church
of satan
A Concise Appraisal by Ecclesia Apostolica Jesu Christi
&
Anton Szandor LaVey founded the Church
of Satan in 1966 in San Francisco, California, on Walpurgisnacht (April 30).
LaVey identified his particular brand of Satanism in his book The Satanic
Bible (1969). A derivative group, and offspring of the Church of Satan, is
the Temple of Set founded by Michael Aquino in 1975.
One of the delusions that will need to be established at the
outset is the lie that leading Satanists do not believe in or truly worship the
Devil. It should be understood that Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of
Satan, viewed Satan as a true entity that he absolutely worshipped before his
death. LaVey deceived a lot of people who joined the Church of Satan by claiming
that Satan only represented the repressed forces of nature, but was not a real
entity. Interviews with former Charles Manson family member Susan Atkins, who
is still in prison after being convicted of eight murders, resulted in Atkins
blowing the lid off of LaVey’s lie. As a former associate of Anton LaVey’s, who
danced for him and spent personal time with him before joining the Manson
family, Atkins was privy to conversations with LaVey before he became popular.
Atkins revealed repeatedly that, while LaVey promoted a watered down, almost
palatable form of Satanism to the ignorant masses whom he deceived, he
acknowledged the exact opposite to her and to his inner core of Satanists in
the Church of Satan. Susan Atkins
revealed that LaVey told her emphatically, while she was in his home, that they
truly worshipped Satan as a real entity and as the one who began the initial
rebellion against God. Atkins also
stated:
“Anton told me that as a
Satanist he does believe in the God of the Bible but he refused to worship Him
and made a conscious decision to worship Satan instead.” (Susan Atkins
interviewed by Joe Schimmel).
Anton LaVey
There are pictures of Atkins with LaVey in his ritual chamber when
she associated with the Church of Satan. LaVey was aware that few people were
ignorant enough to truly turn their lives over to Satan, knowing that they
would not only be allowing themselves to be deceived by their worst enemy, but
that they would spend eternity in the fiery torments of hell. LaVey, therefore,
presented a seeker sensitive, user-friendly form of Satanism in the hope that
it might appeal to the masses he was seeking to deceive. LaVey sought to put a
spin on Satanism as a kinder and gentler form of Devil worship claiming that
Satan merely represents a force in nature, and that, rather than Satanists’
sacrificing animals and little children, they are animal activist who love
children. All of this was done to garner unwitting recruits. First and
foremost, one should never trust a Satanist. Satanist’s view lying to be among
their highest virtues. LaVey and other Satanists serve the one whom Jesus
Christ repudiated as “The father of lies”. (John 8: 44).
It would be just like the father of lies to cloak his religion in non-reality.
Satan has long been about deception and has successfully deceived many recruits
into believing that they are simply worshipping a symbol rather than a reality.
Satan relishes in such ignorance. Atkins’ testimony that LaVey was deliberately
duping Satanists in the outer circle is corroborated by evidence from LaVey’s
own admissions. LaVey let his guard down when responding to other Satanists who
considered him, “not extreme enough.” LaVey, while in a defensive mode,
admitted that the image that he presented publicly was deceptive, declaring:
“If they’re at all intelligent
[other true Satanists] … they’ll realize that there’s only so much I can say
publicly … I will not advance things in print which make my position untenable
… How long would the Church of Satan have lasted if I hadn’t appeased and
outraged in just the right combination? It required a certain amount of
discretion and diplomacy to balance the outrage.” (Lucifer Rising,
p133).
Purposeful deception is needed amongst leading Satanists to
enslave those whom they recruit as unscrupulous and unsuspecting pawns who feel
more comfortable believing Satan is a symbol for force. Few Satanists realise
the evil intentions among the inner core of the cult and how lower initiates
are viewed as mere puppets to be used and later discarded. Those in the higher
echelon are often aware of the nature of Satan and the demonic realm that they
serve. They are often bound and blinded on another level because they have
become addicted to the power that Satan deceptively promises. Kenneth Anger,
who was a cofounder of the Church of
Satan with Anton LaVey, used a similar spin on Satanism, as did LaVey.
Kenneth Anger stated in the 1960’s, in his film, Lucifer Rising, that, “Lucifer
is the light god, not the Devil.” (Publicity of the jacket for Lucifer
Rising). This delusion that Lucifer is really the God of light, and not
Satan, should not surprise those familiar with God’s word, which warns that
Satan “masquerades” as an “angel of light” to draw the
unsuspecting into his evil web. His agents do likewise.
