The Satanic Bible
50th Anniversary ReVision
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Michael A. Aquino, Ph.D.
Magister Templi IV°-II’
Church of Satan <1975 CE
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© 2018 by Michael A. Aquino
Barony of Rachane
Post Office Box #470307
San Francisco, CA 94147
U.S.A.
http://www.rachane.org
ISBN-13:
978-1724693259
ISBN-10:
1724693255
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Dedicated to my Devil-Father
Anton Szandor LaVey
Magus V° and High Priest
The Church of Satan
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Foreword
- by Satan
What is, or should be, a “bible”?
A collection of fantasies to impress, entice,
seduce, threaten, terrify? It would seem so from the
many scattered about this world.
Not so this one. My Bible is, one might say, a
sacred gateway: to the discovery of oneself and one’s
powers and prerogatives in both the physical and
metaphysical realms of conscious existence. It is a
tool, a key, the very Grail awaiting the awakened,
purified, and consecrated in the Castle of the Seven
Stars.
And like the Grail it cannot be seen by those
not so disposed and determined. They will pass it
blithely by, as the very last and least tome in any
library.
But you have noticed, taken up, opened, and
are now perusing it. Whether you yet suspect it or
not, you have thus commenced a personal Rite of
Passage, an adventure into a universe - indeed many
universes - beyond the one you think you know. To
discover also your own self, your “soul” if you will.
And as with those universes, it is far greater than
you assume when confined to the pedantic of
physics, the seeming security of your animal senses.
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And so who am I? The “Satan” of this book,
certainly: a book and a name aligned to your culture,
idiom, and associations. Were it otherwise. were you
elsewhere or of another time. I might be known by
any number of other names, from the Egyptian Set
to the Northern Odin or the Aztec Quetzalcoatl.
But for you, here, now, I am Satan. You may
think you know who this is, but until you have read
my Bible you really don’t. So welcome to my house:
Enter freely and of your own will. As one of your
poets so presciently reflected:
We shall not cease from exploration,
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of Earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree. 1
So let’s go climb some trees together, and
perhaps meet God. No, not the old, grouchy one of
the Hebrews, but a friendly, fascinating, occasionally
funny one, who’s staring at you right now.
Over there. In the mirror.
Satan
1 Eliot, T.S., Little Gidding (1942).
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Michael A. Aquino
Preface
A. ReVision Golden Jubilee
Before the ink was dry on Anton LaVey’s
original Satanic Bible (1968), it was already obsolete
within the rapidly-evolving Church of Satan, as no
one knew better than the author.
When three years later he asked me to write a
new Introduction for the book’s 1972 hardcover &
paperback editions, he was adamant that this was
just preliminary to a complete revision.
But, as recounted below, he never got to it, and
twenty years ago in 1997 CE he set aside his material
body, making his own revision possible only by
séance, which neither conventional publishing nor
the Internet has sufficiently advanced to
accommodate. 2
2 Not to mention terrifying stenographers.
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And my own dalliance here will soon dissolve
as well; so if Anton’s Devil-Son3 doesn’t do this now,
no one will.
If the Satanic Bible weren’t worth a damn any
more except as an incidental cash-goat for its
profiteers, the most merciful thing to do would be to
let it continue to fade away into obscurity: a quaint
relic of an equally-quaint aberration in 20th-
Century American counterculture.
But, you see, it does happen to be worth
something: indeed rather “more than the sum of its
parts”. Because it hallmarked a door into a
previously inexplicit aspect of human existence. It
was a statement, an affirmation not just that
humanity is an intelligent phenomenon of nature,
but that there is something beyond the “natural” in
this attribute.
Philosophers as dissimilar as H.P. Lovecraft4,
Eric Hoffer 5, Paul Kantner6, and Arthur C. Clarke7
have glimpsed this door; and it was no secret
whatever to the ancient Egyptians8. But in the sterile
3 “I have just had a talk with the Man downstairs, who informs
me that I should take my Devil-Son aside for a few moments
and discuss certain machinations of the human jungle ...” -
Letter, Anton LaVey to M.A. Aquino, June 2, 1973.
4 Cf. Correspondence with Emil Petaja in Selected Letters of
H.P. Lovecraft, Volume V. Sauk City: Arkham House, 1976.
5 Cf. “The Unnaturalness of Human Nature” in The Ordeal of
Change, 1968.
