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Tomorrow evening—the evening of Saturday, May 23rd, 2020—marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which I’ve been observing, at least in a nominal sense, since it began on the 23rd of April. Muslims believe that Ramadan is the month during which the Qur’an—the Recitation, the central sacred text of Islam—was revealed to the prophet Muhammad, and is observed primarily by fasting each day from sunrise to sunset. The Qur’an itself says of the month:
O believers, the fast is ordained upon you, as it was ordained upon those who came before you—perhaps you will fear God—for a number of days. Whoever is sick among you or on a journey, then a number of other days. Upon those who can bear it, a penance: the feeding of a poor person. He who willingly proffers good, this would be better for him. To fast is better for you, if only you knew. The month of Ramadan is the one in which the Qur’an was sent down—right guidance to mankind, and clear signs of Guidance and Distinction of truth from falsehood. Those among you who witness it, let him fast therein. Whoever is sick or on a journey, then a number of other days.
Khalidi, 2010
God desires ease for you, and desires not hardship.
Thus may you fulfil the number of days assigned, magnify God for having guided you, and perhaps you will be thankful.
If My worshippers ask you about Me, I am near.
I answer the prayer of him who prays when he prays to Me.
So let them obey Me, and believe in Me—perhaps they will be guided aright.
Given such a statement, many might find it strange that Ramadan would be observed by an avowed Satanist, but as I’ve stated many times before, my oppositional stance as a Satanist is directed not against religion itself but rather against religious dogma and hegemony. My research into Islam has engendered in me a sense of appreciation for the religion and for its sacred text, the Qur’an, an appreciation which I’ve described in some of my prior work, such as the episode “Satan in the Qur’an”. In that episode, I described the ways in which the Qur’anic narrative of the Satanic figure Iblis, especially as interpreted by some sects of Sufism, holds value and meaning for me as a Satanist. My past work on Islam has been surprisingly well-received by Muslims and I know that there are many Muslims among my audience, and philosophers owe a special debt to the Muslims of the Abbasid dynasty for preserving and developing the classics of Greek philosophy, so I feel a sense of solidarity with the community and the religion, especially given the degree to which it has been usurped by a cultural hegemony of dogma, ignorance, fear, and authoritarianism. And as a side note, I have a deep love for Arabic music, which is inextricable from Islamic culture, and am learning to play the oud, a fretless lute of Arab origin.
I’m not certain where I first arrived at the idea of observing the Ramadan fast, although it likely came up during my research over the past couple years. Primarily, it was a simple matter of curiosity, as is the case with many things in my life, so I approached it as a sort of spiritual experiment. I didn’t have any specific outcomes in mind, but I thought that it might serve as a means of structuring my life and imposing order on a world that presently seems more chaotic than usual, and as well, an opportunity to take a break from some of my favorite indulgences.
Satanism being a religion of self-indulgence, observance of a fast might seem paradoxical, but my own interpretation of Satanic hedonism leans more towards traditional Epicureanism. Hedonism in general holds enjoyment as the highest good, but the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–270 BCE), who is understood as having codified the hedonist philosophy, believed—and I’m in full agreement—that the highest pleasures derive from social and intellectual pursuits rather than indulgence in physical pleasure. Not that I’m at all opposed to such indulgence, but it will inevitably result in diminishing returns, and so occasional breaks can be valuable, with the added benefit of providing some perspective on what’s actually providing enjoyment versus what’s just an emotional crutch. Even Anton LaVey, who modeled his interpretation of Satanism in part around the variant of hedonism oriented more towards physical pleasures, and whose Satanic Bible presents the first of his Satanic Statements as “Satan represents indulgence, instead of abstinence,” stated that the Satanist must take care to distinguish between indulgence and compulsion, with compulsion implying a lack of choice (LaVey, 2005). But the human subconscious is a tricky and deceptive thing and much of what we take to be indulgence may simply be compulsion that we have rationalized and excused. To really understand what’s really compulsion and what isn’t, it isn’t enough to believe that the activity in question is a choice; one must, on occasion, actively make the choice not to indulge.
I have to mention that I have modified the Ramadan fasting regime somewhat, in that I do drink water throughout the day, which is traditionally forbidden. I observed the no-drinking rule initially but quickly found it to be unfeasible for two reasons. The first is that, due to the ongoing pandemic, I had to miss my last scheduled dental cleaning and will not have any access to non-emergency dental care until things start reopening, so I’m taking special care of my teeth for the time being, and dehydration can cause dry mouth which can cause dental problems. The second reason is that not drinking water would have made it impossible for me to record this podcast, and since this project is a central element of my spiritual practice, the whole thing would have become spiritually counterproductive. From my experience in the first few days of Ramadan, I can say that the no-drinking rule makes the fast considerably more difficult, so my own observance of the holy month has been eased relative to a more orthodox practice. Some might say that I can’t say that I’m observing Ramadan at all if I make exceptions for some of the rules, and they may be correct, but I’m not particularly concerned about that. The point of this exercise is not to arbitrarily follow the rules of a religion of which I am not an adherent, but rather to develop myself as a person through a particular spiritual context.
