The Hard Truth About Satanism

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Being a Satanist can be difficult for reasons that have little to do with the beliefs themselves and much to do with how those beliefs are perceived by other people. The word Satanist carries an enormous amount of cultural and religious baggage. For many people, especially those raised in Christian or other traditionally religious households, Satan represents evil, temptation, rebellion, and everything that should be rejected. As a result, telling someone that you are a Satanist can produce a reaction that is far stronger than simply telling them that you have adopted a different philosophy.

The hard truth about being a Satanist is that choosing a belief system or philosophy that differs dramatically from the people around you can come with a social price. Friends may become distant. Family members may stop communicating as openly as they once did. Parents may worry that their child has become dangerous or immoral. Romantic relationships may end because two people discover that their fundamental values are no longer compatible. Sometimes, people who were once close may decide that they cannot accept someone because of what that person believes.

This experience can be especially painful because religious identity is rarely viewed as merely an intellectual choice. For many people, religion is connected to family, culture, morality, tradition, and ideas about what makes someone a good or bad person. Therefore, when a person identifies as a Satanist, others may not hear, "I have chosen a philosophy that is meaningful to me." Instead, they may hear, "I have rejected everything you taught me about right and wrong." That misunderstanding can create fear, anger, and distrust.

However, the experience of Satanism is not identical for everyone. Satanism includes different traditions and philosophies, and not every Satanist understands Satan in the same way. Some Satanists are religious and view Satan as a literal supernatural being, while others, such as many members of the Church of Satan, use Satan primarily as a symbol of individualism, personal freedom, rational self-interest, and opposition to religious authority. The Satanic Temple, meanwhile, describes its approach as a non-theistic religion and emphasizes values such as bodily autonomy, compassion, reason, and individual freedom.

Regardless of the particular tradition, one difficult reality can remain: people do not always separate a person's identity from their assumptions about that identity. For a Satanist, this can mean discovering that some relationships were based on shared beliefs that everyone previously took for granted.

The Weight of the Word "Satanist"

One of the greatest difficulties of being a Satanist is the meaning that other people attach to the word itself. Language has power, and the word Satan has been associated with evil in Christian culture for centuries. Someone who hears the word "Satanist" may immediately imagine devil worship, violence, cruelty, or rejection of morality.

Those assumptions can create problems before a Satanist has even had an opportunity to explain what they actually believe.

Imagine a young person raised in a deeply religious household. Their parents have taught them that Satan represents the ultimate enemy of God. They have been told that Satanists are dangerous or spiritually lost. Eventually, that young person begins identifying as a Satanist. When they tell their parents, the parents may not hear the explanation that follows. They may simply hear the word "Satanist" and experience fear.

This is where one of the hardest parts of being a Satanist begins: the person you are may become less important to someone than the label they associate with you.

A parent might think, "My child has become evil."

A friend might think, "How can I trust someone who worships Satan?"

A religious relative might think, "This person has turned their back on God."

The Satanist may respond, "That isn't what I believe at all."

Unfortunately, explanations do not always immediately eliminate fear.

This can be deeply frustrating. A person may know themselves to be compassionate, honest, peaceful, and responsible, yet suddenly discover that someone they love sees them through an entirely different lens. Their identity becomes a source of suspicion.

That experience can be emotionally devastating because it forces them to confront an uncomfortable fact: being misunderstood by strangers is one thing, but being misunderstood by the people closest to you is something entirely different.

Losing Family

Perhaps the most painful consequence of identifying as a Satanist is conflict with family.

Families often function around shared traditions. Religious practices may be part of birthdays, holidays, marriages, funerals, meals, and everyday life. Religion can influence what people eat, how they dress, how they raise children, what they consider sinful, and how they understand the purpose of life.

When one member of the family abandons or rejects those beliefs, the change can feel enormous.

For parents, the situation can be particularly emotional. Parents may feel that their child has rejected the values they spent years trying to teach. Some may experience guilt and wonder whether they somehow failed as parents. Others may become angry and attempt to pressure the person into returning to their previous religion.

A Satanist may hear statements such as:

"You're going through a phase."

"You'll come back to God eventually."

"I don't recognize you anymore."

"You're embarrassing this family."

"How could you believe something like that?"

Even when these statements come from fear rather than hatred, they can still cause tremendous emotional pain.

In more extreme situations, family members may cut off contact entirely. A parent may refuse to speak to an adult child. A sibling may stop inviting someone to family gatherings. A relative may refuse to allow a Satanist to discuss their beliefs around children. In some families, the Satanist may become the person everyone avoids discussing.

