I am indeed a Satanist- I believe the philosophy behind the movement to be essentially sound- to indulge and to neither bother anyone nor allow yourself to be bothered.
That being said there are some wild differences of opinion which I hold, especially with members of the actual Church of Satan, which at this point might as well just be a house-of-cards scam organization designed simply to make money, without giving anything back to the community of Satanists who joined it.
Anton LaVey: Scam Artist
For Starters, the book that LaVey made his money off of, and built his entire church around, was never original to begin with- it's a somewhat altered (but still semi-plagiaristic) version of the early 1900s tract "Might is Right" by Ragnar Redbeard. I have read both works- in many cases the Satanic Bible essentially copies entire paragraphs which Anton likely found enthralling enough to include. Most Laveyyan Satanists don't even know that the Satanic Bible they likely bought off Amazon for 50 dollars is available in a free pdf format in its original form, because the original tract is old enough not to be copyrighted.
Peter Gilmore: Chucklehead in chief
Arguably even worse is "high" priest Gilmore who currently runs the Church of Satan like a crack addict might run a meth lab (that is to say, badly.) Continuing LaVey's traditon of misleading young folks who join the organization in an attempt to find some deep meaning within the church, but then end up paying 200 dollars for a little red paper card, only to find the organization offers very little beyond the card that lets you shock your christian friends when you show it to them. You could print this same card out for 30 cents at your library and it'd be the same thing.
Boyd Rice
I'll give Boyd Rice a slight pass- after all unlike LaVey or Gilmore he's at least original enough to develop new ways to shock and displease the fundamentalist christians who irk all reasonable people- and I will admit a lot of his music is quite good- Boyd gets additional brownie points for pointing out a few years ago that people should just do what they want and not necessarily pay the big bucks to join the CoS (something which must have displeased the ever slimy Gilmore.) That being said, he's still an arrogant SOB.
Public Relations gone wrong: Peggy Nadramia
Perhaps the worst of all is the person the Church of Satan decided to put at the helm of answering emails and other correspondence- Peggy Nadramia- whose attitude towards innocent questions and queries online (and I have tried contacting the CoS several times for perfectly legitimate reasons) leaves much to be desired. People asking questions on their website will be greeted with the same palpable friendliness that's usually reserved for loan sharks who take their client to the back alley while holding a baseball bat.
As a result of the mess that is the modern CoS, I have essentially begun to regard them as a mosquito incessantly buzzing around my ear as well as the ears of others who are trying to remake Satanism as something more than a silly little scam to grab the money of teenagers and college students: Ask yourself this; if the primary goal of Satanism is to liberate oneself and use your rational mind, why would you allow yourself to be suckered into spending 200 dollars to join their little club, which offers you absolutely nothing, when you can just as easily become an independent Satanist for free- AND you won't have this gang of idiots rambling to you every time you ask a question. Some of us think Satanism can be something more than a way for a few idiots to make enough money to sit around drinking beer all day. You DO realize these folks probably laugh at every person who buys membership?
