Good topic. Is Satanism Dependent on Christianity.... and is the CoC dependent on the Cthulhu Mythos and Lovecraft?
Short answers from me:
1. Is Satanism dependent on Christianity: No.
2. Is the CoC dependent on the Cthulhu Mythos and/or Lovecraft: No.
I will go into detail regarding both questions. The second question is easiest. My perspective and observation comes from what I have personally excountered, seen, experienced first hand and such. I rarely base my insights on reading and opinion juggling. This means that all I have to work with are things I am directly familiar with sans intellectual a priori conjecturing.
Is the Cult of Cthulhu dependent on is originating source(s). Source(s) here meaning, (a) the Cthulhu Mythos; (b) Lovecraft; (c) G, Ouspensky and friends; and (d) Venger Satanis?
Based on what I have seen, the moment an idea/meme leaves somebodies head, it takes on a life of its own. If that meme/memeplex is coherent enough, it will struggle to survive on its own and it will change, adapt, and evolve, to stay alive.
I base this observation first on Buddhism, which is something I am intimately in direct experience with.
The idea of Buddhism... or the memes the original Buddha gave birth to stopped belonging to him and stopped being dependent on him the moment he shared it with others. This is because those memes take root in other people's minds.
From the Buddha, those memes took root in Ananda's mind. Ananda was the Buddha's constant companion. It was Ananda who memorized the Buddha's teachings, and he would eventually write it all down adding his own thoughts to it - the memeplex evolving.
From Ananda and the Tipitaka, the ideas were transmitted to others, until after 2500 years today we have several different schools/vehicles of different kinds of Buddhism. None of which are dependent on its original sources... because all of those sources are dead. Or actually some species of Buddhism don't even consider the Buddha to be a real person in the first place.
Buddhism is also not dependent on a holy book. The Tipitaka of Theravada Buddhism takes up 40 volumes and is up to 25,000 pages long, most are still in ancient Pali which is a dead language. Of the 100 million Theravadins in Southeast Asian, 95% of the Theravadins have never even seen the Tipitakas.
What Buddhism IS dependent on is the Living Culture that transmits it to the next generation.
My other experience is with the ONA. The ONA first came out of David Myatt as a cluster of concepts and ideas first during the 1960's. I like studying things like the ONA, Satanism in general, and things like the CoC more because these memeplexes are newly born... they're like baby memeplexes that are learning how to walk compared to a 2500 year old memeplex like Buddhism which has had time to fix its bugs and stuff.
After 40 years the ONA is beyond David Myatt's control. I've seen how independent the memeplex of ONA is from it's originating source(s). One example is last year a fight happened between two ONA nexions (grottos). One was called the Temple of THEM and the other was the one I am affiliated with called 352 basically lead by Chloe and Kayla.
The fight began as a rivalry, and the Old Guards of the ONA tried to keep the our two nexions from fighting very early on, but we kept on fighting. It started with Kayla accusing THEM of being useless intellectuals. But after 2 years of fighting the leader of THEM liquidated his nexion and left ONA and ended up really hating Myatt and Chloe.
This little episode was significant because THEM was a very "traditional" ONA group that was very into the whole occult thing and magic that the ONA was generally interested in which Myatt imbued it with. But Chloe and Kayla hate magic, satanism, and the occult and they had this agenda of reforming the ONA and to do that they had to get rid of everybody from the traditional old school camp of the ONA. They ended up getting there way even.
They wanted to change ONA to the point where Anton Long wasn't the leader any more because they wanted it to be open sosurce and leaderless... and Myatt let them literally get rid of Anton Long... which severed any potential Dependency the ONA would have on a leader, a source, or something.
They made the ONA leaderless so that, like Buddhism, it was now only dependent on the social order (culture of adherents) to pass the memeplex to the next generation.
The other example of the ONA being out of Myatts control and anybody's control is about a month ago Stephen Sennitt joined our discussion group. He's ONA, but more like the old school type that was really into magic, the occult.
