Church of Satan

Overview

The Church of Satan is a religious organisation founded in San Francisco in 1966 by Anton Szandor LaVey. It is explicitly atheistic: Satan is treated as a symbol of carnal existence, self-determination, and resistance to conformity rather than as a literal supernatural being. The Church does not advocate worship of any deity, theistic or otherwise.

Its doctrines are set out principally in The Satanic Bible (1969). The organisation is hierarchical, with a priesthood and a system of degrees, and is led by a Magus — a position held by LaVey from 1966 until his death in 1997, by Blanche Barton until 2001, and since then by Peter H. Gilmore.

Origins & history

LaVey founded the Church on Walpurgisnacht (the night of 30 April–1 May) 1966, declaring that year “Anno Satanas I.” The Church grew quickly through the late 1960s and early 1970s, drawing on a mix of carnival showmanship, Nietzschean and Randian individualism, and theatrical ritual that LaVey explicitly framed as psychodrama rather than supernatural petition.

From the late 1970s onward the Church became increasingly cathedral-style: closed grottos were dissolved in favour of a model in which most members never meet one another in person and pursue Satanic practice individually. After LaVey’s death in 1997 the organisation continued under Blanche Barton and then Peter H. Gilmore, who relocated the administrative headquarters from San Francisco to New York.

The Church of Satan is distinct from The Satanic Temple, founded in 2013 in the United States. The two organisations share an atheistic stance but differ on doctrine, on political activism (which TST embraces and the Church of Satan does not), and on organisational structure.

Beliefs & practices

The Church teaches that the human being is fundamentally a carnal animal, that gratification of physical and emotional appetites is legitimate where it does not harm the unwilling, and that conventional moral systems based on supernatural belief are baseless. Its core texts list nine Satanic Statements, eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth, and nine Satanic Sins (foolishness, pretentiousness, solipsism, self-deceit, herd conformity, lack of perspective, forgetfulness of past orthodoxies, counterproductive pride, lack of aesthetics).

Ritual within the Church is treated as deliberate emotional theatre — intended to focus desire, channel anger, or mark transitions — rather than as an act of worship or supplication. Three principal ritual forms are described: the lesser magic of personal influence, the greater magic of formal ceremony, and the rituals of compassion, lust, and destruction set out in The Satanic Bible.

Symbols

The Church’s emblem is the Sigil of Baphomet: an inverted pentagram enclosing the head of a goat, surrounded by Hebrew letters spelling Leviathan. The Church holds U.S. trademark on this specific composition. The inverted pentagram alone, the trapezoid, and the colour combination of red and black are also recurrent.

Notable figures

• Anton Szandor LaVey 1930–1997
  Founder; Magus 1966–1997

  American author, musician, and showman who founded the Church and wrote The Satanic Bible, The Satanic Rituals, and The Satanic Witch. His public persona drew heavily on carnival showmanship and Hammer-horror aesthetics, framings he explicitly endorsed as part of the Church’s theatrical character.

• Blanche Barton 1959–
  High Priestess; Magistra Templi Rex 1997–2001

  American author who led the Church following LaVey’s death in 1997. She continues to hold the rank of Magistra Templi Rex within the priesthood and remains a senior figure in the organisation.

• Peter H. Gilmore 1958–
  High Priest from 2001

  American composer and writer who has led the Church as High Priest since 2001. His The Satanic Scriptures (2007) is the principal twenty-first-century doctrinal collection issued under the Church’s authority.

Controversies

During the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s the Church was repeatedly named in allegations of organised ritual abuse of children. The Church publicly disclaimed any connection to the alleged conspiracies; the FBI’s 1992 report by Kenneth Lanning concluded that the alleged organised ritual-abuse network did not exist as described, and the principal criminal cases of the period were subsequently overturned or discredited.

LaVey’s own biographical claims — including a youthful career as a circus organist, a stint as a San Francisco police photographer, and an affair with Marilyn Monroe — were challenged in a 1991 Rolling Stone investigation by Lawrence Wright and in subsequent biographies. The factual record on his pre-Church life is contested.