Hollister’s Reviews > Modern Satanism: Anatomy of a Radical Subculture > Status Update

The lack of editing is a real shame, because this book is really compelling.

Another editing error: a period missing between two sentences. This chapter is good, about the investigations of the satanic panic of the 80s and 90s.

I appreciate that someone is able to tell the difference between the tenets of satanism and Ayn rand's objectivism, because I sure as fuck would not have the patience for that. I just fall right to sleep, trying to compare philosophical statements.

It's so wild to me that LaVey was doing stuff up until his death in 1997. He was alive during part of my life, the Church of Satan was running. Still is, but I just wasn't aware of it until I was a teenager, rebelling so hard against the oppressive Christianity in my family.

The book becomes considerably easier to read in chapter three, about the personal life of LaVey and founding of the Church. There's so much that appeals to me about some of the tenets. I wonder how much excising I would have to do to get an acceptable religion for myself.

I think this is gonna be hard to read. I haven't read Ayn Rand but I probably wouldn't have the patience with it. Same with Nietzsche. But I absolutely do not believe altruism is unnatural or even bad, and so I'm gonna have a hard time with satanism. I might even need to find a new path entirely.

The presence of "Satan" as a single being in the Bible is... complicated. I haven't read it in full but I want to see the earliest mention of Satan in it.

Alright, I've already learned that I hate LaVeyan Satanism and I don't want to be a LaVeyan Satanist. I knew this was likely to be the case. I'm going to have to look into deistic witchcraft to see what me attraction to the devil is about. And I want to read LaVey's inspiration, especially Mark Twain.

Yikes, a weird typo on page xiv of the introduction. Half a sentence gets repeated, and it's really obvious because the repeated words are lined up just about exactly one line above the other.