High Satanic Church
| High Satanic Church | |
|---|---|
| Religious organization | |
| Abbreviation | HSC |
| Status | Active |
| Religion | Unnamed Satanic religion |
| Category | Theistic Satanism |
| History | |
| Founder | J. Berwart |
| Date founded | March 15, 2026 |
| Organization | |
| Scope | International |
| Leadership | J. Berwart (High Priest) |
| Governance | Led by High Priest |
| Legal status | Unincorporated |
| Publications and resources | |
| Official texts | The Book of the Acausal Way The Night-Work of the Acausal The Meditative Way |
| Website | thesatanicchurch.org |
The High Satanic Church (HSC) is a Satanic religious organization that was founded on March 15, 2026[1] by J. Berwart, who currently serves as its high priest.[2][3] They are firmly theistic, worshipping Satanael (whom they call Satan) as a real deity.[1][4]
Beliefs
Metaphysics
The High Satanic Church's metaphysics are founded on a division of reality into "causal" and "acausal" aspects. Satan and a group of other spiritual beings called the Dark Gods belong to the acausal realm.[5]
Theology
To the High Satanic Church, gods (such as Satan and the Dark Gods) are sapient immaterial beings from the acausal realm who have their own wills and personal identities.
Ethics
From an ethical standpoint, the High Satanic Church highly values personal responsibility, honesty, restraint (self-discipline), consent in interpersonal interactions, proper study and research, and the right to religious freedom. They reject coercion, abuse, harassment, extremist politics, violence, threats, and illegal activity as unethical.
The Church places a high emphasis on accountability in association with self-sovereignty; they believe that personal freedom and self-ownership should not be used as excuses to escape the results of one's own actions.
Practices
The High Satanic Church's basic religious practices are meditation, prayer, and ritual.
Across all practices, they emphasize the importance of regularity: regular ten-minute meditations are more productive than an hour-long meditation that is never repeated, and devotional activities such as prayer should be done frequently whether a day has been good, bad, or neutral. The religious space in one's home should also prioritize function and utility over extravagant appearances; an ordinary table or chair is acceptable as long as it provides a quiet place to spend a few minutes with Satan.
They also make significant use of journaling as part of all their religious practices. Members are advised to take notes on their meditations, devotional practices, or rituals and to read them again later when it is appropriate.
Meditation
The Church describes meditation as "attention practice," used to develop and refine a member's attention to themself and their spiritual work. They state that while some members may prefer silence, others may use focus aids such as sigils or mantras to meditate, and either way is allowed. When the practitioner's attention wavers, they should determine what distracted them before regaining their composure and returning to their meditation.
Prayer and other devotion
The Church mentions "devotion" as a broad category including prayer, offerings, chants, and other devotional activities. They do not prescribe strict methods for these practices, stating that there is "no reason why [members] should [...] pray in the same way." However, they do reinforce the importance of returning to devotional practice as something that should be stable regardless of the ups and downs of life: one should pray or offer on "good weeks, bad weeks, distracted evenings, and the ordinary days in between."
History
The High Satanic Church is open about being a young organization, dating its founding to March 15, 2026 and stating that the Church does not claim any mysterious "hidden institutional succession" from an earlier Satanic or occult group.[1] Its founder goes by the name J. Berwart, sometimes abbreviated to J.B.[2][3][6]
In the Church's first months, they opened and subsequently developed their website, adding explanations of their beliefs and terminology as well as knowledge archives and private member-only areas.
In August 2026, HSC independently published their first publicly available literary work, The Book of the Acausal Way. Shortly after, in September 2026, they published The Meditative Way and launched their Theistic Satanist Wiki, an online encyclopedia meant for use as a resource by the broader Satanic community. The Theistic Satanist Wiki continues to expand and develop.
Organization and membership
Founder
The founder of the High Satanic Church is J. Berwart, sometimes abbreviated to J.B. His published books for HSC, including The Book of the Acausal Way, also identify him as Jacky B. or Jacky Berwart.[7] Like many other people in the Satanic community, he keeps his real name and other personal information private for safety reasons.
In a blog post about his beliefs and experiences prior to founding the Church, Berwart explains that he was raised Catholic but grew to doubt the Yahwist ideas he was raised with, which led to him becoming an atheist in his teenage years. During this time, he befriended small groups of political extremists, which he retroactively describes as filled with hypocrisy, contradiction, and insincerity. His involvement with these groups while he was young and impressionable led him to neo-Nazi ideology; around the same time, he developed an interest in the occult. He did a ritual from the Order of the Nine Angles and it shattered his atheistic worldview, convincing him that Satan and the Dark Gods were real and turning him into a theistic Satanist. He then studied theistic Satanism independently through resources he obtained online, as well as other traditions such as Hellenic paganism, through which he developed a relationship with Hekate that still endures today. As he became more deeply involved with the O9A community, he founded a nexion (chapter or sect) of the Order, which then "fell apart."
