Welcome to the Year 35! As we stand at the grand gate of this new millennium, Satanists around the world smile slyly. We know what the future must bring. God is dead; he was declared dead the year Anton LaVey started the Church of Satan. People have been struggling to come to grips with that reality for the last 30 years or more. Of course, there was the 18th century Enlightenment, but people did their best to avoid the scorch of reason, even then. Truth persists. There is no God to frighten people into submission. How many people, when you’ve told them that you’re a Satanist, get this odd look dawning on their faces and say, “Well, gee—if I didn’t believe in God, I could do anything I wanted to! That would be terrible! What would stop people from lying and raping and stealing?” Maybe they would. But Satanists have better perspective, longer-range goals. We know that, if we choose to live in a civilized society, we curb certain impulses, cooperate when we’d rather not, and follow certain necessary rules for the good of all concerned. We expect others to do likewise and we expect swift justice when they don’t. That’s ethics, not morality. Only now, at the turn of this new millennium, are upstanding, well-programmed citizens finally realizing morality is bankrupt; it has no teeth without threats from a supernatural hitman in the sky.

We must rely on ethics to guide us instead of spiritual pipe-dreams. There will be holdouts; the most rabid and irrational will be the last to fall. But fall they will—for the common good. The glare of enlightenment will be extremely uncomfortable to some, but there’s no turning back now. Some will want to blind themselves again, like the early Christian martyrs, but it won’t make the truth go away. Turning back toward Christianity for “moral imperative” and family values won’t fix the problems.

What is truly dangerous, what allows people to murder innocents, what some people have labeled “evil” is actually an extreme self-righteousness. Not self-interest or self-gratification, as Satanism advocates. Those who give themselves permission to hurt others have to be able to feel they’re justified, anointed in their feelings of “I deserve this,” “I’ve been deprived,” or “I’ve been hurt.” A deep lack of empathy, a short-sightedness and an intense self-righteousness—that’s where those empty eyes come from. Our society cannot afford avenues for that kind of mass self-delusion anymore.

It’s against the very basics of Satanism to allow yourself to feel that kind of self-righteous indignation, neither does our philosophy support the kind of victim mentality that has caused so much conflict in recent years, wasting valuable time and energy. As prideful Satanic individualists, we are responsible for our own successes and failures; we have no stifling dogma to defend; we challenge and try to arrive at the unsullied truth; and we see enough humor in ourselves to keep us from becoming too grave and pompous.

We can only move forward, and Satanists must be the vanguard toward indulgent reason. We have the answers, and we’ll use our knowledge to clear away the encroaching underbrush and blaze new trails beyond God-enforced “morality.” We have no illusions about human foibles and fetishes. We know all the dirty little lies, and delight in the contrasts and complexity in the human soul. Unlike atheists, we aren’t afraid of the power evoked by emotions and metaphors. Unlike humanists, we don’t believe we will ever have a nation of philosophers. Satanism is something beyond all that has come before. Humans must be inspired by their own potential greatness, and those who are short-sighted and cancerous must be dealt with mercilessly. We are our own Gods, and we’ll have to decide to face up to the responsibilities of that role in the next millennium.

People don’t join the Church of Satan for fellowship or to be part of some “Satanic community.” They don’t join because they’re big fans of Anton LaVey, or they think I’m a swell chick. They join because they have a secret which sets them apart from all around them. They’re oversexed. That may sound too Reichian or Freudian for some, but it’s the truth. They share a lust for life, an impulse toward outrage, an admiration of frank exhibitionism, an ache to create. Whatever outlet they have for their passion, it all reduces to that one fact. I know; I’ve met plenty of them and they all have that nasty gleam in their eye. They are compelled to live fully and boldly, and Satanism encourages them without judgment. They join because, for the first time in their lives, they’ve found a philosophy that stimulates, inspires and strengthens them. They can be outrageous and intellectual at the same time, responsible and free, indulgent without losing themselves to their compulsions. And they send in their registration fee because they depend on representatives of the Church of Satan to keep writing, keep recording, keep doing films and lectures and interviews. They want us to make sure Satanic ideas are available to those few who can appreciate them and apply them successfully in their lives. And I promise you that’s exactly what we’ll do, in the coming year and for the next thousand years.

Wear your Baphomet with pride tonight, wherever you are. Know that you are connected to an international band of heretics and rebels who will continue to blast away ignorance, complacency and prudishness wherever we find it. Raise some eyebrows and turn some heads. Indulge yourselves in Dionysian revelry. Raise your glass to the Infernal Hosts who were, who are and who will be greedily whispering in our ears throughout eternity. Thank you, my friends and Comrades, for leading the Church of Satan into a bright new millennium. This is Satan’s age—and let reason and lust rule the Earth!

Shemhamforash!

Hail Satan!

Magistra Blanche Barton

SUPPORT THE 
CHURCH OF SATAN!

There are many ways you can support the Church of Satan. Visit our support page to learn how.