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Anton LaVey: The Devil's Prophet America Couldn't Ignore · Mystery Archives Episodes

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In a black house hidden in San Francisco, beneath candlelight
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and guttural chance, a man in a horned robe raised his blade and
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declared, This is Year 1. Anos Satanus.
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Hail Satan. His name was Anton Lavey, and he
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didn't just worship the devil. He made Satan an entire
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religion. He baptized his child upon the
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altar of evil. He walked a Panther through the
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streets. He cursed a man to die, and that
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man died exactly as foretold. Some say it was theater, others
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believed it was real. This video will cover the life
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of Juan Anton Lavey. These are the documented
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rituals, curses, and terrifying truths behind the most infamous
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Satanist of the 20th century. Let us now enter the Black House
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and crawl into the belly of the beast within its ritual chamber.
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As we delve into Evil Has a Name, the story of Anton Lavey,
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and Satanism, Please remember to check out my official links
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like, Share and Subscribe. Thank you.
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This man's. Life in the topic of modern day
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Satanism as a whole is incredibly vast.
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I've done my best to deep dive, but I'm sure I'll inevitably
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miss some details as we go on. After all, I'm only human and
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I've done my best. Now let us begin.
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Howard Stanton Levy was born in Chicago, IL to a family of mixed
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Jewish European ancestry. As a child, he felt like an
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outsider harboring a fascination with the macabre.
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Family members encouraged his musical talent.
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He excelled at keyboards like the piano and accordion, yet he
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preferred haunting melodies to hymns.
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One often repeated, though fanciful anecdote claimed that
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baby Howard was born with a tale, a tiny appendage that
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supposedly marked him as a devil touched from birth.
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Though this sensational detail was likely a myth Lavey himself
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propagated in later years, but it set the tone for the self
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created legend to come. Growing up in California, young
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Lavey was repelled by what he saw as the pious pretenses of
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society. He later recounted A formative
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teenage experience sneaking into a traveling carnival's burlesque
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show only to spot a local churchgoer among the lute
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dancers. I knew then that the Christian
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Church thrived on hypocrisy. He said.
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Man's carnal nature could not be suppressed by Sunday prayers.
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In the late 1940s, he played the organ for further burlesque
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shows and in CD bars and lounges and chanting patrons with eerie
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like melodies. During this period, he crossed
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paths with a then unknown Marilyn Monroe, or so he later
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boasted. Lavey eagerly told interviewers
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that he had had a brief affair with Monroe when she was a nude
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dancer at an LA burlesque club in 1948.
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Such tales further illustrate how Lavey would embellish his
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life story and fabricate his own mythos when it suited him.
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In truth, by age 20, Lavey had settled in San Francisco,
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married a local girl named Carol Lansing in 1951, and had become
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a father after Carol gave birth to their daughter Carla in 1952.
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To dodge the Korean War draft, Levae enrolled in criminology
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classes and even claimed to work as a crime scene photographer
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for the San Francisco Police Department.
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Levae's first wife later recalled that his true income
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came from continuing to play nightclub gigs and not policing.
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By the mid 1950's, the restless young husband had grown distant,
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drawn more to San Francisco's underground scene rather than
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his domestic life. Lavey's marriage to Carol fell
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apart by 1960 after he began an affair with a striking blonde
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named Diane Hegarty. Diane shared Lavey's fascination
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with the occult and would become his most important partner in
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the coming decade. Around this time, Lavey also
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cultivated an interest in paranormal investigation.
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He presented himself as a psychic investigator willing to
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chase down ghostly phenomena, claiming even that the police
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referred 800 calls about supernatural occurrences to him.
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But in the patterns we'll see to come, like everything in Lavey's
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early resume, this was impossible to verify, since SFPD
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had no such records. But these tales of midnight
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hauntings and psychic adventures burnished his emerging persona
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as a man unafraid to walk on the dark side.
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In truth, the most consequential development of Lavey's young
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adulthood was not any literal brush with the supernatural, but
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rather the circle of acquaintances he had gathered in
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San Francisco's bohemian circles.
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By 1965, Anton Lavey had only embraced the role of San
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Francisco's resident village occultists.
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He and Diane, now his de facto wife, purchased a two-story
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Victorian house at 6114 California Street in San
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Francisco's Richmond District. Painted jet black with Gothic
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trim, the home quickly became known as the Black House.
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Inside, Lavey indulged his flair for the dramatic trapdoors trick
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bookcases, a full-sized. Coffin, a real human skeleton,
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an antique, weapons on the walls.
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The collection was a monument to one man's obsessive aesthetic.
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Taxidermy and occult imagery adorned the parlor.
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Lavey even kept a menagerie of exotic pets, most famously a
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black leopard named Zoltan, that he would walk on a leash through
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the neighborhood neighbors. Gawked at the bald.
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Mephistophelian looking man strolling a Panther down the
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street or driving a former coroner's van as his personal
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car, but Lavey relished his local notoriety.
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The Black House's most important feature was its ritual chamber,
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a dimly lit room with a grand fireplace Mantel that served as
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an altar centerpiece. Here, Lavey's Magic Circle
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gatherings reached their full flourish.
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On Friday nights, enquirers and devotees crowded into the house
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for lectures on Arcane's subjects and demonstrations of
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magic. Topics ranged from the history
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of werewolf legends to techniques of hypnosis and the
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use of sexual energy and rituals.
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Lavey, typically clad in all black, would pontificate from
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his fireplace altar, delighting and shocking conventional
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sensibilities. Everything weird and wonderful
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was up for discussion, from vampires and cannibalism to the
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secrets of psychic power. By early 1966, the informal
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magic circle had coalesced into a more defined group of radical
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thinkers and misfits who were urging Lavey to take his ideas
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further. Many felt that Lavey's blend of
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rational self-interest, anti establishment, blasphemy and
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theatrical ritual could form the basis of a new philosophy, even
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a new religion. Lavey himself was coming to
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believe it. He had studied.
