Myth 1. His name was actually Anton Szandor LaVey. “Anton Szandor LaVey” was not his birthname, in fact it was actually “Howard Stanton Levey”. [SOURCES: Birth certificate 4/11/1930, Cook County, Illinois. Confirmed by relatives.]
Myth 2. Anton LaVey and the people who follow his “philosophy” are the “real” Satanists, while the Satanic killers like the Mansonsand the Night Stalker Killer are just the “nuts”. The truth is, LaVey prescribed rituals for Satanists that normal people would find crazy. For instance, a nude girl is used as an altar (Satanic Bible, Satanic Rituals). A human skull is used in Die Elektrischen Vorspiele ritual (Satanic Rituals, p. 109). A human leg bone or arm bone is used in Homage to Tchortritual (p.137). A woman dressed as nun urinates before group into a bedpan in the Black Mass ritual (p.43). The urine is then sprinkled like holy water (p.44). A man climbs into coffin with nude woman (or nude man if he is gay) in Le Epais ritual (p.59). LaVeygives instructions for “turning into a werewolf” that includerunning around outsideon all fours with a wolf mask (The Devil’s Notebook) .
LaVey claimed nuts were quickly given “the bum’s rush” when they tried to join his Church of Satan. That still didn’t stop two of the Masons (Susan Atkins and Bobby Beaseliel) and Richard “The Night Stalker ” Rameriez from joining. Satanist Patricia Hall was arrested for murder of an elderly man in Florida, and participated in the flogging and gang rape of a teenage girl. She claimed to have been baptized by LaVey himself, which he of course later denied. There have also been other thrill killers that have claimed to have been members of the Church of Satan, even though LaVey later deined it.
Even if they weren’t officially CoSmembers (most Satanist aren’t), it proves criminally minded, violent people are attracted to Satanism. Susan Atkins actually appeared with LaVeyand a couple of other girls in a corny strip club act. She played a vampire, not surprising when you consider she licked the blood stained knife she killed Sharon Tate and her unborn child with. Bobby Beausoleilappeared in the movie by fellow Church of Satan member Kenneth Anger, Lucifer Rising. During the Tate/Labianca murders, Beausoleil told his terrified vicitms, “I’m the Devil, and I’m here to do the Devil’s business!” A fourth killer/cannibal, Stanley Baker, who actually ate his victims, was caught en route to meet LaVey. Would LaVey have given this 3rd person the heave ho? Maybe, Maybe not. LaVey claimed that he too, and members of the Church of Satan, once dined on a human leg (Satan Wants You, also mentioned in The Church of Satan and The Secret Life of a Satanist). The leg was obtained (obviously illeagally) by a CO$ member who was a pathologist from a local hospital, at least according to LaVey. No LaVeyfamily member has ever denied this event happened. The leg was prepared by Diane in Triple Sec withfried grub worms on the side, supposedly how they serve human flesh in New Guinea. The only participant who reportedly ate the worms was LaVey’s 3 year old daughter Zeena, and most members were to sqeemish to actually eat the leg meat. See the Occult Crime webpage and you’ll notice a disproportionate number of crimes commited by Satanists. There’s a reason for that, and it can’t be dismissed as “Satanic panic”.
Myth 3. LaVey claimed his parents were Joseph and Augusta LaVey. They were actually named Michael and Gertrude Levey. He probably lied about their real names to cloud his uneventful past. [SOURCES: Birth certificate 4/11/1930, Cook County, Illinois. Confirmed by ASL's daughter Zeena and daughter Karla according to her entry on ASL's death certificate. ]
Myth 4. LaVey claimed he was introduced to the Dark Side by his TransylvanianGypsy grandmother, who regaled him as a child with supernatural folklore and tales of vampires and werewolves. But his grandmother was not Transylvanian nor of Gypsy stock. She was a Ukrainian named Cecile Luba Primokov-Coulton (“Coulton” was Anglicized from “Koltonoff”). Despite his frequent claims, ASL had no Gypsy ancestry. Gypsies are very clannish people, and seldom marry non-Gypsies. [SOURCES: Relatives, including ASL's parents. King of The Gypsies by Richard Maas]
Myth 5. In 1945 the 15-year-old ASL was brought to the ruins of postwar Germany by his uncle, a U.S. Coast Guard officer. There the teenaged ASL was shown top-secret films inspired by Satanic cult lodges and their rituals. ASL claimed that the “German” rituals in his 1972 book The Satanic Rituals were actual transcripts of the filmed rituals he saw as a youth. In fact, little Howie spent the entirety of 1945 in suburban northern California, and never visited Germany at any time in his life. The uncle who he claimed brought him to Germany was incarcerated at McNeillIsland Penitentiary for involvement with Al Capone-related criminal activity during 1945, and was never even in the armed forces. Allied martial law forbade U.S. citizens from visiting postwar Germany. The “German” rituals in The Satanic Rituals are written in extremely poor, Anglicized German. They are clearly uncredited adaptations of the short story _The Hounds of Tindalos_ by Frank Belknap Long and H.G. Wells’ famous novel The Island of Dr. Moreau. [SOURCES: ASL relatives, former wife Diane LaVey, _The Hounds of Tindalos_, _The Island of Dr. Moreau_, _The Satanic Rituals_, Church of Satan member Rosalind Herkommer (who translated ASL's rituals into German).]