Years later, after Kenneth Anger had deceived multitudes of people
into thinking they were worshipping the supposed “light god”, an entity that was not really Satan, Anger “confessed” that Lucifer, whom he
worshipped, had always been the historical “Satan.” (Lucifer Rising, p.47). It was too late though for many
Satanists who had been deceived. It appears that Marilyn Manson is playing the
same mind game with his fans as did LaVey and Anger. Besides following LaVey,
who deceived his followers, Manson admitted,
“I’ve taken a lot of my inspiration from Kenneth Anger.” Sadly, while the
leaders among Satanists realize that Satan is for real, many who swell the
ranks of their churches have been duped into believing that they are in some
nature religion. They are taught that either a real Satan does not exist, or
that hell will not be all that hot. This, of course, is sheer nonsense. Anton
LaVey himself was severely deceived as he stated in his Satanic Bible that he would reign with Satan in hell. LaVey now
realises he was the most deceived of all. The Scriptures are clear that hell
was created as a place of torment for
Satan and his angels. (Matt 25: 40-43).
Moreover, God’s Word declares that Satan will be stripped of his power
and rendered “weak” and “covered with worms.” Satan will be
rendered one of the weakest and most pathetic beings in the universe, an object
of ridicule and scorn by those who were deceived by him. Those who have been
deceived by him will marvel that this once powerful fallen angel has been
rendered powerless and will mock him as a “carcass
trodden under foot” in their torment. (Isaiah 14: 9-19). So even leaders in
the Church of Satan, who are deceiving their initiates, are themselves
deceived, believing that they will have some place of power in hell. As St Paul
prophesied:
“Evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and
being deceived.” (2 Timothy 3: 13)
Richard Ramirez, known as the night Stalker, was deceived by Anton
LaVey’s assertion in the Satanic Bible that Satanists could reign in
Hell. Ramirez believed that his human sacrifices to Satan would earn him a
place of power in Hell next to Jack the Ripper and other serial killers.
Further evidence of what leading Satanists really believe is revealed in
admissions made by Lieutenant Colonel Michael Aquino of the United States Army.
Aquino was a leader in LaVey’s Church of Satan and was LaVey’s “second-in-command” before he broke off
to begin his own satanic order called the Temple
of Set. Aquino ended up taking several of LaVey’s followers with him. The Temple of Set would eventually attract
the likes of Anton LaVey’s daughter Zeena LaVey. So rabid a Satanist is Aquino
that he had the number 666 tatooed on his scalp. The Temple of Set proclaims that Set, another name for Satan, is a real
entity and is a name for “The oldest
known form of the Prince of Darkness.” Aquino seems to have been under the
conviction that society had become so jaded that many of those in the outer
circle of Satanism were ready to worship Satan as a real entity. Aquino
believed it was time for Satan to come out of the closet in all of his naked
deformity. Aquino even took the more up
front view of Satanism to the television airways where he virtually admitted
that Satan is a real entity and that many are in the dark as to whom they are
really worshipping, including millions of New Agers. On Oprah Winfrey, Aquino
acknowledged that they are following the infernal being that orchestrated the
initial rebellion against God, the Creator of the Universe. Aquino admitted to
Winfrey and the television audience made up of millions that they are following
Satan who initiated the original rebellion against God:
“We believe that this
quality [to oppose God’s natural order] in the human soul that makes it
different from all other life forms … was deliberately inculcated in humanity
in its distant evolutionary past by an active agency that is acting in defiance
of the universal norm [God’s moral law].
And that agency has been caricatured … as Lucifer, as Satan, and, in the
greatest antiquity, by the ancient Egyptians as Set.”
Aquino went on to describe how they believe that they as Satanists
are now becoming gods. This was at the heart of Satan’s initial rebellion and
now Aquino was parroting the essence of Satanism, which is a desire to usurp
the true and living God’s authority and follow Satan into God realisation. “We are not servants of some God,”
declared Aquino, “we are our own gods!”
