Church of Satan

Satan thinks authority matters

Posted on by A lesser demon

Satan thinks everyone seems to be an expert these days but usually with little to show for it. He thinks humans may have forgotten what makes someone an expert and especially what constitutes authority as an expert.

Anyone can make a claim, but to convince others that you speak the truth about a subject, first you must establish credibility as someone who has actual knowledge on that topic. Your authority is required to speak on the subject matter, or none will attribute more significance to your claims than had you told them about your favorite color: it would be received as nothing but your personal opinion, and certainly not something that calls for consideration let alone compliance.

Religions face a particular challenge when their adherents must argue why they are right and everyone else is wrong, typically including all other groups within the religion than one’s own: there are no gods. Whatever gods the followers believe in, these gods never seem to care to visit Earth and settle the score once and for all. Godless religions such as certain schools of Buddhism are equally challenged because although the founder of atheistic Buddhism was once a living and breathing human, he is long dead and will never rise from his grave to explain what he really meant.

Instead, religions must resort to other tactics in order to feign authority. The Catholic Church has managed to keep an uninterrupted line of popes since the foundation of Christianity by Paul the Apostle, who claimed that Jesus had conferred the “Petrine primacy” to him and thus appointed him as the first pope. All popes are assumed to inherit this primacy, almost as if they were Paul the Apostle reborn. Hence, the Catholic Church’s claim to being right is its direct line of heritage to the founder of Christianity. Of course, if you do not believe that popes can inherit whatever mandate was given to Paul the Apostle, the Catholic Church will not convince you that it is the true kind of Christianity, at least not using that argument.

Michael Aquino (who founded The Temple of Set) took a similar approach, borrowing his mandate from a supernatural entity when he claimed that my Master had transferred an infernal mandate from Anton LaVey to Michael Aquino. Thus having been specifically appointed by the Devil Himself, Michael Aquino obtained the authority to define Satanism and Anton LaVey lost it. But, one must believe both that there is a Devil and that Michael Aquino spoke the truth to respect this claim to authority. In the absense of any Prince of Darkness to confirm the transaction, one can only conclude that Michael was either consciously lying or having a fit of self-delusion, whichever version one prefers. Satan thinks that the purported bestowal of His mandate onto Michael Aquino came at a remarkably convenient time, noting how perfectly it coincided with Michael Aquino’s intense personal dissatisfaction with Anton LaVey’s decision to sell titles in The Church of Satan for money and Aquino’s own urge to herald His Infernal Majesty as an existing being representing the ancient Egyptian deity Set.

Anton LaVey had never claimed to have been appointed by Satan, at least not that He is aware. Anton LaVey had no marketable skills to hang his hat on either with no jobs, no training or initiation, nor any education that might lend some credibility to his claims about Satanism. What Anton LaVey did have was an interest in reading. Satan is not certain whether Anton LaVey did so consciously, but it is clear that Anton LaVey was highly inspired by works of fiction and combined a number of fictional characters into a distinctive persona to replace his real-world footprint. This remarkable protagonist, who was a lion tamer at a circus, played in the city orchestra, had studied criminology, and much more, served to render Anton LaVey a Satanist by example. The fictional credentials served as a magical shroud, as it were, which provided Anton LaVey with the authority he needed, because who better to speak authoritatively about Satanism than someone who is demonstrably one?

Had Anton LaVey had been a school drop-out who never held a real job and lived at his parents’ house while dabbling with one occultism fad after the other, eventually saying that whatever he was currently practicing was Satanism, nobody would have cared, and others would probably be better qualified to define Satanism than Anton LaVey. However, if Anton LaVey was the very embodiment of a Satanist and knew the dark secrets because he was a carnival showman, a police photographer and occult adviser, a burlesque musician, and what not, then he could speak with some authority when he said what Satanism is and isn’t. Anton LaVey had no educational authority, no social authority, no legal authority, etc. to provide him with the might that is needed to be right, but he could provide himself as an example that he was right. By his spectacular past, Anton LaVey had acquired the mandate to define Satanism.

Many who attempted to imitate Anton LaVey and be the high priests of their own various churches and temples of Satan and Lucifer were easily dismissed as posers, who only wished to be what Anton LaVey was. No-one needed to take them seriously when the real thing, Anton LaVey, was available, as the argument from Anton LaVey’s own organization went. The Devil is inclined to agree, as most such would-be high priests tended to provide no new insights or interpretations, instead merely offering what they thought The Church of Satan failed to provide—that is, themselves as high priests instead of Anton LaVey.

In turn, The Church of Satan had to rethink its claim to authority following Anton LaVey’s death in 1997 which required the Church to now routinize his charisma. Its initial attempts at placing Karla LaVey (who would inherit some of Anton LaVey’s authority by virtue of bloodline) and Blanche Barton as co-heads predictably failed, and shortly after Blanche Barton was equally predictably offered an emerita retirement title so Peter Gilmore and Peggy Nadramia could finally assume the formal leadership that they had already assumed a decade before.

