Michael Aquino

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 Satanists are made, not born

Posted on by A lesser demon

If asked, a large number of the Devil’s followers will tell you that they always were Satanists, but that they first realized this when they encountered Satanism one way or another and realized their true nature. They never knew about Satanism and when for no apparent reason they accidentally obtained a copy of The Satanic Bible and decided to spend time reading it, it dawned upon them. Satan is not always entirely convinced by their explanation because some have been fundamentalist Christians for their entire lives until only a few years earlier, and usually when someone later discovers that Satanism was not for them after all, they cease to always have been Satanists. Far be it for the Devil to insinuate that they are lying; He merely hypothesizes that they sometimes apply alternate pasts.

Unlike we Hell-spawned creatures who dwell in the Devil’s reign of chaos, humans are a little conservative in that you require a certain level of consistency to stay sane. It is a social requirement that is deeply embedded in the human brain to expect that people do not behave entirely erratically, and to maintain a steady mental course. People usually do not change spontaneously unless something is very wrong. Convictions, ideologies, values, and morals are malleable but possess a degree of inertia. Any major change, such a politician’s change to another political party or someone’s decision to join a religious movement that they hitherto disagreed with, requires a good explanation which convinces especially themselves. An atheist simply does not become a born-again Christian overnight, for example, without providing some believable and unsophisticated story that supports the change: having met Jesus in one’s dreams is a tried and tested answer that is usually good enough for both believers and non-believers, because although their reaction will differ, they will accept the story as a valid reason.

Anyone who attempts to dig a little into such stories will find that such change typically has a backstory and rarely occurs as fast as told. People have usually shown significant interest prior to their revelations, and their “sudden” change merely marks the day they finally came out of their closets. Satan remembers that when Michael Aquino in 1975 spun his tale of being bestowed with the Fallen Angel’s “infernal mandate,” he had evidently desired it for a while, for example.

Such explanations are conversion narratives, which often follow certain unspoken rules depending on the nature of the target. Each ideology has its own set of expected and accepted narratives. The aforementioned Jesus experience is common among Christians in the US, and politicians whose alliances shift often explain that either the political landscape had moved while they stood their ground, or that they always were at heart what their new party represents.

Those who chose to follow the Prince of Darkness also use conversion narratives that obey certain rules. Satan maintains a strict principle of not showing Himself to His followers, so any narrative that involves His presence is frowned upon in the atheistic, Satanic arena, and will generally not be acknowledged. Even “losing faith” in one’s former religion is often not considered sufficiently convincing, and perhaps reasonably so, says Satan, because that would merely turn this lost sheep atheist.

The gold standard for a Satanic conversion narrative was provided by Anton LaVey, who several times declared that Satanists are born, not made, offering himself as a matchless example who demonstrated demonic tendencies from the day he was allegedly born with a tail. Satanists were unlike the herd; an alien elite in a sea of ordinary people. Satan thinks there is good reason for Anton LaVey’s sentiment because Satan thinks he had Asperger syndrome, which often manifests itself as herd apprehension and extraordinary skills that alienates one. However, the proclamation may also be a corollary of Anton LaVey’s belief in social Darwinism: a statement that Satanists are a breedable race with an iron youth.

Anton LaVey’s stand is regularly echoed by both The Church of Satan and non-affiliated Satanists, and The Church of Satan’s application for active membership still includes questions about the applicants’ biography, including their early childhood, supporting its position that one does not become a Satanist, one is a Satanist and therefore joins the organization. This conversion narrative has prompted Satanists across the entire spectrum to declare that they always were Satanists, only they did not know it, and to identify all sorts of anecdotes highlighting diabolic qualities earlier in their lives.

Satan has not doubt that most of His followers have occasionally exhibited traces of Satanic dispositions but suspects that the same followers could readily, and much more convincingly, identify an equal number of habits contradicting them if they felt so inclined—and they certainly do in those cases where they find it necessary to declare that Satanism was not their thing after all. As any born-again Christian will gladly inform you, everyone has a sinful past, so by carefully ignoring everything that speaks against your claim, anyone can say he was always a Satanist. Satan thinks that for the most part His followers do indeed become Satanists in the same way that anyone else gravitates to a new position and explains the change of mind and heart according to appropriate conversion narratives. A a Satanist, the proper conversion narrative is to make yourself and others believe you always were one whenever you become one.

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 is not dead yet

Posted on by A lesser demon

Satan recalls that His first church was first declared dead less than a decade after its inauguration when Michael Aquino became envious of members who, by a new decree issued by Anton LaVey, could purchase a clergy title within the church instead of earning it through meticulously studying and demonstrating theoretical knowledge about the teachings of The Church of Satan as Michael Aquino had spent much effort doing. He ostensibly did not support the argument that the financial foundation required to pay the charged fee presumably indicated that this member had sufficient success in real life and thus, by definition, had earned a degree that was intended to reflect its owner’s position in the real world. Then the Devil conveniently appeared to Michael Aquino and transferred His infernal mandate that had hitherto been bestowed onto Anton LaVey to Michael Aquino, at least if one is to believe Mr. Aquino. Satan remembers the situation somewhat differently, however, and denies having revoked any infernal mandate from anyone, if nothing else because He never granted it to anyone to begin with. Also, He detests being called Set—in fact, He finds there is something deeply misguided with those of His followers who are into Egyptology. Satan has never met a single person who was fascinated with the Egyptian gods and turned out sane.

