Satan:
Deity or Symbol?

The Church of Satan was the first organization to promote the word with an associated ideology. The original. Prior to its founding, Satanism was just a term thrown around by Christian churches to attack their opposition, which even included other churches. It had no real context before founder Anton LaVey. Although Traditional Satanists will argue that they were the first, and oldest of all religions, there is no evidence to back this claim.

The Church of Satan is an entity promoting an atheistic belief system that sees Satan as a powerful symbol of specific human traits, seeing humans as the real beast, and that they should embrace all of their animalistic nature. In the short life of here and now, it is our obligation to become our own gods and enjoy life to the fullest, while renouncing supernatural gods and the moral restraints that come with them. LaVey promoted the Seven Deadly Sins as good things that we should embrace. He also promoted being a murderous threat to anyone who would interfere with our free will. This is called LaVeyan Satanism.


There is some confusion surrounding LaVeyan Satanists performing spell and ceremonial rituals as laid out in The Satanic Bible, written by LaVey. LaVey didn't believe that rituals accomplished anything tangible, but rather were necessary theatrics for psychological fulfillment in place of religion.

Even in light of The Satanic Bible being a heavy product of plagiarism, valid points to his philosophy surrounding natural law and survival of the fittest have been embraced by many. Regardless, the book is a short read, and worth reading, even for those who are religious and afraid that reading it will make Satan eat their souls.

The CoS originally sought to promote political advocacy through its members, however it has consistently failed to do so because of its own inaction. Instead it had only served as a source of media attention during the years LaVey was still alive, with him and affiliates being interviewed on various shows talking about their beliefs. To date, they haven't seemed to have done much advocating, and the organization has lost members to starting their own groups over the years.

Groups risen from leaving the CoS over disputes and ideological differences include the Temple of Set. LaVey's death led to infighting in the CoS. Blanche Barton, LaVey's partner, became the new head of the organization in accordance with his living will. Karla LaVey, Anton's daughter, was strongly against this, wanting to head the CoS herself. Being unable to do so, she went on to found the First Satanic Church.

Currently, the number of members of the CoS is unknown and never released. It is believed to be only in the hundreds despite its popularity and unaffiliated individuals calling themselves LaVeyan Satanists.

The Temple of Set was founded in the US in 1975 by Michael Angelo Aquino, who left the Church of Satan over the disagreement of Satan being only an image, and took several other members with him. Satan allegedly appeared to Aquino, revealing his real name to be Set, and channeled through him a sacred book called The Book of Coming Forth by Night.

Members of the Temple of Set call their beliefs Setianism and themselves Setians. They seem to hate being labeled Satanists. Set is revered instead of worshipped, is credited as being the one true god, and for giving humans their intellectual freedom. The aim of Setianism is to become one's own god by following the example of Set.

After initiation, members rise through ranks labeled degrees, and after reaching the eleventh they are given the option to join one of four orders within the organization. Each of the orders have their own separate focus on the belief system. They are the orders Leviathan, Setne Khamuast, Trapezoid, and Vampyre.

• The Order of Leviathan focuses on the magickal philosophy of overcoming the limitations of known existence in order to create one's own cosmos.
• The Order of Setne Khamuast seems to focus on magickal practice as conveyed in the Book of Thoth.
• The Order of the Trapezoid fancy themselves as protectors and warriors of the belief.
• The Order of the Vampyre focuses on the use of psychic vampirism for personal power and in hopes of immortality.

Currently, the number of members are only in the hundreds.

The Joy of Satan Ministries (JoS) was founded in 2002 in the United States by Andrea Maxine Dietrich, who appears to have no connection with the Church of Satan. The ideology of this group starts with the theatrics and deities of LaVeyan Satanism being real. They are theistic, call themselves Spiritual Satanists, and have fused LaVeyan fundamentals with esoterism, right wing authoritarianism, conspiracy theories surrounding Jews as human-alien hybrids, and other claims related to known UFO conspiracy theorists, particularly Zecharia Sitchin. According to their website, Satanism was the first religion before all others. They observe Al-Jilwah and Mashaf Reš, Yazidi religious texts, as sacred texts, and observe astrology. The religion Yazidism can be loosely described as Islamic mysticism, yet believers in this Satan also believe that the Yazidi sacred texts are written by Satan himself.

