Theistic Satanism (Satan or Set as a real being)

Some groups affirm a theistic Satanism, regarding Satan (or, in the Temple of Set, the ancient Egyptian god Set), as a real spiritual being or force rather than a mere symbol. On this view the dark god is genuinely venerated or worked with as a source of power, wisdom, or self-transformation. Theistic Satanism is diverse and mostly organised in small groups, and it is sharply distinct from the far more numerous atheistic Satanists, for whom Satan is only an emblem. This entry describes the position as its adherents hold it, without endorsing its claims.

The Temple of Set was founded in 1975 by Michael Aquino, a former high-ranking member of the Church of Satan who left in a documented schism over disagreements about the organization's direction after Anton LaVey's leadership; Aquino reported receiving a text he called The Book of Coming Forth by Night, which he presented as a communication from Set, the ancient Egyptian god he identified as the true power behind the Satan figure, and built the Temple's theology explicitly around genuine veneration of Set as a real, independently existing being, a decisive theological break from LaVey's insistently symbolic and atheistic framework.

The best-known bodies associated with theistic or "spiritual" Satanism include the Temple of Set, which reveres Set as a real deity and pursues self-deification, and the Order of Nine Angles, a secretive and highly controversial network. Theistic Satanism differs fundamentally from the atheistic Satanism of the Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple, which reject belief in any such being. Some theistic Satanist currents, notably the Order of Nine Angles, have drawn wide condemnation for extremist and criminal associations; those specific concerns are noted in the entries on those groups.

Scholars researching the Order of Nine Angles, including the researcher Jacob Christiansen Senholt, have documented significant uncertainty over the group's actual origins, noting that its purported founder, using the name Anton Long, has never been conclusively and publicly identified, though researchers have connected the pseudonym to the writer David Myatt, a claim Myatt himself has denied. The group's extremist and, in some documented instances, criminal associations have drawn sustained attention from researchers of religious extremism and from law enforcement in several countries, and this entry describes the group's self-presentation without endorsing any of its claims, consistent with how the atlas treats other theistic Satanist groups.