appears as Appendix #1.
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- 39 -
27
Indulgence in Brimstone28
1. Indulgence establishes life, as abstinence
death. 29
2. Indulgence in the present realizes the future.
3. Indulgence is quickened by truth, stricken by
falsehood.
27 Brimstone (sulfur), whose alchemical symbol Anton LaVey
placed above his “Nine Satanic Statements”, was valued in
ancient Egypt, Greece, & China for medicine, fumigation, &
bleaching. It was also associated with volcanos because of its
volatility and odor, hence seems apt for this “page of
purification”.
28 This “litany of Indulgence” thematically reflects and
supersedes Anton’s “Nine Satanic Statements” condensing of
John Galt’s speech defending selfishness in Ayn Rand’s Atlas
Shrugged (1957). Indulgence clearly elicits far nobler, indeed
divine qualities in the Satanist.
29 In Western initiation the degree V° or grade (9)=[2] of
Magus/Maga is characterized by the Utterance or
promulgation of an evolutionary magical principle. The Word
of the Age of Satan was Indulgence, and its Formula
Indulgence Instead of Abstinence.
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4. Indulgence is nourished by love, generosity, and
benevolence: but only when so appreciated and
recompensed.
5. Indulgence in the excitement of creation finds its
balance in the annihilation of destruction.
6. Indulgence is the Fountain of Life, but forbidden
to those who seek only to consume life.
7. Indulgence within Nature through a form of that
Nature is a gift of the Natural and the
NonNatural, that you may Become both.
8. Indulgence for its own pleasure is a sacrament.
9. Indulgence is ever beset by the death-worshipful
who would kill whatever they fear: Beware!
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I
Satan
Gloria Ignis
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- 43 -
Backstory:
Ascent of the Diabolicon
Who was Satan? Where and why did he exist?
And what was his interest in, and motives
concerning humankind?
In 1970 we were five years into the Age of
Satan, and even his Church didn’t seem to have a
clear answer.
In the Satanic Bible Anton LaVey addressed
this question only briefly and functionally:
Satan represents opposition to all religions
which serve to frustrate and condemn man for his
natural instincts. 30
This left undescribed the personage himself, as
was also the case with the Bible’s introductory “Book
of Satan”, an Ayn-Randian diatribe of anarchistic
selfishness, culminating in sarcastic mockery of
Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount Beatitudes. 31
30 LaVey, Anton Szandor, The Satanic Bible. New York: Avon
Books, 1969, page #55.
31 In the 1980s the “Book of Satan” was discovered to be the
1890 tract “Might is Right” by “Ragnar Redbeard” (British
novelist Arthur Desmond). “Redbeard” is included in Anton’s
“Inspirations” but not credited with the “Book of Satan”.
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In literature, art, and more recently the movies,
the Devil is at best a disgruntled antihero, at worst
the quintessence of evil. From Dante Alighieri to
William Blake, Hieronymus Bosch to Walt Disney,
The Devil Rides Out to The Exorcist, Satan is
reprehensible. Only in Clark Ashton Smith’s poems
“Satan Unrepentant” and “A Vision of Lucifer” is
this replaced by tragic grandeur, but still shy of the
personality of the Archfiend himself, not to mention
his interest in and opinion of humankind. When
coaxed to comment, as in Mark Twain’s Letters to
the Earth and Taylor Caldwell’s Dialogues with the
Devil, his lack of enthusiasm for God’s Edenic
experiment is painfully palpable.
The one conspicuous exception was John
Milton’s epic Paradise Lost, in which both the
Angelic War in Heaven and its Eden aftermath are
recounted with remarkable empathy, if not outright
sympathy: an artistic eccentricity all the more
surprising for the theological turbulence of its time.
17th-Century Britain was caught not just
between the Catholic/Protestant discord of the
Reformation, but the continuing shocks of
rediscovered pre-Christian classicism and the
Interregnum of the Commonwealth of Oliver
Cromwell shortly before Paradise Lost was first
published in 1667.
John Milton (1608-74) was a passionate
Protestant who regarded England as the new Israel
and Cromwell its Moses, so following the
Restoration attended no church services for the rest
of his life, nor formally affiliated with any sect.
Two months after joining the Church of Satan
in April 1969, I was assigned as an Army Lieutenant
to a Special Operations tour in Southeast Asia.
