The Satanic Scriptures

The Satanic Scriptures is a collection of essays by Peter H. Gilmore, published in 2007 by Scapegoat Publishing. Gilmore is the High Priest of the Church of Satan, the organisation founded in San Francisco by Anton Szandor LaVey in 1966. The book is one of the principal modern statements of LaVeyan Satanism after LaVey’s death in 1997, clarifying the movement’s atheistic, individualist, and anti-supernatural orientation for a twenty-first-century audience.

Despite its title, The Satanic Scriptures is not scripture in the conventional religious sense. It does not present revelation from a divine being, prescribe a universal moral law, or establish a sacred historical narrative. Instead, it gathers polemical essays, philosophical reflections, policy arguments, interviews, and statements of position. Its purpose is both explanatory and defensive: to articulate what the Church of Satan understands Satanism to be, and to distinguish it from the many beliefs, groups, and stereotypes that use Satanic imagery in very different ways.

The collection should be read as a key document in the development of contemporary Satanism, especially for understanding how the Church of Satan sought to preserve and refine its identity after its founder’s death.

A Book of Essays Rather Than a Revealed Text

The word “scriptures” carries deliberate irony. In most religious traditions, scripture is believed to contain divine revelation or to possess unique spiritual authority. Gilmore employs the term with a recognisably Satanic sense of inversion: the book presents human arguments, preferences, and observations without claiming supernatural origin.

This approach follows a central LaVeyan principle. The Church of Satan does not worship a literal Satan. In its official understanding, Satan is a symbol of pride, independence, carnality, scepticism, and resistance to arbitrary authority. The figure is drawn from a broad cultural history—Biblical adversary, Romantic rebel, literary outsider, and emblem of forbidden knowledge—but is not treated as an external god, devil, or spiritual master.

Accordingly, Gilmore’s “scriptures” are secular writings. Their authority rests not on divine command but on the reader’s willingness to find their reasoning persuasive or their values compelling. This distinction is essential. Outside observers often assume that Satanism necessarily involves devil worship, ritual sacrifice, or occult allegiance. The Satanic Scriptures repeatedly rejects such assumptions and situates the Church of Satan within an atheistic worldview.

The book also reflects the genre of the manifesto. Its essays are intentionally assertive, often provocative, and sometimes combative. They are not neutral descriptions of society. Gilmore writes as a committed representative of an organisation that sees itself as misunderstood by the media, opposed by religious conservatives, and imitated by groups it considers philosophically incompatible with Satanism.

Peter H. Gilmore and the Church of Satan

Peter H. Gilmore became High Priest of the Church of Satan in 2001, succeeding Anton LaVey. His appointment was significant because it answered a question facing many founder-led movements: whether the organisation would retain coherence after the death of its originator.

LaVey’s 1969 book The Satanic Bible had established the movement’s best-known principles. It combined atheism, theatrical ritual, social Darwinist language, individualism, libertarian impulses, and a celebration of earthly pleasure. LaVey’s style was concise, theatrical, and deliberately shocking. His writings drew on sources ranging from Ayn Rand and H. L. Mencken to occult literature, popular culture, and nineteenth-century social thought.

Gilmore inherited this legacy but wrote in a different historical setting. By the early twenty-first century, Satanism had become more visible through the internet, popular media, political disputes over religion in public life, and the growth of diverse Satanic communities. Some identified with LaVey’s Church of Satan; others were theistic Satanists, Luciferian groups, esoteric orders, or political activist organisations. Gilmore’s book can therefore be understood as an effort to define boundaries.

For Gilmore, Satanism is not a broad umbrella under which every Satan-referencing group belongs. It is a specific philosophy founded by Anton LaVey on 30 April 1966. This claim is one of the book’s recurring themes. The Church of Satan regards itself not merely as one Satanic organisation among many, but as the originating institution of an identifiable modern religion.

The Meaning of Satan in LaVeyan Thought

A central task of The Satanic Scriptures is explaining the symbolic meaning of Satan. Gilmore presents Satan as a metaphor for the qualities that conventional religious morality has often condemned: self-interest, sensuality, ambition, scepticism, vengeance, and refusal to submit.

This does not mean that LaVeyan Satanism advocates indiscriminate cruelty or lawlessness. On the contrary, Gilmore frequently stresses reciprocity, personal responsibility, and practical consequences. The often-quoted Satanic ethic is not “harm anyone at will,” but a conditional response: kindness should be offered to those who deserve it, while mistreatment need not be passively accepted. The movement’s rhetoric of “vengeance” is therefore best understood as an opposition to compulsory forgiveness and self-sacrifice, rather than as a general instruction to commit violence.

The symbolic Satan also expresses a naturalistic view of humanity. Human beings are animals, in this framework, and attempts to deny bodily needs, personal desires, competition, or emotional complexity are regarded as dishonest. Gilmore argues that moral systems which glorify suffering, humility, or universal self-denial often conceal resentment and a desire to control others.

This position places LaVeyan Satanism in tension with religious traditions that value altruism, repentance, submission to God, or concern for life beyond death. Gilmore does not seek reconciliation with those traditions. His essays are openly adversarial toward Christianity and, more broadly, toward ideologies he sees as hostile to individuality.

Individualism, Merit, and Personal Responsibility

Individualism is among the strongest threads in the collection. Gilmore advocates a model of life in which people identify their own abilities, pursue their own goals, and take responsibility for the outcomes of their choices. He rejects the idea that everyone must be treated as morally identical regardless of conduct, achievement, or character.

In this respect, The Satanic Scriptures favours meritocracy: recognition and reward should correspond, as far as possible, to competence and accomplishment. Gilmore’s essays often criticise what he calls “equalitarianism,” especially when equality is understood as a demand that distinctions in talent, effort, intelligence, or contribution be ignored.

