Exploding the Myth?

Exploding the Myth?
Did Anton Lavey really destroy the Satanic Community?

I'm not going to post the whole article here, but I'll go over the highlights. Now, why am I defending Lavey? I certainly don't need to do it to establish my credibility, so what's the ulterior reason? Well, mainly because there are some, (read "several") Satanic organizations that are living off of his work, yet they completely disavow any connection to Lavey. To counter this, you'll usually hear some pseudo-mystical jumble about "older" traditions, but anyone with a brain can figure out what they're doing. Our official policy is to not participate in "org wars", so I won't name any particular people, but if the shoe fits... Currently, there are only three "real" Satanic organizations out there, the Church of Satan, the Satanic Reds, and the Temple of Set. I would add the New Church of Satan, but I haven't seen exactly what their doctrines are, and I won't add the Order of Nine Angels because they aren't Satanists. The Temple of Lylyth is one of the more original groups as well, but it seems to be a cross between feminism/Lilithian mysteries, and the Dark Doctrines of the Satanic Reds.

What do I mean by "real"? Almost every other Satanic organization really just uses some amounts of these three organizations in different quantities, supplying their own additional commentary. Either it's Lavey, Tani, or Aquino that comprises their system in differing amounts. Some also add strong helpings of Crowley and previous mages to the mix, but the basic "Satanic" structure yields from those three. Ostensibly, one could add me to the mix, but as far as I'm aware, no one is copying our material yet.

The person I'm addressing in this article is Tani Jantsang, who wrote the Dark Traditions, which are available here. To give a basic outline of the accusation, the article details that Anton Lavey did not, in fact, bring Satanism into the forefront, nor did he codify Satanism. In fact, Lavey singularly managed to destroy Satanism according to her.

(In an e-mail reply to me, she said it's important that I just not focus on Lavey, but on the people whom he appointed with easy memberships who went around distorting facts. She also said she doesn't want to comment on this article as Lavey is a non-issue for her. While I can respect that, by including an article on Lavey in her website, she has to be ready for criticism. This is professional criticism, I employ no ad hominems or other such techniques.)

I would tend to agree as well. So would Lavey:

"The world is NOT a stage upon which we are all actors playing a part. In this world, there are the performers and there is the audience. They are never interchageable. The members of the audience are the followers. The performers are the leaders. If a person is one, there is no chance that he can become the other."

"A mammoth spectacle employing a 'cast of thousands' is not necessarily good, any more than the world being made better by overpopulation." (Okay, he was talking about movies, but still I like the quote.)

I don't think that any of these charges can realistically be maintained, to the degree of severity that Tani is insisting upon, after examination of the prima facia evidence. Now, let's be clear here. There are several things Lavey messed up in Satanism. For instance, the hateful rants he made towards the end of the 80's. The "Compleat Witch", which was basically, a "how to be a whore" manual during the feminist movement, and that he had ideological Nazi's form the core of some of his movements, (this is a disputeable thing, however). While Lavey was certainly far from perfect, Tani gives the Devil more than his due in this essay. It's not so much that I disagree with her here, as quite simply, "I was not there", but by not acknowledging other social factors, it downplays the significance of her essay from a historiographic/sociological analysis.

Let's discuss the historiography method I'm using. In an online review of Earl Doherty's work, historian Richard Carrier discusses the Argument to the Best Explanation:

1) "must be of greater explanatory scope," that is, it must explain more existing evidence; (2) "must be of greater explanatory power," that is, it must make the existing evidence more probable; (3) "must be more plausible," based, that is, on established general truths about the time, the place, the context, etc., and the universe generally; (4) "must be less ad hoc," that is, it must contain fewer "new suppositions" that have no other evidential support apart from the fact that they make the theory fit the evidence; (5) "must be disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs," that is, it must be less challenged by existing evidence and general accepted truths; and, finally: (6) "must exceed [on the previous five criteria] other incompatible hypotheses about the same subject by so much...that there is little chance of an incompatible hypothesis, after further investigation, soon exceeding it in these respects"

Just so you know, I e-mailed this article to Tani before I publically made it available to ask if she wanted to publically give a critique of it. She declined, but she did say two things. One was that she thought I was over-emphasizing the unnecessary while ignoring the larger portion of the essay. For instance, she says I spend too much time on the popular t.v. shows instead of on the larger issues. I don't think so, I only spend about a fifth of this essay on the t.v. shows, the greater portion is on what I believe to be the cause behind the negative ideas of Satanism, mainly, Christian fundamental revival, Satanic Panic, the popularization of studies which debunked Murray/Gardner/Leland/Blavatsky, and popular rock music.

