Such definitions create great confusion. The following are recommended terms and descriptions for four essentially unrelated religions that have been called Satanism:

1. Religious Satanism: This faith includes the recognition of Satan, either as a deity or as a principle. Followers are usually serious adults, although a few are teenagers. Three main traditions exist: the Church of Satan, the Temple of Set and the Church of Satanic Liberation. Other short-lived Satanic groups currently exist and have existed in the recent past. According to Statistic Canada, the 1991 census found 335 Canadians who identified themselves as Satanists. The actual number is probably significantly larger. A US Department of the Army pamphlet #165-13 estimated that there were 10 to 20 thousand members of the Church of Satan in the US during the late 1970's. _1,7 Accurate data for this movement is impossible to estimate, since the largest group (the Church of Satan) does not release its membership totals.

It is important to realize that the Satan that they recognize has few if any points of similarity with the Christian concept of Satan. The Satanists' concept of Satan is pre-Christian, and derived from the Pagan image of power, virility, sexuality and sensuality. To most Satanists, Satan is a force of nature, not a living quasi-deity. Their Satan has nothing to do with Hell, demons, pitchforks and profound evil. They have occasionally engaged in a Black Mass for publicity purposes, in which the Roman Catholic Mass is ridiculed. But, otherwise, their rituals have no connection to Christian rituals.

2. Gothic Satanism: It is a largely imaginary, profoundly evil religion that was invented during the late Middle Ages. Concepts included ritual killing of children, selling their soul to the devil, breaking crucifixes, conducting black masses, etc. It has never existed in the past on any organized level, and does not exist today, except in the imagination of the public. It was an invention of the 15^th century Christian Church. A very small number of anti-Christian believers do exist who have taken their rituals from Christian literature. They picked up the idea of the inverted cross symbol from anti-Satanic writings; they do worship Satan, etc. However, they do not commit criminal acts, and do not abuse other people.

Gothic Satanism should not be confused with the Goth sub-culture. The latter is a philosophical, musical, cultural group that is unrelated to Satanism.

3. Satanic Dabblers: A syncretistic religion which blend of elements taken from Religious Satanism, Gothic Satanism, ceremonial Magick, and any other useful sources of ritual that they can find. It is typically practiced by rebellious teenagers or young adults- typically for a short interval. They probably number in the tens or hundreds of thousands at any one time in North America. An exact estimate is impossible to obtain, since they are totally devoid of any central organization. They occasionally engage in minor criminal activities such as vandalizing cemeteries and graffiti involving Satanic symbols. In very rare instances, a few have been known to sacrifice animals.

4. Other types of Satanism: Occasionally, serial murderers will claim to be Satanists in order to justify their horrendous activities. Police investigation reveals that they know little about the religion. A small percentage of child molesters will abuse children in a Satanic setting as a means of controlling the victims. The molesters are not actual Satanists; they are simply using the facade of Satanism to further their criminal acts. Some heavy metal rock bands pretend to be associated with Satanism. Their main reason is to gain notoriety in order to sell more records. These three quasi-Satanic groups will not be dealt with further in this information sheet.

Religious Satanism - Brief Description

Religious Satanism (or Satanism) involves:

Religious Satanism - Its Supposed Origin

Modern Satanism is generally (though mistakenly) regarded as a creation of Aleister Crowley (1875-1947). Aleister was in fact a very prominent ceremonial magician who based his rituals partly upon Judeo-Christian principles. He was raised in a Plymouth Brethren family, but developed an early dislike of organized Christianity. After university, he joined the Order of the Golden Dawn, which practiced ceremonial magic based on:

He resigned from the Golden Dawn and later was appointed chief of the British section of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), which blended ceremonial magic, sex Magick and Freemasonry. He later left the OTO and formed a schismatic branch of the order, based on the Law of Thelema. Crowley's story was picked up by two tabloid newspapers, which called him the Wickedest Man in the World and the Great Beast 666 of Revelation. It is from these "yellow presses" that opponents of Crowley have assembled his present-day reputation. He is alleged to have committed at least one animal sacrifice, experimented with many illegal drugs and engaged in some sexual orgies It is not known how much of this actually happened, and how much is imaginary and created to satisfy his insatiable desire for publicity. Nor is it known how much of the time he was serious, and when he was behaving with tongue in cheek. Crowley has been accused of many criminal activities; however, he was never arrested, charged, tried or convicted of any crime. His prime aim was to contact his Holy Guardian Angel Aiwaz . The religion The Law of Thelema is largely derived from his work. He is known to have practiced a great deal of consensual sex magic with a single partner in private. His goal was to recapture the ancient pagan and Gnostic Christian mysteries of the Middle and Near East, who incorporated sexual activity as part of their religious rituals. He was a prolific writer on Magick, a term that he created. Although he did not consider himself a Satanist, many Satanists have incorporated portions of his books into their own rituals. Many authors and TV personalities have stated that Crowley was the first Satanist, even though evidence points to the contrary. He passed through a Satanic phase, and did identify his guardian angel with Satan. But a number of literary greats such as Baudelaire, Byron, Shelley, etc. should more properly be regarded as the first Satanists, at the end of the 19th century.

