I have been thinking of writing about Satanists since my talk with Devil’s Mind about it a few months ago. Like many other issues that I was ignorant in, it came to my surprise that Satanists are not what I used to percieve them. In fact, my perception of them – which I am sure is shared among many other Jordanians – is far from the truth.
The linking of Satan with Evil is well rooted in our culture. Being a religious nation and having Genesis as our primary introductory story to religion where Satan is highlighted as an evil person who have costed us Heavens in his evil plan to take revenge against God, it left us with a very little choice of thinking about Satan otherwise, and thus we expanded our vision of him and his followers to be the dark side of our universe.
While in the Quran the describtion of the tree Adam and Eve ate from is purely materialistic (I am not sure if they explicitly say that is was an apple tree or not), but in the bible, it is closer to a myth story like the ones you can find in every nation at that era of time. The tree described in Genesis is the knowledge tree. Satan told Eve, if you eat from this tree, you would know the difference between good and evil, and thus you would gain a feature of God.
So here is the trick which Devil’s Mind explained to me. Satan to Satanists is a symbol of wisdom. They associate it with knowledge rather than evil which other religious people associate him with.
My second surprise was knowing that his version of Satanism is the one where they don’t really worship Satan. Satan is just a symbol for them, rather than a God to worship. A symbol of their seeking of knowledge like any other atheist person.
While I do share with them their value of knowledge, I wouldn’t call myself a Satanic, although in their definition of being a Satanic, I might be one! It is just that my association of Satan with evil is still strong in my subconsious where I find it hard to just see him as a symbol of wisdom.
The whole conversation reminded me of my previous ignorance of other things. Like when I realized that Alcoholism is a disease after having a heated discussion with some other people over the net, or when I realized Women sexuality and their attraction to men’s bodies the same way men are attracted to theirs, or when I realized that homosexuality is not a choice, or when I looked closer to the lifes of prostitutes or beggars.
It is always the same. Us stereotyping a set of people to be evil for being different. It is just a matter of growth where we look closers to the issues, uncover the truth, and learn that no matter how much our differences are severe, we all have the human sense of being good. Even Satanists!
Fadi Zaghmout 
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