According to Tani, Anton Lavey damaged Satanism, because it was coming out into the open. Here's some examples of what she means:

"Above all, there was DARK SHADOWS, the most popular soap opera. Remember ANGELIQUE? She was a witch; she even went to hell and came back from hell. She used to call on the dark forces all the time - this was so normal that no one flinched a brow over it. She called on BEELZEBUB to vanquish ghosts! This was out in the open - THAT MUCH. Most popular soap opera. BACK THEN."

Let's look a little bit further than this. The majority of the population that watched the show were in their early to late teens. (Ask ABC, they have statistics reports on viewing audience). For those who actually remember the show, what type of commercials were on the show? Commercials aimed at young audiences! The older population condemned the show as "sacrilegious". Obviously, this is the same type of rebellious teen phenom seen all throughout history, where the younger culture engages in activities that the older generations condemned.

As an example, let's take a 1991 interview, actress Lara Parker reflected on some of the things that made Dark Shadows a ratings sensation and a cult phenomenon.

''It was just a time in the history of show business when it worked. 'In the 1960s there were a lot of people experimenting on various hallucinogens and mind-altering substances, and they were tripping out on Dark Shadows. And then there were kids who raced home from school to see it, and it was their show.''

This was the counter-cultures show. The teens, drug users, mystics, (The hippie movement was spawned by Eastern mysticism, though it is a somewhat faint lineage), had their own thing, but it's far from saying it's a majority consensus. My theory is that the rejection of Satanism spawned more from the revival of Christian fundamentalism, which always peaks in times of trouble. Take the WTC bombing of 9/11/01. You can't flip a channel or look at a webpage without "God" or "pray" or something related to Christianity pop-up.

"Addams Family" or the show with Morticia on it, they do a spell "Come on Satan, We are Waitin." No big deal. Satan was a name that got dropped here or there, casually, in connection with ANY magic. Witches were known for MAGIC. Even the Arabian demonology came into play with the "I dream of Jeannie" show - and on that show there were also the Djinn (demons, folks!) The Djinn were cool."

This isn't a really good example of Satanism in television. Kind of like using "Sabrina, Teenage Witch" or "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" as examples of witchcraft being accepted in today's society. Would the Adams Family Movies, (where they sacrifice a girl, either in the original or the sequel, I can't remember), be a sign of acceptance of witchcraft in today's society, that we now live in a more tolerant climate? Or as a better example, that human sacrifice is approved? It was the presentation of these shows. "Adams Family" and "I dream of Genie" were jokes, playfully done, amd well done in fact. One example would be "The Simpsons" or how about "Mr. Show, with Bob and David"? These shows are all jokes, where they make fun of God, religion, and Satan. No real big deal is made about these shows, because people understand them as being just that.

The next portion is about the demon/djinn/genie thing. Bugs Bunny has a famous cartoon where him and Daffy Duck discover the "Genie of the Bottle", and to open it, they use "Open Sesame", which was a sexual incantation, the "cave" being a euphamism for the woman's vulva. With the revival of Christian fundamentalism, and the fact that the hippie movement spawned a greater knowledge of occultism, many "born-again" Christians possess knowledge they previously hadn't on occultism and a way to aim their displaced rage.

Back to the Beginning

After the original intolerance period, (Salem Witch Trials, the Inquisition, etc.), we next trace a revival in the belief of Satanism to Leo Taxil, and his book, "Satan in the Nineteenth Century". This attracted a lot of publicity in the 1890's, and he claimed to be a renegade Freemason, who worshipped Satan. This book, as laughable as it reads now, containts parts and elements of it that are still being used by Christian fundamentalists as "proof" that the Freemasons are evil. The various clergy and political parties took Taxil serious, and bought his books and attended his meetings. He further asked for donations to rescue a lady named "Helen Vaughan", who was under the threat of human sacrifice from the "Satanic" Masons. Well, it turns out he was lying, but his story would be used by other anti-Satanic claims. A man named Denley Mainwaring-Knight was sent to prison for defrauding church goes and clergymen out of money, claiming he needed for his cruscade against a Satanic ring led by Lord Whitelaw.

