Word: satanizing
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...SATANISM. "Blessed are the strong, for they shall possess the earth. If a man smite you on one cheek, SMASH him on the other!" This inverted gospel ?from Anton Szandor La Vey's The Satanic Bible?sets the tone for today's leading brand of Satanism, the San Francisco-based Church of Satan. Founded in 1966 by La Vey, a former circus animal trainer, the Church of Satan offers a mirror image of most of the beliefs and ethics of traditional Christianity...
...church and its branches might well be called the "unitarian" wing of the occult. The members invest themselves with some of the most flamboyant trappings of occultism, but magic for them is mostly psychodrama ?or plain old carnival hokum. They invoke Satan not as a supernatural being, but as a symbol of man's self-gratifying ego, which is what they really worship. They look down on those who actually believe in the supernatural, evil or otherwise...
...church is organized, incorporated and protected under the laws of California. La Vey, 42, stopped giving out membership figures when his followers, who are grouped in local "grottoes," reached a total of 10,000. The most striking thing about the members of the Church of Satan (one of whom is shown on TIME'S cover) is that instead of being exotic, they are almost banal in their normality. Their most insidious contribution to evil is their resolute commitment to man's animal nature, stripped of any spiritual dimension or thought of self-sacrifice. There is no reach...
Besides La Vey's well-publicized group, there are some quasi-Satanists in the public eye. The Process Church of the Final Judgment (TIME, Sept. 6) includes Satan in its Godhead along with Christ, Jehovah and Lucifer (who is seen as a separate divinity), though it has been playing down Satan lately and emphasizing Christ. But the darker, more malevolent Satanists give only rare and tantalizing hints of their existence, and none at all of their numbers ?probably for good reason. Sociologist Marcello Truzzi of Florida's New College at Sarasota observes that one variety of this underground Satanism...
...breed. In New York this spring, police were searching for possible Devil worshipers in a grave-robbery incident. In Miami last summer, a 22-year-old woman Satanist killed a 62-year-old friend, stabbing him 46 times. Convicted of manslaughter, she drew a seven-year sentence, thanked Satan for her light penalty, and said that she had "enjoyed" the killing. In April she escaped from prison, and has not been recaptured...