Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

42 Cerberus
theorists in the 1980s, secret official agencies and
evil space people have formed an unholy alliance
to mutilate cattle and people. Called by their
critics “Dark Siders,” believers fashioned a kind of
demonology of their own, though without the
literal demons of the Satanist lore the new speculations
supplanted.
—Jerome Clark
See also Satanic Ritual Abuse; UFOs and Demons
For Further Reading:
Andrews, George C. Extra-Terrestrials among Us. St.
Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1986.
Donovan, Roberta, and Keith Wolverton. Mystery
Stalks the Prairie. Raynesford, MT: THAR
Institute, 1976.
Ellis, Bill. Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions,
and the Media. Lexington: University Press of
Kentucky, 2000.
Kagan, Daniel, and Ian Summers. Mute Evidence.
New York: Bantam Books, 1984.
Stewart, James R. “Cattle Mutilations: An Episode of
Collective Delusion.” The Zetetic 1, no. 2
(Spring/Summer 1977).
Cerberus
In Greek mythology, Cerberus was the guardian
or watchdog of the underworld, Hades. The
offspring of Typhon and Echidna (who also
parented the Hydra and the Chimaera), he was
described as having three heads (though Hesiod
attributes him with fifty heads), a snake’s tail,
and a row of snake’s heads sprouting from his
neck. He greeted the newly dead with eagerness,
but ate anyone who tried to escape. Cerberus
was said to have been charmed by Orpheus, who
was the only mortal he willingly allowed to enter
Hades. In another story he was defeated in a
struggle with Hercules, who forced him to come
with him to the surface world (this was the
twelfth labor of Hercules). It was also said that
anyone who chanced to look at Cerberus turned
to stone, and that, upon falling to the ground,
the animal’s spittle would give birth to the
poisonous aconite plant.
Both Cerberus and Charon, the ferryman of
the underworld, are threshold guardians, a type of
mythological figure that is widespread in world
culture. Threshold guardians allow only those
who are appropriately qualified to pass from one
realm to the other. Thus Cerberus allowed only
the dead to pass into Hades, and he prevented the
departed from returning to the realm of the living.
See also Hades
For Further Reading:
Grant, Michael, and John Hazel. Who’s Who in
Classical Mythology. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1993.
Tripp, Edward. The Meridian Handbook of Classical
Mythology. New York: New American Library,
1970.
Ceremony
In this 1997 film a rebellious angel is banished
from heaven, and imprisoned in a box, The
Clockwork. Centuries later, it opens in the home
of a college student. Her Christian buddies get
together to put the fallen angel back in his box.
Chaos Magic
When Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan
in the 1960s, he adapted his ritual material from
literary accounts of Satanic rituals and from the
ceremonial magic tradition as embodied in the
Order of the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley.
LaVey’s approach was eclectic and his attitude
pragmatic—if it works, use it. Although very
different, contemporary chaos magic developed
from the same roots as LaVey’s magical practices
and it shares LaVey’s pragmatic attitude. This
similarity of spirit may be one of the reasons why
many contemporary Satanists are attracted to
chaos magic.
Austin Osman Spare (1886–1956), the person
regarded as the founder of chaos magic, was a
talented graphic artist. After short stints in the
Golden Dawn and Crowley’s Argenteum Astrum,
he began thinking through a new approach to the
occult. The result was chaos magic, which has
been described as more of an attitude than a
magical system. The chaos magician can make use
of traditional rituals or create new ones, as she or
he wishes, the only requirement being that it
works. Chaos magic begins with the assumption
that the proper field of magic is the subconscious
mind, and makes use of whatever evokes a charge
from the subconscious during magical operations.