This argument has attracted both interest and criticism. Supporters may find in it a defence of excellence, self-discipline, and resistance to conformity. Critics may note that merit is difficult to measure fairly, that social conditions shape opportunity, and that strong rhetoric about hierarchy can overlook structural inequality, disability, inherited advantage, or the value of care and cooperation.

A careful reading should recognise both the force and the limits of Gilmore’s position. He is not chiefly constructing a programme for social welfare or democratic consensus. He is advancing an ethic of self-directed people who seek excellence without apologising for difference. The concern is not equality of outcome, but personal flourishing according to one’s own standards.

The book’s ideal Satanist is neither a victim nor a saint. This person is expected to cultivate competence, discernment, emotional control, and strategic self-interest. Dependency, credulity, and performative rebellion are treated with particular contempt.

Religion, Superstition, and the Supernatural

Gilmore’s Satanism is emphatically materialist. It rejects belief in gods, devils, immortal souls, cosmic justice, and life after death. The universe, in this account, is indifferent to human wishes. Meaning is not discovered as part of a divine plan; it is made through experience, achievement, relationships, creative work, and personal values.

This materialism informs the book’s critique of supernatural religion. Gilmore argues that belief in invisible authorities can encourage people to surrender judgment, tolerate injustice, and seek consolation rather than action. He is especially critical of Christianity’s emphasis on sin, guilt, humility, and salvation through submission.

Yet the Church of Satan does not define ritual as meaningless. LaVeyan ritual is generally understood as psychodrama: a structured, theatrical means of concentrating emotion and expressing desire. Rituals may include symbolic objects, formal language, music, and dramatic settings, but they are not thought to summon literal demons or alter the physical world through supernatural force.

Gilmore defends ritual as a psychological tool. Human beings are not purely rational creatures, and emotional release can have value when it is consciously framed and controlled. A ritual of compassion, destruction, or sexual celebration may function as an intentional act of catharsis or affirmation. Its efficacy, in this view, is subjective rather than magical in the paranormal sense.

This is a useful point of distinction between LaVeyan Satanism and theistic Satanism. Theistic Satanists may regard Satan, Lucifer, or related figures as real spiritual beings. LaVeyan Satanists, as represented by Gilmore, do not. Shared imagery does not imply shared theology.

Politics and the Defence of Secular Space

Several essays in The Satanic Scriptures address political and cultural questions, particularly the role of religion in public institutions. Gilmore strongly supports the separation of church and state, not as a compromise between religious groups but as a protection against religious coercion.

He objects to government endorsement of prayer, religious symbols, religious teaching, or theological morality when these are imposed through public authority. In the American context, this includes opposition to efforts to weaken secular education, restrict reproductive autonomy on religious grounds, or treat Christianity as the nation’s default identity.

The position is not equivalent to simple anti-religious censorship. Gilmore’s concern is not that people should be forbidden to hold or express religious beliefs. Rather, he argues that no faith should receive institutional privilege at the expense of those who do not share it.

His political thought is less easily placed on a conventional left-right spectrum. The book contains strong support for individual liberty and resistance to religious conservatism, but it also expresses scepticism toward egalitarian social policies and collective political ideals. It is best described as radically individualist rather than conventionally partisan.

Readers may disagree with its conclusions while still recognising a consistent underlying principle: the state should not compel reverence, obedience, or sacrifice for a religious or ideological collective.

Satanism, Identity, and Misrepresentation

One of the book’s most practical functions is corrective. Gilmore addresses recurrent misunderstandings surrounding Satanism, including claims that Satanists worship evil, engage in criminal activity, abuse animals, or recruit vulnerable people into occult cults.

Such claims have historical context. During the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s and early 1990s, sensational allegations of organised ritual abuse circulated widely in North America and elsewhere. Subsequent investigations found no evidence for the vast conspiratorial networks alleged in many cases, yet the panic left a durable cultural impression. Satanic imagery remained associated with hidden criminality even when the claims themselves had been discredited.

Gilmore argues that this confusion is sustained partly by the tendency to treat Satanism as a catch-all label. A criminal may use occult imagery; a metal band may use demonic language; a teenager may wear an inverted cross; a spiritual group may invoke Lucifer. None of these facts, on their own, establishes a connection to the Church of Satan or to LaVeyan philosophy.

The distinction matters because a knowledge-based account of Satanism should avoid both sensationalism and simplification. The Church of Satan is controversial, and its values invite serious ethical debate. But criticism should address its actual teachings rather than imagined rites or recycled panic narratives.

Style, Controversy, and Legacy

Gilmore writes with confidence, sarcasm, and a preference for sharp distinctions. The style is part of the book’s purpose. LaVeyan Satanism has always used provocation as a way of challenging piety, hypocrisy, and social conformity. Readers expecting conciliatory interfaith language will not find it here.

At the same time, the confrontational voice can obscure internal complexity. Not every person interested in Satanic symbolism shares Gilmore’s political positions, class assumptions, or understanding of individualism. Nor does every contemporary Satanic organisation accept the Church of Satan’s claim to exclusive definitional authority.

The book is therefore best approached as an authoritative source for the Church of Satan’s own position, not as a complete account of all Satanisms. It explains how one influential institution understands its history and philosophy. It does not settle every scholarly, theological, or cultural question raised by the wider Satanic milieu.

Its lasting importance lies in this act of definition. The Satanic Scriptures preserves the LaVeyan tradition’s atheistic core while adapting its language to modern disputes about religion, politics, identity, and public misunderstanding. It insists that Satanism, as Gilmore understands it, is neither a reversal of Christianity nor a cult of supernatural evil. It is a deliberately human-centred philosophy that uses Satan as the name for unapologetic self-possession.