Satanism

It is ironic that the United Sates has produced and exported some of the world’s most successful Satanic religions, and yet the majority of scholarship about religious Satanism is produced in Europe. Most Americans, if asked to list some Satanic texts, might be able to name Anton LaVey’s The Satanic Bible (Avon Books, 1969), but would be hard-pressed to name a second or third. Satanism: A Reader offers selections from nineteen texts representing the “Satanic milieu.” The selections date from 1841 to 2017 and many of them are original translations from French, Danish, German, and Swedish texts. If nothing else, this volume demonstrates that Satanism is an older and larger tradition than many people realize.

 As with all curated readers, not everything could be included. While the major Satanic movements and thinkers are represented, there is no text for the Fraternitas Saturni, Joy of Satan, The Misanthropic Luciferian Order, and a few others. The Satanic Bible is not included at all. Instead, the editors opted for a lesser-known interview with Anton LaVey from Jack Fritscher’s Popular Witchcraft: Straight from the Witch’s Mouth (Citadel Press, 1972). Editors Per Faxneld and Johan Nilsson explain that their strategy was to emphasize “existing groups, and thinkers of importance in the emergence of a Satanic milieu” (1-2).

Satanism is a notoriously slippery category, and it sometimes seems subjective as to which texts count as “Satanic.” While all of the texts discuss the figure of Satan, most of the early entries are from thinkers who were not Satanists. Occultist Eliphas Lévi (1810-1975), historian Jules Michelet (1798-1874), Freemason Albert Pike (1809-1891), Theosophist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), hoaxer Léo Taxil (1854-1907), and even iconoclast Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) were not Satanists in any meaningful way, as the contributors quickly point out. Drawing on Faxneld’s earlier work, the editors suggest that “Satanism” can be defined in either a sensu stricto or a sensu lato. The sensu stricto includes any “system of thought in which Satan is celebrated in a prominent position.” The sensu lato includes “celebrations of the Devil used as a discursive strategy in a demarcated and restricted manner” (17-18).

But the categorical messiness does not end here. In the later entries, it seems that no sooner do we find organized groups who self-identify as Satanists, but we begin seeing texts from “post-Satanists”: Groups that clearly bear a family resemblance to Satanism but no longer identify as Satanists. Groups from the reader that fall into this category include The Temple of Set, which broke away from the Church of Satan in 1975, and contemporary occultist Michael W. Ford, who describes his tradition as “Luciferian witchcraft.”

And then there are figures like metal musician Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth (1968-1993), who was murdered by his former bandmate. In an interview for the reader, Aarseth seems both ignorant of, and uninterested in, the intellectual traditions explored in the previous readings. Rather, in a sentiment that is sometimes characterized as “reactionary” Satanism, Aarseth expresses his disappointment in discovering that true communism might make people happy: “We want the old Stalinist dictatorship back, where things were grey, gloomy and evil” (283).

As serious scholarship about Satanism has expanded in the last decade, some observers have questioned whether all of this actually adds up to a meaningful category. Is “Satanism” actually an “ism” at all? Instead of ignoring this problem, the editors offer some theoretical interventions. First, they reject calls to disaggregate “Satanism” as an object of study––even in the face of groups who insist they have “transcended this symbol [Satan] in its strictly Abrahamitic conceptualizations”––on the grounds that doing so would “obfuscate an important dimension of scholarly work on other material” (17). More importantly, they point out that, “Any definition of Satanism is primarily a tool for conducting research” (17).

To me, it seems this situation is not so different from debates within the study of most other religious traditions, particularly those associated with the “world religions paradigm.” Historians of traditions such as “Hinduism,” “Buddhism,” or even “Christianity” often conclude that these terms do not actually describe the reality on the ground. At best, there are many Hinduisms, many Buddhisms, etc., and at worst these categories were invented by colonizers and imposed onto the practitioners. And yet, undergraduates in world religion courses need these generalizations to get their bearings before they can begin to challenge or deconstruct them. This is a paradox that J.Z. Smith called “the necessary lie.” Echoing Smith, it seems fair to say that Faxneld and Nilsson are advocating for Satanism as a “second order category”: A framework invented and deployed by researchers in order to set up a comparison. Whether we feel Satanism is a true “ism,” Satanism as an analytical category has brought these particular texts together, and looking at them side by side, it is possible to trace a fascinating story of how people have continually used their creativity to construct systems of meaning, beliefs and practices, around the character of Satan.

Speaking of comparison, Satanism: A Reader shows strong potential as a pedagogical tool. Each text has a lengthy introduction with the same set of subheadings: origin, content, genre and audience, and reception and influence. The subheadings provide a handy framework for comparing what are often very different texts. This would be ideal for training undergraduates to use a comparative approach for textual analysis. Certainly a few readings on Satanism would enliven any course that trains students to interpret religious texts. As the editors point out, “Satanism’s controversial and confrontational character makes it an excellent case study for discussing broader methodological and theoretical issues” (18). Indeed, many of these texts could be helpful for thinking through such problems as how to define “religion,” issues of structure and agency, the nature of ritual, or similar perennial questions in religious studies. The reader did leave me wondering what other approaches to Satanism might be possible. What might an exploration of Satanic traditions look like if it focused on ritual or material culture instead of texts?

Even though Satanism is currently having a moment in our culture, it remains a tiny tradition with a relatively few adherents. Conversely, the United States is currently experiencing a resurgence of Satanic Panic in the form of QAnon, claims that that cults are torturing children to harvest “adrenochrome,” and other conspiracy theories. At the time of this writing, Arizona and Iowa have proposed bills banning “Satanic” displays from public venues. In this heated cultural context, there is value in a thoughtful retracing of the idea of “Satanism” and its intellectual antecedents.

Joseph Laycock is an associate professor of religious studies at Texas State University.

Joseph Laycock

Date Of Review:

March 23, 2024