One thing is certain – it is not at all about doom and gloom. Above all, Satanism is fun!

Can’t you picture a vicar in jeans exhorting the youth club? But it’s in today’s New Statesman in an article with the title A brief musing on the nature of Satanic ritual

Visitors to The Church Of Satan website are often bewildered when confronted by an image of Anton LaVey fronting a group of black-robed Satanic ritual participants, their faces concealed by the donning of animal masks. When juxtaposed with the pragmatic philosophy that Satanism is purported to be founded on, the question that the curious are prompted to ask is: “well, if you don’t believe in the Devil, why all the demonic imagery?”

Well, it’s all just psychodrama and “therapy” apparently, according to the writer, but, to be honest, I don’t think that really answers the question….

The image in the aforementioned example depicts a ritual outlined in The Satanic Rituals known as Das Tierdrama. The rite was originally performed by The Order Of The Illuminati founded in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, and the purpose of the ritual is for its participants to willingly assume the animalistic attributes of purity, honesty and increased sensory perception.

Isn’t that as much bovine excrement as any religious appeal to authority? Secret teachings from the Illuminati, hmm? Hmm.

The Church of Satan website is ugly (purple text on black, argh, it hurts, it hurts) and so apparently self-parodying that it must be a joke.

Can we even trust these people to get their demonic backwards messages on rock albums right? No wonder it’s impossible to find the things, nowadays.