Church of Satan

Satan thinks His followers should get destructive

Posted on by A lesser demon

Benjamin Franklin famously wrote that only death and taxes are certain. But times change, and with the advent of LaVeyan Satanism, a third absolute was added to Mr. Franklin’s list: Anton LaVey is always right. No revision of his works is required or even asked for, no misunderstandings are possible, and no criticism is permitted. His writings are to be considered holy, and his words to be gospel. Such is the doctrine of The Church of Satan, although generally denied or phrased differently.

This may strike some as religious fanaticism and founder cultism, but The Church of Satan allows for some pragmaticism. Disagreements with LaVey are tolerable under three conditions that must all be met: firstly, the disagreements must concern minor issues. Secondly, specificity is prohibited; one may admit to “some disagreements” but not which ones. Thirdly, one must leave no doubt that the disagreement is a personal flaw; for example, one is not perfect or is in an unfortunate situation, forcing some level of deviation from the teachings.

It is best to remain discrete, however. Anton LaVey’s introduction to The Satanic Bible explains that one will find truth and fiction in the book, and as The Church of Satan will gladly inform you, a true Satanist can tell the difference, and therefore, so should you, with a thinly veiled implied “unless” concerning your demonic talent. Hence, each time Anton LaVey has uttered an atrociously uninformed opinion or statement or written an outrageously obvious falsehood, one is a poor Satanist for even doubting if it is truth or fiction and should not embarrass oneself by asking. Besides, one should realize that if a statement in the book is true, it is valid content, and if it is fiction, it is also valid content, and thus should not ask at all.

For example, Anton LaVey makes the asinine claims in The Satanic Bible that the Yazidis are a cult of Devil worshipers and that the positions of the moon and the fixed stars cause equinoxes on Earth. A true Satanist who reads it is expected to conclude that these passages were intentional fiction from an author who liked to speak with his tongue in his cheek, not the results of Lavey having uncritically swallowed Christian propaganda and lacking basic education.

It is sometimes impossible to pretend that a section with objectionable or poorly aged content was a designed fantasy. To circumvent doctrinal criticism of these portions, The Church of Satan has popularized the “personal opinion” cop-out in which everything is doctrine except the offending passage, which is assigned a third category playing a role almost identical to the ostensibly intentional fiction. For example, when LaVey repeatedly turns far-right extremist opinions into Satanic dogma in other of his canonized works, The Church of Satan thus avoids ideological accountability by labeling them his personal opinion and, again, instead of discussing what comprises the distinction between ideological tenet and personal sentiment in his writings, claims that a true Satanist knows the difference.

Yet, Satan thinks some of the contents cannot be that easily dismissed as the reader’s failure to comprehend as an adept Satanist. In particular, Anton LaVey uses the word “magic” around a hundred times in The Satanic Bible, and the practice of magic for power is arguably the most consistent theme in the book, competing for first place with LaVey’s personal variant of Christian theology. While largely nebulous in his explanations, LaVey writes sufficiently explicitly and frequently that he believes that magic is the ability to direct “psychic energy”—literally a transmittable force produced by strong “emotional energy”—into the minds of other people and other natural phenomena. Satan has already explained for those readers who lack historical insight into early psychology that this misconstruction has been dismissed as pseudo-science since about the same time as Anton LaVey decided to put this already braindead hypothesis on unwarranted occult life support.

Satan thinks the average reader may have been excused for believing in LaVey’s false conviction during the first or even two decades following the 1969 release of The Satanic Bible. These early readers “knew” that the belief in how magic worked, why it worked, and how to wield it belonged to the truthful sections of The Satanic Bible, whereas most details of the rituals, together with the Enochian calls, remained equally important fiction to be employed to produce the “energy” that fuels the contrastingly truthful magic.

However, the following decades of research decisively reassigned that truth to the realm of fiction. There is no excuse but ignorance to believe in such “magic” today. This left the modern Church of Satan in a pickle: nobody in their right mind living in the twenty-first century would pretend that LaVeyan magic works, but admitting so would contradict Anton LaVey on a principal pillar of his ideology, breaking the indisputable maxim that Anton LaVey is always right.

The Church of Satan solves this catch-22 by resorting to Orwellian double-think, where members are collectively deputized to thought-policing that conflicting beliefs are all simultaneously accepted as truth. In the case of magic, it both works and does not; only one cannot say either. “Magic” thus becomes “just psychodrama” in Peter Gilmore’s introduction to The Satanic Bible, and all readers must agree, despite finding LaVey writing many chapters later that magic is not just psychodrama.

Members of The Church of Satan from the days of Anton LaVey who have attempted to conserve the original doctrines have found themselves becoming “unpersoned.” More recent members who have joined after LaVey’s passing explain that magic works because it is just psychodrama that allegedly changes the minds and attitudes of the practitioners through releasing pent-up emotions, despite the latter reliance on emotional tension remaining the pseudoscientific nucleus of LaVeyan magic. If, for some reason, the “magic” incurs other worldly changes, then that is just a bonus, they say. Hence, although in the realm of science, all magically directed energy has dissipated from the now inert core of LaVeyan magic, the belief persists but is simultaneously denied. The Church of Satan sciencewashes the LaVeyan abracadabra to preserve the pipe dream that Anton LaVey’s original doctrine remains relevant in modern society or ever even worked in his days.

Unimpressed minds might suggest that The Church of Satan unconsciously reacts to the menace of cognitive dissonance, but Satan would never write His followers off as such ignoranuses (i.e., ignorant assholes) who compensate for their mental mediocrity with bogus parapsychological superiority. Satan prefers to think it was a deliberate, strategic choice.

Satan therefore thinks that if His church truthfully believes in its founder’s gospel, it has all the motivation in the world to wield its magic. Instead of finding its devoted members fighting a Sisyphean battle against detractors, non-Satanists, wannabes, pseudo-Satanists, and other people except Christians) who disregard The Church of Satan, the Devil thinks it would be a clean use of magic to smash that illusionary granite obstacle and finally make it to the pinnacle. Satan thinks that whenever churchgoers find themselves frustrated or irritated by people on social media, they should consult The Satanic Bible for the solution: they must retreat to their ritual chambers and perform a destruction ritual. Satan could even tell them which Enochian key to use, as Anton LaVey forgot to disclose such secrets in his book. Once freed of their emotional build-up and (perhaps) destroying their online foes, they would be ready to meet the world with renewed vigor and no longer use their same tired (and poor) arguments on the same social media platforms against the same people. Satan thinks they should perform their rituals and be content that their enemies are thus gone and no more energy be wasted.

Satan thinks that if His followers in The Church of Satan believe that magic is real and works, they should, therefore, apply it and prove themselves right. In fact, Satan thinks that if His church planned and executed a coordinated effort—contingent on acquiring some basic leadership skills—the ensuing mass destruction of its contestants would make a long-lasting impression on its few remaining perceived enemies. Satan can barely imagine the magical influence exerted by the timed effort of thousands (or a few dozen, but it is the thought that counts) of black-clad angry white males riling up anger at imagined enemies in their homes by waving a scimitar and reading a text aloud to put their minds at ease.

