Saturday, May 31, 2014

The Church of Satan

LaVey once said, "the first 90 years are the hardest."  Well, his notorious Church of Satan will be celebrating fifty years in existence on Walpurgisnacht of 2016, and surely that has to be something.  While many people predicted and hoped that it would fail, it has managed to stand the test of time, which I think is something quite worth bragging about.  Public opinion about the Church of Satan has become much more open-minded in more recent years, and the philosophy has certainly become absorbed into the mainstream consciousness to a degree I personally never dreamed of---in fact, to the degree that a self-professed LaVeyan Satanist is a main character on Mike Judge's new show Silicon Valley and an episode of the show Morel Orel a few years ago on Adult Swim featured an episode satirical---although at least partially accurate---of LaVeyan Satanism.
Anyways, I thought I'd sort of celebrate the CoS's fifty years a little early, by featuring a sort of then-and-now in video form, by showing you the videos of the only two major public "Satanic events" that the Church of Satan has ever organized.  I'd venture to say they'll probably cook up something fun and devilish to celebrate the fifty year landmark, although its early yet and nothing has been mentioned at this time.

Then: The 8/8/88 rally at the Strand Theater.
 
 
Now: The 6/6/06 live ritual performance.
 
Personally, I can't wait to see what more they will do as the years go on.  I found the 8/8/88 rally to be well-meaning but perhaps its a bit heavy-handed looking back on it from the perspective of more self-aware Satanism of today.  I personally love Boyd Rice and I thought that Zeena LaVey was great until she went utterly batshit (as of very recently she has yet again undergone a mysterious transformation, this time abandoning the "Setianism" she so long defended in favor of Buddhism; go figure!)  I never really understood the Nazi obsession, at least not for those like Nikolas Schreck who took it very seriously whereas Boyd Rice was simply a "shock-monger" using it for imagery and mood---for the most part, at least.  The 6/6/06 ritual performance, I think, is a much better practical visual introduction to Satanism and Satanic ritual, and by 2006 the Church of Satan seems to have largely distanced itself from its "fascist chic" period.
I'm pretty sure I already posted the 8/8/88 rally before, but for this particular instance, I'll post it again.

Above: Then
Below: Now

 
Apparently, a documentation of a Satanic ritual performed by LaVeyan Satanists was filmed by one Joshua P. Warren, titled Inside the Church of Satan and is available only from the website devoted to the film, although an upload on Youtube is featured below.  If I can confirm its authenticity, I will mention it in an update, but I find it suspicious since I do not recall the Church of Satan itself ever mentioning or promoting this video.  However, of what I saw in the previews, the purported rituals does look very LaVeyan and true to the Church of Satan's aesthetic style.  The documentarian seems a bit more afraid of his subject matter than is needed and the presentation is a bit sensationalistic, but its always nice to see more of this kind of footage. I see nothing inherently inaccurate or particularly unfavorable being presented, other than the decidedly low point where the documentarian goes aside to try to conjure Satan, acting very much like a douche while doing so.  Though he refers to himself in the video as "basically an agnostic," he is decidedly superstitious and even paranoid at moments, expressing worries of ending up tied to an upside-down cross with his throat slit if he goes through with participating in the ritual, and also worrying that he may discover them sacrificing babies or something like that.  Not the brightest guy, but the best parts of the film are when he simply shuts up about his personal opinions or worries and presents the cold-hard facts.  Be prepared to make some popcorn and sit back and relax, because it is a whopping two-and-a-half hours long.  Anyway, here it is:
Inside the Church of Satan documentary, 2008.
 
 
 
Visit Satan Central for all your Satanic merchandise needs.