Andrea Dietrich eventually became Andrea Herrington when she married Cliff Herrington, the leader of the National Socialist Movement (NSM). Such a link is posted here because awareness of its continued existence needs to be spread; ignoring the problem will only make it worse. When this became public, a rivalry began between JoS and NSM, particularly over pro- and anti-Christian values, even though they otherwise seem to have a lot in common. While there is no factual basis, this feud may very well be the origin of, or at least have had a huge influence on, the spiritual warfare conspiracy theories trending now.

Spiritual Satanism, also called traditional Satanism, has the mythos that god the creator of this world falsely claims he is the one true god and that we are told to follow his way with the lies of the Abrahamic religions, nothing more than a Demiurge with an ego. While based on the belief that LaVeyan Satanism is to be taken literally and deified, which is not mutually opposite to Christianity, it seems that spiritual Satanism intersects with Christian concepts for this group.

God, the demiurge, was created by and serves under the one true god, who goes by many names, and among them Satan. In Genesis, rather than a serpent being possessed by a spirit to tempt the first sin, the one true god sent a serpent to the garden of Eden to teach humans the knowledge to evolve into gods. Commonly, Satan is seen as a liberator as well as a being of strength, knowledge, and sexuality. By revering this god above the demiurge, he offers protection from him so that we may evolve into gods without interference and essentially share his power.

The demiurge God is represented by JoS as being similar to a Borg cube from Star Trek, and members of this organization believe that by worshipping God, his followers do go to Heaven. However, rather than eternal bliss, followers effectively feed it power like souls functioning as batteries. Worshippers of God who have fallen short by showing any desire or resistance to following his rules, any free will whatsoever, are sent to his hell... one of two realms called Hell, a place of destruction, punishment and anguish. The other Hell, of course, ruled by the one true god Satan where souls flourish is where the souls go that have revered him.

A secretive group of theistic Satanists based in the UK calling themselves traditional Satanists, although their views as traditional are pretty different from Joy of Satan Ministries. They have also adopted Hermeticism into their philosophy, practice magick, and have created a system of initiation called Hebdomadry, the Seven Fold Way, which is loosely based on astrology. Their canonical texts are the books Black Book of Satan and NAOS. They have a public journal called Fenrir. Directly finding their resources proves difficult, but the majority of their known works can be found on Internet Archive. They are by far the largest theistic group.

The problem with this group is major, starting with their anti-Semitic views, openly praising Nazi Germany as an example of what society should be. They promote the idea of a white nationalist military world order called the Imperium, and believe that in achieving an Aryan society, humans will colonize our galaxy. Not only this, but they openly promote and encourage violence, rape, and human sacrifice, and have been labeled a terrorist organization.

They are not a centralized organization with a leader, although they have had one consistent figurehead who goes by the alias Anton Long, whose real identity has been deduced to be David Myatt, but never officially determined.

The ONA/O9A have heavily criticized the Church of Satan, its esoteric offshoot the Temple of Set, as well as the CoS's theistic copycat Joy of Satan Ministries. The criticism of the Joy of Satan Ministries is confusing considering although the mythos is different, the anti-Semitic esoterism is fairly similar. Why against the Temple of Set is not very clear, other than also rising from the CoS. But the reason for hating the Church of Satan is fairly obvious, since the CoS is an atheistic organization, and theistic versus atheistic Satanic groups have always clashed. Ironically though, some elements adopted by the ONA have similarities in the culture of CoS, namely the use of the number nine and the name Anton, not to mention a downward facing star figure. It has been pointed out that the label of "traditional" Satanism was a way to push a perception of legitimacy for theistic over atheistic origin, coinciding with the criticism.

They have other affiliated branches in some other countries known as "nexions" which seem to commonly have books written attributed to the name of the division. Nexions of ONA include the Tempel ov Blood, founded and led by FBI informant Joshua Caleb Sutter in the United States, and Temple of THEM in Australia. They have also allied themselves with other neo-Nazi groups regardless of whether or not they were also Satanic.

