666BEAR

A little bio of how I came to be the evil 666 Baphomet wearing freak I am today, if you will indulge me.

I was 21 when I had a temporary bout of insanity that led in me giving up my rational atheism for Christianity. Mostly it was out of a desperate loneliness,living in the south, craving some sort of togetherness amongst the Bible Belt, and being tired of feeling like the odd man out. I went from attending a Southern Baptist church (because it was across the street and for no other reason than that) to meeting a man on the bus who invited me to Bible studies at his house, which was what really interested me.

Cuz ya see, I'd grown interested in apocalyptic prophecy for some weird reason. Obsessed with it even. The reason would be the dumbest damned story you ever heard, but it happened, and let me just tell that story another time.

I had no idea the bus buddy was part of a notorious cult that started out of Boston, known as the International Church of Christ, or ICOC, run by this wacked out lunatic named Kip McKean. I just know that the studies this bus-guy took me through made me understand a thousand times more than just the usual tract-talk and tag-lines I heard from every other Christian there. I wanted to be a studied believer if I had to be one, rather than an idiot who knew nothing but echoed it like some empty-headed sheep. So learn I did. In fact, taught these same studies I did too. I still remember them.

Here's a fun fact: I was baptized into this new church on June 6, 1996. We didn't have a church building. We rented out convention halls and such, so I was baptized in the upstairs portion of a mall. No joke.

I spent 2.5 years with this group before I'd had quite the body of knowledge in me, beyond what they'd taught me, to know where they were incredibly wrong. I'd also burned out on how much they push you to proselytize. My social phobia ripped me to shreds emotionally and physically every time I was supposed to go out and "share my faith," and I'd grown weary of the lectures and shaming that I wasn't "bearing fruit." So, burned out, I left them and moved back in with my horrible, abusive, stupid family.

In fact, one of the things I had never known until the ICOC was the Luke 14 verse about how if you want to follow Jesus, you have to hate your family. To me it was surprising, but also kind of made me feel like I had an advantage, because I already hated the shit out of them.

But living out in the boondocks of northern Georgia, with nowhere in walking distance, no car to use, and no money to propel myself foward in life, I just spent time by the lake recovering from the church-trauma, studying even beyond what I'd already learned, and taking my studies into other realms.

Realms such as Gnosticism. Apocryphal texts. Paganism. The unspoken history of Christianity. And it was then I finally decided there was no valid reason to not be the big, buttfucking homosexual monster that raged inside of me.

So I used my computer to get a date, turned one of those dates into a relationship, turned one of those relationships into an escape from my family's home, and I've since left them on the other side of the continent with no idea where I am.

I don't even know if they're dead or not.

I don't fucking care.

In the time since, all that I'd learned swirled around my skull. I found a fascinating pattern in the swirl that explained so much about how a movement from the calendar's so-called turning became this monstrous bunch of bullshit that it is today. Because I'd come to understand Christianity as a rebellion against human empire on earth, yet today it represents the totem of that very empire that was its sworn enemy, that it vowed to destroy forevermore... that Christianity would be a rock "breaking it to pieces," so that the empires "became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace," to "crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end."

Apparently Christianity failed in its purpose, because holy fuck was it ever hijacked and turned stupidly into one point-missing religion, followed by a confused people who forgot the entire purpose.

At first I was upset, thought someone should really do something to resurrect this movement and remind people. But then, over time, I realized..... what a stupid purpose! So I figured, whatever, I'll turn to other things.

I found myself admidst neopagans, and I actually enjoyed the togetherness and the gatherings. I just couldn't bring myself to fully bring myself into any of their paths. I tried, but I never fully ended up being embraced back by any of them.

I started this journey to feel like a part of something, because I was sick of the world's way of leaving people like me to solitude. And yet, everyone, in every way, made sure I was kept at a safe distance.

