my review of the satanic bible

the satanic bible book review

so far here are my impressions:
* one thing that did strike me was that i found no spelling or grammar errors. i usually find them in most printed works.
* i recommend it to anyone interested in religion and philosophy
* anton lavey is no dummy, he seems very intelligent (UPDATE: i take that back. after seeing him interviewed on video, he seems much less articulate than the impression you get from the satanic bible. maybe because the SB is composed so much of other peoples work? see the very bottom of this article.)
* the arguments seem clever, as if worded in ways that the devil would word them, but they seem mostly directed to catholicism (playing harps in heaven for all eternity, celibacy, etc) and i feel i have answers to many of his questions. i also get the impression that he did not know anything about the lds church or its doctrine.
* what more perfect church for the devil to have as its front than one that denies his existence?
* the SB contains truths, half-truths and lies. concerning lies:

"I'm one helluva liar. Most of my adult life, I've been accused of being a charlatan, a phony, an impostor. I guess that makes me about as close to what the Devil's supposed to be, as anyone. It's true. I lie constantly, incessantly. Because I lie so often, I'd really be full of shit if I didn't keep my mouth shut and my bowels open."

- Anton LaVey, Satan Speaks, page 101

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist -- charles baudelaire

* some of the things he writes are humorous and i also found it funny when he wrote "we all know the devil has the best music" and then i read an interview with peter gilmore, the church's current leader today where he stated:

to me, Satanic music is the symphony, which to me is the highest art form. So Beethoven, Mahler, Bruckner, Shostakovich — to me that’s some of the most Satanic music ever written

although lavey doesnt specifically mention a specific type or group, i feel he is alluding to some kind of modern popular (rock?) music (of which i have no problem with =). gilmore also prefaces that statement with

Satanic music is specific to each person

but it was just funny that the 2 leaders seem to have opposite tastes and ideas of what satanic music is to them =) i also love classical music as well as rock =)

page 55:

...the indian devi which means god

devi is sanskrit for goddess
but satan is referred to as the god of this world in 2. corinthians 4:4

it also says that the devil was:

originally an angel whose duty it was to report human delinquencies to God. it was not until the fourteenth century that he began to be depicted as an evil deity...

Q. source?

page 61:

pious prophets have taught man to fear satan. but what of terms like "god fearing"? if god is so merciful why do people have to fear him? are we to believe there is no where we can turn to escape fear?

fear of the lord is to hate evil
i cannot find any place in the bible where man is taught to fear satan. furthermore:
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
and There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

page 63:
evil backwards is live =)

page 64-65: love and hate
it seems to say that both are important to experience (on a regular basis). but earlier in the chapter it states:

repressed hatred can lead to many physical and emotional ailments

is it the repression that is damaging or the actual hatred? hatred itself is really wasted energy. you cannot be happy and be full of hatred at the same time. we all want to be happy or feel good dont we? why waste time and energy on hatred?
it continues:

by learning to release your hatred towards those who deserve it, you cleanse yourself of these malignant emotions

or you could just learn to release your hatred =) and yes hatred == malignant emotion.
the chapter concludes:

without being able to experience one of these emotions, you cannot fully experience the other.

after what has been stated earlier, do we really need to fully experience hatred? do we need to show small babies hatred so they will appreciate our love?

page 70:

satanism does not advocate ... any [other] form of sexual activity which entails the participation of those who are unwilling or whose innocence or naïveté would allow them to be intimidated or misguided into doing something against their wishes.
...
if you are ... certain your actions will hurt no one who does not wish or deserve to be hurt, you have no cause to supress your sexual preferences.

theres the catch. and who decides who does and doesnt deserve to be punished?

page 83:

..one's body (the very shell without which the mind and spirit could not exist)

is satanism now saying there is a spirit when they deny the existence of a physical devil and the like?

page 85:

satan has never needed a book of rules

talking as if satan is a real person/entity. but im sure a satanist would just answer that this all is just a play/act anyways so just play along. its just funny that satanism claims itself to be a religion while at the same time openly stating that the devil doesnt really exist.

so far my impression is that satanism, outwardly, is just atheism wearing a mask of satan. it is interesting to note how it makes use of peoples fears to get attention and probably just for the hell of it too, with chapters like "not all vampires suck blood" which really is just an essay about keeping yourself away from people who would use you and steal your energy.

page 96:

...into this greatest of all worlds

Q. is this the greatest of all worlds because it is the world in which i (the individual thinking this thought) live? does satanism believe there are other worlds where people live? what world is the next greatest world? which world is the worst world? =)

page 103:

...feeble attempts of white magicians trying to perform black magic...with writers such as Baudelaire and Huysmans who, despite their apparent obsession with evil, seemd nice enough fellows.

read the interesting quote on the possibility of a real devil by anton lavey:

I'm basically just a good, decent guy.

funny =)

page 116:

the super-logician will always explain the connection of the magical ritual to the end result as "coincidence".

another funny similarity from the same previous reference, interesting quote on the possibility of a real devil by anton lavey:

"Oh, yes, deep down I have my speculation that maybe there is a force I've tapped into, that I can extract. Oh, yes, I have doubts. But I hate to talk about these things. I mean, Jayne Mansfield's death was a strange thing! It was like 'Night Has a Thousand Eyes.' It was a hell of a coincidence! Time and space all coming together to merge like color transparencies. What ingredients contributed to this? These things are too much for coincidence. But still, I want to believe they are coincidences.

