As an author, I get to research interesting things. For my book Minion of Evil, I needed to learn more about Satanists. And I did a little research on the Church of Satan and its founder Anton LaVey.

To start out, LaVey himself is an interesting character. According  to autobiographical information. He was a circus performer and  roustabout, a police psychic, an organ player in a burlesque house, and briefly dated Marilyn Monroe before she became famous. And this was all before he started the Church of Satan. However, much of this information is non-verifiable, and much of his story have been questioned by biographers.

When most people hear “Church of Satan,” their immediate reaction is, “I don’t want anything to do with that.” They don’t bother to dig any deeper. In part, I believe LaVey wanted it this way.

The first thing you need to understand is that LaVey’s Church of Satan doesn’t believe in the man in the red tights with the pitchfork. In fact, they don’t necessarily believe in any sort of higher (or lower) power. The Church of Satan is more an organization promoting a specific code of behavior than a religion. 

My real feeling is that anybody who believes in supernatural entities on some level is insane. Whether they believe in The Devil or God, they are abdicating reason.
–Peter Gilmore, former High Priest of the Church of Satan

It might seem ironic to some and yet appropriate to others, but Anton LaVey denounced devil worshipers or theistic Satanists for praying to the devil, saying, “Satan to us is a symbol rather than an anthropomorphic being… In answer to those who would label us devil worshipers or be very quick to call us Satan worshipers, I must say that Satan demands study, not worship… We do not pray. We do not get down on our knees. We do not genuflect.”

So, in the end, the Church of Satan, was a no-go as far as researching devil worshipers for  Minion of Evil. I did learn so very interesting things, though.

There are supposedly real devil worshipers or Theistic Satanists out there. However, I never found a lot of good information about them. Unlike the Church of Satan, they don’t advertise themselves on the internet.

Note:

If you are a member of the Church of Satan and believe that I’ve gotten any details wrong, feel free to correct me in the comments. I’m just writing my impressions based on some simple research. I don’t claim to be a perfect expert.