I’m not sure. I know he declared himself a Satanist in 1991 (when he left Thrill Kill Kult and started Electric Hellfire Club), but that was more of a Slayer-type Satanism than anything serious. He joined LaVey’s church in 1996, after hanging out with either Karla or Anton while he was on tour with Boyd Rice.
So, it’s possible that it was as late as 1996. But my guess would be something more like this: In the mid 80s, a teenaged Thomas Lockyear II finds out that the singer of some band he’s really into is in something called OTO. He reads up on it and decides that it sounds really cool, so he contacts that singer and says he wants to join. The two of them don’t get along for some reason, so the guy tells him he can’t join. He takes that as the official word on the subject.
Also, despite his denials, I suspect that show-business aspect is a big part of what attracted him to LaVey. After all, he was already calling himself a Satanist, and his whole stage show was built around that.
That seems a decent rationale for a possible situation. I’ve heard similar scenarios. I’ve also heard of a particular guy in the late '80s cruising for “young” men in Los Angeles occult bookstores (namely, The Bodhi Tree).
My Ex was approached in such a fashion; he had a handful of Crowley books in his hand. Said “guy” approached him and told him about the O∴T∴O and “what great parties” they had, looking my Ex up and down whilst licking his lips… My Ex was so skeeved out that it took several more years – and meeting other, more reputable members in the Order – for us to join.
There was definitely an era of unsavory activity which occurred during the late '80s and early '90s. It has cleaned up a lot since then and removed some of the riff-raff which caused such problems.
That’s a slightly uncharitable description of Blanche Barton - she was also the mother of one of his children and living with him when he died, so personally my money was on her as having a clear idea of what LaVey wanted after his death.
An organisation which, as far as I’m aware, has accomplished absolutely nothing and has virtually no public presence at all. Possibly all their activities are underground so non-members wouldn’t know about it, but I don’t rate Karla’s efforts on that score so highly.
I already did an “ask the Satanist” thread and after a promising start it turned out to be mainly people arguing with me about what Satanism meant at all (which seemed completely pointless) rather than actually trying to learn anything. That said I don’t think I have quite so many interesting anecdotes to tell as **falcotron **does, my contact with other Satanists in person has been pretty minimal.
One point I would make however is that Satanism isn’t intended to be a religion for everyone, the CoS and the Satanic Bible makes very clear that you’re either born a Satanist (i.e. you agree with the Satanic outlook) or you’re not. It’s not something you convert to because you can’t just decide to change your world view if it doesn’t match what it is you’re trying to take up. Also it’s not necessary to be a Satanist if that’s not what you want - it doesn’t confer any benefit in and of itself, it’s a concept and identity that are only as useful as you make them. Satanism ultimately isn’t something you are, it’s something you do.
Probably true, probably even more than “slightly”, especially since most of the people I talked to at the time were on Karla’s side (even though most of them ended up sticking with CoS in the long run instead of joining FSC), and Blanche’s defenders (like Adam Parfrey) said things like, “Karla’s right, Blanche is a money-grubbing publicity whore–and that’s exactly why Blanche should run the Church.” (Of course Adam Parfrey makes a living trying to piss off everyone, including his own fans, so take that for what it’s worth.)
Since her whole point was to create a Satanic Church that wasn’t all about show biz and publicity, you could argue that she’s succeeded in that. Maybe even too well.
That being said, she’s managed to get herself a weekly radio show and build a local concert-promoting business around her Church, so maybe she hasn’t done all that well after all…
Since I’m not a Satanist myself, I wouldn’t be at all competent to defend their viewpoints or explain them in depth. I used to work in the music industry, and dealt with people who were CoS members. I’ve had some interesting conversations with them, sometimes enhanced by substances and/or the stress of touring, but that doesn’t qualify me to speak for their beliefs.
I agree that was LaVey’s viewpoint most of the time, but some of the things he said (like the artificial human thing I mentioned earlier) seem to imply he wavered from that at times.
Well, it seems to confer a benefit to people who use it for publicity purposes, including Anton LaVey himself, and almost every other name that’s come up in this thread. I suspect that’s more of an irrelevant side issue than the whole point of the philosophy (although it may be the whole point of the religion as an organized thing).
Also, many of the Satanists I’ve met (not all—Boyd Rice is a very good counterexample) seem to be plagued with doubts about whether they’re really the Übermenschen they publicly proclaim to believe themselves to be, and joining the CoS may help shore up their self-image. You could argue about whether this is a benefit or not (or maybe even claim it’s a negative thing), but at least it’s a factor for some people.
She may be a money grubbing whore, but as I understand it following LaVey’s death there really wasn’t all that much money to grub, so in that case I don’t think it’s an fair charge to say that was all she was after.
Yes and no - one of the common issues that would come up for new joiners on the Satanic message board I used was “how can I make people respect me as a Satanist?” or some such, essentially how to get people to look past the provocative name and understand that’s not what it’s about. The response was always to ask why they were broadcasting their religious identity to anyone at all, it’s not necessary and in many cases utterly counter productive. There’s nothing less Satanic than whining that it’s not fair people don’t treat you properly because of a silly name - well that’s your fault for not managing your own public image, not other people’s. This is why I don’t agree with the charge that it’s simply an attempt to troll for attention - if you don’t go around telling people then it can’t be, can it?
As for the latter part, I can certainly agree with that too. It doesn’t help that many Satanists view it as part of their own process of ego building to tear down the egos of other people. I think what it boils down to is if you don’t feel the label fits you stop using it, and if you’ve only ever used it for yourself in private (which is probably what you should have been doing in the first place) then you don’t lose anything. If you’ve made yourself into a poster child for Satanism that’s a bit harder, of course.
