A Founding Text Still Under Copyright

This entry records that Modern Satanism, most prominently represented by LaVeyan Satanism founded by Anton LaVey with the 1969 publication of The Satanic Bible, and by later organizations including the Satanic Temple founded in 2013 with a distinctly more explicitly atheistic and activist public orientation, involves specific ritual invocations addressed not to a literal supernatural Satan in either organization's official theology but symbolically, representing individualism, self-determination and opposition to what these organizations regard as unearned religious authority, without reproducing the specific ritual texts of either organization here.

LaVey's Satanic Bible remains under active copyright held by the Church of Satan and its publisher, meaning its specific invocations and rituals cannot be reproduced without permission regardless of any editorial judgment about religious sensitivity, a straightforward legal constraint distinct from, though sometimes overlapping with, the initiatory or cultural sensitivity concerns affecting other entries in this atlas. The Satanic Temple similarly maintains its own distinct, separately authored ritual and philosophical material, differing in emphasis and content from LaVeyan Satanism despite sharing the broader Satanist label.