The Absence of Evidence and the Evidence of Absence

Warlock William Tull

To be a Satanist in the age of the internet is truly a many splendored thing. I am not of the Old Guard, whereby most correspondence was held through physical letters and face to face conversations. I was not present for the rise and ultimate abolishment of the ill-fated Grotto System. I never was able to see the notorious Black House in person. The modern ability to exchange ideas, share pet projects (or pets in general), and interface with those of “Our Kind” via social media has never been easier. To be able to interact and interface with those who were there from inception and hear their stories, see their pictures, learn from them in real-time regardless of physical geography has been life changing. I mean it with all sincerity when I say there has never been a better time to learn about Satanism both in history and practice.

However.

... there has never been a better time to learn about Satanism both in history and practice."

For all its glory, and for all the good the internet itself has done for the world, the ability to share information at such a rapid pace, on such an open set of platforms, has become the most savage of double-edged swords. For every kilobyte of information shared, there are thousands of megabytes of misinformation that seek to drown it. For every year the Church of Satan endures, dozens, if not hundreds, of flash-in-the-pan “Satanic” temples, synagogues, mosques, and TRVE churches spring up on-line and across social media. Anton LaVey predicted their frequency would increase over the years, though I don’t think even he could have foreseen the rampant and virulent plague of the Pseudo-Satanist in the 21st century.

Among these vapid, self-flagellating “occultists” there exists a common thread in their attempts to discredit the Church of Satan, its founder, and the current administration: that is that the religion of Satanism existed before 1966. To these people, Satanism is a religion as old as Christianity. Older in some cases. Some would tell you Satanism is the original Hebrew religion. Others make claims like Jesus was actually Lucifer. The Knights of Columbus were Satanists who formed the Illuminati to control the world. The founders of the Abrahamic religions were all originally Satanists. The list goes on and gets more ridiculous. The exact pinpoint inception of this misconception varies, but the common thread remains the same. The religion of Satanism predates The Church of Satan.

Popular forums like Reddit or Tumblr are alight with these “wizened scholars” who know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Anton LaVey stole the term from ancient esoteric sources and subverted it to con people and grift his way to fame. Satanic Facebook groups are stacked deep, sometimes with tens of thousands of members, most of whom believe in some “Romantic Satanism” or “Theistic Satanism,” both of which claim to hold roots that reach back for centuries into history. Members of the Church of Satan do what they can to clear these misconceptions, and for some, it is practically a full-time endeavor. These stalwart individuals wade into the cesspools of Reddit forums with pitchforks held aloft. They are responding to Instagram reels with helpful links and essays. They reply to Facebook comments with cited sources and ask the hard questions. It is a thankless role; one I salute and offer my sincerest gratitude.

Though I have not spent the time on the front lines they have, I have observed for a long time, participated where it suited me, and I have noticed many common denominators in how these conversations often go:

Pseudo-Satanist: “LaVeyan Satanism is only one form of Satanism. TRVE Satanism existed way before 1966!”

CoS Member: “Prove it.”

Pseudo-Satanist: “OMG fam, ya’ll are so quick to gatekeep. Do your own research like I did!”

Pseudo-Satanists are eager to make a claim, but when pressed, become defensive, adversarial, and dismissive."

Mind you this is a VERY muted and scaled down facsimile. However, it is not far from what you will encounter. The Pseudo-Satanists are eager to make a claim, but when pressed, become defensive, adversarial, and dismissive. Even when engaged on a conversational level, or given the benefit of the doubt, they will offer a rebuttal that contains a lot of words, none of which involved cited, credible sources. These conversations usually devolve into a digital mud wrestle with supporters of both sides jumping in until some level of administrator closes the whole thing down. The Pseudo-Satanist feels self-assured that their “trolling” achieved its desired effect and stuck it to the mean old Church of Satan Gatekeepers. The CoS member is reminded exactly why we do, in fact, gatekeep our religion. In VERY rare occasions the Pseudo-Satanist sees the error of their ways and either backs down, apologizes, and in even rarer occasions, does the research needed to understand why they were wrong. This is an outlier however, as most of the time, nothing is accomplished.

In my day-to-day life, I spend my time working in Human Resources. In the training classes I facilitate, one of the tools we promote is “collaboration instead of conflict.” If you approach someone as an enemy, even a perceived one, expect to be treated as an enemy. All people want to be given the benefit of the doubt, and no one wants to be put in a position where they might be told they are wrong, or stupid. Even if they are wrong or stupid.

