The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey

Introduction by Peter H. Gilmore

This introduction was used starting in 2005

Introduction
By Peter H. Gilmore

This book has the potential to change your life - it did mine. It is a diabolical work, written with elegance, earthiness, and might, serving quite magically as a mirror. If you look within these pages and see yourself; if you find its principles to be those you've lived by as long as you can remember; if you feel the evocation of an overwhelming sense of homecoming, then you will have discovered that you are a part of a scattered "meta-tribe," and the proper name for what you are is "Satanist." I first encountered Anton Szandor LaVey through The Satanic Bible, at the age of thirteen when I was an avowed atheist. Not being partial to literature promoting faith of any sort, I was pleasantly surprised that this was no rant by someone claiming direct contact with Satan. Instead, I found a common sense, rational, materialist philosophy, along with theatrical ritual techniques meant as self-transformative psychodrama. Here was a tool perfectly suited to my nature as a means for getting the most out of my life. I knew that "atheist" was no longer sufficient as a designation for myself. This book lead me to meet and befriend LaVey, working with him to administer the Church he created, and finally to succeed him as the second High Priest of the Church of Satan. It is one of Anton LaVey's numerous talents that his written words are vivid, brimming with his distinct personality. His well-wrought phrases give the sense of encountering the man himself, and such an impression is not a delusion. When my wife, Peggy Nadramia, and I met The Doctor" (an affectionate moniker used by those close him), we agreed that here was exactly the man we had dared to expect from reading his books. Unlike the founders of other religions who claimed 'inspiration" delivered through some supernatural entity, LaVey readily acknowledged that he used his own faculties to synthesize Satanism. He based it on both his understanding of the human animal acquired from life experience and the wisdom he'd gained from other advocates of materialism, pragmatism, and individualism. His blasphemously named "Church of Satan" was consciously designed to be an adversary to existing "spiritual' belief systems. It was the first organization promulgating religious philosophy championing Satan as the symbol of liberty and individualism. Concerning his role as founder he said that, "If he didn't do it himself, someone else, per haps less qualified, would have." His perceptive insights thus lead him to give a proper name to a human type that has always been part of our species. LaVey was born in Chicago in 1930, and his parents soon relocated to California, that westernmost gathering place for the brightest and darkest manifestations of that "American Dream." It was a fertile environment for the sensitive child who would eventually mature into a role the press would dub "The Black Pope." From his Eastern European grandmother, young LaVey learned of the superstitions that are still extant in that part of the world. These tales whetted his appetite for the outre, leading him to become absorbed in classic dark literature such as Dracula and Frankenstein. He also became an avid reader of the pulp magazines, which first published tales now deemed classics of the horror and science fiction genres. He later befriended seminal Weird Tales authors such as Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Barbour Johnson, and George Has. His fancy was captured by fictional characters found in the works of Jack London and Somerset Maugham, in comic strip characters like Ming the Merciless, as well as by historical figures of a diabolical cast such as Cagliostro, Rasputin, and Basil Zaharoff. More interesting to him than the available occult literature, which he dismissed as being little more than sanctimonious white magic, were books applied obscure knowledge such as Dr. William Wesley Cook's Practical Lessons in Hypnotism, Jane's Fighting Ships, and manuals for handwriting analysis. His musical abilities were noticed early, and he was given free reign by his parents to try his hand at various instruments. LaVey was mainly attracted to the keyboards because of their scope and versatility. He found time to practice and could easily reproduce songs heard by ear without recourse to fake books or sheet music. This talent would prove to be one of his main sources of income for many years, particularly his calliope playing during his carnival days, and later his many stints as an organist in bars, lounges, and nightclubs. These venues gave him the chance to study how various melodic lines and chord progressions swayed the emotions of his audiences, from the spectators at the carnival and spook shows to the individuals seeking solace for the disappointments in their lives in distilled spirits and the smoke-filled taverns for which LaVey's playing provided a moody soundtrack. His odd interests marked him as an outsider, and he did not alleviate this by feeling any compulsion to be "one of the boys." He despised gym class and team sports and often cut classes to follow his own interests. Moving beyond the standard school texts, he absorbed volumes analyzing human behavior