"Three Cheers for Satan!"

I met a Satanist today. Yep. A real, live, flesh and blood Satanist.

There he was sitting in the front row this past Monday morning, clad all in black, and just as plain as the dog-eared copy of the Satanic Bible in his hand.

Now there's a great way to make a first impression on the job, huh? Sit in the front row and read Satanic literature. Clearly, here's a guy who's either not too worried about working his way up the corporate ladder too quickly, or he's seen one too many episodes of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'. Who's going to promote someone who may perform an animal sacrifice at the next team meeting or, maybe, spend their lunch break sitting in a bell tower with a high-powered deer rifle?

Not me - thats for sure!

Now don't get me wrong, I have a whole lot of tolerance for a whole lot of different types of people - but a SATANIST? Man, I just don't know on this one. This news kind of took me aback a little bit. It was definitely not part of the coterie of cons for which I am normally accustomed to dealing with.

I mean, is this guy going to put a hex on me or something should I, heavens forbid, ever have to deliver some kind of verbal reprimand? Or, maybe, he is secretly collecting my fingernail clippings in order to perform some dark ritual at home in his basement inside a candlelit pentagram so that my Charlie Browns shrivel up the next day like California raisins hanging from a vine.

But then I thought more about it. So he's a Satanist - whats does all that entail exactly?

Previously to ever having met this guy, I just thought that a Satanist was anyone who could manage to name more than three Black Sabbath albums. And all I knew about the practise of Satanism itself was what I saw in the 'First Power'. Now, as much as I love my Lou Diamond Phillips movies, I'm also pretty equally sure that he's no authority on the Dark Arts.

Then there's my DVD player - but we're not going there again.

I just never really thought of Satanism as a legitmate form of pious worship before. Who in their right fucking mind wakes up one morning and decides: "You know, this whole 'love your fellow man' bullshit is really not my cup of tea - I want to bath in goats blood and fornicate with devils."

I was always taught to believe that Satanists were pure evil incarnate; the kind of person who eats babies for breakfast and snorts puppies for a rush. You know, someone like, say, Geraldo Rivera.

But here was this Satanist in the front row...smiling at me no less. Surely he can't be all that evil can he?

So, besides offering this young Dark Lord my copy of Mojo Magazine with the featured cover story on "The Dark Side of Rock and Roll", I decided to make an honest effort to explore, and hopefully, attempt to understand his self-professed Satanic beliefs. Besides, it's not like God has been doing me any real favors lately, has he? You'd think that by now he'd at least have given me the winning lucky lottery numbers at least once.

Geez!

Luckily, through the miracle that is Google, I stumbled upon a website, appropriately known as 'Satanism101.com'.*

Upon first opening this Satanic website, I was immediately to learn that Satanists don't actually believe in Satan.

Huh? That seemed kind of rediculous. Buddhists believe in Buddha. Christians believe in Christ. Hindu's believe in that strange multi-armed pink elephant thing - whatever it is.** Muslims believe in Mohammed. Why do Satanists have to be so damn difficult - or that their bag? After all, Satanists don't really give the impression that they could ever be mistaken as "mainstream" (not that sitting in dark corners tracing pentagrams in the palms of your hands in red marker and brooding over books of magic spells isn't cool n' all). Satanism has been referred to, then, as an "unreligion" in the sense that it does not subscribe to the notion of an anthropomorphic deity and, by extension, some being who must be worshiped, its most common misconception.

Satanism was originally founded by Anton Szandor LaVey in 1966 as a means to meet impressionable stoned out rock stars. And if the odd midnight orgy should ever occur in some graveyard somewhere - all the better. LaVay created "a religion and a philosophy based on man as he really is: a carnal being free from the fiction that is spirituality and one who champions total responsibility, pragmatism, and the here-and-now."

Whoah, there, sailor! You had me at "carnal".

Lets just get to brass tacks here - does that mean I'm going to get laid? Because I can sure get with down with some of that Funky cold Medina.

Satanism is further described as being a de facto personality type as, in the words of Anton LaVey, "Satanists are born, not made." To try is to lie. It takes a certain set of predispositions to accurately label oneself a Satanist***, to naturally feel at home with all that Satanism entails. Satanism, as a philosophy, can be potentially taken and learned from by a large percentage of the population, but this does not make one a Satanist, but, perchance, Satanic.

Okay, somebody pass the purple koolaid because I'm not following anymore. Do you worship Satan or not? Are you a Satanist or just merely Satanic? Make up your fucking minds already! By the time I figure all this shit out the High Priest of the Church of Satan himself, Peter H. Gilmore****, will have converted to Taoism.

In Satanism, Satan is just an archetype, a representation of certain qualities that the Satanist embodies including rational self-interest, avoidance of oppressive mentalities, the questioning of all, and a perseverance towards success and human potential. The Satanic Bible encapsulates this iconography in The Nine Satanic Statements, including thus:

I - Satan represents indulgence, instead of abstinence!

VIII - Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification!

How awesome does that sound?! You mean I get to eat, drink, fuck, steal, snort, smoke, screw, and the kick the ass of anything that should happen to cross my path?

Fuckin-A! Sign me up.

Any religious manifesto that ends all of it's Sacred Commandments with exclamation marks is cool in my books.

* It was a good day of creative possession at the office of Satanism Inc. that day!

** I couldn't worship a pink elephant. How would I ever finish my prayers without cracking up?

*** Not to mention cahones the size of grapefruits.

**** No, not the guy from Pink Floyd, dipshit.