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Vers 1

We have a bible. We have a pro-human dogma. We have a church. We have a tradition.
- From the Church of Satan's official website.
The status of The Satanic Bible as an authoritative scripture-or, perhaps more accurately, as a kind
of quasi-scripture-within the Satanic subculture was initially brought to my attention during my first
face-to-face encounter with Satanists in the Spring of 2000. Via the internet, I had found a small
Satanist group in Portage, Wisconsin, which was about an hour south of where I resided at the time.
This group, the Temple of Lylyth, distinguishes itself from Anton LaVey's brand of Satanism
chiefly by its emphasis on feminine nature of the Dark Power. I arranged to meet with them in
Portage on a Friday evening in connection with a research project on which I was working at the
time.
Over the course of our conversation, the founder and then leader of the group mentioned that on
Friday evenings he was usually downtown where a small group of fervent Christians regularly set
up what might be called a "preaching station" to spread the Gospel. This young fellow (he was
nineteen at the time) would confront them as a practicing Satanist. He always carried a copy of The
Satanic Bible with him, not just so he could quote some of accusations LaVey leveled against
Christianity, but also so he could correct anything these evangelists might say about Satanism by
citing an authoritative source. I'm sure this is something of a caricature, but I was left with the
impression of dueling religionists, Christians hurling Bible verses at my informant as he matched
blow for blow with quotes from The Satanic Bible. This experience led me to pay attention
whenever other Satanists mentioned The Satanic Bible.
The Temple of Lylyth is part of a loose, decentralized Satanic movement that coheres as a distinct
religious community largely by virtue of adherence to certain themes in the thought of Anton
LaVey, founder of modern Satanism, though few movement participants outside the Church of
1 The basis for the current article is a paper on "The Satanic Bible" presented at the International CESNUR
Conference, "Minority Religions, Social Change, and Freedom of Conscience." Salt Lake City and Provo, June 20-
23, 2002. Also, certain parts of this article have been adapted from sections of my earlier article, "Who Serves
Satan?" (Lewis 2001)
A special word of thanks to Satanists who provided me with thoughtful feedback on earlier drafts of this paper,
particularly feedback from several members of the Obsidian Enlightenment and the Temple of Lylyth. One comment
of particular note was that the social organization (or, perhaps more appropriately, disorganization) of modern
Satanism cannot accurately be characterized as a "movement," "community" or "subculture." I have nevertheless
used these terms throughout for lack of more adequate terminology. Another comment was that "conversion" is not
appropriate in the context of Satanism. Again, however, I left this term in the article for lack of a better word.
Finally, I was informed that Satanists prefer to refer to their community as the Satanic community (movement,
subculture, etc.) rather than the Satanist community; I have tried to adhere to this convention throughout the present
article Satan would regard themselves as "orthodox LaVeyans" (something of an oxymoron). Following
the dissolution of the Church of Satan's grotto system in 1975 and before the explosion of the
internet in the mid-nineties, the Satanic movement was propagated almost entirely by The Satanic
Bible, which has continuously been in print as a widely-available, mass market paperback. Rather
than being a guide to Devil-worship, LaVey's work advocates a blend of Epicureanism and Ayn
Rand's philosophy, flavored with a pinch of ritual magic. Couched in iconoclastic rhetoric, The
Satanic Bible has always held particular appeal for rebellious adolescents. The title seems to have
originally been chosen for its shock value rather than from any pretense to scriptural status.
The present article examines issues of authority within the Satanic movement and among LaVey's
successors in the Church of Satan. The basis of this analysis will be Max Weber's discussion of the
legitimation of authority. LaVey was a charismatic individual who appealed to the authority of
reason and attacked the authority of tradition. However, LaVey, and particularly The Satanic Bible,
soon became sources of authority for a new Satanic tradition-part of the process Weber referred to
as the routinization of charisma


Vers 2

The Legitimation of Authority
Satanists do not consciously regard The Satanic Bible in the same way traditional religionists
regard their sacred texts. However, in the course of a research project on modern Satanism
conducted in 2000-2001, I discovered that The Satanic Bible is treated as an authoritative document
which effectively functions as scripture within the Satanic community. In particular, LaVey's work
is quoted to legitimate particular positions as well as to de-legitimate the positions of other
Satanists. This legitimation strategy appears to have been unconsciously derived from the JudeoChristian tradition, which locates the source of religious authority in a sacred text. In other words,
being raised in a religious tradition that emphasizes the authority of scripture creates an attitude that
can be unconsciously carried over to other, very different kinds of writings.
The classic discussion of the issue of legitimacy is Max Weber's tripartite schema of traditional,
rational-legal, and charismatic legitimations of authority. The dynamics (in the sense of upsetting
rather than reinforcing established authority structures) of this schema are largely confined to the
factor of charisma, a form of legitimation Weber viewed as particularly-though not exclusivelycharacteristic of new religious movements.
Weber's work on the legitimation of authority provides a useful starting point for understanding
the legitimation strategies deployed by contemporary new religions, but it should immediately be
noted that his analysis is also inadequate. For example, in contrast to what one might anticipate
from the discussion of charismatic authority in Weber's Economy and Society, one often finds new
religions appealing to tradition-though the explicit nature of such appeals means that they constitute
a variation from what Weber had in mind by the traditional legitimation of authority (which he
viewed as more implicit than explicit). Also, when nascent movements attempt to justify a new
idea, practice or social arrangement by attributing it to the authority of tradition, it is usually through
a reinterpretation of the past that they are able to portray themselves as the true embodiment of
tradition. Such variations on what one might anticipate from his schema indicate that Weber did not
have the last word on this issue.
Charisma-which, in Weber's use of the term, includes everything from direct revelations from divinity to the leader's ability to provide both mundane and supernatural benefits to followers-may
be the keystone in a new movement's initial attractiveness, but charismatic leaders typically appeal
to a variety of other sources of legitimacy. For instance, many modern movements appeal to the
authority of reason as embodied in natural science.
2 This is because the general populace of
industrialized countries tend to give science and science's child, technology, a level of respect and
prestige enjoyed by few other social institutions-to the point where, as a number of observers have
pointed out, science has come to be viewed quasi-religiously. Thus any religion that claims its
approach is in some way scientific draws on the prestige and perceived legitimacy of natural
science. Religions such as Christian Science,