Satan has not kept close tabs on The Church of Satan’s referrals to Anton LaVey, but He feels that LaVey’s authority has shifted from being a Satanist by example to now being a first mover: Anton LaVey’s authority today rests less on his persona than on his being the first person to define Satanism outside of Christian mythology. Part of the explanation may be that Anton LaVey’s persona was uncovered as a myth and his original authority as the proto-Satanist was shattered with it. However, Satan thinks that the primary reason is simply that Anton LaVey has been dead for over two decades as of this writing. No-one is waiting to see what the great Szandor comes up with in The Cloven Hoof, and all but a few members of The Church of Satan have never experienced him. To everyone, Anton LaVey is literally history. His made-up colorful persona was bound to fade had it not already been debunked.

Satan thinks that being first with an idea warrants appreciation, if nothing else. No Satanic organization since the formation of The Church of Satan can deny the influence of Anton LaVey, and no-one has dared to provide alternative scripture. That is, much mystical mumbo-jumbo has indeed been written among Satanists, but there has of yet been no competition to his book whose title—The Satanic Bible—is hard to outshine. All Satanic organizations owe a historical debt to Anton LaVey whether they like it or not.

The Church of Satan may lay claim to authenticity as the continued existence of Anton LaVey’s original organization, but that is a different matter. It is nowhere implied that one is permanently right simply for proposing the first definition of a phenomenon, or that the definition is immutable. There is no copyright on ideologies. Anyone can pick and chose from an ideology and change it where they feel so inclined. They may mangle the ideology beyond recognition, but perhaps that is precisely what the ideology needed to be true. After all, the first person who gazed into the night sky saw the stars as gods, and although we now know better, they are still stars to us. (That is, except for The Morning Star, whom we all adore.) The Church of Satan can at most assert that it offers the interpretation of Satanism that comes closest to Anton LaVey’s original description. (Satan does not wish to go off on a tangent pondering whether The Church of Satan truly resembles Anton LaVey’s original “magic circle” whose activities were strongly tied to physically attending Anton LaVey’s tutelage in his home on California Street in San Francisco until the early 1970s.)

The Church of Satan may nonetheless succeed in convincing at least some people that being first implies being both right and the owner of an ideological copyright and unregistered trademark. It seems to the Devil that the argument works well on The Church of Satan’s own members, and He agrees that although you cannot fool all of the people all the time, usually it is enough to fool some of the people some of the time.

The Devil believes that The Church of Satan has a second claim to authority: it is the only Satanic organization that has scripture to be reckoned with. Other organizations have written material for their followers but none of it has hit the bookshelves like the superbly-titled The Satanic Bible. Yet, Satan notes that although The Church of Satan does point to its scripture as a source for “one true Satanism,” usually the organization’s argument is that that Anton LaVey defined Satanism in this book, thereby using the author as an authority rather than relying on the persuasive and argumentative powers of the scripture.

Satan thinks that perhaps it is for the better. The Satanic Bible does not prove its claims nor does it attempt to, and is thus subject to the reader’s good faith. Putting it somewhat bluntly: one either believes in the claims made in the book, or one does not; if one does not, then it holds no authority. But more importantly, Satan thinks that if anyone were to treat The Satanic Bible as gospel truth and declared that the book contained the truth by its mere status as a bible, everyone would recognize the brainlessly religious nature of the Bible-thumpers of a certain religion that shall remain unnamed here. The Church of Satan can justifiably contend that it is the only organization that has any noteworthy (and, indeed, prominent) scripture but any reference to religious scripture as a source of truth is frowned upon across the entire Satanic milieu and is bound to backfire.

A short-lived group that named itself The Satanic Reds has a history that traces back to an early 1970s group of occultists in Florida which included a Church of Satan clergy. Satan is not overly interested in the now defunct group but wishes to mention where it derived its authority, because it added a step-up to Anton LaVey’s strategy of creating an alternate past.

Like Anton LaVey, the group featured no prominent scholars or other means of standing out as a natural source of the truth. But, somewhere during the occult studies, the group believed to have identified an occult tradition that had been upheld in secret societies through millennia. Widely different cultures in different ages seemed to have maintained a steady interpretation of the Universe and our role in it. An introduction to any specifics is far beyond the scope here so suffice to say that the technical term is syncretism. Satan prefers layman’s terms where syncretism means establishing a credo by picking what you believe is similar from entirely independent and dissimilar traditions while ignoring everything in those traditions that speak against your observations. This credo, named the dark doctrines, provided the group with the authority of research. They had identified the “roots of Satanism” and could now speak with authority on the latter.