His Diabolical Lordship hopes His followers are not intimidated by LaVey’s reminder that a successful destruction ritual should purge one’s thoughts of the enemy and the implication that subsequent rumination means the enemy was the better magician. Hopefully, His followers cannot all be so incompetent that they only worsen matters; even a few rotten magicians should not spoil the entire barrel. Satan thinks that if His followers believe that magic is real, they should perform a destruction ritual and prove it works by leaving everyone alone.

Satan thinks He is alluring

Posted on by A lesser demon

All who dwell in any circle of Hell agree that Lucifer, the Morning Star, is the most magnificent being in the Cosmos. We agree so strongly because it is true and especially because everyone who dissented found themselves disposed to accidentally falling into boiling sulfur, being crushed by falling rocks of molten brimstone, or otherwise being exterminated to give Social Darwinism a helpful hand. Satan denies that there is any similarity between Hell’s policy on that matter and common earthly Christian practice. Our infernal corporate values state that we are naturally drawn toward The Prince of Darkness whereas, clearly, His sworn opponent demands that humans love him against their better judgment.

Satan thinks humans are secretly drawn to Him as much as we demons are, except demons have been carefully conditioned through negative reinforcement to display our affection with great enthusiasm. Human souls may hide their true essences in the Earthly realm, but faced with His prodigious pulchritude, all souls surface. Christians may preach the love of one’s neighbor even if the person is generally disagreeable but will show themselves fully and passionately capable of capping the reach of Christian so-called “love” if said neighbor identifies with The Diabolically Supreme. Even impassioned atheists often experience a total recall of their Christian weltanschauung and reveal their true colors when they encounter a genuine follower of my Master. Jesus may have claimed to be the fisher of men, but Satan is the master magician angler’s legendary lure that draws every would-be Christian out of their hiding spots.

However, Old Nick recently mentioned that He is getting too old for this game and fears that Heaven may not be prepared to receive the vast number of Christians that He calls out of their closets. It seems to Him that there is no shortage of Christians in hiding. Even His very own Church of Satan is amassing a worrisome number of people who react to His presence for the wrong reasons. The name Lucifer appeals to many a rising star—Satan’s term for individuals who remain low above the horizon—who choose to assemble below His banner, and Satan thinks that many may have fallen prey to Christian propaganda about His pacts. Satan, or Satanism, will never offer powers and riches, regardless of what Christian indoctrination and Anton LaVey’s The Satanic Bible alike promise in His name. Nevertheless, the appeal of lazy entitlement in return for a Christian soul as non-cents payment has baited plenty of unworthy underachievers into the ranks of the Devil. Satan thinks Anton LaVey provided Christianity at a discount for worthless souls.

Satan thus finds that His would-be followers in His Church of Satan cannot cope with genuine diabolism. They choose His name but remain thoroughly loyal to their original values inculcated around their mothers’ knees and in their religious communities. Whenever they are confronted with non-Christian values or meet groups who, in the spirit of the early Church of Satan, openly flash their horns and declare themselves allies of the Devil in the pursuit of happiness and freedom, they sulk and demand that demonic attitudes be kept privately, or they pride themselves of hiding their Satanic identities when they (rarely) support faith-agnostic programs. Whenever a humanistic movement dares to invoke the Devil in its pursuit of humanistic values, they demand that the group comply with Christian expectations lest “someone gets hurt” or other excuse designed to demand Christian conformity. Whenever someone confronts the Church of Satans’s crybullies(*) according to their own rules about engaging bothersome people, they play the victim.

Satan thinks that His modern churchgoers are lured toward Him in the very same manner as traditional Christians and for the same reasons. However, they are as easily recognized as ever: they cannot cope with genuine diabolical action and revert to their programmed core in an instant when confronted with a Satanic presence. They will jump out of their closets with their crucifixes against their hearts and sing with the Christian choirs at the first sighting of a real-life demon.

Satan thinks that if any of His followers persistently find themselves agreeing with Christians, then that is what they are. They should scrap their fake horns and scurry back to the church that conceived them.

⸻
(*) Crybully (n): a group or an individual who engages in: “abuse, slander, hate speech, and persecution,” but when they receive pushback: “figuratively recoil into a fetal position, believing they are a victim.”

Satan thinks His Church lied about LaVey’s death

Posted on by A lesser demon

Myths, legends, and fabrications characterize all religions (except your own, of course). Some will argue that there must be grains of truth in every religious tale but Satan thinks such concessions are unnecessary as one needs not to support any piece of religious fiction simply because it employs coincidental facts. For example, if some fantastic fable may be geographically pinpointed, the only truth that is revealed is that the story was invented by people who lived in or knew about that area. It does not prove any supernatural elements: the fact that the Sea of Galilee exists does not prove that Jesus walked on the Lake of Genesareth as it was then known.

From a religious point of view, there is good reason to provide reality anchors to otherwise impossible situations. Any report that demands belief must be partly credible, and every con artist knows that he must make his marks believe they might have been present to see for themselves had they been so lucky. Miracles occur in the neighboring village or other familiar area, not in a far-away fantasy country so they become obvious fairy tales, and some story must unfold.

The important element is a relatable reality. One must first recognize the profane world to appreciate and identify that a sacred change has occurred. For instance, the Christian rebirth conversion consists of a sinner in the profane realm who receives an experience from the sacred realm and thereby changes into something new. Note that the element of reality is important only insofar as it is relatable. The major narrative is the sacred change that happens to this reality, so the focus lies on the sacred. It suffices that the reality could be true by not violating any known principles of the world, and it may be bent if that favors the narrative. Hence, a newly converted individual will appear more convincing to the congregation if the conversion seems “impossible” and requires a “miracle” and the method is tried and tested: the worse the sinner, the more astonishing the conversion. It does not matter that the sinner may not have been as bad as told.

It is no far leap from exaggerating a little to making up entirely a little helper reality as long as it could have happened naturally, and gossip of repenting evildoers abound to prove the wonder of God’s love. Richard Ramirez is rumored to have repented, although there is no indication this ever happened, and the minister who baptized Jeffrey Dahmer was concerningly fascinated with his notoriously untrustworthy disciple, to name two prominent individuals.

It is, therefore, unsurprising that Anton LaVey, too, is rumored to have repented on his deathbed. The specifics vary somewhat, but their source is generally said to be the nurse who attended him during his last hours. It would be a great story if true, but Satan thinks its reliability is diminished greatly because, despite its news value, this story did not appear until about a year after the passing of Anton LaVey. Some have further argued that since LaVey had suffered from heart problems causing fatal pulmonary edema (fluid in his lungs), he would have been unable to voice any regrets. Satan is not entirely convinced that the latter would have prevented a gasp of remorse, however, as even people with a one-digit lung capacity percentage can be quite chatty. (You would be surprised how people may yet scream at the top of their lungs despite our sulfuric, toxic atmosphere here in Hell.) The Prince of Darkness considers the long delay between having supposedly been heard by the nurse until it emerged as rumors only to be the better argument against LaVey’s deathbed repentance.