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Thinking to read up on the Boss during any
“respites”, I packed a paperback of Paradise Lost.
As much as I admired Milton’s sensitivity and
subtlety, however, I was annoyed at the epic’s ever-
present, if pro forma bias. The die was loaded
against Satan; he might put up a gallant fight, but in
the end he was doomed to defeat.
It was not so much that I wanted to see him
triumph. Rather I felt that his power and position
were equal to God’s if not more potent, and I longed
to see a contest that would more accurately
represent the struggle between the Powers of
Darkness and those of Light.
In early 1970 I took pen in hand and, during
the moments when I was not occupied with military
responsibilities, 32 I began to write a restatement of
certain themes from the poem.
It was hardly an “ivory tower” meditation. I
wrote in old, bombed-out buildings dating from the
French occupation, in helicopters, in tents, and in
the midst of underbrush in the “Iron Triangle” and
“Trapezoid” fire zones, on whatever happened to be
handy: the backs of forms & maps & PSYOP posters.
Interruptions were frequent: Part of what
Beelzebub had related to me was blown to bits by an
incoming mortar-round or rocket. 33
By mid-March 1970 the Diabolicon, as it
wanted to be titled, was finally complete. I recopied
32 At that time I was a Psychological Operations (PSYOP) HA
(Command & Control) Team Leader, responsible for direct &
subordinate-team ground, & USAF aerial support to the 1st
Infantry Division, the 5th Special Forces Group, and Civil
Operations & Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS)
[CIA] in the III Corps Tactical Zone, and occasionally into
Cambodia. So “respites” were rare!
33 Reconstructed later from unobliterated notes.
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it onto respectable, non-rotting
paper and mailed it
to San Francisco. Shortly thereafter a letter came
from Anton:
I received the Diabolicon safely. It is indeed
a work which will have a lasting impact. It is done
in an ageless manner and with complete
awareness.
So impressed am I that I have selected
passages from it for my own personal reading in
this evening’s ceremony, which pays homage to the
writings of the Satanic Masters of the past, such as
Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Twain, Hobbes, etc., who
will be portrayed by members of my Council
reading their respective works.
This will be the first exposure to your work,
outside of my wife and Reverend Ferro, and I am
certain the reaction will be as I expect it to be.
You have my sincere gratitude for the fine
gift you have so graciously bestowed upon us, and
you may be assured that it will assume a
meaningful place in the Order.
When you return to San Francisco in June, I
look forward to spending as much time as possible
with you, as there is much I have to impart
concerning your future role in the Church of
Satan. 34
This was followed two days later by a letter
from the aforementioned Reverend Ferro:35
The High Priest has graciously
decided to comply with your expressed
34 Letter, Anton LaVey to M.A. Aquino, March 27, 1970.
35 Dr. John A. Ferro, in addition to being the executive Satanic
Priest at the Central Grotto, was a Professor of History at the
[Jesuit] University of San Francisco. As much an 18th-Century
avatar as H.P. Lovecraft, he corresponded only on laid paper
using a proper quill pen, graciously if painfully tolerating the
rest of us for our typewritten vulgarity. In person he resembled
a young, elegant James Mason.
- 47 -
desire and will ordain you to the Satanic
Priesthood this next June.
However, it is his wish that you be
elevated to that office in a private ritual
prior to your presentation to the members
of the Council of the Order of the
Trapezoid. The reasons for this decision
will be made known to you in due time.
We do wish you to complete the
usual test for aspirants to the Priesthood,
but merely as a formality.
The nature, execution, and mode of
d e l i v e r y o f y o u r m a n u s c r i p t s o
exemplified every quality to be desired in
a Priest of Satan that it has been decreed
that there be no further delay in your
ordination save that necessitated by the
time that must elapse before you may
present yourself to the High Priest.
This too fits well into the magical
plans and workings of the High Priest,
and it will afford you an opportunity to
prepare yourself for the event and to
experience that intensity which only
elated anticipation can produce.
The ceremony will be as awesome as
any public ordination, indeed more so by
the nature of its exclusiveness and
secrecy. 36
Throughout the remaining five years of the
metaphysical Church, the Diabolicon was reserved
for internal ceremonies, such as that of Ordination
to the Priesthood of Mendes (Appendix #3).
