Running head: UNDERSTANDING SATANISM

Understanding Satanism More Completely: Iconoclasm in Vain

Valerie G.R.A.E. R-A. Johnson

Legend High School

ENG 122: Period 5

Ms. Ashlee Tripp

April 5, 2020
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Understanding Satanism More Completely: Iconoclasm in Vain

Satanism: by definition, “the worship of Satan, typically involving a travesty of Christian

symbols and practices, such as placing a cross upside down.”

In reality, Satanism is slightly more complicated than the simplistic “definition”

encompasses, and often has nothing to do with The Devil. This usually harmless philosophical

system has been stigmatized and dragged through the metaphorical dumpster: perhaps

undeservedly, having been mistaken for Devil-worship. However despite being certric around

virtues like individualism, iconoclasm, and nonconformity, Satanism falls into many of the same

issues that Christianity does. The objective of this paper is to prove, through the use of

substantial and unequivocal evidence, that Satanism is not inherently evil, and teaches both

valuable and worthless lessons, just like any other religion. The evil reputation Satanism receives

is a result of the reactive, blasphemous nature of the religion combined with an uneducated moral

panic in primarily Christian societies.

The name ​Satanism​ comes from prominent Satanist organizations using the actions of

biblical Satan as a symbolic structure for their values. These values (including rebellion against

authority, individualism, and pride) combine to form a belief system similar to punk philosophy.

As recognized by Taub & Nelson (1993), “Satanism, as an ideology, is frequently defined either

too broadly or too narrowly. For example, Lanning (1989) observes that a number of religions

are mistakenly labelled ‘Satanic,’ including Santeria, Witchcraft, and various Eastern religions;

similarly, fraternal organizations such as Freemasonry are sometimes considered Satanic” (p.

525).
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There are two prevalent Satanist organizations: the Church of Satan (CoS) and the

Satanic Temple (TST). The Church of Satan is, while atheist, still a religious organization, the

leaders of which regularly publish books and essays on Satanist philosophy. The Satanic Temple

is atheist and non-religious, and focuses on political activism, advocating for secularism, equal

rights, and several other noble pursuits. The CoS was founded by Anton LaVey in 1969 and the

TST was founded by Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jarry in 2013.

These organizations are completely separate, connected only by nonconformist beliefs

and the term ​Satanism​. The Church of Satan (while not ritualistic murderers or abusers) support

apoliticism and anti-authoritarianism. This support is in direct contrast with their stated tenets. A

prime example of this is when, in March 2015, (just three months before the legalization of gay

marriage,) the CoS began producing and selling “Inequality Polo Shirts” (Palmer 2015),

emblazoned with loud inequivalence symbols. The shirt is supplemented with an advertisement

stating that “Egalitarianism is a myth that breeds weakness & rewards mediocrity. [They]

embrace the stratified & Darwinian reality of Nature” (Palmer 2015), and believe that “the entire

concept of equality is simply one of wishful thinking or flight of fancy that, very much like the

concept of reincarnation, will allow the lowest to feel that they are equal to the highest” (LaVey

1992). These beliefs are objectively discriminatory and elitist, but “embracing the … Darwinian

reality of Nature” is legitimately a Nazist ideology. The support of social Darwinism, the theory

that individuals and peoples are subject to the laws of natural selection just as plants and animals,

is what “justified” the abhorrent actions of the Nazi party and the 1999 Colorado Columbine

school shooters, and many more terrorist groups.

LaVey also blatantly was “all for a police state; no messing around” (1997) and

advocated the presence of “an armed guard on every street corner” (1997). Not only is this

against the CoS’s deeply-held resentment for authority, the implementation of police states has

historically been a main ingredient in fascist societies.

In short, the doctrine that Church members put forth is contradictory to their supposed

principles. They claim to “support the legalization of gay marriage” (Gilmore, n.d.) but advertize

inequality shirts before the legalization; they claim to have accepted transgender people “since

the organization was founded in 1966” (Gilmore, n.d.) but LaVey (1998) calls a transgender man

“an ersatz man at worst and an incomplete woman at best” (p. 13); they claim to be apolitical,

but outright supporting and endorsing Nazi philosophies is anything but.

Even the idea of an individualist ​organization​ is intrinsically illogical: a good example of

an individualist movement is ANTIFA, for which there is no headquarters, local chapters,

website, or leaders — just individuals working with the same ideology.

The connection between LaVeyan Satanism and Nazism was so widely recognized that in

the 1990s, “Nazi satanic cults that combine paganism with praise for Hitler and the Third Reich”

(Goodrick-Clarke, 2003, p. 215) began sprouting up. These groups are major components and

inflamers of the late 20th century Satanic panic, in which invisible Satanist cults were accused of

Satanic ritual abuse (SRA): primarily barbaric child abuse. The drastic rise and fall of

accusations is indicative of a moral panic (as shown in Figure 1), and it is clear that many of the

SRA cases were falsified. The details of this statistic have always been relatively vague, but

“survey research has found that those psychotherapists who claim to have had patients with

memories of SRA, are also those who are most likely to use ‘memory recovery’ techniques
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(Bottoms, Shaver, and Goodman 1996). Many cognitive psychologists suggest that the ‘memory

recovery’ techniques employed by some therapists” (Victor, 1998, p. 554) to uncover forgotten

memories of SRA “are the means by which false memories are elicited (Lindsey and Read 1994;

Loftus 1993)” (p. 554). These techniques can include hypnosis and dream interpretation.

