Anton Szandor LaVey[1] (April 11, 1930 – October 29, 1997), born Howard Stanton Levey, was the founder 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.
"as Anton slips away into hell..his last words are begging God ..please don't let me go there..please let me live to repent..Oh Save me ..
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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, Dr. Cecil E. Nixon, and Kenneth Anger.
In 1951 LaVey sought out a branch of the 'Order of Thelema' (i.e. Ordo Templi Orientis) in Berkeley. He was reportedly disappointed to find them so mystically-minded. A few years earlier he had ordered most ofAleister Crowley's books from his American follower John Whiteside Parsons. When John Symond's biography of Crowley, The Great Beast came out in 1952, LaVey concluded that the Thelemites founder was a druggy poseur whose greatest achievements were as a poet and a mountain-climber.[9][10]
[edit]Church of Satan
LaVey began presenting Friday night lectures on 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 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 Friedrich Nietzsche, Ayn Rand,[11] Aleister Crowley,[12] 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. The latter book also included rituals drawing on the work of H.P. Lovecraft which were actually penned byMichael 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 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.
[edit]Death
Anton LaVey died on October 29, 1997, in St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco of pulmonary edema.[13] 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 inColma.[citation needed] LaVey's body was cremated, with his ashes eventually divided among his heirs as part of a settlement.
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