The Invention of Satanism

In The Invention of Satanism, Asbjørn Dyrendal, James R. Lewis, and Jesper AA. Petersen examine “how Satanism was invented as a declared religious or philosophical position, and how it serves as a personal and collective identity” (pg. 2). Discussing the limits of their sociological study,

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Dyrendal, Lewis, and Petersen write, “This is obviously not a complete history of Satanism nor is it a complete review of all topics within its discursive purview. Even without taking into account religious groups and ideologists on whom there has been little research, writing the recent history of Satanism would be complicated enough” (pg. 10). They also discuss problems with the insider sources, writing that the “best published sources” of the Church of Satin are “so clearly apologetic that [their] quality as [sources] ranks below that of [breakaway Temple of Set founders and members Stephen] Flowers and [Michael] Aquino” (pg. 10). To that end, Dyrendal et al examine the Biblical basis for Satan, the literary romantic tradition of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that influenced modern understandings of the Devil and Satan, Anton LaVey in the context of the countercultural movements of the 1960s, LaVey’s Satanic Bible, and conclude with their Satanic Surveys, with which they compiled data sets for a sociological cross-section of modern, self-identified Satanists.

Discussing LaVey, Dyrendal et al write, “The history of Satanism as organized activity and a discernable stream of ideology and practice… spins out of the entrepreneurial activities of a small group of individuals in 1960s San Francisco, dependent upon and inspired by other social, political, cultural, and academic developments” (pg. 50). They continue, “With the church, we see a specific appeal to a varied ‘satanic milieu’ inspired by antagonism to organized religion (especially Christianity), attraction to the darker side of esotericism (‘occultism and witchcraft’), fueled by popular culture of the Romantic and Gothic heritage, and the liberal zeitgeist of the late 1960s in terms of individuality, freedom, anti-authority, and new forms of association” (pg. 65). Turning to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and 1990s, Dyrendal et al write, “Other factors than religion, and other interested parties (‘entrepreneurs’) than conservative religionists played very important roles in the creation, promotion, and dissemination of ritual abuse theories… one ironic fallout of the Satanism scare was that while it certainly became more difficult to be a Satanist, most of those who were accused of perpetrating SRA [Satanic Ritual Abuse] were Christians” (pg. 108). Discussing the role of popular culture, Dyrendal et al write, “Hollywood has been an influential cultural source of information about Satan and his minions. It served both to inspire the ‘satanic milieu’ that led up to and fed into organized Satanism, and to feed the anxieties from which the Satanic Panic was made. The late 1960s through the mid-1970s was a threshold period for diabolically inspired movies” (pg. 112). Popular culture, both literary and filmic, influenced the trappings that Satanists adopted as a visual language to criticize the establishment while at the same time serving as fodder for that establishment to portray them as criminally deviant and a threat. Though Dyrendal et al turn their focus to interpreting the data from their Satanic Surveys, this role of popular culture deserves further research and analysis.

In examining modern Satanism with multiple different groups, Dyrendal et al return to the difficulties of their source base writing, “Spokesperson and their texts are most influential, easiest to get hold of, and lend themselves best to more systematic treatments. But reality on the ground is always much more complicated, with a wide diversity of opinions, practices, and hybrid identities that cross simplistic academic classificatory boundaries” (pg. 198). They conclude, “Like any living tradition, Satanism is continually reinvented to fit differing demographics and periods. Such reinventions tend to follow established fault lines, even though new pathways are occasionally discovered” (pg. 218).

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