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I've been wondering about the origins of Satanism as an organised religion. I've heard that it was originally created by the Catholic Church as a means to polarize the general population (us-against-them mentality), and it has only recently started "coming into the open".

I was just wondering if there is any credence to the assertion.

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I vote to close. It's too vague - what is exactly meant by Satanism? – Felix Goldberg Dec 19 '12 at 17:48
Too vague, relies on hearsay, not likely to result in useful answers. – Mark C. Wallace Dec 19 '12 at 17:50

1 Answer

up vote 11 down vote accepted

It's hard to answer since you didn't clearly define either Satanism or "organized religion".

Under the most common understanding, Satanism didn't become an organized "religion" till The Church of Satan was established as an organization according to The Satanic Bible, written in 1969 by Anton Szandor LaVey. There seems to be no basis to attribute this to the Catholic Church.

It was preceded by a number of cults that were Satanist, but that were not major enough to be labeled as an "organized religion" - e.g. "Ophite Cultus Satanas" in 1940s.

There were Satanic cults/worshipers earlier in history, but again, none really fit the "organized religion" qualification.


However, what may have influenced the rumor that you heard, were two facts:

  1. Catholic Church DID accuse certain groups/people of being "Satanist", despite the fact that they were not, in fact, Satanist in their nature (e.g. worshiping a rebellious theistic figure related to Judeo-Christian religious beliefs). This is due to the fact that a monotheistic religion would understandably relegate any other-deity worship to be worshipping the opposite of that religion's god, which in the case of Christians was Satan).

  2. Catholic Church would take individual people who did things that may be considered Satanism (e.g. serve Black Mass etc...) and them lump in with a bunch of other people who had nothing to do with Satanism - sometimes for political reasons, sometimes related to the previous bullet point of just calling all non-Christians "Satanist" by their definition.

    • For example, pretty much any pagans were designated as "Satanist" by Christianity, despite the fact that they didn't fit the above definition by any stretch of the imagination. It was basically an alternate definition made up by the Church of "if you worship any deity aside from the God of the Christian Bible, you are automatically considered to be worshiping Satan".

    • Same goes for witches - while they were universally accused by the Church of things like worshipping Satan and Black Masses, it's very doubtful that most were.

    • Early Gnostic sects could also be called Satanist without actually worshiping Satan - many of them would probably fit the paganism catch-all listed above. A good example would be Borborites.

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+1 Any relation between Anton Szandor LaVey and, say, Ayn Rand? :) – Drux Feb 19 at 18:24
@Drux - being that Ayn Rand was deeply, profoundly, militantly anti-religios, I would be very surprised if there were any positive relations between her and any founder of an organized religion, Satanism or not. Wikipedia claims that "Ayn Rand influenced LaVey" but this isn't exactly well referenced - color me extra skeptical. – DVK Feb 19 at 18:30
@Drux - Also, given the amount of people who think that Rand meant something totally different from what she wrote (e.g. all the liberal idiots claiming that Atlas Shrugged condemned charity), I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if LaVey found something in Rand/Objectivism that isn't really there as well. Without precise quote to explain the proposed influence, one can only speculate. – DVK Feb 19 at 18:40
I must confess that I haven't read Rand (only about her; nor have I read the Satanic Bible), e.g. hence the original smiley :) I also wasn't aware of Rand's alleged influence on LaVey so far. Thx for that reference. – Drux Feb 19 at 18:45
@Drux - OK, then where did your original question originate from? I assumed it was from Wiki :) – DVK Feb 19 at 18:49
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