The "Satanic Mandate": Where Does Permission to Break the Rules Come From?

The most revealing part of the argument attributed to James Hind is perhaps not the examples themselves, but the concept behind them.

According to tweets, blogs and comments published by Project Night Watch during 2023 and 2025, James Hind argues that an individual Satanist possesses a kind of mandate to make choices which other people disapprove of: 

• eating chocolate cake, 
• declining a tedious social invitation, 
• or riding a bicycle without lights. 

He further presents Satanism as involving the breaking or inversion of conventional rules and ideas of good and evil.

At first glance, these examples are almost comically mundane. Chocolate cake is hardly the stuff of Miltonic rebellion. Turning down an invitation to a boring social gathering is something millions of non-Satanists do every weekend. And cycling without lights is not a metaphysical revolution; it is simply a breach of road-safety law.

But the argument becomes considerably more interesting when the word “mandate” is examined.

A mandate ordinarily means an authority or permission to act. If someone says, “I have a mandate to do X,” the obvious question is: from whom?

And that produces an intriguing philosophical problem for anyone claiming that Satan himself provides the authority.

The curious problem with the word “mandate” There is no single Satanism.

Modern Satanism encompasses substantially different traditions. The Church of Satan, for example, explicitly describes Satanism as highly individualistic and stresses that individual Satanists speak for themselves rather than automatically representing the organisation.

Church of Satan.

There are also more explicitly theistic and esoteric forms of Satanism, including traditions associated with the Order of Nine Angles.

Interestingly, material associated with the latter provides an almost perfect counterpoint to the concept of an externally imposed “Satanic mandate.” O9A material explicitly argues that the idea of an Infernal Mandate is incompatible with its conception of Satanism because the Satanist is supposed to be an autonomous individual rather than somebody merely following an external authority. 

O9A +1.

That produces an amusing paradox. If Hind's argument is:

“I have a Satanic mandate to break rules,”

one can reasonably ask:

Who issued the mandate?

If the answer is Satan, then the claim depends upon a supernatural authority that other people cannot independently verify.

If the answer is “my own individual Satanic philosophy,” then the word mandate becomes rather grandiose. It effectively means:

“I have decided that I am entitled to do it.”

That is not a mandate in the ordinary sense. It is personal permission. And there is an important distinction between having the freedom to make a decision and having moral or legal authority to make that decision.

Breaking rules isn't automatically revolutionary.

There is another weakness in the argument.

Breaking a rule does not, by itself, demonstrate courage, independence, intelligence or moral superiority.

• A person can break a stupid rule for an admirable reason.
• A person can break a reasonable rule for a stupid reason.
• And a person can break a law simply because they don't want to obey it.

The act itself tells us very little about its moral significance. Take the examples attributed to Hind.

Eating chocolate cake despite somebody disapproving? Fine.

Declining a boring social engagement? Fine.

Cycling without lights? Different matter. That potentially creates a danger for the cyclist and other road users.

The interesting philosophical question therefore isn't:

“Did I break a rule?”

It is:

“Why did I break it, what consequences did my decision have, and was the rule worth breaking?”

That distinction matters enormously when somebody presents themselves as a person who deliberately inverts conventional morality.

The leap from harmless rebellion to serious conduct.

This is where the allegations surrounding Hind become considerably more troubling—but also where caution becomes essential.

Published on his Satanic View wordpress blog during November 2018, Hind acknowledged pretending to be a 12-year-old boy online. 

He shared what Hind himself described as “illegal content of the top level,” with other children as young as 11 years old. 

That he allowed an alleged groomer to continue because he did not want to carry the burden of having “ruined” that person's life. 

It's important to state that James Hind has dismissed these confessions as fake, part of a false narrative created as a fake back story to a fake persona.

A public confession is not the same thing as an established fact. But even if we temporarily set aside the question of whether every disclosure is true, the claimed reasoning creates an important ethical question.

Suppose somebody genuinely encounters evidence that an adult is grooming children.

The ethical dilemma cannot reasonably be reduced to:

“I didn't want to ruin the adult's life.”

There are potentially other lives involved.

The relevant question becomes:

What responsibility does an adult have when they believe a child may be at risk?

That is a vastly more serious question than whether someone eats chocolate cake against somebody else's wishes.

The “rule-breaking” philosophy meets its real test.

This is where Hind's philosophy, if accurately represented, becomes much more interesting.

Anyone can call themselves a rebel when the rebellion involves cake.

The real test comes when rebellion produces consequences for other people.

If your personal philosophy says that you are entitled to ignore conventional rules, what happens when your decision affects somebody else's safety?

That is the point at which “individual freedom” encounters another fundamental principle:

Other people are individuals too.

The freedom to reject social convention does not automatically create a licence to expose somebody else to harm.

Indeed, even within Satanist traditions that strongly emphasise individualism, there are substantial philosophical differences over what that freedom means. The Church of Satan's own material, for example, does not suggest that merely declaring oneself a Satanist gives someone unlimited authority over other people. 

