An American Satan (2019) Movie Script
America is not a young land.
It is old and dirty and evil.
Before the settlers,
before the Indians,
the evil is there waiting.
Hail, Satanists!
Hail, Satanists!
Hail, Witches!
Hail, Witches!
And Hail, Warlocks!
Hail, Warlocks!
Hail, Priests!
Hail, Priests!
And hail, Priestesses!
Hail, Priestesses!
Hail, Magisters!
Hail, Magisters!
And Hail, Magistras!
Hail, Magistras!
Ladies and gentlemen,
please rise, as I introduce
the high priest of
the Church of Satan,
Magus Peter H. Gilmore.
Hail, Peter H. Gilmore!
Hail, Peter H. Gilmore!
Tonight, we consider
those who came before us.
Primarily we think of
Anton Szandor LaVey
our founding Magus
and his great achievement
in conceiving of
the Church of Satan.
We will thrive much
better than simply surviving.
That is our mission,
and we shall do it.
And I know you will all will.
Satanism is an atheist
philosophy that uses Satan
as a symbol of pride,
individualism and Liberty.
Anton LaVey called it "the
world's first carnal religion."
He looked at mankind and said
that humans are
just another animal.
Anton LaVey felt there
should be a religion
that dealt with the reality
of the human animal.
And hence he decided
to call it Satanism.
Satan was the figure who
wasn't going to submit to tyranny,
that was going to stand
up for himself above all
and make his own way
and not have any
illusions or delusions.
If you built a church to Satan
that was certainly going
to shake up the world.
It was going to
be revolutionary.
He created the Church of
Satan, founded it in 1966
on Walpurgisnacht, April 30th,
which is the traditional
Witches Sabbath.
And his idea keeps spreading
to people all around the globe
regardless of what
culture they come from.
Moloch!
Moloch!
Hacate!
Hacate.
Shaitan!
Shaitan!
Dagon!
Dagon!
Astaroth!
Astaroth!
Loki!
Loki!
Behemoth!
Behemoth!
Lilith!
Lilith!
Anton Szandor LaVey!
Anton Szandor LaVey!
There's really a
prime misconceptions
about Satanism, and that is
that we are devil worshipers.
People think that we must
believe in God and the devil
and that we've chosen to go
with the figure of
evil and corruption,
and who's the loser
in that mythology.
For us, none of that is real.
It is mythology.
Satan to us is a figure that
aside from being considered evil
is often by creative
and intelligent people
seen as the adversary,
the opposer, the accuser,
sort of a romantic
rebellious figure.
Satanism is self-satisfaction.
We celebrate indulgence
instead of abstinence.
To us, evil, is that which
harms us or hurts the people
and other things
that we care for.
May the whore of Babylon
journey forth to the sky
and spread her wings so wide
that all can see her
beauty and glory!
I was raised in a very,
a multi-religious home.
I went to a Catholic
school for the first few years.
My mother's side was Muslim.
My dad's side is Christian.
So I was exposed to a bunch
of different points of view,
and none of them
really seem to satisfy.
I had this love of
fantasy and witches
and horror movies and Halloween.
And so I just started
devouring all these occult texts,
of everything from
Wicca to Voodoo.
And then I finally came
across Anton LaVey.
I own a homoerotic occult
magazine, and I write about sex.
And I would say I'm
mischievous, a misfit, yeah.
When my parents
saw the magazine,
my mother was like
"Oh honey, that's so nice.
I'm proud of you."
And my dad was like
"can't you do something
that I can show my friends?
Just one thing, one thing."
When I was a little kid
and I clearly remember this.
We were sitting on a
back deck in my house
and it was me and my mom.
It was a nice day.
And I remember asking her,
"how do you know
that God's not lying,
and the devil's
telling the truth?"
And she got really mad.
And that was the moment
that I knew for a
fact, it was bullshit.
If you have a logical mind
and you read the
Bible, you're done.
I was interested in
monsters and ghost stories.
And I started reading
occult literature.
I got to the Satanic Bible.
I read the book and said,
"I'm not alone anymore.
I know there's other
people like me."
It's me realizing the
universe isn't helping me.
It's all here.
I can shape and create
and make things happen.
And it can be whatever I want.
And there's no rules.
I'm totally free.
Living as a Satanist,
that's all it is.
You know, one day
you're going to die,
live everyday
like it's your last.
Shemhamforash!
Shemhamforash!
Hail Satan!
Hail Satan!
"Blessed are the
destroyers of false hope,"
"for they are the
true messiahs!"
"Cursed are the God adores"
"for they shall be shorn sheep!"
"Blessed are the Valiant,"
"for they shall obtain
great treasure."
"Cursed are the
believers in good and evil"
"for they are
frightened by shadows."
You're a bad, bad Satanist!
- I Sure am!
I first encountered the
Satanic Bible when I was 13.
I happened to
see it on the shelf
in a just a regular
old bookstore.
I was with a friend
of mine at the time.
I picked it up.
I started thumbing through it
and he was a religious person.
He said, "Oh, don't touch that.
That's a very dark
and evil book."
And so I put it down.
I wouldn't see it
again until I was 19.
And I picked it up, I read it.
And literally like so
many others just said, "Oh
I'm a Satanist."
"The angel of
self-deceit is camped"
"in the souls of the righteous."
"The eternal flame of
power through joy dwelleth"
"within the flesh
of the Satanist."
Anton LaVey wrote
the Satanic Bible
to concretize the philosophy
that he was spreading
in the organization
The Church of Satan.
He published it in 1969,
towards the end of the year.
When I read the book
it kind of stirred up
a lot of excitement.
I was like, "Oh wow!"
This is what I am.
"This is who I am."
It finally made sense
Read it, cover to cover.
Couldn't put it down,
recognized myself in every page.
It already fit me.
I bought the copy and I read
it three times in one night.
And I said, "this is me."
We understand this is one life.
You have a short period
of time on this planet
and you have to live it the best
and most pleasurable as you can.
To some people, to
an average person
especially a Christian
that might scare them
because it makes you
uncomfortable to think,
"wow this is it.
When, I die,
there's no more me."
But we're comfortable
with that, we're not afraid.
What I feel is most
important to me
about identifying as a Satanist
is the sense of
being your own God.
I am in control of my life.
I dictate what happens
Love to those who love
and hate to those who hate.
It's what everybody thinks,
but doesn't want to admit.
Satanism is the
most sane, religion
and philosophy out there.
We don't feel we
have to love everyone.
You don't.
Like Anton LaVey said,
"If you try to love everybody
you're gonna run out
of love very quickly."
It is good to be
discerning to yourself,
to the things you enjoy
and the people that you
choose to spend your time with.
We do discriminate.
And as a black person, when
I'm at the Church of Satan,
I can say that
discrimination is not racial.
"We have gathered
forth our symbols"
"and prepared our
garnishings of the is-to-be."
"And the image of
our creation lurketh"
"as an insatiable basilisk
awaiting his release."
I did start as a Christian boy.
I felt the hypocrisy
was too much.
And when I read
the Satanic Bible
I realized that what interested
me was the symbolism.
It resonated with
me and I bought it.
But when I did, I
was a little nervous.
So I bought it with a copy
of the new
Testament of the Bible,
just a tiny, very,
very inexpensive one
so that they wouldn't look at
me too funny at the register.
My personal Journey to Satanism
is different from
a lot of people's.
I didn't read the satanic
Bible when I was 13.
I didn't read the satanic Bible
until long after I
knew Dr. LaVey.
He hands me this
envelope and I opened it up.
And "you're the priestess
of the church of Satan."
And I'm like, "Dude, okay!"
I'm very vocal and very
public about my affiliation.
And it's really enjoyable to me
because I like dispelling
myths about Satanists.
I don't have...
I mean, I have a
lot of weird junk,
but I don't have a Cape and I
don't have any black candles.
I can't separate
Satanism from myself.
I'm me, and all of
my philosophies align
with the satanic philosophies.
Freedom and joy.
Those are the things that
are important in my life.
It may seem contradictory
that our images are all based
on what was traditionally
provided by Christians.
The devil, the
horns, the red suit.
But I have to say that that's
a really attractive image.
The devil is fucking awesome!
Magic is making the
world as you want it.
And recognizing
that you did that.
The world you live in
is largely your creation
if not entirely.
You don't require
a guy in a dress.
You don't require a church.
You don't require a book
of what you should do
and shouldn't do to
be a human being.
What it is to be a human
being is all around you,
if you open your fucking eyes.
I wanna live in a meritocracy.
I wanna get credit
for what I'm good at.
And I wanna not be asked
to do what I'm not good at.
You can't be good at everything.
In Satanism, we believe
that everything is stratified.
Stratification for
us means accepting
that the world is
not egalitarianism
that everything rises
to its own level or falls.
Stratification is a
way of being realistic
about a hierarchy of nature.
Anton LaVey said that
there was a pyramid structure.
The very small caps
down to the pyramid
of people who are
creative and innovative.
Then there's a middle
sort of larger trapezoid
of people who are productive.
And then there's a much lower
and much larger
part of the pyramid
of people who are
simply believers.
He felt that, of course we
should value people more highly
as they're placed
higher on the pyramid.
And I would certainly
agree with that.
The church of Satan as
a religious organization
was set up in such a way
as not to be a nonprofit.
Anton LaVey felt that churches
were robbing society
by being tax exempt.
So he felt that we
should advocate
the complete taxation
of all churches.
And to that end,
the Church of Satan
has always paid its taxes
and will continue to do so.
Satanism is a
dangerous philosophy.
It puts a lot of responsibility
on the individual.
It is a very brutal religion.
Elitism, social Darwinism,
a rejection of egalitarianism.
The most important thing
to me about Satanism
is being able to
empower yourself
to withdraw from
mainstream society.
I think Satanism gives
you that framework.
It gives you that ability
to analyze situations
as they really are.
Being that outsider
that looks in
is a very great metaphor for me.
Anton LaVey once wrote that
"Satanism is Americanism."
The American values
of freedom, individuality,
sovereignty and pride,
that I think made it inevitable
that Satanism
would rise in America.
Would be born in America.
I kind of have a problem with
the term modern Satanism,
because prior to 1966
there was no Satanism.
Prior to Anton LaVey
codifying Satanism,
and defining it in
the Satanic Bible.