6 Kantner, Paul, Planet Earth Rock & Roll Orchestra. San
Francisco: Little Dragon, 2003.
7 Cf. Childhood’s End (1953) and [with Stanley Kubrick] 2001:
A Space Odyssey (1968).
8 Cf. M.A. Aquino, MindStar (2016, 2018).
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timidity of modern intellectualism, Anton LaVey
was the first to step through it, and the Satanic Bible
was his footprint. Indeed, had it contained nothing
but blank pages, its title on the cover alone would
have sufficed to pull down the Samson’s temple of
sanctimony epitomized not only by the Hebrew
Torah (“Old Testament”) but its cluster of clones:
Koran, Book of Mormon, “New Testament”, ad
tedium. A “bible” is supposed to define, and thus
imprison the reader in “reality”: in all these cases
“nature”. But a “bible” for Something Else?
As I daresay my DevilDad would approve, this
ReVision retains only the “conceptual flow” of its
predecessor: its first four “books” named in honor of
that 19th-Century occult classic Abra=Melin’s9 “four
Leviathan. 10
“Satan” is a dramatic introduction to that
personage. In the original, at which time no
satisfactory epic was available, Anton chose to do
this indirectly, through an intensely anti-Judæo/
Christian diatribe that could be dramatically, if not
strictly attributed to the Devil.
“Lucifer” consists of essays outlining the
cosmology and philosophy of the Age & Church of
Satan. In the original these collected and reprinted
the pre- Bible “rainbow sheets” (handouts so-called
9 Mathers, Samuel L. MacGregor (Trans.), The Book of the
Sacred Magic of Abra=Melin, the Mage. New York: de
Lawrence, 1932.
10 Yes, both Anton & I are well-aware that in certain traditions
“Satan” & “Lucifer” are post/pre-”Fall” identical, that Belial &
Leviathan were Hebraic corruptions of the rival [to their god
El] Canaanite gods Baal & Lotan. Neither was inherently
“Satanic”; Job’s nemefish’s name just decorates the Bessy-
Baphomet because “Satan” in Hebrew has only four letters.
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because they were mimeographed on brightly-
colored paper) of the fledgling Church). Anton wrote
these in the vernacular of Haight/Ashbury San
Francisco as his lecture-audiences of the day could
understand without taxing their brains. Their
present replacements unflinchingly address the
more complex issues raised by the same sequence of
topics; unfortunately readers’ brains can now expect
some taxation.
Humans come to a religious institution because
they want to get in touch with the god(s) in
question: at least to find out what they want so as
not to anger them, but perhaps also to get on their
good side and get blessed rather than beaten. The
Church of Satan was different in that it introduced
adherents to the tools of its god - something called
Black Magic - enabling them to bless themselves
[and perhaps beat on others].
So the third book, “Belial” is a primer on what
Black Magic is, and how to begin using it. For this
the original offered three basic/simple examples -
lust, curse, and compassion - assuming that at the
most elementary level of each the practitioner would
learn enough to get his/her feet wet, after which
more detailed instruction within the Church’s
activities and publications might be appropriate.
There is of course no such Church anymore, so
this “Belial” examines the methodology & machinery
of Black Magic more comprehensively, but still short
of “providing matches for children to play with fire”.
Practical proficiency in Black Magic requires not just
expertise in operations, but even more importantly
the most rigorous and conscientious ethics
governing them.
Finally from the original edition, “Leviathan”
discusses one of the most elegant and elaborate
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vehicles of self-explorative, or “Greater” Black
Magic: the “Enochian Keys” or “- Calls” of the
Elizabethan mystic and magician Dr. John Dee.
What until now no one outside the original
Church, and even very few within it knew is that
Anton LaVey, realizing the power of this instrument,
simply did not trust the mere purchaser of a mass-
market paperback to use it responsibly. Thus he
presented the Keys, already substantially corrupted
by a succession of miscopyings and arbitrary
syllables, as stand-alone invocations of various LBM
ritual working themes. Thus the Satanic Bible Keys
served little more purpose than to lend a dash of
mysterious mumbo-jumbo to otherwise prosaic
proceedings - much the same as surrounding the
Bessy-Baphomet with five Hebrew letters gave it an
ominous glamor that “S-A-T-A-N” would not have.