Myth6. The 15-year-old ASL played second oboe withthe San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, making him the youngest musician ever to play with that prestigious institution. There was in fact, no “San Francisco Ballet Orchestra” in 1945. The San Francisco Ballet was accompanied by a local orchestra, whose records show that none of its three oboists was named “Levey” or “LaVey”. [SOURCES: San Francisco Performing Arts Library & Museum, San Francisco, California. ]
Myth 7. In 1947 ASL ran away from home and joined the Clyde Beatty Circus. The Circus employed the 17-year-old as a lion tamer. He then replaced the Circus calliope player, accompanying such famous Beatty acts as the Concellos, Harold Alanza, and the Cristianis. But the reality is, the voluminous Beatty archives show no record of a “Levey” or “LaVey” as lion tamer or musician. The Concellos, Alanza, and Cristianis were never Beatty performers; they worked exclusively for the Ringling Brothers Circus. [SOURCES: Beatty 1947 Route Books, Circus World Museum, Baraboo, Wisconsin (Wright, "SD", page 67); ASL relatives. ]
Myth 8. : In 1948 the 18-year-old ASL was engaged to play organ at the Mayan burlesque theater in Los Angeles. There he met a young stripper named Marilyn Monroe, withwhom he had a passionate love affair in the period before her rise to film stardom. According to ASL, Monroe had resorted to stripping to pay her rent. As proof of his relationship with Monroe, ASL later showed visitors a copy of Monroe’s famous nude calendar inscribed “Dear Tony, How many times have you seen this! Love, Marilyn”. Guess what? He lied! LaVey never knew Monroe. Monroe intimate Robert Slatzer and Harry Lipton, Monroe’s agent in 1948, have exposed and discredited this tale. Lipton paid Monroe’s expenses, including her rent. Paul Valentine, director of the Mayan Theater, has stated that the Mayan was never a burlesque theater, and that neither Monroe nor ASL ever worked for the Mayan in any capacity. Diane LaVey, ASL’s former wife, has admitted that she forged the “Monroe” inscription on the calendar. ASL’s former publicist Edward Webber claims ASL admitted he never knew Monroe. If you were hoping Satanism could help you get girls (or guys), it can’t. [SOURCES: Diane LaVey, Paul Valentine (Wright, "SD", page #68), Harry Lipton (Aquino-Lipton conversation 12/1/82), Robert Slatzer (letter to Aquino 11/27/82), Edward Webber (interview by Aquino 6/2/91). ]
Myth9. ASL was exposed to the savagery of human nature during his stint as a San Francisco Police photographer in the early 1950s. The San Francisco Police Department past employment records include no “Howard Levey” nor “Anton LaVey”. Frank Moser, who was a SFPDphotographer in the early 1950s, said that ASL never worked for the Department. In the snuff film Death Scenes, the narator mentions LaVey was given a book of crime scene photos by a police photographer friend, which is probably how LaVey conned people into believeing he himself had been a police photographer. [SOURCES: SFPD records, Frank Moser(Wright, "SD", page 68), Death Scenes Video].
Myth 10. ASL studied criminology at San Francisco City College during the Korean War. SFCC has no record of ASL’s enrollment at any time. LaVey was, in fact, a high school dropout who never attended college or even earned his G.E.D. (And sorry, reading a bunch of books doesn’t count as a college education). [SOURCES: SFCC records (Wright, "SD", page 68). ]
Myth 11. Anton LaVey is often refered to as “Dr. LaVey”. LaVey never actually earned a doctorate, he simply awarded himself a “Doctorate of Satanic Theology”. The Church of Satan was not authorized to grant degrees by the State of California, so it was about like anyone awarding themselves any type of degree they felt qualified for. Or it’s like buying a $29.95 “Doctor of Divnity” degree from the Universal Life Church. The degree was not a genuine college degree, and actually worthless other than as a novelty item, or to impress non-critical youung readers. LaVey in fact never attended college, but was a high school dropout, as mentioned. You could download the faux “Doctor of Demonology” degree from the equally faux Miskatoic University on the homepage, and it would have the same academic value.