Satanism was really
just a loose term
that was banded
about by Christians
to be used as an insult
against anything
that they didn't like.
We keep be membership numbers
of the Church of Satan a secret.
I'm the only one who knows
how many new members there are.
And even I may not know
because we've had members
for a very long
time, 50 years now
and not all our
records are digital.
So I couldn't tell you
exactly even if I wanted to.
But it is in the thousands,
you can be sure of that.
And it is in almost every
country on the planet.
The Church of Satan is organized
in a hierarchical structure.
People approach us,
they pay a one-time fee of
it's $200 at this point, it
may go up, times change
but they pay a fee
to be a member.
And that means they're
essentially supporting
the philosophy in
the organization.
There are people who
approach the Church of Satan
for membership and are rejected.
I mainly reject them because
they haven't read
the Satanic Bible
and they don't
understand our philosophy.
It's very important to us
that people understand
what they're getting into
when they say they're Satanists,
they have to understand
what Satanism really is.
The gamut is amazing
with the kind of people
we have in our organization.
We have some of the world's
leading environmental activists
as part of the Church of Satan
and people who are
involved in artificial intelligence
and virtual reality
and people who are
painters and photographers
and chefs who are opening
their own restaurants
and getting great reviews.
Just every walk
of life that there is,
you could be sitting
next to a Satanist
in your doctor's
office or on the bus.
They're everywhere.
I wanted to join just to
kind of affirm my loyalty
to the principles
that yes, I'm serious.
This is my perspective on life.
Gave me a pat
on the back saying,
"it's okay to feel this way."
It's okay to wanna
tear someone apart.
As long as you
don't actually do it.
It's okay to want
to screw people.
It's okay to want wild
and crazy fetishes.
You can be reasonable and
rational and responsible, silly
and sexual and
bestial and greedy.
You can be all these things.
"And that is the
human condition."
Satanism is a
culmination for me.
It's a label I look
for desperately.
For me, ritual is to engage
in the world as I wish it was.
I can do whatever I want.
If I want pink candles,
instead of black, I can do that.
On my altar I have a candle
in the shape of
a very large penis
and that's not in
the satanic Bible.
But, I like dick.
So it's going to my alter.
In the ritual chamber I
didn't have to grow up.
It's my Nevernever land.
It allows me to never forget
that the things you loved as
a child, don't have to go away.
"In Nomine Dei Nostri
Satanas Luciferi Excelsi."
"In the name of Satan
the Ruler of the Earth,"
"the King of the World,"
"I command the
forces of darkness"
"to bestow their
infernal power upon me."
"Open wide, the Gates of hell."
"Come forth from the abyss"
"and greet me as your
brother and friend."
"Grant me the indulgences
of which I speak."
"I've taken thy name
as a part of myself."
"I live as a beast of the
field rejoicing the fleshly life."
"I favor the just and
I curse the rotten."
"By all the gods of the pit"
"these things of which I
speak shall come to pass"
"come forth and
answer to your names"
"by manifesting my desires."
Do you guys think I
need a bigger dick candle.
This is my room where
the real magic happens.
The bell and the
knife and the chal...
I like this stuff.
I think symbolically
it's powerful.
I prefer when I'm
doing these things
I hand write a
lot of the stuff out.
I prefer that.
It's a form of theater for
me and I have it right here.
Well, I think like
a lot of Satanists
I was born not
converted to Satanism.
I was born a Satanist.
We all have different
paths, but eventually
we find the satanic Bible
and then it's a big revelation.
Then you say, "Oh, this
is what I've been all my life.
But I didn't know that's what
I was supposed to
be calling myself."
I had been a member
of the Church of Satan
for a number of years.
I had recently
graduated from college
and I was taking a trip to
San Francisco with my mother.
And I just wrote to the
church to have a few minutes
with Anton LaVey,
just to shake his hand
and thank him for
what he's given to me
and so many people
as a philosophy,
that's certainly made a
big difference in my life.
So I got an answer
back that said
"he would be glad
to meet with you."
I'd built up a lot of
expectations about
who he might be or
what he might be like
but we hit it off really well.
He was funny.
He played music for me.
He told jokes.
He had some remembrances.
He was a wonderful,
wonderful spirited person.
We corresponded, we talked
over the phone and he said
"you will move to San Francisco
and you will be here as
part of the organization.
You'll be very
helpful around here."
And I said, "okay, I don't
have any plans for that.
But if you say it's
going to happen, okay."
He talked a lot about Voltaire
and Oscar Wilde, Jack
London, the romantic poets
the existentialist, Nietzsche,
Sartre, H.L. Mencken.
So people should understand
when he started
the Church of Satan,
he did it out of a general
disdain for most people
and in a love of life
and a frustration
that people don't live
as fully and completely
as they could.
Satan can take the form
of a beautiful woman.
Satan can take the
form of a sleek animal.
An automobile
can be very Satanic.
It was such an extension
of his personality
that, people could
just look at him
and the way he lived his life
and understand what
Satanism is about.
Anton LaVey was a
really fascinating individual.
When he was young he spent time
in the carnival
and circus worlds.
He played Calliope
and other things
and even learned some lion
taming at a period in history.
So he learned how
as a human being,
he could interact with a
big, dangerous animal,
which is kind of the way
you have to treat most
people around you also.
For a period of time
he was a police
photographer, freelance
and he would take
pictures of crime scenes
where he'd see like the results
of how people dealt
with each other.
I saw a slice of life
that very few people
see on a regular basis.
I saw the effects of mayhem
from spouse to spouse,
children splattered
by hit-run drivers.
He grew up in a culture
that was embodied in filmed noir
where there were very specific
male and female archetypes,
where no one was
there to help you,
that life was a struggle
and you might lose.
And if you won, it
might not really be all
that it's cracked up to be.
And by playing music in bars
for people where people
drink and tell you their stories
you really got a sense of
what the human animal was like.
When the '60's came around,
he was very excited in a sense
that people were getting
away from conventional religions
but he saw that a lot of,
what they called hippies
were going in a
completely wrong direction.
Drugs for many people had become
as harmful as
spiritual self delusion.
And it was disintegrating
into like suicides
and self-destruction
and misogyny
and attacks on
political leaders.
And he's like, "you gotta
like deal with your own shit."
I'm gonna blast that door down.
I'm going to steal the
fire away from the gods
and I'm gonna give it to you
"now what are you
going to do with it?"
To a certain extent
he certainly respected
the New Age explorations.
He tried Crowley's group.
He tried other theosophists.
He tried the Rosicrucians.
He knew what he was looking for.
He was looking for real, no
bullshit, no nonsense magic.
That's really what
led Anton LaVey
to creating the church of Satan
by examining not only
what Crowley's people
were doing, his disciples
but what was happening
in the Neo-pagan religions.
As all of that was
growing, LaVey sort of said,
"well nothing's out
there that satisfies me."
And at the time
there was a whole
occult revolution going
on, particularly in California.
So the idea of
this kind of spooky
alternative religion
caught his eye.
He'd been a carny and he
had worked in the spook shows.
So he knew showmanship
was really crucial
to get anything launched.
Again, a very American thing.
The '60's were nuts
and people who didn't live
through them don't
remember how nuts they were.
He seemed to me like
the lone voice of reason.
I believe that hate is
necessary in a controlled way.
Just as much as
love is necessary.
Are you married?
Oh yes.
Do you have any little devils?
Oh yes, I have two.
Are you gonna raise
them as Satanic kids?
Certainly, but not to go
around and chopping people up
or sacrificing human beings.
He wanted to be an instigator
and he wanted to inspire people
to move towards their passion
and not the flavor of the week
or the celebrity of the moment.
I think Satanism
in LaVey's terms,
was more about addressing
the soul-oriented values of man
and understanding man's
real nature, real character.
He had learned a
lot from the people
that he worked
with in the carnival
especially from the freaks.
They were using what they had
the specialness that
they were endowed with.
And they were greatly respected.
Natural freaks were greatly
respected within the community.
He started gathering
an eccentric group
of people around him.
A lot of characters,
a lot of socialites
a lot of people that
were movers and shakers
who had different
ideas about religion
and really were very enthused
about the supernatural,
the occult, and wanted
to explore it more with him.
Most of the people
that are in my group
are professional people.
They're business people.
They're people that are from
very responsible walks of life.
He bought the black house,
the original black house.
He started having
parties on a regular basis.
He started giving lectures
on the occult on
cannibalism, on vampirism.
I also try to help people
with various problems
and enlighten them
on these concepts of magic
folklore and offbeat religions.
He acquired a lion, he
got Togare and raised him
and he would take him to
the local elementary schools
so that the children
could pet a real lion.
He got a reputation as being
a San Francisco, eccentric.
Someone that people
like to spend time with.
You realize that this was
like the West Coast version
of Andy Warhol's Factory.
Those people were probably
the most interesting people
on the West coast.
He's a guy who
knew what he wanted
and he knew how to get it.
And he was definitely a showman.
He knew how to market himself,
he knew how to brand himself,
become immediately recognizable,
and his face was
associated with a philosophy
that a lot of people
still believe in.
In a lot of ways LaVey was
like the William
Blake of the occult.
Was he a charlatan?
Yeah, he was the
charlatan to those
he didn't want
anything to do with
and that was a way
to protect himself.
His whole image was a
mirror that he put up to society.
And with the
special participation
of Anton LaVey, High
Priest of the Church of Satan.
"The Devil's Rain."
LaVey had a real opportunity
to just be like a
figure in Hollywood.
And he knew if he did
that, if he moved to LA
he would not have time
for his own music,
for his own drawings.
He didn't wanna
be a slave to that.
He didn't wanna be a pop slave.
In the '70's, '80's, you
saw a lot of creative people
that were inspired
and liberated.
And liberated as
opposed to liberal.
And those are completely
like opposite things now.
My relationships with
some of the sex goddesses
of the past have been largely
as a result of luck,
more than anything else.
When I was writing the
biography of Anton LaVey
he would start telling me
these wonderful stories.
He talked about his
time with Marilyn Monroe
or he talked about
Jayne Mansfield.
And, he was a high priest
of the Church of Satan.
During the time that
we were together,
we had an open
relationship, let's say.