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Works of iconoclasts like Frederick Nietzsche and On Rand
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and found inspiration in their celebration of the individual
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will and rejection of Christian morality.
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He was also influenced by older occult texts ranging from
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Aleister Crowley's ceremonials to the Enochian keys of
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Sorcerer. John D Lavey's genius was
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synthesizing these desperate influences.
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Philosophy, occult lore and satire, And to something
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accessible to the curious 1960s public, he wanted to.
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Create a religion that explicitly celebrated the carnal
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self and marked the pieties of established faiths.
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All he needed was a catalytic. Event to declare his new
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movement to the world. On the night of April 30th,
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1966, the traditional Witch's Sabbath and European folklore,
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Levae gathered his closest associates in the Black House
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Ritual chamber for a midnight ceremony that would make
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headlines in dramatic fashion. Levae ritualistically shaved his
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head as the group looked on, explaining that he did it in the
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tradition of ancient executioners and other dark
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magicians. Then, standing before a
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makeshift alter, Lavey raised a sword and solemnly declared the
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founding of the Church of Satan. Denominate Satanus Luciferi
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Excelsis in the name of Satan, ruler of the Earth.
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He proclaimed that night to be the start of Year 1, Ano
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Satanus, the first year of the Age of Satan.
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Those gathered became the inaugural congregation of the
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world's first organized Satanic church.
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In modern times, Lavey's theatrical pronouncement might
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have ended as a mere odd footnote were it not for his
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shrewd instinct for publicity. Immediately after the Valpers
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knocked right, Lavey began courting the press.
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He alerted local newspapers that a new Satanic church was open
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for business in San Francisco and invited reporters to come
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witness the blasphemous goings on at the Black House.
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Before long, sensational articles appeared in the San
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Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times dubbing Lavey the
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black Pope of a devil worshipping cult.
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Rather than deny such labels, Lavey embraced them.
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He appeared for interviews wearing a flowing black Cape and
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a clerical collar, a Baphomet pentagram medallion gleaming on
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his chest. Lavey loved to play the villain
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for the media, sporting a pointed Van Dyke beard and
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arching his brows and diabolical poses for photographers.
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Historian Gareth Medway later noted that Lavey was a born
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showman who knew how to captivate an audience.
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And indeed in 1966. He succeeded in grabbing
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worldwide attention by proclaiming the dawn of the
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Church of Satan for those who would reject the guilt inducing
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God of Christianity. With the Church of Satan
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formally launched, Levae wasted no time in orchestrating
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dramatic rituals to put his new faith on the map.
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The Black House became the scene of frequent nocturnal
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ceremonies, equal parts of cult, ritual and performance.
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Art. Lavey's early services were
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highly theatrical affairs. As one witness described, the
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witness chamber would be illuminated only by flickering
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candlelight and a red chandelier, while Moody strains
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of Lavey's organ music, often the eerie theme from Rosemary's
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Baby or boxed Takata, droned in the background.
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The air hung heavy with incense. Lavey cut an imposing figure in
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his hooded black robe and horned cap, a gleaming sword in hand.
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He would intone a litany of infernal names, Satan, Lucifer,
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Belial, Leviathan, his voice resounding against the pentagram
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painted walls. Denominate Satanus Luciferi
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excelsis in the name of Satan, ruler of the Earth, king of
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Hell, come forth from the pit. Bestow the blessings of Hell
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upon us. We are your children, and we
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invoke thee this night. Often a nude woman was draped
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across the altar as a living mockery of Christian modesty,
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serving as what Lavey called the Satanic altar.
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In some rites, Lavey brought out a live snake or his pet lion cub
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to enhance the atmosphere of primal chaos.
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The participants, dressed in black hooded robes with inverted
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pentagrams, would chant responses in a guttural
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language, sometimes Enochian invocations borrowed from John
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D, and everyone would shout Hail Satan at climactic moments.
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It was strange, campy, and subversive all at once.
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While much of the ritualizing was akin to performance art,
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Lavey was sincere in his philosophy behind it.
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The goal was not to summon literal demons, but to release
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the participants in her inhibitions through dark
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pageantry, a kind of psychodrama to unchristianize them and exalt
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the carnal self. One of the earliest public
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satanic ceremonies Lavey staged was a Satanic wedding, a
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blatantly blasphemous mockery of a Christian marriage.
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On February 1st, 1967, just nine months after the church's
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founding, Lavey presided over the wedding of journalist John
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Raymond to New York socialite Judith Case in the Black House.
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His bizarre midnight service was deliberately open to the press,
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and it generated international headlines.
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Under the glare of cameras, Lavey appeared in full demonic
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regalia, a black hood, Cape and goat head medallion, while the
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bride and groom dawned, black robes trimmed in scarlet.
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A naked woman lay sprawled across the altar, scantily
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covered by a leopard print cloth, serving as the profane
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altar of Satan as La Vey in toned phrases and Pseudo Latin,
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at one point chanting in nominees Satani, Lucifer
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Excelsius. In a strangely accented growl,
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he traced an inverted cross on the couple's foreheads.
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He then rang A gong and declared them bound in Lucifer's name
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instead of gods. The ceremony was entirely for
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shock value. Indeed, the pair had not even
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bothered to obtain a legal marriage license, But it
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achieved Lavey's aim of courting controversy.
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Reporters scribbled furiously as Lavey concluded by raising the
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sword and pronouncing that so be it in the name of Satan, our
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Lord. The next day, headlines around
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the world blared news of the witch's wedding in San Francisco
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and the devil priest who officiated it.
