Art Bell presses Barton on what he sees as a contradiction: if magic is real, how can she deny a creator? Barton holds firm, describing ritual work as a laboratory where practitioners build focused emotional energy and release it, citing emerging consciousness research as a potential scientific framework. She offers a vivid portrait of LaVey as carnival musician, hypnotist, and police photographer who distilled human hypocrisy into a coherent philosophy, and flatly denies the circulated claim of a deathbed conversion, stating she was present in his final moments. The 1980s Satanic Panic receives extensive treatment, with Barton noting the FBI found no evidence of an international conspiracy despite two legislatures attempting to ban Satanism as a religion.
Long-form talk radio doing what Art Bell argues it exists to do: examining what others will not.
Key Moments
Satan as metaphor, not deity: Barton clarifies the Church of Satan does not worship a literal devil; Satan, Lucifer and the devil are interchangeable metaphors for self-determination and the responsibility to make life count.
Three rituals: lust, compassion, destruction: Barton walks Art through a destruction ritual aimed at a hostile coworker, describing it as a psychodrama where pent-up energy is released into the universe like an orgasm and then let go.
Did LaVey conjure the devil?: Asked directly whether Anton LaVey conjured up the devil, Barton answers yes, in the metaphorical sense, saying he unleashed a 50-year movement of self-identified Satanists working in art, military, law and teaching.
Satanic Panic and the FBI investigation: Barton recalls the mid-80s to early-90s Satanic Panic on Geraldo, Sally Jessy Raphael and Oprah, state legislative attempts to ban Satanism, lives ruined by recovered-memory accusations, and the FBI's eventual finding that no international Satanic conspiracy existed.
Why Satanism is a dangerous path: Barton warns the left-hand path can take a practitioner 'as close as you can get to madness' if residual Christian fear or guilt remains, manifesting as physical pain, headaches and self-sabotage.