"The frantic little Christian believes heavy metal is dangerous because it is a convenient target for his hysteria. [...] but what about the Satanic music of Liszt, Wagner, Saint-Saens, Beethoven, Mussorgsky, Paganini, Mendelssohn? Perhaps warning stickers are in order for the works of Cole Porter, Rogers and Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, and Irving Berlin, whose 'Stay Down Here Where You Belong' features a good guy Devil proclaiming, 'You'll find more hate up there than you will down below.' "

- Anton LaVey, The Devil's Notebook

I enjoy performing at open mics, as I see them as a time of shameless self-indulgence in performing the music I feel like performing that day. At the same time, there's still the maxim of "know your audience". Also, I may go to an open mic not knowing what I'll end up playing that night, and sometimes hearing a song from another performer might remind me of something in my repertoire and make me want to play it.

Last night, I was at a local open mic where some older hippies were doing 1960s anti-war songs in their set. On my turn on the stage, I said, "I have an anti-war song from 1918 -- World War One." I'm proud to say it went over very well.

As anybody who's read the appendix of We Are Satanists (or as it was titled in its initial edition, Church of Satan) knows, there is no shortage of Satan songs from the early 1900s. And I don't mean preachy songs warning about Satan, but often songs for example cheering Satan on to take away Kaiser Wilhelm. I've researched and performed a number of these songs myself, including at the Black House for the Church of Satan's 50th anniversary.

Irving Berlin was a composer known for many American classics such as Puttin' On The Ritz, White Christmas, and God Bless America, but he wrote plenty of devil songs, too. Stay Down Where You Belong is one of them. It was a favorite of Groucho Marx, who once performed it on The Dick Cavett show, as well as on his double live album recorded in Carnegie Hall in his final years, An Evening With Groucho. Tiny Tim recorded his own psychadelic rendition. Although Groucho Marx never seemed to sing the song beyond the first verse, his Carnegie Hall version is still my favorite.

Commies and vampires and Satanists, oh my!  I’ll be answering some questions from listeners about Satanism and communism, as well as questions about Temple of the Vampire. And in answering these, first explaining the difference between Church of Satan policy, and personal opinions of Church of Satan members. Also, a reminder that explaining what Satanism is and isn’t, is NOT the same thing as telling you how to live your life.

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Magister Bill M. here with Satansplain. When it comes to the sub-topics that I talk about on this show, or answering the questions I get from listeners, I find that sometimes there’s both a short answer and a long answer. And, time permitting, I think it’s good to present both. It’s good to have a short answer that answers the question directly. But sometimes that short answer can be easily misinterpreted, or perhaps it does answer the question, but the answer is so short that it brings up MORE questions than it answers. So…trying to find that balance between being direct and being thorough is a challenge I find myself having when I create new episodes of Satansplain. It can be a lot to take in, so I also try to make it all easier to take in by splitting parts into chapters at certain timestamps, and putting a break in between, and all that. So, as with every Satansplain episode, feel free to skip around, but I do think you’ll get more out of this episode if you give it at least one full listen from beginning to end.

Erotic Crystallization Inertia and The Combination Lock Principle. Two of the many Satanic concepts which Anton LaVey wrote about in his essay collection, The Devil’s Notebook. 

We’ll learn about these two concepts and their importance to Satanism on this episode of Satansplain.

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Magister Bill M. here with Satansplain.

I got a message from Randy. He asked about the Combination Lock Principle. This is a concept on which there is an essay in The Devil’s Notebook, a collection of essays from Anton LaVey. And Randy says he’s still not entirely sure what this principle is. He asks, is it preparation for best results of any given situation? And my answer to him was no, that’s not really what it is. I gave him a short explanation of the concept in my own words, but I figured this was a topic worth delving into on Satansplain. 

There is however an ADDITIONAL Satanic concept I’d like to cover today, called Erotic Crystallization Inertia, or “ECI” for short. And like the Combination Lock Principle, there is an entire essay on this found in the same book. While these two Satanic concepts are not exactly the same thing, I do think there is a bit of overlap.

First, for any of you who are relatively new to Satanism, let’s talk a little more about this book. Anton Szandor LaVey founded the Church of Satan in 1966. He had done plenty of lectures and interviews on Satanism, and published essays and newsletters, but it was in 1969 that he formalized those concepts further and published The Satanic Bible. And this book is still the ultimate go-to source for Satanism. It’s not that we view The Satanic Bible in the same exact way that the Christians view the Holy Bible or Muslims view the Koran, where we think our book was dictated to Anton LaVey by a literal deity or such nonsense like that. We don’t believe in deities. In Satanism, Satan is a concept and a mascot, not a real supernatural deity. So no, the reason why The Satanic Bible is the go-to source for Satanism is because it’s the definitive work written by the man who organized and formulated the actual religion of Satanism in the first place. It’s the book directly explaining what Satanism is and isn’t, and has resources for Satanists on for example how to ritualize. Because Satanism is indeed a religion, and like any religion, it has not only a philosophy but also rituals to express that philosophy in a theatrical and emotional way.