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

58 Curses
destruction; drawings, paintings, etc.
the creation of a vivid literary description
of your victim’s ultimate end; a detailed
soliloquy directed at the intended
victim, describing his torments and
annihilation.
mutilation, injury, infliction of pain or
illness by proxy using any other means
or devices desired.
Intense, calculated hatred and disdain should
accompany this step of the ceremony, and no
attempt should be made to stop this step until
the expended energy results in a state of
relative exhaustion on the part of the magician.
As developed by Anton LaVey, cursing became
one of the principal magical acts of modern
Curse from the late 18th or early 19th century against
Mary Ann Ward, which was found with a curse doll. It
reads: I act this spell upon you from my holl (whole)
heart wishing you to never rest nor eat nor sleep the
whole resten part of your life. I hope your flesh will waste
away and I hope you will never spend another penny I
ought to have. Wishing this from my whole heart.
(Fortean Picture Library)
Satanism. It occupies a prominent place in his
Satanic Bible. LaVey recommended coming
together for ritual cursings as a way of forming
bonds within a Satanic group. The importance
given to such “supernatural” acts may strike one as
odd, given that LaVeyan Satanism is generally
atheistic. LaVey, however, defined magic broadly
as “The change in situations or events in accordance
with one’s will, which would, using
normally accepted methods, be unchangeable”
(LaVey 1969, 110). While arguing that the “greater
magic” taps forces beyond the ken of contemporary
science, he did not go so far as to assert that
such forces were “spiritual” or unscientific (indicating,
rather, that in the future science would
likely discover how magic works). In his description
of Satanic ritual, he implied that emotional
energy was somehow involved with the effective
power of cursing; for example: “In the case of a
curse or destruction ritual, it sometimes helps the
magician if his desires are intensified by other
members of the group”(119).
LaVey’s apparent seriousness about ritual
cursing is reflected in the liturgical text,
“Invocation Employed Towards the Conjuration
of Destruction,” found in The Satanic Bible:
BEHOLD! The mighty voices of my
vengeance smash the stillness of the air and
stand as monoliths of wrath upon a plain of
writhing serpents. I am become as a
monstrous machine of annihilation to the
festering fragments of the body of he (she)
who would detain me.
It repenteth me not that my summons
doth ride upon the blasting winds which
multiply the sting of my bitterness; And great
black slimy shapes shall rise from brackish
pits and vomit forth their pustulence into his
(her) puny brain.
I call upon the messengers of doom to
slash with grim delight this victim I hath
chosen. Silent is that voiceless bird that feeds
upon the brain-pulp of him (her) who hath
tormented me, and the agony of the is to be
shall sustain itself in shrieks of pain, only to
serve as signals of warning to those who
would resent my being.