Anton LaVey

Anton LaVey
Born Howard Stanton Levey
April 11, 1930(1930-04-11)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died October 29, 1997(1997-10-29) (aged 67)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Known for LaVeyan Satanism
Religion Satanism (Church of Satan)
Spouse Carole Lansing (1935-1975) (m. 1951–1960) «start: (1951)–end+1: (1961)»"Marriage: Carole Lansing (1935-1975) to Anton LaVey" Location: (linkback:http://localhost../../../../articles/a/n/t/Anton_LaVey_21ca.html)
Diane Hegarty
Blanche Barton
Children Karla LaVey (b. 1952)
Zeena LaVey (b. 1963)
Satan Xerxes Carnacki LaVey (b. 1993)

Anton Szandor LaVey,[1] (April 11, 1930 – October 29, 1997) born Howard Stanton Levey, was the American founder and High Priest of the Church of Satan as well as a writer, occultist, and musician. He was the author of The Satanic Bible and the founder of LaVeyan Satanism, a synthesized system of his understanding of human nature and the insights of philosophers who advocated materialism and individualism, for which he claimed no supernatural, metaphysical, or theistic inspiration.

Contents

Biography

Ancestry and early life

LaVey was born as Howard Stanton Levey in Chicago, Illinois. His father, Michael Joseph Levey, was a liquor distributor and second-generation French-American from Omaha, Nebraska.[2] His grandfather, Leon Levy, was born in Paris, France and emigrated to Douglas County, Nebraska in 1886, where he married Louisville-native Emma Goldsmith on October 23, 1888.[2] Anton's mother, Gertrude Augusta Coultron,[2] was born to a Russian father and Ukrainian mother who emigrated to Ohio in 1893, and both became naturalized American citizens in 1900.[2]

His family soon moved to California, where he spent most of his early life in the San Francisco Bay Area and later in Globe, Arizona. According to his biography, his ancestry includes French, Russian, Ukrainian[2], Alsatian, German, and Romanian stock.[3] His parents supported his musical development as he tried various instruments, his favorite being keyboards such as the pipe organ and the calliope.

LaVey's biography tells of his dropping out of Globe High School in his junior year to join a circus and carnivals, first as a roustabout and cage boy in an act with the big cats, later as a musician playing the calliope. LaVey later noted that seeing many of the same men attending both the bawdy Saturday night shows and the tent revival meetings on Sunday mornings reinforced his increasingly cynical view of religion. He later had stints as an organist in bars, lounges, and nightclubs. While playing organ in Los Angeles burlesque houses, he reportedly had a brief affair with the then-unknown Marilyn Monroe as she was dancing at the Mayan Theater. This claim has been challenged by those who knew Monroe at the time, as well as the manager of the Mayan, Paul Valentine, who stated that she had never been one of his dancers, nor had the theater ever been used as a burlesque house or for "bump and grind" shows.[4]

According to his biography, LaVey moved back to San Francisco where he worked for three years as a photographer for the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). He dabbled as a psychic investigator, looking into "800 calls" referred to him by the police department. Later biographers questioned whether LaVey ever worked with the SFPD, as there are no records substantiating the claim.

In 1950, LaVey met Carole Lansing and they married the following year. Lansing gave birth to LaVey's first daughter, Karla LaVey, born in 1952. They divorced in 1960 after LaVey became entranced by Diane Hegarty. Hegarty and LaVey never married, however she was his companion for many years, and mothered his second daughter, Zeena Galatea LaVey, in 1963.[5] At the end of their relationship, Hegarty sued for palimony.[6][7]

Beginnings as Satanist

Becoming a local celebrity through his paranormal research and live performances as an organist, including playing the Wurlitzer at the Lost Weekend cocktail lounge, he attracted many San Francisco notables to his parties. Guests included Carin de Plessin, Michael Harner, Chester A. Arthur III, Forrest J. Ackerman, Fritz Leiber, Dr. Cecil E. Nixon, and Kenneth Anger.

Church of Satan

LaVey began presenting Friday night lectures on the occult to what he called a "Magic Circle" of associates who shared his interests. A member of this circle suggested that he had the basis for a new religion. On Walpurgisnacht, April 30, 1966, he ritualistically shaved his head in the tradition of ancient executioners, declared the founding of the Church of Satan and proclaimed 1966 as "the year One", Anno Satanas—the first year of the Age of Satan. Media attention followed the subsequent Satanic wedding ceremony of radical journalist John Raymond to New York socialite Judith Case on February 1, 1967. The Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle were among the newspapers that printed articles dubbing him "The Black Pope". LaVey performed Satanic baptisms (including one for Zeena) and Satanic funerals (including one for naval machinist-repairman third-class Edward Olsen, complete with a chrome-helmeted honor guard), and released a record album entitled The Satanic Mass.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, LaVey melded ideological influences from Ayn Rand,[8] Friedrich Nietzsche, Aleister Crowley,[9] H.L. Mencken, and Jack London with the ideology and ritual practices of the Church of Satan. He wrote essays introduced with reworked excerpts from Ragnar Redbeard’s Might is Right and concluded with “Satanized” versions of John Dee’s Enochian Keys to create books such as The Satanic Bible, The Compleat Witch (re-released in 1989 as The Satanic Witch), and The Satanic Rituals.