Myth 12. LaVey did not actually claim to believe in magic. This is a myth atheistic Satanist believe in. The reality is, the Satanic Bible gave very specific details about how to casr spells to make them effective. LaVey detailed timing, imagery, clothing, the balance factor, which Enochian key to use for what purpose, etc., LaVey also warned Satanist to always acknowledge the things that they had gained by magic, or else they would lose them. In the Devil’s Notebook, there’s a chapter about how to make Satanic Magic work. LaVey seemed to eschew mysticism, but also endorse it. In his ghost written autobiography, The Secret Life of a Satanist, Lavey mentions a mysterous strecthof California highway where he “saw something large and black crawling sideways like a crab”. He claimed after Jayne Mansfield’s death, a lightbulb blew out and his wife saw a ghostly pink heart. Anothert time, he crawled under a theater that was about to be torn down, and saw “unearthly things” like demons, and got out when he saw something flying toward him. He also claimed that as a child electrical equipment malfunctioned whenever daughter Zeena was around. Clearly, his view was ambiguous at best.
Myth 13. LaVey treated the members of the Church of Satan kindly and was unjustly stabbed in the back by many of them. The reality is LaVey routinely blackmailed members of the Church of Satan, according to defector P.E.I. Bonewitz, whom LaVey called a “not-so-sour-grapes authority” in the Devil’s Notebook. It seems it was LaVey who was doing the backstabbing. [SOURCE: Real Magic by P.E.I. Bonewitz]
Myth 14. The Church of Satan was a body of open minded and tolerant individuals. Defector P.E.I. Bonewitz noted most of the members of the Church of Satan were racists. LaVey seemed at first to welcome homosexuals, Jews, blacks, and anyone else into his church in the 1960’s who had cash to join. But by the 80’s, LaVey was writing to appeal to Neo-Nazis and KKK members, as The Church of Satan and The Secret Life of a Satanist indicate. LaVey supposedly accepted a membership in the National Resistance Party ( a Neo-Nazi Group) in 1970, according to defector Michael Aquino. In 1979 the NRP staged a rally marking the 10th aniversary of the “sacrifice” of Sharon Tate by Charles Manson, in which the daughter Zeena read from the Satanic Bible. Zeena herself seems to be anti-Semetic from some of her online writings (who do you think she learned it from) and is married to a Manson follower named Nicholas Shrek. Aquino’s break away group, The Temple of Set, is disturbinbgly facinated with Nazism. The Satanic movement seems to attract a very high percentage of racists and Neo-Nazis. {SOURCES Real Magic by P.E.I. Bonewitz Raising Hell by Michael Newton, the “Unfather letter” written by Zeena, posted online]
Myth 15. LaVey didn’t really believe in the Devil. Church of Satan defector’s have noted LaVey never really made his position on the Devil’s existence clear. Michael Aquino for instance said at times LaVey seemed to say Satan was a dark force of nature, and at other times he seemed to talk as though he believed the Devil were a personification – - even referring to him as “the man downstairs”. His position seems ambiguous at best. [SOURCE: Crystal Tablet of Set by Michael Aquino]
Myth16. ASL purchased the house at 6114 California Street (which would later become the headquarters of the Church of Satan – the infamous “Black House”) because he discovered on first inspection that it was the former brothel of Barbary Coast madam Mammy Pleasant. The house was honeycombed withtrapdoors and secret passageways, built by Pleasant to elude police raids. The fact is 6114 was actually ASL’s parents’ home. It was never a brothel, nor did Mammy Pleasant ever live or work there. ASL’sparents first allowed ASL and his first wife Carole to live in the house, then transferred ownership of it to ASL and his second wife Diane in 1971. Such secret passages and hidden rooms that exist were constructed by ASL. [SOURCES: Relatives, San Francisco property records (Michael & Gertrude Levey, Joint Tenancy Grant Deed, July 9, 1971). ] Note: The house was demolished a few years after LaVey’s death, depiteefforts of Satanists to save it – - proving with Satanism, failure is ALWAYS an option!
