The Church of Satan has become a legend in
an incredibly short period of time. There is good
reason for this. It is because Satanism makes sense
but still realizes man’s need for good, honest
emotion.
We Satanists are winners - not losers! The
die has been cast. The Satanic Age is upon us; look
around you and you’ll see! What we already are is
what other religions are feebly pussyfooting
around in attempts to become. Join us and be a
part of history! I would be happy to hear from you
in the near future.
Most sincerely,
Anton Szandor LaVey
High Priest
Plus from the Monograph you learned that at
services you got a live nude lady as the altar instead
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of a 2,000-year-old corpse on a torture machine.
What do you want for $13?
C. Blasphemous Book!
As 1968 drew to a close, Roman Polanski’s film
of Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Bab y had become the
latest Hollywood sensation, and the fact that there
happened to be a very real Church of Satan in San
Francisco came to the attention of Avon Books
editor Peter Mayer, who saw a market for a “bible”
of this Bay Area Blasphemy. Could Anton send him
a suitable manuscript?
“I pounded out the Satanic Bible on a $29
typewriter,” recalled Diane. “I edited it and added to
it.” 13
As even a revised and re-sectioned Monograph,
together with expanded rainbow-sheet essays, didn’t
meet Avon’s volume requirements, Anton added the
“Ragnar Redbeard” tract and his own adaptation of
Aleister Crowley’s Equinox version of the Enochian
Keys to solve the problem.
There wasn’t time to worry about the usual
formalities of nonfictional book structuring, but
Mayer liked the “free-form” arrangement, which
added to the book’s anarchistic atmosphere.
During the “occult revival” of the 1960s, there
was a continuous parade of both hardcover and
paperback books seeking to exploit the craze. All had
garishly-sensational cover-art and lurid gush on
both front and back, establishing them as tabloid
trash that wouldn’t [and didn’t] survive more than a
month on a convenience store carousel.
13 LaVey, Diane in “What the Devil?”, Globe newspaper, Boca
Raton, Florida, November 1, 1988.
- 18 -
But the Satanic Bible was different. In addition
to its quietly-outrageous title, it featured only a
small, pink (?!) Baphomet beneath title & author in
unremarkable, white type.
There was no printing on the back cover - just
the author pinkly gazing out at you, the Baphomet
behind him just happening to lend him horns, while
his left hand, fingers casually in the Sign of the
Horns, rested beneath his right one sporting an
impossibly-large crystalline ring. Both backgrounds
were black, but the overprinting on pink gave
everything an eerie purpleblack glow:
The æsthetic effect was absolutely stunning. It
was a book equally comfortable resting on a ritual-
chamber altar or peering insolently from between
larger, more expensively-bound, but so drearily
- 19 -
ordinary tomes on even the most outré bibliophile’s
bookshelf.
D. 1972 PreVisions
Burton Wolfe was a close friend of Anton &
Diane LaVey from their pre-Church “Magic Circle”
days: something of a “Gonzo journalist” in the weird
mold of Hunter S. Thompson. In 1968 Anton had
asked him to contribute an Introduction for the
Satanic Bible, and Burton had provided a very
serviceable one, straightforwardly explaining Anton,
his religion, and his church to the general public.
Perhaps it was Burton’s conspicuous effort to
court credibility by establishing his detachment, but
it began to bother Anton as time went on. It was
important to him that he be taken seriously, not
showcased as an exotic social zoo exhibit.
By 1971, after the hardcover success of his
second book The Compleat Witch, 14 he had invited
me to contribute an H.P. Lovecraft essay and two
Cthulhu Mythos-ceremonies to his forthcoming The
Satanic Rituals, which I was pleas’d to do.
But this “companion to the Satanic Bible” had
refocused his attention upon that work, as he wrote
to me:
With each succeeding printing of the Satanic
Bible [with hardcover publication in the offing],
the existing introduction by Burton Wolfe becomes
more and more obsolete, casual, and inadequate
[especially the mealy-mouthed last paragraph!].
In short, I would like you to write a new
introduction. I have already spoken with the
14 LaVey, Anton, The Compleat Witch, or What To Do When
Virtue Fails. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1970. [Later
retitled The Satanic Witch.]
- 20 -
Editor of Avon Books about your doing this, and
he is quite enthused.
He glanced at the Diabolicon while he was in
S.F. earlier this week, and is especially taken with
my plan for getting it into print as per our
discussion in Chicago.
The new intro for the Bible should bear your
name if possible, but if not you may use a
pseudonym.
