The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey

Introduction by Burton H. Wolfe

This is the original introduction, used in the 1969 fist edition to 1972

Introduction
By Burton H. Wolfe*

In 1966, a few newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area began to take notice of a body of Devil-worshippers headed by a former circus and carnival lion handler and organist, Anton Szandor LaVey. Their practice of black arts was nothing new in the world. It had traces in voodoo cults, a Hell-Fire club that existed in 18th-century England, A Satanic circle led by Aleister Crowley in England a century later, and the Black Order of Germany in the 1920's and 1930's. But two aspects of the San Francisco group made them different from their predecessors: the were blaspemously organized into a church, the First Church of Satan, instead of the usual coven Satanist and witchcraft lore; and they carried on their black magic openly instead of underground.

Wedding, baptism, and funeral ceremonies dedicated to the devil were held in the Church of Satan, with the press invited. Rituals in the tradition of the black arts were staged at midnight in the old dark Victorian home of LaVey, an incongruous building among all the white and yell stucco houses in the San Francisco neighborhood a short way from the cliff's along the Golden Gate. Ocassionaly the roar of a full-grown lion that lived in the back house with the LaVey family (Anton, 39; wife Diane,26; daughters Karla, 17, and Zeena, 6) rebverated through the night, spooking neighbors, who were already upset about living so close to Hell.

Somehow it was all terribly provocative. Besides, the Devil has always made "good copy" as they say on the city desk. By 1967, the newspapers that were sending reporters to write about the Church of Satan from San Francisco across the Pacific to Tokyo and across the Atlantic to Paris. When a wedding or funeral was held, with a naked woman serving as alter to Satan, the Associated Press and other wire Services were on hand to transmit the story and scandalous photographs to thousands of periodicals. Groups affliated with the Church of Satan were organized in other parts of America, England, France, Germany, Africa, and Australia. In existence in less than a year, the Church of Satan had already proved on of its cardinal messages: the Devil is alive and highly popular with a great many people.

Anton LaVey, called "The Black Pope" by many of his followers, realized that two decades ago when he was playing organ for carnival sideshows. "On Saturday night," he recalls, "I would see men lusting after half-naked girls dancing at the carnival and on Sunday morning when I was playing the organ for tent-show evangilist at the other end of the carnival lot, I would see these same men sitting in pews with their wives and children, asking God to forgive them and purge them of carnal desires. And the next Saturday night they'd be back at the carnival or some other place of indulgence. I knew then that the Christian church thrives on hypocrisy, and that man's carnal nature will out no matter how much it is purged or scourged by white light religion."

Although LaVey did not realize it then - he was only eighteen - he was on his way toward formulating a religion that would serve as the antithesis to Christianity and its Judaic heritage. It was an old religion, even older than Christianity and Judiasm. But it had never been formalized, arranged into a body of thought and ritual. That was LaVey's role in 20th century civilization.

All of LaVey's background seemed to prepare him for that role. He is the descendant of Georgian, Romanian, and Alsatian grandparents, including a gypsy grandma who passed on to give him legends of vampires and witches in her native Transylvania. As early as the age of five, LaVey was delving into Weird-Tale magazines, and books such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula. He felt different from other children, and yet he became a ringleader, glorifying in the organization of mock military orders.