Satanism
SAN FRANCISCO, Detroit and Toledo hardly seem like places where Satan would be at home. He belongs to the Garden of Eden, spoiling life for Adam and Eve; to the Judean Wilderness, tempting Jesus; to Berlin during the thirties and early forties, possessing Adolf Hitler.
But there he is, worshiped in these modern American cities.
Anton Szandor LaVey is high priest of San Francisco's "Church by Satan," where regular services are held. Black masses (perversions of the historic Roman Catholic mass) are celebrated, lectures on black magic are given to assembled witches, and divination and sorcery are practiced in a black-painted Victorian house on California Street.
Inside the house, a visitor is shown to a dimly lighted living room. Its walls are painted black, the ceiling red. A black coffin stands on end beside the fireplace; from its top a stuffed owl surveys an altar: a nude priestess reclines there during "church" services.
LaVey is a bad witch, preaching evil and practicing black magic. He has no time for good ones. "The one and only deadly sin in Satanism is self-
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deceit," he says. "Those who pussyfoot around are setting themselves up for bad news — using the devil's tools but not giving the devil his due."
According to LaVey, the late film star Jayne Mansfield asked him to hex her bothersome lover, Steve Brody. Shortly afterward, both Brody and Miss Mansfield died in an automobile accident, and LaVey allegedly claimed that the actress was an innocent victim of his curse.
Another incident involving LaVey and his "church" of Satan was reported in the press, when a young sailor — previously active in a Baptist church in Chicago, who later came under LaVey's influence — was buried with a Satanic funeral.
Herbert Arthur Sloane, high priest of the Toledo, Ohio, Satanic church, claims that he is not worshiping the biblical Satan. Instead, he brings the news that an "ultimate god" exists, "above and beyond the one that created the cosmos."
From the Judeo-Christian viewpoint, any god or gods who seek to usurp the one true God and the worship of Him alone are prima facie Satanic, whether they admit it or not. "I am the Lord your God," Moses was told on Mount Sinai. "You shall have no other gods before me."
Satan's influence is therefore not to be evaluated only, or even primarily, on those rare occasions — such as the "churches" established by LaVey and Sloane — when he is deified and worshiped as God.
In the Bible and in history, he is more often hidden from view, inspiring others to imitate and carry out his plans. He is a "lion, seeking those whom he may devour," but he is also "an angel of
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light," deceiving even those who belong to the true God.
Jeane Dixon is an example of the confusion Satan introduces to the present situation. A devout Roman Catholic, Mrs. Dixon's personal life is impeccable. She attributes her "gift" of prescience to a God-given psychic sensitivity. Much of what she predicts seems to be theocentric, even Christo-centric. Without doubt she scores high on extrasensory perception.
Yet there is a strangeness to some of her visions, a warning signal raised. For instance, she describes a dramatic vision on July 14, 1952, when a snake crawled onto her bed and coiled itself about her body.
"While I watched, it slowly turned its eyes and gazed into mine," she later reported." In them was the all-knowing wisdom of the ages.... It did not speak, but it seemed to know what it was telling me that I had much to learn."
This account is too similar to the temptation of Eve in the Garden by Satan in the form of a serpent to leave us comfortable.
Satan is called, "the god of this world [who] has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God." (II Corinthians 4:4, R.S.V.)
A power for evil exists in this universe, according to the Bible (and confirmed by human experience). At various times in history that power has acted to thwart righteousness and justice. The time of Israel's enslavement in Egypt was one of
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those times; the time of Hitler's extermination of Jews was another.
Pharaoh and Hitler consulted their spiritists. So do many people today.