This is a very good point. Understanding Satanism based on the ones who are most vocal about it (which probably includes the musicians I’ve mostly dealt with as much the whiny highschool kids you’re talking about) is, at best, like understanding Christianity based on the Christian Coalition, and probably even more distorting.
Something Boyd Rice said in a different context (talking about the goth/industrial scene, post-Columbine) might fit here: Anyone who whines about how mainstream society treats his subculture isn’t part of a subculture at all.
Anyway, I think one of the key original questions in this thread, “Why call it Satanism?”, is best answered as three separate questions:
“Why call it Satanism privately?” If I can put words in your mouth: because it helps you to internalize the philosophy and make sense of it.
“Why should an individual call it Satanism publicly?” Again putting words in your mouth: If you want to do so for your own personal reasons, you have your own personal reasons; otherwise, you don’t have to do so at all, so there’s no real question here.
“Why should the Church call it Satanism?” I think the answer (ignoring the cynical “for money and fame”) is that it’s a way to get the word out, that might draw people who might appreciate the philosophy. There’s room to argue about whether this does more harm than good, because there seems to be some of both, but that doesn’t affect the answers to the other two questions.
There were other reasons too going to the core about what Satanism represents i.e. Satan is the opposer and Satanism/the Church of Satan was founded in the counter-culture movement. He is also the bringer of light in the form of Lucifer, a source of inspiration and understanding.
It can also be an attempt to make you face your underlying religious programming. If you consider yourself an atheist (and Satanism is an atheistic system of thinking) then identifying with Satan should be no more difficult than any other mythical entity. Someone put it better than me in the ask the Satanist thread when they said to the effect “when you’re standing in a pentagram chanting ‘Hail Satan!’ it can really bring you face to face with just how ingrained Christianity is in your psychology”. Adopting Satanism is about rejecting right handed (traditional) religion and what it stands for - the submission to an external and mythical authority. You can very well argue you don’t need to do that to be an atheist, and that’s of course entirely correct, but if you enjoy playing dress up and having fun with friends why not throw some religious trapping on it and call it a religion? I personally don’t see the harm.
Anton LaVey (b. Howard Stanton Levey) didn’t hide the promotional aspects: shocking the squares preceded the philosophy. Hey, it’s a great country. This bears repeating:
I would say there’s nothing wrong with cynicism and it’s not me that’s bothered by the notion of someone starting a “fake” religion. It all goes under the heading of ‘whatever works for you’, the idea is you decide what you get out of Satanism for yourself, rather than joining something and being told. If you’re the kind of person who wants to belong and have a community I’d say go and join a regular church, there’s no shortage of them (although you’re probably more likely to be fleeced of your cash there than in the COS which only asks for a $200 lifetime membership fee, as opposed to a cut of all your earnings for the whole of your life).
The bold is mine. If you go with the basic definition of religion, “as the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or a set of beliefs concerning the origin and purpose of the universe” than who is to say what is fake or not?
Could it not be argued that all religions start off in an atmosphere of conjecture and suspicion? Religions come and go (heck, how many Mithraic churches exist now?) but to ascribe one religion as fake over another seems inappropriate to me. How can one say that one’s core belief structure isn’t “the right one” versus a “fake one?”
I found a copy of The Satanic Bible in my high school library. I was just idly scanning the shelves, not looking for anything in particular, and then, “Hey, what is this?!”
I checked it out and brought it home, where my father discovered it on my desk. Of course my parents weren’t too pleased with the idea that I was becoming a Satanist. (This idea was reinforced by the “Son of Schmilsson” poster I had pinned up on my wall.)
The reality was that I lost interest after a few days. What I naively came away with was, you should never count on anyone else to help you get what you want, and if you want anything done right you have to do it yourself…even if you had to use trickery to get it
First, if you define religion that way, (LaVeyan) Satanism doesn’t count as a religion at all. It doesn’t include belief in or worship of a god or gods, or anything concerning the origin of the universe. I suppose you could argue that it speaks to the purpose of the universe, but I don’t think that would be the typical interpretation.
More importantly, why is it inappropriate to call a religion fake?
The Church of Subgenius has a “bible” that repeatedly describes it as an inherently bogus religion, the only religion willing to admit that it’s all made up, etc. So, calling it more “fake” than, say, Catholicism, sounds more than fair to me.
Even beyond such obvious cases, there can still be a fact of the matter, it’s just not quite as obvious. If Zoroaster’s saying “He who writes down words makes of them a lie” was meant to apply literally and universally, Zoroastrianism is a fake religion. If the Mandaeans are right that Jesus was demonstrably a false messiah who intentionally distorted the teachings of John the Baptist into falsehoods, and that his apostles were in cahoots with him, then Christianity is a fake religion.
In some cases, there may not be a good answer. If Joseph Smith didn’t have the golden tablets, but sincerely believed that he did (because, e.g., he was crazy), would that make LDS fake? Hard to say. But if he knew full well that the tablets didn’t exist and consciously invented them, then his religion is clearly fake. And, on the other hand, if he actually had them, then the religion is clearly not fake.
Just because there sometimes isn’t a clear-cut fact of the matter doesn’t mean there never is. And when there is, just because we don’t have all the facts doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.
I agree with you - hence the quotation marks in my post. My view: all religions are man made constructs with nothing underpinning them other than what they create for themselves. In this respect I think Satanism does better than some other religions (in that I think it has the ability to be a far better empowerment tool than a system that teacher you to just wish for things to come true through prayer), but again given that it’s not a system of thought that too many people would subscribe to its success is always going to be limited.
Buddhism doesn’t, and Buddhism is definitely a religion; it offers a spiritual system. Confucianism doesn’t, and is usually counted as a religion though the point is debatable; it offers an ethical system. Both offer ritual systems.