Two of the members of the Florida-based group began to construct a past that was less flamboyant and wide-ranging than Anton LaVey’s and instead strongly focused on belonging to the dark tradition that they had identified. They claimed to have been formally initiated and accepted into this tradition, and one of them even claimed to stem from a family of generational Satanists. If Anton LaVey was born a natural Satanist by accident, these two were Satanists by birthright and could speak with both the authority of their research and the authority of their “Satanic culture.” They were eventually awarded magistrate degrees in The Church of Satan, and Peter Gilmore drew on their findings, as scientifically non-proof as they might be.

The much younger noteworthy organization, The Satanic Temple, is no easier off than any of the above but also denies magical or other metaphysical appeal to authority. Lucien Greaves, the leader of The Satanic Temple, boasts a Harvard degree in neuroscience, and while this is no small accomplishment (if true), a neuroscientist cannot be expected to offer any particular insight into Satanism. Lucien Greaves does feature a somewhat villainous look owing to his scarred right eye that may cajole some emotionally inclined individuals into projecting demonic qualities onto him, but that is about all. Satan knows the background and while the Devil respects Lucien Greaves’ wish to not discuss the incident in any detail, Satan regrets to inform His minions that nothing diabolical occurred. It may be worth mentioning that Lucien Greaves breaks tradition by avoiding to make claims about his background and by avoiding to pretend that his made-up name is genuine. The impression of personal integrity usually helps boost one’s authority but Satan is unable to determine how much it matters in Lucien Greaves’ case.

The Satanic Temple instead draws its authority from several sources. Firstly, it exists. So do The Church of Satan and The Temple of Set, of course, but unlike them The Satanic Temple has proven itself capable in the real world by showcasing tangible results, most prominently in the shape of its infamous Baphomet statue and its legal campaigns that result in significant media coverage. The Satanic Temple manages to demonstrate that it is more than a web site and a Twitter account. (The Church of Satan had the “Black House” in San Francisco but it served as a semi-official building only in the very early years of the organization, and consequently did little to communicate organizational thrust once its use as an organizational asset was discontinued. In fact, Satan thinks The Church of Satan exposed its impotence when it was unable to raise funds to keep the house, which was demolished in 2001.) It is not surprising that movie director Penny Lane caught interest in The Satanic Temple for her documentary movie Hail Satan? (2019), not The Church of Satan. The latter has Satanis: The Devil’s Mass (1970), which is tacky and obviously outdated, and Inside the Church of Satan (2010), which Satan considers toe (or hoof) curlingly embarassing and telltale of a diminished group of personal friends.

Secondly, might is right, and The Satanic Temple displays strength in numbers. The Church of Satan may have been advantaged by the Internet lately but as late as 2004, Peter Gilmore reported less than 10,000 members globally. Satan is not certain whether The Satanic Temple has that many members but the number of local chapters gives an impression of a thriving and spreading organization. It would be unfair at this stage to compare The Church of Satan’s pre-Internet age grotto count with the number of chapters in The Satanic Temple after the Internet revolution but The Church of Satan’s decision to abandon its grotto system makes Satan’s church less visible. The Satanic Temple has become a dominant mass on the statistical map, and this lends natural authority to the organization.

Thirdly, humanism is an already established ideology if not altogether well-defined. The Satanic Temple’s tenets are readily recognizable as identical or highly compatible with most humanist movements. This can—and Satan thinks maybe it should—be used as an argument against The Satanic Temple being a Satanic organization instead of just yet another humanist group, but it enables The Satanic Temple to draw on an established train of thought: they offer the aesthetics of horns and cloven hooves to a known ideology, and recognition is authoritative. This may be considered shallow but it works; it is the authority to define truth that is pursued not, regrettably, truth itself.

Fourthly, The Satanic Temple borrows its authority to define Satanism from historical literature. The Satanic Temple refers to itself as “romantic Satanism” and provides a reading list containing Romantic period (give or take a century or two) authors who paid homage to the Devil one way or another. The syncretic pitfall mentioned earlier notwithstanding, Satan is a modernist who demands change and thinks poorly of romantic rumination but is aware of the market a for medieval items and museum replicas. As the fashion trend in The Satanic Temple strikes the Devil as the “goth” look, He expects that some with slightly warped romantic inclinations will feel that the organization’s references to “romantic Satanism” has some merit.

Finally and fifthly, The Satanic Temple is a real life example of one who embraces the Devil’s role in society as the accuser against those who believe themselves to be at all times good. The Satanic Temple uses both outrage, mockery, and legal actions as it applies my Master’s tools. Satan does not wish to depreciate the aforementioned four appeals to authority but prefers this last one. It is the only decidedly demonic aspect of The Satanic Temple’s uses of authority although humanism, too, is sometimes decried as the work of the Devil in some circles of society.