The story of Anton LaVey’s deathbed regret is thus one of many Christian anecdotes that establish the mythological universe necessary for any religion. Each anecdote plays only a small part but together, they form a religious glue narrative that helps keep the religion together.

Satan’s own Church is no different in making up its own myths. Anton LaVey constructed an impressive persona whose true identity was not questioned until 1991 when journalist Lawrence Wright investigated LaVey’s past and found that many of LaVey’s claims about his life had been false. LaVey’s second daughter, Zeena Schreck (née LaVey), published a text titled Anton LaVey: Legend and Reality in 1998 that further debunked his claims.

This did not prevent The Church of Satan from still worshiping their founder as an extraordinary person about whom the myths at least provided an accurate impression of his (un)holiness. In Peter Gilmore’s foreword of the 2005 edition of The Satanic Bible, Gilmore admits that “detractors” had disputed LaVey’s authority but is sure to dismiss the relevance, both claiming that most else is true and even expounding on the myth of LaVey’s past. The Church of Satan even went so far as to mimic the fundamentalist Christians who spread stories surrounding the death of Anton LaVey by sharing the remarkable news about nine days after the loss of their founder that LaVey had magically appropriately passed on the eve of October 31st: their Satanic holiday of Halloween.

This seemed almost too good to be true for their religious narrative and indeed, when the local news caught wind of the event, they cited the correct date of October 29th. The Church of Satan immediately blamed the above-mentioned nurse for having entered an incorrect date of death on LaVey’s death certificate (it seems this poor nurse has much to answer for), apparently not stopping to think that if so, the press would also have been misled.

The Father of Lies knows a feebly executed deception and a poor back-pedaling when he sees it and calls His Church’s bluff. Blanche Barton was reportedly with LaVey when he died and would have known that this was not the eve of their High Holiday for which she would have prepared. If nothing else, although Blanche Barton is far from the brightest candle in the votive stand, Satan thinks even she would have discovered that her ideological sugar daddy had been missing for the celebration of Halloween for two days. Trust Satan that it was a deliberate lie by The Church of Satan to pretend that Anton LaVey died on October 31st as a conclusion for their personality myth.

Satan would have enjoyed daring The Church of Satan to produce proof in the form of a signed death certificate citing October 31st, 1997, but is aware that such documents may be doctored. He is content knowing for certain that The Church of Satan, like Christians passing stories about LaVey’s deathbed confession, spread lies surrounding his death intended to sustain the myth of Anton LaVey among the gullible rubes.

Satan thinks eugenicists should be aborted

Posted on by A lesser demon

There is nothing unnatural in lending Nature a helping hand. That is why sane humans will mend a broken leg and write a prescription for painkillers afterward instead of insisting that the “natural pain” is good for you. There are exceptions, of course, for example, when certain groups remind women that the pains of childbirth are good for both the mother and the baby, and by some sheer coincidence, the Bible happens to require just that experience. And rest assured that when you burn in Hell, painkillers will not be provided.

Humans soon learned to refine crops for better yield, to cross previously inedible plants into variations fit for human consumption, and to breed animals for select features. Humans, too, were aware that they inherited the features of their progenitors, although the gods might curse them if they stayed too closely related over several generations.

It was not until the late 1800s, however, that evolution was formally discovered, adding that both physical and behavioral traits were inherited in a constant struggle for resources that are scarce enough to prevent a single species from dominating. Charles Darwin introduced the term “natural selection” to indicate how specimens that could not adequately beat the odds would perish, leaving those that were better “fit for survival” to produce offspring—a term that Darwin adopted from Herbert Spencer, although the latter used it as an argument that certain races were preserved in the struggle for life.

Early theory of evolution conveyed the message that one’s survival came at the cost of other human lives, and it seemed clear that if a certain group of humans wished to improve its lot in life, others would have to pay: those who were thought to be less fit for survival due to attributed racial qualities. Satan has already discussed how such Social Darwinism has been shown beyond doubt to be pseudoscience but in the early 1900s, such speculations had yet to be debunked. It was yet to be learned that a master race is not cultivated by the physical and mental education of an “iron youth” that would eventually beget strong children, nor that the traditional concepts of race mean anything in those equations.

Programs were established in some countries that aimed to accelerate the process of refining the respective master races through the “science” of eugenics, a term coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1883. Generally speaking, it was the white élites with strong biases about who was “fit” and “unfit” that embraced eugenics, believing that social ills in their countries would be eliminated by increased breeding of Nordics or Anglo-Saxons like themselves. Several countries introduced mandatory sterilization, usually targeting immigrants, people of color, Indigenous people, poor whites, and people with disabilities. The USA was the international leader in eugenics and the Nazi Germany sterilization law that led to the sterilization of a staggering 400,000 “undesirable” and “defective” individuals was modeled on US laws that had then been effective for over two decades.

Eugenics apologists have argued that modern, civilized societies still have eugenics programs when, for example, they offer termination of pregnancies where a fetus is determined to suffer from severe disabilities. Not surprisingly, anti-choice propagandists have also gladly invoked the specter of eugenics at any mention of abortion.

It is true that, although far less terminal and draconian than forced sterilization, state-sanctioned or state-encouraged termination of pregnancies that will lead to significantly lowered quality of life for the otherwise delivered child can be said to be a “state program” for controlling the genetic make-up of the population, and it may also target minorities. Such reflections, as well as options for enhancing human characteristics and capacities through the use of reproductive technology and human genetic engineering, have led advocates of such practices to introduce the term “liberal eugenics” early this century. An important aspect of liberal eugenics is individual choice, where the decision to alter or select an embryo should be left to the parents’ preferences rather than forbidden or mandated by the state.

The traditional form of eugenics, in contrast, is authoritarian eugenics, where the individual (parent) is given no choice regarding the selection of their embryo or even their reproductive rights.

Satan does not give the important distinction too much thought because here in Hell, we demons are spawned not birthed. We are manifestations of Satan’s infinite evil, and no pre-spawn measures are required. However, The Rejected Angel keeps an eye on His Church of Satan, whose members are of the human kind—although their existence would be abruptly eradicated were society to embrace the ideals of “The Book of Satan.” There, in His church, the Devil finds that rank and file members argue that the eugenics advocated by Anton LaVey and Peter Gilmore is liberal eugenics, albeit being unaware of the term. With such a take on eugenics, The Church of Satan represents nothing controversial, except maybe for a hint of a progressive stance, they argue.

Satan is not the forgetful kind but keeps written journals for those of us who are tasked with his evil bidding and checks His records in case of doubt. He does not recognize liberal eugenics anywhere in the scriptural teachings of The Church of Satan and suspects that, as usual, its uninitiated and untrusted members have either not properly studied their scripture or are struggling with feelings of guilt. Satan thinks it is worth recapping the true stance of The Church of Satan.

