Atheistic Satanism (Satan as symbol of the self)

The Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple affirm an atheistic Satanism in which Satan is a symbol rather than a literal deity. On this understanding there is no supernatural devil to worship; the figure of Satan is embraced as an emblem, of the questioning intellect, individual liberty, pride, carnal reality, and rebellion against arbitrary authority. These organisations describe themselves as non-theistic, rejecting belief in gods and the supernatural, and use Satanic imagery to represent human self-determination and opposition to what they see as repressive dogma.

LaVey set out his philosophy in The Satanic Bible, published in 1969 and still the foundational text of the Church of Satan. Scholars of new religious movements, including James R. Lewis, have documented that LaVey drew substantially, without extensive attribution, on earlier sources, including Ayn Rand's philosophy of rational self-interest and the nineteenth-century writer Ragnar Redbeard's Might Is Right, combining them with borrowed ceremonial trappings into a self-consciously provocative synthesis LaVey presented as a wholly original philosophy, a scholarly finding that has not diminished the text's continuing influence within organized atheistic Satanism.

This symbolic Satanism, articulated by Anton LaVey's Church of Satan (founded 1966) and, in a different key, by The Satanic Temple (founded 2013), is sharply distinct from theistic Satanism, which treats Satan as a real being. The two atheistic organisations themselves differ markedly (the Church of Satan emphasising individualism and self-interest, The Satanic Temple emphasising compassion, reason, and activism), but share the conviction that Satan names a principle rather than a person. The affirmation is presented here as these groups describe their own beliefs.

The Satanic Temple, founded in 2013 by Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jarry, has pursued its stated goals largely through public activism and litigation rather than the more private ritual life the Church of Satan maintains, most visibly through its campaign to install a bronze statue of Baphomet at the Oklahoma State Capitol in response to a Ten Commandments monument there, and through lawsuits and public campaigns the organization frames as tests of religious liberty and church-state separation. Scholars of the group, including the researcher Joseph Laycock, have argued that The Satanic Temple functions in significant part as a form of political satire and civic activism carried out through explicitly religious means, a self-description the organization itself has generally embraced rather than disputed.