Most recently, I had posted on Facebook about my decision to want to create a Sigil of Baphomet pendant that WOULD BE EXACTLY the same USED BY THE CHURCH OF SATAN and USING THE WORDS "CHURCH OF SATAN" on these pendants.
The idea was that I would finally create something to commemorate the legacy that started the Satanic movement we have been experiencing in 2014. It was an idea brought on by the many comments and emails I had recieved over the past 2 years since I began to create pendants that catered to 'the dark side of life' specifically Satanists.
Throughout 2014, I have been very vocal AND TRANSPARENT about how I conduct business. I have to say that my online website, www.SigilofBaphomet.com is NOT my source of income nor do I consider it much like some kind of corporate business. In my view, I am still far from that. I make my money on other more serious investments. This being a marketing consultant and an investor in the stock market, just to name a few ways I make my living. This idea to create pendants spawned from the days that The Church of Satan's website when an online store called Emporium once existed. Since it had been a few years of the store's disappearance, I came to discover some of the store's negative feedback. Very positive feedback was found. Truth be said, I was doing something called "market research". This terms is used in a wide sense to describe "digging" or researching something about the type of business you want to learn about or going into. Most of you already know by now why I got into this business with creating pendants, so I will spare you that story here. However, I say all this because I am leading to the email I sent to the Church of Satan. I threw in the idea of who they are dealing with. A little of my background and I offered them a chance to check out my website for what it has become in the past 2 years. Once again, my pictures speak for themselves, the comments on facebook I do not edit...and the few numbers on Ebay feedback scores says enough about my ability to bring what the people demand.
Without further delay, here is the email I sent...some of the details are edited due to the nature of my offer. I share this only because its much easier for one to read and understand where my thoughts and comments were based on the response I got from this email. Rather than explain what I said to get the type of response I got, its best to share some of it and let you be the judge:
Hello, I own the website, SigilofBaphomet.com I have been creating Baphomet pendants for some time now....... Lately, I've been pondering the idea of creating a commerative piece that would be specific for your organization, The Church of Satan and the legacy that started it all.
I would welcome you to browse through my site to look at the details and quality of my craftsmanship of these pendants......
My email is merely to make a proposal. I have taken notice that The Church of Satan is not as active publicly as it might have been in years past. I want to create a piece commemorating the famous Baphomet design your organization utilizes. However, my proposal is not merely a request for permission to use it but rather to bring some revenues justly deserving of the Church of Satan.
My intentions are to fully fund and invest my time, knowledge, business marketing capabilities, into this new production and share a percentage of the revenues with your organization as part of an agreement to utilize the design WITH the words Church of Satan, among other details, I'm open to discuss.....
I strongly believe that having such revenues, can result in bringing out a more active role for the Church of Satan as it sees it fit.......
I'm willing to meet in the state of New York to make good on on my offer and negotiate.
If you are interested, please feel free to contact me......
SO....That's My Email...slightly edited for the purpose of this blog. Its pretty straight forward...
Now...I feel comfortable sharing some of what I said....however, in all fairness, I will only TALK about the response I got. Allow me to get into a side note before I begin.
I often stated that on Social Media, there exists these Facebook ninjas. A facebook ninja, to me, are those who are on your friends list or if you have a public facebook page, such as the facebook page for my site: SoB.com, they never click the 'Like' button, they never comment on anything, literally. Its almost like the far and few people in the world today that still do not have a facebook page...in this case, the Facebook Ninja has one, perhaps has little to nothing on their page that they do share AND they are never active on facebook. What makes them ninjas in the sort, is that they DEFINITELY watch what everyone else is doing. They read everything everyone is posting. I am all too aware of this known fact, I blog for all who say nothing and do nothing too...I know you are readint this right now...and rest assured, it won't be ugly this time.
