Feeling like insignificant cogs in a machine, bewildered by the complexities of various bureaucracies, these people seek out a group that will accept them, in which they can vent their feelings of hostile alienation, without being censured. But becoming part of an elect elite can have side effects. Weird becomes weirder. Humanitarian religions, according to Fromm, concern themselves with the goals of self- realization, while authoritarian religions emphasize the importance of their own power. The main virtue of this type of religion is obedience, the cardinal sin, disobedience.
Most Satanic cults are authoritarian in nature.
Also, when members honor him with salutes and hails, he appears that much more powerful. His power, in turn, reflects back on the group. With the possible exception of The Process in the early 1970s, no organized Satanic church has attempted to attain that kind of control of its membership. This, perhaps, has been a source of failure of such groups as LaVey's and Aquino's to consolidate and add to the gains in membership they made in the early 1970s. For such persons, the distinction between Christianity and Satanism is principally semantic.