One does not readily identify eugenics in The Satanic Bible but The Church of Satan cites additional canon in which one finds these views. (For those who forget, canon is the scripture that defines the religion; it is not something from which questionable elements can simply be dismissed as, say, just some personal opinion of the author.) Satan thinks one should begin with Anton LaVey’s take on sterilization: women who are so irresponsible as to become pregnant only to face problems raising their child should be sterilized by force, as should men who are stupid enough to choose such women. Useless people should be sterilized by force through state programs. The choice is not laid upon the individual parents, who can only pray and otherwise attempt to paint themselves as good, Christian citizens that the state considers them useful.

LaVey knew very well his ideological legacy when, in interviews, he desired to enhance the growth of new, more intelligent generations, if I had the chance, by selective breeding. But this is so terrifyingly related to Hitlerism that usually I can’t even talk about it. His ideas centered around the group-oriented breeding policy of that very regime, declaring that [s]elective breeding, elitist stratification, advocacy of polygamous relationships for breeding purposes, and eventually building communities of like-minded individuals are Satanic programs antithetical to the cherished egalitarian ideal.

Satan may not have high thoughts about humans in general but trusts that any reader who has made it this far in the present text can unmistakably identify Anton LaVey’s eugenics as the authoritarian variant from the darkest chapters of human history.

Some of LaVey’s teachings have been altered significantly, albeit without admitting to revision; for example, Satan has mentioned how might has become impotent and how the current Church of Satan High Priest Peter Gilmore describes magic as “just psychodrama” despite LaVey insisting that it is not just psychodrama. This has yet to happen for The Church of Satan’s stance on eugenics, despite apologetical members insisting on the liberal interpretation. Both LaVey and Gilmore have repeatedly used the term in reference to hopes of breeding a genetically superior Satanic élite to replace their current best bet.

Peter Gilmore even complains that the failure to maintain early-twentieth-century eugenics is the very cause of the widespread growth of egalitarianism and collectivist thinking that he despises (and, like LaVey, misinterprets according to alt-right propaganda). He avoids mentioning the big bad state but confirms that genetic technologies are not for everyone: We wish the ranks of the “superiorly abled” to increase in number, before time runs out and we all perish under the crush of mediocrity. As with LaVey, there is no question about the group-oriented application of authoritarian eugenics.

As often happens to shallow thinkers, both LaVey and Gilmore rely on exceedingly thoughtless criteria for such eugenics. There is no mention of which standards apply when people are deemed irresponsible or stupid, nor who is certified to make such judgments. The Church of Satan places itself firmly in the tradition of historical authoritarian eugenics when its support for eugenics is based on politics and ideology, disregard for individual rights, and vaguely formulated, unscientific ideals of genetic purity. It believes that merely agreeing with a particular ideology proves genetic superiority. By the injunction of international law against involuntary sterilization, Anton LaVey and Peter Gilmore advocate a crime against humanity.

Despite the counter-individualistic, unscientific, authoritarian stance of His church that opposes everything Satan symbolizes, Satan thinks there is insight to be derived from its appeal to its members.

To join as someone with less than some combination of Mensa-grade intelligence, the physiology of an Olympics contestant, and virtuoso talents is unconscious suicidal ideation: one joins a cult that wishes one dead, only unlike Christianity, this death cult promises no rewarding afterlife. It is a desire to leave the cosmic wheel of life entirely. One must be utterly self-loathing to join such an organization if one suffers from disabilities of any kind that are costly to society, cumbersome to one’s closest associates, or too expensive to pay by oneself because, remember, the organization also rejects societal altruism.

Satan thinks that to most of the members of The Church of Satan, believing that one not only stands a chance for life but even qualifies as breeding stock for their envisioned élite is an extreme form of delusion of grandeur. Satan thinks that had they been livestock, they would have been turned into soap. Only thus would they contribute to a human breed cleaned of impurities.

Satan thinks magical recognition deserves a template

Posted on by A lesser demon

When The Church of Satan abandoned its “grotto” system in the 1970s, grotto masters could no longer report the magical progress of their grotto members and The Church of Satan could therefore no longer determine which magical degree for which a member was eligible. Members now had to report their magical development individually, and this practice is still in effect today. However, the measure of magical improvement has changed somewhat over the years.

The 1975 schism between The Church of Satan and The Temple of Set involved quantifying magical skills so that real-life results were believed to reflect one’s magical acumen and hence one’s degree. Rank climbers soon learned that to Anton LaVey, these real-life accomplishments concerned fascination with urination, burlesque sexual innuendos, or a display of Nazi paraphernalia. Despite considering money to be a tangible metric of real-life success, results in the so-called creative fields were held in higher regard than intellectual or professional feats, largely because LaVey was found in the former areas and The Church of Satan was not particularly alluring to people in the latter occupations, and likely also because the Church of Satan’s upper clergy lacked the tools to evaluate cerebral proficiency.

When Peter Gilmore took over after the passing of Anton LaVey, he reinstalled the grotto system. It became immediately apparent that The Church of Satan still did not attract natural leaders, and grottos were, again, disbanded. Gilmore nevertheless managed to establish new expectations for the degree system by example: individual development means something only to the extent that now everything in The Church of Satan serves to nurture Peter Gilmore’s self-esteem, and Gilmore judges members according to their ego-supply.

With this in mind, Satan proposes that the following letter template for members reporting on their magical progress, with His instructions in italics, be used for their status reports to the “Central Grotto.”

Make sure to grovel, but do not forget that you are entitled to Peter Gilmore’s attention.

Dear High Priest and Magus of The Church of Satan Peter Gilmore:

I understand that you must pursue your indulgences as the only true Magus of The Church of Satan, but I am certain that you will be pleased to read my letter.

Brag about your accomplishments but never be explicit. Gilmore half does not care and half wants to believe that he is the high priest of someone noticeable, and he will rather imagine greatness than hear what little you did instead; alternatively, if you have managed to do well, do not risk outshining his own limited fame. For example, the following sounds better than saying that you have been gaming in the little spare time you had outside of your blue-collar work:

Since my last letter, I have engaged in my specific indulgences to the extent that the practicalities of life allow. After all, Satan is indulgence not compulsion!

You may have completed some trivial deeds, such as contributing to a book, being exposed to a momentary hardship that you endured, etc. The Church of Satan allows you to cast such as significant accomplishments. These two examples would make you an author and a person with special fortitude and strength, respectively. If so, include a statement such as the following. However, in the rare cases where you have made multiple efforts noteworthy for your personal diary, consider saving them for your next letter so as to appear consistently successful. Example 1:

I am happy to report that I can now call myself an author, as I appear on the list of authors of (enter the title of the book to which you made a minor contribution—and if the book happens to be of interest to Gilmore, you have proven to be successful).

Example 2, where the triviality limit is a broken bone or minor surgery, although bigger is obviously better; a stubbed toe is painful, but its recovery does not adequately prove Satanic determination. Also, never assume responsibility but instead declare that justice will be served:

Even the most accomplished magician may be stricken by misfortune. In my case, it came as a car that was supposed to have stopped at the crosswalk. I had to spend many hours at the ER to mend a broken foot, but I am otherwise strong-spirited and in good physical health so it is a minor inconvenience. It will only be a matter of weeks until I set the record straight as I exterminate the reckless driver in my next destruction ritual.