Myth 17. In the 1950s ASL traveled to Nice, France, where he recorded an album of organ music under the pseudonym of “Georges Montalba”. The fact is LaVey’s first and only trip to France was in the mid-1970s, when his Dutch disciple Maarten Lamers, Amsterdam sex club owner, financed his voyage. The “ASL=Montalba” story appeared in 1989, when a gullible Church of Satan member found a Montalba album and suggested that it was similar to ASL’sown music. ASL, never pleased by competition, responded with the preposterous “pseudonym” claim – which is still ardently supported by his posthumous followers.Georges Montalba (or George Montalba) was the psuedonym used by pipe organist Robert Hunter, a resident of Glendale, CA. In 1958 Hunter/Montalbarecorded Pipe Organ Favorites & Fantasy in Pipe Organ and Percussion at Lorin Whitney Studios. He later went on to work with George Burns and Carol Channing on broadway, in addition to working with Leopold Stokowski, Shirely Temple, Eleanor Roosevelt, Nelson Eddy, Judy Garland, Two Popes, and John & Jacquelyn Kennedy to name a few! His career spanned 60 years! He was a Christian, too, by the way! Even though Hit Thing records has re-issued Montalba’salbum complete with liner notes and an explanation of the LaVey/Montalba hoax, the CoS (at this writing) is still apparently promoting the lie LaVey was Montalba(along with many other lies)! [SOURCES: Hit Thing Records, Diane LaVey, Zeena LaVey,]
Myth 18. ASL was the official city organist for San Francisco until 1966, playing for gala events such as government banquets and political meetings. The fact is San Francisco has never had an “official city organist”! According to ASL’s first wife Carole, his only income of $29.91/week was generated by his regular engagement at the “Lost Weekend” nightclub, where he was the house Wurlitzer organist. [SOURCE: Julie Burford, Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, California (Wright, "SD", page 68). Carole LaVey's divorce proceeding records (Wright, "SD", page 68).]
Myth19. On the night of April 30, 1966 (the German Satanic festival of Walpurgisnacht), ASL in a “blinding flash” declared himself the High Priest of Satan, proclaimed that the Age of Satan had begun, and founded the Church of Satan as a religious institution. The fact is In 1966 ASL supplemented his income by presenting weekend lectures on exotic and occult topics, and by conducting “Witches’ Workshops”. He charged $2 a head, filling his living room with the curious and establishing a local reputation as an eccentric. Professional publicist Edward Webber suggested to ASL that he “would never make any money by lecturing on Friday nights for donations … it would be better to form some sort of church and get a charter from the State of California … I told Anton at the time that the press was going to flip out over all this and that we would get a lot of notoriety”. In the summer of 1966, long after the fictional founding-date invented later, a newspaper article about ASL’s lectures offhandedly referred to him as “priest of the Devil’s church”. This mixture of Webber’s idea and the newspaper’s characterization resulted in the creation of the Church of Satan as a business and publicity vehicle. Jack Webb, a San Francisco Police investigator who knew ASL from the “Lost Weekend” nightclub, also suggested that he should form a church of some kind to exploit his “recondite knowledge”. [SOURCES: Edward Webber (interview by Aquino 6/2/91), Jack Webb, Diane LaVey.]
Myth 20. ASL’s trademark shaved head was the result of a ceremonial head-shaving on April 30, 1966, to formalize his role as High Priest of Satan. This ritual was performed in the tradition of the Yezidi devil-worshipping tribes of Iraq, who had a similar ceremony. LaVey shaved his head in the summer of 1966 due to a light-hearted dare from his wife. The “LaVeylook” had nothing to do with the Church of Satan founding nor any mystical meaning attached to it later. Nor do Yezidi “qawwals” (religious teachers) shave their heads. [SOURCES: Diane LaVey; Ethel S. Drower, Peacock Angel, 1941; C.J. Edmonds, A Pilgrimage to Lalish, Royal Asiatic Society, 1967.]