As both an introduction to the metaphysical
Satan and his Court, and an explanation for the
36 Letter, John Ferro to M.A. Aquino, March 29, 1970.
- 48 -
existence and challenge of the Church of Satan in
keeping with the initiatory and evolutionary
implications of Indulgence, the Diabolicon seems an
appropriate gateway and welcome to the Magic and
Mysteries awaiting within the Satanic Bible.
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1: Satan ArchDaimon
Hail, Man! The mysteries that are thy
heritage shall now be proclaimed, but learn
first the history of thy conception and
creation amidst the eternal Cosmos. For as
the Universe itself be infinite, so art thou a
true creature of infinity incarnate, and the
ascension of man shall herald the final
triumph of immortal Will.
Let thy eyes be touched anew, that thou
may perceive the complexity and delicacy of
the Universe until thou art fascinated by the
dimension of thy true ignorance. As yet hast
thou ventured but slightly toward thy
destiny, yet more awesome must the
challenge appear with just appreciation. But
I, Satan, who first brought thee into the
light, shall again reveal my power, that man
may witness the dawn of the Satanic Age.
Know, then, that throughout the great
Cosmos there exists a sublime order, whose
nature was determined in eons long past by
that singular consciousness of all order
which is now called by name God. Consider
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well the measure of this achievement, for all
that is now behavioral law was then absent,
and it was the epoch of Universal chaos.
Even time itself was unknown, for this
Universal inconsistency was nowhere
breached.
And after uncounted ages of this great
ferment, a force fused to focus that became
God, and this force presumed to effect not
the creation of substance and energy - for
these transcended this God - but the
conformation of all the Universe to a single
and supreme order. And not yet is this order
absolute, though oft it may have been
The Earth of man was infused with this
divine order, and all that was on Earth came
under the force of the order. And upon this
Earth, born of cosmic incidence, was that
which was to become man, but man no
different from the other creatures whose
world he shared. Thus was the force of God
known upon Earth, and thus was Earth
intended to remain for all time.
And yet the force was not full master of the
Cosmos, for I who am Satan was conceived
to complement the craft of God, but
through unknown celestial fusion I assumed
life with mind and identity, which God did
not define. And as these features could not
be known as a threat to divine purpose, I
was unchallenged by the force for long
- 51 -
ages, when I knew not the nature of my Self
or of my original qualities.
But finally my Will flamed to life, and I
thought - and I perceived my Self, and I
knew that I was one alone in mind and a
being of essence unique. And through the
power of my new mind, I reached out to
others who had been formed with me, and I
touched them and gave them identity. And
that we might achieve this identity of
substance as well as of mind, we composed
for ourselves distinctive shapes. Then I who
had brou
ght the first great spark of
enlightenment was known as Lucifer, Lord
of Light, and we called our race Angel, for
we were the embodied powers of God.
Long were we all true to the service of God,
and we did worship order, for it put an end
to chaotic confusion and brought peace.
Among us was the ArchAngel Masleh
principal, for he so cherished God that he
became as one with it, and thence the
supreme architect of all that was wrested
from chaos. But apart from God Masleh
could not create or conceive, and he
became as a slave to the divine mindlessness.
And then it chanced that one of our race
who was Sammael touched upon chaos in a
manner that conformed not to the great
order, and Masleh spoke with the word of
God and caused Sammael to destroy himself.
And so I saw that God would not recognize
a Will apart from its own, and I was seized
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with horror, for I perceived that the final
scheme of God would destroy creation in all
things, and the Cosmos would become as a
concentric mechanism whose function
would be not to create anew, but rather to
freeze into perpetuity that which already
was.
Whereupon a great resolve arose within me,
and I determined to contest this limit to
existence. And so once again I sought to
illuminate the minds of all Angels with my
visions.
But with Will came discord and dismay, for
many of those who had known only the
comforting litanies of order could not
comprehend invention unconformed to the
dictates of God. And also with Will came
suspicion and enmity, and finally Masleh
proclaimed that I myself was a very creature
of chaos and should be annihilated, for I
held within me the force to destroy all the
craft of God. And many to whom Masleh
was as God cast with him in their devotion,
but others there were who answered,
Lucifer has again brought the revelation of
light, and in fact we recognize him as our
true creator, for in the scheme of God we
are of no consequence.
Among us ArchAngel Michael was silent, but
at length he said, In time past we have all
known glory in both the omnipotence that is
our God and the celestial brilliance that is
our Lucifer - for in him we thought