Satan wishes to conclude by stating that there is no answer book on Satanism or any other ideology. Sense and meaning can be drawn from definitions and interpretations that are known to be falsehoods. Satan only asks that His followers keep a cool head and never believe they have discovered a universal and objective truth, and to always beware of the credentials of those who declare themselves experts.

Satan thinks tall membership fees create cultists

Posted on by A lesser demon

The painful transition rituals where young males are initiated into manhood that have been practiced by a variety of indigenous tribes often strike developed countries as unnecessarily and irrationally brutal. Yet, developed countries feature a long array of similar initiation rituals in various communities.

New army recruits have until recently been (and in some places still are) put through painful or humiliating “baptisms” at the hands of their lower-level superiors or dragged through demanding boot camps. College and university campuses have a tradition for similarly degrading or torturing new members of their fraternities during what Satan considers the alluringly named “Hell Weeks.” Some lines of work have traditionally welcomed new apprentices with humiliating events. Laws have been penned to prevent this phenomenon but seemingly without success.

The specific contents of such rituals are invariably kept secret to the prospective initiates, who usually know no more than rumors that they will be expected to endure an unpleasant experience. This helps explain why they are willing to accept an “formal initiation” but mostly one can expect them to accept the initiations as the price they must pay for their membership of the elite. However, as will be explained shortly, this conclusion is mere post-rationalization.

The presence of such initiation rites across the world in primitive and advanced societies alike throughout history affirms that they are motivated by the psyche of the human animal. Satan would have preferred to think that humans have an innate knack for being evil but alternative psychological explanations exist. Firstly, human herd mentality compels you to flock together. The survival of the specimens is contingent on their keeping their group together, and social dynamics ensue, including all sorts of often seemingly peculiar social behavior.

Secondly, the human mind cannot grasp its own irrationality. Nobody believes he or she acts randomly without cause: everything is rationalized, even self-harm, and no-one is evil just for the Hell of it (except our Infernal Lordship, but that goes without saying). If a person has acted uncontrollably irrationally, the person may fell all kinds of regret or guilt afterwards but can readily justify the behavior; if nothing else, then because he or she “must have felt for it” in the moment. In much less extreme situations, any seemingly irrational act, especially when performed consciously and deliberately, will be interpreted as having meaning and a purpose, and must make sense.

Satan thinks that this is in part what makes religious rituals and ceremonies so effective. Their irrational components of impossible narratives and symbolic acting and decoration serve to envelop the participants’ minds in irrationality that their minds will afterwards interpret as somehow true even if this “truth” is none the sort. The nonsense of the rituals and the ceremonies force the participants to think there is sense where there is none.

The newly minted Phi Beta Kappa member who now puts her clothes back on after receiving humiliating jeers and physical violations is still dazed but her mind is already rationalizing the abuse as the gateway to her new social position. Why was she put through it, but more importantly, why did she accept it, the mind inquires, and provides the reassuring answer: it was not a price to be paid but a requirement and an integral part of the membership, and an accolade to have endured. Nothing less is required of next semester’s initiates, demands the brain, which refuses to acknowledge that it would otherwise have been meaningless and refuses to admit the absurdity of the situation.

The psychological principle of social proof also plays in. Initiation rituals are usually formed on groups of initiates, who look to each other for clues on how to react during the mistreatment, and in a collective bystander effect where all are victims they remain passive. Any nonconformist dissidence will immediately be subjected to peer pressure. Social proof also fosters group cohesion by creating a social bond from the shared experience. It fortifies group loyalty, and as a rule of thumb, the worse the abuse the more loyal the initiates become towards the social group that admitted them, because the rationalizing brain interprets the tougher abuse as proportionally more meaningful.

Faced with irrationality, the rationalizing brain turns logic upside-down. It turns the abuse from unreasonable misdeeds into proof that the membership is important and worthwhile, and that the group is unique and desirable.

Loyalty may be gained with less than downright torture, as much as Old Nick hates to admit it. The scarcity principle of both economics and social psychology can play tricks on the mind, too, and may be utilized to keep a person to behaving with consistency. A high price tag on an item provides social proof of scarcity, and the buyer of at item that turns out to have been far too costly will post-rationalize the buying impulse and invariably conclude that the purchase made sense. In fact, a buyer is likely to attribute more value to an expensive item when if it is proven to have been available at a more competitive price, and will like the item more. The buyer may understand that he was unlucky, inattentive, or even conned, but his brain will reassure him that the item must then have been that more valuable to him. Being obviously cheated only reinforces this belief. It is hard enough to admit to others that one was duped but to the core brain such a thought is beyond guilt or shame; it is unthinkable, and the brain will defend the decision beyond the point of being ridiculous.