on every level, from the impulses of the individual to the dynamics of the herd. He watched films that would later be labeled film noir as well as German expressionist cinema such as M, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and the Dr. Mabuse movies. His taste for flashy apparel also served to amplify his alienation from the mainstream. He dropped out of high school to hang around with hoodlum types and gravitated towards working in the circus and carnivals, first as a roustabout and cage boy and later as a musician. His always-active curiosity was rewarded as he "learned the ropes" from the carnies. He worked an act with the big cats-he had an affinity for these powerful predators-and later assisted with the machinations of the spook shows. He became well-versed in the many rackets used to separate the rubes from their money, along with the psychology that lead people to such pursuits. Under the name "The Great Szandor" he played calliope and organ for the bawdy shows on Saturday nights, as well as for tent revivalists on Sunday mornings, seeing many of the same men attending both and noting this telling contradiction. All of these activities provided a firm, earthy background for his evolving cynical worldview. When the carnival season ended, LaVey would earn money by playing organ in Los Angeles area burlesque houses, and he relates that it was during this period that he met and had a brief affair with a then-unknown Marilyn Monroe, after accompanying her "chain-dragging" striptease at the Mayan Burlesque Theater. Moving back to San Francisco, LaVey worked for a while as a photographer for the police department, and, during the Korean War, enrolled in San Francisco City College as a criminology major to avoid the draft. Both his studies and occupation revealed grim insights into human nature and confirmed his rejection of spiritual doctrines. At this time he met and married Carole Lansing, who bore him his first daughter Karla Maritza, in 1952. A few years earlier LaVey had examined the writings of Aleister Crowley, so in 1951 he decided to meet some of the Berkeley Thelemites. He was unimpressed, as they were more mystical and less "wicked" than he supposed they should be for disciples of Crowley's libertine creed. During the 1950s, LaVey supplemented his income as an investigator of alleged supernatural phenomena, handing "nut calls" referred to him by friends in the police department. These experiences proved to him that many people were inclined to seek a bizarre, "otherworldly" explanation for phenomena that had prosaic causes. His rational explanations often disappointed the complainants, so LaVey invented exotic sources to make them feel better, giving him insight as to how belief functions in people's lives. In 1956 he purchased a Victorian house on California Street in San Francisco's Richmond District. It was reputed to have been a speakeasy, and was tricked out with secret passages, possibly to aid in clandestine carnal activities. He painted it black, thus creating a haunted intrusion on an otherwise typical block, matching his own unique presence. It was only natural that it would later become home to the Church of Satan. After his death, the building remained unoccupied, a brooding "shunned house," until it was demolished on October 17 of 2001 by the real estate company that owned the property. LaVey met and became entranced by Diane Hegarty in 1959; he then left Carole in 1960. Hegarty and LaVey never married, but she bore him his second daughter, Zeena Galatea in 1964 and was his companion for many years. Hegarty and LaVey later separated; she sued him for palimony and this was settled out of court. Through his "ghost busting," and his frequent public gigs as an organist, including playing the Wurlitzer at the Lost Weekend cocktail lounge, LaVey became a local celebrity and his holiday parties attracted many San Francisco notables. Guests included Carin de Plessin, called "the Baroness" as she had grown up in the royal palace of Denmark, anthropologist Michael Harner, Chester A. Arthur III (grandson to the U.S. President), Forrest J. Ackerman (later, the publisher of Famous Monsters of Filmland and acknowledged expert on science fiction), author Fritz Leiber, local eccentric Dr. Cecil E. Nixon (creator of the musical automaton Isis), and underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger. From this crowd LaVey distilled what he called a "Magic Circle" of associates who shared his interest in the bizarre, the hidden side of what moves the world. As his expertise grew, LaVey began presenting Friday night lectures summarizing the fruits of his research. In 1965, LaVey was featured on the "The Brother Buzz Show", a humorous children's program hosted by marionettes. The focus was on LaVey' s "Addams Family" lifestyle - making a living as a hypnotist, investigator of the paranormal, and organist, as well as on his highly unusual pet Togare, a Nubian lion. In the process of creating his lectures, LaVey noticed many common threads, which he then began weaving into a tenebrous conceptual tapestry. When a member of his Magic Circle suggested that he had the basis for a new religion LaVey agreed and decided to found the Church of Satan as the best means for communicating his ideas. And so, in 1966 on the night of May Eve - the