This creates a painful paradox. The individual may have chosen their beliefs because they wanted to live honestly and authentically, yet honesty can sometimes result in losing the people they wanted to be honest with.

There is also a particularly difficult question that Satanists may have to face: How much of yourself should you reveal to protect a relationship?

Keeping one's beliefs secret may preserve peace temporarily, but it can also feel dishonest. Revealing them can bring authenticity, but it may create conflict.

There is no universal answer.

Every family is different. Some families eventually accept the change. Others tolerate it without fully understanding it. Some never accept it at all.

The hard truth is that sometimes love and agreement are not the same thing. A family member may love someone and still strongly oppose their beliefs. In other situations, unfortunately, disagreement can become rejection.

Losing Friends

Family is not the only place where relationships can be damaged. Friendships can also disappear when someone identifies as a Satanist.

Friendships are often based on shared interests and values, but people do not always realize how important shared beliefs are until those beliefs are challenged.

Two friends may have spent years together. They may have gone to school together, played sports together, attended parties, shared secrets, and supported each other during difficult times. Then one friend reveals that they are a Satanist.

Suddenly, the other person may begin questioning everything they thought they knew.

"Were you always like this?"

"Are you trying to influence me?"

"Should I be worried about my safety?"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

The friendship may change even if the Satanist's personality has not.

That is one of the most painful aspects of religious stigma: the individual may remain the same while other people's perception of them changes.

A person who was considered funny, trustworthy, intelligent, and kind yesterday may suddenly be considered suspicious today.

Some friendships survive because both people understand that disagreement does not require disrespect. A Christian and a Satanist, for example, can theoretically remain friends if they are capable of accepting that they have different worldviews.

But not every friendship has that foundation.

If a person's religious beliefs are central to their identity, discovering that a close friend holds what they consider an opposing worldview may feel like a betrayal. The friendship can become a constant argument rather than a source of support.

Eventually, one or both people may decide that the relationship is no longer healthy.

Losing a friendship for ideological reasons can be particularly difficult because there may be no dramatic event that ends the relationship. Sometimes people simply stop calling. Messages become less frequent. Invitations disappear. Conversations become uncomfortable.

The friendship doesn't necessarily explode.

Sometimes it simply fades away.

And that kind of loss can be difficult to explain because outsiders may say, "It was only a disagreement."

To the person experiencing it, however, it was not only a disagreement. It was the loss of someone who had been part of their life.

The Loneliness of Being Different

Another hard truth about being a Satanist is the possibility of loneliness.

People naturally want to belong. Humans seek communities where they can feel understood and accepted. Religion has historically provided one of the strongest forms of community because it gives people shared beliefs, traditions, rituals, language, and values.

When someone leaves a dominant religious tradition and becomes a Satanist, they may lose access to part of their previous community.

Consider someone who grew up attending church every Sunday. Their friends may all attend the same church. Their family may attend. Their social events may revolve around the congregation. If that person leaves Christianity and becomes a Satanist, they are not simply changing their personal beliefs.

They may be leaving an entire social world.

Suddenly, Sunday mornings are different.

Holidays may become uncomfortable.

Family prayers may become complicated.

Conversations about God may feel alienating.

Friends may stop inviting them to religious activities.

Even ordinary conversations can become reminders that the person no longer belongs to the community in which they were raised.

This can create a profound sense of isolation.

The Satanist may eventually find a new community, whether online or in person, but finding people who understand their worldview does not automatically replace the relationships they lost.

A new community can provide understanding, but it cannot instantly recreate childhood friendships or family connections.

This is why the social consequences of religious identity deserve to be taken seriously.

The Importance of Authenticity

Despite these difficulties, another hard truth must be considered: hiding one's identity forever can also have consequences.

A person who constantly hides their beliefs may feel as though they are living two different lives.

Around family, they may pretend to share beliefs they no longer hold.

Around friends, they may avoid certain conversations.

At work or school, they may be careful about what symbols they wear or what opinions they express.

Over time, this can become exhausting.

Authenticity means being honest about who you are, but authenticity does not necessarily mean telling everyone everything about yourself. There is an important difference between privacy and dishonesty.

A Satanist does not necessarily owe every person an explanation of their beliefs.

Someone can choose when, where, and with whom to discuss religion.

In fact, discretion can sometimes protect relationships and personal safety. A person who knows that a relative will respond violently or dangerously to their beliefs has every reason to consider their circumstances before revealing them.

Authenticity should not require recklessness.

The goal should not be to provoke people.

