This post began as a contribution to a discussion on "satanism," on the WWWP Lives channel, but was sent to pending. I put a lot of thought into it, so I wanted to make sure it doesn't get silenced.
I'm incredibly familiar with Anton LaVey's writings, and like any thinker's writings, there is a lot of wisdom, a lot of bullshit, and a lot of evil--although what deserves to be called "evil" about it is ironically almost never objected to by christians. It's the same story with every thinker, because they all have ideas they're processing, which change over time, and their writings are a snapshot of what they thought at that particular point in their development.
If one is to judge "satanists," it's pretty important to be clear about what is meant by the person using the word--and confusion is rampant because there are so many different perspectives on what it means, most especially by those calling themselves or others "Satanists."
What I mean by the word "satanist" is someone who objectively studies the phenomenon of satan as it exists in every culture.
There is no culture which does not have an ideology of a great "Other," be it an actual being, a group of people, or a religious personification, or whatever else. Pseudospeciation is as human as thumbs. All cultures have it, and it's important to understand the phenomenon as it exists in every culture. To ignore it or to see it as off limits, is to deny oneself understanding of the culture, and how people behave within it, because it's a powerful force in shaping behavior. For this reason, I find it astonishing that christian institutions seem to be the least interested in studying the topic, beyond the basic "Satan is evil" doctrine. I'm not arguing the truth or falsehood of that doctrine, I'm just saying it's as limited as saying "I don't like stuff that sucks." There's a lot more to understand beyond that basic point, so that shouldn't be the end of the thought process, most especially for an institution so obsessed with mastering morality. If you're going to be moral, you have to understand morality, and you're not going to understand it if you don't understand pseudospeciation.
As far as the institutions claiming to be "satanists," most of them fall short of the most important core value they claim to have, which is to remain the prideful outcast who refuses to join a group, rejects Groupthink, and is faithful in accusing institutions and thier leaders despite the social consequences of exclusion. There's no point in claiming to be a satanist, while rejecting its most fundamental quality just to be part of a group. That's not being a "satanist," that's the opposite of being a "satanist."
To my mind, these are the worthy virtues and common denominators that are constitutional to any positive idea of being a "satanist," and by this definition, Jesus was the ultimate satanist--there can be no question about that. He was the world heavyweight champion of defying institutions and kicking the shit out of clergy for being evil--that's why he got crucified in the first place, for flogging the shit out of priests in their own temples and kicking over their money tables--and that started a major world religion. Anyone disagreeing with this, isn't doing so based on an objective perspective of the behavior, but to protect and conform to religious dogma, which of course is programmed by the same clergy that crucified Jesus in the first place, then co-opted his popularity and spun the story to their benefit. If you really respect Jesus, you really need to question your loyalty to clergy. Most don't. Jesus hated clergy, and every last word he spoke and every experience described in the entire bible supports that statement.
The satanist, as I've defined the term, will also understand that being an American means being a satanist. Our country was founded by rebellion against the most powerful ruler in the world at the time, and our rebellion took the form of a cascading array of waves of felonies, followed by the Declaration of Independence. We judged the God of England and we won, then we outlawed nobility entirely in our country, and shaped our government, long term, to be "a nation of laws and not of men." That's a fancy way of rejecting the Cult of Personalities that constitute religion. To be an American is to be a Satanist.
Of course, most people have very undeveloped ideas about this because they've never studied the phenomenon of satan or satanism, and so they either oppose any instance of the terminology, and anyone who uses the terminology, or they think they're being a genius rebel in subscribing to one of the institutions who claim to be Satanists.
Once again, the core value described above conflicts with joining an institution and embracing Groupthink. If they were actually satanists, they'd never claim to be, and they'd never join an institution. A church of satan is a contradiction in terms. There can be no church of satan because the most salient feature of the phenomenon is defiance of institutions.
Because of this conflict of mutually exclusive principles, the people one will meet in any group of "satanists" are going to be a bunch of people who got it all wrong. I've talked to a lot of these people, and there's a lot to like about them on the surface, but it's also a haven for really fucked up people who are concealing fucked up behaviors you don't want anything to do with--just like any church of any religion. This is not unique to "satanist" institutions, but it's true of them as well.
The bottom line is that people are people wherever you go. In any large population, you will see the full range of human behavior, no matter what the organizing principle is, and the things they write and organize over are going to all contain the full range of moral features--some will be great, some will be horrifying, some will be clever, some thoughtless, some will be safe, others dangerous, with a lot that deserves to be called "good" or "evil."
Humanity is cursed with the false notion that there exists some group where this isn't true, and if we can only find the right group to be a part of, we can be forever safe from all harm.This is a Big Lie. If we do not take precautions, we will come to harm anywhere.
It's not your enemies, but those you are most loyal to who are positioned to do you the most harm. Jesus understood this, which is why he kicked the clergy's ass.