Suitheism
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In Paganism, Neo-Paganism, and Satanism, a Suitheist is person who believes himself to be a god, but does not deny the existence of other gods. The term was coined by David Michael Cunningham and Traeonna Amanda R. Wagener (co-authors of the book Creating Magickal Entities) in 2001 (although the term had been used prior starting in 1998) when they were unable to find a "theism" to describe their principles of belief and others like them. Sui ("of oneself") comes from Latin, and theism (belief in the existence of a god or gods) from Greek.
The term autotheism has been used to mean the same thing in English since 1619. However, some find this confusing since the term has been used in the Christian context to mean "belief that one is God incarnate or that one is Christ." (see Ecclesiastical Terms (http://phrontistery.info/church.html)). Other definitions of autotheism are: "the soul becomes identical with God," "becoming wholly one with god," "belief in self-subsistence of God the Son," and "heresy that Jesus is God in Himself independent of the Godhead."
Seeing that Pagans, Neo-Pagans, and Satanists do not tend to identify with the Christian god, the term autotheism would seem incorrect to use. However, the term autotheism may be preferred over suitheism by etymological purists, since it comes from Greek words rather than partly from Latin and partly from Greek.
Most typically, Left-Hand Path Pagans and Modern Satanists would be considered Suitheists.
External link
- article on alt.satanism (http://groups.google.com/groups?q=suitheism&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&selm=76oq1i%24osf%241%40news6.svr.pol.co.uk&rnum=1) 3 Jan 1999 is the earliest reference to this word, according to Google.