Due to increasing visibility through his books, LaVey was the subject of numerous articles in the news media throughout the world, including popular magazines such as Look, McCall's, Newsweek, and TIME, and men’s magazines. He also appeared on talk shows such as Joe Pyne, Phil Donahue, and Johnny Carson, and in a feature length documentary called Satanis: The Devil's Mass in 1970.

LaVey’s third and final companion was Blanche Barton. Barton and LaVey are the parents of Satan Xerxes Carnacki LaVey, born November 1, 1993. She succeeded him as the head of the Church after his death, and has since stepped down from that role and handed the reins of power to Magus Peter H. Gilmore.

Death

Anton LaVey died on October 29, 1997, in St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco of pulmonary oedema.[10] He was taken to St. Mary's, a Catholic hospital, because it was the closest available. For reasons open to speculation, the time and date of his death was incorrectly (by two days) listed as the morning of Halloween on his death certificate. A secret Satanic funeral, attended by invitation only, was held in Colma. LaVey's body was cremated, with his ashes eventually divided among his heirs as part of a settlement.

LaVey related books

Books by LaVey

Books featuring writings by LaVey

Books about LaVey

Recordings of Anton LaVey

Preceded by
Church established		 High Priest of the Church of Satan
1966-1997		 Succeeded by
Peter H. Gilmore after vacancy

See also

References

  1. ↑ Wright, Lawrence - "It’s Not Easy Being Evil in a World That’s Gone to Hell", Rolling Stone, September 5, 1991: 63-68, 105-16.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Ancestry of Anton LaVey
  3. ↑ Barton, Blanche The Secret Life of a Satanist
  4. ↑ The Church of Satan by Michael Aquino p. 17-19, detailing information from Harry Lipton, Monroe's agent, Paul Valentine and Edward Webber"
  5. ↑ "Satan's Den in Great Disrepair". San Francisco Chronicle. January 25, 1999. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=%2Fchronicle%2Farchive%2F1999%2F01%2F25%2FMN77329.DTL. Retrieved 2009-09-16. "Both Karla LaVey [sic] and Schreck were the product of LaVey's common-law marriage to Diane Hegarty from 1962 to 1986. One of the highlights of that unholy union was Schreck's 1967 satanic baptism at the Black House, when she was three years old." 
  6. ↑ "Palimony Suit Rests on Bed of Nails". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. September 11, 1988. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SL&p_theme=sl&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB328CE29A0D936&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved 2009-09-16. "On paper, the agreement seemed friendly enough: She got the 1967 Jaguar. He got the 1936 Cord, the 1972 Datsun 280 and the 1976 Cadillac limousine. Still to be decided were the medieval torture implements, the crystal ball, the devil bust, the bed of nails and the classic wooden coffin. But now, the whole thing has become a devil of an issue in San Francisco Superior Court, as the nation's first prince and princess of darkness square off in legal proceedings." 
  7. ↑ "The End is Near". Chicago Tribune. September 13, 1988. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/access/24828128.html?dids=24828128:24828128&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Sep+13%2C+1988&author=Richard+Phillips&pub=Chicago+Tribune+%28pre-1997+Fulltext%29&desc=THE+END+IS+NEAR-AGAIN&pqatl=google. Retrieved 2009-09-16. "Anton Szandor LaVey, high priest of San Francisco's Church of Satan, lived with Diane Hegarty for 22 years. Now they are squaring off in a palimony suit over household property." 
  8. ↑ Lewis, James R. "Who Serves Satan? A Demographic and Ideological Profile". Marburg Journal of Religion. June 2001.
  9. ↑ [1]
  10. ↑ "Anton LaVey; Founded the Church of Satan". Los Angeles Times. November 8, 1997. "Anton LaVey, who founded the Church of Satan in 1966 and wrote the "Satanic Bible" as a guide for international followers, has died at the age of 67. LaVey was cremated Tuesday after a satanic funeral at Woodlawn Memorial Chapel in Colma. Security concerns led his daughter, Church of Satan High Priestess Karla LaVey, to demand "absolute secrecy from all who knew of LaVey's death and satanic funeral," family spokesman Lee Houskeeper said. ..." 

External links

Writings by LaVey

Interviews with LaVey

About LaVey