Myth 21 In 1966 ASL personally designed the Baphomet emblem of the Church of Satan. He owns the right to this design, claiming it cannot be reproduced without obtaining licensing rights from the Church of Satan. The Baphomet emblem used by the Church of Satan was neither original to it nor created by ASL, hence cannot be trademarked. The original Baphomet dates at least as far back as the medieval Knights Templar. The artwork for the current emblem’s goat/pentagram first appears in a 1931 book by Oswald Wirth. The complete emblem with the added circles and “LVYThN” Hebrew letters appears on the cover of a book by Maurice Bessy two years before the creation of the Church of Satan. Early photos of Church activities often show ASL or his disciples using the Bessy book as a photo-prop because of its prominent cover with Baphomet, and he included that book in his Compleat Witch bibliography. The Baphomet, including this rendition of it, is clearly in the public domain. [SOURCES: Oswald Wirth, La fran-maconnerie rendue intelligible a ces adeptes - II, "Le compagnon", Paris: Derry-Livres, 1931, page #60; Maurice Bessy, A Pictorial History of Magic and the Supernatural, London: Spring Books, 1964 [the original edition of this work - Histoire en 1000 images de la magie - was published in 1961 by Editions du Pont Royal]; Thomas H. Hilton, Sex and the Occult, Vol. I, Los Angeles: Centurion Press, 1974;Church of Satan members, The Black Flame (a 1980s Church of Satan magazine).]
Myth 22 LaVey served as technical advisor for the 1968 Roman Polanski film Rosemary’s Baby, and also played the curiously-uncredited part of the Devil in that film. LaVey actually had no involvement with Rosemary’s Baby! Polanski’s close friend Gene Gutowski (original producer of the film) stated that there was no technical advisor, nor did ASL ever even meet Polanski. Producer William Castle, who details all aspects of the film’s production in his autobiography, never mentions ASL. He does describe Polanski’s diligence in basing the film exactly on the Ira Levin novel from which it was adapted, eliminating any need for technical advice. The father of the actress who played Mia Farrow’s body-double in the Devil scene recalled that a young, very slender professional dancer played the part, dressed in a small rubber suit.
In 1971 this suit was acquired by Studio One Productions in Louisville, Kentucky, for use in a low-budget horror film Asylum of Satan. Michael Aquino, technical advisor for that film, examined the suit and concluded that the 200-pound, 6-foot ASL could not possibly have worn it. [The suit was worn by a girl in the Asylum film.] Not a single member of the cast or crew of Rosemary’s Baby has ever mentioned ASL’s involvement. In 1968 a San Francisco theater did ask ASL to make an appearance at the film’s local opening as a promotional event. This appears to have been ASL’sonly connection with the film that engendered the 1960s’ popular interest in Satanism.
Aside from a couple of documentaries (Witchcraft ‘70 and Satanis) the only horror movies LaVeyseems to have actually had a hand in was a 1990’s snuff film called Death Scenes, and The Devil’s Rain (1975), which was a movie LaVey never seemed to mention or reccomendin his writings. The film was a box office flop, and the distributor actually went bankrupt because of it! Prior to that, they had big success with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Deep Throat. Anton and Diane LaVey both had bit parts in the film. The Devil’s Rain had rituals taken word for word out of The Satanic Bible and The Satanic Rituals and no doubt further convinced some Church of Satan members LaVey had indeed “sold out”. The Church of Satan broke up the same year as the movie’s release. The plot was about a 300 year old Satanic cult leader (played by Ernest Borgnine) that turned his followers into souless zombies, who followed him blindly. The zombie followers got destroyed in the end, while he escaped unharmed, laughing. Perhaps the reason LaVey wanted to forget the film was it showed how he really thought of people who followed him!
[SOURCES: Gene Gutowski; William Castle, Step Right Up! I'm Gonna Scare the Pants off America, New York: Pharos Books, 1992; Diane LaVey, Michael A. Aquino (COS, page #17, TNT Monstervision episode featuring The Devil's Rain in 1997 with Joe Bob Briggs).]
Myth23. Jayne Mansfield, Hollywood sex symbol and actress, was a card-carrying Satanist and had an affair with ASL. Publicity agent Tony Kent, an associate of Ed Webber, arranged the meeting between Mansfield and ASL as a publicity stunt. She was never serious about Satanism. ASL was smitten with the actress. Mansfield, who madeno secret of her many affairs, denied knowing ASL intimately, and no associate of hers has ever confirmed any supposed romance withASL. In a 1967 interview she said, “He had fallen in love withme and wanted to join my life with his. It was a laugh.” According to ASL’s publicist Edward Webber, Mansfield would ridicule her Satanic suitor by calling from her Los Angeles home and seductively teasing him while her friends listened in on the conversation. ASL’spublic claims that he had an affair withMansfield began only after Mansfield’s death in an automobile accident, which he also claimed was the result of a curse he had placed on her lover Sam Brody. A common trick used by sorcerers is to later claim some misfortune that befell an enemy was a result of a curse, even though no curse was thrown. [SOURCES: Edward Webber(interview by Aquino 6/2/91); interview with Mansfield quoted in Jayne Mansfield by May Mann, Pocket Books, 1974.]
