Anton LaVey

Anton LaVey
Born Howard Stanton Levey
April 11, 1930
Chicago, Illinois, US
Died October 29, 1997 (aged 67)
San Francisco
Known for LaVeyan Satanism
Religion LaVeyan Satanism
Spouse(s) Carole Lansing (1935–1975) (m. 1951–60)
Partner(s) Diane Hegarty
Blanche Barton
Children Karla LaVey (born 1952)
Zeena Schreck (born LaVey – 1963)
Satan Xerxes Carnacki LaVey (born November 1, 1993)
Signature

Anton Szandor LaVey[1] (born Howard Stanton Levey; April 11, 1930 – October 29, 1997) was an American author, occultist, and musician. He was the founder of the Church of Satan as well as 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 or theistic inspiration.

Biography

Ancestry and early life

LaVey was born as Howard Stanton Levey in Chicago, Illinois. His father, Michael Joseph Levey (1903–1992), from Chicago, Illinois married LaVey's mother, the former Gertrude Augusta Coultron who was born to a Russian father and Ukrainian mother who had emigrated to Ohio in 1893; both became naturalized American citizens in 1900. LaVey's family moved to California, where he spent his early life in the San Francisco Bay Area. His parents supported his musical interests, as he tried a number of instruments; his favorites were keyboards such as the pipe organ and the calliope. He did covers of instrumentals like Harlem Nocturne by Earle Hagen.[2]

He attended Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, California, until the age of 16.[3][4] According to his biography, he left high school to join a circus and later carnivals, first as a roustabout and cage boy in an act with the big cats, then as a musician playing the calliope. LaVey later claimed to have seen that many of the same men attended both the bawdy Saturday night shows and the tent revival meetings on Sunday mornings, which reinforced his increasingly cynical view of religion. He would later work as an organist in bars, lounges and nightclubs. In the foreword to the German version of The Satanic Bible, he cites this as the impetus to defy Christian religion as he knew it. He explains why church-goers employ double moral standards.[5] While playing organ in Los Angeles burlesque houses, he allegedly had a brief affair with then-unknown Marilyn Monroe when she was a dancer at the Mayan Theater. This is challenged by those who then knew Monroe, as well as the manager of the Mayan, Paul Valentine, who said she had never been one of his dancers, nor had the theater ever been used as a burlesque house.[6]

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.[1][7] During this period, LaVey was friends with a number of writers associated with Weird Tales magazine; a picture of him with George Haas, Robert Barbour Johnson (whom he had met in the circus as an animal trainer and painter of carnival scenes) and Clark Ashton Smith appears in Blanche Barton's biography The Secret Life of a Satanist.

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 Schreck (née LaVey), in 1963.[8] At the end of their relationship, Hegarty sued for palimony.[9][10]

Beginnings as a 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, Cecil E. Nixon and Kenneth Anger. LaVey formed a group called the Order of the Trapezoid, which later evolved into the governing body of the Church of Satan.

Church of Satan

LaVey began presenting Friday night lectures on the occult and rituals. 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, allegedly "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 City 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 the first Satanic baptism in history for his three-year-old daughter Zeena, dedicating her to the Devil, which garnered world-wide publicity and was originally recorded on The Satanic Mass LP) [11][12][13][14] 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 Friedrich Nietzsche, Ayn Rand,[15] 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 Complete Witch (re-released in 1989 as The Satanic Witch), and The Satanic Rituals. The latter book also included rituals drawing on the work of H.P. Lovecraft which were actually penned by Michael A. Aquino, who would later found the Temple of Set.

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 The Joe Pyne Show, Donahue, and The Tonight Show, and in a feature length documentary called Satanis: The Devil's Mass in 1970. He would be credited for the mainstreaming of Satanism and witchcraft in the U.S. during the 1960s, 1970s and after. In 1972 the public work at La Vey's Black House in San Francisco was curtailed and work was continued via 'grottoes' or subsidiary branches of the Church of Satan located throughout the USA and some in other countries.

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

Death

Anton LaVey died on October 29, 1997, in St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco of pulmonary edema.[16] He was taken to St. Mary's, a Catholic hospital, because it was the closest available. A secret Satanic funeral, attended by invitation only, was held in Colma after which LaVey's body was cremated.[3]

LaVey related books

Books by LaVey

Books featuring writings by LaVey

Books about LaVey

Recordings of Anton LaVey

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

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 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. ↑ Video on YouTube
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Hatfield, Larry D. (November 7, 1997). "Anton LaVey, Church of Satan founder". The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved January 3, 2013.
  4. ↑ Stafford, Matthew (Tam 1978) (August 22, 2008). "Cool for school: For 100 years, it's been one Tam thing after another...". Pacific Sun. Retrieved March 14, 2012.
  5. ↑ LaVey, Anton Szandor (1999). Die Satanische Bible (Satanic Bible). Berlin: Second Sight Books.
  6. ↑ The Church of Satan by Michael Aquino p. 17-19, detailing information from Harry Lipton, Monroe's agent, Paul Valentine and Edward Webber"
  7. ↑ Lewis, James R. (2003). Legitimating New Religions. Rutgers University Press. p. 109. ISBN 0813533244.
  8. ↑ Lattin, Don (January 25, 1999). "Satan's Den in Great Disrepair". San Francisco Chronicle. 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.
  9. ↑ "Palimony Suit Rests on Bed of Nails". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. September 11, 1988. 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.
  10. ↑ Phillips, Richard (September 13, 1988). "The End is Near". Chicago Tribune. 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.
  11. ↑ "The Satanic Mass/Zeena's Baptism Track A9 go to 3:42".
  12. ↑ "The Satanic Mass, Track A9 (Zeena's Baptism)". Murgenstrumm, 1968 Vinly LP.
  13. ↑ "Satanist Anton LaVey Baptising Daughter". San Francisco, California, USA: Bettmann/CORBIS. May 23, 1967. LaVey [...] said the mystic ceremony was the first such baptism in history.
  14. ↑ "clippings of Zeena's baptism world wide".
  15. ↑ Lewis, James R. "Who Serves Satan? A Demographic and Ideological Profile". Marburg Journal of Religion. June 2001.
  16. ↑ "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

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