There are various lists of virtues amongst the world’s religions and philosophies. Stoicism recognizes four: wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation. Confucianism has Five Constants: humanness (benevolence), righteousness, propriety, knowledge, and integrity. Bushido, depending on the source being cited, recognizes between eight and twelve prime virtues. Perhaps most famously in the West, Christianity has seven: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility.

The virtues of Diabolism are derived from the Seven Deadly Sins of medieval Christianity, and, in the crudest sense, can be seen as an inversion of Christian values. I say crudest because the point of Diabolism’s virtues is not to say one’s behavior should always be the reverse of what Christianity teaches. Rather, this inversion is to shock the practitioner—who almost certainly has grown-up in a culture that is derived from the Abrahamic worldview—into the realization that all extremes are open to them. Their personal Law and the particular variables they face determine their course of action, not a pre-determined list of behaviors. To quote the Old Man of the Mountain, “Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”

One critique of Devil worship is that it is in some sense reacting to or dependent on Christianity, as if the ideal religion should exist in an intellectual and cultural vacuum. The Diabolist recognizes that all things are interconnected and thus any quest for absolute purity—spiritual or otherwise—is doomed from the start. The Devil and Christianity are intertwined, the Seven Infernal Virtues recognizes that fact and proceeds accordingly.  If others wish to pretend like they can or should abstract themselves from the past 2,000 years of history, that isn’t our problem.

The meditations that follow should be taken in that light. They are musings on the implications and application of satanic values, not commands. They are suggestions for what goods and states the Diabolist should hold in esteem and which they should disdain. It is up to the individual to apply them to their own life.

Languor or Indolence

You have heard it said, idleness teacheth much evil. But I say to you, indolence creates time for the work that matters. – “Sermon of the Night Queen”

The saying goes that necessity is the mother of all invention, but a strong case could be made that is in fact indolence that is the true source of ingenuity. The very drive to invent new tools or more efficient ways of performing tasks often arises from a desire to free up more time that can be used to enjoy more pleasant and fulfilling activities. As the aeronautical engineer and science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein said, “Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.” Indolence says, contrary to the Puritan work ethic, that just because something is hard work doesn’t in and of itself make that thing good. There are many necessities to survival, but a man’s salvation is not found in toiling at the earth anymore than a woman’s lies within the pain of childbirth [0].

To be sure, the things that matter to you in your life will often require hard work, whether to obtain them, maintain them, or both. The purpose of Languor isn’t to propose that you should never labor for anything. On the contrary, by indulging in periods of slothfulness you allow your body and mind precious time to restore their energies. The most efficient predators actually spend most of their time lazing about. This allows them to apply all their strength and cunning in a burst of frenzied activity when the need arises. Slow and steady may win the race sometimes. But, as Sun Tzu writes in The Art of War, when the door of opportunity opens, you must rush through it with the quickness of a hare. Speed and alacrity are nearly impossible to summon if you’re burnt out from constant drudgery.

Physically speaking, the largest component to discuss in relation with this virtue is sleep. Globally, more than 1/3 of adults feel they get an insufficient amount of sleep. [1] Sleep recharges the body, mind, and spirit. It leaves one better equipped to fight off disease, while the lack of or poor-quality sleep compromises the immune system. In babies, sleep is when neurological systems do a large portion of their development. Lack of sleep can affect an infant’s cognitive and linguistic development, their ability to learn and play, and even lead to mood disorders later in life. [2] While a fully-grown adult does not need sleep for the exact same reasons a baby does, since their minds are already developed, they do need sleep to maintain cognitive and physical functioning. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, upwards of 71,000 automobile accidents a year are linked to sleep deprivation, causing an average of 1,500 fatalities. In the short-term, sleep deprivation impairs attention span and memory, while long term effects include higher rates of obesity, diabetes, some cancers, depression, and anxiety [2].

To put it simply, Diabolists are human, and humans need sleep.

Mentally, Languor not only helps us to deal with stress, but also encourages proper mental functioning. In her article on the benefits of laziness, Anne-Laura Le Cunff writes:

Our mind has two modes of thinking: the diffuse mode and the focused mode of thinking. We need to maintain constant oscillation between the two modes in order to be our most creative and productive. Mind wandering, a form of diffuse thinking, is a useful mechanism for our brains to process information—sometimes leading to non-obvious solutions. Another benefit of letting our mind wander without paying any attention to a productive task is a higher focus on long-term goals…

If you have ever realized the solution to a problem while doing something completely unrelated, or remembered something once you actively stopped trying to recall it, you’ve experience the benefits of diffuse thinking.

The quality of your slacking off is as important as quantity, perhaps more so. This goes as much for sleep as it does enjoying one’s downtime, which is more indolence proper. Sometimes a lazy day in bed or vegetating on the couch can do wonders, but regularly setting aside free time to engage in activities you find enjoyable and stimulating is also a way to make the most of slothfulness. It is easy to let the responsibilities of work, family life, and social activities consume the majority of your waking life, and you can’t make the most of your free time if you do not have any to speak of. A Devil worshipper who constantly feels burnt out or like they are spending their days running from one obligation to the next should consider restructuring their life and relationships with the aim of carving out more personal time. How drastic that restructuring needs to be will be a matter of individual circumstance and Law. You may need to insist on firmer boundaries, protecting your personal time as truly yours. Perhaps you need to step back from certain responsibilities, or ask others to carry more of their part of the load. You may need to cut some activities, possessions, or people out of your life entirely. If you recognize that you have an energy vampire sapping your life—and vampires can take a myriad of forms—it’s up to you to remove them from it.

Of course, all the free time in the world won’t do you much good if you’re too stressed out to enjoy it. If anxiety, tension, or emotional disorder prevents you from fully entering into moments of languor you will need to identify and address the roots of these issues. Regular meditation and exercise, along with changes in diet, are all methods of treating the symptoms and increasing your baseline emotional resilience, but these should be used in tandem with efforts to alleviate the source of the disturbance itself. This may mean counseling, seeking medication, moving to a new residence, finding a new job—again, vampires can assume a myriad of forms.

I realize sources of environmental stress may largely be, or at least feel, to be outside of one’s control. Hearing someone say something like, “You should speak to a counselor,” or, “If you hate your high crime neighborhood you should move,” may seem laughable if you’re in severe poverty, and/or dependent on an abusive lover you’re legitimately afraid to leave, or otherwise feel stuck where you’re at. There are often no easy answers for those sorts of situations. Finding a way out of them whatever it takes should likely become your highest priority. Accept that change takes time. Remember that surviving is not the same as living, and it is more commendable from a satanic perspective to risk it all for a better life rather than slavishly accepting what fate has handed you.

Ultimately, indolence is resting in the sheer pleasure of simply being alive. The battles of life are never-ending. Let those precious moments of rest prepare and rejuvenate you for even greater endeavors and more glorious struggles ahead.        

[0] See Genesis chapter 3 and 1 Timothy 2:15.

[1] ‘Philips Index for Health and Well-being: A global perspective’

[2] https://www.enfamil.com/articles/importance-of-sleep-child-development/

[3] Worldsleepday.org