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Lavey was pleased. We really pulled it off, he told
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the groom afterward. And you can bet that the rubes
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are going to come back for more. The Life magazine spread on the
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event, dubbed Lavey the Black Pope of his Odd flock, A moniker
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he would carry for years. Levae continued to feed the
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media's appetite for Satanic spectacle.
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A few months later, he staged an event more brazen than ritual,
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the first recorded Satanic baptism in history.
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On May 23rd, 1967, Levae baptized his own 3 year old
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daughter, Zena into the Church of Satan in a ceremony,
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deliberately inverting the Christian baptism riots.
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Little Zena, dressed in a tiny hooded robe, was seated on the
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edge of the black house altar while a nude woman lay beneath
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it. As flashbulbs popped, Lavey
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tapped his giggling toddler on the forehead with his sword and
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intoned and the name of Satan. We dedicate you, Zena, to the
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left-handed path. The imagery was so outrageous
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that it hit front pages worldwide.
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Religious leaders were scandalized, but Lavey gleefully
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welcomed their outrage. It only amplified the mystique
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of his church. He pressed vinyl recordings of
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the ceremony on an LP titled The Satanic Mass so that curious
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listeners could experience the blasphemy second hand.
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Between the Satanic wedding and baptism. 1967 Sol Lavey's fame
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or infamy explode. He appeared on The Tonight Show
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with Johnny Carson that year, clad in his devilish costume,
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confidently sparring with Carson's quips.
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Other talk shows and magazines lined up to feature the
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intriguing new religious figure who preached indulgence instead
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of piety. Even a Jesuit college invited
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Lavey to lecture, a publicity stunt he undertook with relish
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and a wicked grin. Behind the theatrical shock
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tactics, Levae was developing the philosophical foundation for
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Levae and Satanism, which he would soon be codifying into
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writing. Stripped of the spooky
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trappings, Lavey's message appealed to many disaffected,
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rational minded people in the late 1960s.
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He argued that Satan was not a literal demon with horns, but a
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symbol of rebellion, individuality, and the material
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reality of human nature. To Lavey, God and the Devil were
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metaphors, one for the life denying moralism of Christianity
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and the other for the life affirming instincts that
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Christianity tried to suppress. I am my own God, Lavey like to
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say, and Satan is the symbol of man's carnal nature and prideful
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spirit. His creed exalted indulgence,
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not abstinence, vengeance not turning the other cheek, and
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unapologetic selfishness as a virtue.
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Lavey plagiarized freely to build his doctrine.
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For instance, he drew on on Rand's philosophy of rational
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egoism, but he also tempered these harsh ideas with a shriek
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of carnival humor and theatrical absurdity, which may have kept
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his church from tipping into something genuinely dangerous.
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Many who attended early Church of Satan rituals were struck by
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the wry irony in Lavey's tone. He often delivered his diatribes
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with a sly wink, as if acknowledging the cosmic joke of
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it all. As one lecture attendee
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recalled, Lavey spoke as if to say We are hypocrites to condemn
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this act while we in society mutilate each other every day
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through war, rotten marriages, and the rest of modern life.
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This mix of Frank's social commentary, dark humor, and
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outrageous blasphemy attracted a variety of followers to Lavey's
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growing movement. By late 1967, Lavey was the
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center of a small Satanic scene in San Francisco and a figure of
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fascination far beyond the Church of Satan Central grotto.
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As local chapters were. Called and the Black House had
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initiated dozens of of members issuing red membership cards
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emblazoned with the sigil of Baphomet to each new Satanist.
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Lavey would later claim membership in the thousands.
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Those such numbers were likely inflated at the time.
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What is certain, though, is that his notoriety brought some other
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notable persons to his door. Among the curious celebrities of
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the 1960s who orbited Levae were Hollywood actors, musicians and
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underground artists. One of these was the legendary
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singer Sammy Davis. Junior Davis had an open minded
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interest in the occult and was introduced to Levae by friends
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at a Hollywood Witch's orgy party.
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The singer found Lavey's philosophy intriguing and even
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attended Church of Satan rituals.
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By 1970, Sammy Davis Junior had officially joined the Church of
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Satan, proudly accepting a membership card and occasionally
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defending Lavey in interviews. Another unlikely dabbler was
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said to be Liberace, the flamboyant pianist who was
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rumored to have attended 1 of Lavey's rituals.
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Out of sheer curiosity, Lavey welcomed famous seekers.
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Their presence only fed his legend.
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But of all celebrity encounters, none was more fateful or fatal
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than Lavey's entanglement with blonde bombshell Jane Mansfield.
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Mansfield was a popular actress and sex symbol of the 1950s who
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by 1966 saw her Hollywood career waning.
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Ever hungry for publicity, Mansfield was drawn to Lavey's
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dark glamour like moth to a flame.
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The two met in the summer of 1966 during a San Francisco Film
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Festival, and Mansfield, intrigued, accepted Lavey's
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invitation to visit the Black House.
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The unlikely pair forged a peculiar friendship.
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Lavey, clearly smitten with a voluptuous actress, named her a
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High Priestess of the Church of Satan in a gaudy ceremony and
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presented her with a membership certificate, which Mansfield
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hung on the wall of her pink Los Angeles mansion.
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They staged a series of publicity photos together,
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Mansfield posing playfully in Lavey's arms or seated by her
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heart-shaped swimming pool while Lavey, in Cape and horns, loomed
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behind. With a leering grin, Mansfield
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told the press that she was simply interested in what this
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man had to say and remained A practicing Catholic.
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But she also called Lavey an interesting person and a genius.
