RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS

THE highest of all holidays in the Satanic religion is the date of one's own birth. This is in direct contradiction to the holy of holy days of other religions, which deify a particular god who has been created in an anthropomorphic form of their own image, thereby showing that the ego is not really buried.

The Satanist feels: "Why not really be honest and if you are going to create a god in your image, why not create that god as yourself." Every man is a god if he chooses to recognize himself as one. So, the Satanist celebrates his own birthday as the most important holiday of the year. After all, aren't you happier about the fact that you were born than you are about the birth of someone you have never even met? Or for that matter, aside from religious holidays, why pay higher tribute to the birthday of a president or to a date in history than we do to the day we were brought into this greatest of all worlds?

Despite the fact that some of us may not have been wanted, or at least were not particularly planned, we're glad, even if no one else is, that we're here! You should give yourself a pat on the back, buy yourself whatever you want, treat yourself like the king (or god) that you are, and generally celebrate your birthday with as much pomp and ceremony as possible.

After one's own birthday, the two major Satanic holidays are Walpurgisnacht and Halloween (or All Hallows' Eve).

St. Walpurgis - or Walpurga, or Walburga, depending upon the time and area in which one is referring to her - was born in Sussex about the end of the Seventh or the beginning of the Eighth Century, and was educated at Winburn, Dorset, where after taking the veil, she remained for twenty-five years. She then, at the instance of her uncle, St. Boniface, and her brother, St. Wilibald, set out along with some other nuns to found religious houses in Germany. Her first settlement was at Bischofsheim in the diocese of Mainz, and two years later (754 A.D.) she became abbess of the Benedictine nunnery at Heidenheim, within her brother Wilibald's diocese of Eichstadt in Bavaria, where another brother, Winebald, had at the same time also been made head of a monastery. On the death of Winebald in 760 she succeeded him in his charge, retaining the superintendence of both houses until her death on February 25, 779. Her relics were translated to Eichstadt, where she was laid in a hollow rock, from which exuded a kind of bituminous oil, afterwards known as Walpurgis oil, regarded as having miraculous efficacy against disease. The cave became a place of pilgrimage, and a great church was built over the spot. She is commemorated at various times, but principally on May 1st, her day taking the place of an earlier Pagan festival. Amazingly enough, all of this rigmarole was found necessary simply to condone the continuance of the most important Pagan festival of the year - the grand climax of the spring equinox!

The Eve of May has been memorialized as the night that all of the demons, specters, afreets, and banshees would come forth and hold their wild revels, symbolizing the fruition of the spring equinox.

Halloween - All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Day - falls on October 31st or November 1st. Originally, All Hallows' Eve was one of the great fire festivals of Britain at the time of the Druids. In Scotland it was associated with the time when the spirits of the dead, the demons, witches, and sorcerers were unusually active and propitious. Paradoxically, All Hallows' Eve was also the night when young people performed magical rituals to determine their future marriage partners. The youth of the villages carried on with much merry-making and sensual revelry, but the older people took great care to safeguard their homes from the evil spirits, witches, and demons who had exceptional power that night.

The solstices and equinoxes are also celebrated as holidays, as they herald the first day of the seasons. The difference between a solstice and an equinox is a semantic one defining the relationship between the sun, moon, and the fixed stars. The solstice applies to summer and winter; the equinox refers to autumn and spring. The summer solstice is in June, and the winter solstice is in December. The autumn equinox is in September, and the spring equinox is in March. Both the equinoxes and the solstices vary a day or two from year to year, depending on the lunar cycle at the time, but usually fall on the 21st or 22nd of the month. Five to six weeks after these days the legendary Satanic revels are celebrated.


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Copyright ©1969 by Anton Szandor LaVey - All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this material or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information address Avon Books, Inc.