LaVey published The Satanic Bible in 1969, combining ritual instructions with an essayistic philosophy that rejected literal belief in a supernatural Satan or in any deity, presenting Satan instead as a symbol for pride, individualism, rational self interest and the rejection of what LaVey characterized as the guilt based repression of conventional religion. This atheistic, symbolic framing distinguishes LaVeyan Satanism sharply from Christian conceptions of Satan worship, a distinction the Church of Satan itself has consistently emphasized in response to public misunderstanding.
The book became the foundational text not only of LaVey's own organization but of the broader modern Satanist movement, including later groups that diverged from his specific organizational structure while retaining his atheistic, symbolic framework. The Church of Satan he founded remains an active organization, continuing to describe itself in the terms LaVey set out rather than reconstructing or reinterpreting his core philosophy, and the atlas describes that living tradition rather than instructing in its practice.
LaVey followed The Satanic Bible with several further books, including The Satanic Rituals (1972) and The Satanic Witch (1971), expanding his ritual and philosophical material, though The Satanic Bible has remained by far his most widely read and most consequential work. He also set out an explicit list of rules and a code of ethics for the Church, presenting Satanism less as an inversion of Christian morality than as a separate, self consistent ethical framework centered on personal responsibility and skepticism toward organized religion generally.