The Devil's Party: Satanism in Modernity

Per Faxneld and Jesper Aa. Petersen are scholars of new religious movements, and this edited academic volume, published by Oxford University Press, brings together specialists to examine Satanism as a genuine modern religious phenomenon, from LaVeyan Satanism through its various later offshoots, treating the movement as a serious object of religious studies rather than as sensationalized subject matter. Its strength is scholarly seriousness applied to a topic popular media often treats uncritically, with each chapter written by a specialist in that particular strand of modern Satanism. Its limit is that, as a multi contributor collection, depth and interpretive approach vary chapter to chapter, so a claim about one specific Satanic organization should be checked against the chapter that actually covers it.