What Is Satanism? Atheistic, Theistic and Modern Forms Explained
What is Satanism? A guide to its history and forms: Romantic Satanism, LaVey's Church of Satan, the Temple of Set, The Satanic Temple and theistic Satanism.
Satanism is a family of modern religious, philosophical and esoteric movements that adopt Satan, the adversary of Christian tradition, as a positive symbol or as a real being. The largest and best-known forms, beginning with Anton LaVey's Church of Satan in 1966, are atheistic: they treat Satan as a symbol of individualism, reason, pleasure and rebellion against authority. Smaller theistic currents venerate Satan or related figures as actual deities or spiritual forces.
From Accusation to Identity§
The figure of Satan developed in Jewish and Christian tradition as the adversary of God and humanity; that long history is traced in The History of Satan and the Devil. For most of that history, "Satanism" or "devil worship" was something people accused others of. Medieval heretics such as the Cathars, discussed in Cathars and Bogomils, were charged with secret diabolical rites. The early modern idea of the witches' sabbath, in which witches supposedly pledged themselves to the devil, underpinned the European witch trials.
Some real episodes lent colour to such fears. In the Affair of the Poisons (1677–1682) at the court of Louis XIV, investigators reported that the priest Étienne Guibourg had celebrated black masses for aristocratic clients, although the reliability of testimony obtained under pressure is debated. Eighteenth-century "Hellfire Clubs" in Britain used blasphemous imagery mostly for libertine amusement. Historians such as Ruben van Luijk emphasise that, before the twentieth century, there is very little evidence of anyone worshipping Satan as part of an organised religion.
Romantic Satanism and the Nineteenth Century§
A decisive shift came with the Romantic movement. Readers of John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667), including William Blake, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, admired its Satan as a defiant hero opposing tyranny. Blake wrote that Milton was "of the Devil's party without knowing it". This "Romantic Satanism" made Satan a symbol of liberty, creativity and the struggle against oppressive religion and monarchy, without any intention of devil-worship.
Later nineteenth-century writers developed the theme. Charles Baudelaire wrote his "Litanies of Satan" (1857), the Italian poet Giosuè Carducci an anticlerical "Hymn to Satan" (1863), and anarchists and socialists used Satan as an emblem of revolt. The Decadents brought a darker fascination: Joris-Karl Huysmans's novel Là-bas (1891) depicted a black mass in contemporary Paris. Meanwhile the French hoaxer Léo Taxil spread fabricated stories of Luciferian Freemasonry between 1885 and 1897, before confessing the fraud. In the early twentieth century, figures such as the Danish occultist Ben Kadosh and the German order Fraternitas Saturni (founded 1928) produced some of the first openly Luciferian or Satanic esoteric writings. Per Faxneld has shown how many women writers and feminists also reclaimed Satan as a liberator.
Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan§
Organised Satanism as a public religion began on 30 April 1966, when Anton Szandor LaVey announced the founding of the Church of Satan in San Francisco. LaVey, a showman with a talent for publicity, combined Nietzschean individualism, Ayn Rand-style self-interest, social Darwinism, carnival theatre and occult ritual. His Satanic Bible (1969) became the movement's foundational text and has sold widely ever since.
LaVeyan Satanism is atheistic. Satan is not a being to be worshipped but a symbol of human nature, indulgence, vital existence and rational self-interest, set against what LaVey saw as the hypocrisy and self-denial of Christianity. Ritual is understood as psychodrama, a way of focusing emotion and will. The church's beliefs, rituals and later history are described in LaVeyan Satanism and the Church of Satan.
The Temple of Set, The Satanic Temple and Other Groups§
In 1975 Michael Aquino and other members left the Church of Satan, objecting to what they saw as its commercialisation, and founded the Temple of Set. Setians regard Set, the ancient Egyptian god, as a real principle of isolate intelligence, and pursue Xeper, self-transformation and self-deification, as an initiatory path; see The Temple of Set and the Left-Hand Path. Other groups of the 1970s and 1980s, including the British Order of Nine Angles, developed more radical and controversial forms; researchers and security services have linked the latter's network to violent neo-Nazi extremism.