The goal should be to live honestly while recognizing that other people have boundaries, fears, and beliefs of their own.

This requires maturity.

Being a Satanist does not automatically make someone courageous, just as being religious does not automatically make someone intolerant. People of every worldview are capable of kindness or cruelty.

What matters is how people treat one another.

When Relationships End

Perhaps the hardest lesson is accepting that some relationships cannot survive fundamental differences.

There is a tendency to believe that if two people genuinely love one another, they should be able to overcome anything.

Reality is more complicated.

Sometimes relationships survive disagreements.

Sometimes they do not.

A friendship may depend upon shared religious beliefs. A marriage may involve incompatible ideas about raising children. A family relationship may become toxic because one person constantly attempts to convert or condemn the other.

In such situations, holding onto the relationship at any cost may not be healthy.

For a Satanist, losing someone because of their beliefs can create anger and resentment. It may be tempting to conclude that everyone who rejects Satanism is ignorant or hateful.

But that conclusion can become another form of prejudice.

Just as a Satanist does not want to be judged solely by stereotypes, they should be careful about judging religious people solely by theirs.

A Christian who disagrees with Satanism is not automatically a hateful person.

A Satanist who rejects Christianity is not automatically an immoral person.

People are more complicated than their labels.

The challenge is learning to distinguish between disagreement and abuse.

Someone saying, "I don't agree with your beliefs" is different from someone threatening or dehumanizing you.

Someone choosing not to participate in Satanic practices is different from someone attempting to control your entire life.

Healthy boundaries require understanding that both sides have the right to make choices.

Finding a New Definition of Family and Community

When relationships are lost, Satanists may eventually have to build new communities.

This does not necessarily mean replacing biological family with Satanists. It can mean developing relationships with people who judge them based on character rather than religious identity.

A strong support system can include people with completely different beliefs.

What matters is mutual respect.

The best friendships are often those in which disagreement does not destroy affection.

A Satanist should be able to have a Christian friend.

A Christian should be able to have an atheist friend.

An atheist should be able to have a Muslim friend.

A person does not need to agree with someone else's worldview to recognize their humanity.

Creating these relationships can help counteract the isolation that religious differences sometimes create.

It also provides an important lesson: identity is only one part of a person.

A Satanist is not simply a Satanist.

They may also be a parent, sibling, student, musician, athlete, artist, employee, neighbor, partner, or friend.

Reducing someone to a religious label makes it easier to misunderstand them.

Getting to know the person behind the label makes understanding possible.

The hard truth about being a Satanist is not simply that society may misunderstand Satanism. The deeper truth is that choosing an identity that conflicts with the beliefs of people around you can have real consequences.

Friends can disappear.

Family members can become distant.

Romantic relationships can end.

Communities can be lost.

And sometimes, the loneliness that follows can be more painful than the original conflict.

Yet another truth exists alongside this one: a person's worth should not be determined solely by whether other people approve of their beliefs.

Being authentic does not mean demanding that everyone agree. It means having the courage to acknowledge what you believe while allowing others to make their own choices.

For Satanists, this can mean learning how to live with misunderstanding without becoming consumed by resentment. It can mean accepting that some relationships may not survive while working to preserve the ones that can. It can mean finding communities where individuality is respected and building friendships based on character rather than ideology.

Ultimately, the struggle is not unique to Satanism. Anyone who rejects the beliefs of their family or community can experience it. Religious converts, atheists, political dissidents, people who leave strict religious traditions, and individuals with unconventional philosophies can all discover the same painful reality: belonging sometimes comes with expectations about who you are supposed to be.

The difficult task is determining which expectations deserve to be challenged and which relationships are strong enough to survive the challenge.

Being a Satanist can therefore require more than accepting a particular philosophy or religious identity. It can require accepting the possibility of being misunderstood. It can require learning how to set boundaries. It can require patience with people who are afraid of something they do not understand. And, perhaps most importantly, it can require understanding that losing someone does not necessarily mean that you have lost your value.

Sometimes people leave because they cannot accept who you have become.

Sometimes relationships end because the differences are simply too large.

And sometimes, after the pain of those losses, new relationships emerge with people who are willing to see the person rather than the label.

That may be the hardest truth of all: being true to yourself does not guarantee that everyone will stay—but it can help you discover which relationships are built on genuine understanding rather than conformity.

Well that’s all I have for you for now. Please do make a huge favor and like the video, leave a comment below and share this link from sataniclivesmatter.com to a friend. And remember, God looks down upon you while Satan looks up too you. All Hail Satan!