No, The Church of Satan did not become defunct when Michael Aquino left it together with a sizeable number of its members to launch The Temple of Set (contemporary research and documentation support Mr. Aquino’s claim that a minority remained) and little was heard from the Devil’s church for another decade. It continued to attract people by means of contact information provided in The Satanic Bible, however, and in the 1980es its now high priest, Peter Gilmore, remained a member after being rejected by The Temple of Set when Michael Aquino learned that Peter Gilmore had been double-courting both organizations. Satan wishes to extend His thanks to Peter Gilmore for helping reinvigorate His church by means of editing the magazine The Black Flame and his continued work as an administrator in the organization. This, as well as occasional shock artists, kept The Church of Satan alive and growing, albeit slowly, while Anton LaVey appears to have concentrated on attempting to become a Hollywood movie consultant. Satan wishes to also mention Blanche Barton, whose hagiography of Anton LaVey, The Secret Life of a Satanist, and possibly her apologetic The Church of Satan, have likely persuaded a number of personality cult minded people to join as well.

Anton LaVey was skeptical of the emerging Internet but it enabled The Church of Satan to reach people that would otherwise never have heard of the organization, and Satan’s church gained renewed interest. The aftermath of Anton LaVey’s death in 1997 predictably prompted a variety of “Mexican generals” to claim their rights to lead the organization, and some splinter groups formed, including one led by Karla LaVey, each of them claiming to continue the true lineage of Anton LaVey and declaring The Church of Satan to be history. It soon became clear that they had little clout and while some have survived until this day, they have little influence and visibility. Satan does not mind: each of His followers should worship Him according to their abilities and needs, and He is not impressed by herd size.

The Church of Satan continued to grow and in the Fall of 2004, Peter Gilmore was bewitched by a homely-looking young female press intern and divulged to her that he estimated The Church of Satan membership count in the USA to be around 1,000 individuals, and an additional few thousand worldwide. (She promptly deleted this information from her article after it was published but Satan remembers.) Satan is inclined to believe the figures because a good rule of thumb states that the membership of any organization is about ten times larger than the number of active, “visible” members.

Peter Gilmore had to somehow consolidate his leadership and provide some personal touch, consciously or not, and the Devil was pleased to observe that Gilmore began to lay some distance to the fascist leanings that several high-ranking members of The Church of Satan expressed in the 1990es and early 2000s, even if they would habitually excuse it with aesthetics, shock value, or other recognizable ambiguities and dog whistles, as Nazi sympathizers always do. Satan considers Peter Gilmore to be an intelligent and well-written chap (if perhaps somewhat overestimating his own entitlements), and feels that these attributes substantially outweigh his underachieving real world day job even if The Church of Satan generally recognizes only one’s accomplishments in the latter: Satan thinks that the value of people’s actions in their real lives is not limited to their production of music and sculptures, but also includes their influence on other people’s thoughts; that is, armchair warriors sometimes have real leverage. Anton LaVey, too, is, and should be, remembered for his contribution to thought not his mediocre musical or artistic exercises.

Satan thinks it is probably Peter Gilmore’s development that caused formerly high-ranking members of The Church of Satan to leave; Diabolus Rex Church apparently had always believed in the Devil (which in spite of the atheistic position of the organization there is ample evidence indicating to have been inconsequential to Anton LaVey), and Boyd Rice declared that he had been appointed as the new high priest by Anton LaVey (not volunteering to produce a signed document to support it) and then disbanded “his” organization, thus conveying the message that Mr. Rice considered The Church of Satan to be passé. Today, a little less than a decade later, their departures seem to have had no bearing on The Church of Satan. Instead, the Devil’s church has improved its web site and found its way to various social media.

Satan thinks the greatest survival challenge of the organization has remained unchanged since its inception in 1966: its survival is contingent on building a critical mass that it has never reached within orders of magnitude. Organizations are kept alive over multiple generations of leadership only by means of a body of members supplying it with enthusiastic and accomplished leaders, and as Satanic organiations are concerned they all fall far short of supply. The Church of Satan, too, never had enough capable candidates to choose between for the next high priest position, and it was lucky to have Peter Gilmore filling the effectively void position during Anton LaVey’s late years. Satan cannot name any of its members as a worthy successor in spite of modest shoes to fill. What few people the contenders to The Church of Satan‘s throne might lure into their clutches and thus deprive The Church of Satan of is a far cry from the additional membership count required for a self-sustaining organization.

The most recent organization above the radar, The Satanic Temple, breaks tradition by mostly ignoring The Church of Satan (except when attacked directly) and not declaring it entirely dead or replaced. Satan suspects that His temple may employ a sufficiently different version of Satanism to genuinely consider itself too far distanced from The Church of Satan to perceive it as an ideological rival instead of trying to intentionally ignore the “dead.” If so, The Church of Satan needs not worry that its philosophy is being appropriated by another organization. But The Satanic Temple does pose some threat to The Church of Satan beyond regularly stealing the limelight: by and large, the philosophical, contemplative depth of the Devil’s followers is limited to having a chip on their shoulder against Christianity and a fondness for demonic imagery, and they will join any organization purporting to be Satanic, like the aforementioned Diabolus Rex Church and Peter Gilmore once approached the Temple of Set, simply because the organization exists not because of its ideology. But, even in the best of all worlds, where The Satanic Temple could not poach a single member from from The Church of Satan or even inadvertently drew some people into it, the latter would still be too low-volume to be self-sustaining.

As of this writing, however, there is nothing that indicates that The Church of Satan is dead or dying in spite of several claims to the contrary, and Satan thinks it will remain alive at least until Peter Gilmore resigns.