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Clearly, both understood the publicity value of their
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association with one another. Beauty and the Beast in real
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life In 1967, Mansfield's visits to Lavey became more frequent,
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and so did the tensions that they caused.
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Mansfield often brought along her attorney and boyfriend Sam
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Brody when seeing Lavey, and Brody was openly hostile to the
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self-proclaimed Satanist. According to legend, during one
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visit to Lavey's black house, Brody made the foolish mistake
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of mocking Lavey's rituals and disrespecting his sanctum.
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In one account, Brody flippantly lit a forbidden candle on the
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altar, an act of sacrilege in Lavey's eyes.
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Lavey was enraged by the insolence.
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He warned Mansfield that Brody had earned Satan's ire.
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With a dramatic flourish, Lavey allegedly invoked a curse.
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Your lawyer will die in a car crash within a year, he
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proclaimed. Anyone with him will be killed.
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Get rid of him at once. Mansfield supposedly laughed off
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this dire warning at the time. After all, Lavey was known to be
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theatrical. But the events that followed
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were chilling over. The next year, Mansfield and
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Brody were plagued by freak misfortunes.
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Mansfield young son was mauled by a lion in a horrific
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accident, an eerie coincidence given Lavey's own lion habit.
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Brody and Mansfield themselves suffered a string of seven car
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crashes in 1966 to 67, each one more serious than the last.
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Mansfield began to wonder if the Levae curse was real.
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Then on June 29th of 1967, just one year after her first meeting
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with Levae, the curse appeared to come to fruition in the most
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tragic way. In the early hours of that
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morning. Jane Mansfield, Sam Brody and
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three of Mansfield's children were driving on a dark Louisiana
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highway headed toward New Orleans.
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They had just finished a nightclub performance in Biloxi,
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Ms. and despite the late hour after 2:00 AM, the party was
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determined to press on to the next venue.
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As their drivers speed along Route 90 through misty Bayou
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roads, a truck spraying mosquito Fogger pulled onto the highway
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ahead of them. In the thick insecticide fog,
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the driver never saw the semi trailer's rear end looming until
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it was too late. The car slammed into the truck
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at a high speed, cheering the top off.
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In an instant, Mansfield, Brody and the driver were killed.
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All three in the front seat died at the scene, while the children
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in the back miraculously survived with injuries.
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The crash was so violent that rumors swirled about Mansfield
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being decapitated, although in fact she wasn't, but her skull
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was crushed. The nation was shocked by the
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gruesome death of the 30. 4 year old starlet.
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And many couldn't help but recall a vey's ominous
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prediction. Did the devil kill Jane
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Mansfield? Blared tabloid headlines.
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By 1 interpretation, Mansfield had been collateral damage.
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She died because she was in the car with the cursed Brody,
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exactly as Lavey had warned. In the wake of Mansfield's
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death, Lavey found himself even more in demand for interviews
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and profiles. Throughout 1967 to 68, he
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continued cultivating his devilish image.
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He boasted to Look magazine that he had served as a technical
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advisor. On the hit.
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Film Rosemary's Baby, even claiming that he had personally
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played the devil during the movies impregnation scene.
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In a similar vein, Lavey encouraged rumors linking the
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Church of Satan to the burgeoning counterculture chaos.
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When the notorious Manson Family murders occurred in August of
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1969, for instance, journalists couldn't help but note that one
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of the Manson killers, Susan Sadie Atkins, had been a
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performer in Lavey's circle. Indeed, Atkins had worked as a
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topless dancer in 1966 at a short lived occult themed
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nightclub show Lavey produced in San Francisco known as The
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Witch's Sabbath. In this grand burlesque, Atkins
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portrayed a vampire who drank blood on stage, a role
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chillingly apartment given her later crimes.
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After Atkins fell in with Charles Manson and helped
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butcher actress Sharon Tate in 1969, riding pig in Tate's blood
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on the door, the Faye didn't miss the chance to mention that
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she was one of his former witches.
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The Faye simultaneously denied any connection to the Manson and
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murders while slyly fanning the notion that the evil vibes of
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the 1960s swirled around him. Always he walked the line
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between sincere occult philosopher and carnival
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huckster, keeping public intrigue alive.
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By the end of the 1960s, Anton Lavey had achieved global
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notoriety as the high priest of the Church of Satan.
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To ensure his ideas were understood and a profit from the
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curiosity he had ignited, Lavey set out to publish a book laying
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out the tenants and rituals of his new religion.
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In 1968, sequestered in the Black House, he began compiling
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essays, aphorisms, and ritual scripts into a single volume.
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The result was The Satanic Bible, released by Avon Books in
28:13
December of 1969. Part manifesto and part occult
28:18
handbook, The Satanic Bible became the defining text of
28:23
Levaean Satanism. In its pages, Levae spelled out
28:27
his nine Satanic statements, a direct rebuke to the Christian
28:31
10 Commandments. These statements glorified
28:34
indulgence, vital existence, and the undefiled wisdom for
28:39
abstinence, spiritual pipe dreams, and self deceit.
28:44
For example, the first statement proclaims that Satan represents
28:48
indulgence instead of abstinence.
28:50
And. Another Satan represents
28:53
vengeance instead of turning the other cheek.
28:56
The last, as Lavey loved to quote, was Satan has been the
29:00
best friend the church has ever had.
29:03
He has kept it in business all these years.
29:06
Lavey pulled no punches in his contempt for conventional
29:09
religion. He asserted that Christian ethic
29:12
was anti natural, demanding that people suppress their true
29:16
desires and feel guilty for being human.
29:20
Satanism, by contrast, would restore man's carnal pride.
29:24
He framed it as a rational answer for those who couldn't
29:27
swallow the hypocrisies of mainstream faith.
29:31
There is a bit of Satan in us all, he wrote, meaning the urge
29:34
to reject herd conformity and follow one's path.
