The Canon · No. 116
LaVeyan Satanism
The Church of Satan
1966 CE – present · Esoteric / Occult · Living · United States, Europe
VIII. POSTWAR & CONTEMPORARY — 1945 – PRESENT
How many
Unknown and deliberately unpublished; independent estimates run from a few thousand to perhaps 20,000. The Church of Satan does not release figures and has no congregations.
Who began it
Anton Szandor LaVey (1930–1997), a San Francisco showman and former carnival organist, on Walpurgisnacht, 30 April 1966.
What it is for
To provide a religion that celebrates the human being as an animal, rejects what LaVey regarded as the life-denying hypocrisy of Christianity, and takes indulgence rather than abstinence as its principle.
What it worships
None. LaVeyan Satanism is explicitly atheistic. Satan is a symbol — of pride, carnality, individuality and rebellion against arbitrary authority — and is not believed to exist as a being. This is the single most misunderstood fact about the organisation.
What it holds
The Nine Satanic Statements: indulgence instead of abstinence; vital existence instead of spiritual pipe dreams; kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted on ingrates; vengeance instead of turning the other cheek; responsibility to the responsible. Man is just another animal. Ethics are reciprocal and situational rather than universal — the movement's actual moral rule is stated in the Eleven Rules of the Earth, which include not harming children and not killing non-human animals except for food or self-defence.
What it does
Ritual as psychodrama, understood explicitly as theatre for the practitioner's own psychological benefit rather than as supernatural operation. Three ritual types: lust, compassion and destruction. Solitary practice is the norm; the Church of Satan has no congregational meetings by design. Greater and Lesser Magic, the latter being simply manipulation and applied psychology.
After death
None. Death is the end. LaVey's position is that the promise of an afterlife is the mechanism by which religions persuade people to waste the only life they have, and that a Satanist's task is to live this one fully. Some members hold a vague notion of will persisting through influence and legacy; the church teaches nothing on the subject.
Its texts
The Satanic Bible (1969), which has never gone out of print. The Satanic Rituals, The Satanic Witch, The Devil's Notebook.
Its branches
Church of Satan; Temple of Set (theistic, initiatory); The Satanic Temple (a separate and politically distinct organisation, entry 117); various theistic Satanist groups with no relation to LaVey.
Of note
The Satanic Panic is the most important thing in this entry, and it had almost nothing to do with actual Satanists. It is the clearest modern case study of how a society can convince itself that a religious conspiracy exists, imprison people for it, and take a decade to notice the error.
Its timeline
- 1966 CE The Church of Satan founded in San Francisco; LaVey declares it Year One, Anno Satanas.
- 1967 CE The first Satanic wedding and funeral draw national press.
- 1969 CE The Satanic Bible published by Avon; it sells over a million copies.
- 1975 CE Michael Aquino leaves to found the Temple of Set, which is genuinely theistic and regards Set as a real entity — a substantive doctrinal split.
- <strong>1980–1995 CE</strong> The Satanic Panic. A moral panic across the US, UK and elsewhere alleging a hidden network of Satanic ritual abuse. It produced hundreds of prosecutions, including the McMartin preschool case, the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history to that point, which ended in no convictions. The FBI's 1992 Lanning report found no evidence of any organised Satanic cult conspiracy. Numerous convictions were later overturned; several people served decades for crimes that did not occur.
- 1997 CE LaVey dies; a succession dispute follows, resolved under Peter Gilmore in 2001.
- 2001–present Headquarters moves to New York; the church operates almost entirely online and continues to refuse congregational structure.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.