traditional Witches' Sabbath - LaVey declared the founding of the Church of Satan and renumbered 1966 as the year One, Anno Satanas - the first year of the Age of Satan. The attention of the press soon followed, particularly with the wedding of Radical journalist John Raymond to New York socialite Judith Case on February 1st, 1967. Famed photographer Joe Rosenthal was sent by the San Francisco Chronicle to capture an image that went onward to the pages of the Los Angeles Times and other prominent newspapers. LaVey began the mass dissemination of his Philosophy via the release of a record album, The Satanic Mass (Murgenstrumm, 1968). The album featured a cover graphic named by LaVey as the "Sigil of Baphomet": the goat head in a pentagram, circled with the Hebrew word "Leviathan," which has since become the ubiquitous symbol of Satanism. Featured on the album was part of the rite of baptism written for three-year-old Zeena (performed on May 23rd, 1967). In addition to the actual recording of a Satanic ritual, side two of the LP had LaVey reading excerpts from the as-yet- unpublished The Satanic Bible over music by Beethoven, Wagner, and Sousa. His Friday lectures continued and he instituted a series of "Witches' Workshops" to instruct women in the art of attaining their will through glamour, feminine wiles, and the skillful discovery and exploitation of men's fetishes. By the end of 1969, LaVey had taken monographs he had written to explain the philosophy and ritual practices of the Church of Satan and expanded them. His influences included philosophers such as Ayn Rand, Nietzsche, and Mencken, the base wisdom of the carnival folk, the observations of P.T. Barnum, and finally the imagery of the archfiend found in Twain, Milton, Byron, and other romantics. He prefaced these essays and rites with reworked excerpts from Ragnar Redbeard's Might is Right and concluded it with "Satanized" versions of John Dee's Enochian Keys to create The Satanic Bible. It has never gone out of print and remains the main source for the contemporary Satanic movement. The philosophy presented in it is an integrated whole, not a smorgasbord from which one can pick and choose. It is meant only for a select few who are epicurean, pragmatic, worldly, atheistic, fiercely individualistic, materialistic, rational, and darkly poetic. There may be fellow-travelers - atheists, misanthropes, humanists, freethinkers - who see only a partial reflection of themselves in this showstone. Satanism may thus attract these types in some ways, but ultimately it is not for them. If it was only a philosophy, such individualists might be welcome; it is more. Satanism moves into the realm of religion by having an aesthetic component, a system of symbolism, metaphor, and ritual in which Satan is embraced not as some Devil to be worshipped, but as a symbolic external projection of the highest potential of each individual Satanist. The identification Satanists have with Satan is an intentional barrier against those who cannot resonate with this sinister archetype. The Satanic Bible was followed in 1971 by The Compleat Witch (re-released in 1989 as The Satanic Witch), a manual that teaches "Lesser Magic" - the ways and means of reading and manipulating people and their actions toward the fulfillment of one's desired goals. The Satanic Rituals (1972) was printed as a companion volume to The Satanic Bible and contains "Greater Magic" rituals culled from a Satanic tradition identified by LaVey in various world cultures. Two collections of essays, which range from the humorous and insightful to the gleefully sordid, The Devil's Notebook (1992) and Satan Speaks (1998), complete his written canon. Since its founding, LaVey's Church of Satan attracted many varied people who shared an alienation from conventional religions, including celebrities Jayne Mansfield and Sammy Davis Jr., as well as rock stars King Diamond, Marilyn Manson, and Marc Almond who all became, at least for a time, card-carrying members. He numbered among his associates Robert Fuest, director of the Vincent Price "Dr. Phibes" films as well as The Devil's Rain; Jacques Vallee, ufologist and computer scientist, who was used as the basis for the character Lacombe, played by Francois Truffaut, in Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind; and Aime Michel known as a spelunker and publisher of Morning of the Magicians. LaVey's influence spread through articles in the news media throughout the world, popular magazines such as Look, McCalls, Argosy, Newsweek, Time, and later Seconds, The Nose, and Rolling Stone, numerous men's magazines, and via talk shows such as Joe Pyne, Phil Donahue, and Johnny Carson. This publicity left a mark on novels like Rosemary's Baby (completed by Ira Levin during the early days of the Church's high profile media blitz) and Leiber's Our Lady of Darkness, and films such as Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Devil's Rain (1975), The Car (1977), Dr. Dracula (1980), and many of the "Devil Cult" films from the 1970s through today that picked up on symbolism from LaVey's writings. A feature length documentary, Satan is: The Devil's Mass (1969) covered the rituals and philosophy of the Church, while LaVey himself was profiled in Nick Bougas' 1993 video documentary Speak of the Devil. The Doctor's musicianship is