Herbert Arthur Sloane was the first person known to have organized and led a specifically Satanic religious group. Its name was the Ophite Cultus Sathanas. Sloane -- a World War II U. S. Army veteran, barber, Spiritualist minister, numerologist, card and tea leaf reader, hypnotist, and evidentiary medium -- formed the group in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1948, and also headed his own local branch of the organization, Our Lady of Endor Coven. As Sloane changed location, the headquarters of the Ophite Cultus Sathanas relocated with him, first to Mishawaka and South Bend, Indiana in the 1950s, and then to Toledo, Ohio in the 1960s, where it remained until Sloane's death in 1975. It is estimated that membership in his group numbered fewer than a dozen people at any given time; according to one contemporary account there were five local members.〔''Herbert Arthur Sloane'', by Catherine Yronwode, 2012. (Full article ).〕

...it is the serpent that persuades Adam and Eve to taste of the fruit of knowledge and thereby to disobey their Creator...Indeed, more than one gnostic sect derived its name from the cult of the ''serpent'' ("Ophites" from the Gk. ''ophis''; "Naassenes" from the Heb. ''nahas''--the group as a whole being termed "ophitic")〔''The Gnostic Religion'', by Hans Jonas, 1958, p. 93.〕

This general Serpent is also the wise Word of Eve. This is the mystery of Eden: this is the river that flows out of Eden. This is also the mark that was set on Cain, whose sacrifice the god of this world (creator god ) did not accept whereas he accepted the bloody sacrifice of Abel: for the lord of this world delights in blood.〔''The Gnostic Religion'', by Hans Jonas, 1958, p. 95.〕