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The Cult Dossier · No. 048 · Occult / Esoteric / Satanic

Church of Satan

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30 April 1966 – present · San Francisco (the Black House, 6114 California Street); now New York

V. THE POSTWAR ERA 1945–1969

Explicitly atheistic — Satan as symbol, not being

Who led it

ANTON SZANDOR LaVEY (born Howard Stanton Levey, 1930–1997), a carnival organist and self-mythologiser. Successors: Blanche Barton, then Peter H. Gilmore.

What it worshipped and taught

No supernatural belief whatsoever. Satan is a symbol of carnal indulgence, self-interest and the rejection of Christian self-denial. The Satanic Bible (1969) sets out 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. Ritual is described by LaVey himself as psychodrama — intentional theatre for emotional release, not invocation.

Who was in it

Anton LaVey; Diane Hegarty; Karla LaVey; Blanche Barton; Peter H. Gilmore; MICHAEL AQUINO, who left in 1975 to found the genuinely theistic Temple of Set; Jayne Mansfield, an associate; Sammy Davis Jr., who held honorary membership; Kenneth Anger; Marilyn Manson, made an honorary Reverend in 1994.

How it ended, or where it stands

Active, small, legally untroubled.

The dead

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Of note

Included principally as the control case for the Satanic Panic, in which the number of real Satanic murder cults found by law enforcement across fifteen years of investigation was, per the FBI's own report, zero. The genuinely dangerous Satanic groups on this list — the Order of Nine Angles (099), Adolfo Constanzo (081) — had no connection to LaVey.

Its timeline

  1. 30 April 1966 Founded on Walpurgisnacht; LaVey declares Year One of the Age of Satan.
  2. 1967 First public Satanic wedding and, in 1967, a Satanic funeral for a US Navy sailor — heavy press coverage.
  3. 1969 The Satanic Bible published; it has never gone out of print.
  4. 1975 Michael Aquino and a large group leave over LaVey's decision to sell priesthoods for money; they found the TEMPLE OF SET, which does believe in a real deity, Set.
  5. 1980–1995 THE SATANIC PANIC. Michelle Remembers (1980), the McMartin preschool trial (1983–1990 — SIX YEARS FROM PRELIMINARY HEARING TO ACQUITTAL, SEVEN INCLUDING THE INVESTIGATION, AT A COST OF 15 MILLION DOLLARS TO THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA. IT REMAINS THE LONGEST AND MOST EXPENSIVE CRIMINAL TRIAL IN AMERICAN HISTORY, AND IT PRODUCED NO CONVICTIONS. Only two defendants ever reached trial. Hundreds of children at the Manhattan Beach school described abuse, sometimes during Satanic rites, IN RESPONSE TO SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONING), the West Memphis Three (1993, released 2011), and hundreds of ruined lives. THE FBI'S 1992 LANNING REPORT — CONFIRMED. Drawing on the SEVERAL HUNDRED such cases he had consulted on since 1983, Kenneth Lanning found LITTLE OR NO EVIDENCE for organised ritual crime, and concluded that where satanism or the occult featured at all it was usually secondary, insignificant or nonexistent. The Church of Satan had essentially nothing to do with any of it.
  6. 29 October 1997 LaVey dies; the death certificate is dated 31 October for effect.
  7. 2001 Peter Gilmore becomes High Priest; headquarters moves to New York.

Its people

Anton Szandor LaVey

Howard Stanton Levey; the Black Pope

Founder, the Church of Satan · 11 April 1930 – 29 October 1997 · active 1966–1997

A carnival organist and relentless self-mythologiser who founded the Church of Satan on Walpurgisnacht 1966 and wrote The Satanic Bible in 1969, which has never gone out of print. His Satanism was explicitly atheistic — Satan as a symbol of indulgence and self-interest, ritual as deliberate psychodrama, no supernatural claims at all. He was a showman who staged Satanic weddings and funerals for the press. Much of his claimed biography (police photographer, lion tamer, affair with Marilyn Monroe) was invented. He is included in this dossier largely as the control case: the FBI's 1992 investigation into Satanic ritual abuse networks found none, and his organisation had essentially nothing to do with the panic conducted in its name.

Before the law. Never charged with anything.

Where things stand. Deceased 1997. The Church of Satan continues under Peter H. Gilmore.

  1. 30 April 1966 Founds the Church of Satan; declares Year One of the Age of Satan.
  2. 1967 Performs the first public Satanic wedding and funeral.
  3. 1969 The Satanic Bible published.
  4. 1975 Michael Aquino leaves to found the theistic Temple of Set.
  5. 1980–95 The Satanic Panic; the Church of Satan is largely irrelevant to it.
  6. 29 October 1997 Dies in San Francisco; the death certificate is falsified to read 31 October.

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