Confessions of a High School Satanist

Satanic Panic is all the rage right now. Parents are gripped by fear. Students are quivering with terror. Teachers are helpless in the face of the onslaught. Can this menace be stopped? A former Satanist tells all!

At school I was a Satanist. Not a real Satanist, though everybody thought I was. You see, I wore black clothes, listened to heavy metal and never went to church. Black clothes and heavy metal were related, staying out of church had nothing to do with the other two, but it was all frowned upon in my little, remote, isolated Kalahari Desert community.

When I read about Barbara Creecy, Gauteng education MEC, will be working with faith-based organisations to stamp out Satanism and occultism in schools by developing the “Anti-Harmful Religious Practices strategy”, memories of my own high school experience came flooding back.

I started doubting the little faith I had long before I got interested in metal music. You could say I gravitated towards it because I felt a connection with that outsider culture, and more disconnected with my community and its many churches. Of course my parents blamed the music, because I finally worked up the courage to renounce my faith completely and stopped going to church only after my aural tastes changed. Soon I became a priest in a satanic church, according to rumour, anyway.

I have never performed a ritual, slaughtered a cat, cast a spell or cursed anyone, yet that never stopped people from making up all kinds of stories about the things I supposedly did. Naturally, the more stories I heard, the more pentagrams I drew on my desk. I still believe it saved me from being bullied. I may not have been big and strong, but I had the devil on my side.

I realise that not all these kids are like me, and the reasons, backgrounds and desires for their “satanic” behaviour varies, but I am confident that most have one thing in common – they are acting out against a religious environment and a religion that has failed them, or at the very least, a society that has failed them.

Most “satanic” kids at school are not actually Satanists. They are teenagers having a reaction to religious oppression, and the more you push your religion on them, the more they lash out, mostly just by drawing satanic symbols, or writing slogans. It’s a defence mechanism. You soon realise the power these symbols have over others and you want them to feel the same fear of you that you feel of them – the fear of constantly being barraged with faith, judgement and religious scrutiny, of being ostracised and persecuted for not piously sharing your faith, and feeling increasingly disenfranchised by their society.

I don’t really wear black any more, although I still occasionally listen to metal. I don’t need satanic symbols any more, and I have long lost my Slayer T-shirt with the bloody pentagram print, but I still don’t have faith in a higher power.

To Barbara Creecy: This will probably not produce the results you imagine. Your decision to act against a child who already chose to react against your religious beliefs will only be met by further animosity towards your faith. The more you demonise children for being Satanists who need to be saved from their evil ways, the more you will drive them towards being the characters you imagine them to be.

Most of them will never end up killing people or sacrificing cats. They are not evil people hell-bent on destroying the world. They are just kids having a hard time being part of a society that refuse to have them unless they conform. You cannot “save” people by branding them as evil and hitting them with your bible. The more you scream that they are bad, evil and wrong, the further they will move away from you.

Many of these kids are not disturbed, they are just uncomfortable in your religious society and want to voice their contempt. Not all the kids who are disturbed can so easily be identified and branded as Satanists. Students with harmful intentions often don’t display satanic tendencies. Still, if you want to stop “satanic killings”, you should employ a psychologist rather than a priest.

There are some disturbed people out there, and some young ones really need help. Throwing religion at them and persecuting them for what you perceive as them being evil will only make it worse. You cannot fix this with faith. I wish you well in your endeavours. You are raising another generation who will grow up to despise the church for the rest of their lives.

Is the “Anti-Harmful Religious Practices strategy” constitutional?

Here’s an excellent argument by Jacques Roussouw. Burn the witches! (Daily Maverick)

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Cor Rautenbach
Atheist Movement of South Africa

Cor grew up in the Kalahari Desert – with no atheist influence, no internet and no literature – just a reasonable sense of logic applied while keenly observing the religious.  He hasn’t been to a church sermon since the age of 14. No, he does not worship Satan.

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