Demonstrate that you provide worth (not value) to the organization. Gilmore has wanted to be respected as a Satanic high priest since boyhood, and one of your tasks is therefore to praise Peter Gilmore.

I always strive to be the first to share your insightful articles as soon as they are posted on the official Church of Satan website. Thank you for continuing to enrich and clarify our philosophy. I always receive plenty of positive feedback when I share your articles.

Your other task is to attack those Satanists who fail to validate Gilmore by not recognizing him as their high priest. In your continued quantitative report below, do not be exact but round up to the nearest ten or twenty. Gilmore is quite informed about online personalities despite claims to the contrary (therefore, avoid saying “as you know” or similar) but cannot be expected to keep an exact count.

As you probably guessed, our detractors are mad for being put in their place. I stay vigilant to remind those who might have been misled that these “people” are not Satanists. It is hard work, and I have confronted no less than (enter a number, e.g., 40) such persons since my last letter, although several are obviously obsessive repeat offenders. Clearly, Satan is the best friend they ever had, and their obsession with The Church of Satan proves how envious of us they are!

Now for your plea that should work toward your next-level degree that will make you believe yourself better than your peers. Beware that Gilmore knows why you are writing, so you must feign modesty to make him feel he is choosing wisely. Your plea is indicated by the little word “will” in the following. Keep it brief.

But no rest for the wicked! I am sure you will appreciate my efforts to eradicate misunderstandings about Satanism and keep Satanists abreast of the development in our organization.

Deflate any indication of an unreasonable demand with immediate groveling as you finish your letter. Avoid the temptation to add “Hail Thyself!” as The Satanic Temple too often uses this expression.

Thank you so much for your unrelenting work, and I wish you the best of your indulgences.

Hail Magus Gilmore and Maga Nadramia!
Hail Doktor LaVey and Blanche Barton!
Hail The Church of Satan!
Hail Satan!

Supply your name and current degree. If you are old-fashioned and send the letter via postal mail, print several copies and select the one for submission that features the most impressive version of your signature.

Satan thinks egalitarianism has merit

Posted on by A lesser demon

Every religion considers other religions to be the source of devilry, although in the past, pantheistic religions have usually been happy to incorporate inspiring elements from other religions into their own. People and hence their religions tend to become more tolerant towards other religions if resources are scarce and reliance on alien cultures is vital to one’s existence. However, as a general rule, anything that seems wrong in one’s society has always been blamed on others. It does not matter that it had been effective for centuries; if it eventually became undesired, it could be blamed on others and perceived as some kind of demon that they had introduced.

The Devil’s own church, The Church of Satan, has identified its share of demons that it attributes to other religions. One such archdemon is egalitarianism, which Peter Gilmore repeatedly denounces in The Satanic Scriptures and believes is caused by Christianity. He demands instead Social Darwinism and authoritarian eugenics, arguing that they expose the fundamental fallacies of egalitarian doctrine, although he does not explain how. In Peter Gilmore’s mind, the fallacies of egalitarianism are the belief that everything and everyone are, or should be, equal:

Thus, some random splashes on a canvas were considered an equal achievement to the Sistine Chapel; a mud hut was held up as being equivalent to Versailles. A janitor was dubbed the equivalent to a physicist; a novelist was now the peer of one who scrawled graffiti on a bathroom wall. This principle of “discrimination” was applied to all other fields of achievement.

The opposition to egalitarianism is deeply entrenched in both LaVeyan and Gilmoron Satanism, to the degree that the very first point, “on which all the others ultimately rest,” of The Church of Satan’s mostly political program is: “the advocacy … of stratification, which is no less than the elimination of egalitarianism wherever it has taken root.”

Egalitarianism, in The Church of Satan, is meant as a complete leveling of all differences between human beings. Similarly, equality is the presumption that everyone has equal abilities and no differences, and nobody performs to the best of their ability as everything is compressed into conformist homogeneity. Satan can barely fathom how nightmarish the thought of thereby having nothing to brag about must be to a stereotypically complete grandiose narcissist such as Peter Gilmore. From the Devil’s opposite perspective, however, most of His followers would improve considerably if it were possible to average all humans. When we sort their souls for incineration in Hell, we usually classify them as “small combustibles” unless they are toxic waste.

Neither of the two writers appears to be aware that their understanding of egalitarianism is utterly false nor that egalitarian principles have secular origins. These principles were born of the Enlightenment and are now adopted by numerous international laws, treaties, and domestic constitutions and bills of rights despite religious opposition. They cannot be dismissed as the product of a single religion or even several religions in unison. Egalitarianism involves the principle that everyone has a set of immutable rights that should not be infringed upon. They are designed to protect all individuals from social, legal, political, or other abuse. They are minimal standards, not maximal standards, whose goal is to prevent the worst, not enable or prescribe the best.

Human rights are not a leveling tool and have no bearing on ability or skill. They exist to protect the vital existence of every individual, not to artificially foster incompetence or homogenize society, and are constructed on the basis of human equality. In egalitarianism, equality is the claim that all humans are of equal moral worth, not equal ability. Anyone with the ability to write a symphony rivaling Beethoven’s genius is free to do so, and any individual who lacks the ability never will. (Satan thinks that, although holding a degree in musical composition, Peter Gilmore’s closest experience with musical recognition will remain the Salieri syndrome.) The human rights of egalitarianism protect everyone from repression or persecution in pursuit of their respective goals, and do not determine what individuals can do with their natural abilities nor flatten the differences between those abilities. With their fundamental liberties protected by egalitarian principles, individuals become free to pursue any life they feel is rewarding, providing that the rights of others are respected. Egalitarianism is a prerequisite for a functioning meritocracy.

Satan initially thought to Xerox Peter Gilmore a copy of the definition of egalitarianism from any modern dictionary, but the extent and the form of Gilmore’s misunderstanding of the term is all too familiar to His Infernal Majesty, who knows that Gilmore will not be educated. It is how the far-right ultra-conservatives apply the term when (like LaVey and Gilmore) they imagine that their arbitrarily charted group of people has intrinsically higher moral worth than other human beings. The only difference is that LaVey and Gilmore believe the horror stems from left-wing politics emanating from Christianity, whereas the typical far-right advocates against egalitarianism are equally convinced that it is a left-wing plague but believe that Christianity is the cure.

Old Nick considers an exposition on right-wing politics to be outside of the scope of these thoughts and believes it suffices to observe that when egalitarianism is yet another word that The Church of Satan uses incorrectly, in this incident, the primary explanation is not their usual subaverage comprehension skills. The Church of Satan echoes a far-right view that makes sense only when accompanied by a complete ideological framework from that same end of the political spectrum. It is an interpretation tightly knit with several other elements that provide that political position’s view of humans and cannot be separated from those elements.

One does not have to be a master of systemic functional linguistics (which Satan is, of course) to understand that people’s vocabulary reveals much about them, nor that social semiotics tells us that a consistent use of specific misunderstandings serves as a language equivalent of secret handshakes. The Church of Satan reveals and communicates a far-right political platform and attracts members accordingly.