(Reference source: Webb, James. "The Flight from Reason", Macdonald, 1971)

When reviewing the cases of "Satanic abuse", the "Independant on Sunday", a newspaper, found that in the past decade, about six self-proclaimed Satanists, (note, that means "Satanists without any affiliations"), were guilty under British law of sex offenses against children. The sadder part was that over thirty Christian clergymen in Britain had been found guilty of the same crime in that same time period.

The author Gordon Thomas, in his book "Enslaved", claims that there are 100,000 Satanists in Britain, among them senior police officers and Salvation Army members. At his American seminars, he claims that there are 50,000 human sacrifices a year, TWICE what the FBI has listed as the TOTAL murders for the United States.

The beginnings of these popular fears can be traced back to the mid-sixties and early seventies. The counter-culture of this period began using various occultic beliefs, and the Manson Family exposed the more inhuman side of the cultist practices. The idea became embedded in America's mind that "cult" meant "Satanist" automatically. The ever so elusive "Occult" is simply a collection of religions, pastimes, men's fraternal organizations etc. which do not publicize their belief systems. Rather, they reveal their secrets only gradually to their trainees. They have little or nothing in common with each other. Churches all across the nation began jumping on the bandwagon, describing all kinds of horrible crimes attributeable to "Satanists".

Anton Lavey was the voice of reason, the guy who defied them. He, and only he, was willing to bring Satanic beliefs to light. Though he wasn't highly adept in terms of theology, he was good at using hyperbole's to show how ridiculous certain ideas were. For our non-American friends, a hyperbole is an overexaggerated example used to prove the ridiculousness of something else. For the "cooler" way of saying this, the Latin phrase "reductio ad absurdum" is used, which literally means, "reduction to the absurd". It's a way of disproving a proposition by showing an absurdity to which it leads when carried to its logical conclusion. Either that, or it is carrying something to an absurd extreme. One example is a joke on a newsletter that asks a Rabbi if it is okay to kill her boss as the Bible commands, because he works on the Sabbath day. LaVey constantly uses these kinds of ideas to promote Satanism, and while not particularly "scholarly", his use did achieve its attended purpose, and it ticked people off. So, we shall keep examining things and see what caused the uproar about Satanism.

Special thanks to http://members.aol.com/Karol666/page7/serial.htm for providing the information below.

The Great Manson Myth

Charles Manson has been described as the Satan of our generation. The American media has constantly portrayed Charles as the personification of their form of Satan. This type of association can be seen in "Watching Satan: The Legacy of Charles Manson", a CD featuring a compilation of versions of Manson’s songs and misc. Manson was referred to both as "God" and "Satan" by his followers. As the "family's guru", he claimed to be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

Indeed, the police and DA argue that Manson found sections within the Beatles' song Helter Skelter and within the last book in the Christian Bible, Revelation which he felt referred to a devastating future race war between blacks and whites. He expected to take over control of the surviving Afro-Americans after they had exterminated the whites. By murdering some high-profile people, he expected to trigger the "final days" conflict. Although Manson is not believed to have killed anyone directly, he ordered his followers to commit the famous Tate, LaBianca, and other murders.

The only (vague) links that Manson had with other religions may have been with 'The Process', a branch-off from Scientology. He supposedly "rubbed shoulders" with other religions, but these connections are loose and vague. Media at this time was in a frantic hurry to blame somebody for the crimes, and it appeared that "Satanism" would have to be the buzz-word of the late 60's. This was especially true because Susan Atkins had been familiar with Lavey and the CoS. She was a part of his "Witches Topless Sabbatical", an idea he had for having topless witches run around. In addition to that, Dr. Aquino documents other famous murderers who were connected to the Church of Satan.

Other Sources

Several books list hundreds of serial murderers (1, 4, and 6), but only a few of these people claim any Satanic link, notably Henry Lee Lucas who is the subject of both a recent biography (3) and at least one reasonably accurate movie (7). Lucas and his partner, Ottis Toole, both were allegedly part of a Satanic group known as the "Hand of Death" which allegedly kills on contract, deals in drugs and smuggles children to Mexico. No clear public evidence for such a group is available to the best of my knowledge, although its activities are claimed to be extensive. Alleged "Nightstalker" serial murderer Richard Ramirez became infamous when he flashed an inverted pentagram drawn on the palm of his hand as he walked into a Los Angeles courtroom but appears to have acted alone (1, 2, and 5).

