse not worth the beating. Life is precious, fleeting, and for the living — not to be wasted locked in a struggle against imaginary ideals.

Like Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, Satanism takes the death of god as a given. The rebellion is won and individuals are now responsible for finding their own purpose and meaning. It is not about what you’re free from, but rather, what you’re free for.  

Much of Satanic literature focuses on tools (magic) for effecting one’s own will (what you’re free for). But your will is your own. According to Anton LaVey, “from our earliest literature, through The Satanic Bible, we made no grandiose promises of infallible enlightenment and emphasized that each must be his or her own redeemer.” (The Devil’s Notebook) Satanism isn’t here to tell you what to pursue. Doing so runs contrary to the importance of the individual over the collective — this point is a deep conflict between Satanism and white light religions.

Certain individual Satanists will be happy to give you purpose and thereby make you a tool for their own ends. But Satanism as a philosophy isn’t there to tell you what to do. In this story, you choose your own adventure and set out to find an ending that works for you.

Satanists take inspiration from the hardboiled private-eye noir antihero: scarred, betrayed, and independent. Alone in his office, he is an outsider in a chiaroscuro world. The drawers of his desk hold two distinct paths to oblivion: a bottle and a gun. Like a true Satanist, the antihero is such an other that he isn’t satisfied playing for either side of the eternal game of cops and robbers. Instead of oblivion, he finds purpose in the danger of each new case, forging his own path in the gray areas beyond good and evil. 

Say your enemies are vanquished. And say you’re not looking to follow orders. If you feel free, but you are unsure of your individual purpose, what is there to do? 

Again, Satanism is a tool and can’t provide the answer, but the nature of magic can point you in a productive direction. According to Peter Gilmore, “There is true magic in the mastering of skills.” (The Satanic Scriptures) The magic of Mastery is a creative, lifelong endeavor that can free the individual from the need to draw purpose out of a endless battle against what they are not.

I highly recommend the book Mastery, by Robert Greene, for further suggestions. No one can tell you the specific skill to master, but some direction can get you closer to discovering that skill for yourself: Look to what has given you visceral pleasure and fascination since childhood; find a way to build a niche for yourself free of competition; reject the need for attention and approval from others; realize that you alone are responsible for yourself; and ultimately embrace discipline and focus in your chosen skill.

The rebellious free themselves by roaring in the faces of those who say “thou shalt.” But pure rebellion is limiting. Pure rebellion can shatter shackles, but can’t create anew. A creator evolves past merely saying “no” and learns to say “yes” to the all-important pursuit of his or her own individual will.

Iconic rebels like Lucifer, Loki, and even Snowball in Animal Farm all learned that their stories were far from over after their revolts. The Satanic Bible opens with a prologue in which Valhalla is set aflame and the reign of the gods of the right hand path is ended. Before any of the Satanic philosophy is presented, the rebellion is over. Done.

Loki’s fiery revolt is complete. As we clap the heavenly ashes from our hands, we must ask: “Okay, what now?”

Remember: Rebellion is just the beginning.