A Materialist Individualism

This affirmation frames the Church of Satan's outlook as a materialist, individualist philosophy using Satanic symbolism, rather than devil-worship. It stands apart from The Satanic Temple's more altruistic and activist emphasis, and still further from theistic Satanism. The belief expresses a deliberate inversion of ascetic and self-sacrificing ideals, celebrating the self and its desires as the proper centre of ethics; it is described here as the Church of Satan presents its own teaching.

LaVey elaborated the philosophy's ethical boundaries further in a later list, the Nine Satanic Sins, published in his 1992 book The Devil's Notebook, which names failings such as stupidity, pretentiousness, self-deceit, herd conformity, and lack of aesthetics as the true vices a Satanist should avoid, a list intended to show that LaVeyan philosophy is not simple hedonism but a demanding, self-directed ethical code with its own standards of discipline and self-respect. The Church of Satan has consistently maintained since its founding that it does not worship Satan as a literal deity but uses the figure symbolically, a point on which it differs sharply from the smaller theistic Satanist groups that do hold Satan to be a real being.