For demanding daughter to stop seeing satanist friend

[FaithRose]

My daughter "Haily" is in her 2nd year of college. She lives with me and commutes, but was talking about getting an apartment next to the school with a friend, "Vicky," as a roommate. Vicky has visited a handful of times. The last time she told me that she's a satanist. So I asked her if she's a member of TST. I was just trying to keep the conversation going and be polite. She said no because she's a theistic and spiritual satanist! We've always been a Christian family, and I think I could handle my daughter being friends with an atheist satanist, since it's just atheism anyway, but theistic is a whole different can of hellish worms. I told Haily that I don't want her hanging around Vicky anymore. While she hasn't come over again I think they're still hanging out at school and after. I questioned her about this and she blew up at me. I can already tell that Vicky has started to influence her as she's been dressing a little edgy and and in a lot of black, which she didn't before college. I don't want her to move in with Vicky and eventually become a satanist! As of now though, is it unreasonable of me to tell her who she can't be friends with while she's still living under my roof? Any advice on what I should do?

I think you can. The snake in Genesis is a tempter. Doesn't make him any more of the Evil One than anyone else who puts bad ideas into our heads. And we can also be our own Adversary. Satan, the Devil and the Adversary are all the same thing. Jesus said "Get there behind me, Satan" to one of his followers. The Devil as we know it is a medieval invention.

OP, you have doubtless brought your DD up fully aware of right and wrong, and of what it says in the first Psalm (I think it is) about hanging out with people. So have faith that she won't do anything daft. You have to step back now and let her explore. But be ready with advice if she comes to you.

I don't study the texts, but I presume that most God's would consider other God's to be false God's, therefore if your a beliver then why would people be tolerant of other God's if by their religion they are false God's ?

There's not agreeing with a religion, and then there's trying to prevent your adult daughter from being friends with members of thay religion.

I’m curious as to what OP’s understand of the tenets of satanism actually are? On the face of it, they’re a lot less offensive than a lot of Christian biblical teachings. see here

either way, it seems utterly ridiculous to interfere in the friendship.

Dedicated what you have posted is what I understand to be the basic principles. None of this Hammer House of Horror nonsense with sacrificing virgins/goats (virgin goats?), reciting stuff backwards and poncing around with skulls.
The very concept of Satan is a Christian one as if you don't believe in God then by logic, you cant' believe in Satan.

@DedicatedFollowerOfFashion84 to be fair OP did mention the (non-theistic) Satanic Temple - her DD's friend is not part of this stream. Satanism is as fragmented as Christianity though.

Fair points

Are you sure she's a Satanist and not going through a bit of a goth phase?

With all the rape, murder, incest, infanticide, misogyny and general violence strewn through the bible I do wonder how it brings any comfort to anyone. Especially if you are a woman or a child as men seem to fare better. Not to mention the ridiculous rules, the definition of sinning, the mere ideology of one man born of a virgin who cut about performing miracles out his arse.

I believe the bible was a storybook and I think it was probably intended to be, just like Harry Potter, and a few nutjobs got hold of it and realised that they could use the words in it as a weapon to control large swathes of people. Sounds quite cultish if you ask me.

I'd much rather associate myself with satanism in any of it's forms, most of which promote equality of ALL people and creatures, respect, free will and celebrate diversity in a way the bible never EVER did, and nothing is worse than a parent trying to force a religion on their own kids and clutching pearls and fainting because their child decided to explore their own beliefs instead of blindly following the Jesus fantasy story.

If this is true and not made up by someone who is extremely bored, when will parents like this not realise that banning kids from stuff (obviously I’m not talking about illegal behaviour or very unsuitable relationships) and especially when those kids are grown up - does not stop the child from doing it, it just makes them stop talking to you about it. You can say what you want - she will still be friends with her mate but she won’t bring her round to the house. Personally - unless the friend is encouraging harmful behaviour I think you should be getting involved. Of course - you’re entitled to your opinion so by all means tell your daughter why you’re not keen on her friend, but that’s really all you can do.

"Vicky" was another word for "Beelzebub" in Babylonian Bal.

