Death To False Journalism-In Defense Of Watain

On October 29^th, Emma Hernandez did an interview with Reverend Bill M, a host of the weekly online radio show Devil’s Mischief and a member of the Church of Satan since 1997. The article was posted in noisey. In her article, she tried to deduct that most Black Metal acts are Poseur Satanist due to their lack of connection with the Church of Satan’s ideology. I didn’t take the article seriously until she mentioned that “He sets the backmasked record straight–and makes bands like Watain look like a bunch of posers in the process.”. Furthermore, she added that: “By their own definition, Watain plays “rock and roll as the Devil once intended” and they stick to it. At their show in Brooklyn earlier this year, the band presented a goat’s skull full of pig’s blood during their set, then proceeded to pour said pig’s blood onto the crowd. Some people screamed. Some people vomited. Some people just accepted it as normal everyday thing for a band that refers to its shows as “rituals.”. But Reverend Bill says that couldn’t be farther from the truth”, a statement of which makes it clear that neither Emma nor Noisey did not properly research the difference of Satanism observed by Watain and Church of Satan.

One can easily find that Church of Satan dedicate itself to LaVeyan Satanism (Atheistic/Modern Satanism) whose core beliefs and philosophies are based on individualism, epicureanism, secularism, egoism, and self-deification, and propagates a worldview of naturalism, Social Darwinism, and Lex Talionis. Additionally, Satanism involves the practice of magic, which encompasses two distinct forms; greater and lesser magic.[6] Greater magic is a form of ritual practice and is meant as a self-transformational psychodrama to focus one's emotional energy for a specific purpose. Lesser magic is based on the laws of attraction and consists of using one's natural abilities to manipulate others. LaVey wrote extensively on the subject of magic and ritual in his works The Satanic Rituals and The Satanic Witch.

This is the most important part of LaVeyan Satanism:

“Contrary to popular belief, LaVeyan Satanism does not involve "devil worship" or worship of any deities. It is an atheistic philosophy that uses the character of Satan as a symbol of pride, carnality, liberty, enlightenment, undefiled wisdom, and of a cosmos which Satanists perceive to be permeated and motivated by a force that has been given many names by humans over the course of time.”

Watain

I’m always an onlooker of Black Metal genre since my preference to proto black metal/first wave of black metal (Venom, Hellhammer, Celtic Frost and Bathory to name a few) and somehow I’m not too keen of the second wave. I do listen to Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and Burzum’s first studio album but I’m not interested in devoting myself to the whole genre. Until I discovered Watain circa 2009. I found that they are something else. They’re not from Norway, their songs are darker yet quite tighter, Erik Dannielson is somewhat cultured and their stage persona is harsher than average black metal band (less white make-up and more blood). I collected all of their studio albums, be it on vinyl and/or cds, and regarded “Sworn to The Dark” as my most favourite Watain’s album thus far. One can easily dance sexily amidst the HellHammerian fluid, bouncy riffs on “Legion of The Black Light” or the sheer catchiness within the unholy “Storm of The Antichrist”, without losing the tightness that will leave you breathless. The Wild Hunt might be their version of Black Album or their weakest release but it requires another analysis.

But if you take some time to read any information about Watain, you will find that they observed Theistic Satanism (Devilworship) and support the Misanthropic Luciferian Order. 

This is the most important distinction between Theistic Satanism and LaVeyan (Atheistic) Satanism:

Unlike LaVeyan Satanism, as founded by Anton LaVey in the 1960s, theistic Satanism is theistic as opposed to atheistic, believing that Satan (Hebrew: הַשָׂטָן ha-Satan, ‘the accuser’) is a real entity rather than an archetype.

Hence the (animal) blood feasting ritual is compulsory.

However Ms. Emma Hernandez failed to identify the difference between the two and supporting her fallacy by putting a non-apple-to-apple comparison, just like comparing a Catholicism observant with a Protestantism observant. Death to false Satanism? Which Satanism is false? I think “Death to False Journalism” suits better.

Probably she hates Watain for shifting to their musical direction to the one on “The Wild Hunt” or she is fond of pigs and cattles or unable to get a free pass on one of Watain’s set or whatever. But her self-righteousness which reflected on her article shouldn’t have earned a place on a website with Noisey’s calibre.

To Emma Hernandez:

Go wash your face and put some time to learn before writing such an ill-informed article. Or you can contribute to Nosy instead.