movements and change.
Fritz Lang (1890-1976), “who made moving
blueprints”, was an Austrian film director who made
such classics as Metropolis (1926) and M (1930).
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), “a realist”,
was a German philosopher and forerunner to the
existentialists. His ideas of the overman (or
“superman”) and the “will to power”, as well as his
ideas concerning the existence of natural “masters”
and ”slaves”, are greatly admired by modern
philosophical Satanists.
W.C. Fields (1880-1946), “who saved me a
journey to Tibet”, was the stage-name of William C.
Dukinfield.
P.T. Barnum (1810-1891), “another great
guru”, was the American showman famous for his
exhibits of freaks and establishment of circuses.
Barnum’s supposed basic philosophy - “There’s a
sucker born every minute.” - was taken to heart by
LaVey and used as a mainstay of his worldview.
Hans Poelzig (1869-1936), “who knew all the
angles”, was a German architect who specialized in
grandiose and imaginative structures. An example is
the Grand Theater in Berlin, also called the Max
Reinhardt Theater (1919). He was also the set
designer for The Golem (Deutsche Bioscop, 1914).
Reginald Marsh (1898-1954), “a great artist”,
was an illustrator, scene designer, and painter of
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gritty street scenes, greatly admired by LaVey, who
is himself a painter of unusual subjects.
Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), “who knew
more than cabinet making”, was a German
psychologist who held that there was a material
force called “orgone” which worked in conjunction
with the human orgasm. This force could also be
collected in “cabinets” called “orgone accumulators”.
Mark Twain (1835-1910), “a very brave man”,
was the pen name of Samuel Langhorn Clemens, the
great American writer. LaVey much admires Twain
for his works Letters from the Earth (1962) and The
Mysterious Stranger (1969). In an early Church of
Satan document, LaVey praises Twain as “one of the
greatest of the Devil’s advocates in history” and as
“the most noble embodiment of the Satanist”.
This list of influences provides invaluable
insight into the formation of LaVey’s philosophy and
outlook on life. Of the 16 identifiable men fully half
of them are artists of one kind or another. Of these,
five dealt with the creation of visual imagery and
two, W.C. Fields and P.T. Barnum, were best known
as “trickster” figures. The idealization of image
makers should provide some clue as to the true
nature of LaVey’s philosophy and magic.
That most of LaVey’s ideas are not original, and
that his philosophy is largely made up of bits and
pieces of the philosophies of others which he
recomposed according to his own tastes and style -
unique to himself and to his time - might also be
said of some of the other subjects in Lords of the
Left-Hand Path. We could say the same of every one
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who ever created a religion, whether Gautama the
Buddha or Gerald Gardner.
What makes LaVey somewhat unusual in this
respect is that he often seems to insist on the idea
that he invented a way of thinking, that his Satanism
is something akin to a product upon which he has a
“copyright” of some sort.
But more remarkable than the idea that LaVey
invented his Satanism out of bits and pieces of
obscure philosophies is the fact that he actually
invented himself out of the depths of his own
mind.
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A2: Satanic Bible
1972 Introduction
- by Michael A. Aquino IV°-I’
Each successive era of man’s cultural and
ethical development has upraised its literary
manifesto - an argument challenging existing norms
issues of civilization. It has not infrequently been the
case that the realities of political nationalism have
been blended with the idealisms of extranational
emphasis to produce what we now cautiously term
existentialism. Pertinent works might include the
Republic of Plato, the Politics of Aristotle,
Machiavelli’s Prince, and the writings of Nietzsche,
Hobbes, Locke, Marx, and Sartre.
This is the book of our era.
The dawn of the Satanic Age was celebrated on
April 30, 1966 - the Year One. On that date Anton
Szandor LaVey consecrated the Church of Satan in
the city of San Francisco and assumed office as its
first High Priest. What had begun several years
earlier as an intellectual forum dedicated to the
investigation and application of the Black Arts has
since expanded into an international philosophical
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movement of the first magnitude. Satanism, once
the isolate province of furtive outcasts and radical
eccentrics, has now become a serious alternative to
the doctrines of theism and materialism. In its
championship of “indulgence instead of abstinence”,
the Church of Satan rejects the notion that man’s
progress is contingent upon his acceptance of a self-
imposed morality. Sound judgment derives from the
comparison and resolution of opposites, Satanists
maintain, and one cannot presume to justice by
honoring a single standard of behavior.