The biographical sketch of myself should be
basically the same, but in your own words, of
course.Less space should be devoted to the types of
rituals we were doing (psychodrama, etc.), and
more emphasis should be placed on what is
happening now: how we have become a force to be
reckoned with, our organizational maturity, the
various levels of involvement, our magical
influence in the world outside the Church, our
growing acceptance and legitimacy, our elitist
principles, our seemingly paradoxical support of
law and order and refutation of the drug scene, our
objectivistic outlook while placing great emphasis
on ritual and ceremony of the most secret nature -
in short, a projection of enough awesomeness to
thrill and scare the reader, yet not allow him any
avenue to which, as a “red-blooded, law-abiding
American”, he could possibly object!
Because of your writing ability, combined
with your PSYOP training, I feel that you alone
could do the right job. It appears that the Satanic
Bible is going to be around for a long, long time,
and I want you to have a hand in it.
The Diabolicon can either be re-set in
available text-type print or photo-offset from your
original hand printing. It has been decided that it
should definitely be presented as apocrypha, a la
the Necronomicon or Book of Mormon. I will
present it as having passed into my hands, and you
will be credited with the transliteration and editing
for publ
ication. We envision it as a perfect follow-
up for The Morning of the Magicians and the
Satanic Bible. 15
15 Letter, Anton LaVey to M.A. Aquino, April 1, 1971.
- 21 -
My 1972 Introduction (Appendix #2) was more
complex than expected, because it was difficult to
write about Satanic philosophy while not intruding
into the prominence and thrust of the book itself.
Furthermore, in my zealousness to write a truly
enduring and profoundly sophisticated piece, I
plunged into language so abstract and academic that
I daresay some readers had a rather difficult time
understanding it.
But I would never have the chance to redo it,
unless of course this entire book is a sort of meta-
Introduction!
E. 1975-2018: NonSatanic NonBible
The authenticity of the Satanic Bible, as indeed
that of the Church of Satan itself, rested upon
acknowledgment of and allegiance to Satan - not as
a mere symbol or metaphor, but a real, sentient
being. Otherwise both the Church and the Bible
would have been nothing more than deceptive
fictions of meaningless “priesthoods”, play-acting
rituals, and invocations to thin air.
During 1966-75 this sincerity, and therefore
authenticity was never in the slightest doubt. Indeed
its contrast to the hypocrisy, the tacit phoniness of
conventional religion, was a point of especial pride
among Satanists, most vehemently Satan’s High
Priest concerning pretenders & poseurs:
They play at the games which caused our
forebears to be slaughtered and tortured as agents
of Satan.
And what do they do, now that it is safe to
use His Great Infernal Name? They deny him!
They have the very opportunity to cast the
very creed of defamation, which killed their
brothers and sisters of the past - cast that creed
- 22 -
before the world in triumphant mockery of its age
of unreason!
But no! They do not thrust the bifid barb of
Satan aloft and shout: “He has triumphed!”
His Art and Works which brought men to
the rack and thumbscrew can now be learned in
safety.But no! He is denied! Denied by those who
cry up His Art and ply His Work!
Satan’s Name will not be denied! Let no
man shun or mock His Name who plays His
winning game - or Despair, Depletion, and
Destruction await!16
Tragically, however, that’s exactly what Anton
himself did in 1975, to the stunned surprise and
shock of the Church:17 “The titles ‘Infernal Empire’,
‘Exarch of Hell’, etc. are symbolic, not literal.” 18
Where the Satanic Bible was concerned, this de
facto invalidated the Books of Satan, Belial, &
Leviathan, and the metaphysical contents of Lucifer,
reducing the book to the secular social criticisms in
those essays. It was no longer a bible, e.g. a
supernatural religious statement, but a work of
occult fiction.
But this didn’t matter, because the Church of
Satan had simultaneously ceased to be a religious
institution. Religious Satanists resigned to found the
Temple of Set, while individuals who remained were
those with no interest in rituals or sacred texts, but
just in Anton’s 1940s noir-nostalgic image and
lifestyle. A new Burton Wolfe Introduction appeared
16 LaVey, Anton in Cloven Hoof, March 1970, page #2.
17 These events are detailed & documented, and speculation
concerning their pressures & causes offered in my The Church
of Satan (2013).
18 LaVey, Anton, June 20, 1975.
- 23 -
in 1976 to restore his original picture of a skilled
con-artist and his colorful social impact.
