Quick Specs
- Title: The Devil’s Due: Essays of the Elite, Vol. I
- Author: Reverend E.R. Vernor
- Foreword: Peter H. Gilmore
- Introduction: Peggy Nadramia
- Afterword: Blanche Barton
- Subject: Essays on Satanism
A Collection of Essays on Satanism in the Contributors’ Own Words
The cover is black with a faint veined texture, and white serif lettering carries the title and the Vol. I numbering. A circular emblem, a goat’s head inside an inverted pentagram, sits below the title, and the credits run beneath it: the author, Reverend E.R. Vernor, followed by a foreword, an introduction and an afterword, each credited to a different writer. The credits give each of the three a title: High Priest for the foreword, High Priestess for the introduction and Magistra Templi Rex for the afterword. The foreword’s writer is the High Priest of the Church of Satan, an organization established on April 30, 1966, by Anton Szandor LaVey. Inside, the book collects essays on Satanism written by contributors in their own words. The publisher’s description takes up the long-standing media and Hollywood image of Satanists as devil worshippers and says the Satanic community’s members include people in business, law enforcement, the armed services and more. Together the essays present Satanism as a source of willpower and personal achievement, told by members who describe how they live it.
Each essay is one person’s account, so the book moves from voice to voice. The contributors explain principles of Satanism as they apply them every day, observing facets of their own lives. Their examples reach from raising children to changing the world around them, so the collection covers the household and the wider world alike. The contributors work in different fields, so the same principle can turn up in several settings across the volume. A collection of this kind reads well in pieces: one essay at a sitting, a pause to consider what the writer described, then the next voice. You can read front to back or dip into the essays whose subjects catch your eye. The foreword and the introduction open the volume, the afterword closes it, and the Vol. I on the cover numbers this as a first volume, so the contributors’ essays sit between three framing voices.
Practical Reading Applications
Read it as a set of first-person accounts and let each essay stand as one person’s view. A reading group can give each member one essay to summarize in a few lines: who wrote it, which principle the contributor describes and what example they give. A notebook kept beside the book can hold a running list of the principles named across the essays, with a page number for each, so comparing voices later takes a minute. A discussion group can also set two contributors from different fields side by side and ask how each applies the same principle. A film or news story about Satanists makes a useful companion: write down how that portrayal and the essay describe the same subject. For other titles on related subjects, browse my esoteric and occult books.
How to Read The Devil’s Due Essay by Essay
Three habits keep a book of many voices easy to follow.
- Read the framing pieces first
Start with the foreword and the introduction before the first essay. Note in a sentence what each says about the aim of the book, and save the afterword for the end, when you have heard every contributor. Reading the frame in that order gives you the credited writers' view of the volume before you meet the individual voices.
- Take one essay at a time
After each essay, write two or three lines: the principle the contributor describes, the everyday example they give, and the field they work in if they mention it. One essay per sitting keeps the voices distinct, and the notes become an index you can search later when you want to find a particular example.
- Close with the afterword and your notes
Read the afterword last, then go back through your notes from every essay. Write a short paragraph on what the contributors have in common and where their examples differ. That paragraph is a summary of the whole volume in your own words, and it makes a good starting point when you discuss the book with someone else.
The Tarot Fellow Standard
I stock this book for readers who want Satanism described by contributors in their own words. It suits readers who already know the outline of Satanism and want to see how members apply it day to day, and it works as a reference on how individuals describe their own practice. I offer it as an entry point to the subject. The organizations and communities the contributors belong to speak for themselves, and their own writings cover what a single volume of essays leaves open. You can find more titles like it in my books and journals.
Frequently Asked Questions
In the Church of Satan, no. Reference sources describe it as an atheist organization whose members do not worship the Christian devil and treat Satan as a symbol of individualism, freedom and earthly pleasures. Religion Facts adds that the church neither worships the Judeo-Christian devil nor believes in the being's existence.
Satan comes from a Hebrew noun, satan, meaning an accuser or adversary. Reference sources on Judaism and on the Hebrew Bible give the same core sense of accuser. The Church of Satan says it uses the term in that Hebrew sense, which predates Christianity and means the opposition or the accuser.
The emblem on the cover, a goat's head inside an inverted pentagram with Hebrew letters around it, matches the Sigil of Baphomet. Reference sources describe it as the official insignia of the Church of Satan and credit Anton LaVey and the church with popularizing it. The Hebrew letters spell Leviathan.
The book is a collection of essays. Contributors write in their own words about applying the principles of Satanism in everyday life. A reader who wants an organization's own wording can find the Church of Satan's statements of belief on its official site, which makes a companion read beside the essays.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet