Diane Vera, who you might remember from the political drama regarding the Cathedral of the Black Goat, is now in New York’s Church of Azazel, which is polytheistic. They do not formally identify Satan with any pre-existing gods. Instead, they see him as the champion of independent thought, and the other pre-Abrahamic gods they revere as rising gods of the new western order they refer to as the Lilithian Order. The Lilithian Order is an emerging liberal post- Christian culture of the western world. Vera’s organization has become the most renowned polytheistic Satanic order, overshadowing the Temple of the Black Light or the MLO, who has gone underground and closed the order for further membership, and have made no recent attempts to further their online presence. The last time they updated their Live Journal page was in 2006. This is not too far removed from the last time anyone else has used Live Journal.
The Cult of Cthulhu, whose namesake deity gets not shortage of shoutouts in metal, is actually a legally recognized religion in the United States. They believe in a real Cthulhu, who transmitted his mythos to Lovecraft, much like Crowley had the Book of the Law transmitted to him by Aiwass. So under this school of thought, Lovecraft’s Great Old Ones could also serve as a polytheistic pantheon to worship. Granted, he borrowed heavily from Sumerian mythology; it wouldn’t be the first deity to serve as a “Cover god” who plays all the hits originally written by other gods – thus the distinction we made earlier of pre-Abrahamic gods that pre-dated Christ by a good hundred years or more. In the softer version of polytheism, the symbol and what it represents – the rebellious, unbound, free spirit – is more important than the mythos it is from. In some more elemental forms of worship, each aspect might represent a different element, thus Cthulhu or Dagon could serve as water.
We will give Satan a rest next time, but keep the polytheism theme going when we look into Germanic Neo-Paganism or Odinism…so cue up the Enslaved and pour a big horn of mead.
For further reading, Diane Vera has written extensive articles online; “occult” means “hidden,” so you can search for them yourself.