Each morning, I wake up at about 5 AM for breakfast, which Muslims call suhur. Sometimes I return to bed after this, but as often as not, I’m awake enough that it’s easier to just go about my day. While I’ve always been more of a night person, I find that I enjoy the quiet of the early morning. It’s been a fruitful time to write, read, and research. I start getting hungry again around early afternoon, and have to live with that hunger until the evening meal, iftar, at sunset, which has, over the course of the last month, moved from about a quarter before 8 PM to about a quarter after. It’s mostly tolerable throughout the day, but the last couple hours are often exercises in keeping my mind occupied and away from thoughts of food. The evening hunger has gotten progressively stronger over the course of Ramadan, and the last few days have been extraordinarily difficult in that regard.
At first, I would eat gigantic meals for iftar, but those meals have become progressively smaller and I’ve found I need less and less to feel comfortable and fed. As I’m generally prone to overeating, the transformation has been interesting to observe, and demonstrates to me how much of my supposed hunger is emotional and habitual rather than being strictly biological. This is not to say that there’s anything wrong with eating for pleasure or for other non-biological reasons, but I think that it’s problematic when we eat for those reasons while believing that we’re primarily just fulfilling a biological need, or when we do anything without properly recognizing and understanding the underlying reasons. At that point, we’re deceiving ourselves, or allowing ourselves to be deceived by our unconscious minds, which signals a loss of control and autonomy.
So this undertaking has made me more aware of my relationship to food, but I also feel that it’s made me more spiritually aware in a general sense. The very first thing I do every day—getting out of bed for suhur—is imbued with meaning and purpose, which sets the tone for the rest of the day, and as I spend much of the day hungry, I’m constantly aware of Ramadan, and this results not only in more awareness of my life and actions in general, but a greater sense of focus and intention. At times, I’ve been hungry and tired enough that I can do little more than lie in bed, but even in that there’s a feeling that I am actively doing and achieving something. I feel stronger as a person, and more in control of myself, my body, and my life.
In other episodes I’ve mentioned the work of philosopher Gwen Bradford on the concept of achievement, as she outlined in her 2013 paper “The Value of Achievements” and the recent book Achievement, which I’m waiting to purchase in paperback when it’s released in that format. Bradford’s account of achievement is that those things which we call achievements are intrinsically valuable—valuable in and of themselves—because of their difficulty. Those things are difficult which require effort—exertion of the will—which is intrinsically valuable due to its being something unique and essential to humans and plausibly worth developing. For more on Gwen Bradford’s work, check out my episode “On the Matter of Becoming a Fucking God: Satanism, Philosophy, and Theater.”
By Bradford’s criteria, my undertaking the observance of Ramadan is indeed an achievement and is thus intrinsically valuable. It takes a significant amount of effort on my part to sit with my hunger, fatigue, and general discomfort, and not do anything about it when it would be very easy just to grab a quick snack. The American Psychological Association describes willpower as being like a kind of muscle that is strengthened through regular exertion (What You Need to Know about Willpower, 2020), so this process has made me a stronger person in a very real and concrete way.
I also mentioned that part of my hopes for my observing of Ramadan were that the practice might impose a greater degree of structure on my life and on my world during a particularly uncertain and chaotic time. This was inspired by the book Flow by Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (originally published in 1990), which I’ve mentioned on this show numerous times. Csikszentmihalyi’s book is touted as a guide to achieving happiness through what he calls optimal experience. In opening the book, he makes a persuasive argument that the ultimate source of happiness is control of inner experience.
Having spent a quarter-century researching what it is that makes people happy, Csikszentmihalyi states:
What I “discovered” was that happiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random chance. It is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy…. [And] it is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly.
2009, p. 2
A few pages later, Csikszentmihalyi describes how different cultures have hit upon this same realization and created “protective devices—religions, philosophies, arts, and comforts—that help shield us from chaos” (p. 7-8). These devices, he continues, are part of a system that socializes people to make them “dependent on social controls, to have them respond predictably to rewards and punishments” (p. 17). But whenever humans respond predictably to anything, that predictability can be exploited. “Practically every desire that has become part of human nature,” Csikszentmihalyi says, “from sexuality to aggression, from a longing for security to a receptivity to change, has been exploited as a source of social control by politicians, churches, corporations, and advertisers” (p. 17). Those who wish to find happiness for themselves must become, to some degree, independent from these social controls, and must be able to reward themselves. Happiness that is purely dependent on some external reward, or the absence of some external punishment, is by its nature fleeting, uncertain, and insecure, and so, cliché as it might sound, true happiness must come from within.