References:

1. Newton, Michael. Hunting Humans -- An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers (1990).
2. Linedecker, Clifford L. Night Stalker (1991). St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
3. Call, Max. Hand of Death -- The Henry Lee Lucas Story (1985).
4. Newton, Michael. Serial Slaughter.
5. Raschke, Carl. Painted Black (1990).
6. Wilson, Colin et al. The Encyclopedia of Modern Murder (1988).
7. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" by John McNaughton (1990).

Author Maury Terry has written the most ridiculous one of these books, "The Ultimate Evil" (1987 hardback and 1989 paperback, Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10103, USA. You might note that address, it is an interesting one for a Christian conspiracy press!) This book talks about "The Process Church of the Final Judgement", which he claims links New York's "Son of Sam" serial murderer David Berkowitz, with California's Manson family (allegedly responsible for the 1969 Tate/LaBianca slayings), and more numerous obscure murders and crimes. Fortunately, author Ed Sanders removed allegations concerning '"The Process Church" from his book (8) on the Manson family. Other less malefic books (9 and 10) portray "The Process" in a more benign light.

References:

8. Sanders, Ed. The Family (1971 hardback and 1989 paperback).
9. Bainbridge, William Sims. Satan's Power (1978).
10. Sennitt, Stephen. The Process (1989).

The most best literature in debunking Satanic/ritualistic crimes myth is set forth in a 1989 book (11) sponsored by the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER). Its authors' credentials are impeccable. Among the list, they include a PhD physicist, an emeritus professor of religion, a doctoral candidate in comparative literature, a police consultant, and an F.B.I. agent. The book concludes that "[t]he truth then is that Satanism is, as a religion, unfairly maligned and much misunderstood." p. 150. "Murders have been justified in the name of Christ many more times than in the name of Lucifer." p. 151. "All the promoters of this [new hysteria] are themselves suspect." p. 153.

References:

11. Carlson, Shawn et al. Satanism in America -- How the Devil Got Much More Than His Due (1989).

What conclusions can we draw from these stories? Lucas' claimed existence of the "Hand of Death" stands unverified. The Process Church's supposed connections to various crimes rest primarily on Terry's 1987 allegations, but no indictments have been handed down. Terry's long-promised sequel book has yet to emerge. Serial murderers certainly have existed for centuries (12 and 13), but they appear to be lone actors in almost every case (14), even when Satanic motivations are attributed to them (12, (8), (1) and 15). [Infamous 15th century killer Gilles de Rais certainly had help, but his companions were hirelings which he found easy to corrupt as France's richest nobleman (12).] In a nutshell (pun intended), no solid evidence of a Satanic/ritualistic conspiracy involving serial murders has ever been presented!

References:

1. Newton, Michael. Hunting Humans -- An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers (1990)
2. Linedecker, Clifford L. Night Stalker (1991).
12. Bataille, Georges. The Trial of Gilles de Rais (1991).
13. Knight, Stephen. Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution (1986)
10. Newton, Michael. Hunting Humans -- An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers (1990).
14. Markman, Ronald et al. Alone with the Devil -- Famous Cases of a Courtroom Psychiatrist (1989).
15. Raschke, Carl. Painted Black (1990).

What of the infamous Matamoros, Mexico drug killings? "Matamoros represents violence associated with a hint of borrowed religious ritual, nothing more. No evidence exists...of any participation...in satanic activities, involvement with a satanic organization, or human sacrifice to propitiate the devil." p. A- 27.

What psychological aberrations might explain the flood of allegations? As the authors of the CSER book conclude, some promoters of the Satanism/ritualistic crimes myth are simply "...opportunists who have used sweeping statements justified only by shoddy research to create for themselves a cottage industry of fear." p. 153. Others are people whose "...long histories of emotional and/or psychological problems are well documented." p. 154.

The CSER book's bottom line: "None of the theory's proponents can provide any significant physical evidence in support of their claims and all of the anti-Satanist activists whom we have investigated appear to be either gullible, fraudulent or insane." p. 154.

The psychological term "projection" also comes to mind for fundamentalists who are not otherwise certifiably mentally ill, i.e., as defined in Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (1981): "...the attribution of one's own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people or to objects; [especially] the externalization of blame, guilt or responsibility as a defense against anxiety." I have known and worked extensively with fundamentalists of various descriptions. Quite frankly, I have found them to be the most repressed and hate-filled human beings imaginable, although generally these emotions are extremely well hidden. Their urge to remake others' attitudes/behavior is incredible. Why not just live and let live?