He had certain responsibilities
that he had to fulfill.
And I was enthusiastic with
those responsibilities as well.
We're Satanists,
we're not prudes.
We enjoy lust and
happiness and indulgence
and I think that's
why we hit off so well.
The realization early
on that I was part
of this unique family that
wasn't like anything else except
for things like "The Munsters"
maybe, or things like that
that were of course,
totally fictional
that no one actually took
seriously as a family dynamic.
But I was living it nonetheless.
By the time I came
into the picture,
things had quieted
down a little bit.
I used to tell Zeena that,
I wish that I could have some
kind of like normal existence
where I could, go bicycling
or whatever with my siblings
and have Sunday
picnics in the park.
And I mean, it
wasn't like that at all.
Anton was very peculiar
in all of his habits
and all of his tastes.
And so he wouldn't
venture out very much.
And sometimes when he would,
he would go out in disguise.
Problems aside, he was just
an exceptional, interesting,
sweet, childlike
kind of personality.
Coolest grandpa ever possible.
He, wasn't gonna
tell you what to do
but you better fucking do it.
And how many people did it?
How many people are doing it?
How many people are
just using the label it's like,
so they can scare
their Catholic grandma?
Well, my family,
it's funny 'cause some
of them will see this.
My mom knows and
doesn't like talking about it.
My father's side of the family
are very religious Catholics.
And again, I don't
ever talk about it.
Maybe they know and I
don't really care if they know.
And if they do
know, all right, cool.
I think they'll notice
that I've never tried
to convert them.
The best way to
raise my children
is for them to be themselves.
Find what you like, what
you love and go for it.
And to me, that's the
most Satanic thing.
If they identify with
Satanism, great,
if they don't, I don't care.
I don't know what
disturbed my family more.
Me, telling them I was gay.
Me, telling them
I was an atheist.
Or me telling them
I was a Satanist.
They kept throwing
away the books
every time they found them.
So the Satanic Bible I
have now, the paperback,
is the fourth one I had to buy.
They just kept throwing out
all my copies of Anton LaVey.
But then again, I kept
leaving them in the car.
My father was not
entirely comfortable
but since I was responsible,
he supported it enough
to Just let me do
whatever I was doing.
We used to tease each other.
So I would say, "Oh you're
the most Satanic Christian
that I've ever met."
And he would say, that I'm
the most Christian Satanist
that he's ever met.
Every family reacts differently.
It depends on how they grew up.
It depends upon what
they've been indoctrinated into
what they've seen in the
media or what they've heard.
We're brought up in environments
where you want that support.
You want that acceptance
from your parents
or from your family.
And unfortunately,
a lot of us don't get it.
I think maybe they thought
it was maybe a phase
I was going through.
And as I got older,
they were just like,
"okay it's clearly not a phase,
'cause you're here,
you are an adult
and you're still
identifying as a Satanist."
My mother actually
excommunicated herself
from the Catholic church
when I was growing up.
My family's reaction
was pretty neutral
because there are a
bunch of Darwinists already
they're not very
religious people.
My mother was
another person who,
she encouraged me to join, so.
I spent my youth
in Astoria, Oregon,
at a very lovecraftian
type of city.
My parents were
children in the '60's.
So they were very interested
in the experimental lifestyles
which were very big at that time
that involved psychedelia,
involved in the drug world
but also the burgeoning
interest in the occult.
Growing up in a family in which
that was an important aspect
is how I came to be acquainted
with Satanism and
the Satanic Bible.
I joined the Church of Satan
because I felt that this
was unique and different.
The rest is history.
We do not believe in an actual,
as I said, in actual entity.
We are atheists.
At least as far as the
church of Satan is concerned.
We feel that Satan is polemic,
he is allegorical
and he is symbolic.
He represents
the forces of nature
that make mankind something
unique and individual.
That element that allows us
to perceive ourselves
as gods, as opposed
to worshiping a sentient
beings outside of ourself.
That was a standard
Church of Satan party line
which I was willing to use
to help develop the philosophy
of the Church of Satan.
Deep down inside every
man has his own views
and his own perspectives
and his own truth.
And mine was very,
very different than that.
"All religions are a joke."
That was one of the
things that was stated.
My perspective on that.
I don't believe that what
I'm practicing is a joke
even though what I'm
practicing is not a religion.
I couldn't hold to
that perspective
and still remain true to myself.
It doesn't mean that I
don't appreciate the people
I was surrounded with
but I couldn't be on
board with a sinking ship.
I am a theistic Satanist.
I mean, if you
wanna categorize it
in such primitive terms.
The existence of a
super-consciousness
or an over consciousness
that's something that
I ultimately accept.
So anybody who wants to say,
"well that's just delusional
or that's just
fantasy thinking."
It's like, that's fine for you
but either A that's a
personal perspective
or B is a claim of omniscience.
And we completely deny
that in the Chaos Imperium.
Oh, friend and
companion of the night,
thou who delightest in the
baying of dogs and spilt blood,
who wanderest in the
shades among the tombs,
who longest for blood and
bringeth terror to mortals.
Gogro! Mormo!
Thousand-faced moon!
Look favorably
upon our sacrifices!
Diabolus Rex, he was
one of those Satanists
I grew up reading his
interviews and watching them,
and loving his art.
So, when he left
the church I was like,
"Aw, that sucks, but oh, well."
If there's a time when
someone wants to go off
on their own or leave the
organization, that's fine.
In 1975, we had a split
in the Church of Satan.
Michael Aquino started
something called The Temple of Set.
And Aquino actually became
a very mystical person.
He really felt that Set existed
as an isolate consciousness,
some supernatural intelligence.
And he could
communicate with that.
Temple of Set,
very transcendent,
movement towards
something greater
and beyond the physical world,
distinct from the highly
materialistic aspects
of the Church of Satan,
which only came much later
in the Church's Satan's history.
Initially there was something
much more acceptable
about the idea that Satan
might be some kind of godhead
that actually existed
in physical reality
and that the Satanists
could contact.
That was the most
well organized version
of that kind of
theistic thinking.
When you're dealing with
like a left-hand path philosophy.
It doesn't seem to
have a very wide reach
but it's there for the
people who it would satisfy.
And in fact, if people
approach the Church of Satan
who are really mystical and
wanna believe things like that,
we send them
off to other people.
It's a common misconception
that theistic Satanists
or those who believe in
some form of consciousness
of a satanic element somehow
are automatically
involved in worship.
You can have a direct connection
with this over consciousness
or superconscious
which has nothing
to do with worship.
It's more teacher to
student and learning
from that position to be
able to promote a form
of self-evolution to
something greater.
I knew Diabolus Rex,
an accomplished artist.
I don't really know
what he's been up to.
The Ragnarok Engine
is an Escathonic,
experimental and
theoretical project.
Escathonic meaning,
end of the world.
Ragnarok was the end
of the age of the gods.
Well, everybody perceives
themselves as the new gods,
so we have to move against that.
The Ragnarok Engine is a way
of being able to create gateways
and bring in the most
definitive aspects of evil.
And so I've poured
all my resources
and everything that I hold
as a conviction
of power into this.
Well, Satanism is
not for everybody
because it requires
extreme responsibility.
It's interesting, 'cause
I look at this country,
The United States, and our
constitution is the same thing.
The first amendment to me
is the most singular
important thing we have.
It's free speech.
You're allowed to say
whatever you want,
whether it be hateful or not.
And I think this
is really healthy.
What's hate speech?
What does that even mean?
What if I say, I hate people
who read comic books?
Is that hate speech?
To me, the only way to have
that work is all speech is good.
The second amendment is
there for me to protect my property.
It's also there to protect
me from an invading army.
And it's also there to protect
me from my own government.
People that don't like it,
I quickly point out what
happened in Europe,
not that long ago.
Within a minute,
people were like
"Oh, shit, there's
Nazis everywhere."
Like it just happens.
Our founding fathers, I
think when they put it in there
they were like, "this is
the safety right here, boom!
People can fight back."
If you have free speech, people
will get offended, obviously
if you have guns, people
are gonna get shot.
So the question is, do
you wanna live somewhere
that's completely
no gun violence at all,
but there's laws on
regulating speech
or do you wanna live
somewhere where it's a little wild?
There's a lot of shit going on
and you have to be
responsible, or you're fucked.
I choose that.
That's what I like.
I'll take the gun violence.
I'll take it.
If that's part of the
freedom rules, I'd rather that.
The people who
founded our country,
Jefferson, Franklin, Thomas
Paine, they were deists.
They were anti theists,
anti organized religion.
And they were
certainly influenced
by the freedoms of
the enlightenment.
And so the way our very
country was structured
was much more leaning
toward what we now understand
as Satanism than
dependence on religion
and God and powers
outside yourself.
Experts say there are
as many as 50 to 60,000
human sacrifices a year,
a result of an estimated
100,000 self-styled Satanists
in this country.
In 1988 Los Angeles
had 64 preschools
with report and
Satanic activity.
I absolutely believe
it without any doubt.
Based on the information
that's been given to me
across the country,
by numerous survivors
and by confidential
sources and informants.
Basically from the
late '60's, early '70's
there was all these
books coming out
"The Exorcist",
"Amityville Horror".
Yeah, they're fun movies but
they're Christian propaganda.
They made more people go
to church than anything else.
It scared people.
So out of that arose
this like false pretense
that there's this Satanic
underground community
that is breeding
babies for sacrifice.
Oh, the satanic panic.
That was the just,
you know, America.
The satanic panic was
essentially launched
by a book called
"Michelle Remembers"
where a psychiatrist
dealt with a woman
who claimed to have remembered
memories of being abused
by a Church of Satan,
which had her do all
kinds of heinous things
in the name of the devil.
When the book came out, it
was listed as being a true story.
And that started amongst
the evangelical Christians
this wildfire of people
replicating these tales.
"Michelle Remembers"
was followed by Mike Warnke
who was a fellow who
came out with a book claiming
that he'd been part
of the Satanic cult
that had this amazing
reach in the world.
They were involved with
invoking actual demons
who would teleport
people, places.
It was called
"The Satan Seller."
Other people started imitating
it because these books sold.
This is a commercial venture.
It was really the commercial
success of this literature
of satanic cults that got
evangelical Christians
into saying, "this a good deal."