An empirical approach to morality is not a
recent innovation; such theorists as Pythagoras,
Hegel, Spencer, and Compte advanced the original
propositions for man’s intellectual independence
from the natural order. And, though this concept has
invariably provoked adverse reaction from society-
oriented institutions, it is not an insubstantial
viewpoint. One need only consider the spasmodic
cataclysms of history to see how inadequately Homo
Sapiens cooperates with his fellows.
By itself, however, all theory is inconsequential.
Until now the only advocates of a subjective
morality were professorial abstractionists and -
occasionally - the scattered and disorganized
devotees of the traditional “White” witchcraft.
Indeed the latter have enjoyed some notoriety of
late, as their supposed proclamation of a liberal
morality tempered by social correctness appeals to
the bored but timid dilettante. Such aficionados of
the occult profess a righteous horror of Black Magic
or Satanism, which they denounce as a maleficent,
degenerate creature of moral and carnal abuse.
The Satanist, on the other hand, regards
traditional witchcraft as merely a neurotic reaction
against the established religions of the parent
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culture. The worship of any deity or deities - under
&nbs
p; any guise whatsoever - is repulsive to the Black
Magician, who considers all protestations of faith or
trust in a supernatural protectorate to be
humiliating demonstrations of cowardice and
emotional insecurity. Satanism has been frequently
misrepresented as “devil worship”, when in fact it
constitutes a clear rejection of all forms of worship
as a desirable component of the personality. It is not
so much an anti-religion - a simple rebuttal of any
o n e b e l i e f - a s i t i s a n u n - r e l i g i o n , a n
uncompromising dismissal of all insubstantial
mysticism. As such it represents a far more serious
threat to organized theologies than do the archaic
customs of the old dæmonologies.
Ritual and fantasy play a very real part in the
activities of the Satanic Church, on the assumption
that the experience and control of mental and
metaphysical irrationality are necessary for the
strengthening of the psyche. Thus a distinct effort is
made to avoid what was perhaps the Achilles’ heel of
the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky school of subjective
psychological evolution; earlier disciples of self-
determined transcendentalism postulated that all
non-materialistic sensations were a danger to the
coherence of the student. Crucial to the concept of
Satanic ritual is an appreciation of its illustrative
and inspirational qualities without necessarily
regarding it as inflexible reality.
Satanism is more accurately identified as a
disposition than as a religion, as it is actively
concerned with all the facets of human existence,
not with only the so-called spiritual aspects. Yet
those who proclaim it to be a danger to justice and
cooperative order have missed the point entirely.
Satanism advocates unrestricted freedom, but only
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to the extent that one’s preferences do not impinge
upon another’s. It should also be noted that
Satanism is a philosophy of the individual, not of the
mass. There are no collective policy statements save
the famous Crowley admonition: “Self-deceit is the
gravest of all ‘sins’.”
While the majority of the populace may
instinctively incline to a de facto Satanism, the
Church cautions that its propositions are not for the
irresponsible. There are no Satanic missionaries,
and to affiliate one must meet exacting standards.
Inexperience is not dishonored, but pretentiousness,
hypocrisy, and pomposity are treated with the scorn
that they deserve. Satanism is no less an art than it
is a science, and there is “no standard of
measurement deified”.
Dr. LaVey is uniquely prepared to author the
new Diabolism. An American of Georgian, Alsatian,
and Romanian Gypsy descent, he was quick to
display the characteristic restlessness of his nomadic
ancestors and an unusual empathy for their earthy,
arcane lore. An early preoccupation with the
military sciences led him to read the various
logistical publications of the World War II era, only
to discover that the proud visions of martial glory
entertained in the first world war had given way to a
detached, mercenary realism in the second. His
experiences as a student did nothing to dispel this
first taste of human cynicism, and LaVey’s growing
impatience with the sterile regimentation of
conventional education drove him to seek the
strange, surrealistic enchantments of the circus. He
assisted Clyde Beatty as a wild-animal trainer, and
he soon developed a strong affinity for the cats
which was to mark his personality in a most curious
manner. All animate creatures are basically bestial,
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he reasoned, and even the most refined social orders
achieve at best only a flimsy suppression of this
innate savagery. From the circus he proceeded to a
carnival, where the glitter of the performing arts was
tinged with the ever-present struggle for daily
subsistence. Here LaVey worked in a pathetic but
quietly dignified world of misfits, sideshow freaks,
and human oddities; and here he was to learn the
craft of the stage magician, whose success depends
upon the contrived distraction of the audience’s
attention. With a certain grimness he noted the
fascination with which the “normal” man regards his
deformed comrades - a gloating satisfaction over the
visiting of misfortune upon another instead of
oneself. Becoming increasingly interested in this
cruel, lycanthropic attribute of human nature, he
studied criminology in college and eventually
worked with the San Francisco Police Department as
a photographer.