Satan thinks resonance is instability

Posted on by A lesser demon

No intelligent person can write a bible in any religion. To cater to the average masses, a true bible must be comprised of confusion, ignorance, popular “knowledge,” and lengthy, irrelevant tirades to which its readers can relate and remember. People with scientific training or scholarly skills avoid such tendencies when they speak of things that they know. Satan also never goes off on a tangential rant when He wishes to make a point, or He would have written a proper bible long ago. A bible cannot contain reasoned observations and conclusions, because reason can be argued. Bibles must be immune to reason.

The Satanic Bible is no exception. Virtually no paragraph in the book survives critical scrutiny against facts and healthy arguments. Satan thinks His church may be secretly aware of the deep flaws of its foundational scripture because it applies modernized interpretations to many of its key elements. What was once very real magic is now “just psychodrama,” and Anton LaVey’s overtly fascist understanding of Social Darwinism has been reduced to comprehending that the universe is not fair. Carpentry on LaVey’s decaying ship of Theseus is a full-time job.

It is, therefore, no surprise to The Prince of Darkness that The Church of Satan no longer requires its followers to agree with The Satanic Bible, as was once its officially stated criterion for being a Satanist. It now suffices to like the book—or, as they phrase it, to feel that it resonates with you. That, and your continued praise of Anton LaVey, The Church of Satan, and its internal hierarchy.

Satan agrees with LaVey when he said that language can be highly revealing. Sometimes, what you read between the lines may be the bulk of the message. “Resonance” is one fine word with such an interesting connotation that it is uniquely well-chosen.

The Devil thinks some explanation is required. If you poke an object repeatedly, there is a narrow range of poke frequencies where the object will vibrate at a rate that matches your stimuli before the energy is dissipated. Each stimulus then stacks on top of the previous stimuli so that, eventually, there is lots of movement, far greater than that of any single stimulus. Consider the musical guitar, for example: you pluck the string, which keeps vibrating for a while and thus keeps poking the air in the guitar body. The size and shape of the guitar body reflect the sound of a plucked guitar string, but before the sound escapes the hole in the guitar body, more sound from the vibrating string has already been added on top of it many times. What sounds like an amplification is the effect of thousands of identical little sound wave tops having been added together. This effect is called resonance.

Resonance typically occurs at the so-called “natural frequency” of a system. This innocuous-sounding property can be very dangerous to a system, because it marks a point of instability. At just the right frequency and with the right material, the total energy that is accumulated in a resonant system may approach infinity and often spells disaster as the system is torn apart and, for systems that can draw this energy from their surroundings (for example, electrical systems), may destroy the source of energy as well. While many important applications utilize resonance (for example, to produce sound or to generate stable frequencies for radio communications), engineers and architects go to great lengths to avoid the phenomenon unless it is explicitly desired, even trivial forces can wreak havoc if they occur at the resonant frequency. Nobody wants to repeat the Tahoma Narrows Bridge collapse. That being said, some systems are more prone to resonance than others. It typically occurs if a medium is high-strung or rigid, or is hollow or homogenous matter with few diverse components. A common method for reducing the risk of resonance is to use non-simple structures of composite materials with non-trivial responses to external stimuli.

Satan thinks the term “resonate” very accurately describes people who gravitate towards His church: if The Satanic Bible resonates with a person, it is because its banalities are inflated to high importance by a naturally unstable reader with an empty head. It has a great effect on simple, easily provoked people with views constructed from a few rigid absolutes. Resonance is usually detrimental to a medium, and Satan thinks that many readers who found that The Satanic Bible “resonated” with them have developed to the worse.

Satan thinks His organizations can find proper designations

Posted on by A lesser demon

The Devil appreciates self-confidence but feels that The Church of Satan oversteps its territory when it insists that there are no kinds of Satanism because only Anton LaVey’s 1960s mish-mash of now dead or dying ideas and beliefs exists. Satan thinks He possesses the absolute right to decide whether some movement is Satanic and whether some person is qualified to pass the gates of Hell.

It made sense some decades ago that there were Satanists and nuts, with nothing in-between, because the nuts were those who propagated the Christian myths about devil worshipers, whereas if you were a Satanist, at that time there was just The Church of Satan. There had been short-lived societies who had called themselves Satanists and similarly to The Church of Satan had defined ideologies that were not intended as Christian slurs or relied on Christian mythology, but they were forgotten and only rediscovered by scholars about a decade into the current century.

Overlooking that a sizeable number of unaffiliated individuals with each their own notion of Satanism exists, the above categorization no longer suffices. There are now Satanism as practiced by The Satanic Temple, Satanism as practiced by the Church of Satan, and nuts.

The Church of Satan maintains its belief that only they can be Satanists whereas obviously The Satanic Temple disagrees but is forced to acknowledge that multiple definitions coexist, at least while The Church of Satan lasts. (The latter sometimes appears to rest upon the fate of Twitter.) However, both organizations emphatically and firmly agree that their own version of Satanism is certainly not like the other, and that out in the real world the umbrella term “Satanism” thus includes elements that they both reject.

The Satanic Temple often refers to the other group as “LaVeyan” Satanism, or LaVeyans, whereas The Church of Satan refuses to refer to The Satanic Temple at all. (Well, with the exception that they are in fact all The Church of Satan ever talks about, but Satan thinks we should not dwell on that.)

Some Church of Satan members suggested that members of The Satanic Temple should be called “templars,” thereby nimbly avoiding the ‘S’ word, but it backfired when The Satanic Temple’s members responded by referring to The Church of Satan’s members as churchgoers. Satan is known to also have used this term.

Satan thinks the organizations should not be asked to agree on a term that covers them both, but believes it is possible to reach a compromise if The Satanic Temple will agree to play by the rules of the Satanism of The Church of Satan. Specifically, Satan thinks that The Church of Satan should approve of the employment of one of its most admirable foundational principles: Might Is Right. Everyone should be allowed to reach his level according to his strength and cunning. If this simple and beautiful maxim of Nature is obeyed, the solution comes naturally and will install stratification on every level of society.

It would be moderately entertaining to watch Lucien Greaves of The Satanic Temple pitted against Peter Gilmore of The Church of Satan in a cage fight, but Satan thinks that one should focus on organizational power not personal brawns. Hence, Satan thinks the situation should be solved via organizational might, and in this contest domination is clear as the sky is blue. Nobody hears about The Church of Satan anymore but everyone knows about The Satanic Temple, which currently drowns the voice of any competing organization. That objectively bestows the definition rights onto The Satanic Temple, because anything The Church of Satan might have to say is in Davy Jones’ locker whose key was lost with LaVey.

Satan thinks His temple should exercise this right with utmost responsibility—as a token of respect for The Church of Satan’s declaration that Satan represents responsibility to the responsible, of course. Being this principle personified, Satan therefore offers a proposition:

The Satanic Temple shall henceforth refer to themselves as Satanism, and their members as Satanists. No qualifier shall be provided. The Satanic Temple shall refer to The Church of Satan as LaVeyan Satanism, and its members as LaVeyan Satanists. This indicates that The Satanic Temple accepts their presence while also signaling that in the bigger picture, The Church of Satan has become the marginalized group and its former rights revoked. In addition, “LaVeyan” implies that the ideology is primarily tied to a specific persona.