These symbols of Satanism
are turning up everywhere,
on walls, on clothes,
on album covers,
and even on bodies
of murder victims.
People like Bob
Larson who spread this,
and certain therapists
and psychiatrists
who were using unethical
techniques to implant memories
from their patients
then these patients claim
that they were part
of these satanic cults.
We're talking about people
in some cases who are coming
to us as patients who
were raised in Satanic cults
from the time they were born.
The various cases where
people's lives were thrown apart
because of these allegations
that they were abusing children
are part of this great
satanic conspiracy.
The truth is children, lie
and adults encouraged
children to lie
to feed into their
own bullshit stories.
And that's what the
satanic panic was.
If you read the testimony
in the McMartin Preschool,
the fact that anybody
believed any of them
for a second is just...
You just, you
slap your forehead.
It's just insane.
People were
claiming that children
were literally being
shown like animals
that you would only see in
zoos and being transported
into exotic locations and
then somehow returned
to the preschool
that they were at.
And you're thinking,
"how could this happen?"
And of course the
explanation was Satan.
It would be a whole lot
easier if these people wore
or had horns and a
Pitchfork and a red suit
but they just don't.
They could be your
next-door neighbor.
Cops for Christ were
a big deal then too.
I dealt with people like that.
I was actually set
upon by people
who just didn't like
the way you looked
or they had a
marginalized understanding
of what they thought
you represented.
And every day was an adventure.
It was a real problem.
LaVey felt like
he was in danger.
People would drive by
and throw shit at the house.
You have to understand that
the satanic panic happened
during the Reagan years.
Fundamentalism was
the flavor of the month.
Religion and people were
gloaming onto that but,
make no mistake, that
was a very dangerous time
to be living in America.
These things don't
have to be real at all
but they get passed around.
And suddenly a friend
of a friend of a friend said
"I know somebody who
was involved in that."
So this whole mythology grew.
But there were
people who believe that
because it helped
forge an agenda
for the reorientation
of American society.
During the satanic panic is
when I discovered Satanism.
And I remember one of the things
that was being spread
around was heavy metal music
and Dungeons & Dragons
role-playing games
will expose you to Satanism.
I believe that
Dungeons & Dragons
is a direct quote
from the pit of hell,
if you wanna call it that.
It is a mind-bending game,
a mind-changing game.
And it's involved with all kinds
of occult and pagan religions.
And Anton LaVey, the writer
of the Satanist Bible says,
"there is no such thing
as white witchcraft."
For being a Satan
worshiper, he should know.
Yeah, he should know
And guess what?
It worked, it worked.
It actually did do that to me.
So whatever they
said actually was true.
All the things you love.
Whether Satan exists
is a matter of belief.
But we are certain
that Satanism exists.
To some it's a religion.
To others it's the practice
of evil in the devil's name.
Hail, Satan!
And indeed there
were some crazy people
who believed in the
devil and worshiped him
we used to call them
Geraldo Satanist,
'cause we feel that that's
where the inspiration was coming.
Not from any actual other
Satanists or any actual Satanism.
We had some Satanists
that were interested
in the Charles
Manson phenomenon.
Some Satanists kind of saw him
as a symbol of
the end of the '60's.
This kind of rebellion,
this counteraction
from the '60's
hippie culture, right?
So I think they
took that aesthetic
and that kind of mythology
and they ran with it.
LaVey himself was actually
really annoyed by that.
He wrote several times that
he wished Charles Manson
was just shot in the head,
and that was over with.
LaVey knew Susan Atkins.
She worked as a stripper in
his Topless Witches revue.
And he said, "Boyd, this girl
was an accident
waiting to happen.
If it hadn't been Charlie Manson
it would've been somebody else."
Like an incredible amount
of people cross paths
with Manson, people
that you never expect.
And a lot of people
ended up going through
well, The Black House as well.
So I just think, it
was an odd time.
When the Manson
thing originally happened
all the Manson girls wrote
letters to Anton LaVey.
The people that do
that nonsense shit,
they're the theistic idiots.
They're the ones that
believe in the nonsense.
They're the ones that
can't draw the separation
between fantasy and reality.
If they're doing it,
it's not Satanism.
When I hear babies being
murdered and child molestation,
I think of Christians
and Catholics.
I think a lot of them are
Yeah, they do! They should!
That's real! That can be proven!
We, for our part
during the satanic panic,
Anton LaVey
didn't want to dignify
a lot of these journalists
with actually having the High
Priest of the Church of Satan
on their shows.
He said, "you know,
the philosophy"
and the organization
have matured
to the point now where
I have plenty of people
that I trust to go
on these shows
and say, no, we
don't sacrifice animals.
And this is what we stand
for, and this is what we do.
We are here.
We're not going away.
And Christianity and the
day of the cross are done.
It was the best story
going at the time.
And so there was
a need to be able
to defend this
opposite position.
For Anton LaVey, what he was
doing was meeting with people
from the Humane Society,
from animal protection societies
from cult awareness, places
even Christians
who were concerned
about what was
going on in Christianity
and these people that
were being counselors
and hanging out their
shingle as Satan busters.
So he was meeting with the
right people to get the word out
defining what Satanism
is and what it isn't.
The FBI and other
law enforcement started
to really investigate this
because it had really gotten
to be this crazy mythology
with all of these
books coming out
and people supporting this.
And they found that it
wasn't true. Surprise!
That it was a hysteria.
Anybody who would bother
to even take the
cursory look at our text.
The first thing it says is
that we don't harm children
and we don't harm animals.
There are no sacrifices.
That's all shit.
That's Christian shit.
I went out there and
had to sit next to people
who are claiming to
be breeding babies
and slaughtering them.
And try to say, I
represent this philosophy
which is about reason
and about self-satisfaction.
And that is atheist.
When all these people think
that I must be a animal
sacrificer and baby-breeder.
I'd be put in green
rooms separate
from all the other guests
because they didn't
wanna be near me
because of course I must be
doing these horrendous things.
And it really took a long time
for that to grind to
a halt and roll back.
Marilyn Manson in that
time was getting popular.
And he brought
Satanism a new audience
'cause he openly
talked about it.
Back then, it wasn't cool.
Like now you can be
like, "Oh, I'm a member
of some stupid satanic group"
and people are like, "Yeah!"
But back then,
it wasn't like that.
It was serious.
You couldn't tell anybody.
The first open member and
open Satanist is King Diamond.
He's the first rock
and roller to say,
"Hey, you know I'm a Satanist."
I mean, Coven from
the '60's, but that's...
It's was very different then.
I hear you vomit here.
I can't think of Hank and
there's Santa in the backyard.
"Scooby Doo" cartoon.
Our children are
being lobotomized
by manipulative psychologist.
Kids in the occult.
I wonder where was
Satanism when we were kids?
Why didn't we get into it?
Because of parent concerns
that some Halloween costumes
can be linked to devil
worship and satanic cults.
Joanna.
Sometimes I don't obey.
Punish him with a rod severely.
Stand up and sit down
And stand up and sit down
And stand up
This is why Satanism exists
is so that we can
constantly remind people
that whenever you
create an enemy
then things can be very
dangerous for everyone.
That's why you have
to think for yourself.
I haven't come forth
in a great many years
because I didn't
want to be relegated
to another guest
on a TV talk show.
But I can assure you
Satanism is here to stay.
During Anton LaVey's last
years he had surrounded himself
with people that he grew close
to, that he drew energy from.
We had had a son together.
He had heart problems brought
about by the rheumatic fever,
sort of weakened him.
And he didn't want
to be seen as weak.
So his time became
very precious.
He wanted to spend it
with people he enjoyed,
who contributed to his life.
He was doing more recording
so that his music
would get out there.
But he just wanted to
spend the time that he had
with his son and playing
his music and writing
I will never die.
You won't?
No, of course not. I've
made arrangements.
He lived every single day.
It was homination
his philosophy.
And how many
people can say that?
I loved spending time
alone with my grandfather.
It felt like the entire
world just disappeared.
I wish he was around now
because people are
afraid to speak their mind.
People are walking on
eggshells, and he hated that.
Everyone's walking around
with a good guy badge now
'cause they're a victim of
this, and a victim of that.
The Church of Satan today,
I try to maintain
as close as possible
as to the vision
Anton LaVey set out.
In fact, in our conversations
that was something
I promised him
that I would be doing
for him as time went on.
I think that the
philosophy that he created
is absolutely spot on
for recognizing the reality
but with human animal functions
I don't think his philosophy
needs to be changed at all.
Honestly, the thing
that I really like
about Satanism is
that it doesn't change because
human beings don't change.
So where does this
all go for the future?
Well, Satanists
are born, not made,
they're being born right now.
And some of them will
read that book and say,
"yeah, this is for me."
There's other satanic
groups that come and go,
but the Church of Satan
has been around now for,
what is this 52 years?
That's pretty good.
You don't worship anything.
You question everything.
And the power that you
have comes from within you
and you don't take
anything on faith.
There's no such thing
in Satanism as faith.
We challenge, we question,
we challenge ourselves to
do better, to achieve more,
that's what's embodied
in our principles.
Because we know
as Anton LaVey said,
"the first 99 years are
always the toughest."
I think the future is
assured, the Church of Satan
is thriving and shall
be a great black river
that continues to flow into
the great future to come.
So thank you all for
bringing that into being.
Shemhamforash!
Shemhamforash!
Hail, Satan!
Hail, Satan!
Hail, Satan!
Hail, Satan!
Hail, Satan!
Hail, Satan!
I formed the Chaos Imperium
to be an alternative idea
to contemporary magical
practices and perspectives.
This isn't a psychic order,
it doesn't have a very
large group membership,
it is not initiatory,
it is not religious.
I'm its only human
representative,
though within the group
there's 7 other entities
that we have invited
through magic to be part of it.
The Devil is my woman
And she's got a voodoo hair
The Devil is my woman
And she's got a voodoo hair
She missed my blues
She dances to my rare
She says it's too tight.
But you know she
She missed my blues
She dances to my rare
And watch her shimmy, now.
Then she goes...
The preacherman
don't like her
But I've seen him
at the back door
The preacherman
don't like her
But I've seen him
at her front door
The Devil is my woman
The Devil is my woman
And you can't lock her up
So you better
treat her right
Or she's gonna string you up
It is old and dirty and evil.
