A/S/L?: A Brief Reflection on Contemporary Blasphemy and LaVeyan Satanism

    Published to great controversy in 1969, Anton Szandor LaVey’s grimoire The Satanic Bible is a collection of essays and observations extolling the virtues of selfishness and instinct. The text is foundational to LaVeyan Satanism, containing, as it does, the central tenets and dogma of his philosophical project. But despite The Satanic Bible’s sordid reputation, it reads more like a Twitter PUA’s guide to tricking a weird goth girl into bed than it does a sequel to the Kitab al-Azif.

Anton Szandor LaVey, the high priest of Satanism himself

    Nevertheless, LaVey does manage to include some interesting anthropological insights regarding the persistence of the religious instinct, even in the face of psychoanalysis. From pages 52-53 of The Satanic Bible:

Modern man has come a long way; he has become disenchanted with the nonsensical dogmas of past religions. We are living in an enlightened age. Psychiatry has made great strides in enlightening man about his true personality. We are living in an era of intellectual awareness unlike any the world has ever seen.

This is all very well and good, BUT--there is one flaw in this new state of awareness. It is one thing to accept something intellectually, but to accept the same thing emotionally is an entirely different matter. The one need psychiatry cannot fill is man’s inherent need for emotionalizing through dogma. Man needs ceremony and ritual, fantasy and enchantment. Psychiatry, despite all the good it has done, has robbed man of wonder and fantasy which religion, in the past, has provided.

Confronted by knowledge of both his or her “true personality” and the seemingly endless diversity of world religions, New Age spiritual practices, and out-and-out cults the contemporary subject has no recourse but to engage with the numinous in the “Satanic” mode LaVey describes above. The postmodern seeker must choose, and in this act of choosing instrumentalize the vestments and rituals of their chosen faith. It is in this way the rites performed by protestant and non-denominational churches approach blasphemies wholly unknown to self proclaimed Satanists, who are evidently content to masturbate over idols and participate in the occasional orgy instead of doing anything truly profane.