Myth24. ASL wrote the Satanic Bible, his principal work, to fulfill his congregation’s need for a scriptural guide. The Satanic Bible was actually conceived as a commercial vehicle by paperback publisher Avon Books. Avon approached ASL for some kind of Satanic work to cash in on the Satanism & witchcraft fad of the late 1960s. Pressed for material to meet Avon’s deadline, ASL resorted to plagiarism, assembling extracts from an obscure 1896 tract – Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard into a “Book of Satan” for the SB, and claiming its authorship by himself. [Ironically these MiR passages are the ones most frequently quoted by ASL disciples.] Another third of the SB consists of John Dee’s “Enochian Keys”, taken directly but again without attribution from Aleister Crowley’s Equinox. The SB’s “Nine Satanic Statements”, one of the Church of Satan’s central doctrines, is a paraphrase, again unacknowledged, of passages from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. The last words in the SB – “Yankee Rose” – have been puzzled over for years by readers. “YR” is actually the name of an old popular tune in ASL’s nightclub repertoire. SOURCES: ASL, The Satanic Bible; Ragnar Redbeard, Might is Right, Port Townsend: Loompanics (reprint), 1896; Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (Galt’s speech, ca. pages #936-993); “Yankee Rose” by Sidney Holden & Abe Frankl (Irving Berlin Music, 1926).
Myth 25. ASL claimed that at the height of the Church of Satan’s popularity there were hundreds of thousands of formal members. But Diane LaVey (who administered the Church as High Priestess 1966-1984), Michael A. Aquino (senior Magister of the Church and Editor of its Cloven Hoof newsletter 1971-1975), and Zeena LaVey (High Priestess of the Church 1985-1990) have all affirmed that the figures claimed by ASL were grossly exaggerated. The membership of the Church of Satan never exceeded 300 individuals, several of whom were nonmember subscribers to the newsletter or ASL friends receiving complimentary mailings. LaVey would make reporters wanting to write stories about the Church of Satan join and pay the $20 membership fee, furthering the membership numbers. [SOURCES: Diane LaVey, Michael A. Aquino, Zeena LaVey. Satan Wants You, Arthur Lyons]
Myth 26. ASL claimed to be a multimillionaire, owning three homes in northern California, a convent in Italy, a chateau in France, a fleet of luxury automobiles, a 185-foot yacht, three salvage ships, and other property. LaVey initally claimed he made $50,000 a year during the Church of Satan’s heydey, and even that figure is probably exaggerated. During Diane [LaVey] Hegarty’s 1988-91 lawsuit against ASL, and ASL’s subsequent 1991 filing for bankruptcy, ASL stipulated under oath that he owned nothing more than 50% of the house his parents had given jointly to him and Diane, along with the personal items he kept therein.
Even though apologists claim LaVey lived “comfortably” in his final years, the facts speak otherwise! The CoS website claims (at this writing) LaVey made “five figures” the last year of his life, in typical doublespeak. “Five figures” could be as little as $10,000.
ASL’sfinal years were subsidized by California state aid (next time you see someone pay at the grocery store with WIC or food stamps, think of Anton LaVey). Assessors declared the house to be in such poor repair as to be nearly worthless on the real estate market. Family members have attested to the fact that by the mid-1970s the LaVeys lived in near-poverty, frequently having to rely upon ASL’s father’s generosity. According to other LaVey relatives, ASL continued to rely on handouts from friends and relatives until the end of his life. In the 1990’s, it was revealed LaVey’s teeth had rotted out, a common aliment of people who live in poverty. [SOURCES: Hegarty v. LaVey (San Francisco Superior Court Case #891863), Anton LaVey Bankruptcy, Chapter 7 (U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Northern California, Case #91-34251), Zeena LaVey, other relatives. See The Fates of Famous Occultists to see dying in poverty is a common trait of occultists!
