Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #62151 in Books
• Published on: 1976-12-01
• Released on: 1976-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 224 pages

Customer Reviews

A fascinating collection of dark rituals
As founding High Priest of the Church of Satan, Anton Szandor LaVey was one of the most remarkable voices in late 20th century religion, and "The Satanic Rituals" is a key text in his body of work. This volume, which is an ideal companion to LaVey's "Satanic Bible," makes available some rituals for practicing Satanists.

LaVey's rituals have an eclectic, even multicultural, flavor. According to him, the rites in this book have French, German, Russian, and Middle Eastern roots. He also includes rituals inspired by the fictional mythology created by H.P. Lovecraft, a writer of distinctive horror fiction. Although mostly geared towards group activities, many of the texts in this book could be adapted to solitary use.

The book is not without flaws and inconsistencies. Whereas some of the rituals appear in bilingual format, others contain untranslated foreign language elements. And although bibliographic references are scattered throughout the text, the book as a whole lacks a comprehensive bibliography. Also, some of the rituals seem a bit impractical. The introduction to the "elektrischen Vorspiele," for example, warns the practitioner of "the danger of serious injury or electrocution"!

Despite these drawbacks, this is an intriguing book. Both the rituals and the introductory essays are fascinating. LaVey even suggests appropriate musical accompaniment for these dark rituals. Rites in the book include a version of the legendary Black Mass, the Ceremony of the Stifling Air (inspired by the history of the Knights Templar), and Satanic baptismal rites (both child and adult). If you have a taste for the blasphemous, you'll want a copy of "The Satanic Rituals."

A few decent GROUP rituals are detailed herein...
Do NOT buy this book if you are a solitary practitioner (and plan to stay this way) or work with only one or two other people at the most. For this book is a primer for the pomp and pageantry kind of satanic rituals which require several role-assuming participants. If, however, you DO belong to a Grotto, there are a few rituals here to wet your appetite for productive group ritualizing (namely "Le Messe Noir" (Black Mass), "Das Tierdrama", "Night On Bald Mountain" (a homage to Tchort) and the satanic baptism). The other rituals did not impress me ("Die Elektrischen Vorspiele" does not explain exactly HOW the ritual "utilizes electrical and magnetic energies" and most of you will probably not want to work with Van de Graaf generators and Tesla coils...you may burn your house down if you don't know what you're doing!; also, the "Call to Cthulhu" ritual is incurably schlocky...I love old HPL, but his monsters are best kept in the realms of sci-fi). A nice feature herein is the introduction to "Night on Bald Mountain"; I learned more about Slavic mythology in these few pages than I have been able to learn in years of searching futiley through library stacks at my university. This is not my favorite of LaVey's books, but worth a look if you are a group practitioner.

Good companion to the Satanic Bible
This book isn't mainly concerned with the philosophy of Satanism- it's concerned with phycodrama that works. LaVey's main purpose in writing this was to give GROUPS small and large a definitive guide to ritualized magic. ... ceremonies and rituals are designed to free your mind, focus your skills, and some are for simple fun. I get the feeling this is like Haloween-type enjoyment; there is a level of vicariousness, and the knowledge that it is inheretly a drama on a grand scale, and yet it is accsessable even to beginer...