moral masochism

"The Satanist is usually a spiritual Sadist, and the more he feels his own nothingness, weakness, and eternal degradation, the more hysterical become his spiritual sadism, his daring and cynicism.  The essence of his enjoyment consists in the conscious despising of everything sacred, and this often pushed to the utmost point of human imagination.  The greatest blasphemies, the most reckless sacrileges and crimes, the lowest depravity (derived not from physiological, but from spiritual, from 'moral' sensuality), as well as the everlasting consciousness of struggling against God, of being a castaway for all eternity not through God's will, but through self-will- all this may become the source of satanic pride and an inconceivable perverse enjoyment.  The mediaeval witches' Sabbath, distinguished by grossly sacrilegious rites, is typical in this respect, and it is rooted in a much profounder subliminal impulse of man's consciousness than is generally realised.

"The Satanist is thus a virtual destroyer of all existing values.  He is directly obsessed by his self-will, obsessed by an inner, moral necessity to destroy everything, including God."

from

'Cosmic Mutiny' (A Contribution to the Psychology of Satanism)

Janko Lavrin

1920