Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself
A lawsuit settles America’s great urban myth-but not the state of Satan in the modern world
The Hamilton Spectator 31 March 2007
By Cole Moreton
(excerpt)
You might expect Peter H. Gilmore to believe in the Devil. He is, after all, high priest of the Church of Satan. But in an e-mail from its headquarters in Hell’s Kitchen (Satanists have a flair for the theatrical), New York, he writes: “Satanists are atheists and believe in neither God nor the Devil. Nor do we believe in heaven or hell. Satan serves as a symbol of pride, liberty and individualism.”
The idea, apparently, is to emulate rather than worship him while tapping the “reservoir of power” that is the dark force inside us all. Members of the church founded by the so-called Black Pope, Anton LaVey, are said to have included the singer Marilyn Manson and, in the early days, the Hollywood bombshell Jayne Mansfield.
Another is leading hand Chris Cranmer, who registered his beliefs while on board HMS Cumberland two years ago. He told his captain he adhered to the church’s creed, which says Satan represents indulgence, vengeance and “all the so-called sins, as they lead to physical, mental or emotional gratification.”
The Devil really is in the detail then: The Satanic Bible on a sailor’s bunk; the scars on the face of a young firl that Eunice Spry rubbed with sandpaper; the crimson card in the wallet of a locksmith from Staffordshire. Mark Bickley looks a bit of an old-school punk-goth, but the U.K. spokesperson for the Church of Satan lives “a normal life, in a normal house, with a car and a girlfriend.” Being polite to your neighbors is a way of getting what you want, according to a church text, which must help if you’re trying to live a quietly prosperous Satanic life in Uttoxeter (although other writings suggest members lie to confuse people as much as possible, and destroy any neighbor who gets in their way).
It seems ironic to hear a Satanist dismiss the 20 million Britons who believe in Lucifer as deluded, but Bickley rejects their “superstition.: And having been brought up in a Pentecostal home, he thinks he knows exactly who is to blame. “The church has done the damage. As Nietzsche said: ‘In its quest to find the world evil, Christianity has rendered the world evil.’”