Oprah Winfrey appeared to be shocked to find out that this was exactly what she
believed as a New Ager, failing to realise that the New Age movement has it
roots in Crowleyite Satanism even as Aquino’s Satanism. It has been established
beyond a shadow of a doubt that Crowley was not only a confessed Satanist, but
that he was the father of the hippy drug movement and counter-culture from
which popular New Age teachings first became entrenched in Western
civilisation. Almost gasping for air, Winfrey declared in response to Aquino’s
assertion:
“Well, the way
you explain this is very the way a lot of people who are into metaphysics now
and the New Age movement and New Age thinking, they say the very same thing.
Are you saying that it’s the same?”
Aquino, without skipping a beat, said “Yes” to Winfrey’s
question, implying that New Agers and Satanist are on the same wave length in
their rebellion against God and in their quest to achieve god-hood as they
follow in Satan’s footsteps. He only clarified that most New Agers are not
aware that they have joined a satanic rebellion against God and that Satanists
know what is going on. Aquino stated:
“Yes, except that
I would say we [Satanists] have a more precise grasp … We would say that we
understand what’s actually happening a little better than many New Agers.”
Much to Aquino’s chagrin the Temple of Set would find out that
even as debauched as the world has become most people are still smart enough
not to knowingly serve Satan and end up spending eternity in Hell. After
bringing Satan out of the closet the Temple of Set failed to enlist the large
amount of recruits they apparently hoped for. In their failure to acquire more
recruits they changed their method of evangelism and returned to a formula more
in keeping with that of the Church of Satan. Today the Temple of Set, like the
Church of Satan, espouses a more palatable seeker sensitive form of Satanism so
as not to scare off potential recruits.
The result is that Satan is once again cloaked in ambiguity, but the
song remains the same as inner circle initiates are deceiving outer circle
initiates.
Winfrey was surprised that Aquino, as a confessed Satanist, would
try to deny the hard facts of the evil behind Satanism. When Aquino stated that
they as Satanists have “nothing to do with evil,” she said:
“It’s just
difficult for me to understand that the Devil is a good thing…that Satan isn’t
evil, which is the opposite of what everybody in this world has been taught…”
Winfrey went on to exclaim:
“In every state
of the nation authorities are investigating some form of what they call satanic
activity … Children are telling the same stories about infants being murdered
before their eyes in strange devil rituals. The list of bizarre stories goes on
and on.”
Not surprisingly Aquino tried unsuccessfully at this point to put
another typical spin on Satanism by claiming that they are not into such
things. Even as leading Satanists like to hide the fact that they are truly
worshipping Satan so it is that they seek to deny that Satanists sacrifice
humans including children. The truth of the matter is that Aleister Crowley,
whom Aquino acknowledges had an incredible influence on Aquino and the Temple of Set, not only taught his
followers to engage in child sacrifice but admitted to sacrificing scores of
children himself. After Aquino made the false claim that Satanists do not
really sacrifice children, a law enforcement officer spoke up and stated:
“To say that
there are no bodies and that these [Satanists] are not committing crimes is the
farthest from the truth … in every case that I’ve investigated, now extending
over two hundred, I have found this particular book [The Satanic Bible].”
At this point the
investigator held up The Satanic Bible. In The Satanic Bible,
LaVey proclaimed that he was seeking to “not
advance things in print which make my position untenable” lest he find
himself behind bars, and further stated that his followers were to commit human
sacrifices by proxy:
“We perform human
sacrifices, by proxy you might say—the destruction of human beings who would,
let’s say, create an antagonistic situation toward us—in the form of curse and
hexes, not in actual blood rituals because certainly the destruction of a human
being physically is illegal.”
Note that the only reason LaVey concedes that he is not publicly
advocating actual physical human sacrifice is because it is against the law,
implying that if they could get away with it they would do it. In fact, LaVey
takes credit for the deaths of Jayne Mansfield and her boy friend and lawyer
Sam Brody, stating that it was the result of a ritual curse on Brody, and
Mansfield happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. LaVey also
believes that he was responsible for the Manson family murders. Manson was
heavily influenced by the satanic cult known as the Process Church of the Final
Judgement. The Process also acknowledged that Satan is a real entity. Their
particular twisted spin in an effort to get unwitting recruits was not to
pretend Satan was not a true entity but to claim that Satan was actually a
Jesus loving Devil. The Process claimed that they, Jesus and Satan had
reconciled and that all would work out well in the end for everyone including
Satanists, because Jesus had supposedly forgiven the Devil. Ridiculous as this
spin was it proved successful in garnering more than a few recruits. The bodies
have piled up and the idea that Satanism is not behind the death of countless
multitudes of innocent people is a lie only believed by the incredibly naîve.
