My attraction to the Church of Satan... is the same thing that initially attracted me to PUNK rock. It was something that wasn't very ENTIRELY popular, and it was SORT of like the ADVERSARY to mainstream CULTURE and beliefs.
In the Cold WAR, a LOT of Soviet actions could be explained as extensions of Czarist imperial ambitions, but that didn't stop us from STUDYING Marxism in theory and COMMUNISM in practice to better UNDERSTAND that adversary.