New Zealand Satanist | Forum

I like burgers, too.

I tend to avoid books about Satanism because they're usually either the view of some hysteric, wanna be badass, or like christian music -- it's about marketing to a niche audience who they think will buy anything if it's got horns/wings on it.

I'd recommend:

The True Believer by Eric Hoffer 

It's really about what makes someone a fanatical member of any herd yet in describing the herd it becomes clear by contrast what it means to be an individual. LaVey said: "My brand of Satanism is the ultimate conscious alternative to herd mentality and institutionalized thought. It is a studied and contrived set of principles and exercises designed to liberate individuals from a contagion of mindlessness that destroys innovation." This book will make clear what he meant by that.

The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard

About the mid-1900s, advertisers started using psychological methods of persuasion (called the 'depth psychology' in the book) over the pragmatic "buy a shovel, it digs holes!" approach which was the standard. The Hidden Persuaders was written near the beginning of this trend when how things used to be was still in the mind of the writer. It's a complete overview of psychological manipulation and even though it's dated, it's still a relevant classic as insightful as when it was written. 

General subject: lesser magick. Lesser magick is another name for applied psychology : "Applied psychology is the use of [psychological] methods and findings of scientific psychology to solve practical problems of human and animal behavior and experience." The Hidden Persuaders is a catalog of real-life examples of how psychology is applied.

The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris

Desmond Morris was a zoologist -- a field which normally studies animals -- who studied people instead. It could be summed up by saying that he studied people"as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his “divine spiritual and intellectual development,” has become the most vicious animal of all!"It's a great book if you want to know something about the nature of the human animal without all the "badass predator/alpha beta" bullshit.

Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B.F. Skinner (lesser magick)

Memory by Elizabeth Luftus (lesser and greater magick)

Absolutely not to be missed unless it's a movie: 

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams (misanthropy, fun, human animal, vital existence -- life, the universe and everything!)

Quotes: 

“The story so far:

In the beginning the Universe was created.

This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

"Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much – the wheel, New York, wars and so on – whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man – for precisely the same reasons."

LaVey: "Unfortunately for a multitude of occultists, humor is a rare ingredient in their lives. In fact it is their very lack of humor that has impelled them into the arcane and esoteric. Someone once commented to me that a sorcerer without a sense of humor would be intolerable. I agree and will add that, in addition to being intolerable, he would be incompetent."

Awesome to see another Kiwi Satanist 

Picton here