It was from this training that I formulated a plan. It was simple at inception: I would join as many of these Pseudo-Satanic groups as possible, I would send out a missive for assistance, and see if I could charm my way to finding the proof of a Satanic religion before 1966. That was it. I wasn’t going to argue, or present well-established facts. I was not going to be an adversary, rather I was going to be an ally. I was going to play the role of the “wandering scholar”; someone well-read in the occult, well versed, but naïve. I was going to conduct this experiment with an open and curious mind to try and prove or disprove my hypothesis: There is no credible evidence of a religion called “Satanism” before 1966 that exists either on-line or in printed form.

I had to set a few barriers for myself to maintain some form of clinical and personal integrity:

I would read anything that was presented to me, provided I had not already read it before.
I would engage willingly and eagerly in conversation with anyone who could guide me towards something tangible, regardless how I felt about them as a person, or their views on Satanism. In short, I would suffer any fool.
I would engage in any ritual or initiation needed to gain access to “secret societies” as long as it caused no harm to myself or anyone else.
In that same vein, I would not engage in any illegal activity or be party to any such activity.

With these parameters in place. I decided to start on one social media platform, Facebook, and for consideration of my own time and pursuits, opted to remain there, unless directed to other web sites or social media platforms.

So, it began.

I would join as many of these Pseudo-Satanic groups as possible... I was going to play the role of the “wandering scholar”"

Satanism and occult flavored groups are not hard to find. At first, I just started joining them without regard to what I might find within. I aimed for the largest groups with the most members. Many of them required some sort of entry questions to be answered, and an administrator to approve my request. I was surprised how many, did not. Anyone could join and jump into the conversations immediately. It reminded me of the older days of the internet, where it was a lawless frontier, unmoderated and unfiltered. It became apparent many of these groups were spaces meant for anyone who had even a passing interest in the occult or Left-Hand Path. Everything from Traditional Witchcraft and Wicca, Luciferians, Devil Worshippers of all shades and severity, Gnosticism, Atheists who listen to heavy metal, Freemasons (I was just as surprised as you), and Christians there to fight a good fight. After joining twenty-five separate groups, I realized that for my purposes I had to pare my search down. I reviewed the contents and description of each group and trimmed things back to groups that exclusively mentioned “Satanism” and emphasized places that were described as places to learn or worship. This left me in thirteen active Pseudo-Satanic groups to begin casting my net.

The net itself was a post I made and replicated throughout each of the groups. It was modified slightly depending on the exact group but read largely as such:

Post shared by Warlock William Tull to various Facebook Groups

The results were a mixed bag. In most of the group I netted a decent number of views and “Likes.” Comment activity varied from people commenting solely to follow along, with others showing their support to “stick it to the CoS,” with very few genuine or helpful responses. In a few of the groups I received no reactions or replies whatsoever. I was not sure what I had expected, but the reception was lukewarm. So began the waiting game, but I would not have to wait long.

What follows here has no real consistent timeline, I will try to keep it orderly and concise, however, many of these things did not happen in one smooth sequence. Responses and interactions played out over protracted periods of time, often overlapping with others at assorted odds hours. Some interactions and conversations happened in real time, with others happening across multiple days of back-and-forth conversation. It is akin to tracking a series of shotgun blasts all loosely fired in the same direction. So, rather than trying to present this in a linear and sequential fashion, I am going to present this as a siloed set of people and experiences.

The Experts

The most direct and focused conversations often came from self-proclaimed “experts” on the subject, who derived their expertise from other “experts” on the subject. These individuals were clearly very passionate about the subject, with grammar and literacy comprehension that varied wildly from college level to kindergarten. The result was largely the same. Often these “experts” would send through messages and comments coming close to four hundred words, detailing their opinions, histories, and “research” they have done on the subject. Dozens of books were recommended, of these the most frequently referenced were:

The Lesser Key of Solomon (16th Century, though the Aleister Crowley transcription is most common)
Die Synagoge des Satan / The Synagogue of Satan (Stanislaw Przybyszewski, 1897)
Liber Azerate (Shahin Khoshnod, 1995)
The Devil’s Party: Satanism in Modernity (Per Faxneld, 2012)
The Book of Law (Aleister Crowley, 1909)

There were many more books that were presented as “the smoking gun” I was looking for, dozens in fact. These five were the only ones mentioned more than once, and for sake of remaining succinct, they are the pieces that I have included here.