Church of Satan.

The child-protection contradiction.

This brings us to perhaps the biggest question raised by the material surrounding Hind.

If someone presents themselves publicly as concerned about protecting children, yet simultaneously claims to have adopted the persona of a child online, the obvious question is:

What safeguards existed?

Professional child-protection work operates through accountability, procedures, evidence preservation, safeguarding protocols and defined responsibilities.

An anonymous internet user independently adopting the identity of a 12-year-old is an entirely different proposition.

It immediately raises questions such as:

• Who authorised the activity?
• What safeguarding procedures were followed?
• Who supervised it?
• How were communications preserved?
• What happened when genuine children became involved?
• What happened when illegal material was encountered?
• Who was informed?
• What happened to the evidence?
• Was the activity conducted within any recognised investigative framework?

These questions don't prove wrongdoing. They are simply the questions that naturally arise when somebody claims to have undertaken activity involving children outside conventional safeguarding structures.

And then comes the really uncomfortable question

If Hind genuinely believes that Satanism gives the individual unusual freedom to disregard conventional rules, and if the other allegations about his online activities are accurate, then an uncomfortable question presents itself:

Where does his personal boundary actually lie?

That is the question worth asking—not because we should assume the worst, but precisely because we shouldn't.

A person's philosophy can tell us something about the boundaries they claim to recognise.

If someone says:

“I am entitled to break rules because I reject conventional morality,” then it is legitimate to ask:

Which rules? And:

Are there any rules you believe should never be broken? And:

What happens when your personal freedom conflicts with another person's rights? And finally:

Who decides where the boundary is?

If the answer to all four questions is simply “me,” then the supposed mandate ultimately originates nowhere except the individual claiming it.

The danger of turning transgression into virtue.

There is also a broader psychological and cultural issue here. Online personalities can easily turn rule-breaking into a form of theatre.

The more outrageous the claim, the stronger the persona becomes.

• “I ate cake.”
• “I broke a minor regulation.”
• “I reject conventional morality.”
• “I am Satanic.”
• “I am beyond ordinary rules.”

Each statement escalates the persona. But there is a fundamental difference between performing transgression and possessing a coherent ethical philosophy.

Breaking rules merely because they are rules is not necessarily intellectually sophisticated.

• Sometimes the rule is wrong.
• Sometimes the rule is necessary.
• Sometimes breaking it is courageous.
• Sometimes it is selfish.
• Sometimes it is simply stupid.

The intellectually serious position is therefore not: “Rules are bad.” It is:

“Which rules, and why?”

What about the things nobody knows?

This brings us to the most relevant question of all: What else might James Hind get up to that he keeps secret?

That is precisely where responsible analysis has to stop short of speculation.

There is no sound basis for saying that secrecy proves the existence of additional crimes.

A person can keep many perfectly innocent aspects of their life private. Nor does adopting a provocative philosophy prove that someone secretly commits increasingly serious offences.

The correct question is instead:

What evidence exists of undisclosed conduct?

That means distinguishing three categories:

Established fact: something independently demonstrated.

Public statement: something the individual has actually said or written.

Allegation: something somebody else claims happened.

The internet routinely collapses those three categories into one. That is precisely how reputational misinformation spreads.

The irony of the “mandate”.

There is, however, a fascinating irony at the centre of this entire debate. The supposed Satanic philosophy of radical individualism can be interpreted as saying:

“I decide for myself.”

But that also means:

“I am responsible for what I decide.”

Freedom without responsibility is not particularly profound. It is simply a licence. And if someone claims that Satan gives them permission to break rules, the strongest philosophical response may be the simplest one:

You still own the consequences.

Satan cannot be summoned into court to explain the decision. A supernatural “mandate” cannot automatically override British law. A personal philosophy cannot automatically override another person's rights. And calling something Satanic doesn't magically transform an ordinary act of selfishness into an act of moral courage.

Conclusion: From chocolate cake to the boundaries of morality.

The examples attributed to James Hind—chocolate cake, refusing tedious invitations and cycling without lights—are almost comically modest examples of Satanic rebellion.

Yet they raise a much larger philosophical question.

Where does personal freedom end?

Where does responsibility begin?

And what happens when somebody's personal definition of “good” and “bad” diverges radically from the standards expected by the rest of society?

The allegations surrounding Hind's online activities make those questions more consequential, and imply, by themselves, that he's committed even more serious offences from the shadows. 

Consequently, the strongest criticism is not to invent what might be hidden behind the mask. It is to ask for evidence, consistency and accountability.

If James Hind genuinely believes that he possesses a special Satanic mandate to decide which rules apply to him, then he should be able to explain exactly what that mandate means, where it comes from, what its limits are, and—most importantly—whether he accepts responsibility when his choices affect other people.

Because eating chocolate cake isn't really the interesting part.

The interesting part is what happens when “I decide for myself” meets the rights, safety and dignity of everyone else.

That is where a philosophy of rebellion stops being theatrical—and starts becoming an ethical test.