Some of the Old Guards and members of the discussion group was hoping that Sennitt would somehow help further the ONA if he was included in the group and its discussions. Sennitt was writting a new book on the ONA and he even promised Chloe that he'd write an Introduction for a book Kayla and Chloe had written.
But Sennitts started to bug Chloe and she eventually went at him. He was huffing and puffing. She told him he didn't fit in. Everybody was telling Chloe that Sennitt was useful and could help ONA and Myatt. But she wouldn't listen and Sennitt left telling Chloe she can find somebody else to write her Intro.
But this incedent showed two different interpretations/manifestations of the ONA: one Traditional via Sennitt and one Progressive via Chloe. The ONA memeplex was struggling to change itself, and the Progressive memes were more potent and viral. So even when Myatt, and the Old Guards may not like the Progressive and may have favored Sennitts Traditional interpretation, it was out of their control. The ONA had evolved over the 40 years to be its own "entity" which was no longer dependent on Myatt or anybody. Essentially it becomes a matter of what memes are viral.
I'm not sure how old the memeplex of CoC is. It might still be young, and so it's psychic umbilical cord might still be attached to Venger, and thru him to the original sources. But with time, as this memeplex takes root in other people minds, such as the very intelligent and capable Minds of people like Ego D, and Beast, it will grow less dependent on its original sources.
The memeplex of the CoC is dependent only on the Mind that it has taken root in and not on anything else. For example if this memeplex took root in my mind, like a little tree taking root... this tree would absorbe what ideas and memes I have in my mind and this tree would assimilate those memes into its own structure so that the leaves of this tree will be different then from what this CoC tree looks like in venger's mind.
In my mind, I would see see, interpret, manifest the CoC as beings something that has nothing to do with Lovecraft, and the Mythos would be come only allegories which contains esoteric wisdom. The CoC would thru me would become Open Source, meaning that it would be progremmed to evolve WITHOUT Venger, this way it is Independent of its originating source. One act I would do to sever that psychic umbilical cord between the CoC and venger would be to create an entirely new Demonym as a descriptor for those who find the newly manifested "CoC" more workable... something like "Cthulian," as opposed to "Culthists."
Something like a simple introduction of a meme/demonym like "Cthulian" into the CoC mix fractures the CoC's old school coherency. If those fractures are allowed to mature and develope, then the old CoC would break up, adapt, change, and become sosmething new, and so it would be no longer dependent on what it was dependent on oroginally.
This is a tactic the ancient Buddhists utilized to fracture memetic coherency. The Buddha actually wanted to name his religion Vibhajjavada and to call his adherents Vibhajjavadins. During his life time, this demonym may have been exclussively used.
As soon as he died a ton of new demonyms came out, with each demonym describing a varioant of the original. One of those demonyms was "Theravada," whose adherents were Theravadin... of cource now you have demonyms and descriptors like Chan and Zen, Soto and Vajra. And if you observe, you'll notice that Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism has absolutely nothing to do with - is not dependent on - Theravada or any other species of Buddhism. Neither are anoy of those other kinds dependent on any of the other schools of Buddhism or Buddhism's original source. The Mahayanas even evolved their own new source, which are their own holy writings like the Lotus and Diamond Sutras.
So the more a memeplex is allowed to evolve, the less dependent it becomes of its original source.
We (352) did this with the ONA. Before the descriptor and Demonym for a member of the ONA was "Traditional Satanist." A traditional Satanist was an Initiate of the ONA who was in essence dependent on Anton Long who was the leader.
But Chloe and an Old Guard named Dark Logos and Anton Long disrupted their own old school coherency by introducing a new Demonym: Dreccian. A Dreccian was an Initaite of the a new ONA which has no leader and which is open sourced. This new Demonym and the progressive memes attached to it became viral, and evolved the ONA, thus making it no longer Dependent on Myatt or even it's old writings.
Is Satanism dependent on Christianity?
I answered No to this question. my answer is based on what I know about Buddhism. The memeplex of Satanism - compared to 2500 year old Buddhism - is very new and still in its infantile stage of growth and development.