The Synagogue of Satan is the most cited source online, as well as by Professor Per Faxneld in his own writings. While being originally published as a German language text, it was not translated and published in English until 2002, long after the founding of the Church of Satan. In this book Stanislaw Przybyszewski provides a compendium of medieval of witchcraft, black magic, and other assorted occult practices. He is also often cited as the first author to refer to himself as a “satanist”. Where this fails the criteria of my research is that while the term “Satanism” is used for these practices, it is used in the same umbrella fashion the Catholic Church uses the term. It is more akin to the term “heathen,” “idolater,” or “heretic.” The use of “Satanism” in this context is synonymous to “devil worshippers” who are still following the Catholic/Christian pantheon and rooting for the bad guy. In short, it does not define a codified and practicing religion called “Satanism.” It is for this reason the works of Per Faxneld fail to satisfy these criteria as well. While his works are comprehensive, well written, and his academic career is highly lauded and accoladed, none of his works point to any definitive proof of a religion called Satanism before 1966.

The remaining three books from this list can also be dismissed: The Lesser Key of Solomon is a popular occult text that dates back to the 16th century; however, it makes no mention of Satanism as a religion or otherwise. Anything by Aleister Crowley is related to Thelema, and is, of course, not Satanism. Liber Azerate is the foundational text for the Temple of Black Light (formerly the Misanthropic Luciferian Order) which references “ancient practices” of Satanism but does not cite any sources or provide any further research avenues. It is worth noting that the founders of the MLO/BLO were violent extremists whose roots tie to the Order of Nine Angles. For those unfamiliar, they are most assuredly NOT Satanists nor representatives thereof. They also do not predate the Church of Satan. As a result, this information was initially disregarded, however, it would not be for long. More on that to come later in this examination.

When these “experts” were pressed by my findings that I listed above, the result was either complete silence, or a response akin to “The answers you seek won’t be found in a book.” I was urged to seek “Real World Satanists” people that they had, themselves, studied under in their formative years. I was curious where I might find these wizened gurus, or how to contact them. I was told that “They don’t communicate online.” And warned by one individual that “If they want to talk to you, they will find you.” Often times these “experts” would become dismissive when pressed, derisive when challenged, and eventually hostile.

In short, they had nothing of substance to offer.

The Sects

“experts” would become dismissive when pressed, derisive when challenged, and eventually hostile."

As I read through books and responded to the “experts” in numerous comment threads, the more intriguing and potentially compelling conversations were happening via Facebook Messenger. In joining so many groups I was both automatically enrolled and privately invited to join multiple group chats. It was in and among these chats that I felt that old “Wild West” days of the internet feeling once more. Some of the chats were wildly unimpressive; basically, a repository for people to exchange obvious AI generated sermons and images of demon girls with large breasts. People typing in “Hail Satan” unprompted, trying to get some sort of response or desperately make some sort of connection. Other chat rooms were core groups of friends carrying on conversations while hundreds of other people lurked and contributed nothing.

The majority of the activity in any of these group chats was the people from Africa desperately trying to sell their soul to join the Illuminati. This is nothing new at all, but these chats were absolutely dominated by pleas for money in exchange for souls, or worse, murder. Many of these desperate people stated they were willing to shed blood in the name of “Satan.” Largely they were ignored or banned from the chat. Overall, MOST of these group chats were unimpressive and proved useless to me in my search. Most, but not all.

As I conversed and ingratiated myself in a few of these group chats, I started to receive invitations to locked and private spaces. Places with ominous sounding names like “THE GRAND SHRINE OF THE BLACK SUN” and “Denizens of the Dying Serpent.” It was in these private chatrooms where people felt truly empowered to share their theories and practice with me. Within these secret spaces, I noticed a fairly consistent hierarchy. Many of these group chats were treated as secret meeting and worship places, with the administrators and moderators acting as the spiritual leaders and religious figures. Anyone with the words “Administrator” or “Moderator” following their name was revered as an expert and the power dynamic was based solely around them.

These leaders often went by mysterious monikers: “The Flaming Lady,” “Archebus Prime,” “Magister Ram Daz,” etc. They would rotate through with no regularity or schedule to preach, spout some cryptic affirmations, or share their ritual and practice. It was a seminary without structure or substance. Many of these “sermons” would be quite detailed and I started to wonder where this information was pulled from. These groups treated themselves as different “sects” and so I began to refer to them as such.