29:39
Crucially, the Satanic Bible also provided detail
29:42
instructions for Levaean rituals and magic.
29:47
Levae divided magic into two categories.
29:50
Lesser magic, everyday manipulation and charm, and
29:54
greater magic, full blown ritual spells.
29:57
He firmly maintained that magic was mostly psychological, a
30:02
means of focusing one's will, but he allowed for the
30:05
possibility of unknown forces being tapped into.
30:09
The book describes rituals for three main purposes.
30:12
Lust to enchant a desired 1, Compassion to help someone or
30:18
oneself, and Destruction to curse an enemy.
30:22
Lavey's destruction ritual in particular garnered attention.
30:26
It involves crafting a doll or an image of the target, focusing
30:30
hatred upon it, and declaiming the desired curse out loud.
30:35
The book became an unexpected commercial success.
30:38
Christ cheaply in mass market paperback The Satanic Bible
30:42
sold. Through over 1,000,000 copies in
30:44
the years to follow, it spread Levae's gospel of indulgence to
30:48
curious youth and established the Church of Satan's Canon.
30:53
With his philosophy now codified, Levae continued
30:56
expanding his Satanic literature.
30:59
In 1971 he published The Complete Witch, a for Witch's
31:04
only guide to lesser magic and manipulating men's desires,
31:09
essentially A satanic take on seduction and self help for
31:13
women. In 1972 came the Satanic
31:16
rituals, which provided additional ceremonial scripts,
31:21
some drawn from global mythos. During this period, Lavey's
31:25
public activities gradually shifted.
31:28
In the late 60s, he had thrown open the Black House to
31:31
journalists regularly, relishing the limelight.
31:35
But by 1972 he grew more selective.
31:39
The Church of Satan's membership was spreading beyond San
31:42
Francisco. Local chapters, or grottos, were
31:46
established in other cities, led by deputy priests, and Lavey
31:50
wanted to ensure the seriousness of his movement.
31:54
He officially curtailed public access to rituals at the House
31:57
in 1972, announcing that future ceremonies would be private or
32:02
held by regional grottos. The core group in San Francisco
32:07
continued meeting behind drawn curtains, but the new era of
32:11
media invited black masses was largely over.
32:15
Lavey was also aging out of the flower power zeitgeist, and by
32:19
the early 1970s, the hippie movement he despised was fading
32:24
and a more cynical mood prevailed.
32:27
On August 8th of 1969, the very night of the Manson murders,
32:32
Lavey had conducted what he called a hippie funeral.
32:35
At the Black House. Burning an effigy of a hippie in
32:39
a ritual curse on the counterculture.
32:41
Within 24 hours the bloody Tate Labianca murders by ex hippies
32:46
seemed to signal the dark end. The Summer of Love and a
32:50
coincidence not lost on Lavey or others.
32:54
One arena where Lavey remained active publicly was the
32:58
entertainment world. Ever the showman enjoyed
33:01
consulting on occult themed projects.
33:04
In 1970, a documentary film crew was allowed to film Church of
33:08
Satan's ceremonies, resulting in Satanis, the Devil's Mass, a
33:14
1970 film. This film, which played in
33:17
grindhouse theaters, gave audiences A voyeuristic peek at
33:21
Lavey's nude altars, bestial sigils and campy blasphemies.
33:27
Gorgo Mormo 1000 faced moon look favorably on our sacrifices.
33:35
Sham ham for us, Sham ham for us.
33:39
Hail, Satan, Hail Satan. Open wide the gates of hell and
33:46
come forth by these names. Adrenaline, Adrenaline.
33:54
Astora. Astora.
34:00
Viewers were equal parts shocked and amused.
34:03
One of the best scenes features Lavey's bemused neighbors
34:06
chuckling about the nude people dancing and the pet lion they'd
34:10
seen in his yard. In 1971, Lavey also made a brief
34:15
cameo appearance in a low budget horror film, Invocation of My
34:19
Demon Brother, collected by avant-garde filmmaker and fellow
34:24
occultist Kenneth Anger. And in 1975 came Levae's highest
34:29
profile movie credit. He served as the technical
34:32
advisor for The Devil's Reign, a Hollywood horror film about a
34:36
satanic hold. The production crew flew Levae
34:39
to Mexico for the shoot, where he trained the actors in ritual
34:42
gestures, even played a small part on screen as a Satanic
34:46
priest on set. Journalist found Levae in his
34:50
element, striding about in a Cape under the desert sun.
34:54
He hinted to a reporter that his master plan was coming along.
34:58
Before I die, he said. An elite force of Satan's.
35:02
Will rule the world. If nothing else, by the mid
35:06
1970s, Anton Lavey had cemented himself as the iconic face of
35:12
Satanism in the popular imagination.
35:15
The bald headed. Boogeyman lurking behind all
35:18
that America found Transgressive, though.
35:20
Lavey outwardly projected. Confidence In the 1970's, the
35:25
Church of Satan faced internal strains.
35:28
As the initial flush of media curiosity waned, Levae turned
35:32
more to administration in monetization of his movement.
35:36
In early 1975, Levae announced a controversial policy.
35:41
Higher. Degrees of Satanic initiation
35:44
could henceforth be obtained in exchange for financial
35:47
contributions, rather than solely through merit or magical
35:51
achievement. This did not sit well with some
35:54
devoted members who believed in Satanism as a serious religion.
35:59
They felt Lavey was reducing the Left Hand path to a carnival
36:02
show or worse, a mail order racket.
36:06
The tension came to head in June of 1975 when Michael Aquino, A
36:12
prominent member who edited the church's newsletter, resigned
36:16
dramatically. Aquino, an intellectual U.S.
