Happy 50th Anniversary, Church of Satan! 

50 years ago this evening, Anton Szandor LaVey opened the adamantine gates as he founded the Church of Satan—a social experiment in blasphemy, liberty, and individualism. Once he and his intrepid cohorts stepped within, they found not a sanctuary, nor a fortress, but instead a road, for Satanism is not a place or position where one cowers and stagnates, but is instead the journey each one of us takes over the course of our vital lives.

He envisioned a cabal of erudite, civilized ladies and gentlemen who would treat one another with the gentility of true nobility arising from ability, but who also could rouse savage opposition when confronted by foes whose intent was to thwart freedom and enforce conformity. You have realized his Is-To-Be!

In celebration of the man who inspired us all, we include him in the roster of dread demons and deities, for those in millennia to come might look back and see his smiling diabolical countenance as archetype, rather than the reality that some of us were fortunate to experience. As he would wish, in saluting him, we hail ourselves, for he was the champion of our individual godhood, and he would have us put no one before our sovereign selves.

Hail Anton Szandor LaVey!
Hail the Church of Satan!
Hail Satan!

—Magus Peter H. Gilmore