Buddhism didn't always start off as it's own memeplex.
In its very beginnings Buddhism was actually a resistance or reactionary counter-thinking to Brahmanism.
Proto-Buddhism came into existence around the year 500BC. This was a time when India and China was experiencing an age of Enlightenent similar to the one Europe experienced in the 1700 with the developement of new ways of thinkings like humanism, deism, natural philosophy etc.
500BC was the same time Lao Tzu, and Mencius were alive teaching their new philosofies in China.
So in 500BC people in India began to Question Brahmanism. At the time Brahmanism was the only religion in India ((which is based on the Vedas)).
Early Buddhism began as a direct dialectical challenge to Brahmanistic world views and memes. For example when the Vedas and Brahmanism taught that priests were essential to salvation, the early Buddhists taught the complete opposite and said that priests were useless.
When the Vedas taught that Himsa Puja - Sacred Sacrifice of Animals as offerings to Gods - was absolutely essential for the salvation of the human spirit. early Buddhism tuaght a doctrine called Ahimas, meaning back then that killing animals did absolutely nothing.
When Brahamism taught the doctrine of Atma - a soul or spirit which survives death - early Buddhism came along and taught Anatta ((Anatma)) which said that there was no such thing as some goofy Atma.
Vedic Brahmanism rejected early Buddhism calling it Nastika meaning heterodoxic or Heathen. So the Buddhists took this idea and they desribed Vedic Brahmanism as Dakshina Marga meaning "Right Handed Path" and they referred to their own memeplex as Madyama Marga, meaning Middle Path.
You can see this same line of thinking developing or having developed in Satanism where Christianity and its world view is described as "Right Hand Path," while it describes itself as "Left Hand Path."
Early Buddhism had other things in common with today's "Satanism."
The early Buddhists picked a deity - remember they rejected theism, so this deity was only a symbol - from the Vedas as their Iconic Cult Figure. Who did they pick? They picked the Vedic "devil" Rudra-Shivaya.
Before Buddhism ever came out, Shiva was depicted as wearing an orange robe, seated in a lotus asana, and he was once called Mahayogi and even Buddha meaning the Enlightened.
But the early Buddhists merges this devil symbolism with a symbolism of Light. The early Buddhist came from Norther India, which was colonized by Greeks ((Ionians)). Believe it or not the first Buddist monks were Ionians from this region, and the first Buddhist texts ever written were written by Greek Buddhist Monks. The robe the Buddha wears and monks wear is actually a Greek Toga.
The very first statues of the Buddha were actually based on Apollo, the Sun God. That iconic hair bun the Buddha has, comes from Apollo who has a hair bun like that.
So you have the merger of dark and light... Shiva+Apollo which became the "Buddha" of Buddhism.
In Satanism you can see this same exact line of thinking, where a devil of Christianity is merged with a godform associated with Light: Satan-Lucifer.
I'm sure the early Buddhists, and the people living around the time of 500BC once accused Buddhism of only being a reactionary cult of Brahmanism, and thus it was Dependent on Brahmanism. Was that true?
Only a hundred years after Buddhism came into existence, the Brahmins ((priests of Vedic Brahmanism)) began to worry. Buddhism memes/concepts/ideas such as Karma, Dharma, Ahima, Anatta, etc had infected the populous. People who were Brahmanists were no longer "pure" because their belief and world views were contaminated with viral memes engineered by Buddhism. If something was not done, Brahmanism would die.
This was the age when the Vedic Tradition went thru a stage of great reform. This was also the time when books like the Bhagavad Gita and many of the Upanishads were written and put into the Vedas.
These new books the Brahmans wrote - Bhagavad Gita, and the newer Upanishads - contained reinterpreted Buddhist memes. These books also reinterpreted older Vedic books to give useless stories more mystical concepts, to compete with Buddhism's mysticism and metaphyscis.
It was from this reformation... from Brahmanism's struggle to survive as a memeplex... that what we know today as "Hunduism" came. Essentially Buddhism after 2 hundred years of existence successfully killed Brahamnism and forced it to evolve into present day "Hinduism."
