Gidney, William Starets (1972 )
William Starets Gidney, born May 24, 1972, is the grotto
master of the Nepotism Grotto of the Church of Satan and the
editor of an independent Satanist magazine, Mourning Star.
He attended the State University of New York and the Indian
River Community College in Fort Pierce, Florida, and served
a term in the United States Army. He also married Lady Ygraine
(Gabrielle Gidney), a witch, and they settled in Port Saint
Lucie, Florida.
During the 1980s, both Gidney and his wife had become occultists,
and in 1988 he publicly identified himself as a Satanist.
He joined the Church of Satan in 1989 and in 1993 he became
an agent for the church. However, in that same year he
dropped his affiliation with the Church of Satan and he and
Lady Ygraine founded the First Occult Church, for which she
served as president and he as vice president. As part of his work
for the church he edited A Taste from the Cauldron, the churchs
periodical. The church functioned as an umbrella for a wide variety
of occultists including Wiccans, Voudouists, Pagans, and
ritual magicians, all of whom functioned in the context of a
dominant Satanic philosophy. He headed the churchs Order
of the Infernal Grotto that explored Satanism in light of both
ancient and contemporary Pagan thought.
Through the mid-1990s, Gidneys thought matured, and
eventually the First Occult Church was closed and A Taste from
the Cauldron discontinued. In 1997 he began a new periodical,
Mourning Star, as an independent Satanist magazine. The following
year he reaffiliated with the Church of Satan, and in
January 1999 Lady Ygraine opened an occult bookstore, Pandoras
Box, in Port Saint Lucie that catered to Satanists and
other occultists. Pandoras Box closed after two years of operation.
In 1999 Gidney also led in the formation of the Nepotism
Grotto of the Church of Satan and has since that time served
as grotto master.
Gidney has come to see Satanism as a synthesis of social Darwinism,
the sociopolitics of the Machiavellian tradition, and
Nietzschean philosophical thought that has merged around a
religious aesthetic personified in the archetype of the antihero
(as understood from a Jungian psychological perspective). Satanism
is antiegalitarian and proposes a meritocracy that
threatens those who are weak of will and mind. As such, there
is nothing secretive about Satanism and nothing that places the
practitioner outside the law. Satanists are seen as adversaries of
social and intellectual stagnation.
A poet and musician, Gidney has organized the Jesus of
Borg rap-metal rock band for which Lady Ygraine provides the
vocals. The bands first CD was released in 2000. The band has
an Internet site at httpwww.geocities.comjesusofborg.
Sources
Mourning Star. Port Saint Lucie, Florida, n.d.
A Taste from the Cauldron. Port Saint Lucie, Florida, n.d.