I'd be very careful OP. You don't want her to put a curse on you. They can be v hard to shake off.

In your shoes I’d be very interested in Vicky’s beliefs, but then it is an area of personal interest. Ask her which Grimoire or path she follows.

I would be far more concerned if your daughter was going to be spending time with masogynistic frock wearing paedophiles like the christian churches are full of.

“Satan” comes from Hebrew and means “adversary” or “opposition” to the jewish god. The duality of judaism (and subsequently christianity) as invented by Moses was largely influenced by Persian Zoroastrainism.

One cannot believe in the existence of Satan in the classic or “common” sense without believing in the existence of the jewish god that the new jewish offshoot religion (christianity) and muslims also worship. However some gnostic christians believe that the material world was created by Satan and not by god.

It’s worth noting that in the pre-christian traditions Satan was “ejected from heaven” on the sixth day for refusing to bow down before Adam. Satan was an angel (a cherub to be precise), as was Beelzebub (real name Baal Zebub or “Exalted Lord”).

Lucifer was the first and most beautiful angel, a Seraphim with the title “crown of God”, it is said his original angelic name was Hakathriel (many angel names end in El to denote “of god”, for example Satan’s angelic name was Satanael). Lucifer is merely the romanized version of the Greek Phosphorus, as he is the Morning Star, bringer of light/enlightenment.

El was of course the name of the Cananite God that the jews worshipped before Moses created his new religion. The jewish people were very ambivalent with their deity worship for a long time, as can be seen from the name IsRaEl - coming as it does from Isis, Ra and El. Mother, son, father.

Do not mix up Satan, Lucifer and Beelzebub, for example Jesus put Beelzebub in charge of Hell when he rescued Adam from Hell after fighting Satan. (Gospel of Nicodemus / Acts of Pilate).

Lucifer fell on the 2nd day as apparently he got too big for his boots (see the works of Origen of Alexandria and The Book of Enoch).

The Livre des Espiritz / The Book of Spirits has a trinity of arch-demons; Satan, Lucifer and Bezlebuth (Beelzebub) at it’s head. Many other, but not all, grimoires have the same trinity at the top.

The other main school of thought revolves around a trinity of Astaroth, Lucifer and Beelzebub. Astaroth being a medieval depiction of Astatre and Asherah (Queen of Heaven, wife of the Canaanite God, El). Beelzebub being Baal, son (or sometimes consort) of Asherah. Lucifer and Beelzebub are often depicted as two sides of a single coin, Lucifer is the Morning Star, and Beelzebub is the Evening Star, both are Venus.

Sometimes (for example in Thelema) Lucifer is equated with the Egyptian Horus.

Getting back to Satan, He too has origins in Egypt with Set.

Can't say I'd have a problem with it personally.

My 10 year old has now been telling me she’s a satanist

Im letting her get on with it.

This is basically what we now refer to as Gnosticism. This was an early Christian movement/movements- there’s been lots of work on this since what are largely considered Gnostic texts in nag hamadi in the 1940s. Tonia Churton did a good doc - but just search you tube. Think the channel Religion for Breakfast prob has a good straight forward analysis

in short the basic creation story is the Old Testament creator god was the Demiurge, a blind being mistakenly created by one of Gods Aeons (there’s so discrepancy over details) the Demiurge created the material world. Sophia planted a divine spark in man and woman so they would be able to find their way to God. Scholars are generally in agreement that there wasn’t a single Gnostic group.

Exactly - anyone just needs to look up the Albegensian crusades - kill them sll god will know his own to see how “love your neighbour” played out in the medieval church

Exactly- I would be interested to find out what her views are. I mix with a wide variety of people who have occult beliefs, I would say theistic Satanism is fairly rare- most are atheistic. Tbh usually IME at that age the thoughts won’t be very well formulated and it will be an exploration (prob in this case moving as far away from conventional beliefs as poss). It might or might not continue and/or develop into wider interests in the occult, some of it is probably more focused

Satan is an interesting character in the Bible and is perhaps best examined in the story of Job. He’s blessed by God to ruin jobs life to test his devotion to God. Satan is really an aspect of God here,

Re the issues around Satanism - specifically the neo nazi thing there have some issues in the US with some pagan groups being infiltrated by neo Nazis (although not sure specifically about Satanists), a certain Thelemic you tuber has been dragged into it and allegedly lost a book deal as a result. 15/20 years ago there were issues with neo nazism and Satanism in Norway. So I can actually understand some of OPs concern it’s not entirely unfounded- I steer clear of occult twitter as it’s full of nutters who really aren’t actually into what occultism is, they just like the anti establishment element.