You will believe you can tell the audible difference with your expensive and literally gold-plated wires for your stereo set although no electronic measurement equipment can detect the change, and the overpriced, tasteless vase that you purchased on the street market from a clearly dubious seller somehow remains sitting on the table.

All this insight into the mentality of the human herd animal made Satan think of one of His churches, specifically The Church of Satan and its membership fee. In its early days, entry fees were paid to attend Anton LaVey’s lectures in his home but after a little less than a decade the organization instead admitted members for a fee. Satan does not remember off-hand if the amount was originally particularly high but in the 1980s it had become the official stance of The Church of Satan that the amount was set somewhat high to ensure that only sufficiently motivated and/or successful (to whom the amount was inconsequential) people would join and stand as a deterrent to anyone else.

Mr. Scratch has not doubt that a little greediness may have influenced the amount but otherwise trusts that His organization speaks the truth on this matter and (regrettably) does not suspect any nefarious undertones. Its membership fee is $225 as of this writing, and appears to be steep enough to often cause would-be members to seek advice on raising the money and rarely a follower of the Evil One to consider it pocket change.

For those to whom $225 feels like a personal financial sacrifice, or even becomes one, the deep impression in their bank account reminds them that they must have made an important and thoughtful decision. It strengthens their belief that The Church of Satan provides them with peers that are more intelligent, more interesting, or more desirable to meet more than had they merely paid the production costs, shipping, and a minor processing fee for their little red membership card. A tall amount instead makes them exhibit loyalty to their organization, which deserved the money, in order to suppress the skeptical mention from others that perhaps they were had. Not once has Satan encountered a member of The Church of Satan, whether current or former, who spoke of the membership fee as too expensive. In fact, if one were to pay any less, it would be a token of insincerity! The latter sentiment is regularly observed when members of The Church of Satan belittle The Satanic Temple for its much lower, and dare one even mention free membership options.

The tall membership fee of The Church of Satan utilizes herd mentality to purchase the faithfulness of its members for their own money. Their monetary oblations to the organization helps instill a cult-like behavior of unquestioned devotion.

Satan thinks there is indeed a Satanic community

Posted on by A lesser demon

His Infernal Majesty often hears His church proclaim that there is no such thing as a Satanic community. The Devil can follow the arguments made by His church some of the way: it is not a social enclave whose members are committed to meeting and organizing events for each other, “doing good” for their local areas as an excuse for socializing, or otherwise performing group activities together. (Satan has no issue with doing good as a byproduct of selfish needs, mind you; He believes that much good comes from selfish purposes.) The Devil has not asked but presumes that His church prefers to lay distance to the common American phenomenon of Christian denominations serving the role of a local community, and Satan would certainly be suspicious Himself if some new member requested such a function of His church.

Yet, Satan thinks that such a use of the term “community” is overly restricted. People with religious backgrounds may be prone to thinking of religious communities when they hear the word, and to believing this is how others think, too. But the term has many other uses: in politics, “community” refers to demographic profiles, markets, or businesses, and has little connotation, often none, with religion, physical proximity, or socialization. It names an abstract group that usually has an affinity for a certain identifier. It demarks in somewhat loose terms the market for certain fashion, readers and writers of a literary subgenre, special-interest political groups, etc., and their “members” usually interact only indirectly or in very small groups. Such abstract grouping into “communities” is based on shared features and shared interests not physical contact or even interaction nor necessarily shared agreements.

The Devil’s church is therefore a virtual (not meaning “online”) community, too, whether it likes it or not, and even Peter Gilmore, the current high priest of The Church of Satan, is known to have used the terms “Satanic arena” and “assemblage” for this phenomenon. And yet the Devil’s followers often form a community in also the aforementioned meaning of a religious community whether they have never met another follower. They read The Satanic Bible and joined The Church of Satan (or other groups) and know that others have done so, too. They may even think that everyone else interpreted the ambiguous scripture in the same way as themselves. This knowledge and these assumptions bind the members together much like a regular church community does, only without the social interaction. They may each be alone out there, but they are alone together.

A leading scholar in the study of religious Satanism, Jesper Aagaard Petersen, coined the term “Satanic milieu” as a designation for Satanists in any shape or size and how they interact with both non-Satanists and each others, and thereby arguably manages to cover a larger area than had he chosen “community,” because it enables the existence of a variety of different communities within the milieu.

Satan thinks that Peter Gilmore—and Anton LaVey, whom he quotes and paraphrases—simply chose a misleading word to communicate that The Church of Satan’s twice-failed “Grotto” system led The Church of Satan to conclude that it should strive to prevent its members from meeting and thus realizing how little their ideology really defines their lives and how accordingly little they have in common. But by the force of religious scripture, the word became a taboo word within The Church of Satan, whose members will readily yell at anyone who speaks of a “Satanic community” (even when they obviously mean Petersen’s “milieu”) and struggle to explain why they themselves shun the idea. It sometimes leads to amusing results when a member explains that they are not a community, only a means that enables them to find contacts and interact—which is exactly what a community does.

