When Anton Szandor LaVey shaved his head and created the Church of Satan on

April 30, 1966, he knew that soon he would be the focal point of attention

for people throughout the globe. Now that the thirtieth anniversary of that

fateful night has passed, has the world begun to understand the real

meaning behind the only organized religion in history to take as its symbol

the ultimate figure of pride and rebellion, and to many, of Evil?

 And are there truly some grounds for people to feel fear at the ever

growing phenomenon of contemporary Satanism? As a priest in the Church of

Satan and media representative, I can candidly say,Yes! However, what the

general populace has decided to fear is aludicrous portrait that has been

painted in lurid technicolor by media hypesters intent on titillation,

evangelists struggling to fill their coffers and keep their mistresses in

jewelry, and most distressingly, by a segment of the therapeutic community

who have found a gold-mine in the treatment of so-called ritual abuse

survivors who provide no evidence of their tales of terror (remarkably

similar to stories told by women labelled by Freud ashysterics), save for

their fervent belief that they were victimised. I shall not waste time in

refuting the absurd claim that there is an international conspiracy of

generational Satanists bent on enslaving the world through drug use and

sacrifice of babies bred for that purpose by emotionally unstable women.

 That mythology has been thoroughly exploded by other sources (The FBI's

National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime: "Investigator's Guide to

Allegations of Ritual Child Abuse," January 1992; the Committee for

Scientific Examination of Religion's report "Satanism in America," October

1989; the British Government's Department of Health report: "The Extent and

Nature of Organised and Ritual Abuse," HMSO, 1994 ). Let us instead look at

contemporary Satanism for what it really is: abrutal religion of elitism

and social Darwinism that seeks tore-establish the reign of the able over

the idiotic, of swift justice over injustice, and for a wholesale rejection

of egalitarianism as a myth that has crippled the advancement of the human

species for the last two thousand years. Is that something to fear? If

you're one of the majority of human mediocrities merely existing as a

media-besotted drone, you bet it is!

 The philosophy of Satanism is delineated in the writings of Anton Szandor

LaVey. His books include _The Satanic Bible_, _The Satanic Rituals_, _The

Satanic Witch_, and _The Devil's Notebook_. All are currently in print and

should be consulted by anyone interested in a complete picture of the views

held by the Church of Satan. One can obtain further information by reading

two books by Blanche Barton, personal secretary to Mr. LaVey and an

administrator of the Church, _The Secret Life of a Satanist, the authorized

biography of Anton LaVey_ (Feral House) and _The Church of Satan_ (Hell's

Kitchen Productions). These works have a great deal of material regarding

the history and contemporary practices of the Church of Satan.

For those who have yet to study this literature, there are three sets of

brief guidelines* issued over the years by the Church and authored by

LaVey, which can give the uninitiated a capsulized version of Satanic

philosophy.