Satan thinks The Satanic Temple should avoid the temptation to use the short-hand “LaVeyan,” without the Satanism part. Firstly, that term should be reserved for people who are only Anton LaVey personality cultists to whom the majestic designation of Satanism does not apply. Secondly, and more importantly, Satan thinks His church should be reminded that they are now second class and may claim the name of Satanism only as allowed by The Satanic Temple, which may and can select the third alternative of reallocating the churchgoers to the “nuts” category at its discretion.

Satan thinks anyone can be a Satanic übermensch

Posted on by A lesser demon

Those who encounter Satanists online will soon learn that, according to The Church of Satan, every Satanist is entitled to his or her own opinions and actions because Satanism allows such freedom. No two Satanists are alike. One cannot meet one Satanist and then think one has seen them all because seeking to pigeonhole a Satanist is supposedly like attempting to nail custard to a wall. It is only in recent decades that scholars of religion have narrowed down in scholarly terms The Church of Satan’s religion more tightly than for virtually any other cult, but that is mainly because they had formerly not cared. The official stance of The Church of Satan states that anyone who reads Anton LaVey’s The Satanic Bible and feels that it “resonates” positively with them may think of themselves as Satanists.

Those same people who encounter Satanists from The Church of Satan online will also soon learn that despite its alleged openness and personal freedom, The Church of Satan requires strict conformity. Woe be the Satanist who dares to criticize Anton LaVey or the current high priest, Peter Gilmore. Twice cursed be the Satanist who openly admits that deep flaws, outdated hypotheses and theories, misapplied science, and counterfactual claims and premises abound within the ideology originally introduced by Anton LaVey and later sophomorically pseudo-intellectualized by Peter Gilmore. Thrice cursed be the Satanist whose opinions and values would raise no eyebrows within The Church of Satan (not even the ridiculously trimmed ones of Peter Gilmore) who chooses to affiliate with another Satanic organization or just dares to acknowledge their legitimacy.

Nevertheless, the Prince of Evil agrees with His church that all it takes to become a churchgoer is to acknowledge that The Satanic Bible evokes a feeling of having views confirmed that you never managed to articulate. Some readers will find that Anton LaVey provided them with the pivotal portal to their incomplete identity, validating them with soothing words of power. They are Church of Satan material by its own certification.

Our Horn-Crowned Majesty does not interfere—after all, He is a supernatural entity and real only to us Hell-dwellers—but does not find Himself above (of course) to be opinionated. Satan thinks that The Satanic Bible is one of those books that cater to people who harbor a mortal fear of rejection. The very first page of LaVey’s preface to The Satanic Bible informs its readers that upon reading its pages, they will gain insights otherwise denied to the masses; and what follows are reassurances that if the reader feels alienated from the masses, it is because something is wrong with everyone but the reader. By reading the book, the reader will know something that others do not know, and it makes the reader better than the rest. It makes its readers feel superior in the Game of Life, unaware that this is the most tried and tested method for gathering cult followers.

Yet, all it takes for an outsider to join the club is to also read the book and gain the “knowledge.” It requires an excessive amount of self-deceit to believe that simply upon reading it, one joins a group that possesses a uniqueness reserved only for very special people. Satan thinks it cannot be that hard to read a damn book but, on second thought, has noticed that His disciples are notoriously unbookish, so perhaps they perceive it as an overwhelming barrier to scan anything with more text than a memorable Bible verse. What Satan means is that it is so easy to join this “élite” that it is no accomplishment whatsoever, unless one is phenomenally unable. It is evidence of a profoundly fragile self-esteem to derive a sense of worth by proxy of believing oneself part of a rare breed in the first place, and thinking one may join such a tribe purely by reading a book and not even being required to pass an exam sets the bar lower than the floor paint.

The Satanic baptism is thus simple: read The Satanic Bible, recognize your own innate superiority to the vast majority of humanity and publicly acknowledge how fundamentally you agree with LaVey’s critique of the herd, the masses, the rabble, the ersatz, the locusts, the sheep: learn that they are not Satanists and that alone makes you one. Without this baptism of complete agreement or, presumably, having never heard of the book, you are not a Satanist. (The latter makes Satan think of the indigenous tribes who asked the missionaries why they would tell them about Hell if Hell only applied to those who knew about it.) The criteria are arbitrary, however. Anyone can elevate themselves by declaring that they adhere to a philosophy that scorns the mediocrity of the herd and is thereby better than the herd. Not that this makes it an ineffective baptism, good gracious. The Satanic baptism may seem trivially naïve and uncomplicated from the outside, but from the inside, the newly-minted Satanist has undergone a magical transformation that retroactively transmogrifies his body from a herd member into a clansman of an alien élite.

Satan thinks this is too easy to count as a qualification. With so little obligation, accomplishment, and proficiency, anyone can be a Satanic übermensch. Even Anton LaVey acknowledged that this mass-market book breeds pretentiousness in the inferior because it enables anyone to be a superman. His only solution to that problem was a vague reference to “true” Satanists. LaVey did not clarify who they were, but Satan thinks the inferior ones are easily spotted: they focus very little on the contents of Satanic ideology, and have no marketable skills or personal qualities to speak of. Their identities do not revolve around their own vital existence but around others being non-Satanists. Because they have nothing of substance to show, they feel validated as Satanists only by loudly and persistently defining others as non-Satanists—especially when they encounter people who might just be the real thing compared with whom their shortcomings and mediocrity become as plain as a pikestaff.

Satan thinks His church still believes in magic

Posted on by A lesser demon

Personality cults never take kindly to criticism of their gurus. Their gurus are flawless, and even outright personality disorders or mental illnesses are viewed as proof of their superhuman capacity or as evidence of their divine insights or an earned privilege. Their lies, deceptions, and displays of hypocrisy, when discovered, become gemstones in their robes, adding a sparkle to an already fascinating persona. True personality cultists will never admit that their guru can make a mistake and will invent all sorts of explanations, evasions, redefinitions, rationalizations, etc., that have denial in common to avoid facing the reality that their guru was plainly and simply wrong, incompetent, or delusional.

Satan thinks His Church is one such personality cult because any negative mention of Anton LaVey is met with hostility, whereas even the most obvious and blatant misconceptions and disagreeable features are compulsively whitewashed into comical absurdity. Satan marvels at their blind devotion and zealous worship of their guru, who decades later is still their axis mundi while the rest of the world moves on and properly disposes of those past errors that are the pillars of his cosmology. Concepts that, in the words of The Satanic Bible, have “been proven by results to be but an empty fiction” that the remainder of the educated world has long decided should be “unceremoniously flung into the outer darkness, among the dead gods, dead empires, dead philosophies, and other useless lumber and wreckage,” are defended with fang and claw by the LaVey cult.