Before the settlers,
before the Indians,
the evil is there waiting.
Hail, Satanists!
Hail, Satanists!
Hail, Witches!
Hail, Witches!
And Hail, Warlocks!
Hail, Warlocks!
Hail, Priests!
Hail, Priests!
And hail, Priestesses!
Hail, Priestesses!
Hail, Magisters!
Hail, Magisters!
And Hail, Magistras!
Hail, Magistras!
Ladies and gentlemen,
please rise, as I introduce
the high priest of
the Church of Satan,
Magus Peter H. Gilmore.
Hail, Peter H. Gilmore!
Hail, Peter H. Gilmore!
Tonight, we consider
those who came before us.
Primarily we think of
Anton Szandor LaVey
our founding Magus
and his great achievement
in conceiving of
the Church of Satan.
We will thrive much
better than simply surviving.
That is our mission,
and we shall do it.
And I know you will all will.
Satanism is an atheist
philosophy that uses Satan
as a symbol of pride,
individualism and Liberty.
Anton LaVey called it "the
world's first carnal religion."
He looked at mankind and said
that humans are
just another animal.
Anton LaVey felt there
should be a religion
that dealt with the reality
of the human animal.
And hence he decided
to call it Satanism.
Satan was the figure who
wasn't going to submit to tyranny,
that was going to stand
up for himself above all
and make his own way
and not have any
illusions or delusions.
If you built a church to Satan
that was certainly going
to shake up the world.
It was going to
be revolutionary.
He created the Church of
Satan, founded it in 1966
on Walpurgisnacht, April 30th,
which is the traditional
Witches Sabbath.
And his idea keeps spreading
to people all around the globe
regardless of what
culture they come from.
Moloch!
Moloch!
Hacate!
Hacate.
Shaitan!
Shaitan!
Dagon!
Dagon!
Astaroth!
Astaroth!
Loki!
Loki!
Behemoth!
Behemoth!
Lilith!
Lilith!
Anton Szandor LaVey!
Anton Szandor LaVey!
There's really a
prime misconceptions
about Satanism, and that is
that we are devil worshipers.
People think that we must
believe in God and the devil
and that we've chosen to go
with the figure of
evil and corruption,
and who's the loser
in that mythology.
For us, none of that is real.
It is mythology.
Satan to us is a figure that
aside from being considered evil
is often by creative
and intelligent people
seen as the adversary,
the opposer, the accuser,
sort of a romantic
rebellious figure.
Satanism is self-satisfaction.
We celebrate indulgence
instead of abstinence.
To us, evil, is that which
harms us or hurts the people
and other things
that we care for.
May the whore of Babylon
journey forth to the sky
and spread her wings so wide
that all can see her
beauty and glory!
I was raised in a very,
a multi-religious home.
I went to a Catholic
school for the first few years.
My mother's side was Muslim.
My dad's side is Christian.
So I was exposed to a bunch
of different points of view,
and none of them
really seem to satisfy.
I had this love of
fantasy and witches
and horror movies and Halloween.
And so I just started
devouring all these occult texts,
of everything from
Wicca to Voodoo.
And then I finally came
across Anton LaVey.
I own a homoerotic occult
magazine, and I write about sex.
And I would say I'm
mischievous, a misfit, yeah.
When my parents
saw the magazine,
my mother was like
"Oh honey, that's so nice.
I'm proud of you."
And my dad was like
"can't you do something
that I can show my friends?
Just one thing, one thing."
When I was a little kid
and I clearly remember this.
We were sitting on a
back deck in my house
and it was me and my mom.
It was a nice day.
And I remember asking her,
"how do you know
that God's not lying,
and the devil's
telling the truth?"
And she got really mad.
And that was the moment
that I knew for a
fact, it was bullshit.
If you have a logical mind
and you read the
Bible, you're done.
I was interested in
monsters and ghost stories.
And I started reading
occult literature.
I got to the Satanic Bible.
I read the book and said,
"I'm not alone anymore.
I know there's other
people like me."
It's me realizing the
universe isn't helping me.
It's all here.
I can shape and create
and make things happen.
And it can be whatever I want.
And there's no rules.
I'm totally free.
Living as a Satanist,
that's all it is.
You know, one day
you're going to die,
live everyday
like it's your last.
Shemhamforash!
Shemhamforash!
Hail Satan!
Hail Satan!
"Blessed are the
destroyers of false hope,"
"for they are the
true messiahs!"
"Cursed are the God adores"
"for they shall be shorn sheep!"
"Blessed are the Valiant,"
"for they shall obtain
great treasure."
"Cursed are the
believers in good and evil"
"for they are
frightened by shadows."
You're a bad, bad Satanist!
- I Sure am!
I first encountered the
Satanic Bible when I was 13.
I happened to
see it on the shelf
in a just a regular
old bookstore.
I was with a friend
of mine at the time.
I picked it up.
I started thumbing through it
and he was a religious person.
He said, "Oh, don't touch that.
That's a very dark
and evil book."
And so I put it down.
I wouldn't see it
again until I was 19.
And I picked it up, I read it.
And literally like so
many others just said, "Oh
I'm a Satanist."
"The angel of
self-deceit is camped"
"in the souls of the righteous."
"The eternal flame of
power through joy dwelleth"
"within the flesh
of the Satanist."
Anton LaVey wrote
the Satanic Bible
to concretize the philosophy
that he was spreading
in the organization
The Church of Satan.
He published it in 1969,
towards the end of the year.
When I read the book
it kind of stirred up
a lot of excitement.
I was like, "Oh wow!"
This is what I am.
"This is who I am."
It finally made sense
Read it, cover to cover.
Couldn't put it down,
recognized myself in every page.
It already fit me.
I bought the copy and I read
it three times in one night.
And I said, "this is me."
We understand this is one life.
You have a short period
of time on this planet
and you have to live it the best
and most pleasurable as you can.
To some people, to
an average person
especially a Christian
that might scare them
because it makes you
uncomfortable to think,
"wow this is it.
When, I die,
there's no more me."
But we're comfortable
with that, we're not afraid.
What I feel is most
important to me
about identifying as a Satanist
is the sense of
being your own God.
I am in control of my life.
I dictate what happens
Love to those who love
and hate to those who hate.
It's what everybody thinks,
but doesn't want to admit.
Satanism is the
most sane, religion
and philosophy out there.
We don't feel we
have to love everyone.
You don't.
Like Anton LaVey said,
"If you try to love everybody
you're gonna run out
of love very quickly."
It is good to be
discerning to yourself,
to the things you enjoy
and the people that you
choose to spend your time with.
We do discriminate.
And as a black person, when
I'm at the Church of Satan,
I can say that
discrimination is not racial.
"We have gathered
forth our symbols"
"and prepared our
garnishings of the is-to-be."
"And the image of
our creation lurketh"
"as an insatiable basilisk
awaiting his release."
I did start as a Christian boy.
I felt the hypocrisy
was too much.
And when I read
the Satanic Bible
I realized that what interested
me was the symbolism.
It resonated with
me and I bought it.
But when I did, I
was a little nervous.
So I bought it with a copy
of the new
Testament of the Bible,
just a tiny, very,
very inexpensive one
so that they wouldn't look at
me too funny at the register.
My personal Journey to Satanism
is different from
a lot of people's.
I didn't read the satanic
Bible when I was 13.
I didn't read the satanic Bible
until long after I
knew Dr. LaVey.
He hands me this
envelope and I opened it up.
And "you're the priestess
of the church of Satan."
And I'm like, "Dude, okay!"
I'm very vocal and very
public about my affiliation.
And it's really enjoyable to me
because I like dispelling
myths about Satanists.
I don't have...
I mean, I have a
lot of weird junk,
but I don't have a Cape and I
don't have any black candles.
I can't separate
Satanism from myself.
I'm me, and all of
my philosophies align
with the satanic philosophies.
Freedom and joy.
Those are the things that
are important in my life.
It may seem contradictory
that our images are all based
on what was traditionally
provided by Christians.
The devil, the
horns, the red suit.
But I have to say that that's
a really attractive image.
The devil is fucking awesome!
Magic is making the
world as you want it.
And recognizing
that you did that.
The world you live in
is largely your creation
if not entirely.
You don't require
a guy in a dress.
You don't require a church.
You don't require a book
of what you should do
and shouldn't do to
be a human being.
What it is to be a human
being is all around you,
if you open your fucking eyes.
I wanna live in a meritocracy.
I wanna get credit
for what I'm good at.
And I wanna not be asked
to do what I'm not good at.
You can't be good at everything.
In Satanism, we believe
that everything is stratified.
Stratification for
us means accepting
that the world is
not egalitarianism
that everything rises
to its own level or falls.
Stratification is a
way of being realistic
about a hierarchy of nature.
Anton LaVey said that
there was a pyramid structure.
The very small caps
down to the pyramid
of people who are
creative and innovative.
Then there's a middle
sort of larger trapezoid
of people who are productive.
And then there's a much lower
and much larger
part of the pyramid
of people who are
simply believers.
He felt that, of course we
should value people more highly
as they're placed
higher on the pyramid.
And I would certainly
agree with that.
The church of Satan as
a religious organization
was set up in such a way
as not to be a nonprofit.
Anton LaVey felt that churches
were robbing society
by being tax exempt.
So he felt that we
should advocate
the complete taxation
of all churches.
And to that end,
the Church of Satan
has always paid its taxes
and will continue to do so.
Satanism is a
dangerous philosophy.
It puts a lot of responsibility
on the individual.
It is a very brutal religion.
Elitism, social Darwinism,
a rejection of egalitarianism.
The most important thing
to me about Satanism
is being able to
empower yourself
to withdraw from
mainstream society.
I think Satanism gives
you that framework.
It gives you that ability
to analyze situations
as they really are.
Being that outsider
that looks in
is a very great metaphor for me.
Anton LaVey once wrote that
"Satanism is Americanism."
The American values
of freedom, individuality,
sovereignty and pride,
that I think made it inevitable
that Satanism
would rise in America.
Would be born in America.
I kind of have a problem with
the term modern Satanism,
because prior to 1966
there was no Satanism.
Prior to Anton LaVey
codifying Satanism,
and defining it in
the Satanic Bible.