Religious Satanism - Its Real Origin and Organizations:

Religious Satanists existed in the 1950's, both in the United States and the UK. But they were little known to the public. Modern Satanism burst into mass consciousness on Walpurgisnacht, April 30, 1966, (I Anno Satanas) when Anton Szandor LaVey (b. 1930). created the Church of Satan. ₂ Anton drew on his previous experience as a lion tamer and sideshow barker, and on his readings into psychology, Magick etc. He wrote the Satanic Bible in 1969. This was followed by The Compleat Witch (1970) (later republished as The Satanic Witch) and The Satanic Rituals (1972). These are essentially the only readily available books on Satanism available in most bookstores. Many publications have been written by other Satanic groups. However, they are not in wide distribution; one normally has to discover them through specialist publications or Satanic Web sites. There have been enormous numbers of books about Satanism written by Fundamentalist or other Evangelical Christians. They are readily available through conservative Christian bookstores. However, they are usually filled with misinformation that is traceable back to the Witch burning times in Europe (circa 1450-1792 CE) rather than from any present or past reality. Another source for their misinformation was the novel called "Michelle Remembers." This was allegedly a documentary about the sexual and physical abuse of a girl by an underground Satanic group. In reality, the book was a work of total fiction. However, it triggered a Satanic Panic in 1980, which convinced tens of millions of people that Satanic Ritual Abuse was a clear and present danger. It wasn't then and is not today.

In 1975, one of LaVey's followers, Michael Aquino left the Church after a disagreement, and organized the Temple of Set.₃ This form of religious Satanism is recognizes a pre-Satanic deity, the Egyptian God Set as an entity which stands separate and apart from the forces of the natural universe. He was typically portrayed as a man with the head of an animal (perhaps a hyena). Set was copied by the Chaldeans who called him Had or Hadit; this later became Shaitan, and still later the Satan of Christianity.

A number of Satanic periodicals exist. _4,5 Many other Satanic traditions exist - largely in North America and Europe.₆

The Church of Satan - Its Beliefs and Practices:

We will deal with Anton LaVey's below. It remains the largest and most influential Satanic tradition. However, other Satanic traditions differ from the Church of Satan's in many ways.

At the core of the Church of Satan are the nine Satanic Statements, written by Anton LaVey. In abridged form, they state that Satan represents:

1. indulgence, not abstinence
2. vital existence, not spiritual pipe dreams,
3. undefiled wisdom, not hypocritical self-deceit
4. kindness to those deserving of it, not love wasted on ingrates
5. vengeance, not turning the other cheek
6. responsibility to the responsible, instead of concern for psychic vampires
7. man as just another animal - the most vicious of all
8. gratification of all ones desires
9. the best friend that the Christian Church has had as he has kept it in business for centuries

LaVey's theology contain the following concepts:

LaVey's rituals and ceremonies contain the following concepts:

The Church of Satan's rules of behavior include:

The Church of Satan is highly decentralized, believing that a strong central organization is not desirable. Each Satanist is expected to follow his/her own path. Some other Satanic groups have a strongly organized structure.

Local groups of Satanists may be called grottos, pylons, temples, or by some other name. They correspond to Christian congregations and Wiccan covens. Satanists feel that Wiccans are hypocrites. because the latter restrict their work to positive, healing activities. Satanists use Magick and other rituals to benefit themselves and their friends, but also use these same rituals to harm their enemies. Some have incorporated some anti-Wiccan elements in their rituals.

Satanists have been described as conducting rituals that are specifically aimed at attacking Christian beliefs and practices. Many authors, almost all conservative Christians, have described alleged Satanic rituals in which religious Satanists recite the Lord's Prayer backwards, or desecrate and use the host and wine that they have stolen from a cathedral. This is pure fiction that can be traced back to books written during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance periods.

Satanists' are highly critical of all other faiths. They are particularly opposed Christianity, because of its paramount position in Western society and the historical persecution by Christians of Satanists.

