Bookslut has an interesting interview with J.C. Hallman, author of The Devil is a Gentleman. The book is about Hallman’s first-person experiences hanging out with members of eight different fringe religious communities, including Satanists, Scientologists, Atheists, Druids, Unarians, Wiccans, and Orthodox Christian monks.
Q: You had a couple of “Satanic scares” based on the deep-seated cultural fear of the devil. Did having these surprise you? A: I ended up in this Satanic dungeon all by myself way up in rural Canada, not really sure where I was, surrounded by Satanic paraphernalia. There were swords everywhere, freaky symbols and pictures all over the walls, and a ritual chamber hidden a few feet away from where I was supposed to sleep. The house’s exact location was and is a secret. So sure, I was scared!
Q: You got over it at some point?
A: I was looking at all these groups and how they came to be. I began to get a sense of where Satanists were coming from. They were using rituals to give themselves a sense of power. That’s in line with what James says about God and about truth — you measure the truth of an idea by the effect that it has. Satanists — or members of the Church of Satan, anyway — have internalized this. Their rituals are not faith based; they do this because they believe it is effective. In the initial meeting I had with Church of Satan high priest Peter Gilmore — we had lunch in New York — he described what he called “Satanic pragmatism.” By this he meant that Satanists were realistic, I think, but it’s also an allusion to the lingering influence of William James.
