The Satanic Bible Commentary
The Title
The Satanic Bible - The derivative, Christian character of this scripture's title is plain. No other religious scripture has "Bible" in its title other than the Christian text, though some use euphemistic references such as "The Hebrew Bible" (for the Tanakh, which was appropriated by Christians at least in part), "The Muhammadan Bible" to refer to the Muslim Qur'an, or even published works taking up the word for promotions (including myriad titles of books promoting their counter-current religious interests along the same lines since this Satanic scripture was published, such as "Luciferian Bible," "The Abysal Bible," "A Wicca Bible," "The Wiccan Bible," "The Solitary Wiccan's Bible," "The Beginner's Wicca Bible," "Wiccan Witchcraft Bible for Beginners," "A Witches' Bible", "The Pagan Bible," "The Hoodoo Bible," "The Fortune-Teller's Bible," "The Astrology Bible," "The Tarot Reading Bible," "The Palmistry Bible," "The Feng Shui Bible," "The Dream Bible," "The Crystal Bible," "The Crystal Healing Bible," "The Angel Bible," "The Meditation Bible," "The New Holistic Wellness Bible," "The Prosperity Bible," etc., etc.).
We can forgive the knock-off nature of the title due to the benighted state of the Christian culture surrounding them in San Francisco at the time of the origination of religious Satanism (late 1960s). They mimicked Christian language in order to be recognized by them as a start-up religion on the platform of the subversion ideologies they'd been promoting for centuries.
This derivative quality may also be seen in the selection of the names for the first religious body assembled: The First Satanic Church and The Church of Satan. They created a church to go with their bible and their black pope so as both to fit into the condemnatory rhetoric and also to be taken seriously by Christians. They could have looked to other parts of the world where brahmins sport Vedas, bikkhus tote Dhammapadas, or shih carry their Taoist Canons, and who might be acknowledged as religious peers .
Despite the fact that it adopted the name of its adversary's text for its own scripture, it is not characterized as a testament (Old, or New), does not purport to be an amendment or addition to the Christian Bibles, nor does it make reference to Christian Bibles as comparable documents or even itself, consistently, as a religion. Instead, "The Satanic Bible" might contain, by an interpretation of its name alone, Satanic versions of Christian books, re-interpreted from Satan's perspective. However, this is not the character of its content.
The Table of Contents
The contents of the book itself are sparse and reactionary. They are set into an Elementary and Monstrous framework (Satan:Fire, Lucifer:Air, Bael:Earth, and Leviathan:Water). The rationale for this isn't entirely plain, since the first two are Jewish and Christian references, respectively, to the different beings conflated by Christians, the third is a separate but competing deity or set of deities from a similar region of the world which is included in Christian Bibles (Baal, Bael, et al). The fourth is a sea monster purported to have existed or used in fiction within Christian Bibles.
Sections within these partitions roughly correspond to:
• Sociopolitics and Morality;
• Ethics, Personal Survival or Promotion;
• Holidays;
• Rituals;
• Magical Practices and Spells;
• Invocations and Conjurations;
and finally
• Enochian Keys
The Text
Skipping the introductions variously pre-pended to the body of the work, which is full of hyperbole, biographies of uncertain quality, and anecdotal references of promotional content, we may proceed to the Preface, the Prologue, and thence to what are called "The Nine Satanic Statements".
The Preface implies that this is a book on magic, rather than a strictly religious treatise, and on Satanic magic at that, along with Satanic philosophy. We will find that its treatment of magic is slanted and bloated with hubris, ignorant of many aspects of its practice, and biased toward certain types of rites or spells.
The Prologue makes its polytheistic premise clear. From a narrative born of the Norse twilight of the gods, swapping in Lucifer for Balder, the author mentions "man's salvation" and a "preparation for any and all eternal delights," while emphasizing "justice" and "the flesh." His epicurean and indulgent interests are plain, with the repudiation that such a salvation is earned through self-denial, lapsing into spiritual pipedreams, somehow pursuing physical delights in "eternal" dimensions.
The Nine Satanic Statements
All but the last of these begin with "Satan represents," making it clear that, for Satanists like LaVey, Satan is symbolic, connotes principles or a philosophy he will help to disclose.
1. The focus on indulgence continues, though no mention of discipline or rationality with regard to it is ever mentioned. This all seems to be a strident reaction to enforced abstinence.
2. Another emphasis on this animal life, this time not paying any lip service to "possible eternalities'.
3. Hypocrisy and exposing it is something many Christians focus upon, as does LaVey here and elsewhere. Intrusive and critical moral upbraiding offered by conservative adherents to those outside of their cult challenges others to uncover their failure to conform to their own standards, and this inspires anger and condemnation in turn.
4. Another persistent theme from LaVey and his church is the conditional or transactional relationship amongst those who are part of their tribe or church. In response to Christian advocation for unconditional love, kindness to all including one's enemies, and charity, these Satanists talk about earning respect, treating others as they treat you, and having vengeance upon their foes.
5. The primary indicator of a Biblical reaction, since the dogma from Christians focusses on convincing others to sit still and take abuse while they dish it out (by quoting their scripture that their God teaches that you should, if slapped, offer yourself up for more abusive slaps on your cheeks rather than to retailiate).
6. The notion of psychic vampires was promoted by the Church of Satan in the aftermath of its invention previously (as by Webber in fiction) or previous mention by Dion Fortune (as psychic parasitism). In combination with the elemental and ceremonial magic standards to be found in this book, it fits a particular pattern and derivation.
7. There is a common interest amongst Satanists to oppose the artificial elevation of humans above other animals, whether on account of fictional Creationism doctrines or as part of a pseudo-Darwinian 'survival of the fittest' mentality that points to opposable thumbs and particular brain developments.
8. Here the anti-Christian diatribe reaches a crescendo by re-interpreting the Christian "sins" as laudible and worthwhile for gratification purposes. Their characters will be differently interpreted through the course of this book in order to position early Satanism as an Epicurean champion against a harsh and anti-mammalian cultic despotism.