preserved on several recordings, primarily Strange Music (1994) and Satan Takes a Holiday (1995). These reflect his penchant for tunes from the 1930s through the 1950s, which range from humorous to doom-laden as well as devil-themed songs. LaVey renders them on a series of self-programmed synthesizers, imitating various instrumental groups. They are impressive, as these are not multi-track recordings, but are done in one take with the sounds of the full instrumental ensemble created through the simultaneous use of numerous synthesizers played by LaVey's dexterous fingers as well as his feet on an organ- style foot pedal keyboard hooked-up via midi. While his relationship with Diane Hegarty crumbled in the late 70s, a new lady would enter his life to become his final companion. Blanche Barton became his helpmate, co-conspirator, High Priestess, lover, and best friend. She bore him his only son, Satan Xerxes Carnacki LaVey on November 1, 1993. As his health deteriorated in the mid-90s, LaVey preferred to spend time only with the people whom he found enriching, gaining him a reputation as a recluse. He died on October 29, 1997, of complications arising from heart disease. There was no deathbed repentance. He went proudly as he lived, as a Satanist, his only regrets being that he was leaving the great party that was life, and that he would miss seeing his young son Xerxes grow to manhood. According to LaVey's wishes, Barton succeeded him as the head of the Church after his death. In 2001, she passed on this position to myself, Peter H. Gilmore, by then a longtime church administrator and member of the Council of Nine. In 2002, Magistra Barton exchanged her position as High Priestess with my wife Magistra Peggy Nadramia, another veteran administrator who was serving as chair of the Council of Nine. Two biographies have been written about LaVey: The Devil's Avenger (1974) by Burton Wolfe and Secret Life of a Satanist (1990) by Blanche Barton. In recent years detractors of LaVey with rather obvious agendas have disputed the authenticity of some of the events chronicled in these books. They accuse him of fabrication and self -promotional exaggeration. LaVey was a skilled showman, a talent he never denied. However, the incidents detailed in both biographies that can be authenticated via photographic, testimonial, and documentary evidence far outweigh the items in dispute. The fact remains that LaVey pursued a course that exposed him to unusual individuals from all strata of society. It climaxed with his founding of the Church of Satan, which lead to international notoriety. He was gifted beyond what is normally considered a standard for excellence, turning his hand to many arts with a deftness usually gained through dedication to only one muse. He lived his life as a true exemplar of all that he extolled - pursuing his pleasures without stinting while producing works only attained through vigorous self-discipline. LaVey succeeded in avoiding the fate of Mrs. Cassan, a character from Charles G. Finney's The Circus of Dr. Lao, a favored novel of The Doctor. Her doom was to die and be forgotten, for her life produced nothing that was memorable in either a creative or destructive manner. With his thoughts, now presented in multiple languages, continuing to inspire like minds around the globe, Anton Szandor LaVey has won a place in the arena of philosophical and religious discourse. We Satanists owe him our gratitude for symbolically opening the adamantine gates of Hell, by giving form and structure to a philosophy that names us as the Gods of our own subjective universes. His ultimate heresy against the complacent masses was to reject their idolized dictum that all men are equal. Consequently he challenged his comrades to exercise their faculties to judge and be judged in all that they do. He dethroned the seeking of external saviors and championed responsibility for all of one's actions and the resultant consequences. That is perhaps the most frightening principle to a society wherein none are held accountable for their behavior. The Church of Satan remains a world-spanning cabal of those who work to continue human society's momentum along the vector set by LaVey. It shall remain the treasured domain of an imperious few, who live by their own blood and brains, who proudly reject any "good guy badge" and embrace the title of Satanist. There is nothing to fear in The Satanic Bible, for it will not transform you into something that you are not. It cannot convert you, or persuade you in directions not inherent in your nature. Its power lies in its ability to show you what you are through your reaction to its contents. Embrace them, and your life shall gain a new focus, for you will have sharpened your understanding of your self, and you will see more clearly how you differ from those around you. Reject some or all of these hardnosed postulates, and you are free to move on towards whatever other spiritual or conceptual haven that provides you with satisfaction. However, you will no longer be ignorant of what it means to be a Satanist. If you've grasped these fundamentals and have the talent to read people, you might notice that there are such individuals about you, and like LaVey himself, that they are some of the most just and fascinating folks you'll have the pleasure of knowing.