The response I got almost immediately appeared as if the person responding was all too concerned with The Church of Satan's public image. What I mean is, they took what they wanted to respond from on my email to them. They focused on a couple sentences. Perhaps I was a little to vocal in a personal way when I stated that the Church of Satan could show a little more activism. It appeared to me from their reponse that this was the base of their response. They simply stated that they have never been as active as they have been lately. As if they are in full throttle. The email went on to state that they are still currently working on bring some items of their own to market. Now, upon this point, I thought to myself, must we continue to wait another decade? I mean, at what point must one wait to see something new to come to life? I personally have shared why I began to create these pendants. In the early 2000's there existed Emporium....I thought it was good but could have done better...and suddenly, it disappeared with no chance of ever seeing some improvised versions of the Baphomet pendants come to life. I lived through the 80's and 90's never seeing anything, early in the millenium, something came and it came with some bad reviews that I dug up but disappeared and its been nearly a decade SINCE! If I didn't do this, WHO WOULD? Grant it, now there's a few out there that finally answered the call in our 'supply and demand' model. However, none of these people, inlcuding myself, did a joint venture with the Church of Satan. Instead, some created their own Baphomet renditions and others asked for 'permission' or where sanctioned to use copyrighted material.
What ever the terms were, not one has truly attempted to do what I had intended. Perhaps my initial email was not so much into details about my ideas but there is a good reason for that. In business, there's Disclosure Clause. These are documents that conjured up by legal teams or attorneys that state what the intent of both parties would be, how the business between them will be conducted and SPECIFICALLY the privacy of keeping ideas exactly THAT, PRIVATE!
Instead, I got a response that was intended to correct me on my thought that I believed the Church of Satan was not so active as it is perceived to be by myself and well, public opinion. I believe that public opinion matters to some degree. Perhaps not so much on an INDIVIDUAL'S case by case but for an organization, it definitely does!
If you are not getting my point by now, after continueing to read and understand their point of correcting my short statements I made in the email, they declined my proposal. Stating that they are in the works (behind the scenes) to bring about new ideas and/or products to market and therefore, my services, experience, skills, and investments were not wanted.
All organizations, no matter what the mission statements say, requires funding. Funding is what makes the world go round. The Church of Satan gets revenues from the distribution and sales of books such as The Satanic Bible, The Satanic Rituals, Satanic Witch, etc...These books have not been out of print since they were written. New books are expected to come for years to come. Anyone with any business sense or background in how to run a business knows this. My proposal was a great way for them to tap into another source of funding. These things do not need to be for a lifetime, they can be negotiated to expire if they want to limit their backing on this. The terms be made in any way shape or form. My proposal was quite simple and self explanatory. It was meant as a way to give back to the foundation that started the legacy that is still literally raising hell til this day. I do not NEED to do this, but I DID want to HONOR the fact that without the legacy, there would not be a SIGIL OF BAPHOMET WEBSITE AMONG OTHER BAPHOMET ANYTHING! Let alone, SATANISM on a global scale. Satanism has always existed but to have organized it the way Anton LaVey did was unprecedented. A commemorative pendant would have brought in revenues UNIMAGINABLE ...and yes, I'll EVEN GO AS FAR AS SAYING IT: BIGGER than the sales of The SATANIC BIBLE since it's release!
I personally envisioned something of great substance unforeseen by The Church of Satan that would have been of nothing but a 100% benefit to them. I specifically stated that I would have funded the investments itself, I would have mastermined the marketing, I would have done it all! Having said all this, they would have done little but sign some privileges to me to do so, certain restrictions would be understandable, however, a stupendous amounts of revenues that they could use as they see fit...and again, my statement that it would likely have shown them as being more active than its been perceived by myself and assuming a great majority. Yet, despite all this, they declined. Declined with a clarification of my supposed misunderstanding.
I was seriously hoping to have come to the negotiating table, at the very least. Not that an agreement would be struck but you simply do not know unless you have a discussion. Not one clarification of my words were needed. No further details were asked of me, NOTHING. It was a very simple decline, some clarification, and overall, the email was short. They stated what is obviously already known by the general public. They share what members have created.
However, on a good note...and I say this truthfully as a good note. According to their email, they are working on commemorative pieces for their 50th anniversary to be released most likely as the date approaches. I say this because I have often said before, I welcome competition. Baphomet existed long before any organization. I don't just sell the images that represent the philosophies and ideas we follow, but rather the QUALITY we seek to represent them in. Its THAT SIMPLE!
"I do the work of the devil" - Leo A. when asked what I do for a living. (jokingly)