After the collapse of his nexion, he started to distance himself from O9A, but he still believed in Satan. As he explored pagan and occult communities, he met people from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, including Jewish, Slavic, Indian, and Black people he had previously been taught to hate. When he talked to them, he realized that they were simply normal people, which caused him to confront and deconstruct his hateful worldview.
Governance
Ranks
Lodges
Legal status
The High Satanic Church is not a legally incorporated nonprofit. It currently holds no legal registration and describes itself as an informal online religious congregation.[8]
Relationships and affiliations
The High Satanic Church is an independent theistic Satanist organization in its own right, not a branch of any other group.[9] While they may maintain cordial relationships or public community partnerships with other Satanic organizations or individuals, they are not officially affiliated with any other Satanic group.
Relationship to CoS and TST
The High Satanic Church explicitly and firmly states that it is unaffiliated with the Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple, which both teach atheistic satanism rather than the theistic Satanism of HSC.[1]
Relationship to O9A
The High Satanic Church's terminology, theology, and metaphysics are influenced by the ideas of the Order of Nine Angles. However, the High Satanic Church is completely unaffiliated with the O9A, and they unequivocally reject the O9A's political extremism, racism, bigotry, violence, and criminal activity.[5] Multiple different statements on their website confirm this rejection.[10][9]
Resources and publications
The Church maintains discussion forums, archives, a library, an online religious school, a blog, a wiki, and a Discord server. Their website has a built-in members-only space where official members can discuss belief and practice or participate in planned gatherings and communal rituals.
They have also written and independently published books. The Book of the Acausal Way was HSC's first published book, followed by The Night-Work of the Acausal and The Meditative Way.
Theistic Satanist Wiki
The High Satanic Church runs the Theistic Satanist Wiki, a major collaborative project that they envision as a fully-fledged encyclopedia of Satanism, demonology, spirits, rituals, groups, and other Satanic information. They have stated that the Theistic Satanist Encyclopedia will document topics both inside and outside their own tradition, and that it is meant to have utility to the broader Satanic community as well as to HSC itself.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 High Satanic Church, About Us, thesatanicchurch.org, accessed October 7, 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 High Satanic Church, Leadership and Continuity, section “Founder and current leadership”, thesatanicchurch.org, accessed October 7, 2026. The church states that it “was founded on 15 March 2026 and is presently led by J.B., the Founder and High Priest,” and identifies J.B. as the public religious name used in church communications.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 High Satanic Church, Frequently Asked Questions, section “Who founded the Church and who leads it now?”, thesatanicchurch.org, accessed October 7, 2026. The church states that it “was founded on 15 March 2026 and is presently led by J.B., the Founder and High Priest,” and identifies J.B. as the public religious name used in church communications.
- ↑ High Satanic Church, What We Believe, Beliefs page, accessed September 20, 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 High Satanic Church, The Acausal, thesatanicchurch.org, accessed October 7, 2026.
- ↑ High Satanic Church, Archive, notice “Six Months of the Church + School Opening & Upcoming Projects”, September 15, 2026, thesatanicchurch.org, accessed October 7, 2026. The notice marks six months since the High Satanic Church was founded and is signed “The Satanic Church HSC – J. Berwart.”
- ↑ Multiple book-indexing and bookselling databases catalogue publications of the High Satanic Church under the author name “Jacky B” or “B, Jacky.” BookScouter, Books by B, Jacky, bookscouter.com, accessed October 7, 2026; AbeBooks, The Meditative Way (HSC), ISBN 9798174404540, abebooks.com, accessed October 7, 2026; IBS, The Meditative Way, ISBN 9798174404540, ibs.it, accessed October 7, 2026; ThriftBooks, The Meditative Way (HSC), ISBN 9798174404540, thriftbooks.com, accessed October 7, 2026; AbeBooks, The Night-Work of the Acausal: Volume 1–15 (HSC), ISBN 9798173309938, abebooks.com, accessed October 7, 2026; IBS, The Night-Work of the Acausal: Volume 1–15, ISBN 9798173309938, ibs.it, accessed October 7, 2026.
- ↑ High Satanic Church, Legal and Organisational Information, thesatanicchurch.org, last reviewed September 9, 2026, accessed October 20, 2026.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 High Satanic Church, The High Satanic Church, section “Independent congregation”, thesatanicchurch.org, accessed October 7, 2026.
- ↑ High Satanic Church, Frequently Asked Questions, section “Are you connected to the O9A or extremist politics?”, thesatanicchurch.org, accessed October 7, 2026.