--- title: Satanism in the United States: A Brief History of Its Evolution description: The unveiling of a statue in Detroit has garnered fresh headlines for Satanism canonical: https://time.com/3973573/satanism-american-history/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-27T21:04:47.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:02:17.821Z article:section: History og:title: Satanism in the United States: A Brief History of Its Evolution og:description: The unveiling of a statue in Detroit has made Satanism news again og:url: https://time.com/3973573/satanism-american-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6414cf817fe3677d/69885c9ae53aba46db4dec99/1101720619_400.jpg?branch=production&width=400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 400 og:image:height: 225 og:image:alt: Occult Cover og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Satanism in the United States: A Brief History of Its Evolution twitter:description: The unveiling of a statue in Detroit has made Satanism news again twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6414cf817fe3677d/69885c9ae53aba46db4dec99/1101720619_400.jpg?branch=production&width=400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Evolution of Modern Satanism in the United States > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jul 27, 2015 9:04 PM UTC  The June 19, 1972, cover of TIME The June 19, 1972, cover of TIME Cover Credit: JACK AND BETTY CHEETHAM  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jul 27, 2015 9:04 PM UTC This weekend, hundreds of adherents and observers flocked to a Detroit warehouse to witness the unveiling of a statue erected on behalf of the Satanic Temple. As organizer Jex Blackmore [told TIME](http://time.com/3972713/detroit-satanic-statue-baphomet/), the Satanic Temple isn’t quite a religious organization, but rather a group of people who prioritize human logic. One of the meanings of the monument, Blackmore added, is to celebrate “a reconciliation of opposites”—particularly in relation to the public display of [monuments of other faiths.](http://nation.time.com/2013/12/09/satanic-temple-wants-monument-next-to-10-commandments-in-oklahoma/) But, though the new statue has earned the Satanic Temple a fresh round of attention, Satanism has a long tradition. In the early 1970s, interest in the occult in American culture was so high that TIME devoted a cover story to the topic, and a large portion of it was focused on Satanism. As the story pointed out, the idea of “the Devil” is an ancient one, predating the Old Testament’s coinage of Satan. The early days of Christianity saw the development of a theology about Satan, and an increase of his agency and power in religious stories. Narratives outside the biblical canon expanded that characterization; by the 13th century, Satan was seen to be mighty (and popular) enough to be worthy of condemnation. “Some of the confessions \[in the Inquisition age\] must have been sheer defiance: faced with a ruling establishment that was sanctified by the church, a resentful peasantry followed the only image of rebellion they knew—Satan,” TIME posited. “The satanic messiah became especially appealing in times of despair, such as the era of the plague known as the Black Death. Real or imagined, the pact with the Devil may have been the last bad hope for safety in a world fallen out of joint.” Perhaps for that reason, the Christian Church’s efforts to root out Satanism were not entirely successful. The French aristocracy under Louis XIV was titillated by tales of nude demonic ritual, and the prim and proper Victorian period saw a spike in interest too. But the existence of Satanists as an organized, public group in the United States is a much newer phenomenon, much of which can be largely traced to one man: Anton Szandor La Vey, author of 1969’s _The Satanic Bible_. La Vey founded the Church of Satan in 1966 in San Francisco. As TIME explained in 1972, La Vey’s organization was not the scary Satanism of religious imagination: --- > “” --- Though the 1960s and ’70s saw the introduction of several other concepts called Satanism—from actual religious belief, to a credo used to justify criminality—the Church of Satan did not fade away. In 1978, the U.S. Army even included the group in the manual of “Religious Requirements and Practices” delivered to its hundreds of chaplains. (TIME [mentioned](http://time.com/vault/issue/1978-07-03/page/102/) that