The Satanic Bible,   ISBN:9780380015399

Customer Rating: 

I polished this book off little by little throughout the week. Its not so much of an attention keeper, as it is insightful. It touches on many moral values, that we as a Christian Nation, often dont think about. However, for lack of a better word, it is childish in the sense that it scraps Christian labels such as "Satan" as a way to describe evil. In my opinion, doesnt make this any more of a religion than Atheism.

As a Freethinker, I see it as more of a "Self Help Book" for the religiously confused, rather than something to live by.

Although I dont care much for the "Dark Poetic-type stuff", its a pretty solid read. I highly recommend this book reguardless of your religious views.

Customer Rating: 

The sourcebook of Anton LaVey's Church of Satan, a must read for anyone interested in the CoS and what this misunderstood religion actually stands for. Read it -- you might be surprised to find out it has nothing to do with the mindless crap spewed by Geraldo & Oprah about human sacrifices and whatever else they were saying. A monumental work by a true visionary of his time.

Customer Rating: 

This is an entertaining read. Beyond that there is as much value in this as there is in any "religious" text. NONE. The writings in here are bastardizations of Ayn Rand (whose works were watered down Nietzsche writings) and Crowley. Mind you now, this isn't a bad read, it's just not as orginal as you are made to think. Do the research. The fact remains that Lavey was an incrediable (supposedly) showman and knew at least how to sell people (in other words he was little more than a con man). Like The Necronomican, this is a novelty item, nothing more as the author likely intended. I reccomand it to younglings just to get a feel of Nietzchian philosphy, and as entertaining gothic fun for adults. Idiots seeking to "harness the powers of darkness" I recommend thearpy. Casting magic spells is no different than prayer, and (according to the book), prayer is sitting around hoping for change to occur instead of getting off your duff and making stuff happen.

Time to grow up people.

Customer Rating: 

I've had this book forever. LaVey's philosophy, in early adulthood, gave me the foundation for Ayn Rand's 'Objectivism' (which I wouldn't discover until my mid-twenties), and really helped free my mind. Very entertaining essays. And, to this day, I've never sat down and fully read the section on 'Satanic magic', because I thought it was too silly.

Customer Rating: 

Anton LaVey was an odd bird; an intelligent and often very funny huckster who was successful, if only at projecting an image of success. Watching old footage of him, you get the idea of a sort of harmless dork, but quite a few people really thought of the guy as the high priest of Satan and still act as such. He talked about victory and ruthlessness, but ended up dependent on the same social altruism he seemed to despise in his final years. Some of his own followers disowned him to start their own Dungeons and Dragons group, err, Church of Satan. He publically claimed that his curses had killed people, but always after the fact, and then would make claims to the effect that magic doesn't actually "work". Sometimes he really seemed to be winking at everyone from under the Satanic hooded cowl.

Re-reading this book about 11 years after I first checked it out, I'm amazed at both how good and how awful parts of it are. Much of it is plagiarized or at least heavily influenced by other authors. I've never read Ragnar Redbeard, but the Crowley and Rand are both there in pretty even measure. Happily, unlike Rand, LaVey just comes out and says what's on his mind instead of couching everything in awful narrative. His philosophy basically seems to be, to quote Pogo and W.C. Fields, "Never give a sucker an even break". When LaVey is talking in his own voice, it's often quite distinctive and some of his logic is hard to argue with. I would like to say that some of his points are sort of obvious, but bearing in mind that the book is over forty years old, a lot of it was pretty bold at the time. In a country and world still largely run according to conservative religious lunacy or gutless PC puritanism, some of it still is. I already knew that masturbation was no big deal, and didn't need LaVey to point it out for several pages (as he does herein), but even mellow-mannered, liberal me has to admit his right wing black mass is pretty great and his admonition to get rid of "psychic vampires" is of some value. However, you have to pick this all out of a collection of histrionic and often childish ranting.

The magic parts are a little harder to get. He alternates between claiming that magic has an electro-chemical scientific basis and that magic is a dark force that science and logic cannot understand. Magic is also "real" in the sense that it can accomplish impossible feats, but then it's spoken of in psychological terms. When he mentions Crowley, he states the Crowley was playing a joke and people took him seriously; at this moment I felt it quite possible that we saw a glimpse of the man behind the curtain, the clue that it was a joke. I wonder if those who "get it" are the same people that buy a $200 red "official Satanist" card from LaVey's organization? The end of the book, "Yankee Rose", convinces me that LaVey's psychic powers predicted the rise of David Lee Roth.

This is a good book for critical thinkers; I'm sure some would draw quite different conclusions from mine, but would still find something of value. People who are really gullible are probably the wrong audience though and could end up taking it a little too much to heart.