Gothic Satanism - Its Origins

Gothic Satanism was an invention of the Christian Church at the time of the Witch burnings. Christians believe that it existed then and was a great threat to the established order. Many Christians (particularly conservative ones) still believe this today. However, it is an imaginary religion that does not exist in reality.

Throughout the 15th Century, there was a rising hysteria within the Christian Church about the perceived presence of Satan worshipers, who were seen as a destabilizing influence. The Witch burnings (sometimes called the burning times or the female holocaust) began.

Two Dominican priests, Kramer and Sprenger wrote a book circa 1486 The Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches' Hammer) which became the main reference text for the genocide. They wrote that these Gothic Satanists:

A second reference text was Guazzo's Compendium Maleficarum, which was written about 1620. He described how Satan worshipers:

The inquisitors tortured suspects until they were willing to confess to anything in order to end the pain. So, of course, there is abundant testimony available in the court records as evidence.

The last European victim of the "Burning Times" was burned at the stake in 1792, although the Church continued to exterminate heretics by burning in South America into the 1830's.

Near the end of the "Burning Times", the concept of the Black Mass was added to the public's beliefs about Satanists. This was allegedly a parody on the Roman Catholic Mass. Urine and dirty water were substituted for wine; moldy bread or turnips were substituted for the host. The Mass was said in the local language (opposite to the Church's use of Latin). Texts were read backwards. The cross would be spat upon and broken. Infants would be sacrificed. Public beliefs about Gothic Satanism coalesced into a religion that was anti-Christian in every detail.

Gothic Satanism - Today

500 years later, many people believe that Gothic Satanists remain a great threat. In the State of Utah, about 90% of adults believe in the existence of Satanic groups who abuse and kill infants. Satanists are no longer believed to fly through the air on broomsticks or instantaneously vanish. But the baby killing, selling ones soul to Satan, rituals involving a goat, breaking a cross or crucifix, even shape shifting between animal and human has been described by modern Fundamentalist or other Evangelical Christian authors. Many writers and seminar speakers may be completely unaware that most of their source material can be traced back to the texts used by the Renaissance Witch hunters. Outrageous claims have been made of 60,000 ritual killings a year in North America, and of baby breeding prisons where young women are kept continually pregnant so that their infants can be taken and sacrificed. The concept of Gothic Satanism as being thoroughly anti-Christian has remained intact for centuries.

No criminal investigation in the past 300 years is known to have found hard evidence of Satanic Ritual Abuse (with the possible exception of a case in Greece during 1995). However, many Americans and Europeans believe that a highly organized, secret, internationally controlled network of Gothic Satanists exists. Tens of millions of Americans believe that it is a major social threat, even though no physical evidence of its existence has ever been found. Countless law officers have searched for this form of abuse for decades without success. The public's belief in Satanic Ritual Abuse is largely supported by thousands or tens of thousands of adults who have recovered what are believed to be false memories of abuse as a result of Recovered Memory Therapy. A second support for the belief occurred in the 1980's and early 1990's when many court cases were fought over what was believed to be ritual abuse in day care centers, pre-schools, baby-sitting services, church Sunday schools, etc. Young children disclosed stories of horrendous physical and sexual abuse. Much of it was ritual in nature. Hundreds of adults were convicted as perpetrators of MVMO (Multi-Victim, Multi-Offender) child abuse, and given long jail sentences. Research has since shown that the children's' memories were probably of events that never happened, but which arose as a result of faulty interview techniques, where repetitive and direct questioning was used.

There are many indicators that Gothic Satanism does not exist:

A very small number of individuals have drawn on the vast amount of anti-Satanic literature written by Christian authors. They have created their own version of Gothic Satanism that does include an inverted Christian cross symbol, black masses, reciting Christian prayers backwards, etc. However, they seem to be isolated followers without any organization. And they do not engage in infant abuse, baby killing or any other criminal activities. Theirs is a religion that was inspired by and grew out of Christian literature.

Satanic Dabblers

There are tens or hundreds of thousands of rebellious young people in North America who briefly dabble in a form of Satanism. Their source material is often in the books by LaVey, perhaps supplemented by writings about Gothic Satanism by Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christian authors. Sometimes, they will also include elements from books on ceremonial Magick, Wicca or other Neopagan religions in their practices.

These dabblers are responsible for Satanic graffiti, and (rarely) animal sacrifices. Some look upon Satanism as a method of rebelling against their parents' beliefs. Fortunately, it is usually a passing fad that they quickly outgrow. Satanic Dabblers have no connection with Religious Satanists. There is of course no connection between the teens and Gothic Satanists, because the latter do not exist.

References