Most readers of The Satanic Bible who thought it resonated with them strike the Devil as people who immediately dreamed that one day others would bow before them, for they would be the highest embodiment of human life, then subsequently believed that the path from mediocrity to dominance is paved with a fervent insistence that one is a Satanist, and very little else.
Satan thinks they should re-read their book, because there is much wisdom to be found in it. Maybe one day Satan will explain how to read it or, more likely, He will assign the task to one of his underachieving minions as one of His many forms of recreational damnation.
Returning to the aforementioned readers of The Satanic Bible who take the Devil’s name upon themselves, Satan often hears them assert that they—Anton LaVey and his organization—came first. Before LaVey, Satanism was used exclusively as a slur, and no one had attempted to gather a group, ponder a philosophy, or realize a religious following bearing that name, they say: prior to LaVey, “Satanism” was used as a Christian slur against people whose conducts or beliefs the Christians disapproved of, especially in the US.
LaVey declared “year one” in 1966, and to his followers, that is about when physical time began because otherwise they might have noticed that several groups had existed decades earlier that openly embraced Satan Himself as their godhead. Some remained within the Christian discourse and believed in a literal devil, but others held Him as a symbol and a conduit of magic, quite like LaVey. Satan would know, as He has been summoned in plenty of their rituals, albeit often only to witness yet another attempt at alchemy involving a bowl of molten lead, various toxic chemicals, shiny crystals, and animal parts or human bodily secretions.
At least some of these groups were called Satanists. While those who chose that name for the groups (if a group had not itself settled for the name already) may not have blessed the practices and philosophies of the groups, and while they may not have used “Satanism” as an approving term, it was not the discreditation or accusation for which Christians usually reserve this word. When they—Christians and others—named these groups Satanists, surely it was not meant as a compliment, but considering that the groups honestly sided with Lucifer, it was a largely neutral description comparable to, say, Muslims describing the Jehova’s Witnesses as Christians. It actually fit in a sense that was very different from allegations and castigations of being child-eating cannibals, rapists, violent criminals, sodomites, and subversive decadents (and, in those days, the Jews).
Fast-forward to 1966 when Anton LaVey established The Church of Satan from his local group of occultists. His explanation of Satanism was originally formulated in the so-called “rainbow sheets” that he and his group distributed at seminars and lectures on his philosophy. These sheets made it into The Satanic Bible a few years later in the section “The Book of Lucifer,” with minor modifications. This is where we find out why Anton LaVey called it Satanism.
LaVey wrote surprisingly little about Satanic values or behaviors in The Satanic Bible, unless “The Book of Satan” means much more in practice than an infernal diatribe designed to rattle a few cages but not otherwise to be taken seriously. The Satanic Bible instead teaches us that in the 1960s, many Christians would behave according to their carnal natures—which the reader is assumed to know, despite psychologists struggling to identify and understand it over centuries—but then feel guilty about it. Anton LaVey proposed that man instead follow his carnal nature without guilt. According to LaVey, “they” (the comparatively high-strung Christians) named such ungodly behavior of fellow citizens who, if asked, would have answered truthfully that they considered themselves to be Christians: they named it Satanism. It was a slur aimed at people who would protest such accusations of being allied with the Devil.
Thus, LaVey’s Church of Satan was not the first group to refer to themselves as Satanists, because others had done this before. He also was not the first person to use the term “Satanism” as a non-Christian slur, both because it was used as a description of, not a slur against, the earlier groups of self-declared Satanists, and because the term for what LaVey proposed was in fact, by his own admission in The Satanic Bible, a slur that Christians used against other Christians.
Had LaVey been an educated individual with basic training in scientific method, he would promptly have realized that the observation that easy-going Christians exist and are disapproved of among orthodox Christians does not imply that only the latter are Christians while the former are Satanists. It merely implies that Christianity is not a monolithic entity but a mosaic of many elements (most of which Satan denounces, of course). Alas, what is done is done. Anton LaVey concluded in The Satanic Bible that “Satanism” is defined as the behavior of easy-going American Christians in the 1960s, blissfully unaware that overseas, Europeans viewed even such moderate American Christians, too, as religious nuts.
Satan thinks that, regardless, LaVey deserves credit for reclaiming the term, in the same sense that queers reclaimed a term that had until then been defamatory. He enabled some of the 1960s American Christians to turn it into pride and identity, together with nice black capes and a Baphomet lapel medallion. Satan also thinks that LaVey should be commended for making an attempt to augment their form of Christianity with a long overdue acknowledgment of His Infernal Majesty whether or not they be able to embed a minimal number of demonic principles in their own lives.
Both Anton LaVey and his organization have argued against accusations of choosing the term merely for shock value by rationalizing that it was simply the most fitting term at the time. In another time and place, another term might be more appropriate, their explanation goes. Satan is not altogether convinced that American 1960s Christianity could truly be named Satanism but otherwise agrees with His churchgoers. Satan thinks that His church should indeed apply the term that best describes them according to age, environment, and situation.
Present-day Christians use the term “Satanism” for one of two situations: either they describe truly destructive behavior that real Satanists, too, strongly oppose—although Satanists would use a different label to describe it; or they are fundamentalists to whom anything they disapprove of is the work of the Devil. No-one save zealots would think of using the term “Satanism” about LaVey’s philosophy. In today’s age, the term used by majority Christians would be “bad Christians” or “hypocritical Christians,” if at all they were noticed. Satan thinks it is about high time they change their name to “hypocrites” and leave the definition and practice of Satanism to their betters.