Satan worshippers open Temple of Lucifer in Denmark
By Peter Starck
TVED, Denmark, Jan 15, 2000 (Reuters) - A group of Satan worshippers
inaugurated what they called a Temple of Lucifer on Saturday, saying it was
the first of its kind in Denmark.
"We believe in something, in some power...he (Satan) is the symbol of
nature," cult leader Petra Johansson said.
"We don't believe in the Satan mentioned in the Bible," she told Reuters in
an interview, referring to the scriptures forming the basis for the
Christian religion.
Instead, the cult's roughly 20 members, mostly Danes but also a few Swedes,
base their faith on a work called the Satanic Bible, which says disciples
are "dedicated to the acceptance of Man's true nature -- that of a carnal
beast, living in a cosmos which is permeated and motivated by the DarkForce."
Lighting clusters of dark candles, Johansson, 37, spoke inside the temple --
a low rectangular room on the second floor of an annex to a neat two-storey
house on the outskirts of the sleepy town of Tved on Denmark's central
island Funen.
A small sign on the high wooden fence around the property identified it as
"Temple of Lucifer."
The ceiling and inner walls of the temple were painted black and red,
adorned with pictures of demons and "The Four Princes of Hell" -- Satan,
representing fire, Lucifer, air, Leviathan, water, and Belial, earth.
Among artefacts placed on a low altar in front of a huge pentagram in red
with a goat head at its centre -- the ancient symbol of the devil -- were a
black chalice and a long sword, which Johansson said were used in rituals
and ceremonies.
"You feel it in the atmosphere, something, some power," she said when asked
how Satan manifested himself at these services.
German-born Johansson, who became interested in the occult as a teenager,
underlined that she and her followers did not make any kind of animal or
human sacrifices, attributing such allegations about Satan worshippers to
"intolerant and hypocritical Christian sects."
Less than two km (1 mile) from the Temple of Lucifer in the Protestant
Christian town church of Tved, parish priest Bjoern Moe told Reuters that
the appearance of Satan worshippers had raised some eyebrows in the
community but not caused much concern, yet.
"Maybe it is serious," he said. "But it is very difficult to take them
seriously. It looks like frustration of some kind."15:22 01-15-00