The Church of Satan
Text from William H. Kennedy, Satanic Crime, pag 17-21, 2006
The Berkeley OTO had a San Franciscan member named Howard Stanton Levey
(1930-1997) who started frequenting the lodge in 1951. Levey had been in
correspondence with Jack Parsons in the late 1940s and was an eager student of
the occult. His background is somewhat shrouded in mystery, primarily because
he misrepresented his early life and work when he was later to emerge as a major
figure in occult circles. It is clear, however, that Levey was a musician who played
keyboard at various burlesque houses and nightclubs in the Bay Area in the
1950s. (20)
Levey and Anger became fast friends at the OTO and shared an interest in the more
nefarious side of life. The two men intensely studied such phenomena as
werewolves, vampires, tarot, ESP and essentially every other occult and mystical
teaching under the sun. By 1961, they began to hold meetings at Levey’s house,
where they charged for public lectures on occultism which attracted fairly large
crowds. Much of Levey’s motivation for starting this “occult club” was the 1947 novel
(and film) Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham about a carnival huckster
who starts a phony spiritualist church to con money out of “rubes”. (Ironically,
Gresham’s wife Joy went on to marry Christian author C. S. Lewis!) (21)
As the public decency laws began to change in California, burlesque houses were
allowed to offer topless and eventually fully nude dancing. Levey was already
ingrained in the adult entertainment industry as a keyboard player in the older
burlesque club scene. As a means to earn money, Levey recruited dancers and
organized strip shows in San Francisco. According to his daughter, Zeena, he often
turned to pimping women in San Francisco’s red light district, called the
Tenderloin. (22)
In 1966, Levey formulated a scheme by which he could combine his favorite
interests -- sex, money and magick. With Anger’s blessing, Levey shaved his head,
donned black clothing, and announced the formation of the Church of Satan. He
also changed his name to Anton Szandor LaVey and declared himself to be The
Black Pope and The Devil’s Avenger. In order to have a secure base of operation,
LaVey painted his house black and designed an elaborate ritual chamber which
would act as the headquarters for the new diabolical church. LaVey went on a
publicity blitz which afforded him celebrity status in the growing 1960s counter
culture. Over the course of the next few years, LaVey gathered a fairly large
following of about 2000 members worldwide with around 500 or 600 of these
being serious hardcore devotees. (23)
In 1969, Avon books published The Satanic Bible, LaVey’s attempt at giving shape to
his diabolical purview. Later books included The Satanic Witch (1971), The
Satanic Rituals (1972), The Devil’s Notebook (1992) and Satan Speaks (1998). The
Black Pope’s Bible turned out to be mostly a plagiarized version of the book Might Is
Right (1896), an anti-Catholic diatribe written by a disgruntled Irish Catholic
immigrant who wrote under the pen name of Ragnar Redbeard. The primary ritual
contained in The Satanic Bible is a reworking of the 17th century Black Mass -- a
parody of Roman Catholic services.
Some of the other rituals LaVey promotes in these tomes have clear and distinct
Nazi elements. One ceremony was accompanied by the Nazi hymn “Germany
Awake”, composed by the fanatic Fascist Dietrich Eckart which was broadcast daily
in the Third Reich. One can find references to Nazism in LaVey’s arcane rites,
including purely Fascist terms like Thule, Vril, and Abnenerbe sprinkled throughout
his diabolical services. LaVey was not shy about admitting his deep admiration for
the SS, even claiming that one of his rituals was based on Himmler’s most
elite ceremonies, reserved for the highest members of his inner circle. (24)
LaVey’s defenders often point out The Black Pope had Jewish blood and could not
really have been a Nazi sympathizer. However, when one considers that the
most vicious guards in Germany’s concentration camps were in fact Jewish, it
really renders this argument moot. This refers, of course, to the Capos -- Jews the
Nazis recruited to harass and murder their own kind. Most of these Capos
were volunteers. Even more disturbing is LaVey’s appearance in Kenneth Anger’s
film Invocation of my Demon Brother (1969) where Crowleyite rituals are
performed while Anger grasps a Nazi flag.
