Chicago, USA - Jamie Meyer's apartment is covered with signs of the sacred and profane.
If you look closely at the picture to the right, you can see that the bookmark he uses to hold his place in “The Satanic Bible” is colored with crayon-- a gift from his young daughter.
A stack of Satanic literature shares space on a shelf with paraphernalia from his favorite gory film and an Olan Mills-like photograph of Meyer and his three youngest daughters.
What might seem counterintuitive to some seems perfectly normal for the father of four. He says he is as equally devoted to raising successful children as he is to clarifying misconceptions about the Church of Satan.
Still, Meyer's ex-wife is citing his religious affiliation as the main reason an Indiana judge should restrict his visitation time to allow his three youngest daughters to attend Christian church.
Indeed the two are not mutually exclusive, said Peter Gilmore, high priest of the Church of Satan, who professionally writes orchestral music and film scores.
“Some of your readers might wonder what exposure to Satanism might do to a developing child,” Gilmore said. “I recognized myself as a Satanist at age 13 and was subsequently the valedictorian of my high school class in 1976, being quite open about my religion.”
But Gilmore acknowledges that was a different day back then.
“The '70s were more liberal than today when many young Satanists are being harassed because of willful misunderstanding of their beliefs,” he said. “Satanism was for me a wonderful tool to focus myself and aided me to excel in my studies … So, if the general stereotype might be of Satanists as metalhead, trench coat wearing, dour misfits, the truth is more often that we are life-loving, creative and productive individualists who can't be fit into any mold, either in choice of clothing or musical and artistic preferences.”
But Carl Raschke, author of “Painted Black,” said some of the principles of the Church of Satan are cause for concern when it comes to parenting. He cautioned that there are many varieties of Satanists “from the ghastly to the innocuous.”
“You have to look at every particular case,” he said. Still, he views the Church of Satan as a counter-Christian movement, which could pose a problem for a Christian mom and a Satanic dad.
“If I had a spouse basically practicing a religion that strategically, self-consciously and openly taught contempt for the faith of the other parent I would be very concerned,” he said. “Christianity is about giving up your life and picking up your cross. Satanism is about making yourself the center of attention. Nobody else matters except the gratification of your lust and sanity and desires.”