When I was younger, as now, I was a big horror fan. Back in high school, thanks to books like The Exorcist, The Amityville Horror, and Hostage to the Devil, I was into the Devil, at least as a fictional monster. I said fictional, folks, let's get that straight, I didn't believe this stuff. It was in that spirit I picked up Anton LaVey's so-called Satanic Bible.
I can still remember the look of alarm I got from the elderly lady clerk at B. Dalton when I plopped the book on the counter to purchase it. She would always give me the evil eye after that whenever I entered her mall store. On the contrary however, when I was in college, and working at that mall, a girlfriend who worked at WaldenBooks told me they sold lots of copies of the book all the time. Maybe more folks bought their Satanic Bibles at Walden than Dalton?
Anyway, I couldn't wait to dive into this evil plain black book and learn all about the Devil. Then I started reading, then skipping and browsing, then slowly putting it down. Man, what a disappointment. The Necronomicon it was not. No horns, no possession, no Biblical evil, not even a pitchfork. What I got was a boring new age book about doing whatever you want. Do what you will or some such crap. This was philosophy, a self-help book, where was the evil? Where was the Devil??
Now I remember tossing that thing into the paperback trader pile, and began spending a lifetime correcting people who think Satanists are Devil worshippers. I went back to Stephen King, Robert McCammon, and James Herbert pretty quickly. What a misleading piece of crap.
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