SAVE THE BLACK CATS!

Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2007 | 7:33 a.m.

It was a simple enough warning: Pet stores shouldn't sell black cats in October.

Why? Now that's a little more complex. A little, let's say, darker.

Brace yourself.

It's Satanists. Black cats shouldn't be sold because of blood-lusting Satanists.

Or at least according to the Lied Animal Shelter's Web site, which recently offered the following Halloween tip: "If you work in a pet store, remember that this is the time of year that can be deadly for black cats. Some sick people who play at being what they'll call a Satanist will buy them to 'sacrifice.' If you can, don't take any black cats or sell them during October."

For safety concerns, the shelter stopped adopting out black cats about a week ago and won't resume until the week after Halloween, Lied Executive Director Christine Robinson said.

Satanists, by and large, are amused.

Peter H. Gilmore is the Church of Satan's high priest, a position formerly occupied by church founder Anton LaVay, author of " The Satanic Bible. " Halloween is a holiday during which "mundane folk try to reach down inside and touch the 'darkness' which for Satanists is a daily mode of existence," Gilmore e-mailed from the church's headquarters in New York City.

True Satanists might be entertained by a trick-or-treater's "tenebrous fantasies, the candied indulgence, and the wide-ranging evocation of our aesthetics," Gilmore says, but they do not sacrifice cats.

Frankly, Gilmore says, Satanists aren't interested in sacrifice.

"Satanists revere animals far more than most humans we might encounter, and since we are atheists, there is no element of sacrifice to our religion," he says. "Christianity has a human sacrifice as its central image - a crucifixion - and that is something we life-loving Satanists find repugnant."

After questions from the Sun, Robinson said Lied would remove the warning from its Web site.

The shelter doesn't want to offend anyone, Robinson said, but the sentiment remains: October is a bad time to be a black cat. Shelters across the country cease adopting out black cats for this very reason, she said.

John Allee, founder of the First Church of Satan, a branch that split from the original church in 1994, happens to own a black cat. His wife, Lillee, a practicing witch, says they aren't sacrificing Pooka any time soon.

She does, however, agree with Lied's decision to stop adopting out black cats in the weeks surrounding Halloween - not because of Satanists, but because of poseurs.

"People who m we refer to as 'dabblers' or 'black circle boys' feel the need to act out," she said. "For those of us who understand the dark side, all of these animals - owls , bats and cats - are almost worship p ed or idolized around this time of year.

"A Satanist does not touch the innocent and certainly a cat is an innocent," she said. "To kill something that is worshipped is just sad."

Seven dead cats were reported to Clark County Animal Control from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2 last year, according to supervisor David March. He knew of no other three -day period in which that many dead cats were found. (The closest he got was five in three days.)

But March isn't inclined to believe Satanists are at work. He's been in animal control for 18 years and has never seen any sign of it.

Still, Lillee Allee acknowledges, bad things happen to good cats. She was speaking on her cell phone while en route to a Witches Ball in Albany, N.Y., where all of the guests would dance into the dark side with their cats safe at home

"We are not waiting for the hereafter," she said. "We enjoy the here and now."