After sifting through these “sects,” I found myself in five that seemed to have some deeper and more esoteric purpose. If I was going to find what I was looking for it would be in these closed-door groups steeped in ceremony and secret. I began to interact more regularly and began to ask my questions, specifically, where their ancient rites and rituals came from. I was regarded with a high degree of suspicion at first. Slowly my scholarly naivety was rewarded. Within the hallowed halls I began to build a reputation as someone knowledged but seeking to know more. Several of these groups made it clear they would only drip feed the information I seek unless I made a cash contribution to the “clergy.” That is always a clear indication of a scam, so I promptly exited. With my stable of groups dwindling, I began to give up on the whole endeavor, when I received a private message from someone who went by the name Lord Melekh Ophis Shakhor. He claimed to be a magister of the Temple of the Black Light and promised me all the information I seek. All I had to do was complete the initiation ritual.

Before I undertook the ritual, I made my boundaries very clear: No animal sacrifice, no self-harm, no illegal activity, etc. Lord Shakhor was very understanding and assured me, nothing of the sort was required. So, I agreed, and through a series of Facebook messages, I was instructed on how to conduct the ritual.

The initiation ritual was fairly simple in and of itself. In fact, it was rather unremarkable, and a pale imitation of the Greater Magic rituals written by Anton LaVey. I played along, despite the absurdity of it all. Finally, I was granted access to the sacred and holy archive: a private Facebook group. A Facebook group that contained illegally downloaded .pdf files of dozens, possibly hundreds of occult books. Which included both The Satanic Bible and The Satanic Rituals, despite the fact that the progenitors of the group claimed to despise LaVey and followed practices that far outdated his teachings. Oh, the irony.

The Scum

It was impossible to ignore the vile and disgusting human beings that these groups allow amid their ranks."

Among these Pseudo-Satanists and their private chats and secret underground sects, I tried my best to focus on the task I had at hand. It was impossible to ignore the vile and disgusting human beings that these groups allow amid their ranks. When I say these groups and “orders” have no standards, I mean it. There were Order of Nine Angles psychopaths promoting violence and chaos for the sake of destabilizing civilization. I witnessed the incoherent ramblings of people who claim they speak to demons and were allowing them to use their bodies to type and interact with the group. These people showed obvious signs of mental illness. Instead of being encouraged to get professional help, their delusions were applauded and rewarded. The ranks and file of these groups are at best, deluded sycophants starved for some sort of validation, at worst, potential terrorists, and actual pedophiles.

I found one particular “Satanism” group chat where “all were welcome” and in among them, proud, self-proclaimed pedophiles were seeking ways to groom and lure in young boys for sexual use. Screenshots were taken and I took what information I could find and reported it to the authorities in their states and countries. The authorities took the claim very seriously; they received all the information and told me they would be following up on it. I can only take them at face value, but I am not a savvy enough of an Internet sleuth to run it down further. The group was also reported to Facebook, and I publicly admonished the admins for allowing that absolute detritus in their midst without judgement. I was banned from the group and was glad to be gone.

It was a sobering reminder of exactly why the Church of Satan is proud to gatekeep their ranks.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I had ended up where I started. I started in Facebook groups and ended in Facebook groups. I had spent dozens of hours seeking, sifting, questioning, conversing, and reading, with nothing to show for it. At no point was I ever any closer to finding anything concrete and anything I was provided as hard evidence, was the same old arguments and misconceptions I had at the beginning. Despite my approach as an ally, I obtained the same results as if I approached as an adversary.

Despite my approach as an ally, I obtained the same results as if I approached as an adversary."

I understand that the “scientific method” is not intended to prove a negative, or the absence of something. However, modus tollens is a valid form of deductive reasoning that allows us to conclude that if a conditional statement is true and its consequent is false, then its antecedent must also be false, regardless of evidence. For example, if sugar makes a cake sweeter, and the cake is not sweet, there is no sugar. Therefore, if written proof of a religion called Satanism before 1966 would debunk the claims of the Church of Satan and the claims have not been debunked, thus I must conclude there is no written proof.

Appendix

This essay is the culmination of thirty days of research and dozens of hours spent in interaction and conversation. Attached you will find several screenshots to help paint a picture of the scope of this undertaking. In addition to providing back fill and context, these are the visual proof of some of my encounters and claims. These are NOT all the screenshots, which number in the hundreds over the course of a month. I have instead opted to provide enough receipts to provide some measure of verification and as a cross section of the larger picture as well.