Marilyn Manson vs. Boyd Rice

Boyd Rice has been a prominent figure in alternative/experimental music, and most of his work is pervaded by overtly occult themes---with an orientation distinctly towards the dark side.  Much banter has been going on over the wastelands of cyberspace about whether or not Boyd still considers himself a Satanist in accordance with the LaVeyan definition, as he has in more recent years been more vocal about his involvement in half-serious or pseudo-satirical organizations like The Partridge Family Temple, which seems to be closer in flavor to something like Discordianism or The Church of the Subgenius than to the more serious Church of Satan aesthetic.
While chaos magic and Satanism have had their overlaps---chaos magic admittedly draws from the work of Anton LaVey and shares certain core beliefs---however Satanism is something in its own right and LaVey did not have much praise for chaos magic (just hear what he has to say about it in the interview Church of Satan-member and radical traditionalist Michael Moynihan did which is featured in Disinformation's Book of Lies).  I mention this only because Boyd Rice seems to be more of a chaos magician than a Satanist these days, although I'm sure he would revile being labeled as such.  The thing about Boyd is he doesn't want to be labeled anything, regardless of whether the shoe fits.  He wants to be that happy blob of custard that you can't nail to the wall, as they say.  He would probably reject any label you would put on him, solely because he desires so strongly NOT to be pigeonholed.
Of course, Boyd Rice wrote a vituperative essay in his book "NO" which is clearly a tongue-in-cheek indictment of the Church of Satan in its current form, and of the people who make up its general membership.  But despite his apparent dislike for what he feels the Church of Satan has become, he has never backtracked about his adoration for LaVey and still refers to him as a friend.  I feel Boyd Rice will always be a Satanist in some sense, whether or not he feels at home amongst the kind of people who make up the Church of Satan's membership these days.  Boyd is a lone wolf by nature, however.  At least he didn't turn out like Zeena "un-LaVey" Schreck, and his loyalties to the man and the philosophy itself have not faltered.
Now, more to the point of this article, the influence that Boyd Rice has had on shock rocker Marilyn Manson is no secret.  There are several photographs from Marilyn Manson's early days as an up-and-coming rock celebrity depicting Marilyn Manson and band-mates hanging out with Boyd.  Boyd Rice himself has said in interviews that, whenever Manson is in his area, he calls him and pays him a visit.
Now Boyd and Manson have both always been masters of imagery and iconography, re-appropriating sometimes age-old symbols for their artistic purposes.
As of the last two years, with the release of Manson's wonderful "Born Villain" album, Manson has taken to prominently using the Cross of Lorraine in promotional artwork and in stage performances, going so far as to emblazon it on the back of his leather jacket, putting on the compact disc itself and incorporating it into the letters of his MM logo.  Although he has been using the Cross of Lorraine for years in certain instances since at least the Holy Wood era, this is the first time it has become his prominent logo.
Back cover of 2012's "Born Villain" album

Boyd has described its symbolic meaning as, "both an upright cross and an upturned cross, in one."  This represents the dualism that is so important to both Boyd and Manson's personal occult philosophy.
Manson during stage performance during the recent "Twins of Evil Tour" co-headed with Rob Zombie
A giant red light-up Cross of Lorraine hangs prominently over center-stage.
 

The purpose of this article is simply to point this out, and to enlighten those of you who think that virtually anything Manson does is not a subtle reference to something else.  As they say, "Nothing new under the sun."  Like all truly genius artists, almost everything Manson does makes reference to some other artist or piece of artwork---most frequently to obscure, underground films and to transgressive artists of the past.  See the website the Nacht Kabarett for further elucidation of the symbolism and hidden references which pervade his artistic output.
An image recently released by Manson via Facebook, with the caption "nailed it."

Side note: It strikes me as very unlikely that the release date for "Born Villain" was May 1st, also known to occultists as "Walpurgisnacht" or "Beltane," and incidentally the most important holiday in the religion of Satanism.
 
Boyd Rice seen wearing Cross of Lorraine pendant on album cover.
 
Marilyn Manson with Boyd Rice and Shaun Partridge
 
Pictured above: "Inequality serpent" symbol, the intro image to Boyd Rice's official website.  While I realize this is the mathematical inequality symbol, I can't help but notice its stylistic similarity to the Cross of Lorraine of which he is so fond.  I'm sure Boyd Rice chose to use this because he appreciates the subtle correlation and the potential double-meaning (it both refers to the dualism aspect of his philosophy which the Cross of Lorraine expresses as well as the misanthropic, elitist aspect of his worldview which the inequality symbol sums up iconically.)
Manson's earliest use of the Cross of Lorraine symbol, to my knowledge, on the cover of the novel Holy Wood, which was sadly either never finished or simply never released.  It is very subtle here, being formed abstractly by the combinations of the gun-cross and the written text. Posted on the Internet by Manson in 2000.
 
Another side note is that this symbol was used by the band H.I.M. at least once, the instance of which I am aware being in the 2004 music video for the 1999 song "Join Me In Death."
 
 
The band H.I.M., which tellingly stands for "His Infernal Majesty" (hmmm!), have flirted with occult imagery during the entire duration of their career, and despite the constant use of the number 666 and a symbol combining a heart with an upturned pentagram, frontman Ville Valo has consistently tried to claim that they are not Satanic.  Yet a song on the Venus Doom album makes reference in its title to The Nightside of Eden, an obscure dark occult book by renegade Thelemite Kenneth Grant, and the band has recently taken to using the overtly Crowleyan "Seal of Babalon" in combination with their "heartagram" symbol.  Their most recent album uses Malachim script on the cover, a language developed by the occultist Agrippa, and features an ouroboros of sorts.  I have nothing against the band and find much of their music to be catchy, but I think its obvious that they (or at least Ville Valo) have a deep interest in the occult and "black magic," as they would not use so much of a variety of occult symbols nor would they be so knowledgeable about genuinely occult subject matter (such as Malachim script and books by Kenneth Grant) if they weren't deeply interested in the subject.  I think they backtrack when confronted on the issue because they don't want to have to defend it or be associated with what many deem "objectionable" or "demonic," which is unfortunate.  Another reference to Aleister Crowley can be seen in their album title "Screamworks: Love in Theory and Practice," clearly a play on the title of a well-known Crowley book titled Magick in Theory and Practice.
 
The newest H.I.M. band logo, featured on much recent promotional material.  Do I detect a subtle reference to the Cross of Lorraine here, or is it just me?