Satan by my side

I'm doing this course as an extra thing called Academic English. The idea behind the entire thing is basically to enhance my... well... my academic english. Not that I really need it because my English is like totally academic and stuff (chews gum while saying this).

Anyhoo, one of the fun parts of this course is that all the people who follow it do different majors and have to do presentations about those majors. I, for instance do (American) history so I talked about elections, but we also have a Jewish girl studying Arab language, a woman from Hungary who does research concerning Hungarian MEPs in the European Parliament and a bunch of other people doing interesting stuff in their own area of expertise.

One of the girls also doing the course has the coolest major of us all. She is a religious studies student and she mostly does research on sexual relations in different cults. Now that's rock 'n roll! Explain that to the parents of your new boyfriend! Appereantly she, through informal channels, is in touch with a bunch of different cults, partly for fun, partly for her research. For instance, she has been to meetings of the Raelians, a cult that believes in aliens and not too long ago claimed they had cloned the first baby (but then they hadn't).

Now meeting the Raelians sounds like fun but it's still a bit bland. So they believe E.T. started the earth and claim the cloned a child of a lesbian couple. Bo-ring! That's like Kahballah with some extra pepper or Scientology with extra fries. In fact how different is believing in aliens from believing in God? (religious debate mode: on).

However, she's also socially hanging out with another cult. Guess which one....


Thaaat's right: Satanists.

Being too curious then generally is good for me a lot of questions were raised in my head when she told us about meeting them. Questions like "What do they wear?". I mean, do they have T-shirts that say "Satan is my homeboy" or "I worship Satan and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" or do they also have these arm thingies that say "W.W.S.D?". Or do they just dress like our prime-minister (who I strongly suspect being a satanist) does?

Another question I had was "do they have Satanist evangelical preachers?". I don't know about you but I think that would make great TV! "Satan just told me he changed a god fearing woman in North Carolina into a drunk lesbian slut. Say, AMEN!". I imagine gospel choirs of women in slutty outfits singing "Sympathy for the Devil" and male strippers doing "Chama-chameleon" (but that's a personal thing). Also, donations can be called in on 1-800-SATAN. I'm seeing a hit!

But the main question is: why in fucksname would you become a satanist?? I'm not talking about voodoo or black magic or all that crap and I'm not even talking about the Marilyn Manson's of this world. I'm talking about actively supporting Satan. When does that start? Why does it start? How do you tell your parents (I actually think that would beat coming out to your parents as "The most painful conversation you'll ever have)? But most of all, how does that effect your daily life?

Example: I was walking down the street today, trying hard not to get hit by tourists on bikes (SATAN!) and this old woman asked if I could help her carry her bike across the road. What would a satanist do? Rape her, make her talk in tongues and burn her while chanting "Usama! Usama! Usama!"?

I just helped her carry the bike, smiled at her and walked on. Man, I'd suck as a satanist.