Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

Appendix I: Sample Documents 297
they are bombarded with it.
Many of us found the school playground to be a
painful battlefield, not because of drugs or guns but
because we hated interacting with other kids. Satanic
children are naturally set upon by other children,
and by insecure teachers. They are bound to be
brighter and more aggressive toward the status quo
by nature, because that’s what they’ll be learning at
home from their Satanic parents. That’s what being a
Satanist is. And our children shouldn’t have to suffer
for asking uncomfortable questions.
8. Much of homeschooling is religiously motivated,
and ours is really none the less so, in the sense
that our religion dictates our priorities and values.
Many Mormons have been trying to educate their
children at home for years, some dying in gun battles
because of it. Catholics started their own system of
private schools instead of allowing their children to
be exposed to ideas without Papal approval. Modern
born-again Christians want to keep their kids away
from a liberal, humanist, evolutionist agenda.
Unlike others, however, Satanism is a religion
uniquely qualified to advocate home learning. Our
religion is not antithetical to rationality. On the
contrary, Satanism encourages intellectual challenge.
“Faith” and self-deceit are our enemies. We want our
children to be free to question all things, not shackle
their minds to any one view. Concerned non-
Satanists who learn about our religion only through
talk-show hype, who would fear we would “indoctrinate”
our children to Satanism, have less to worry
about with us than with Christianity. Since our religion
isn’t dependent on dogma and blind faith, no
indoctrination is necessary. Our attitudes about life,
animals, magic, success, Satan, science will inevitably
seep in, through our opinions and example. A child
should be free to explore anything he’s drawn to.
Even Christianity can be examined as the dominant
mythic context—cultural anthropology in action!
Whose Kids Are These, Anyway
You’d think the right to educate your own children
would be a basic, inalienable one. But it’s not. Any
empowerment of individuals is hotly resisted by
teachers’ unions and the grand bureaucracy that
depends on mandatory education. That’s why such
groups lobby for prohibition or severe restriction of
homeschooling: It would lower their “ADA” (Average
Daily Attendance). Fewer students in school—fewer
teachers hired. Besides, in today’s climate of professional
experts in all fields, we are programmed to feel
incapable of teaching our own children. “They” say
you can’t possibly be qualified to teach your own children,
and we’re trained to believe them. Such important
matters should be left to “experts.” At the same
time, legislators, reacting to demands from their
constituencies to improve education, have enacted
stricter national standardization tests in public
schools. That trickles down to imposing similar
demands on homeschooling families, which undermines
their most positive strength—being able to
gauge the pacing and content of studies to each individual
child. Some homeschoolers feel a legitimate
responsibility to keep their fingers on the political
pulse, sounding the alarm if they perceive negative
trends. Homeschooling today is not, in most states,
the illegal activity it was 10 years ago. Laws vary from
state to state, with different requirements for periodic
tests, curriculum submissions, certifications, and
various other paperwork. But at best, home learning
is tolerated as an unorthodox alternative.
No one has reliable statistics on exactly how
many homeschooling families there are; that’s the
way they want it. But it’s clear that the level of public
education has reached such a nadir that many intelligent
people are opting for homeschooling now only
because the average parents begin to suspect their
children would learn more just by staying home and
reading or watching television. It’s become an
increasingly important plank in the Religious Right
political platform. Gordon Liddy has advocated it on
his syndicated radio show. The home PC has opened
worlds of learning possibilities for Everyman.
Learning CDs, textbooks, entire mail-order curriculums
are now available from publishers recognizing
a burgeoning homeschooling market, making it a
more accessible option than ever before.
The current homeschooling explosion could
create some strange bedfellows. Not all homeschoolers
are Christian but they are a strong faction, along
with an articulate backbone of politically avid atheistic/humanistic
iconoclasts. This latter influence has
a heritage in the educational libertines who started
several “alternative” colleges and schools in the wake
of the 60’s. Many of these were based on nonconformist
ideas about self-initiated or studentcentered
learning, written evaluations instead of
grades,“co-learners” instead of “teachers,” an emphasis
on process over product, “schools without walls”
(i.e., learning in the community) and “learning how
to learn.” They are largely atheistic or humanistic and
have the same kind of disdain for education factories
that we do.
It seems that the secular and Christian homeschooling
factions have been able to set religion and
politics aside, working toward preserving their children’s
rights to learn. A tenor of mutually beneficial
separatism seems to pervade most home learning
literature. Most have also tried not to develop a dictatorship
within the homeschooling movement; there
is no “right” way or one absolute authority. They
recognize the strength of homeschooling is in the