When the south became terrifying, because so many of the people there were triggered by a president with too much melanin in his skin for their taste (I can't even exaggerate how scary they became there), I moved west to try my hand at truck driving, to no avail. I was in Tucson when the great date, 6/6/06 came around, and it hit me... this was the 10th anniversary of my baptism. That, and I can actually explain what 666 means, and learned I liked its meaning. No, not this vague, unexplained nonsense that it's the number of some Beast. Turns out it actually represented the Sun, in this super-goofy sacred mathematical method known as Gematria. A dumb pseudo-science that explained a lot of what was in prophecies, which was another dumb pseudo-science. 

Or maybe 666 is the number of calories in a taco.

Doesn't matter. I love the sun. I get naked in it every chance I get. But that's not important now.

I lived two blocks away from the main office of my representative, Gabrielle Giffords. My boyfriend (at the time) and I had just met her at the previous election. when I was awakened one morning by his text that she'd been killed, we immediately got candles and walked there to light them in vigil. That's when we learned they had reported her condition incorrectly and that she was clinging to life. We were photographed and ended up on the news all over the world, but then we were told to evacuate the area because someone phoned a bomb threat to her office.

The horror I faced in Georgia followed me. It wasn't enough just to go west. I tried California, but then Trump won. I've become quite the liberal activist, but I find myself seriously frustrated with the Left now, since we need to stand together against Nazis and yet they can't stop tearing each other to pieces over which candidate to choose in the primary.

What I knew was that this "Christian Nation" was so fucking evil, I wanted to be the opposite. But the thing is, I never considered Satan the opposite. Contrary to what people think, the Bible isn't a big story of God vs. Satan for the souls of mankind. That's just not in there anywhere. At no point is Satan even God's enemy, nor was he ever cast out of heaven into a Hell, nor was he even a major character. It's like if a couple of millenia later people for some reason think the Wizard of Oz is this tale of the struggle of good vs. evil, and the good guy is Dorothy, and the bad guy is that tree that threw apples at her. And for some reason, anybody that was any sort of obstacle to her was a manifestation of that tree. It makes NO SENSE!!!

I did by the Satanic Bible, but only for 50 cents and as a thing to have to prevent anybody on buses or airplanes in the future to want to talk to me. I found it more interesting than I expected, but again, Satan's a nobody.

At the University of Arizona I studied literature and learned about Paradise Lost. I kinda hated it, but I'm glad I learned about it, and how most of what people think they know about the Bible is really John Milton. But also, that was a Satan I could get behind.

So when I finally saw the Hail Satan? film, and I heard them talk about how the Miltonic Satan (actual way it was put in the documentary) was their central figure, I thought... fuck yes, let's do this.

I'd been wearing a Baphoment for a long time, mostly to let people know I wasn't into any of their "love and light" bullshit. I knew dark secrets about faith. And Baphomet, according to what I'd learned, was what happens when you put Sophia through the Atbash Cipher, so it seemed fitting to me that he represents the dark side of wisdom... the dark truths that most love-and-lighters refuse to accept because they only wanna think positive. 

And I'd come to learn that if you embrace your demons, and your devils, and your dark things, you find yourself loving both sides of things and at peace in the day AND the night, rather than having a conditional peace.

So the TST makes perfect sense to me, and I'm happier with it than I ever was with any Church of Satan explanation. I mean, I had no interest in banging a gong, lighting candles, and "dispensing with logic" for a ceremony, nor in using my body odor to control people (whatever the fuck that even means).

But activism I can do.

I'm working on a book of all the crazy shit I've learned. It'll be called BIBLE STUDIES FROM AN ASSHOLE: "The Complete and Total Failure of Christianity." I already tried to sell a rough copy on Amazon. Three people bought a copy. It has not gone well. But I know if I can get it fully polished, this motherfucker could cause a hell of a storm in the religious world, and the atheist world as well.

Anyway, that's me. Big, dark-sided, lonely, family-hating, buttfucking gay me. Hoping to find an older, dark-sided, hairy bear who'll walk this dark path with me, and just wanting to be part of something I can believe in for once. As the truly wise old men and women will tell you:

May the Wisdom of Baphomet clothe you in His Dark Eternity

And never, ever miss an opportunity to pee.