Satan Speaks

The last book of essays by Church of Satan founder LaVey.

Full of dark humor, how-to advice, and self-proclaimed hard-won wisdom, the essays in this new collection present more of the opinions and ideas from famed satanist Anton LaVey. Photos.

In this book-length study of The Satanic Temple, Joseph Laycock, a scholar of new religious movements, contends that the emergence of "political Satanism" marks a significant moment in American religious history that will have a lasting impact on how Americans frame debates about religious freedom. Though the group gained attention for its strategic deployment of outrage, it claims to have developed beyond politics into a religious movement. Equal parts history and ethnography, Speak of the Devil demonstrates why religious Satanism is significant to larger conversations about the definition of religion, religious freedom, and religious tolerance.

Since the rise of the Satanic movement in modern America in the mid 20th century, much controversy has haunted its members and status. Though most Satanist would laugh and laud at the credit given to them, what is there to uncover in the day-to-day lived experience of these Satanists? Not just Temple of Set or Church of Satan, but also the interjection of The Satanic Temple has brought Satanism to a new credence for the world to see. Pair this with shows like The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, serious analysis of the lives of contemporary Satanist has entered into the consciousness of western society--thus meriting publication in the 21st century. It is the aim of the this collection--by Faustus Blackbook--to collect earlier, rather than later, the diversity and experience represented in the contemporary 21st century Satanic Community.

In a land of unrelenting turmoil, in a city that's been laid siege by Mongols, Huns, Turks, Tartars, Germans, and Russians, a cop from Brooklyn joins the chase for a notebook with a mathematical formula that could turn the world on its head.

Wisdom, humor, and dark observations by the founder of the Church of Satan. LaVey ponders such topics as nonconformity, occult faddism, erotic politics, the "Goodguy badge," demoralization and the construction of artificial human companions.

Allegations of satanic child abuse became widespread in North America in the 1980s. Shortly afterwards, there were similar reports in Britain of sexual abuse, torture and murder, associated with worship of the Devil. Professor Jean La Fontaine, a senior British anthropologist, conducted a two year research project into these allegations, which found that they were without foundation. Her detailed analysis of a number of specific cases, and an extensive review of the literature, revealed no evidence of devil-worship. She concludes that the child witnesses come to believe that they are describing what actually happened to them, but that adults are manipulating the accusations. She draws parallels with classic instances of witchcraft accusations and witch-hunts in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe, and shows that beneath the hysteria there is a social movement, which is fostered by a climate of social and economic insecurity. Persuasively argued, this is an authoritative and scholarly account of an emotive issue.

Many people today think of Satan as a little red demon with a pointy tail and a pitchfork—but this vision of the devil developed over many centuries and would be foreign to the writers of the Old Testament, where this figure makes his first appearances. The earliest texts that mention the Satan—it is always “the Satan” in the Old Testament—portray him as an agent of Yahweh, serving as an executioner of evildoers. But over the course of time, the Satan came to be regarded more as God’s enemy than God’s agent and was blamed for a host of problems. Biblical scholar Ryan E. Stokes explains the development of the Satan tradition in the Hebrew scriptures and the writings of early Judaism, describing the interpretive and creative processes that transformed an agent of Yahweh into the archenemy of good. He explores how the idea of a heavenly Satan figure factored into the problem of evil and received the blame for all that is wrong in the world.