The Keys in this ReVision are directly from the
British Museum microfilm of John Dee’s original
manuscript, and the English translations the result
of a succession of GBM workings drawing upon both
Dee’s own writings on use of the Keys11 and Aleister
Crowley’s original manuscripts of his Liber 418
workings with them in Mexico and Algeria. 12
Most readers will probably not want to subject
themselves to the discipline required for activation
of the Keys; but for those who do, judicious
attention to the “Lucifer” and “Belial” guidance
11 Cf. Deacon, Richard, John Dee. London: Frederick Muller
Ltd., 1968.
Casaubon, Meric., A True and Faithful Relation of What
Passed for Many Yeers Between Dr. John Dee and Some
Spirits. London: Askin Publishers, 1974.
12 Crowley’s original Liber 418 manuscripts, with extensive
marginalia not included elsewhere, are in the Special
Collections of the University of Texas Library, Austin.
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herein will probably keep you safe from Choronzon’s
clutches.
This edition adds a fifth “book”: YANKEE
ROSE. Browsers through the original were
invariably caught up short when reaching its last
page, finding thereupon nothing but this enigmatic
inscription. While it is “decoded” herein, of greater
importance is what it connotes concerning the
geographical and emotional atmospheres in which
something like the Satanic Bible could come to be
written. One simply couldn’t concoct it in Miami
Beach or the Rocky Mountains. Mary Shelley needed
the gloom of Lord Byron’s manor on Lake Geneva to
conceive Frankenstein, and Anton LaVey the
dæmonic decadence of not just his Black House, but
its city and surroundings as well: an Odyssey that
began at a fog-shrouded nightclub and reached its
zenith on the North Solstice nine years later.
Is this ReVision intended to replace or
overshadow Anton LaVey’s original? Of course not:
With all its lacunæ it exudes the charismatic charm
of its creator, who had a way with words as well as
the Wurlitzer. But he and I both saw the book’s
unrealized potential, and that is what this
celebratory commemoration seeks to realize.
B. Before the Bible: Monograph &
“Rainbow Sheets”
If you were curious, courageous, and foolhardy
enough to make enquiry to the [shudder!] Church of
Satan 1966-8, your mailbox soon smoldered with
this cheerful response, accompanied by a 12-page
mimeographed monograph of a pre-“Belial” tutorial
in [gasp!] Black Magic, and a rainbow-colored
assortment of Devilish diatribes destined for a less-
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kaleidoscopic future as the “Lucifer” essays of the
subsequent Bible:
Enclosed is the information which you have
requested. Thank you for your interest, and
congratulations on having the courage to seek the
truth ab
out Satanism.
After reading the information on Satanism,
you may feel that it is the religion for which you
have been searching, or possibly the one you have
been practicing in an “underground” way for years.
If you wish to join the Church of Satan, please fill
out the enclosed questionnaire and send it along
with your initiation fee of $13, and you will
become a part of the most exciting concept in
religion in the world today.
U p o n r e c e i p t o f y o u r c o m p l e t e d
questionnaire and initiation fee, you will receive
the following:
1 - Lifetime membership in the Church of Satan.
(There are no periodic dues; your initial fee is
the only payment you make for lifetime
membership.)
2 - A suitably inscribed membership card of a
striking appearance.
3 - Complete instructions for performing
authentic Satanic rituals (see enclosed paper
for full description).
4 - A list (revised bimonthly) of other members
with whom you may communicate. This list
includes not only names, addresses, and
phone numbers, but also marital status, age,
sex, and interests of each member listed.
5 - Past newsletters containing pertinent
information for all Satanists as well as
announcements of scheduled press coverage.
6 - A reading list of readily obtainable books and/
or articles on Satanism and related subjects.
(This list will have bimonthly additions.)
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As a member of the Church of Satan, you
will have the opportunity to:
1 - Overcome any obstacle through the ability to
control people and events.
2 - Embark on a series of studies unlike any other
correspondence course ever offered to
students of Satanic science. (This course is
offered only to members of the Church of
Satan. The material it contains is not the
hackneyed lore usually found in readily
available books and journals on witchcraft and
Satanism. The Satanic Study Course consists
of twenty separate essays covering all aspects
of the Satanic religion. A complete list of
topics and a full description of the course will
be sent to all new members.)
3 - Study for the Satanic Priesthood. (Full details
will be sent to new members.)