36:19
Army officer and ceremonial magician, had long been part of
36:23
Lavey's inner circle, but had deeper theistic beliefs about
36:27
Satan. He was disillusioned by Lavey's
36:30
new pay to play policy, what he perceived as Lavey's atheistic
36:35
stance that Satan was merely a metaphor.
36:38
After quitting, Aquino founded his own splinter group, the
36:42
Temple of Set, which espoused the worship of an ancient
36:46
Egyptian deity known as Set as a real supernatural entity.
36:51
Aquino claimed that he took many dissenters with him from the
36:54
Church of Satan. Though Lavey downplayed the
36:57
Exodus, the Church of Satan later insisted that Lavey's fee
37:01
for rank policy was intended to clean House of pretenders who
37:05
didn't fully grasp Lavey's self reliant philosophy.
37:08
Regardless, the schism marked the end of the Church of Satan's
37:12
first era ever again. Would Lavey's organization enjoy
37:16
the momentum or unity of the late 1960s?
37:21
From 1975 onward, the Church of Satan operated more as Lavey's
37:26
private network rather than a bustling public congregation.
37:30
Lavey himself retreated from the limelight.
37:33
As the 1970s continued, he focused on writing essays later
37:38
compiled into books like The Devil's Notebook.
37:42
And composing darkly whimsical organ music, he released an
37:46
album, Satan Takes a Holiday, in 1973.
37:50
He also indulged in personal, eccentric hobbies.
37:54
Yet the outside world had not entirely forgotten Lavey.
37:58
In the early 1980s, a new and unwelcome spotlight found him
38:03
the era of the Satanic Panic. As fundamentalist Christianity
38:07
arose in political power and the public developed an irrational
38:11
fear of devil worshipping cults and supposedly ones that were
38:16
abusing children, Lavey, the world's most visible Satanist,
38:21
became a frequent target of suspicion.
38:23
Fundamental preachers railed against him by name, and
38:27
conspiracy theories flourished that the Church of Satan was
38:30
behind a nationwide web of criminal ritual abuse.
38:34
In truth, Lavey's organization was both theoretically opposed
38:38
to harming children. One of his 11 Satanic rules was
38:42
to not hurt little ones, and far too small and disorganized to
38:47
run any sort of criminal network.
38:49
Nevertheless, he was associated with Satan in the public mind
38:53
and therefore with whatever evil people cared to imagine.
38:57
In 1980, after the release of the infamous and fraudulent
39:02
memoir Michelle Remembers, which popularized the notion of secret
39:06
satanic cults torturing children, law enforcement
39:10
briefly took interest in Levay. The FBI even interviewed him in
39:13
1980 regarding an alleged plot by others to murder Senator Ted
39:18
Kennedy, a rumor tied into grandiose ideas of a satanic
39:23
conspiracy. According to the FBI files,
39:26
Levae was cooperative and dismissive of any such plot.
39:30
He told agents that most of the church's followers were
39:33
fanatics, cultists and weirdos, and that his interest in the
39:38
Church of Satan is strictly from a monetary point of view.
39:42
This candid assessment, essentially calling many of his
39:45
fans kooks, was not something Levay would have said publicly,
39:49
but it revealed his pragmatic and even jaded view in private.
39:53
The FBI closed their inquiry, finding no evidence tying Levay
39:57
to any crime. None the less, during the 1980s,
40:01
Levay often felt under siege. As the New York Times later
40:05
noted, the Satanic Panic led to over 12,000 unsubstantiated
40:10
accusations of Satanic ritual crimes across the United States.
40:15
Lavey's Church of Satan, while not directly accused in most
40:19
cases, became a boogeyman in the eyes of many Americans.
40:24
Lavey received death threats. The Black House had rocks and
40:27
bottles thrown at its windows by vigilante types, and in
40:31
response, Lavey mounted barbed wire around the roof of the
40:35
black house and posted no trespassing signs with an image
40:39
of a gun. He was growing older, in his 50s
40:43
now, and had no appetite for brawling with angry Christians
40:47
on his lawn, So he hunkered down.
40:50
As one acquaintance put it, by the 80s, Lavey was holed up at
40:54
home playing the organ for whoever was willing to listen.
40:58
The days of frequent public rituals were over.
41:01
Occasional private invitation only ceremonies were held, but
41:06
Lavey no longer performed for TV cameras or outsiders.
41:10
When asked why, he said that he did not want the Church of Satan
41:13
to be seen as just a sideshow curiosity.
41:16
It was a philosophy for those who understood, not a spectacle
41:20
for mass consumption. Lavey's personal life in this
41:24
era was also tumultuous. His longtime partner and High
41:28
Priestess, Diane Haggerty, finally left him in the early
41:32
1980s after over 2 decades together.
41:36
Their relationship had deteriorated and Diane grew
41:39
tired of Lavey's infidelities and controlling behavior.
41:44
In 1980. 4. She filed A palimony lawsuit
41:47
against Levae, seeking a share of assets from their years
41:51
cohabitating as the first Lady of Satan.
41:54
The court filings were tabloid gold.
41:56
They squabbled over who would get the collection of medieval
41:59
torture devices, the crystal ball, the coffin and even the
42:05
large bust of the devil that they owned.
42:07
Ultimately, Diane won a modest settlement, but the break with
42:12
Diane had another consequence and alienated Lavey's second
42:16
daughter, Zena, who had sided with her mother.
42:19
In 1985, Zena Shrek, formerly Lavey, who as a child had been
42:25
the poster girl of Satanism, publicly renounced her father
42:28
and the Church of Satan. She accused Lavey of being a
42:32
fraud and an abusive father, and eventually aligned herself their
42:37
father's rival, Michael Aquino, for a time.
