Tomorrow begins year LXI, Anno Satanas.
This coming Walpurgisnacht marks the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the Church of Satan—Magus Anton Szandor LaVey’s carnal challenge to the stultifying spiritual doctrines which have shackled much of humanity for millennia. He knew that the journey would be arduous, but a proper course for those brave individuals who are never content to bow and scrape, who refuse to huddle amongst the herd while someone else calls the shots and determines their mediocre destinies. Our fates are our own to shape, and we have the strength of will to forge and hone the tools that will best any who try and stand in our way.
As Magus LaVey had sagely written, “Remember, the first 99 years are always the toughest”—and so we note his visionary admonition as we draw ever-nearer to that landmark in our organization’s existence. We Satanists continue to represent a vital and thriving philosophy, meant for the select few who can embrace it and flourish, wielding its pragmatic guiding principles.
This Walpurgisnacht also attains my 25th anniversary as your High Priest—and I can say it has truly been a quarter century of fascinating challenges and satisfying triumphs. My time has been well spent, encouraging all of you sapient beings to pursue your fulfillment in your widely varied lives as fellow adherents of this philosophy of ours. Your diversity is glorious!
Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813-1883) was a composer who revolutionized music, and whether one embraced his concepts or rebelled against them, contemporary and subsequent composers essentially found him an inspiration going forward—one way or another. His personal life and opinions were highly divisive and often judged as reprehensible, and his animus towards Jews was virulent—yet many Jewish musicians, performers, and stage craft masters were, then and now, passionate interpreters of his symphonically wrought operas. The art supersedes the artist, as Wagner’s influence lasts. He set a high bar for crafting music dramas—using large scale musical architecture never before imagined. Amongst the composers he influenced, some brought film music to a high art, and symphonic composers, Bruckner and Mahler in particular, brilliantly built upon his orchestral music—and Mahler was considered one of Wagner’s finest interpreters in his role as an operatic conductor, one of the greatest in his time.
At the conclusion of Das Rheingold, the first of the quartet of operas, Der Ring des Nibelungen, telling the tale of the stolen gold which shapes the destinies of mortals and immortals, Donner (Thor) uses his hammer (you’ll hear the clang and the resultant thunder following the opening evocation of swirling mists) to conjure a rainbow bridge, so that the Gods may enter into the newly wrought citadel called Valhalla. While the plot presents many equivocal issues as to how Wotan had his vision realized, the music itself remains a potent symbol of striving for an Is-To-Be, and triumphantly possessing that which you imagined and brought forth into existence. Please enjoy this performance by the youthful New World Symphony conducted by Maestro Domingo Hindoyan. May you fine diabolists all take up your hard won implements, and with the lightning and thunder of your galvanized passions, manifest your myriad personal Valhallas!
From our Black House—in The Witchcraft District here in the Haunted Hudson Valley—to your chosen lairs, Maga Nadramia and I offer our blessings to you invigorating individualists. May you thrive as the days pass, evolving with boldness towards your wisely chosen aspirations.
As is our tradition, we raise our glasses to our kind—Satanists, fellow secularists, freethinkers, and all advocates of the best qualities of our species—heralding the dawning of a New Year with infinite possibilities for vigor, productivity, and prosperity:
“Here’s to champagne for our real friends, and real pain for our sham friends!”
Joy to the flesh—forever!
Shemhamforash! Hail Satan!
—Magus Peter H. Gilmore