What I would suggest OP is sitting down with your DD and maybe discussing wider escoteric traditions with your DD (you sound like you’re in a position to do that). Suggest she sticks to some of the better you tube channels - Esoterica is great for scholastic stuff, Angela’s symposium is good religion for breakfast for general religion. Let her find her own path and be supportive of her exploration create an environment of open discussion she will find her own path. There are many people in the occult world with a cross phobia because it’s been forced down their throats. Just keep an eye because there are dodgy characters out there, but also some amazing, supportive, intellectual and kind individuals who make up the overwhelming majority of the community.

The important thing here is for whatever you can to keep communication open. It’s time for your DD to find here own spiritual path, she will prob head down many dead ends.

I'm well aware of the issues with priests as my husband kind of has a thing for that. And now it relates to this topic as well, so I thought I would try to get some advice on this too since you guys did such a good job of helping me out with the Vicky situation. Not sure if I should create a different post?

For background info, hubby was raised catholic but had some issues with it and converted to protestantism. Soon after we started dating he revealed he has a kink for catholic religious play in the bedroom. I go along with it as it doesn't seem too bad. He just likes to pretend to be a priest while I'm a naughty nun or sometimes a catholic school girl. However, after I told him about the Vicky situation he didn't seem concerned about it at all. Instead he admitted that for awhile now he wanted to bring satanism into our role play but was too nervous to tell me. He wants us to be a priest and nun who secretly belong to the other side and are fooling the congregation, and he wants to have sex in the middle of a pentagram. I think this is a bit too much for me, and told him so and now he's been weird around me since. I feel like I would be betraying God, even if it is just pretend. I think he should be understanding of that as he's a Christian too, but I just don't get what's going on with him now.

Vicky hasn't been back, though maybe one day as Haily told her she's welcome. But Haily told me she's Luciferian. After doing some reading on it there seems to be different types of Luciferianism. The more gnostic type who don't really consider themselves Satanists, the type who do consider themselves Satanist and seem to mostly follow that Michael guy, and a third "create your own" Luciferianism. Don't know which she is, but I'm just glade she doesn't seem to be into the popular joy of Satan, or that 9 angles group. Your post was a good read, thanks.

You said you didn't accuse Vicky of being a neo Nazi but were just "listing out problems with that community".

I wonder what would happen if you started listing out the problems with Christianity?

You are being a bit hypocritical.

At the end of the day you cannot control who your daughter is friends with. If you try, all you will achieve is resentment and a breakdown of your relationship. Your daughter will do what she wants to do, with or without your blessing.

Also, I recommend the 2019 movie "Hail Satan?" if you have not seen it, it is a documentary which might give you a slightly different view on Satanism and those who believe/ practise it.

I'm glad you're a little more reassured around Vicky's beliefs, and man do I have sympathy for you with regards to your husband! You absolutely should not go along with anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, and it sounds as is he is in mid life crisis territory here. I hope you will be able to articulate your boundaries and not allow yourself to be coerced into anything.

I know quite a few Lucifarians. They are all generally really nice people, quite intent on self improvement and generally very open minded and kind helpful people. They all seem to have a bit of a cross phobia. Some of the symbolism they use might look a bit alarming but that’s generally the fault of Hollywood.

No one I know worships Lucifer as a God, they either see Lucifer as being done over by god and/or is actually a guide out of darkness or see Lucifer as a part of themselves with similar guide to enlightenment principles.

Your DH would be well reminded that the pentagram was used as an early Christian symbol. Please be confident in setting boundaries. There’s prob a lot more to his kink than meets the eye.

I'm not surprised she hasn't been back, you don't exactly sound welcoming.