Buddhism was no longer dependent in any way to the original religion it was a reaction to, because that religion had been disrupted and died. Buddhism was also not dependent on the its original source because it allowed its memeplex to change and evolve over time. Which is why today we have many different schools of Buddhism.
During the early stages of Buddhism's development there were literally thousands of sects of Buddhism... in the same way that during Christianity's early stages there were thousands of gnostic sects... in the same sense that during the Cambrian Explosion there were millions of different kinds of bewly evolved creatures.
Over time the memes of these different sects competed so that eventually the strongest memeplex that was the most adaptable survived into what few sects we have today. In the same sense that the genes of those early Cambrian creatures competed for domination so that today of all the thousands of forms there were, we have only a handful of forms such like our two legged form... the ever popular four legged form... winged forms, and the near univeral two eyes, etc.
When I observe Satanist being concerned about Satanism, talking about it, worried over it, asking question about if it's dependent on Christianity, I see people stuck inside a little Occidental Box looking at Satanism, without a bigger perspective and understanding of how things like memeplexes ((religions and cultures)) evolve.
There are much older memeplexes that we can look to to observe and learn from that are much older then Satanism.
Satanism is a very new memetic organism. The state that it is in right now can be considered the persiond of evolution that is just beyond the Great Cambrian Explosion. During the 2000's there were thousands of little Satanic sects online and in the real world... all competing like newly evolved creatures to pass their genes/memes onto the next generation.
Now many of those old forms have gone extinct. Few in this Dark Sea have survived. The fact that this Cult Of Cthulhu is still here and thriving means something very important. In is one of few "Satanic" memetic organisms to survive.
As time passes the other two old dinosaurs: the Church of Satan and the Temple of Set will go extinct because these two memeplexes are stagnant where their leadership just refuses to allow their memeplex to evolve out of some control freak way of thinking.
Meanwhile as these two old donosaurs hold onto their innert memeplexes you have people like Venger, Jason King, Ego, Beast, and some from the ONA all working to evolve Satanism further in their own ways.
And people from those two old dinosaur camps say that it is impossible for them to go extinct and that they don't need to evolve.
At the 600 club right now there is a debate about this. half the people sense that Satanism must evolve. The other half - who are Moderns and LaVeyans, say that Satanism is fine as it is and it is the people that should evolve, not the religion.
Was it like this with Witchcraft?
Remember Gerald Gardner and his "Hereditary Witchcraft?" and Alex Sander and his Alexandrian Witchcraft memeplex? Where are those two memplexes now?
They are dead. They couldn't compete with Scott Cunningham's memes he was putting out which caused this Cambrian Explosions of new independent Wicca movements. Over the years the thousands of Wiccan sects gradually dies, so that now, only the few of the strngest wiccan memeplexes exist. What happened to the unsinkable Gardnarian and Alexandrian Wicca? The two old dinosaurs that were the orgininals? They're both dead.
None of the species of Wiccas today are in any way Dependent on Christianity or the two old dinosaurs they evolves out of. Remember early revivalist Wicca was a Pagan movement, which began as a rejectionary idea in the Bible and Christian paradigm/weltanschauung. In the same general sense that Satanism first was - and still largely is a reconstruction of a Christian idea of its paradign/weltanschauung.
But is any Wicca today dependent on Christianity? Today you would honetly not see a connection between neo-pagan Wicca and Christianity. And there is no connection to Gardnarian or Alexandrian wicca either.
So, based on what I have personally observed, I would say that Satanism is not dependent on Christianity... IF it allows itself to evove naturally.
Such groups like this CoC represents a natural evolution of this concept of "Satanism," and unlike any other "Satanic" memetic creature, this one has evolve to look very different from the rest... which could be a great advantage, as the memes/genes that manifests this unique creature ((CoC)) may not have much competition in that Dark Sea out there because it's so "alien."
Can you imagine how "alien" the first land walker were on the earth? Who would have thought that the genes of such such a creature who dared to be different, would one day end up dominate the earth?