As a circus professional he had seen carnal man
at his most artistic; now he was to view him at his
most vicious. Three years of the gore, brutality, and
abject misery that permeate the criminal subculture
left him sickened, disillusioned, and angered with
the rampant hypocrisy of polite society. He turned
to the pipe organ as a means of living and devoted
the greater part of his efforts to what was to become
his life’s work - Black Magic.
LaVey had long since rejected the stereotypical
tracts on ceremonial sorcery as the hysterical
products of medieval imaginations. The “Old Craft”
with its superstitions, affected mannerisms, and
infantile parlor games was not for him; what he
sought was a metaphysical psychology that would
approach the intellectual man only after giving due
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consideration to his brutal, animalistic origins. And
so he came at last to the Goat of Mendes.
Satan is easily the most enigmatic figure in
classical literature. Possessed of every conceivable
wealth, and the most powerful of the Archangels, he
spurned his exalted allegiance to proclaim his
independence from all that his Heavenly patron
personified. Although condemned to the most
hideous of domains, a Hell totally shunned by the
divinity, he embraced such privations as the burden
of his intellectual prerogative. In his Infernal
Empire one might indulge even the most
extraordinary tastes with impunity, yet amidst such
wanton licentiousness the Devil maintained a
peculiar nobility. It was this elusive quality which
Anton LaVey determined to identify.
After long years of research and experiment, he
pronounced the guiding principle of Satanism: that
the ultimate consequence of man lies not in unity
but in duality. It is only synthesis that decides
values; adherence to a single order is arbitrary and
therefore insignificant.
LaVey’s disturbing theories and bizarre
operations of ceremonial Black Magic eventually
attracted a following of similarly minded
individuals. From this first small
circle the Church
of Satan was to emerge, attuned to its founder’s
contention that its messages would be presented
most effectively through “nine parts social
respectability to one part of the most blatant
outrage”.
The social impact and spectacular growth of
the Church were to become something of a legend in
themselves, but it was an essential part of LaVey’s
convictions that the formal institution’s role was
principally that of a catalyst. Contemporary
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civilization has proved too interdependent to permit
the luxury of monastic isolationism. Satanism must
accordingly assume a stance comprehensible to the
average intellect. It was with such intent that the
Satanic Bible was conceived.
The Satanic Bible is a most insidious
document. One is strongly tempted to compare it
with that obscure, malefic mythology The King in
Yellow, a psychopolitical work that supposedly
drove its readers to madness and damnation. As
candid and conversational as the Satanic Bible
might seem at first glance, it is not a volume to be
gently dismissed. It is very much the product of our
time, not only because such a book - together with
its author - would more than likely have been
destroyed in an earlier era, but because its creation
was an evolutionary inevitability.
You, the reader, are about to be impaled upon
the sharp horns of a Satanic dilemma. If you accept
the propositions of this book, you condemn your
most cherished sanctuaries to annihilation. In
return you will awaken - but only to the most fiery of
Hells. Should you reject the argument, you resign
yourself to a cancerous disintegration of your
previously subconscious sense of identity. Small
wonder that the Archfiend’s legacy has won him so
many bitter enemies!
Whatever your decision, it can be avoided no
longer. The Satanic Bible finally articulates what
man has instinctively dreaded to proclaim: that he
himself is potentially divine.
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A3: Ceremony of Ordination to
the Priesthood of Mendes
- by Michael A. Aquino IV°-I’
[From 1966 to mid-1972 Church of Satan
ordinations to the Satanic Priesthood - the
Priesthood of Mendes III° - were conducted at the
Central Grotto in San Francisco by High Priest
Anton LaVey and personalized to each Priest or