Satanism was really
just a loose term
that was banded
about by Christians
to be used as an insult
against anything
that they didn't like.
We keep be membership numbers
of the Church of Satan a secret.
I'm the only one who knows
how many new members there are.
And even I may not know
because we've had members
for a very long
time, 50 years now
and not all our
records are digital.
So I couldn't tell you
exactly even if I wanted to.
But it is in the thousands,
you can be sure of that.
And it is in almost every
country on the planet.
The Church of Satan is organized
in a hierarchical structure.
People approach us,
they pay a one-time fee of
it's $200 at this point, it
may go up, times change
but they pay a fee
to be a member.
And that means they're
essentially supporting
the philosophy in
the organization.
There are people who
approach the Church of Satan
for membership and are rejected.
I mainly reject them because
they haven't read
the Satanic Bible
and they don't
understand our philosophy.
It's very important to us
that people understand
what they're getting into
when they say they're Satanists,
they have to understand
what Satanism really is.
The gamut is amazing
with the kind of people
we have in our organization.
We have some of the world's
leading environmental activists
as part of the Church of Satan
and people who are
involved in artificial intelligence
and virtual reality
and people who are
painters and photographers
and chefs who are opening
their own restaurants
and getting great reviews.
Just every walk
of life that there is,
you could be sitting
next to a Satanist
in your doctor's
office or on the bus.
They're everywhere.
I wanted to join just to
kind of affirm my loyalty
to the principles
that yes, I'm serious.
This is my perspective on life.
Gave me a pat
on the back saying,
"it's okay to feel this way."
It's okay to wanna
tear someone apart.
As long as you
don't actually do it.
It's okay to want
to screw people.
It's okay to want wild
and crazy fetishes.
You can be reasonable and
rational and responsible, silly
and sexual and
bestial and greedy.
You can be all these things.
"And that is the
human condition."
Satanism is a
culmination for me.
It's a label I look
for desperately.
For me, ritual is to engage
in the world as I wish it was.
I can do whatever I want.
If I want pink candles,
instead of black, I can do that.
On my altar I have a candle
in the shape of
a very large penis
and that's not in
the satanic Bible.
But, I like dick.
So it's going to my alter.
In the ritual chamber I
didn't have to grow up.
It's my Nevernever land.
It allows me to never forget
that the things you loved as
a child, don't have to go away.
"In Nomine Dei Nostri
Satanas Luciferi Excelsi."
"In the name of Satan
the Ruler of the Earth,"
"the King of the World,"
"I command the
forces of darkness"
"to bestow their
infernal power upon me."
"Open wide, the Gates of hell."
"Come forth from the abyss"
"and greet me as your
brother and friend."
"Grant me the indulgences
of which I speak."
"I've taken thy name
as a part of myself."
"I live as a beast of the
field rejoicing the fleshly life."
"I favor the just and
I curse the rotten."
"By all the gods of the pit"
"these things of which I
speak shall come to pass"
"come forth and
answer to your names"
"by manifesting my desires."
Do you guys think I
need a bigger dick candle.
This is my room where
the real magic happens.
The bell and the
knife and the chal...
I like this stuff.
I think symbolically
it's powerful.
I prefer when I'm
doing these things
I hand write a
lot of the stuff out.
I prefer that.
It's a form of theater for
me and I have it right here.
Well, I think like
a lot of Satanists
I was born not
converted to Satanism.
I was born a Satanist.
We all have different
paths, but eventually
we find the satanic Bible
and then it's a big revelation.
Then you say, "Oh, this
is what I've been all my life.
But I didn't know that's what
I was supposed to
be calling myself."
I had been a member
of the Church of Satan
for a number of years.
I had recently
graduated from college
and I was taking a trip to
San Francisco with my mother.
And I just wrote to the
church to have a few minutes
with Anton LaVey,
just to shake his hand
and thank him for
what he's given to me
and so many people
as a philosophy,
that's certainly made a
big difference in my life.
So I got an answer
back that said
"he would be glad
to meet with you."
I'd built up a lot of
expectations about
who he might be or
what he might be like
but we hit it off really well.
He was funny.
He played music for me.
He told jokes.
He had some remembrances.
He was a wonderful,
wonderful spirited person.
We corresponded, we talked
over the phone and he said
"you will move to San Francisco
and you will be here as
part of the organization.
You'll be very
helpful around here."
And I said, "okay, I don't
have any plans for that.
But if you say it's
going to happen, okay."
He talked a lot about Voltaire
and Oscar Wilde, Jack
London, the romantic poets
the existentialist, Nietzsche,
Sartre, H.L. Mencken.
So people should understand
when he started
the Church of Satan,
he did it out of a general
disdain for most people
and in a love of life
and a frustration
that people don't live
as fully and completely
as they could.
Satan can take the form
of a beautiful woman.
Satan can take the
form of a sleek animal.
An automobile
can be very Satanic.
It was such an extension
of his personality
that, people could
just look at him
and the way he lived his life
and understand what
Satanism is about.
Anton LaVey was a
really fascinating individual.
When he was young he spent time
in the carnival
and circus worlds.
He played Calliope
and other things
and even learned some lion
taming at a period in history.
So he learned how
as a human being,
he could interact with a
big, dangerous animal,
which is kind of the way
you have to treat most
people around you also.
For a period of time
he was a police
photographer, freelance
and he would take
pictures of crime scenes
where he'd see like the results
of how people dealt
with each other.
I saw a slice of life
that very few people
see on a regular basis.
I saw the effects of mayhem
from spouse to spouse,
children splattered
by hit-run drivers.
He grew up in a culture
that was embodied in filmed noir
where there were very specific
male and female archetypes,
where no one was
there to help you,
that life was a struggle
and you might lose.
And if you won, it
might not really be all
that it's cracked up to be.
And by playing music in bars
for people where people
drink and tell you their stories
you really got a sense of
what the human animal was like.
When the '60's came around,
he was very excited in a sense
that people were getting
away from conventional religions
but he saw that a lot of,
what they called hippies
were going in a
completely wrong direction.
Drugs for many people had become
as harmful as
spiritual self delusion.
And it was disintegrating
into like suicides
and self-destruction
and misogyny
and attacks on
political leaders.
And he's like, "you gotta
like deal with your own shit."
I'm gonna blast that door down.
I'm going to steal the
fire away from the gods
and I'm gonna give it to you
"now what are you
going to do with it?"
To a certain extent
he certainly respected
the New Age explorations.
He tried Crowley's group.
He tried other theosophists.
He tried the Rosicrucians.
He knew what he was looking for.
He was looking for real, no
bullshit, no nonsense magic.
That's really what
led Anton LaVey
to creating the church of Satan
by examining not only
what Crowley's people
were doing, his disciples
but what was happening
in the Neo-pagan religions.
As all of that was
growing, LaVey sort of said,
"well nothing's out
there that satisfies me."
And at the time
there was a whole
occult revolution going
on, particularly in California.
So the idea of
this kind of spooky
alternative religion
caught his eye.
He'd been a carny and he
had worked in the spook shows.
So he knew showmanship
was really crucial
to get anything launched.
Again, a very American thing.
The '60's were nuts
and people who didn't live
through them don't
remember how nuts they were.
He seemed to me like
the lone voice of reason.
I believe that hate is
necessary in a controlled way.
Just as much as
love is necessary.
Are you married?
Oh yes.
Do you have any little devils?
Oh yes, I have two.
Are you gonna raise
them as Satanic kids?
Certainly, but not to go
around and chopping people up
or sacrificing human beings.
He wanted to be an instigator
and he wanted to inspire people
to move towards their passion
and not the flavor of the week
or the celebrity of the moment.
I think Satanism
in LaVey's terms,
was more about addressing
the soul-oriented values of man
and understanding man's
real nature, real character.
He had learned a
lot from the people
that he worked
with in the carnival
especially from the freaks.
They were using what they had
the specialness that
they were endowed with.
And they were greatly respected.
Natural freaks were greatly
respected within the community.
He started gathering
an eccentric group
of people around him.
A lot of characters,
a lot of socialites
a lot of people that
were movers and shakers
who had different
ideas about religion
and really were very enthused
about the supernatural,
the occult, and wanted
to explore it more with him.
Most of the people
that are in my group
are professional people.
They're business people.
They're people that are from
very responsible walks of life.
He bought the black house,
the original black house.
He started having
parties on a regular basis.
He started giving lectures
on the occult on
cannibalism, on vampirism.
I also try to help people
with various problems
and enlighten them
on these concepts of magic
folklore and offbeat religions.
He acquired a lion, he
got Togare and raised him
and he would take him to
the local elementary schools
so that the children
could pet a real lion.
He got a reputation as being
a San Francisco, eccentric.
Someone that people
like to spend time with.
You realize that this was
like the West Coast version
of Andy Warhol's Factory.
Those people were probably
the most interesting people
on the West coast.
He's a guy who
knew what he wanted
and he knew how to get it.
And he was definitely a showman.
He knew how to market himself,
he knew how to brand himself,
become immediately recognizable,
and his face was
associated with a philosophy
that a lot of people
still believe in.
In a lot of ways LaVey was
like the William
Blake of the occult.
Was he a charlatan?
Yeah, he was the
charlatan to those
he didn't want
anything to do with
and that was a way
to protect himself.
His whole image was a
mirror that he put up to society.
And with the
special participation
of Anton LaVey, High
Priest of the Church of Satan.
"The Devil's Rain."
LaVey had a real opportunity
to just be like a
figure in Hollywood.
And he knew if he did
that, if he moved to LA
he would not have time
for his own music,
for his own drawings.
He didn't wanna
be a slave to that.
He didn't wanna be a pop slave.
In the '70's, '80's, you
saw a lot of creative people
that were inspired
and liberated.
And liberated as
opposed to liberal.
And those are completely
like opposite things now.
My relationships with
some of the sex goddesses
of the past have been largely
as a result of luck,
more than anything else.
When I was writing the
biography of Anton LaVey
he would start telling me
these wonderful stories.
He talked about his
time with Marilyn Monroe
or he talked about
Jayne Mansfield.
And, he was a high priest
of the Church of Satan.
During the time that
we were together,
we had an open
relationship, let's say.
He had certain responsibilities
that he had to fulfill.