Manson, who was a confessed Satanist, was responsible of up to thirty-five
murders if the admissions of some of his former followers are to believed.
Charles Manson, whom Marilyn Manson cites as one of his pre-eminent
inspirations and a brilliant philosopher, has stated, “Jesus Christ is for real and so is that other guy [ie Satan].” Charles Manson knows that Satan, whom he
serves, is a real entity and has been more candid than has his follower Marilyn
Manson. Son of Sam, who was part of a Process coven made up of twenty-two
Satanists and connected to several other satanic covens, also murdered several
people at the direction of the coven. Richard Ramirez, who followed The
Satanic Bible and met with Anton LaVey before his satanic killing spree,
killed twenty people. Ramirez even went so far as to torture his victims and
made some “swear to Satan.”
Marilyn Manson
On 7 June
2000 the small Italian town of Chiavenna was rocked by the discovery of a
gruesome murder in one of its quiet back lanes. The blood-soaked victim, who
had been struck with rocks and smashed against a wall before being stabbed
nineteen times, was later identified as Sister Maria Laura, the much-loved Mother
Superior of the local convent. The brutality of the killing shocked
townspeople, and attracted widespread media attention: and with no obvious
motive for the murder, rumours soon started to fly. Satanic signs and slogans
were found nearby and the killing was blamed on devil worshippers striking a
blow against the Catholic Church. However, on 28 June 2000 three popular
teenage girls were arrested. They were fans of the depraved “entertainer”
Marilyn Manson, a member of the Church of Satan, whose lyrics are too
blasphemous, hate-filled and obscene to quote on this site. At first the girls’
attitude was arrogant and cold. They refused to speak to the police. But when
they eventually began to speak it became apparent that their appalling crime
was a premeditated act. Milena, one of the girls, admitted that they had met
outside the church one night and cut their hands, drinking the blood while they
pledged an oath of eternal loyalty to each other. “We decided to go for a nun,”
Veronica, another of the three girls, told her interrogators, “because she was
the opposite of us. We believe in Satan.” The third girl is named Ambra. They
beat the nun into unconsciousness with a tile and by beating her head against a
stone wall. When that failed, they took out knives and stabbed her to death.
But throughout her ordeal, Sister Maria Laura had prayed for her attackers, and
promised them that God would forgive them even as she did herself. Armed with
these confessions, the carabinieri searched the girls’ homes and found diaries
testifying to their obsession with Satanism, and with the lyrics of the
degenerate performer and singer Marilyn Manson who cashed-in on the tragedy
when touring Italy in February 2001. Manson said: “If having your own opinion
makes you evil, then I am evil. … All I say is don’t feel guilty for having
emotions like lust, greed and hate ~ because you are going to have them.” On 9
August 2001 Ambra had the case against her dismissed on the grounds of
diminished responsibility, and was sentenced to three years’ rehabilitation.
The other two girls, Milena and Veronica, were found guilty of first degree
murder and were each sentenced to eight years and six months. There is a move
in Chiavenna to have Sister Maria Laura, who had taught in the town for more than
thirty years, beatified.
Aleister Crowley’s satanic religion of Thelema, followed by the birth of modern witchcraft, occult explosion of the 1960s-1970s
and the New Age movement of the 1980s-1990s, all share a common heritage from
where the current satanic revival has found succour. The formal establishment
of the Church of Satan, with such derivatives as the Temple of Set, has
certainly played its part. Between Charles Manson, Son of Sam and Richard
Ramirez alone we have dozens of murders in the name of Satan. We could easily
add to this list case after case that would fill a book, perhaps several books,
but the point has more than sufficiently been made for those who will honestly
look at the evidence. The most
influential and notorious satanic leaders have had a campaign to dupe their followers
into becoming unwitting followers of not a symbol, nor an abstract force, but
of Satan himself. Not only their own admissions, but the deceptive web they
have spun to prey on outer circle initiates, give witness to this fact.
Defend us in the day of battle;
be our safeguard against the
wickedness and snares of the
Devil. May God rebuke him,
and thrust down to hell Satan
and all his wicked spirits who
wander through the world for
the ruin of souls.