Anyone else read this book by Anton LaVey. I'm curious to see peoples thoughts. If you did read it, did you ever perform a Rite?
read it in high school... I think Regan was still in office...shudder... and some essays he wrote. Smart guy with wasted ideals. Never performed a rite . I am NO flavor of Christian.
My best friend and I bought copies at the mall when we were in junior high. We thought we were bad-asses. People thought that if you burned them the flames would be purple. I thought it was cool stuff back then. We even did a presentation on Satanism for a class. There was an uproar when we were discussing the ceremonies and one of the kids in our group said something about sprinkling water with the holy phallus. He didn't even know what a phallus was. I broke out laughing because I didn't know he'd read that part. The teacher simply said, "That's enough. Move on with your presentation." This has been said a million times before but Lavey got it all from Aleister Crowley, Friedrich Nietzsche, and a goof named Ragnar Redbeard. Check those guys out if you like what Lavey has to say, especially Crowley.
I think that the best way to describe the Satanic Bible is that it is "cute". That's about it, there is some fun stuff in it though. For example the description of the idea Satanist house is rather amusing. The rites are quite silly, and there really is very little of substance to the whole thing. Chiefly it is "enlightened self interest is good" " Christians are hypocrites"
I think it is a great book, and it has some pretty good ethics. My only problem is that is has no regard for other humans at all. It basically says "Do what you want, fuck everyone else." I think that's a bit much. But, besides that, it's good. I actually performed one of the rites once. I got the rite off of the Church of Satan website though. It was a self-dedication. Since then, I have changed my views, but I still keep some of thoes in mind. You know, -GOD- needs to understand that that book has nothing to do with God or with Satan in general. They don't believe either exists. They believe that we should be as Satan would be if he was real. Doing what you please, when you please. Yeah, ok, my two cents.
Professer Jumbo: I dont think I understan how you find it to be cute. It isn't about pointing out Christian hypocrisy. The idea is to break down common mainstream belief and try to show that these "absolute truths" aren't as absolute as we may believe. Robot: Try actually looking into a religion before slamming it Nathan: I think its not as much as "Fuck everyone else" as it is placing yourself first. I agree with you where people see satanism and instantly believe its the worship of the christian devil. Ignorance I say...
Well quite alot of it is dedicated almost entirely to pointing out Christian hypocricy which everybody knows exists in large quantities anyway. The sections dealing with the lack of moral absoluts are essentially usupported, they are cute. The strongest argument made is, more or less, based on the fact that Christian moral codes are wholly inadequate as a counter balance to human failings. While this is essentially correct it in no way disproves the claim that there are moral absolutes. All that it does is prove that people do not obey said moral absolutes, which has never been something that anybody questioned anyhow. The rest of it as far as that argument goes can be sumed up as followes "neeee-neeer-neeee-neeer, you caaaan't prove it! Jesus is still de-ed blah-blabla-bla-blah-blah"
I had to recently purchase another one, my old copy was so worn out. It was...interesting I guess. LaVey was just an awesome person. Greatly intelligent. I performed one a LONG time ago...I believed it would work for about 2 seconds, then realized I was probably going to make an ass of myself, so I gave it up.
In my early teen years I read it. Like most rebellious people that age, I was into witchcraft and black magic. I did perform a few spells...one worked so well it scared the crap out of me and I never touched that stuff again.