And I was enthusiastic with
those responsibilities as well.
We're Satanists,
we're not prudes.
We enjoy lust and
happiness and indulgence
and I think that's
why we hit off so well.
The realization early
on that I was part
of this unique family that
wasn't like anything else except
for things like "The Munsters"
maybe, or things like that
that were of course,
totally fictional
that no one actually took
seriously as a family dynamic.
But I was living it nonetheless.
By the time I came
into the picture,
things had quieted
down a little bit.
I used to tell Zeena that,
I wish that I could have some
kind of like normal existence
where I could, go bicycling
or whatever with my siblings
and have Sunday
picnics in the park.
And I mean, it
wasn't like that at all.
Anton was very peculiar
in all of his habits
and all of his tastes.
And so he wouldn't
venture out very much.
And sometimes when he would,
he would go out in disguise.
Problems aside, he was just
an exceptional, interesting,
sweet, childlike
kind of personality.
Coolest grandpa ever possible.
He, wasn't gonna
tell you what to do
but you better fucking do it.
And how many people did it?
How many people are doing it?
How many people are
just using the label it's like,
so they can scare
their Catholic grandma?
Well, my family,
it's funny 'cause some
of them will see this.
My mom knows and
doesn't like talking about it.
My father's side of the family
are very religious Catholics.
And again, I don't
ever talk about it.
Maybe they know and I
don't really care if they know.
And if they do
know, all right, cool.
I think they'll notice
that I've never tried
to convert them.
The best way to
raise my children
is for them to be themselves.
Find what you like, what
you love and go for it.
And to me, that's the
most Satanic thing.
If they identify with
Satanism, great,
if they don't, I don't care.
I don't know what
disturbed my family more.
Me, telling them I was gay.
Me, telling them
I was an atheist.
Or me telling them
I was a Satanist.
They kept throwing
away the books
every time they found them.
So the Satanic Bible I
have now, the paperback,
is the fourth one I had to buy.
They just kept throwing out
all my copies of Anton LaVey.
But then again, I kept
leaving them in the car.
My father was not
entirely comfortable
but since I was responsible,
he supported it enough
to Just let me do
whatever I was doing.
We used to tease each other.
So I would say, "Oh you're
the most Satanic Christian
that I've ever met."
And he would say, that I'm
the most Christian Satanist
that he's ever met.
Every family reacts differently.
It depends on how they grew up.
It depends upon what
they've been indoctrinated into
what they've seen in the
media or what they've heard.
We're brought up in environments
where you want that support.
You want that acceptance
from your parents
or from your family.
And unfortunately,
a lot of us don't get it.
I think maybe they thought
it was maybe a phase
I was going through.
And as I got older,
they were just like,
"okay it's clearly not a phase,
'cause you're here,
you are an adult
and you're still
identifying as a Satanist."
My mother actually
excommunicated herself
from the Catholic church
when I was growing up.
My family's reaction
was pretty neutral
because there are a
bunch of Darwinists already
they're not very
religious people.
My mother was
another person who,
she encouraged me to join, so.
I spent my youth
in Astoria, Oregon,
at a very lovecraftian
type of city.
My parents were
children in the '60's.
So they were very interested
in the experimental lifestyles
which were very big at that time
that involved psychedelia,
involved in the drug world
but also the burgeoning
interest in the occult.
Growing up in a family in which
that was an important aspect
is how I came to be acquainted
with Satanism and
the Satanic Bible.
I joined the Church of Satan
because I felt that this
was unique and different.
The rest is history.
We do not believe in an actual,
as I said, in actual entity.
We are atheists.
At least as far as the
church of Satan is concerned.
We feel that Satan is polemic,
he is allegorical
and he is symbolic.
He represents
the forces of nature
that make mankind something
unique and individual.
That element that allows us
to perceive ourselves
as gods, as opposed
to worshiping a sentient
beings outside of ourself.
That was a standard
Church of Satan party line
which I was willing to use
to help develop the philosophy
of the Church of Satan.
Deep down inside every
man has his own views
and his own perspectives
and his own truth.
And mine was very,
very different than that.
"All religions are a joke."
That was one of the
things that was stated.
My perspective on that.
I don't believe that what
I'm practicing is a joke
even though what I'm
practicing is not a religion.
I couldn't hold to
that perspective
and still remain true to myself.
It doesn't mean that I
don't appreciate the people
I was surrounded with
but I couldn't be on
board with a sinking ship.
I am a theistic Satanist.
I mean, if you
wanna categorize it
in such primitive terms.
The existence of a
super-consciousness
or an over consciousness
that's something that
I ultimately accept.
So anybody who wants to say,
"well that's just delusional
or that's just
fantasy thinking."
It's like, that's fine for you
but either A that's a
personal perspective
or B is a claim of omniscience.
And we completely deny
that in the Chaos Imperium.
Oh, friend and
companion of the night,
thou who delightest in the
baying of dogs and spilt blood,
who wanderest in the
shades among the tombs,
who longest for blood and
bringeth terror to mortals.
Gogro! Mormo!
Thousand-faced moon!
Look favorably
upon our sacrifices!
Diabolus Rex, he was
one of those Satanists
I grew up reading his
interviews and watching them,
and loving his art.
So, when he left
the church I was like,
"Aw, that sucks, but oh, well."
If there's a time when
someone wants to go off
on their own or leave the
organization, that's fine.
In 1975, we had a split
in the Church of Satan.
Michael Aquino started
something called The Temple of Set.
And Aquino actually became
a very mystical person.
He really felt that Set existed
as an isolate consciousness,
some supernatural intelligence.
And he could
communicate with that.
Temple of Set,
very transcendent,
movement towards
something greater
and beyond the physical world,
distinct from the highly
materialistic aspects
of the Church of Satan,
which only came much later
in the Church's Satan's history.
Initially there was something
much more acceptable
about the idea that Satan
might be some kind of godhead
that actually existed
in physical reality
and that the Satanists
could contact.
That was the most
well organized version
of that kind of
theistic thinking.
When you're dealing with
like a left-hand path philosophy.
It doesn't seem to
have a very wide reach
but it's there for the
people who it would satisfy.
And in fact, if people
approach the Church of Satan
who are really mystical and
wanna believe things like that,
we send them
off to other people.
It's a common misconception
that theistic Satanists
or those who believe in
some form of consciousness
of a satanic element somehow
are automatically
involved in worship.
You can have a direct connection
with this over consciousness
or superconscious
which has nothing
to do with worship.
It's more teacher to
student and learning
from that position to be
able to promote a form
of self-evolution to
something greater.
I knew Diabolus Rex,
an accomplished artist.
I don't really know
what he's been up to.
The Ragnarok Engine
is an Escathonic,
experimental and
theoretical project.
Escathonic meaning,
end of the world.
Ragnarok was the end
of the age of the gods.
Well, everybody perceives
themselves as the new gods,
so we have to move against that.
The Ragnarok Engine is a way
of being able to create gateways
and bring in the most
definitive aspects of evil.
And so I've poured
all my resources
and everything that I hold
as a conviction
of power into this.
Well, Satanism is
not for everybody
because it requires
extreme responsibility.
It's interesting, 'cause
I look at this country,
The United States, and our
constitution is the same thing.
The first amendment to me
is the most singular
important thing we have.
It's free speech.
You're allowed to say
whatever you want,
whether it be hateful or not.
And I think this
is really healthy.
What's hate speech?
What does that even mean?
What if I say, I hate people
who read comic books?
Is that hate speech?
To me, the only way to have
that work is all speech is good.
The second amendment is
there for me to protect my property.
It's also there to protect
me from an invading army.
And it's also there to protect
me from my own government.
People that don't like it,
I quickly point out what
happened in Europe,
not that long ago.
Within a minute,
people were like
"Oh, shit, there's
Nazis everywhere."
Like it just happens.
Our founding fathers, I
think when they put it in there
they were like, "this is
the safety right here, boom!
People can fight back."
If you have free speech, people
will get offended, obviously
if you have guns, people
are gonna get shot.
So the question is, do
you wanna live somewhere
that's completely
no gun violence at all,
but there's laws on
regulating speech
or do you wanna live
somewhere where it's a little wild?
There's a lot of shit going on
and you have to be
responsible, or you're fucked.
I choose that.
That's what I like.
I'll take the gun violence.
I'll take it.
If that's part of the
freedom rules, I'd rather that.
The people who
founded our country,
Jefferson, Franklin, Thomas
Paine, they were deists.
They were anti theists,
anti organized religion.
And they were
certainly influenced
by the freedoms of
the enlightenment.
And so the way our very
country was structured
was much more leaning
toward what we now understand
as Satanism than
dependence on religion
and God and powers
outside yourself.
Experts say there are
as many as 50 to 60,000
human sacrifices a year,
a result of an estimated
100,000 self-styled Satanists
in this country.
In 1988 Los Angeles
had 64 preschools
with report and
Satanic activity.
I absolutely believe
it without any doubt.
Based on the information
that's been given to me
across the country,
by numerous survivors
and by confidential
sources and informants.
Basically from the
late '60's, early '70's
there was all these
books coming out
"The Exorcist",
"Amityville Horror".
Yeah, they're fun movies but
they're Christian propaganda.
They made more people go
to church than anything else.
It scared people.
So out of that arose
this like false pretense
that there's this Satanic
underground community
that is breeding
babies for sacrifice.
Oh, the satanic panic.
That was the just,
you know, America.
The satanic panic was
essentially launched
by a book called
"Michelle Remembers"
where a psychiatrist
dealt with a woman
who claimed to have remembered
memories of being abused
by a Church of Satan,
which had her do all
kinds of heinous things
in the name of the devil.
When the book came out, it
was listed as being a true story.
And that started amongst
the evangelical Christians
this wildfire of people
replicating these tales.
"Michelle Remembers"
was followed by Mike Warnke
who was a fellow who
came out with a book claiming
that he'd been part
of the Satanic cult
that had this amazing
reach in the world.
They were involved with
invoking actual demons
who would teleport
people, places.
It was called
"The Satan Seller."
Other people started imitating
it because these books sold.
This is a commercial venture.
It was really the commercial
success of this literature
of satanic cults that got
evangelical Christians
into saying, "this a good deal."