It seems to me, then, that a projected "witchhunt" mentality serves as the basis for paranoia concerning imagined Satanic/ritualistic crime conspiracies, when gullibility, greed and/or other mental illness are insufficient explanations. Another possibility is "communal reinforcement", which is a form of social autism, a community of people perpetuate grander and grander myths, and without outside realism to shine light on the subject, they will eventually end up having what we call "urban myths". My most memorable one was that there were supposedly large groups of Satanists in the woods out where I lived in the country. No one has ever found anything, but almost everyone here still has a major phobia with the woods out there.

A classic example would be when Kennedy was President and they were planning on invading Cuba. Kennedy was locked in a room with all the greatest military genuises. They meticulously devised a plan, which, if executed, would have singularly been one of the greatest military failures ever. In other words, this doesn't just happen to the paranoid country bumpkin, anytime someone disassociates from reality, the results are never good.

Taken from the website, http://www.magonia.demon.co.uk/arc/90/sra2.htm#9

Tani also asks about the populations idea about Satanism. LaVey did spurn it, but Dr. Aquino notes it was mainly do to negative publicity, some of which Anton couldn't have control over. Ideas about Satanism spurred with Charles Manson and various other murders. Various other murders had been linked to "Satanism", and indeed, this was again a case of the same thing happening.

Add this to the failed war in Vietnam, and the Manson Family, and the Watergate Scandel, the 1973 Middle East War, and the Energy crisis, it was believed that the "apocalyptic" times were coming. This was seen in the best-selling paperback book, "The Late Great Planet Earth". This lead to a revival of fundamentalist Christians, and consequently, the good old fundamentalist paranoid delusions. Among them, quite naturally, was the Book of Revelation with Satan and his prophets coming back.

It was believed that the moves towards European union were being made in preparation for the upcoming Anti-Christ. The Battle of Armaggedeon was believed to start in the Middle East, and that was exactly what was happening. Films with an Anti-Christ/Satanic theme were being seen, such as "The Exorcist" and "The Omen" series, which had the central themes of Satanically possessed children.

Books and films also manifested this idea, and this has been given the name of a "meme", or an idea that is infectious like a virus. The wave of mysterious cattle mutations led to stories not just about alien landings, but also to government experiments and strange secret groups of Satanists. Other rumors began to become spread like wild-fire, furthering the meme epidemic. The story that the Proctor and Gamble "Man in the Moon" trademark was a symbolic sign of Satan became so widespread that it was a major problem for the company. This rumor is reminiscent of the belief of Sergei Nilius that any trademark that resembles a star were signs of sinister Jewish control.

Furthering these strings of viscious lies into the 1980's, a book called "Michelle Remembers", by Lawrence Padzer, A Canadian Catholic psychiatrist, was published. He described how a patient, named Michelle Smith, had a disturbed family background. (Lawrence actually married the girl after the publication of the book.) In the book, Michelle talks about how at the age of five, she had been consecrated to Satan in a series of ceremonies involving sexual abuse, human sacrifice, and ultimately the appearance of Satan. To help boost the sales, Dr. Padzer can't help but add some stories of his own to the mix.

He says that the Church of Satan is an organized body that is centuries old, with its central headquaters in Geneva. He then further states that Satanic Priests are easy to recognize, because they all have their middle fingers cut off. (Later groups would abandon this line of thought, as it was too easy to verify.)

For those more educated, you'll recall all this sounds very familiar to Alien Abduction stories. Let's examine more closely. She remembers being tied down on a table, surrounded by strangely clothed figures. Ointments were smeared all over her body, and her body was cut, then the blood drained out. At the climax of the story, she says that Satan puts his tail around her (I guess Satan is still from the old God "Pan" image), and that a mark appears on her neck. A photograph of this reveals that this is the same kind of "evidence" used in UFO abduction stories. If Michelle had approached Budd Hopkins instead of Lawrench Padzer, she would have been cited as one of his abductees.

The UFO syndrome is a phenom that I personally believe to be linked to Night Terror Syndrome. When aphyxia takes place, a release of sexual hormones takes place. This is known as "Autoerotic asphyxiation". This explains the bizarre "sexual" experiments taking place. Unlike a nightmare, which lasts only a few seconds, Night Terror Syndrome victims last for as long as forty minutes, and the victim has a much more vivid memory of what takes place. What they are "subconsciously" bringing up isn't factual experiences, but rather memories from Night Terror. It is (remotely) possible that Michelle's story might have been triggered by suppressed memory of more mundane abuse, but I doubt it. If she had been sexually molested, there would have been plenty of tell-tale signs. On a five year old girl, scarring would have occured, and it is doubtful she would have the ability to have kids.