42:40
Zena later pursued her own spiritual path in a cult and
42:44
Eastern traditions, but wholly disavowing the Church of Satan.
42:48
This familial betrayal hurt Lavey deeply.
42:52
In response, he essentially disowned Zena and rarely spoke
42:56
of her except to disparage her companions.
43:00
On a happier note, Lavey did find love again with a new
43:03
disciple, Blanche Barton, a fiercely loyal young Satanist
43:08
who became his companion in 1984.
43:10
After Diane's departure, Blanche revitalized the aging high
43:14
priest. She took over many
43:16
administrative duties and in 1985 officially assumed the
43:21
title of High Priestess of the Church of Satan.
43:25
To the outside world, Blanche defended Lavey's reputation
43:28
ardently, especially against the swirl of Satanic panic lies.
43:34
Lavey and Blanche lived a quiet life by night, entertaining
43:38
occasional church members or friendly journalists.
43:42
They delighted in watching old horror movies and playing music
43:45
together, Blanche on vocals and Lavey on keyboards.
43:50
Despite the dark persona, friends noted that in private,
43:53
Lavey could be charming, funny, and even domestic, cooking
43:57
steaks for guests and doting on his pets.
44:01
Still, he never lost his edge. He wrote scathing essays in the
44:05
church's newsletter, railing against everything from New Age
44:09
white light gurus to the mediocrity of pop culture.
44:13
And he continued to issue curses now and then, at least in print.
44:17
One notorious piece he penned was Bleeding Heart Liberals and
44:21
The Nine Rings of Hell, in which he fantasized about elaborate
44:25
tortures for those he considered societies true villains, animal
44:30
abusers, rapists, and televangelists.
44:34
It was half tongue in cheek and half deadly serious.
44:38
Classic Lavey. By the 1990s, Anton Lavey had
44:42
outlasted the Satanic Panic and seen his teachings quietly
44:46
influence a new generation. A rising wave of heavy metal and
44:50
goth musicians lionized Lavey as an elder statesman of
44:54
alternative culture. None was more famous than shock
44:58
rocker Marilyn Manson. In the early 90s, Manson reached
45:02
out to Lavey, sending him a demo tape and expressing admiration.
45:07
Lavey, who despised rock music in general but recognized Manson
45:11
as a fellow provocateur, welcomed the young musician.
45:15
He granted Manson an honorary priesthood in the Church of
45:18
Satan and became something of a mentor figure to him.
45:22
Manson later recounted that he and Lavey bonded over their
45:25
mutual goal of toppling Christianity with the weight of
45:28
its own hypocrisy. Through figures like Manson,
45:32
Lavey's philosophy seeped into 1990's pop culture and lyrics,
45:37
imagery, and attitude, even as the man himself remained in semi
45:42
reclusion. In 1993, at age 63, Lavey
45:47
experienced a late life joy. Blanche Barton gave birth to his
45:51
only son, whom they named Satan Xerxes Carnegie Lavey.
45:57
Ever dramatic, Lavey insisted on Satan as the first name for the
46:01
baby boy, a declaration that the line of the devil's advocate
46:05
would continue. Fatherhood at that age mellowed
46:08
Lavey out somewhat. Friends said he adored his
46:12
toddler son and spent hours entertaining him with circus
46:15
music and handcrafted toys. Lavey now had three children in
46:20
total, Carla Xena and little Satan Xerxes, though only Carla
46:26
and Satan Junior remained in his life.
46:28
By the mid 90s, his eldest, Carla, had reconciled with him
46:32
and became an active figure in the Church of Satan, often
46:36
acting as a spokesperson. As the 20th century neared its
46:39
end, Lavey's health quietly declined.
46:43
Years of late night living, a reported fondness for whiskey,
46:47
and the stress of being a pariah had taken their toll.
46:51
Fittingly, an air of mysteries surrounded Anton Lavey's death
46:56
in October of 1997. Lavey suffered a pulmonary
47:00
edema, or fluid in the lungs, and was rushed to Saint Mary's
47:04
Hospital in San Francisco. The irony was that this was a
47:08
Catholic hospital. The Devil's Own was treated by
47:12
nuns in his final hours. Lavey lingered unconscious for a
47:16
couple of days, and then on October 29th of 1997, he passed
47:22
away at age 67. Curiously, due to a paperwork
47:27
error delay, the death certificate recorded the date as
47:31
October 31st of 1997 or Halloween.
47:35
His devotees this seemed preordained, the ultimate trick
47:40
or treat that the Black Pope would officially die on All
47:44
Hallows Eve. In the immediate aftermath,
47:47
Lavey's family kept his death a secret for several days.
47:51
Only after Lavey's body was cremated in a secret satanic
47:55
funeral in Colma, California, attended by invitation.
47:59
Only under the cover of night did his eldest daughter, Carla,
48:02
make a public announcement. In a MC Cobb press conference,
48:06
Carla Lavey stood holding hands with the wax statue of her
48:10
father 1 he had made years prior for a wax museum.
48:14
As she confirmed the news to cameras, it was as if Anton
48:18
Lavey had become one of his own lifelike mannequins, hovering
48:22
between reality and a legend, even in death.
48:26
Inevitably, rumors sprang up about Lavey's final moments.
48:29
A particularly lurid tale spread that on his deathbed, Lavey
48:34
suddenly saw something with his final breath and cried out.
48:39
Oh my, what have I done? There's something very wrong, an
48:43
implication of a deathbed, repentance or terror.
48:47
This story made the rounds in Christian circles eager to
48:50
believe that the Devil's high priest had one last change of
48:54
heart. However, investigation by the
48:57
fact checking site Snopes found that the rumor is entirely
49:01
unfounded. Lavey apparently died
49:03
unconscious without any final pronouncement.