the manual explained that Church of Satan devotees might need “candles, a bell, a chalice, elixir, a sword, a gong, parchment and ‘a model phallus,'” but that chaplains would not be expected to supply those materials.) Though La Vey died [in 1997](http://time.com/vault/issue/1997-11-17/page/45/), the organization he founded continues without him. The brand of Satanism on display in Detroit was of a different sort: political Satanism, a more recent innovation. Those activists are associated with the Satanic Temple, a New York-based group that has spent the last few years publicly offering alternatives to more mainstream displays of religiosity. The Satanic Temple sees Satan as a _Paradise Lost_\-inflected metaphor who represents skepticism and the ability to challenge authority. A spokesperson for the Church of Satan told TIME in 2013, for [a story highlighting the differences between the two groups](http://nation.time.com/2013/12/10/the-new-satanism-less-lucifer-more-politics/), that the newer organization was focused on “politically oriented stunts” that had “cribbed” their philosophy from the more established group. Meanwhile, the Satanic Temple said that its aim was, in cases where religion had been inserted into the public sphere, “to ensure that its view of the world is included.” If the Detroit attendance figures are any indication, they’ve succeeded. The continued existence of two organizations that claim Satanism for two different functions highlights a point made by John M. Kincaid, the Church of Satan’s minister of information in the mid-1970s: though it may take a variety of forms, interest in mystery and rebellion is timeless. “The need to believe,” he wrote to TIME [in 1974](http://time.com/vault/issue/1974-03-25/page/8/), “is as dominant a factor in this so-called enlightened age of ours as it has ever been”—which means those who are skeptical are present and accounted for too. **_Read the full story from 1972, here in the TIME Vault:_** [A Substitute Religion](http://time.com/vault/issue/1972-06-19/page/68/) ### 37 TIME Magazine Covers That Appeared to Give People Horns  Photograph by Philip Montgomery for TIME   President-elect Donald Trump, Person of the Year 2016, photographed at his penthouse on the 66th floor of Trump Tower in New York City on Nov. 28. Photograph by Nadav Kander for TIME  Photograph by Spencer Platt–Getty Images  Person of the Year Pope Francis, Dec. 23, 2013  Pope Francis, July 29, 2013  Pope Benedict, May 2, 2005  Pope John Paul II, Oct. 30, 1978  Bill Clinton, March 2, 1998  Bill Clinton, Dec. 21, 1998  Bill Clinton, Jan. 4, 1993  Bill Clinton, Oct. 1, 2012  John Travolta as Bill Clinton, March 16, 1998  Hillary Clinton, Nov. 16, 2009  Margaret Thatcher, Dec. 3, 1990  Prince Charles, May 15, 1978  Vladimir Putin, Dec. 31, 2007  Mamoud Ahmadinejad, Sept. 25, 2006 ArtPro Workstation1  George W. Bush, May 24, 2004  David Petraeus, Sept. 17, 2007  Saddam Hussein, april 21, 2003  ArtPro Workstation1  Barack Obama, Oct. 20, 2008  Abraham Lincoln, July 4, 2005  Franklin D. Roosevelt, July 6, 2009  Russell Crowe, Nov. 10, 2003  Kathryn Bigelow, Feb. 4, 2013  Angelina Jolie, May 27, 2013  Kate Winslet, March 2, 2009  Jay Leno, Sept. 14, 2009  Darth Vader, May 9, 2005  Jodie Foster, Oct. 14, 1991  Bill Gates, June 5, 1995  Jonathan Franzen, Aug. 23, 2010  Billy Graham, Aug. 20, 2007  Jesus, April 12, 2004  The GOP, Oct. 16, 2006 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3973573/satanism-american-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3973573/satanism-american-history/"},"headline":"The Evolution of Modern Satanism in the United States","datePublished":"2015-07-27T21:04:47.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:02:17.821Z","description":"The unveiling of a statue in Detroit has garnered fresh headlines for Satanism","url":"https://time.com/3973573/satanism-american-history/","keywords":["Law","faith"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6414cf817fe3677d/69885c9ae53aba46db4dec99/1101720619_400.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6414cf817fe3677d/69885c9ae53aba46db4dec99/1101720619_400.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Occult Cover","caption":"Occult Cover","creditText":"Cover Credit: JACK AND BETTY CHEETHAM","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3973573/satanism-american-history/","name":"The Evolution of Modern Satanism in the United States"}}]}] ```