Myth27 ASL was a close friend of Sammy Davis, Jr. and inducted him into the Church of Satan. Sammy Davis, Jr. was invited to accept an honorary membership in the Church of Satan by Michael Aquino. After Davis sent Aquino his acceptance on March 17, 1973, he was presented with the honorary membership on April 13, 1973 by Aquino and Karla LaVey alone. ASL did not meet Davis until August 1973. Davis would later renounce Satanism, claiming later he was "only into it for the chicks" and re-embraced Judaism. At a nationaly televised event honoring him a few weeks before he died, Davis said "First of all, I want to thank Jesus for letting me be here tonight", completely shattering any doubt he had any lingering affinty to Satanism. Davis had been an activist for civil rights, and battled racism, in contrast to the racists and Neo-nzais that often embrace Satanism. [SOURCES: Davis letter to Aquino 3/17/73; Church of Satan Priesthood Bulletin 4/30/73; Aquino, COS, Chapter 23; Sammy Davis, Hollywood in a Suitcase (pre-publication text, printed in Daily News, New York, 9/11/80), Karla LaVey.]
Myth 28 Anton Szandor Lavey presented himself as a loving family man. Reality was quite differnt. ASL violently beat his wife Diane throughout their marriage. In 1984 a police report was madedescribing Diane being strangled into unconsciousness by ASL, who was in such a murderous rage that his daughter Karla had to pull him off Diane and drag her outsidethe house to save her life. ASL routinely physically beat and abused those of his female disciples withwhom he had sex, forcing them into prostitution as part of his “Satanic counseling” and collecting their earnings. In 1986 ASL was a passive witness to the sexual molestation of his own grandson by a longtime friend who was later convicted of sex crimes with minors. In 1990 ASL informed a mentally-ill stalker of his daughter Zeena of her whereabouts and the time & location of a public appearance she was scheduled to make, deliberately endangering her life. [ SOURCES: San Francisco Police records of ASL attack on Diane LaVey, Zeena LaVey, Diane LaVey, Stanton LaVey.]
Myth29. ASL had a deeply affectionate relationship with Togare, his pet lion.While ASL was always careful to portray himself to the public as an animal lover, in private he was cruel to and neglectful of his pets. When he was given Togareas a cub in 1964, he was ill-equipped to deal with such an exotic, wild animal despite his pretensions as a circus lion-tamer. As Togare became larger and more unruly, ASL frequently used an electric cattle prod to hurt and frighten him into submission. Many animal-rights proponents, including Togare’s final owner Tippi Hedren, agree that it is detrimental to a wild animal’s development to be raised in a domestic environment. ASL was arrested due to Togare’s unruly behavior, and ASL was ordered to donate him to the San Francisco Zoo. After complying, ASL made only two visits to Togare. Due to the trauma of his early life, Togare needed special care at the Zoo and at every animal-care facility in which he subsequently lived. [SOURCES: Jack Castor (Lion Keeper, San Francisco Zoo), Diane LaVey, Zeena LaVey, Tippi Hedren (The Cats of Shamballa, McGraw-Hill, 1985).]
Myth 30. ASL had a deeply affectionate relationship with his other pets. In the late 1960s ASL acquired a Doberman Pinscher (Loki) as an accent to his “sinister” image. ASL never took the time to housebreak or train Loki, and relegated him to the overgrown and unkempt backyard of the house, regardless of weather. If Loki ever tried to slip into the house for shelter, ASL routinely used Togare’s cattle-prod on him to terrify him back outside. In his old age Loki developed such severe arthritis that he could not climb the stairs to the back door to eat, and began wasting away from malnutrition. ASL then gave him to one of his prostitute “students”, who at least saw that Loki had a warm, inside home until he died a few months later.
During her young childhood ASL’s daughter Zeenaonce awoke late at night to hear slamming sounds and the shrieking of her German Shepherd puppy. Running downstairs, she saw ASL savagely beating the cowering, cornered dog with a wooden plank. When Zeenabegged ASL to stop and asked him what the dog had done to deserve such treatment, ASL screamed, “She won’t listen to me! I’m going to force her to obey me!” ASL continued beating the dog until her face was covered with her blood, then dropped the plank and left the dog quivering in the hallway, so injured and frightened that she wouldn’t let even Zeena come near her. This incident left the dog traumatized for a long time afterwards.[SOURCES: Diane LaVey, Zeena LaVey.]
