The Satanic Bible?

Have you ever actually read TSB? Were you, like me, stunned by just how Lavey hits the nail right on the head about so many things in it? Any thoughts about it? DO you own a copy? (I do.)

 

Yeah, it's Humanism basically.

It's not Satan Worship at all.

 

True...because that is what Satanism really is.....just humans putting themselves first. Satan is just a "logo", a "symbol" of freedom from bondage to dogmas and rules and strictures and all of that shit of superstition!

 

Yes, that's the way Lavey taught it.

 

He was on the ball I think myself. The Halloween aspects of the COS and TSB were to make it exciting and mysterious really!

 

Yeah, Lavey said the whole "Satan" thing was to kind of thumb his nose at Christianity.

 

Yes, I have the book. I thought LaVey was impressive when I was a teenager but I can't say the same now. I would rather just read Nietzsche instead. If anything, "The Satanic Bible" is great for kids who grew up in Christian households that wish to decondition themselves. However, one must move beyond that phase at some point. Besides, his work has no real basis in actual occultism which he openly denounces in the book. In fact, he was very much the materialist who was more ego-driven than anything else. LaVey's rituals are suppose to be "psychodrama" for the readers, rather than anything magical. LaVey was not any kind of authority on the left hand path, which has more to do with tantra than it does with Ayn Rand. His estranged daughter, Zeena was more on point with her book, "Demons of the Flesh", which is very much worth the read.

 

I purchased a copy from Value Village for 99 cents. It was a book that I felt I "must read" (those usually drag on...)

The book comes off as one long self-congratulatory pat on the back. I wasn't impressed.

This sums it up.

 

satanism is christianity

 

Underwhelmed, just read like a rip-off of Nietszche, Rand and a touch of Freud. I can see it being exciting to read at the time, but it hasn't aged well, IMO, and people being generally more widely read in philosophy/theology has neutered its impact. I think I have a copy somewhere.