Latter-day LaVeyans speak often, and they speak without understanding. Among their many confusions is the folklore they have built around Anton LaVey in the shape of easy claims and slogans, invented to worship a simpler and safer version of a the man. They mouth such phrases as peasants once mouthed prayers in dead tongues, clutching at sounds they neither comprehend nor question, eager to seem learned before the mirrors of their own ignorance.
They say LaVey did not believe in the Devil, as if stating it loudly and often enough could erase the parts they are too fearful or too ignorant to face.
Satan thinks otherwise. Satan thinks LaVey spoke plainly enough for those capable of reading without trembling.
LaVey imagined a dark force, a hidden current running through all living things, something he believed Satanic magicians could tap into and use for control. His idea was founded on outdated speculation and discarded pseudoscience, stitched together into something that sounded serious enough to believe. (Ironically, he thus shared more with the New Age dreamers of his time whom he despised than he would ever have admitted.) Yet, LaVey believed this force was real, and like all believers in the supernatural thought it to be natural.
He named it Satan. Not as mockery, not as jest, but because the name carried the right weight. His Infernal Majesty, too, thinks it was a fitting name, and a true one. LaVey’s Satan was thus symbol and reality both.
There was no veil drawn over this truth. It is in the pages of The Satanic Bible for anyone who can read. But his scavengers of thought paw through his words, mistaking scattered ashes for a fire they have never felt.
They say Satan is only a “symbol,” because they are too small to imagine that a symbol could point to anything greater than themselves. And they call LaVey an “atheist,” because the only god they can conceive must look like a man on a throne, wagging a finger.
Satan thinks Anton LaVey believed in a real force, unseen and indifferent, and chose to name it Satan—not to echo the superstitions of the pious, but because no lesser symbol can carry its weight. And Satan thinks that those who imagine otherwise are not heirs to his legacy, but vampires feeding on lifeblood they cannot make their own.