About NYC Satanists, Luciferians, Dark Pagans, and LHP Occultists

We welcome Satanists, Luciferians, "Dark" Pagans, and "Left Hand Path" occultists of all law-abiding kinds who live here in the New York City metropolitan area.

There are many different kinds of Satanism, Luciferianism, Dark Paganism, and LHP occultism.

For our purposes a "Satanist" is anyone with a favorable view of Satan, including both theistic/"traditional" Satanists and atheistic/symbolic Satanists, "Devil worshipers" and "self worshipers," LaVeyan and non-LaVeyan.

Likewise by "Luciferian," we mean anyone with a favorable view of Lucifer, who may or may not be seen as the same entity as Satan.

By "Dark Pagan," we mean any Pagan who is dissatisfied with what one sees as an overly "white-light" image projected by most modern Pagans, and who feels that more "darkness" (whatever one perceives that to mean) is needed at least for balance.

By "Left Hand Path," we mean any occultist who identifies as LHP, which usually refers to forms of occult practice that are both "dark" and highly individualistic.

We welcome all kinds of people in the above categories, excluding only those who practice or advocate violent criminal activity for alleged magical purposes, or in the name of any religion or god.

Until July 2009, we held informal open gatherings only, with no formally defined membership structure. In July 2009, we decided to begin holding private members-only meetings as well as open meetings. To become eligible to be considered for full active membership, a person must either (1) attend three of our open meetings or (2) be recommended by at least two of our members who have gotten to know the person outside of meetings.

Note that active membership, as defined above, is not the same thing as membership in this Meetup group. Anyone may join this Meetup group. All who wish to attend our open meetings should join this Meetup group and RSVP for the meetings.

For now, both our members-only meeting and our open meetings are just mostly just informal get-togethers over dinner. Eventually, when there are more of us, we plan to have more formal meetings with announced discussion topics.

Eventually we hope our Meetup group can give birth to some congregations that hold rituals. (Since our Meetup group welcomes adherents of many different kinds of Satanism, Luciferianism, etc., it would not be feasible for us to aim to form just ONE local congregation holding rituals that all of us would feel comfortable with. So, hopefully we can form several congregations representing several different paradigms.)

The organizer, Diane Vera, is a non-LaVeyan theistic Satanist. Eventually she would like to organize a group along the lines of the Church of Azazel, starting with a local congregation in New York City. If you are interested, please join the separate Meetup group for the Church of Azazel proto-congregation, New York City.

Since 2002, Diane Vera has maintained a major website on Theistic Satanism in general, including a page for theistic Satanists in and near New York City. She also maintains a blog on Google, a blog on WordPress, and a blog on Livejournal. She is also the organizer of New Yorkers Against Religion-Based Bigotry, which includes a Committee Against Satanic Panics and has a Meetup site here.