The Real Story

The Christian
Satanist

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…"
That's not a metaphor. That's biography.

†

The Soldier

Active duty.
Combat ready.

Les Smith served in the United States Navy, attached to VFA-115 Eagles, flying and supporting F/A-18E Super Hornets. This wasn't a desk job. He was in the noise, on the flight deck, in the mechanics of war.

He operated across three combat operations. He counted ordinance dropped and stopped counting somewhere past 500,000 pounds.

VFA-115 Eagles — EFR: Eagles Forever Rule. Carrier-based. Deployed aboard USS Abraham Lincoln, USS John C. Stennis. The kind of service that doesn't leave you the same.

"Who keeps counting after 500,000 lbs of ordinance?"

3
Combat Operations
F/A-18E
Super Hornet
VFA-115
Eagles Squadron
Operation Southern Watch Operation Enduring Freedom Operation Iraqi Freedom
•

The Darkness

Twenty years
in the other direction

After the uniform came off, the darkness moved in. Two decades of Satanism. Not a phase. Not a rebellion. A full life lived on the other side of the light. The tattoos aren't decoration — they are a record. Evidence. A body that tells the truth.

Les Smith back tattoo — pentagram occult piece
Back Piece
The pentagram. The first commitment.
Les Smith arm tattoo — Baphomet figure
Arm Piece
Baphomet. Twenty years of loyalty.
Les Smith leg tattoo — Celtic cross with numerology
Leg Piece
Celtic cross. Numbers. The map of a life.

Twenty years. Not curiosity. Not aesthetic.
A sincere, fully inhabited life in the dark —
and then something shifted.

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth;
and to him that knocketh it shall be opened."

Matthew 7:7–8 — KJV

The Turn

This is where
the story breaks open

He wasn't taught to sit with the evil inside him. He was taught to fear it. To run from it. To project it outward, to name it in others, to never look at it directly in himself.

Then he read Matthew 7:7. Not as theology. As instruction. Seek and ye shall find. What if the seeking was inward? What if the door was inside?

"I was not taught to accept that there was evil in my heart.

I was taught to fear it.

I do not fear now."

Jesus said face the evil within. Face yourself. The Satanism hadn't been wrong about the darkness — it had just stopped there. The darkness was real. The shadow was real. But it didn't have to be the destination.

The Christian Satanist is not a contradiction to be resolved. It is a tension to be held. Shadow and light. The leash and the beast. The wound and the witness.

The Thesis

Now my scars are my sermon, my blood is my hymn. I don't whisper my faith, I shout it to them. Cerberus walks with me, hell's gates obey, Christ holds the leash, the beast bows, and we pray.
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me."

Psalm 23:4 — KJV

Not metaphor.
Biography.

Most people read Psalm 23:4 as poetry. Les Smith read it as a report on his own life. He has walked through that valley. He has counted what fell from the sky. He has lived in the shadow for two decades.

And he still reached for the light.

"What you feel is not a flaw. It's a fire."

Your Weird, Your Wounds, Your Why

68 pages of poetry written from this place. Not decorated. Not polished. Pulled from the same testimony you just read.

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