According to Michael Aquino in his book The Church of Satan (2002) an early
patron of LaVey’s diabolical services was Tom Creech who regularly attended
Black Masses and invocation ceremonies conducted by The Black Pope in the first
year of the Church of Satan’s founding. Creech has sentenced to hang by the State of
Idaho in 1976 for the grisly murder of two men. His statement to the police was
quite remarkable as he confessed to belonging to a Satanic Cult which had
ordered him to murder as a sacrifice to Lucifer. The authorities claim Creech’s
assertion is impossible to prove or disprove and have not followed up on his
testimony. Creech is one of the lesser known serial killers directly associated with
Anton LaVey but the other three became household names.
The formation of the Church of Satan would also afford The Black Pope many tax
breaks as he quickly devised a scheme to combine his Devil Worship with the
adult entertainment industry. LaVey had contacts within organized crime from an
uncle who had been one of Al Capone’s henchmen. (25)
This connection gave him access to the strip club owners in San Francisco, and he
began to recruit young women to perform in these new clubs. As a means to
avoid taxation, The Black Pope called one of his strip shows The Witch’s Review
and declared that the topless dance was a legitimate religious ceremony. This also
buffered him from government censors. The Devil’s Avenger could always claim
they were infringing on his right to practice his religion if the authorities ever
changed the decency laws. (26)
One young woman who LaVey recruited to perform topless in The Witch’s Review
was a sexy drifter named Susan Atkins. Atkins played the role of a seductive
vampireress who emerged topless from a coffin and would point her index finger,
which had a long red painted fingernail, at the leering audience. She would hiss
and symbolically beckon for the blood of the trench coat-wearing customers who
paid their admission to The Black Pope’s religious ceremony. Her stage act
strangely presaged her later criminal activities. (27)
Susan Atkins became a household name in 1969 after viciously murdering the
pregnant actress Sharon Tate by stabbing her in the stomach. Susan then
compulsively licked the blood of the popular star off of her own fingers. In a
sense, she took her vampire role to heart. After breaking with LaVey, Atkins joined up
with The Family -- Charles Manson’s motley crew of Devil worshipers. Susan
Atkins was present at all three sets of murders ordered by Charles Manson at the
Hinman, Tate, and Labianca homes. (28)
Another Church of Satan member who defected to Manson was Robert “Bobby”
Beausoleil, who brutally murdered Gary Hinman at the request of Charlie. (Like
Crowley, Manson demanded to be worshiped as Jesus and Satan.) Both of these
former Church of Satan members are doing life in prison. (29) Beausoleil tattooed
himself with Nazi symbols and joined the Aryan Nations prison gang -- another
link between mainstream Satanism and violent neo-Nazism. (30) (The fourth serial
killer LaVey knew was Richard Ramirez who will be covered in a later chapter)
LaVey, like all pimps, had an excessive need to exploit people and decided that he
would charge huge sums to Church of Satan members for his advanced
teachings. In 1975, members were shocked to find an ultimatum in LaVey’s
newsletter The Cloven Hoof, stating that from then on; all higher degrees of
initiation would only be available if large contributions in cash, real estate, or
valuable works of art were donated to The Black Pope. In his greed, LaVey must
have forgotten that he taught all of these people to be out for themselves and
never to be anyone’s sucker. Consequently, the majority of hardcore followers left
and formed other Satanic organizations which became influential, some of which
will be covered below. (31)
This mass defection dealt a serious blow to LaVey -- one from which neither he
nor his organization ever fully recovered. With his core followers gone, LaVey lost
his major source of income and, until his death, lived in abject poverty. The Black
Pope survived primarily off of handouts from a few close friends and occasional
wealthy individuals who joined his organization and could afford the large stash of
cash he demanded for official diplomas from the Church of Satan. The Black Pope
would make anyone a priest in his diabolic order if they paid him enough -- he
would issue these degrees without even offering the payee any arcane instruction.