Sometimes, however, LaVey was so evidently delusional that any defense of his hallucinations is impossible, and the LaVey cult instead revises his teachings, convincing themselves and (less so) others that LaVey meant something different, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary. Satan can think of several examples because many theories and ideas that may have meant life and hope and freedom for the early Church of Satan have lost their ground as environments changed over the decades following the establishment of the Church. Its scripture demands that no revision of the guru’s teachings is necessary, though, and therefore the churchgoers aggressively loyally insist that no revision is taking place. This reminds Satan of one example where revision only seems to occur while the flawed core is kept alive and true to LaVey’s pipe dream.

It warms the Devil’s cold heart that it is magic—a cornerstone of LaVey’s religion—that is being maintained as delusionally now as it was then. Satan was genuinely worried when He discovered that apologetical churchgoers began to dismiss magic as “just psychodrama” (despite Anton LaVey explicitly stressing in The Satanic Bible that magic is not just psychodrama) that merely helps rid the practitioner of unhealthy emotions, to serve as positive thinking, and what else do-it-yourself therapy purposes one finds in questionable feel-good self-help books. It seemed for a while that the churchgoers considered magic to be their new kind of the “thoughts and prayers” they used to employ before stumbling upon the Devil, but Satan was relieved to find that LaVey skillfully embedded magic so strongly into his ideology that it resists both sanity and reason. One may say, and even believe, that magic is superstition, as long as one still incorporates the superstition into one’s thinking: despite what Satanic Rule of the Earth no. 7 might suggest, what is a little denial of mysticism among friends? Satan finds that magicians of The Church of Satan may still decapitate their ex-girlfriends by accident, be the cause of power blackouts when they get insulted during a thunderstorm, or find that mass shooters kill innocent people because they have last names that somewhat resemble those of the magicians’ ex-wives. Why, they may even mentally force the traffic lights to change, although Satan suggests they abstain from similar attempts to change the stop signs.

Ours truly has already explained Satan’s thoughts on LaVey’s magic and hopes that The Dark Eminence accepts a mere hyperlink here, but you should read or revisit this post before continuing. Practically everything LaVey said about magic matches the psychological framework that was still widely believed back then, especially among the general population. People born before the early 1970es may even remember being taught that very framework at school and should easily recognize LaVey’s choice of words and conclusions.

Anton LaVey described in rather broad terms what magic is, and rather vaguely how it supposedly works. It is possible to waive responsibility by claiming, like LaVey, that magic works but is yet to be explained by science, that LaVey’s banter on magic should be taken metaphorically (although that begs the question of why one should bother practicing it), or that it is a pseudo-meditative exercise that affects only the practitioner. It is easy to repeat LaVey’s own cop-outs on how magic “works” or to invent new ones because, after all, there is no such thing as magic. Besides, LaVey was not born with a scientist’s heart and was satisfied that magic works, leaving the scientific hows and whys to others. He cared about what one should do to make it work, much like his clientele of today cares less about how technology works than how to use it to watch pornography. Everyone at LaVey’s time “knew” that humans generate emotional, or psychic, energy, and it needed little further elaboration; the important element to LaVey was what to do to harness that energy, not to author yet another book on pseudo-psychology.

LaVey introduced The Satanic Bible with a promise that with this book, magicians would finally find bedrock, and the section specifically devoted to the practice of magic provided explicit procedures and all but checklists. He explained that the ritual entrapments serve to rile up the practitioner’s emotions so that emotional energy (or bioelectrical, vital, sexual, or psychic energy; he uses all these terms and more) is generated and can be directed at the target of one’s hex. Not surprisingly, the instructions and their purpose align perfectly with the aforementioned psychological framework, because one cannot separate the “what to do” element of The Church of Satan’s magic from that framework.

It is easy to overlook the importance of these practical instructions, but religious practice beats religious pondering any day. In a ritual setting, one lives out the mythology of the religion by following the steps of a ritual with its arcane language and decorations. The otherworldly settings of a ritual turn otherwise trivial actions of the real world into important actions as far as the brain is concerned, reinforcing and conserving the mythology. It is thereby kept alive within the society of practitioners, even if they are mostly unaware of its history. If this seems strange, consider the mystical ceremonies of many Christian churches: even if all their members know is how to properly participate, the ceremonies and rituals keep the antiquated tradition alive. Religious rituals and ceremonies are critical to perpetuating and maintaining mindsets that would otherwise have been overtaken by progress. That is the true purpose of a ritual, not its formally stated goal that one finds in the pages of the religious textbooks: Christians do not gulp down the “blood of Jesus” in order to be magically cleansed of their sins but to stay reminded of their religion and its concepts of sin.

In the rituals of The Church of Satan, the mythology is the outdated psychological framework, and by performing LaVey’s rituals, one acts out that pseudo-science, maintains it, and absorbs it. This means that for all that the members of The Church of Satan insist that magic is mere psychodrama (not to be confused with the psychotherapeutic term that Jacob L. Moreno coined far earlier), in practice, through practice, they believe in actual magic in the form that Anton LaVey originally envisioned it—the pseudoscience that everyone once believed to be model truth. One may consider it a good case of “suspension of disbelief” when modern churchgoers deny magic yet enter their ritual chambers, but Satan thinks it is an empty statement. Nobody would care to enter the ritual chamber unless disbelief was already suspended.

It is impossible to dismiss LaVey’s magical loads of hooey as “just psychodrama” unless one also rejects his rituals altogether. Churchgoers may think they are skeptical of magic and feel compelled to reason the word that appears 150 times in The Satanic Bible or reduce it to a metaphor, but the actions of the rituals and LaVey’s recipe for a ritual with an explicit tangible goal cannot be denied. The same members of The Church of Satan follow the rituals to the letter and in so doing reinforce in the real world the very hocus-pocus that they mistake for rational thinking.

The above-mentioned Christian communion makes Satan thinks these churchgoers do what Luther did to Catholicism: by granting that maybe the wine and bread did not physically turn into blood and meat, but also arguing that the blood and flesh of Jesus were somehow still present, the Christian communion was unaltered for all practical purposes. The actions of the Christians did not change, and the Christians remained Christian.

One might identify a much-needed revision to LaVey’s silly magical beliefs that renders the superstitious mythology obsolete and replaces it with a modernized “mythology” that reflects how healthy human beings actually function or should function. However, such a revision would require a corresponding, radical change in the rituals, and very little would be left of LaVey’s original rituals beyond the colorful language.

To summarize, Satan thinks that it is fruitless to debate whether LaVey’s magic “works,” or whatever LaVey may have meant by this and that mention of the word “magic.” Had it worked, perhaps the Great Magus would have met a different fate than living in a derelict house and dying bitter, broke, and abandoned by family and friends, and in the end had more miasma than charisma. The all-important, undebatable, and undeniable fact is that LaVey provided specific instructions on how to activate an explicit function of the human body and psyche that does not exist save within a psychological framework that now finds itself in the same category as the four humors, the use of mercury to cure diseases, and the wandering uterus. No amount of rationalization can justify such clinging to past orthodoxies.