The Secret of a Satisfying Relationship.
One of the finer things we have in life is secrets. A secret gives us power in many ways, something my old hero Anton LaVey wrote about from time to time. In my youth I worked semi-professionally as an illusionist, and performed hundreds of times in front of small and large audiences around Sweden, which also meant I had to keep secrets to be able to do this over and over again.
The most common question you get as a magician is how you do it (the second most common is “can you conjure a beer to me?” — or a demand any other alcoholic beverage) and if you can show the trick a second — or third — time, so the audience can get a chance to reveal how it’s done. Some illusions, either they’re done with a sleight of hand or a mechanical way, are constructed so you can do them two times, but then often with a different ending so the audience will be caught off guard. But an illusionist can never ever under any circumstances tell the audience, even if it’s one person (some of them actually offering money to learn the secret) or even a crying child, how it’s done.
What will happen if the magician tells the secret? It will lose its power. Not only the trick itself, but the magician will go from being a person filled with ancient knowledge and charisma to a cheap trickster who fools people for money.
The secret is the thing. The secret is the true magic in magic.
A friend and colleague inside the TV-business once told me how a relationship will stay afloat. It’s such a truthful thing, and so simple, that I’ve been carrying it with me for a number of years and always turn to when I need affirmation in how to stay true in my own relationships. Dare I say it’s some kind of magic? Hear me out.
Imagine that the relationship is a completely smooth globe. When you hold it in your hands it’s perfect in its dimensions and structure. Well, it’s perfect in every way possible except one single long and slim needle-like rod coming out from it and becomes thinner and ends in a sharp, almost invisible, vertex. It’s so sharp it’s unreachable. That’s the secret(s) your partner carry with him or her. That thing, dark spot or razor edge, you can’t define. Something you can’t touch. And the goal with your relationship is to reach that place. But you won’t succeed. It will never happen, but you will continue no matter what. And that’s fine.
It, this unknown part of the person you love and respect, might be abstract and hard to define, but it’s there and you truly, fucking want to know what it is. That mission will keep you going for the rest of your life, and it will also make your love/obsession/friendship stay alive. You need a secret too, even if you never will be able to define it yourself. Your partner needs one. And if you both have this and wants to reach for it through eternity, you will have a long and healthy relationship.
I’m a married man and my partner, let’s call him G, is in many ways a complete mystery to me — even if I feel I know him like no other living being in the universe. I’m curious like HELL some days, but the knowledge that I don’t know everything about him also makes me very satisfied. It makes me wanna sit and watch him for hours, it makes me wanna hear him talk — because maybe one day something will slip out and give me a clue to who he really is deep inside.
That what keeps me moving forward in this incredible life together with him. It’s the same thing with friends, or relatives, or maybe the connection you have with something else that deeply interests you. If you’ve built every model airplane in the world, look for more. If you think that stamp is the last one in your collection, don’t worry — it’s not. You will never be able to watch every film ever made and you will hear a new song every day if you focus on it. Imagine how many secrets is out there if you really, truly love something. If you still feel that over and over again, you’re on the right path.
A true satanist knows how to value a secret, to hold a secret and respect a secret. But don’t make that stop you from trying find things out, because that’s the meaning with a good secret: it wants you to know about it, but it will never let you.
This text was originally published in Homo Satanis: How I Learned to Love Satan and other Insights from my Childhood by Fred Andersson.