(Figure 1. As of 03 May 2020, retrieved from

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothi

ng=7&case_insensitive=on&content=satanism&direct_url=t4%3B%2Csatanism%3B%2Cc0%3

B%2Cs0%3B%3BSatanism%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bsatanism%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSATANISM%

3B%2Cc0#t4%3B%2Csatanism%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BSatanism%3B%2Cc0%3B%3

Bsatanism%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSATANISM%3B%2Cc0​)

The Satanic Temple is a less complicated matter to consider, with less history to consider

and having been founded after the Satanic panic. For the most part, the Temple seems to be

kindly, satirical political activists, looking “to encourage benevolence and empathy among all

people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense, oppose injustice, and

undertake noble pursuits” (Greaves, n.d.). The Temple primarily uses Satanic imagery to call
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attention to religious hypocrisy, and promote secularism. A good example of this is their After

School Satan club, formed after “the Supreme Court ruled in ​Good News Club v. Milford Central

School​ that schools may not discriminate against religious speech and thereby affirmed the rights

of religious organizations to operate clubs on public school premises after school hours”

(Greaves, n.d.). When this resulted in countless proselytizing Christian clubs, TST legally and

fairly formed their own Satanic club. However, while occasionally achieving noble goals, TST

will sometimes overexaggerate victories or accidentally harm the populations they try to protect.

In 2014, a statue of the 10 Commandments was removed from public property in

Oklahoma, local judges ruling that the government “explicitly endorsing the message of one

religion over another” (Newell, 2015) violated the state constitution as well as the American

constitution. The Satanic Temple treated the court ruling as their victory, having applied to erect

a statue of Baphomet next to the 10 Commandments statue; however, TST did not win the court

case. Conversely, it was won by three Christians working with ACLU Oklahoma, all who

supported secularism.

In 2013, as a response to vile action by the Westboro Baptist Church, the “Satanic

Temple went to Meridian, Mississippi to perform a Pink Mass at the gravesite of the mother of

Westboro Baptist founder, Fred Phelps” (Greaves, n.d.). The Pink Mass supposedly “turned his

mother gay in the afterlife” (n.d.). This succeeded in angering the Westboro Baptist Church, and

while this is an action against an extremist and violently homophobic organization, the subtext is

that people (alive or dead) can be ​turned​ gay or straight. The Westboro Baptist Church is

notorious for performing conversion therapy, an incredibly harmful and often deadly attempt at

turning gays straight. By trying to provoke the Church, TST accidentally affirmed them.
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The Satanic Temple certainly has noble ​goals,​ but few actual accomplishments. They

often affiliate the populations they protect with the unpopular idea of the Devil instead of staying

within the realm of secularist political activists, where they could be (but unfortunately are not

yet quite) effective.

The stigmatization of Satanism is a combined result of the nonconformist nature of the

philosophy and the fallout of a major moral panic. The Satanic panic of the 80’s and 90’s can be

illustrated purely through analyzing timely sources. A police training manual focusing purely on

Satanic cults published in the midst of the panic provides a “comprehensive” profile of a young

person who may be involved in Satanic activity — among the list of criteria is included “anxiety,

feelings of a lack of control, self mutilation, objects such as candles, stones, and oils, obsession

with fantasy role-playing games, [and] obsession with heavy-metal music” (Hurst & Marsh,

1993). It can be objectively stated that many of these alleged indicators are unfortunately

common occurrences for a teenager, and the rest simply have nothing to do with Satanism. If we

still used these standards, it would appear that effectively all of the youth of today are at high

risk for Satanism. Despite having earned a Ph.D. and Sc.D., Hurst (a Christian police officer

from Texas) manages to consistently use improper grammar ​and​ contradict himself throughout

the entire training manual. At the end of the document, Hurst includes a list of supposedly

Satanic symbols, including ​peace and yin yang signs,​ the Star of David, and the stylized names

of popular metal bands AC/DC, Twisted Sister, Ozzy Osbourne, and Kiss. Nearly all of these

symbols appear to be hand-drawn.

The Satanic panic mirrored many recorded moral panics and conspiracy theories,

including the blood libel against Jews in the 30s CE and forward, (in which Jews were accused

of murdering Christian babies in order to use their blood for religious rituals,) and the witch

hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries (in which accusations of unholy witchcraft, mostly put forth

by adolescent women later found to be ​under the effect of LSD,​ resulted in innocent people being

hanged, pressed, or burned until dead). It seems, at least historically, that Christians nearly never

tire of stirring up nonexistent religious drama.

Despite its dissident tenets, Satanism at its core is remarkably similar to many other

faiths. Factors such as moral panics, association with The Devil, social deviance, and fear

mongering tactics of Christian churches are responsible for Satanism’s stigmatization. Through

trying to sever themselves from the rest of society using the shock value of the Devil and various

deviant philosophies, Satanists ironically enter the same pitfalls that many religions do:

splintering organizations, literal interpretations of metaphor, and prejudice justified by religious

beliefs.

Satanists appear to be neither ritualistic murderers nor scapegoated philosophers. In

actuality, they are most often simply people, who hold a peculiar aesthetic and questionable

values.
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