LEGEND: ASL wrote the _Satanic Bible_, his principal work, to fulfill his
congregation's need for a scriptural guide.
REALITY: _The Satanic Bible_ was conceived as a commercial vehicle by
paperback publisher Avon Books. Avon approached ASL for some kind of
Satanic work to cash in on the Satanism & witchcraft fad of the late 1960s.
Pressed for material to meet Avon's deadline, ASL resorted to plagiarism,
assembling extracts from an obscure 1896 tract - _Might is Right_ by Ragnar
Redbeard into a "Book of Satan" for the _SB_, and claiming its authorship
by himself. [Ironically these _MiR_ passages are the ones most frequently
quoted by ASL disciples.] Another third of the SB consists of John Dee's
"Enochian Keys", taken directly but again without attribution from Aleister
Crowley's _Equinox_. The _SB_'s "Nine Satanic Statements", one of the
Church of Satan's central doctrines, is a paraphrase, again unacknowledged,
of passages from Ayn Rand's _Atlas Shrugged_. The last words in the _SB_ -
"Yankee Rose" - have been puzzled over for years by readers. "YR" is
actually the name of an old popular tune in ASL's nightclub repertoire.
SOURCES: ASL, _The Satanic Bible_; Ragnar Redbeard, _Might is Right_, Port
Townsend: Loompanics (reprint), 1896; Ayn Rand, _Atlas Shrugged_ (Galt's
speech, ca. pages #936-993); "Yankee Rose" by Sidney Holden & Abe Frankl
(Irving Berlin Music, 1926).