The Satanic Temple, founded in 2013 by Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jarry, represents a newer, non-theistic and politically active Satanism. Its Seven Tenets emphasise compassion, justice, bodily autonomy and scientific understanding, and it is best known for campaigns about the separation of church and state, such as proposing a statue of Baphomet for public spaces where Christian monuments stood. The difference between these organisations is considerable, and scholars stress that "Satanism" covers a spectrum rather than a single creed.
Theistic Satanism and Luciferianism§
Alongside atheistic Satanism, smaller currents treat Satan, Lucifer or other dark deities as real. Theistic Satanists may venerate Satan as a god of freedom or knowledge, practise demonolatry or reinterpret Gnostic myths; Luciferians emphasise Lucifer as the "light-bearer" of enlightenment and self-illumination rather than as the devil. These traditions mostly emerged or grew through small groups and online communities from the 1990s onward and vary enormously in belief and ethics. They are described in Theistic Satanism and Luciferianism, while the broader category of self-deifying esotericism is discussed in The Left-Hand Path.
Beliefs and Practices Common to Satanism§
Despite their differences, most Satanic groups share some themes: an emphasis on the individual as the centre of value; scepticism towards conventional religious authority; a positive view of the body, pleasure and worldly life; antinomian symbolism that inverts Christian imagery; and the use of ritual as a tool for psychological or spiritual transformation rather than as worship of an external master. Symbols such as the inverted pentagram, the Sigil of Baphomet (a goat's head within an inverted pentagram, adopted by the Church of Satan) and the figure of Baphomet itself, which Éliphas Lévi drew in the nineteenth century, are widely used.
Satanist ethics vary. LaVey's "Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth" stress personal responsibility and reciprocity, and forbid harming children and animals; The Satanic Temple's tenets centre on empathy and justice. Sociological surveys, such as those conducted by James R. Lewis in the early 2000s, have found that most self-identified Satanists are young, educated and introduced to the religion through LaVey's writings or the internet.
Satanism, Crime and the Satanic Panic§
From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, North America and Britain experienced the Satanic Panic, a wave of allegations that secret Satanic cults were abusing and murdering children. Extensive investigations, including a 1992 report by the FBI agent Kenneth Lanning, found no evidence of organised Satanic ritual abuse; many accusations arose from flawed therapeutic and interviewing techniques. Isolated crimes by individuals who used Satanic imagery have occurred, but scholars distinguish such cases from the religious movements described above.
Today Satanism is recognised by many scholars as a modern new religious movement, studied alongside other contemporary religions. Its significance lies partly in what it reveals about modernity: the uses of rebellion, the place of the individual and the persistence of the devil as a cultural symbol.
Frequently asked questions§
Do Satanists worship the devil?§
Most do not. The largest Satanic organisations, the Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple, are atheistic and treat Satan as a symbol. Smaller theistic groups do regard Satan or Lucifer as a real being or force, but their beliefs vary widely.
When did Satanism begin?§
As an organised religion, Satanism began with the Church of Satan in 1966. Earlier centuries saw accusations of devil-worship, Romantic literary Satanism and a few small esoteric groups, but historians find little evidence of an organised Satanic religion before the twentieth century.
What is the difference between the Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple?§
The Church of Satan, founded by Anton LaVey in 1966, emphasises individualism and self-interest and avoids political campaigning. The Satanic Temple, founded in 2013, uses Satanic symbolism in activism for secularism and civil liberties and stresses compassion and justice in its tenets.
Is Satanism legal?§
In most democratic countries Satanism is legally protected as a religion or belief like any other. Crimes committed by individuals are prosecuted as crimes regardless of their beliefs.
Sources and further reading§
- The Satanic Bible — Anton Szandor LaVey, 1969
- Children of Lucifer: The Origins of Modern Religious Satanism — Ruben van Luijk, 2016
- The Devil's Party: Satanism in Modernity — Per Faxneld and Jesper Aagaard Petersen (eds), 2013
- The Invention of Satanism — Asbjørn Dyrendal, James R. Lewis and Jesper Aagaard Petersen, 2016
- Satanism: A Social History — Massimo Introvigne, 2016
- Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture — Per Faxneld, 2017
- Romantic Satanism: Myth and the Historical Moment in Blake, Shelley, and Byron — Peter A. Schock, 2003
- Paradise Lost — John Milton, 1667
- Investigator's Guide to Allegations of "Ritual" Child Abuse — Kenneth V. Lanning, 1992
- Satan Wants You: The Cult of Devil Worship in America — Arthur Lyons, 1988