These symbols of Satanism
are turning up everywhere,
on walls, on clothes,
on album covers,
and even on bodies
of murder victims.
People like Bob
Larson who spread this,
and certain therapists
and psychiatrists
who were using unethical
techniques to implant memories
from their patients
then these patients claim
that they were part
of these satanic cults.
We're talking about people
in some cases who are coming
to us as patients who
were raised in Satanic cults
from the time they were born.
The various cases where
people's lives were thrown apart
because of these allegations
that they were abusing children
are part of this great
satanic conspiracy.
The truth is children, lie
and adults encouraged
children to lie
to feed into their
own bullshit stories.
And that's what the
satanic panic was.
If you read the testimony
in the McMartin Preschool,
the fact that anybody
believed any of them
for a second is just...
You just, you
slap your forehead.
It's just insane.
People were
claiming that children
were literally being
shown like animals
that you would only see in
zoos and being transported
into exotic locations and
then somehow returned
to the preschool
that they were at.
And you're thinking,
"how could this happen?"
And of course the
explanation was Satan.
It would be a whole lot
easier if these people wore
or had horns and a
Pitchfork and a red suit
but they just don't.
They could be your
next-door neighbor.
Cops for Christ were
a big deal then too.
I dealt with people like that.
I was actually set
upon by people
who just didn't like
the way you looked
or they had a
marginalized understanding
of what they thought
you represented.
And every day was an adventure.
It was a real problem.
LaVey felt like
he was in danger.
People would drive by
and throw shit at the house.
You have to understand that
the satanic panic happened
during the Reagan years.
Fundamentalism was
the flavor of the month.
Religion and people were
gloaming onto that but,
make no mistake, that
was a very dangerous time
to be living in America.
These things don't
have to be real at all
but they get passed around.
And suddenly a friend
of a friend of a friend said
"I know somebody who
was involved in that."
So this whole mythology grew.
But there were
people who believe that
because it helped
forge an agenda
for the reorientation
of American society.
During the satanic panic is
when I discovered Satanism.
And I remember one of the things
that was being spread
around was heavy metal music
and Dungeons & Dragons
role-playing games
will expose you to Satanism.
I believe that
Dungeons & Dragons
is a direct quote
from the pit of hell,
if you wanna call it that.
It is a mind-bending game,
a mind-changing game.
And it's involved with all kinds
of occult and pagan religions.
And Anton LaVey, the writer
of the Satanist Bible says,
"there is no such thing
as white witchcraft."
For being a Satan
worshiper, he should know.
Yeah, he should know
And guess what?
It worked, it worked.
It actually did do that to me.
So whatever they
said actually was true.
All the things you love.
Whether Satan exists
is a matter of belief.
But we are certain
that Satanism exists.
To some it's a religion.
To others it's the practice
of evil in the devil's name.
Hail, Satan!
And indeed there
were some crazy people
who believed in the
devil and worshiped him
we used to call them
Geraldo Satanist,
'cause we feel that that's
where the inspiration was coming.
Not from any actual other
Satanists or any actual Satanism.
We had some Satanists
that were interested
in the Charles
Manson phenomenon.
Some Satanists kind of saw him
as a symbol of
the end of the '60's.
This kind of rebellion,
this counteraction
from the '60's
hippie culture, right?
So I think they
took that aesthetic
and that kind of mythology
and they ran with it.
LaVey himself was actually
really annoyed by that.
He wrote several times that
he wished Charles Manson
was just shot in the head,
and that was over with.
LaVey knew Susan Atkins.
She worked as a stripper in
his Topless Witches revue.
And he said, "Boyd, this girl
was an accident
waiting to happen.
If it hadn't been Charlie Manson
it would've been somebody else."
Like an incredible amount
of people cross paths
with Manson, people
that you never expect.
And a lot of people
ended up going through
well, The Black House as well.
So I just think, it
was an odd time.
When the Manson
thing originally happened
all the Manson girls wrote
letters to Anton LaVey.
The people that do
that nonsense shit,
they're the theistic idiots.
They're the ones that
believe in the nonsense.
They're the ones that
can't draw the separation
between fantasy and reality.
If they're doing it,
it's not Satanism.
When I hear babies being
murdered and child molestation,
I think of Christians
and Catholics.
I think a lot of them are
Yeah, they do! They should!
That's real! That can be proven!
We, for our part
during the satanic panic,
Anton LaVey
didn't want to dignify
a lot of these journalists
with actually having the High
Priest of the Church of Satan
on their shows.
He said, "you know,
the philosophy"
and the organization
have matured
to the point now where
I have plenty of people
that I trust to go
on these shows
and say, no, we
don't sacrifice animals.
And this is what we stand
for, and this is what we do.
We are here.
We're not going away.
And Christianity and the
day of the cross are done.
It was the best story
going at the time.
And so there was
a need to be able
to defend this
opposite position.
For Anton LaVey, what he was
doing was meeting with people
from the Humane Society,
from animal protection societies
from cult awareness, places
even Christians
who were concerned
about what was
going on in Christianity
and these people that
were being counselors
and hanging out their
shingle as Satan busters.
So he was meeting with the
right people to get the word out
defining what Satanism
is and what it isn't.
The FBI and other
law enforcement started
to really investigate this
because it had really gotten
to be this crazy mythology
with all of these
books coming out
and people supporting this.
And they found that it
wasn't true. Surprise!
That it was a hysteria.
Anybody who would bother
to even take the
cursory look at our text.
The first thing it says is
that we don't harm children
and we don't harm animals.
There are no sacrifices.
That's all shit.
That's Christian shit.
I went out there and
had to sit next to people
who are claiming to
be breeding babies
and slaughtering them.
And try to say, I
represent this philosophy
which is about reason
and about self-satisfaction.
And that is atheist.
When all these people think
that I must be a animal
sacrificer and baby-breeder.
I'd be put in green
rooms separate
from all the other guests
because they didn't
wanna be near me
because of course I must be
doing these horrendous things.
And it really took a long time
for that to grind to
a halt and roll back.
Marilyn Manson in that
time was getting popular.
And he brought
Satanism a new audience
'cause he openly
talked about it.
Back then, it wasn't cool.
Like now you can be
like, "Oh, I'm a member
of some stupid satanic group"
and people are like, "Yeah!"
But back then,
it wasn't like that.
It was serious.
You couldn't tell anybody.
The first open member and
open Satanist is King Diamond.
He's the first rock
and roller to say,
"Hey, you know I'm a Satanist."
I mean, Coven from
the '60's, but that's...
It's was very different then.
I hear you vomit here.
I can't think of Hank and
there's Santa in the backyard.
"Scooby Doo" cartoon.
Our children are
being lobotomized
by manipulative psychologist.
Kids in the occult.
I wonder where was
Satanism when we were kids?
Why didn't we get into it?
Because of parent concerns
that some Halloween costumes
can be linked to devil
worship and satanic cults.
Joanna.
Sometimes I don't obey.
Punish him with a rod severely.
Stand up and sit down
And stand up and sit down
And stand up
This is why Satanism exists
is so that we can
constantly remind people
that whenever you
create an enemy
then things can be very
dangerous for everyone.
That's why you have
to think for yourself.
I haven't come forth
in a great many years
because I didn't
want to be relegated
to another guest
on a TV talk show.
But I can assure you
Satanism is here to stay.
During Anton LaVey's last
years he had surrounded himself
with people that he grew close
to, that he drew energy from.
We had had a son together.
He had heart problems brought
about by the rheumatic fever,
sort of weakened him.
And he didn't want
to be seen as weak.
So his time became
very precious.
He wanted to spend it
with people he enjoyed,
who contributed to his life.
He was doing more recording
so that his music
would get out there.
But he just wanted to
spend the time that he had
with his son and playing
his music and writing
I will never die.
You won't?
No, of course not. I've
made arrangements.
He lived every single day.
It was homination
his philosophy.
And how many
people can say that?
I loved spending time
alone with my grandfather.
It felt like the entire
world just disappeared.
I wish he was around now
because people are
afraid to speak their mind.
People are walking on
eggshells, and he hated that.
Everyone's walking around
with a good guy badge now
'cause they're a victim of
this, and a victim of that.
The Church of Satan today,
I try to maintain
as close as possible
as to the vision
Anton LaVey set out.
In fact, in our conversations
that was something
I promised him
that I would be doing
for him as time went on.
I think that the
philosophy that he created
is absolutely spot on
for recognizing the reality
but with human animal functions
I don't think his philosophy
needs to be changed at all.
Honestly, the thing
that I really like
about Satanism is
that it doesn't change because
human beings don't change.
So where does this
all go for the future?
Well, Satanists
are born, not made,
they're being born right now.
And some of them will
read that book and say,
"yeah, this is for me."
There's other satanic
groups that come and go,
but the Church of Satan
has been around now for,
what is this 52 years?
That's pretty good.
You don't worship anything.
You question everything.
And the power that you
have comes from within you
and you don't take
anything on faith.
There's no such thing
in Satanism as faith.
We challenge, we question,
we challenge ourselves to
do better, to achieve more,
that's what's embodied
in our principles.
Because we know
as Anton LaVey said,
"the first 99 years are
always the toughest."
I think the future is
assured, the Church of Satan
is thriving and shall
be a great black river
that continues to flow into
the great future to come.
So thank you all for
bringing that into being.
Shemhamforash!
Shemhamforash!
Hail, Satan!
Hail, Satan!
Hail, Satan!
Hail, Satan!
Hail, Satan!
Hail, Satan!
I formed the Chaos Imperium
to be an alternative idea
to contemporary magical
practices and perspectives.
This isn't a psychic order,
it doesn't have a very
large group membership,
it is not initiatory,
it is not religious.
I'm its only human
representative,
though within the group
there's 7 other entities
that we have invited
through magic to be part of it.
The Devil is my woman
And she's got a voodoo hair
The Devil is my woman
And she's got a voodoo hair
She missed my blues
She dances to my rare
She says it's too tight.
But you know she
She missed my blues
She dances to my rare
And watch her shimmy, now.
Then she goes...
The preacherman
don't like her
But I've seen him
at the back door
The preacherman
don't like her
But I've seen him
at her front door
The Devil is my woman
The Devil is my woman
And you can't lock her up
So you better
treat her right
Or she's gonna string you up