Meditation on Tenet 2

Where the first Tenet speaks to me loudest and most personally, I think the second is where TST's cornerstone is laid.

It's not that I don't find it as meaningful or special in my daily life, it's just that this is what all their campaigns and efforts stem from. Compassion and empathy impact us as individuals, but the struggle for justice is what gets us acting together as a group to do good in the world no matter the blowback or consequence.

Seven Tenets

1. One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
2. The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
3. One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
4. The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
5. Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
6. People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
7. Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

First off, I like that it starts from the realist perspective that justice is a struggle. There is no lofty idea that justice exists for all and we just need to maintain it... no, there is injustice currently and people are fighting against that.

Not only is it part of the world, it's an ongoing and necessary pursuit. We will never get to the place where justice is done and everyone can rest on their laurels. That to me sounds exhausting, as an individual. I cannot fathom doing this alone and it's part of why I kept coming back to the Temple even as I tried to forge my own path into modern Satanism. There is just too much to do, too much evil to denounce, too many crooked politicians and preachers to fight on your own. We need the group. We need each other.

And lastly, they frame this pursuit of justice as prevailing over both laws and institutions. Meaning we should not settle for doing our best within the confines of our current system... no, the struggle for real and necessary justice means that we will be at odds with those in power almost always. This is the root of Satanisim; we use that image of the fallen angel, the ultimate rebel fighting in the face of God's tyranny, to empower us to fight against kings, presidents, judges, and lobbyists who are in the wrong. Whether the law/institution agrees with us or not.

We have to learn to listen to others, to use our compassion and empathy to find injustice, and then put up a fight against it (or join the ones that exist). It can be scary, terrifying even, to fight something as big as a faceless institution with laws on their side, but this is our calling. And luckily, we aren't alone.

🤘 Hail You, Hail Me, Hail Satan. 🤘

Metztli // the frozen over hell of our mid-west