Nothing here ever arrived on its own. Every god came with an army, with a tax and with a hell of its own.
And every one of them, before laying the first stone, called what had grown here for a thousand years the devil.
We are not that devil. We are what is left when you subtract everything they said about him.
Crni Hram
World Satanism, in the Balkans too
They called him Prometheus, Lucifer, the serpent, Veles.
The charge is always the same, he brought people the light.
This time, we write the verdict.
- Founded
- MMXXVI
- Order
- of Danica and Veles
- Form
- Non theistic, public
Black not because it worships the dark, but because it is built from everything they threw into it.
An old god, the body, knowledge, disobedient thought. A temple because it is a place of gathering and rite, a stance and not a building. To the world we speak the language of Satanism, to the Balkans the language of its own roots.
- Non theistic
- No superstition
- Public and lawful
- No guru, no dues
- Est. MMXXVI
IThe word before all words
Manifesto
In the Balkans the gods always arrived from elsewhere. This is the first one that did not.
“Before every temple here, a stone stood first.
No one had to consecrate it.”Karst, somewhere in the Balkans
IIThe name they gave us
Satanism, as it truly is
What Satanism is once the horns come off: six principles, with a mirror instead of an altar.
IIIThe lightbringer
Lucifer is good
How the one who brought the light ended up as the villain.
IVNo fog
Who we are. Who we are not.
Who stands behind the temple, and how you can tell this is not a cult.
We are
- A non-theistic movement. We do not believe in gods, devils, demons, spirits or an afterlife. Not one text of ours asks you to believe in the supernatural, and not one ever will. A symbol is a symbol, and that is how it is used.
- A philosophy with ritual. We take the best of what religion genuinely knows how to do, which is symbol, calendar, rite and community, and we strip the blackmail by fear off it. Our rite summons nobody from outside. The rite works on the person performing it.
- A world movement with a Balkan address. Satanism is a global thing and has existed for decades. We translate it and show it to the Balkans through Slavic mythology and local experience, but without a gram of the nationalism that has made a living off that same experience.
- Public and lawful. Everything we do may be seen, filmed and published. We invoke freedom of thought, conscience and religion, the same freedom that protects the house of worship across the street, and we ask for not one right more than it has.
- Open to doubt. Every sentence on this page may be called into question. We ask that of you toward everything you read, and most of all toward us. If you catch us in something stupid, we will correct it and write down that it was ours.
- Responsible toward anyone in trouble. If life has pressed down on you, we will tell you straight: philosophy is not medicine and it is no substitute for a doctor. Here you will get conversation and respect, but never a promise that a symbol will cure you.
- Open to anyone who has ever been one too many. No matter where you are from, what your surname is, whom you love, how much you have, and how you pray, if you pray at all. The only condition is that you take from nobody what you ask for yourself.
We are not
- We do not worship Satan. Nor Veles, nor Lucifer, nor anyone else. We worship nobody, because we do not believe those beings exist. An archetype is a mirror, not a master, and nobody kneels to a mirror.
- We are not a sect. There is no leader to answer to, no membership fee, no secret levels, no isolation from family, no penalty for leaving and nobody telling you whom you may talk to. The door works in both directions, equally well.
- We do nothing unlawful. No blood sacrifice, animal or otherwise. Animals are not touched, in ritual or outside it, and that is one of the few places where there is no discussion. Whoever is after that sort of thing has the wrong address and the wrong century.
- We are not against believers. We are against institutions when they trade in fear, money and power, and against individuals when they use the sacred as cover. Your grandmother, her rosary and her peace are sacred to us too, and nobody here will touch them.
- We are nobody's jersey. Not a party's, not a nation's, not a subculture's, not a band's. We give no endorsements, we collect no votes and we do not sell ourselves for a hall. We wear black because it suits us, not because somebody ordered it.
- We are not reading for children. These are texts for adults who answer for their own conclusions. We do not seek out minors, we do not address them and we do not call them. Whoever does that is doing something else, and we are not his ally.
- We are not a shop for power. We do not sell spells, protection, the opening of paths, the lifting of curses or any service that promises a supernatural outcome. Whoever charges you for that is not in the business of faith, he is stealing your money, and usually at the moment when things are hardest for you.
No one came down from the sky to tell us how to live. Everything we have, someone stole, forged or endured.
So we build the temple ourselves, out of what was thrown into the dark.
VThe god they pushed underground
Why Veles?