=)

page 120:
very interesting concept:

the intellectual decompression chamber of the satanic temple might be considered a training school for temporary ignorance...the satanist knows he is practicing a form of contrived ignorance in order to expand his will

page 124:
Q. i don't get it. satanism denies the existence of the devil, but do they really profess that magick such as being able to inject thoughts into a sleeping person exists? how is such a belief any more rational than theistic satanism? then there's the statement on page 121:

the satanist knows that even if you succeeded in lifting the teacup from the table, it would be assumed that trickery was used anyway.

i'm confused even more then by the previous statement:

the amount of energy to levitate a teacup (genuinely) would be of sufficient force to place an idea in a group of peoples heads half-way across the earth, in turn, motivating them in accordance with your will.

page 133:
funny part of the ritual called to cause the destruction of an enemy:

the sticking of pins or nails into a doll representing your victim

this is funny because it is apparently a misconception of voodoo:

The Voodoo doll is a form of gris-gris, and an example of sympathetic magic. Contrary to popular belief, Voodoo dolls are usually used to bless instead of curse. The purpose of sticking pins in the doll is not to cause pain in the person the doll is associated with, but rather to pin a picture of a person or a name to the doll, which traditionally represents a spirit. The gris-gris is then performed from one of four categories: love; power and domination; luck and finance; and uncrossing.

page 135:

mans earliest alters were living flesh and blood

oh really? source?

for large group rituals a trapezoidal altar about 3 to 4 feet high and 5 1/2 to 6 feet long can be specially constructed for the woman to lie upon.

dont you mean for large group rituals a trapezoidal elevated plane about 3 to 4 feet high and 5 1/2 to 6 feet long can be specially constructed for the altar to lie upon? because:

later religions, in making mans natural inclinations sinful, perverted his living altars into slabs of stone and lumps of metal.

=)

page 136:

the symbol of baphomet was used by the knights templar to represent satan

the baphomet mythos:

the fact remains that the Templars were accused of practicing their initiations and rituals in front of a large idol of the demon Baphomet.

How did this belief come to be? Since King Philip of France sought to own the vast Templar wealth, he along with his puppet Pope Clement V had the Templars captured and tortured. During these tortures they made many confessions, among these, the disclosure that they had worshipped an idol said to be the Baphomet. Were these claims true? Perhaps we'll never know. Jacques de Molay, who had earlier confessed his and the Templars guilt slowly burned at the stake insisting the order was innocent of all but one offence, that of allowing torture to cause them to lie and confess untruths.

page 161:
the only difference here is that lavey substituted "the highest" with "Satan". another thing i noticed was that his version of enochian is the phonetic version of enochian, not real enochian, according to the hermetic webpage about the 48 enochian calls.

page 183:

the satanic placing of traditional priests and wizards upon the earth for the purpose of misdirection.

i dont understand this and i dont see where in the fifth key anything like this is alluded to. Q. is it talking about satanic priests and wizards? satanic placement seems to suggest this. if so, isnt misdirection exactly what satanism has charged the rest of the religions of the world with? does satanism have the misdirection of people as part of their agenda?

really, these "true" enochian keys are just the same enochian keys just with the words god switched with satan and things like virgins switched to harlots and angels to angles. its also a convenient way to make the SB look a lot bigger than it really is. first you have a page with just the name of the key:
the first key
new page: a short description of the key
new page: the enochian key in enochian (actually phonetic enochian)
new page: the enochian key in english
when most of them are so short than you could have easily put all of these things on one page. so instead of 115 pages, it really only is 29 pages. theres basically 89 empty pages (one third of the entire book).

page 207:

the ninth enochian key warns of the use of substances, devices, or pharmaceuticals which might lead to the delusion and subsequent enslavement of the master.

2 words: sexual addiction? i also found this article comparing masturbation to eating interesting.


pages 1-274: =)
this is very interesting info about the satanic bible taken from the churchofsatan.org article anton lavey legend and reality:

LEGEND: ASL wrote the Satanic Bible, his principal work, to fulfill his congregation's need for a scriptural guide.

REALITY: The Satanic Bible was conceived as a commercial vehicle by paperback publisher Avon Books. Avon approached ASL for some kind of Satanic work to cash in on the Satanism & witchcraft fad of the late 1960s. Pressed for material to meet Avon's deadline, ASL resorted to plagiarism, assembling extracts from an obscure 1896 tract - Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard into a "Book of Satan" for the SB, and claiming its authorship by himself. [Ironically these MiR passages are the ones most frequently quoted by ASL disciples.] Another third of the SB consists of John Dee's "Enochian Keys", taken directly but again without attribution from Aleister Crowley's Equinox. The SB's "Nine Satanic Statements", one of the Church of Satan's central doctrines, is a paraphrase, again unacknowledged, of passages from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. The last words in the SB - "Yankee Rose" - have been puzzled over for years by readers. "YR" is actually the name of an old popular tune in ASL's nightclub repertoire.

SOURCES: ASL, The Satanic Bible; Ragnar Redbeard, Might is Right, Port Townsend: Loompanics (reprint), 1896; Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (Galt's speech, ca. pages #936-993); "Yankee Rose" by Sidney Holden & Abe Frankl (Irving Berlin Music, 1926).

its funny because lavey doesnt seem as articulate in person as the impression you get from reading the satanic bible. not surprising then if it is true that most of it (SB) is plagiarized.