“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” This is the central value of Satanism, as expressed by Aleister Crowley, in his foundational book on Satanic belief, The Book of the Law.

Question: How do you effectively control a person?

Methods can vary, but history has shown that one of the most effective tools for this purpose is to tell people that they are in charge, that they are the masters of their own destiny. That they are their own gods.

Humans are predictable creatures. We make predictable choices: We often submit to our desires, we do whatever we can to preserve and bolster our egos, we wallow in short-term pleasures, and we hoard shiny things. This is the base core of the average human person.

If you tell people to be free, to do what they want, to “follow their heart,” and all the other self-help, positive psychology, liberal philosophy cliches and doctrines we constantly are being fed — everything from the jingoistic promise of “liberty, freedom, and empowerment for all” to a commercial slogan like “Just do it” — then people are all going to converge on that same basic core, all the while believing that they are truly the masters of their own destiny and firmly in control of who they are.

It is not unlike being a drug addict. Addicts feel like they are in control and feel like they are making their own decisions. And actually they are! But the problem is, those decisions are predictably bad and lead to nowhere except utter destruction. This is also how imperial powers used the introduction of drugs and alcohol to destroy and gain control of once powerful native peoples around the world.

Point being, reduce people to their base selves and they can be effectively controlled for whatever purpose.

And here’s the kicker. The “Golden Rule” is nothing other than, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” This, by itself, is an empty principle. It has no content. It cannot direct you to any action. It cannot help you make a moral choice. Why? Because it leaves open the question: what exactly would you have others do unto you? Treat others how you want to be treated? Well, how exactly do you want others to treat you? This is just another way of putting yourself at the center of the equation. What matters to you is all that matters. Your moral compass shall be your own graven image projected onto the world. That is not righteousness. That is idolatry.

Is it any wonder then that the Golden Rule is the central pillar of liberalism? And, yes, you will see those hackneyed posters about how all religions have a form of the Golden Rule. But that is deceptive because those versions of the Golden Rule are not meant to stand alone. They come in conjunction with religious law. So when the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم is reported to have said, “None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself,” he doesn’t mean that if a person wishes for himself to be married to his gay partner, for example, that he should wish that for others as well. No. What is meant is that a person wishes goodness for himself, and goodness is decided by Allah and not open to anyone’s personal whims and interpretation.

So, by cutting off the Golden Rule from its religious context and cleaving it from its place firmly embedded in the edifice of Allah’s commands — i.e., the Sharia — liberalism further propagates self-worship. And who was the first being to worship himself?

Al-A’raf (Q7:157)