Why a Slavic god of cattle and the underworld, and not a flashier name.
VIPrinciples
Nine roots
Nine principles to live by. Commandments are issued from above; roots grow from below.
A sign is not a picture
A sign is not a picture
A sign is an object. Something a person holds, carries and hands on. This one is cut from black stone, and the line inside it is gold poured into the cut.
It is not read at a glance
That is why it turns. Every side shows another part of the same line, and only once you have gone round the whole stone do you see that the line is a single one.
The gold is in the cut
Not on the stone but inside it. Worth is not glued on from the outside, it is cut in, and it shows only when the light falls at the right angle.
The stone remains
Powers change, languages change, names change. The cut in the stone stays the same, and a thousand years later it can still be read.
Scroll, and the stone turns
VIIReality, drawn in a single line
Symbols, the language that does not lie
Fourteen signs cut into stone: what each one means and where it comes from.
VIIIArchive
Archive of signs
Grimoire seals and signs of the Temple, in one place.
IXLanguage is older than the church
A Balkan dictionary of the sacred
Eighteen words that refuse to be translated, and carry a whole worldview.
XBeings out of the dark, truths out of the mirror
The pantheon of shadow
Eighteen figures of our lore, and what they were before they were declared devils.
XITheatre for a single spectator
Rituals as psychodrama
Rites without the supernatural: what they are for, how long they take and what you need.
Black coffee
- Every day
- 10 minutes
- Coffee or tea
The watch before dawn
- When clarity is needed
- Half an hour
- A window facing east
The toast
- As needed
- Before witnesses
- A glass of anything
Sijelo
- Once a month
- 3 to 13 people
- One candle
The zduhač watch
- Once a month
- A quiet deed
- No witnesses
Putting out the jal
- When it stings
- 15 minutes
- Paper and pencil
Veles's night
- 11 and 12 February
- The yearly oath
- Woollen thread
The burning of Morana
- 20 and 21 March
- The spring equinox
- Paper and a safe fire
The midsummer fire
- 21 to 24 June
- The summer solstice
- Company and a bonfire
The wolf vow
- mid November
- The wolf days
- One "no"
The empty place
- 1 and 2 November
- Days of the dead
- A chair and a plate
The unbaptized nights
- 25 December to 6 January
- Inventory of the shadow
- A notebook
XIIThe wheel of the year
The calendar of Crni Hram
Thirteen nights of the year, where they come from and what is done on them.
11 and 12 February
Veles's night
1 March
White and red (regional)
20 and 21 March
Morana (spring equinox)
23 April (6 May by the eastern reckoning)
Jurjevo (Green George)
the night before 1 May
Filipovčica
21 to 24 June
Ivanje (Kupalo)
2 August
Day of thunder (Saint Elijah's day)
21 to 23 September
The scales (autumn equinox)
1 and 2 November
Days of the dead (zadušnice)
8 November (with Martinje, 11 November)
Mitrovdan
mid November
Mratinci (the wolf days)
21 to 22 December
The long night (winter solstice)
25 December to 6 January
The unbaptized nights
XIIIAsk, that is what we want
Questions and answers
The thirty one questions we are asked most often, answered without dodging.
XIVStolen fire, neatly arranged
Library
What to read, in what order and where to find it — with no source that cannot be checked.
How to read this list
The Slavic root, where Veles comes from
Folk customs, the calendar and the beings of the dark
Public domain, the myth of revolt, free and lawful
Satanism worldwide, the academic view
How an enemy is manufactured
Rite without the supernatural, the science of why it works
Conscience in literature, ours and close to home
What should not be read as a source
If you have time for three books
Everything they threw into the dark
We picked up what the old one threw away. I · Manifesto
Every fire was stolen somewhere. II · Prometheus's debt
He always did. III · The Balkans
They rebuilt him into a devil and left him in the forest. V · Veles
none holier than the rest. VI · The nine roots
and the only one that never lied. XII · The calendar
Scroll, and the scenes cross over
The vow
"Do not kneel. Do not keep silent. And do not spit on another's freedom."
That is the whole vow of the Black Temple. No dues, no leader, no secret degrees. If you got this far and nothing here offended you, you have probably been one of us all along.
Reading room
You have walked the temple.
Now, if you want, you can sit down.
Behind this door there is a shelf: every chapter with its name, its length and what is inside it, so you take the one you came for. Nothing moves, nothing glows and nothing interrupts you.
- 13 chapters
- 35.380 words
- Taken off the shelf