During 1966-75 the legal status of the Church
of Satan had never been of concern beyond Anton
and Diane LaVey. In 1971 Anton had incorporated it
in California as a nonprofit church, 19 but to my
knowledge there are no corporate records or tax-
filings20 that it ever functioned as such.
In 1988 Diane swore under oath that the
Church had been operated as her and Anton’s
business partnership, never the corporation, and
that following 1986 Anton had taken total control of
the partnership. 21 In his sworn response Anton
denied such partnership; neither mentioned the
corporation. 22 The court found the Church to be a
partnership and ordered it dissolved:
A receiver will be appointed by the court, at
defendant’s expense, to prepare an accounting and
inventory of all partnership assets, and upon
completion of such accounting a dissolution of the
19 Articles of Incorporation, Church of Satan, Filed 9/20/1971,
California Secretary of State.
20 On 9/16/1971 a California tax-exemption was issued for the
Church, conditional upon a federal exemption. When this was
not granted, the California exemption was revoked in 1973. It
was reapplied for in 1975, then revoked again in 1985.
Thereafter the “church” has claimed that it qualifies for
exemption but refuses it on principle!
21 Superior Court of the State of California, City & County of
San Francisco, First Amended Complaint, Hegarty v LaVey,
Case #891863, 12/7/1988.
22 Ibid., Answer, Anton LaVey, 6/1/1989.
- 24 -
partnership will occur and all partnership assets
will be divided 50-50 between the parties. 23
Hence any personal/for-profit business using
the name “Church of Satan” has no legal connection
to the 1966-1975 religious institution of that name.
Reportedly Anton willed his copyrights and
time of his 1997 death, Sharon Densley, who in 2001
designated Peter H. Gilmore “high priest” of a
“Church of Satan” New York atheist business
venture. In 2005 Gilmore, now styling himself a
“Magus”, replaced the 1976 Wolfe Introduction with
his own.
Otherwise the Satanic Bible has remained
unchanged since 1976, when the “Inspirations” page
was permanently deleted.
F. Like Grandfather, Like Grandson
This Preface would not be complete without a
very special acknowledgment and appreciation:
Occasionally over the decades since 1972, I
would make notes to myself about eventual updates
to the Satanic Bible - originally against a time when
Anton might decide to undertake that project, but
after 1975 as well, on the possibility that an eventual
reconciliation might occur and the book project be
revived.
I never mentioned this “hobby” to anyone, well
aware that most acquaintances had a less-charitable
opinion of Anton than mine.
After Anton’s bodily death in 1997, the “hobby”
also died. Until 2018, when I happened to mention
23 Ibid., Judge Mari
e-Victoire, Ollie, Supplemental order after
trial, Case #891863, 10/28/1991.
- 25 -
it to Anton’s grandson by his daughter Zeena,
Stanton Zaharoff LaVey.
Stanton and I had corresponded occasionally;
he had read my Church of Satan history and was
intensely interested in his grandfather and his
works. He asked if he might see some of my notes,
so I sent him a sample. After reading them, he
encouraged the project. “If you can’t update my
grandfather’s book, just do a completely new one.”
Intriguingly Stanton had a point. A book title
cannot be copyrighted, nor would there be any other
grounds for objection if the subtitle, author, and
contents are all different. What initially sounded like
madness coalesced into a very real possibility. So
like that other mad Baron, Frankenstein, I began
stitching things together to see what might sit up on
the table. I sent progressive drafts to Stanton and
his grandmother Diane for their information and
comments as the body began to take shape.
And now:
“It’s alive ... It’s alive!”
Rege Satanas!
San Francisco
North Solstice LIII ÆS
- 26 -
- 27 -
Introduction
- by Lady Diane LaVey
High Priestess
Church of Satan
July 10, 2018 CE24
Michael’s audacity is breathtaking. 25
24 The High Priestess’ birthday.
25 “De l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace et la
Patrie sera sauvée!” - Georges Danton. Speech, Assemblée
legislative, Paris, 9/2/1792, reported in Le Moniteur 9/4/1792.
- 28 -
- 29 -
Table of Contents
Dedication: Anton Szandor LaVey
5
Foreword - Satan
7
Preface - Michael A. Aquino
9
A. ReVision Golden Jubilee
9
B. Before the Bible: Monograph &
“Rainbow Sheets”
14
C. Blasphemous Book!
16
D. 1972 PreVisions
18
E. 1975-2018: NonSatanic NonBible
21
F. Like Grandfather, Like Grandson