Many wealthy businessmen in San Francisco and elsewhere would pay for these
bogus certificates to use as a novelty joke item to show friends and shock business
partners. (32) Even with these schemes, The Black Pope almost lost his house due to
a defaulted mortgage, but a wealthy friend purchased it and allowed LaVey to live
there for the rest of his life. (33)
LaVey’s philosophy of selfishness soon impacted his personal life and his marriage
and family suffered greatly. According to Zeena LaVey Schreck, The Black Pope’s
youngest daughter, her father regularly beat his second wife, Diane, and the police
had to be called on one occasion to break up a particularly nasty domestic fight. In
this instance, the High Priest of the Church of Satan attempted to strangle his
spouse to death. Zeena also maintains that Anton was a bullying father who
mistreated both her and her older step-sister Karla. She also maintains that LaVey
neglected his collection of exotic animals and abused them with a cattle prod. In a
most startling statement, Zeena asserts that her father passively watched a friend of
many years molest her son Stanton in The Black Pope’s presence. The perpetrator
was later sent to prison for sexually abusing another child. (34)
According to Bizzare Magazine, Anton LaVey may have fathered a child of incest
with his daughter Zeena in the person of Stanton LaVey. Zeena gave birth to
Stanton when she was only 14-years-old and the true identity of his father has
never been known to the general public or even to Stanton himself. Stanton
denies that his grandfather was his father but even Bizzare noted his uncanny
resemblance to Anton LaVey. His mother Zeena once attempted to murder
Stanton. One night Zeena climbed out of her coffin/bed and went after him.
Bizzare quoted Stanton, “Zeena grabbed her dagger and was coming at me in this
zombie trance, telling me she's going to kill me once and for all as she always
wanted to.”
This deranged behavior on Zeena’s part points to the possibility that her own
father impregnated her. The mother and son have not spoken in over ten years.
Stanton LaVey should take medical tests to determine whether he is, or is not, a
product of incest.
As a means to secure cash in the 1980s and 90s, Anton LaVey returned to his
practice of pimping. When young females joined the Church of Satan, LaVey
would often initiate them into his coven by having them sell their bodies in San
Francisco’s Tenderloin sex district. LaVey pocketed the cash these naïf girls
returned with after servicing men. (35)
LaVey’s latter years were quite strange. He became more and more paranoid,
believing people were out to kill him. He became reclusive and saw less and less
of even his closet devotees. The Black Pope’s house was surrounded by a large
fence with barbed wire, and he spent the majority of his time inside playing his
organ and interacting with a cadre of low-tech robots he had created or collected
over the years. LaVey did not bother with anyone apart from those who would
supply him with much needed cash. (36)
The rise of the Internet afforded LaVey with new hope for his movement and he
sought contributions through the Church of Satan web page, which went online in
1995. His ex-wife and daughters had little to do with The Black Pope. His only
companions were his lover Blanche Barton and their illegitimate son Satan LaVey.
The High Priest of the Church of Satan developed cardiac trouble in the 1990s and
had no health insurance. This social Darwinist who asserted that the weak should
die and only the strong should be allowed to survive went hat-in-hand to Saint
Mary’s Roman Catholic Hospital in San Francisco where he applied for and
received full free health care from the Church he dedicated his life to ridiculing.
The Black Pope, who once recorded a song which contained a line about
“throwing Christians to the lions because we don’t need them anymore” (37)
pathetically, took charity from the Church of Rome.
According to an unnamed source who worked at Saint Mary’s when LaVey was a
patient, The Devil’s Avenger also took social services from the hospital, including
supermarket food gift certificates and money to pay his utilities from the Sisters of
Mercy, who run this Catholic institution. No Satanist or Satanic organization came
forward to pay any of LaVey’s medical expenses. Howard Stanton Levey (aka
Anton Zsandor LaVey) died at Saint Mary’s Roman Catholic Hospital on October
29, 1997. At the time of his passing, he was both the most famous
End Notes
21) Goodrick-Clarke: p. 214.
22) Schreck, Nicholas and Zeena, Anton LaVey: Legend and Reality, 2/2/98 online article:
http://fcos.us//aslv.html
23-24) Goodrick-Clarke: pp. 214-215.
25) Schreck 2/2/98: http://fcos.us//aslv.html
26-28) Schreck, Nicholas, Charles Manson Superstar, DVD Screen Edge (2002).
29) CharlieManson.com, Whose Who, online article: http://www.charliemanson.com/whoswho.htm
30) Moore, John, Prison has a lock on Manson, most of family, Denver Post 2/9/03.
31) Goodrick-Clarke: P. 215.
32) Drury: pp. 195-196.
33) Garcia, Ken, End Near for Ex Devil Church, San Francisco Chronicle 3/22/01.
34-35) Schreck, Nicholas and Zeena, Anton LaVey: Legend and Reality, 2/2/98 online article:
http://fcos.us//aslv.html
36) Bougas, Nick, Speak of the Devil, Feral House (1993) Video & San Francisco Chronicle
3/22/01.
37) Boyd Rice Web Page: http://www.boydrice.com