Others think that the experiences of SRA are the result of multiple personality disorder (MPD), a psychological aberration similar to schizophrenia, but typically involving several personalities instead of just two.These psychological factors explain why most victims do not recall the abuse except in therapy (often involving hyposis or other radical measures). Multiple Personality Disorder has had its validity questioned in recent times, as seen both here and here, so that the theory is largely discredited, but the DSM-IV still lists it as a disorder.

Using psychological tactics (recovered memory therapy), which was later said to be a false and brutal method, various psychologists began making comparisons about Satanism involving ritualistic abuse. The stories didn't add up. In some, the children were being transported across the World, on mysterious airplanes. The stories simply didn't match each other, or their own stories upon later investigation, and they became more outlandish. Because of this, research began to look into recovered memory therapy.

In adults, they believed their parents were the ones abusing them. When questioned about these "ritualistic" abuses, the parents denied all of it. All the adult family members confirmed that these "memories" weren't memories at all. In children however, they usually claim it is a day-care worker, or an estranged parent. In most if not all of these cases, the children have been coaxed into coming up with the stories — sometimes even rewarded for coming up with stories^.(PBS Frontline report, “The Search for Satan”).

In some cases, the victims describe "occultic" themes, but these can easily be seen through television, books, or Church. Also, in the case of one boy, he told his mother the story that she recognized as the same one from "The Empire Strikes Back".

Some claim that SRA explains the "thousands" of abducted children, but this is wrong because,

1.) The number is greatly exaggerated.
2.) Most missing children are found in a year.
3.) Most missing children are taken by a parent who lost custody or in most teenagers cases, are runaways.

When dealing with these people, it's important to understand that endorsing their delusion is not supportive, it's counter-productive. Further, these SRA "victims" are indeed victims, but not victims of Satanic Abuse, rather, abuse from the manipulative "experts" who use forms of therapy that were considered to be "inhumane" in court. Also, innocent parents, teachers, etc., are also victims, as they are the ones who usually have to suffer from the effects of mass stupidity.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists in England created a Working Group on Reported Recovered Memories of Child Sexual Abuse which issued their report on 1997-OCT-1. They concluded with this:

1.) We can find no evidence that apparent memories of long forgotten and repeated child abuse have ever been proven true.
2.) There is a good deal of evidence that patients will produce the material that the therapist seeks, but it is often a product of fantasy.
3.) Some memories are so incredible that most clinicians would regard them as false.
4.) We must conclude that, like abduction by space travelers, accounts of Satanic abuse are false.

This type of propaghanda was made by the media, and it was believed that pentagrams, baphomets, etc., were all "Satanic", as the average media portrayal believes that anyone who practices any form of magic is therefore automatically guilty of being a Satanist. Ironically, one of Tani's favorite sources, Michelet, also fudged up in this regard. This is what lead to the rejection of the Baphomet (thought to be a Satanic symbol since the era of the Knights Templar), and the Pentagram, and it had little to do with Anton Lavey's message. (Point here, the Baphomet of Eliphas Levi origin probably has almost no looks or relationship to the one that the Knights Templar used.)

Primarily, Satanism existed pre-Lavey as inversified Catholic rituals. Of course, the Luciferians were around then as well, as well as a few Goetic traditions, but not exactly in large numbers, so to say. The only thing that existed was inversified Catholic rituals, made by Catholic priests! It's like the saying goes, "Even if you say, 'F*** Krisna!', by saying his name, you are one step closer to him." So, this type of Satanism isn't actually Satanism at all, but rather, it is Catholicism. Although some forms of Satan were romanticized, and Mark Twain in "Letters from Earth" had Satan listed as a rather favorable character, there was no worship of Satan at this time. There were the Goetics, but they were destroyed and scattered, (not to say there aren't some around now, and that they weren't around then, just not en' masse), and what we have of them is passed through several secret societies. (Even then it is still very sketchy).