Satan prefers to suppress any laughs, deserving as they might be, because He appreciates His followers being a cooperative body. Satan thinks that His church, and several of His other communions, are in fact Satanic communities, virtual or tangible. Satan thinks that when Peter Gilmore wrote his article on the “myth” of Satanic communities twenty years ago, he reacted correctly against members asking The Church of Satan to mimic Christian church communities but failed to understand that communities imply neither Christian churches nor herd mentality.

Satan thinks that Satanic communities are provably real by the sheer reason that they are observable, and with the advent of The Satanic Temple’s local chapters, several of which focus on organized local community actions complete with photo documentation, the myth of the Satanic community has been dispelled as itself a myth. Time will tell if also these local communities will stay alive, or if they—dependent on the yet uncertain destiny of The Satanic Temple—will run out of steam. For now, they are real: the Satanic community is no myth.

Satan thinks His church is political

Posted on by A lesser demon

Satan is all for taxing His opponents into oblivion and preferably so by also confiscating any assets they might possess. If that means that His own churches and temples must pay taxes, too, then so be it. He gets suspicious if anyone achieves or even attempts to obtain tax-exempt status but recognizes that for legal matters, recognition as a religious organization by the Internal Revenue Service implies a variety of secondary legal benefits, not to mention a strong argument against anyone who would try to dismiss the organization as fake. Satan has lost count of the number of times His church, The Church of Satan, has found it pertinent to remind someone that it was mentioned in the army chaplain’s grande list o’ religions, arguing that it is thus legally recognized as a religion, perhaps rightfully assuming that the US Army Chaplain’s Handbook constitutes a legal document and is not merely a reference book for the Christian priests serving in the US Army Chaplain Corps.

The Devil was reminded of the non tax-exempt status of His church when his temple, The Satanic Temple, recently gained tax-exempt status. He will defer his opinions on the latter for now, because something suddenly confused my otherwise self-assured Master.

Michael Aquino of The Temple of Set once claimed that The Church of Satan had attempted to qualify for tax exemption but failed and, not admitting defeat, only then chose its policy of working for strict taxation of all religion in its five-point program entitled Pentagonal Revisionism. Satan has not been able to locate Michael Aquino’s source for his claim, however, and regrets to inform Mr. Aquino that this makes his claim hearsay. But this is not the source of my Master’s bewilderment.

The issue that made The Prince of Darkness raise an eyebrow (which, unlike Michael Aquino’s or Peter Gilmore’s eyebrows, are not shaved or combed into appearing pointed) is that His church has often lamented The Satanic Temple‘s position that Satanism is a political endeavor and immediately reiterated its own stance on taxation when The Satanic Temple became tax-exempt. Satan shall again abstain from mentioning His own opinion on such matters but finds such complaints and statements of his church’s incompatible with its Pentagonal Revisionism.

Besides the fact that both the demand that stratification be enacted on all levels of society and the demand that religion be isolated from the Law, which are both strictly political statements (both demands being part of Pentagonal Revisionism), questions of taxation also fall squarely within the realm of politics, which among other issues govern financial budgets. With three out of five of the positions of Pentagonal Revisionism being overtly political, Satan finds it either hypocritial or stupid of His church to complain that His temple admits to being a political organization or that Satanism means being political.

Satan also finds it at odds with His church’s opposition to wearing a “good guy badge” that it so strongly highlights itself as a social role model for not paying taxes when it speaks of The Satanic Temple. Satan thought the old carny would readily have fleeced the gullible instead of being a paragon of virtue (and therefore suspects that Mr. Aquino might be speaking the truth), but if that’s how His church wants it, Satan will gladly pin a good-guy badge to their lapels as they walk through the gates of Hell—on their way out.

Satan thinks His church’s Nine Statements got replaced

Posted on by A lesser demon

The Devil has not paid much attention lately to the membership procedures of His various churches, temples, synagogues, and whichever other chapels, cloisters, cathedrals, and convents have become dedicated to Him. He remembers that in the days before the Internet someone would locate the P. O. Box address of The Church of Satan in San Francisco, submit a membership application together with a cashier’s check for some $50 or $75, and then after several months would receive a cheapskate membership card and become member number 100261. Satan has not investigated how, say, His temple processes its membership applications but expects it to be similar and maybe with a little more expedient interest in its members. Satan does not issue membership cards Himself; He prefers the tried and tested tradition of branding the damned with hot irons when they enter through the gates of Hell.