The term for which Csikszentmihalyi’s book is titled, flow, describes a state of optimal experience in which we feel control, mastery, exhilaration, and enjoyment. I think that it’s something that most people have experienced at one time or another even without trying for it. These experiences arise whenever we are fully immersed in something difficult and worthwhile, and they impose order on our consciousness, countering what Csikszentmihalyi describes as psychic entropy, “a disorganization of the self that impairs its effectiveness” (p. 37).
Csikszentmihalyi describes the general result of these experiences as complexifying the self through differentiation and integration. Differentiation is movement towards uniqueness and distinction from others: flow states are attained through experiences which must be unique and personal, and so they develop what is unique about each of us. Philosopher Charles Taylor might have described this as a development of one’s individualized identity, the authentic identity that is particular to a person and which they discover in themselves (1994). And in addition to being differentiated through flow experiences, the self becomes more integrated: as thoughts, intentions, and feelings are organized in the mind during flow experiences together with ideas and entities beyond the self, the resulting differentiation becomes more unified and harmonious (Csikszentmihalyi, 2009).
I don’t know if I could describe the whole of the last month as a single flow experience, but there are certainly many aspects of the experience that are relevant to Csikszentmihalyi’s ideas. The organization and structure that I’ve imposed on myself have not only served to order my consciousness in itself and helped me to detach from socially-conditioned reliance on external reward and punishment, but have also forced me to take control of my inner experience. During the last few hours before sunset, I’m faced with the choice of either wallowing in the discomfort, or sitting with it while focusing my attention on other matters, such as my writing, my mathematical studies, or my studies of Arabic music. These practices have led me to specific flow experiences from which I have indeed grown as a person.
While it’s been difficult, I feel that I’ve benefited a great deal from this experience, physically, mentally, and spiritually. I’ve grown stronger as a person in every respect, and as well, I’ve been able to remind myself of the inner reserves of strength that I already possessed. I expect that this is something that I’ll be doing again next year, and in every subsequent year as well. Ramadan is based on a lunar calendar, and so shifts every year relative to the Gregorian calendar used by most of the world. Next year, the month will begin about two weeks earlier, as it will in every subsequent year, meaning that the days that fall on Ramadan will be shorter and shorter and thus the fast will become easier and easier. I’ve certainly gained a fresh appreciation for those fasting during summer Ramadans at extreme latitudes.
Looking forward, I may seek to reframe the underlying narrative of Ramadan more in terms of Satanism. In taking a break from the indulgence of food, I’ve been reminded of its meaning and value, and, for lack of a better way of putting it, “recharged” the depth of my enjoyment of food and my capacity to indulge without compulsion. Turning to the Miltonian narrative of Satan the Adversary, we see the deprivation that Satan faced when cast out from paradise, a deprivation which we can honor through fasting. In seeking the meaning of a Satanic fast, we can turn to the words of Satan himself in Paradise Lost, as he speaks to Beelzebub after finding himself in the destitution of Hell:
“Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,”
I:242-63
Said then the lost Archangel, “this the seat
That we must change for Heaven?—this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since He
Who now is sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from Him is best,
Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! Hail,
Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor—one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”
Rather than being defeated by his terrible circumstances, Satan used them to elevate himself and his fellow fallen angels, and took delight in the world in which he found himself. So we too may be reminded, when our fast ends, of our capacity to find joy and meaning in the physical world rather than in some future, postmortem paradise that is promised to us so long as we kneel, serve, and deny ourselves and our reality.
I hope you’ve found this piece interesting and informative. If you’ve enjoyed it, I encourage you to look at some of my other essays, and if you find my approach to philosophy and religion at all valuable, I hope that you’ll stop in at my Patreon page, which features bonus content for patrons, and that you’ll stop back by to check on my new content.
Works Cited and Referenced
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2009). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience (Nachdr.). Harper [and] Row.
Khalidi, T. (2010). The Qur’an. Penguin.
LaVey, A. S. (2005). The Satanic Bible. Avon Books.
Milton, J. (2005). Paradise lost. Dover Publications.
Taylor, C. (1994). The politics of recognition. In A. Gutmann (Ed.), Multiculturalism: Examining the politics of recognition. Princeton University Press.
What you need to know about willpower: The psychological science of self-control. (2020). Https://Www.Apa.Org. https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/willpower