Myth 31. Anton LaVey was a bastion against religious hypocrisy. While LaVey’srants about Christian hypocrites throughout his books, he fails to realize that there are more than just hypocrites – - people who fail to practice what they preach – - that make up Christianity! Just because there are hypocrites doesn’t mean there are no real Christians who try to live their lives as their supposed to. You can find examples of hypocrites in just about anything, not only Christianity. For instance, everyone knows obesity and smoking are bad, but how many times have you seen an RN that’s overweight or a smoker, or both? Does that mean you should ditch medical treatment forever more because some hypocrites exist in it? LaVey simply created a strawman of a Christianity no one would like, created from his onw one dimensional view of it, in which every Christian was a hypocrite. LaVey made it appear to non-critical readers that Satanism was an alternative to hypocrisy. LaVey himself, was an enormous hypocrite, exaserbated by the fact that he claimed to hate hypocrisy! A look at the myths already presented here show that he was indeed a hypocrite. Perhaps the biggest hypocrisy was his disdain for asceticsm in The Sanatic Bible, but when he had to live in poverty, tried to conceal the fact by saying he was eschewing commercial materialism for asceticism (hipocrisy on top of a lie)! He was also a hypocrite for claiming to abhor charity, but lived on state assiatance and handouts from friends nad family members (i.e., charity!). LaVey was too proud and and to lazy to get a regular job (i.e., he thought he was better than you). Even LaVey couldn’t live his own Satanic philosophy.
Myth 32 On ASL’soriginal death certificate the date of his demise was recorded as October 31, 1997 (Halloween). An official investigation by the City of San Francisco determined that ASL’sactual date of deathwas October 29, 1997 and that the “Halloween” date had been illegally written on the document, apparently in a last pathetic attempt to make him look sinister. It’s been alleged daughter Karla was the culprit. [SOURCES: Death Certificate #380278667, San Francisco Department of Public Health; Dr. Giles Miller (attending physician at ASL's death), Physician's Amendment to Death Certificate, 11/26/97.]
Myth 33. Satanism is really just “atheism” or “humanism”, because it’s the worship of the self; it’s for people who can stand on their own two feet! Satanism isn’t “humanism” or “atheism”, it’s just a juvenile way to shock and alienate people, nothing else. That’s why this or that rock star claims to be a Satanist when they’re really not…just to shock people and make their CD’s the forbidden fruit that a rebellious pubescent wants. Think about it, how many millionaire rosck stars gave money to save the LaVey house when it was slated for demolition? None. That’s because they don’t really care about Satanism. A self proclaimed 20 y.o. Satanist in Queens, NY was beat up by some neighborhood teens in 2005. The Satanist in question dressed like it was Hallowe’en every day, had blue dyed hair, black painted fingernails and wore make up (plus he madesure everyone knew he was a Satanist). Now Satanists want the altercation he got into labeled a “hate crime”. Satanists supposedly deal in brutal reality and cold logic. Wouldn’t the cold hard truthbe this kid wanted to shock people, wanted people to hate him, and has himself at least to partly blame for what he got? Wouldn’t have been logical for this kid, seeing how he had run ins with the same teens before, to have toned down his image? Satanism is embraced by people like that angry kid that hated everybody and sat alone in the lunchroom that no one talked to. It’s embraced by the racist stonerthat’s in and out of jail. It’s embraced by the psychotic off his medication who listens to the voices in head. It’s not for the succesful self made man who “stands on their own two feet”.
LaVey never wanted people who could “stand on their own two feet”, as he claimed, nor could he get any. Talk about unamed Senators or Congressmen or heads of corporations offered as “proof” Satanism attracts successful people is just that…talk. If they could name names, they would. LaVey lied about his achievments, making himself sound like Indiana Jones, a lion tamer, a criminologist, a world traveler, a lover of two movie stars, and a millionaire. Satanists who feel inadequate in their one lives make up for it by living through LaVey vicariously, rather than trying to improve themselves. Satanism is in fact a personality cult centered around Anton LaVey.
A look at the documentary Satanis The Devil’s Mass shows LaVey assembled a collection of misnatrhopes, perverts, and lonely middle aged losers going through mid-life crisis who needed someone to follow. In the movie, daughter Karla says her father told her on numerous occasions not to go downstairs to the meetings because the Satanists were “crazy”. Even LaVey thought Satanists were weird. The only people who follow him are angry at the world, and at Christians in particular. If they could stand on their own two feet, they wouldn’t need Satanism.
RESEARCH REFERENCES: Wright, Lawrence, “Sympathy for the Devil”, Rolling Stone #612, September 5, 1991, Saints and Sinners. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993. Aquino, Michael A., The Church of Satan. San Francisco: Temple of Set, 1983. Thanks to ASL’s relatives and associates who contributed their memories.
Grand Magister Blackwood
November 9, 2009 • 9:47 pm 0
History Channel This Week!
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I will be be appearing this Wednesday November 11th at 9 pm Eastern and Thursday 1 am Eastern
Thanks, this is one of many upcoming appearances.
History Channel Nostradamus Affect
Grand Magister Blackwood
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