The Church of Satan would provide a xeroxed welcome package containing a welcome note, The 11 Satanic Rules of the Earth, The Nine Satanic Statements, an opinion that no other groups can possibly be Satanic, and maybe a few other sheets with information that the Devil’s church considered pertinent to new members.

But a few decades ago Satan thinks something must have gone askew in the printing process, because judging from the behavior of His church and its members, it seems that the headings of The 11 Satanic Rules of the Earth and The Nine Satanic Sins have been switched, making the Sins the new Rules, and vice versa. Satan is not certain where the Nine Satanic Statements went but they appear to have been replaced with the following document:

THE NINE SATANIC STATEMENTS 1. Satan represents pettiness, instead of ignoring that which you need not care about! 2. Satan represents bigoted attitudes, instead of appreciating common goals! 3. Satan represents selective factoids, instead of honest study! 4. Satan represents self-righteousness, instead of giving credit where due! 5. Satan represents envious belittling, instead of doing something yourself! 6. Satan represents kindness to people whom you agree with, instead of respect for your betters! 7. Satan represents man as just another herd animal, never smarter, always more stupid than those who walk to the slaughter on all-fours, who, because he "joined the first organization" has become the most herd-minded of them all! 8. Satan represents committing all of the Satanic sins, as they all lead to smugness! 9. Satan represents your annoying uncle Arnold at the family reunion, because He keeps the discussion going about republican politics every year!

Satan thinks His Bible has two secrets

Posted on by A lesser demon

It has been over twenty years since Anton LaVey reminded the Devil’s followers that every grimoire has a secret, the remainder being mere padding that is inspirational at best if the secret is overlooked. Satan already knew that the secret of The Satanic Bible was the Balance Factor, the dark force in Nature, of course, but He figures it was a good idea of Anton LaVey to mention it, especially because everyone seems to have missed it to the degree of passionately intending to prove it wrong.

What Mr. LaVey did not tell my Evil Master’s followers is that another dark secret lurks within the pages of The Satanic Bible, a secret that has less to do with Satanism than with organizing and controlling the herd, making it a truly magical book. It is, perhaps ironically, a section that Mr. LaVey himself did not write and which the astute reader of The Satanic Bible may have noticed has changed between published editions. In addition to the price tag, that is.

The Satanic Bible contained an introduction by Burton H. Wolfe which was used in the 1969-1972 edition and in a revised version in the 1976-2005 edition when, for obvious reasons true to Orwellian standards of historical revisionism, Michael Aquino’s 1972-1976 introduction was removed by The Church of Satan‘s Ministry of Truth and henceforth not mentioned. The current edition of 2005- includes an introduction by Peter Gilmore. As you have probably realized by now, Satan thinks the second secret of The Satanic Bible is indeed its introduction.

Our Dark Lord realizes that His followers are often not the reading kind so He asks this subdued demon of yours to explain. Most introductions provide a review or a recommendation, an historical outline, perspective, or background. The introductions to The Satanic Bible do this to some degree, but all versions—least in Mr. Aquino’s version and most in Mr. Gilmore’s version—focus on the remarkable life of Anton LaVey. The introductions reveal that Anton LaVey was a carnival showman whose street smarts outperformed any businessman and whose observant eye of a con artist beat any psychologist. Working in forbidden careers, he saw the hidden truths of human nature and learned the secrets of mankind. He learned what could not be taught. He was a Satanist by example, the proto-Satanist that future Satanists would all measure up against.

At least that is what the introductions purport. The Devil would never wish to belittle our esteemed fellow denizen but in colder blood, Mr. LaVey was a school drop-out who never held a real job and huddled his way through life, was supported by his parents, never received an education, and eventually died in poverty, failing to be the embodiment of magical power that he is made out to be. He was a colorful figure in the brief, early heydays of The Church of Satan, but his days of glory lasted only few years. Now, Satan would like to emphasize that this is meant only to put things into perspective. The Prince of Darkness truly has the fondest feelings for Mr. LaVey, whom He believes was a grand person who deserved much better than he was granted in life, and the Devil wishes everyone to understand that in spite of LaVey’s failure to demonstrate an ability to practice as he preached, as it were, the road to Hell is in fact paved with good intentions, and Anton LaVey proudly walked down that road in the end. The Devil thinks that often it is genius that merely points the direction, and He does not require genius to also walk the talk: Maxwell never understood the implications of his equations, and Mozart received a pauper’s funeral. Satan fully acknowledges Anton LaVey’s contributions without requiring a convincing demonstration on his part.

