":::::Rev. Margolin, you are quite correct that LaVey did not originate the term 'satanist', and yet you have yet to demonstrate that LaVey (and his wife, and their comrades) did not invent the religion of Satanism, which was obviously my focus of interest for many moons now. self-ID is not irrelevant as this is one of the criteria for sociological categorization. if you have others, then please explain them.

I do appreciate your attempted summary of a history of Satanism. how did you arrive at the 13th century (1200s) as the time of the origin of Roman Catholicism propaganda using the term? the OED? is your selection of the late 1800s (that leaves at least 600 years of history unmapped!) based on Dashwood or the Taxil Hoax material? absent defining ""Satanism"" beyond propaganda, i don't see how priests ""caught experimenting with magic or accused of being witches or committing various heresies"" necessarily represents a 'backfire'. are you maintaining that magical practice and/or the practice of witchcraft/heresies were indicators of the propagandistic 'satanism' of the Roman Catholic Church? if so, and these may be identified, can we run down a list of these identifiers for the 'first part' of Satanism's history (as a tool of religious propaganda)? I don't follow your reference to Richard Ramirez here, or why he is some kind of example of a ""backfire"" of religious propaganda. is it because he uses the propaganda as a fear-inspirer with the communication of the media?

as regards 'Reverse Christians' or 'Inverse Christians', i don't think that these kinds of beliefs began being called 'Satanism' in any systemic sense until the 20th century as self-applied. if you know differently, please point out some instances, as i would be very interested to learn of the linguistic history.

with regard to this article, it extends off of the Satanism_(disambiguation) page, to whose Talk page you have posted many times, and thus without that disambiguation, it could well become anything associated with the term. if this is your contention, then you ought to be stating this on the previously-mentioned Talk page also so that we can get the disambiguation removed, else more clearly indicating what you want to do, since presently that page says ""Satanism is a catch-all term referring to several religious movements."" (my bolding) please make up your mind or at least forge an agreement with me about it. ) consider this some kind of 'Satanic' olive branch.

for my part, i suggest that the disambiguation page list the various categories of referent for the term (add to these if you have ideas):
(1) propaganda;
(2) proto-religion in inversion interior to Christianity and de facto statuses;
(3) pop-media circus (under LaVey, if you like);
(4) serious religious extentions (starting with or beyond the Church of Satan, or earlier, if we can document it);
and that we delineate those here. 

I can spearhead the matter either at the disambiguation page or here if you like, and we can map them out. there truly aren't that many of them, and some good portion of the territory is mapped on the disambiguation page right now, possibly needing a slight tweak. please advise as to your preferences and your interests, as we seem the major contributors of duration and appear to be drawing near to consensus. ;)  

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