So, why did the abandonment of many old images? We'll start off with the Lavey assumption. I find some questions though in this. Whenever one person misrepresents another person's religion, they usually go to great lengths to dispell it. For example, Dr. Aquino has been battling on and off with members of the OTO for what they feel is a misrepresentation of Aleister Crowley's work in Dr. Aquino's work. This is important, because this is inter-occult disagreements, the same kind we would expect from one LHP tradition onto anothers. I imagine that Lavey's sweeping generalization of Buddhism wasn't too good, because I have a friend who was formerly a Buddhist priest, and several of the mikkyo doctrines within certain Buddhist sects are heavy LHP material. Likewise, the fact that he mistook "Ave Satanas" for what should be "Ave Satana" doesn't give him too much credibility, though St. Jerome used "Satanas" as a vocative term for Satan, but it makes it an irregular declension as the rest of "Satana" follows a typical first declension. Hinduists won't be too happy that he mistook Kali, the wife of Lord Shiva, for his daughter, and so on and so forth. However, the normal reaction to that is to protest it. Not go underground with it.

So can we call upon other factors at play here? Well, yes. The reason why paganism lost most of its credit is due largely to Norman Cohn. While a despised name amongst many feminists, he showed that the trials produced a homogenous response to inquisition because of torture, not because of an advanced pagan cult, as Murray had hypothesized. Richard Kieckhefer is another name which pops-up, and the two of them published their work on it in 1972.

Prior to them, others had questioned the reliability of Murray/Leland/Gardner and quite a few others. The cumulative force was that witchcraft did not have the time length which many had estimated. We do now have evidence of pagan cult survivals, unfortunately, pagans wouldn't be too pleased with them because the ones we do know are a cross between paganism and Christianity, and they were somewhat small sects. They were also more God occupied than Goddess.

What happened was that instead of the public outcry that you would expect when one religion misrepresents another, (or tradition), the witchcraft cult started going underground with it. In fact, to this day, many neo-pagans are embarrased at the fact that they simply do not have the historic credibility that they attach to their traditions. Outside from that, Dr. Aquino goes into huge lengths in his book "The Church of Satan", to document the rivalry between Satanism and Wicca. While the amount of material I would need to quote to illustrate the point is too lengthy, the overall summary is that it was a contest over who had the biggest phallus between Buckland and Lavey. Buckland seemed to be more possessed about Satanism than Satanism ever was about him. Regardless, the warfare cut a heavy-ridge in that the Wiccan community, and they took great lengths to distant themselves from Satanism, including their usage of certain occult material, which Dr. Aquino dryly notes as being useless, Wicca and Satanism were still lumped together by numerous books and authors. In fact, it was actually counterproductive according to Aquino, it helped sell quite of a few of Lavey's books which otherwise would have gone unnoticed. Dr. Aquino also relates it to more than just sour grapes though. In the Wiccan community at the time, there were several people who claimed to be the "head" of Wicca, and of course, all others were frauds, charlatons, and liars. Aquino put it that Buckland needed Lavey:

"it would be quite valuable to Buckland were Dr. Lavey to publically recognize him as the Church of Satan's principle occult adversary, as this would certainly confirm Buckland's claim to White preeminence. It would also imply that the Gardernian possesses enough substance to merit concern by the Church of Satan." (page 133).

For anyone not in the U.S. and unaware of the damage that has been caused by rock groups imitating Satanism, I point to Rev. Matt Paradise, who's written several detailed essays on the effects of it.

Regardless though, my point in this has been to explain that there were other external forces at work besides just a rejection of Lavey by the conscious society at large. A revival in Christian fundamentalism, the actions of Raymond Buckland, movies portraying Satanism, (and witchcraft in general) in a bad light, Charles Manson, Rock and Roll, the SRA scandals, and other such effects were beyond Lavey's control. For those interested in what the community of mystics at large will say that's against Satanism, just go here. That's how people typically respond when they feel threatened or misrepresented by another group.

My overall conclusion is that yes, some of Lavey's actions did hurt the Satanic movement for a while. In particular, his active rejection of occultism led to many genuine LHP traditions to not wanting to associate with him or the CoS. That's the number one reason when I've talked to ex-Satanists who've become affiliated with the FreeMasons, Ordo Templi Orientis, and other such mystical groups did so. However, I think this is a complex and multifactorial social phenom to which no one individual source can claim responsibility.

One source, an Ole Wolf of the Satanic Reds, has written an extensive paper outlining how he believes the CoS failed in many regards, though it is obviously tended as more of a sociology paper for non-specialists. http://home13.inet.tele.dk/wolf/doc/cosanalysis.pdf While I still stand by my thesis, he does have a compelling case, and it's a well-written paper.