The Satanic Temple is another atheistic form based in Salem, Massachusetts that takes on Satan as an image for personal freedom and a protector. They actively oppose organized religion in the United States by suing over laws that have passed which qualify as religious oppression. While the Church of Satan sought and promoted to do these things, The Satanic Temple actually does it, picking up where the CoS have fallen short since their inception.

TST promotes a code of ethics noticeably dissimilar to the CoS code of ethics in that they are progressive liberals who do not promote violence for survival, but rather have a more community driven mentality while preaching science, understanding and compassion. And other than seeing Satan as a fashion statement, there's really not much else to tell about their culture, because they invest much more time in their mission for political freedom and spreading awareness as opposed to coming up with things they deem Satanic. While the CoS and TST are both political and atheistic entities, they are passive enemies.

On their site is also a listing of programs for mental health patients, recovery from addiction, and protecting children. Readers who think Satanism is some great spiritual deceptive conspiracy should really pay attention to what they have to say, because they are the largest organization out of all of them, and quite the opposite of what one would expect.

Regardless of how you feel about Satan, real or image, these guys deserve an A+ for sheding light on total political bullshit and fighting for our personal freedoms. They are a... necessary evil.

Luciferianism reflects a more pagan style of belief loosely similar in thought to traditional Satanism with much different mythos. It is commonly phrased as "an alternative to Wicca," given that practices can be remarkably parallel, yet most notably different with the rejection of the Threefold Law, discrediting it as thought control. (For those unfamiliar with Wicca, the short version is that it is a modern polytheistic culmination of pagan beliefs, seeing all the old beliefs as simultaneously veritable.)

Lucifer is associated with the morning star (Venus), as it was when he was the Roman deity of light. He is seen as a figure of enlightenment, and promoting a more practical sense of morality than through fear of punishment. While variations of Luciferianism complicate an exact definition, the divergence is fairly narrow. Like in Satanism, atheistic Luciferians exist and see Lucifer as a symbol, however the vast majority are theistic.

Most believe that Lucifer and Lilith were both gods romantically involved with each other and on a polytheistic council. Yahweh assumed authority as head of the council, and hid divine knowledge on the nature of existence and creation from the rest of them. Lucifer questioned Yahweh about the hidden knowledge, which forced him to admit the knowledge indeed existed, The consequences of the revelation were the dismissal of Lucifer and Lilith from the Council.

Humans are then forced by Yahweh to worship him as a means of increasing his power, using the false Abrahamic religions as deception for thought control. In turn, it is the aim of Lucifer and Lilith to independently provide sacred knowledge to humans so that they may become gods, asking only for reverence and friendship in place of requiring worship. The beliefs and teachings of Luciferians are vast, yet they only exist in fringe groups and small covens, for example The Liberated of Lucifer.

In the United States in the 1980's, Christian fundamentalists had an agenda to use scare tactics to regain a declining following as well as demonize Satanism by using it as a scapegoat. Doubly ironic. Back then, the only Satanic group prominent in the US was the CoS, and others were so marginal that they almost didn't exist. Yet conspiracy theories and claims against Satanism in general started running rampant in the media with accusations of child molestation, child prostitution, child murder, ritual abuse, mind control, human sacrifices, cannibalism, and other related horrors.

Psychiatrists who were part of the agenda, particularly one named D Corydon Hammond, would have their patients undergo hypnotherapy to extract "repressed memories" of ritual abuse and brain washing by Satanists to do their work. This is most likely the primary reason for the imbrications of claims against Satanism with already existing conspiracy theories.

Lucien Greaves, cofounder of TST, is an excellent researcher and lecturer, highly intellectual in his work, and has investigated many of these events. When free for 80 minutes, familiarize yourself with the details in order to know why some things are believed the way they are now.

All these claims over time were investigated and supported with no evidence. Although the Satanic Panic is viewed as ending in the mid 1990's, some would argue that it never ended. QAnon perpetuated Satanic conspiracy theories very much in the style of the NSM/O9A conflict to push the ideology of spiritual warfare while involving race. The existence of O9A doesn't help matters, given that they condone the types of actions made up during the Satanic Panic, because now people have the ability to divert the narrative to them on a "right all along" basis, effectively adding fuel to their malarkey.