49:06
This false tale of his last words is nonetheless telling.
49:10
It shows that even in death, Lavey's life accrued myth, a
49:14
fitting final trick by those who sought to diminish him.
49:18
After Lavey's passing, a bitter dispute erupted over the final
49:22
inheritance of his satanic legacy.
49:24
In a coda worthy of a soap opera or a grim fairy tale, Lavey's
49:29
estranged daughter Xena and her husband Nicholas Shrek released
49:33
a scathing 9 page fact sheet in early 1998 attacking Lavey's
49:39
life story. They confirmed many of
49:41
journalist Lauren Wright's earlier exposes that Lavey had
49:46
lied incessantly about his past. He never worked with the police,
49:51
never had a fling with Monroe, never tamed lines in a circus.
49:55
Contrary to his claims, they painted him as a narcissistic
49:59
con man who had started to believe his own Satanic Bible
50:03
hype. While some of their points had
50:05
merit, Lavey was a liar about his biographical details, He
50:10
openly admitted. I'm a hell of a liar.
50:13
I lie constantly and incessantly.
50:16
In his last essay compilation, many of Zena's barbs seemed
50:20
fueled by personal resentment. The Church of Satan's
50:24
leadership, which by mutual agreement passed to Blanche
50:27
Barton after Lavey's death, fired back at Zena in a messy
50:31
legal battle over Lavey's property ensued.
50:34
In the end, Lavey's estate, including the famed Black House,
50:39
was divided. The Black House, in poor repair,
50:42
caught in legal limbo, was eventually demolished in 2001 to
50:47
the dismay of Satanists who saw it as a piece of dark history.
50:51
Condominiums now stand at 6114 California Street, but pilgrims
50:56
still drive by to see where the unholy church once stood.
51:00
The Church of Satan itself survived Lavey, though it's
51:03
splintered. Blanche Barton LED it for a few
51:06
years, but by 2001 she ceded leadership to Peter H Gilmore, a
51:12
long time member whom Lavey had respected.
51:15
Gilmore and the new administration moved the
51:17
church's headquarters to New York and maintained Lavey's
51:20
teachings via the Internet and publications.
51:23
Carla Lavey, feeling sidelined, formed a separate group in San
51:28
Francisco called The First Satanic Church in 1999 to carry
51:32
on her father's work in her own way.
51:35
Meanwhile, entirely new Satanic inspired movement sprang up,
51:39
most notably the Satanic Temple, founded in 2013, which borrowed
51:45
Lavey's Satan as a simple approach but directed it into
51:48
political activism for secularism.
51:51
The Satanic Temples founders openly acknowledged a debt to
51:54
Lavey's philosophy while also rejecting his more reactionary
51:58
social views. Lavey had flirted with social
52:01
Darwinism and even kept fascist regalia as shock symbols in his
52:06
home. In a sense, the torch of Satanic
52:09
satire passed to a new generation. 1 focused on pranks
52:13
like Baphomet statues and Satanic school clubs to
52:17
challenge church state entanglement, endeavors that
52:20
Lavey might have smirked at even if he had disagreed with their
52:24
political liberalism. Anton Lavey's legacy today is
52:28
multifaceted. To religious scholars, he's
52:31
recognized as the father of modern Satanism, the man who,
52:35
for better or for worse, took the figure of Satan and made it
52:39
the center of an actual, organized religion.
52:42
His ideas have influenced the cult literature and new
52:45
religious movements, ensuring that Satanism will forever be
52:49
studied alongside other new religious phenomena of the 20th
52:53
century. To pop culture, Lavey remains an
52:56
enduring icon of the counterculture, immortalized
53:00
film characters, songs and novels that riff on his persona.
53:05
Whether it's a bald Satanic high priest in a horror movie or
53:09
references in metal music, Lavey's archetype lives on as
53:13
the image of a Satanist. He even made it into comic books
53:18
and video games as a villainous caricature.
53:21
Yet those who knew him often described a more human side.
53:24
Friends recall him cackling at episodes of The Munsters and
53:28
performing amusing parlor tricks.
53:30
Or. Doting on pet cats, he kept
53:33
numerous cats, finding them suitably satanic in their
53:36
independence. He was a bundle of
53:39
contradictions, a man who preached Nietzschean strength,
53:43
beloved cheesy monster movies, a liar and a dreamer who
53:47
nonetheless gave confidence and identity to many alienated
53:51
individuals. In his final interview, Lavey
53:55
was asked how he thought he'd be remembered.
53:57
With a sly grin, he answered that I'll never die.
54:01
I've made arrangements in a way. He wasn't joking.
54:05
Anton Lavey lives on as the idea of him endures.
54:09
And endure it has each Halloween, and whenever a
54:12
sensational crime or story invokes Satanists, the specter
54:17
of Lavey's shaved, devilish face isn't far behind in the public
54:21
imagination. He made sure of that by crafting
54:24
his life into a lasting legend, a suspenseful paranormal
54:27
thriller all its own. Lavey once wrote.
54:31
I'm as much of A devil as I need to be.
54:33
And though showmanship and substance alike, he ensured the
54:37
world would always wonder just how much a devil he was.
54:42
Thank you guys so much for watching this brand new deep
54:44
dive video. I really hope that you enjoyed
54:47
it. And if you did, please hit the
54:49
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54:52
Hype it if you can, and definitely subscribe if you're
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appreciate your time and I really appreciate all the
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support that you've given me over these years, and it's an
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honor to continue to entertain you.
55:23
So thank you so very much. This has been Cody here at
55:26
Mystery Archives. Remember to stay safe out there
55:30
from kooky religious people or the devil himself or anything
55:34
and everything threatening in between and take care.
55:37
I'll see you next time.