(5 of 10)
They jockey for upward mobility in the five degrees of church membership, which closely resemble those in witchcraft covens: apprentice, warlock (or witch), wizard (or enchantress), sorcerer (or sorceress) and magus—the degree that La Vey holds. The ruling Council of Nine, which La Vey heads, makes appointments to various ranks on the basis not only of the candidate's proficiency in Satanist doctrine but also his "dining preferences," the "style of decor" in his home, and the "make, year and condition" of his automobile.
The Army officer who celebrated the recent ordination in Louisville is a fourth-degree Satanist priest, a memmber of the Council of Nine and editor of La Vey's "confidential" newsletter, the Cloven Hoof. He is also the author of a widely used ROTC textbook. Other La Vey Satanists include a Marine Corps N.C.O. from North Carolina and, in New Jersey's Lilith Grotto, a real estate broker and an insurance executive. Beyond such devotees, La Vey's sinister balderdash reaches hundreds of thousands more through the black gospel of The Satanic Bible and his second book, The Compleat Witch, in which his advice reaches the downright sordid.
Besides La Vey's well-publicized group, there are some quasi-Satanists in the public eye. The Process Church of the Final Judgment (TIME, Sept. 6) includes Satan in its Godhead along with Christ, Jehovah and Lucifer (who is seen as a separate divinity), though it has been playing down Satan lately and emphasizing Christ. But the darker, more malevolent Satanists give only rare and tantalizing hints of their existence, and none at all of their numbers —probably for good reason. Sociologist Marcello Truzzi of Florida's New College at Sarasota observes that one variety of this underground Satanism consists primarily of sex clubs that embellish their orgies with Satanist rituals. A larger variety, he says, are the drug-oriented cults, whose members improvise their Satanism as they go along.
The most famous of such groups, so far, is the Charles Manson "family," but now and again other grisly items in the news reveal the breed. In New York this spring, police were searching for possible Devil worshipers in a grave-robbery incident. In Miami last summer, a 22-year-old woman Satanist killed a 62-year-old friend, stabbing him 46 times. Convicted of manslaughter, she drew a seven-year sentence, thanked Satan for her light penalty, and said that she had "enjoyed" the killing. In April she escaped from prison, and has not been recaptured.
WITCHCRAFT. In 1921, British Anthropologist Margaret Murray advanced the theory that witchcraft was basically a vestige of the nature worship of Europe's pagan days. Scholars have challenged her theory, but many of today's "white witches" take her suggestion and imitate pagan ways rather than satanic witchcraft. Generally, white witches derive their presumed power from beneficent forces of nature and use it in an effort to heal, resolve disputes and achieve good for others. Such benevolent magic may also include defensive spells against the