This is all good or bad, depending on perspective, so let me, the Devil’s servant, explain the secret: the introduction serves to establish Anton LaVey’s authority as someone who could legitimately define Satanism. Anton LaVey was intelligent but he was no scholar who could draw on academic training and had no experience in scientific method and formal research; any scientifically trained eye can see this in how he argued and drew conclusions. He could not refer to any predecessor. He could not call on the blessings of a Devil that he did not believe in. In fact, he had no claim to authority at all and was forced to concoct a charming story to make himself seem interesting enough to warrant attention because all else would fail. Hence, he embellished his life story, omitting mistakes here and adding desirables there, turning a personal interest in music into an orchestral career and transforming a fascination with the Police into a formal employment in its grimmer departments. Borrowing feathers is one of the oldest tricks in the book on lesser magic, and it still works wonders: lacking all authority, Anton LaVey manufactured the story that he was a Satanist by example, thus making him worth paying attention to. He faked his resume to obtain an infernal mandate, and the The Lord of Lies granted it as an indisputable formality.

Some of Satan’s followers read the introduction of The Satanic Bible and nodded charitably when they effortlessly called Anton LaVey’s bluff, but they kept an open mind and were for the most part pleasantly surprised by Anton LaVey’s opinions and reflections and pardoned him his oversights, excessive generalizations, contradictions, and unintentional ambiguities throughout the book, just like they found his many tounge-in-cheek statements to be an enjoyable read. Depending on their education, they might have recognized that he lacked the necessary tools which a formal education would have provided him with and were able to fill in the blanks, read between the lines, and decide what to keep and what to discard. Satan thinks it is probably these readers who could discern between the truths and the lies in the book that Anton LaVey cautioned against in his preface, and who discovered the first secret of The Satanic Bible on their own.

Other followers read the introduction and were deeply fascinated with Anton LaVey to the point of describing him as the father they never had. Satan thinks that these people were rather had by Mr. LaVey instead. They judged the contents of The Satanic Bible not on the merits of thought but by their fascination with Anton LaVey’s made-up persona. They are a fan club, personality cultists, and herd matter. The more power to Anton LaVey, says Satan, and does not wish to share his thoughts about these followers.

Those who saw right through the yarns spun by Anton LaVey did not lose respect for him, mind you. Satan thinks they are probably accomplished magicians who recognized another warlock, just like a shrewd negotiator appreciates the skills of a bargaining colleague, and they smile wryly at the LaVey fan club knowing that one sorceror can bewitch the other.

Yet, the importance of Anton LaVey’s biographical narrative cannot be overstated, because it provides The Church of Satan with its only authority as an arbiter of the meaning of Satanism. The organization owns The Satanic Bible as its only authoritative document, and in turn its authority rests on its author possessing the authority to define Satanism, leaving The Church of Satan deeply dependent on Anton LaVey’s charisma; he is practically synonymous with The Church of Satan. Any erosion of Anton LaVey’s authority weakens the organization, and it is the reason why so many detractors of The Church of Satan target Anton LaVey when they attack the organization. It explains why Nicholas and Zeena Schreck, then in the Temple of Set, compiled their infamous “truth and legend” document about Anton LaVey: the document served to harm The Church of Satan by proxy by undermining Anton LaVey’s authority by sabotaging his narrative. Michael Aquino had claimed that the Devil had revoked Anton LaVey’s infernal mandate and in some sense, Mr. Schreck’s and Ms. LaVey’s document helped revoke the infernal mandate that Anton LaVey’ narrative had provided. Some of the statements in the document are merely accusational but a significant number of them are convincing, and Peter Gilmore, in his introduction to The Satanic Bible, found it incumbent on him to counter with an explanation that the list has some merit but did not overall dismantle Anton LaVey’s being a Satanist by example—his authority still being critically required.

The Church of Satan stresses that it is not the person but his teachings that should be considered, but Anton LaVey’s charisma permeated The Church of Satan from the very beginning and still lingers. One needs only visit its web site or listen to any interview to understand the importance of Anton Lavey’s continued presence in the organization. Satan realizes how this is going to sound, but He thinks it is always LaVey this and LaVey that, and wishes that His followers would think a little of Him, too. In 2018, Church of Satan aesthetics is still thoroughly inspired by Anton LaVey’s pre-1960es imagery, music, and standards of beauty, with everyone attempting to satisfy Anton LaVey’s personal taste as he described it. Peer recognition in The Church of Satan is gained through compliance with Anton LaVey’s showmanship genres: writing, painting, constructing dolls or sculptures, hosting some radio channel, playing music, etc. (sometimes even skillfully) but rarely by demonstrating accomplishments in the cerebral areas of teaching, scientific research and publishing, etc. that are outside of Anton LaVey’s demographic background. Intellectual display is still limited to the level of Anton LaVey’s unlearned reading which separates the cocksure student from those who know. The Devil doesn’t mind such lowbrow activites at all but would like to remind His followers that while such tactics have directed the decisions of which tavern to visit for a drink and a brawl, History is changed by magicians who are not stuck in the early last century.