Church of Satan

You can listen to the interview with Magistra Mitchell here.

Church of Satan
Orlando, FL

Contact: Magistra Ygraine Gidney-Mitchell

Book Recommendation: The Satanic Bible

Religion: Church of Satan

Web Page: http://www.churchofsatan.com , Contact Web Page:
http://magistrayrainetwo.blogspot.com

Of all of the interviews that I set out to do, this one got the most comment from friends and coworkers. They all wanted to know if I was *really* going to go visit someone from the Church of Satan. Was I scared? Or worried?

Not particularly. After all, we were meeting a Starbucks.

My usual procedures for finding a particular religion have served me pretty well. Usually I just type in the name of the religion into Google Maps, punch my zip code right after it - then pick the closet church in that religion because I don't want to drive too far because I'm a cheap bastard.

Only problem is, typing in "Church of Satan" and my zip code turned up more christian churches that wanted to warn against the dangers of Satanism than anything else. Warnings about summoning demons or sacrifices who knows what else.

Well. That wasn't what I was looking for.

I tried some other options. Turns out typing in "satan" into Craigslist really doesn't get the results I was hoping for either.

I finally got lucky, hitting upon an article written by Robert Johnson of the Examiner (By the way - he's going to have an article in the October 2009 issue of Penthouse about the Church of Satan. I'd read it, but my wife has a "no looking at nakey lady bits other than hers" policy.). He was kind enough to pass along my request to the Church of Satan, and after a few traded emails back and forth with the very polite High Priest Peter H. Gilmore, I had an interview set up with Magistra Ygraine Gidney-Mitchell in Orlando.

I didn't get to see a service, seeing as ritual is a very personal event for members of the Church of Satan. So instead, I drove out to Orlando to visit with Ms. Mitchell and ask my questions.

Which lead to me sitting on a park bench overlooking a lake with Ms. Mitchell.

As I told people the story in preparation for this article, I could see my friends and coworkers lean forward. They were waiting for something exciting. Something insane. I mean - Church of Satan, right? Had to something weird, right?

Turns out - not really. Ms. Mitchell was intelligent, well collected, and no different than any other mother with teenagers.

And when it came to her beliefs, they were no more unusual than any other religious groups that I've met with. In a way, it was almost anti-climatic.

The Church of Satan is composed of atheists who believe rituals are an important component to human experience.

That's it. No believe in gods, angels, demons or devils. Not even in the Satan that they take their namesake from. I got the impression that he's really just a symbol of someone who stood unbowed before authority and made his own way. Not as a literal figure, but as a literary one. Granted, they could probably have used Prometheus as a symbol without the social stigma, but you have to admire their guts.

After hearing the philosophy, it reminded me quite a bit of Objectivism - the idea that ones own desires and goals are paramount. That ones desires aren't bad - they're the natural expression of what one wants desires. If you want to forgive someone, it should be because *you* want to, not because you feel burdened by some divine commandment to do so. If you want to help someone, it's because it's in your interest to do so, not because you hope to get some reward in the afterlife. They follow laws (very well, talking to Ms. Mitchell - seems that breaking a law in their view requires full punishment to convince people not to do it again, not punishment and coddling), and have no compunction with ejecting a member accused of crimes from their number rather than letting their misdeeds taint the rest of the group.

But because the Church of Satan also believes that people need and even enjoy ritual, they should have that as well. Why shouldn't they get to have all the symbols for their religion any less than another, just because they reject the supernatural?

People ask me all the time which is the "weirdest" religion I've visited so far, and usually I shrug and say "How can I just any religion as being 'odd' when so many of them make equal claims to believe in supernatural phenomenon, or believe in things they admit there is no proof for?"

Considering that members of the Church of Satan don't seem to have any claim to supernatural beliefs, they certainly won't come close to ranking anywhere on my "odd", "weird", or even "threatening" scale any time soon.