Anton LaVey, Church of Satan founder
Larry D. Hatfield
OF THE EXAMINER STAFF
A secret "Satanic funeral" for Anton Szandor LaVey has been held in Colma and the remains of the self-promoting and self-proclaimed founder and high priest of the International Church of Satan have been cremated.
Mr. LaVey died at St. Mary's Hospital last Wednesday of pulmonary edema. He was 67. Perhaps symbolic of his perverse penchant for tweaking non-believers and the media, his death certificate listed the date of his death as Halloween morning, two days later, said family spokesman Lee Houskeeper. There was no explanation for the discrepancy.
The death and Satanic services at Woodlawn Memorial Chapel were kept secret because of security concerns, said Church of Satan High Priestess Karla LaVey, Mr. LaVey's daughter.
She and Mr. LaVey's longtime companion, High Priestess Blanche Barton, were to discuss his illness, death and the future of the church at a press conference Friday. A life-size replica of the departed satanist furnished by the San Francisco Wax Museum was to attend.
Sharp, if morbid, sense of humor
Mr. LaVey, a man with a sharp, if morbid, sense of humor, burst on the San Francisco media scene in the mid-1960s, taking The City's already colorful counterculture scene a step closer to the edge.
He founded the Church of Satan in 1966, keeping a Nubian lion named Togare, as well as a stuffed werewolf, in the black Richmond District Victorian that served both as his devil-worshipping church and his home.
He ordained himself, he said, because he couldn't find anybody else to do it. He got the call, he said. "The whole concept of Satan's tempting man is wrong," Mr. LaVey said. "On the contrary, he motivates man. We just think it's time the Devil was given his due. . . . The devil is the guy who's kept all the churches in business."
Leading up to his duties as Satan's front man, Mr. LaVey expansively told reporters, he had prepared by being a lion trainer for the Clyde Beatty Circus, a professional organist, oboeist, crime photographer, artist, hypnotist and psychic investigator.
Reared in San Francisco
Mr. LaVey was born in Chicago and reared in San Francisco in what he described as a decidedly non-mystical family.
His father was ordinary, a San Francisco auto parts and real estate salesman, although he said his grandmother came from Transylvania and told him tales of demons and vampires; her brother had a trained bear act that traveled the Danube with a gypsy troupe.
He played oboe in the San Francisco Ballet orchestra, organ in a Sunset District bar, quit Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley at age 16, studied criminology at San Francisco City College and apprenticed himself to a numerologist.
Mr. LaVey claimed affairs with Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield (whom he said died under a curse worked upon her by a consort) and said Sammy Davis Jr. was one of his followers.
Mr. LaVey gained wider notoriety in 1967 when he performed what he said was the very first Satanic wedding. Two years later, Avon Books published Mr. LaVey's "Satanic Bible."
"The Black Pope'
Called "The Black Pope" by followers, his ministry seemed to consist mostly of entertaining the press. He wrote four other books, made hundreds of personal and television appearances, consulted on films involving devils and even played an urban Beelzebub in the dark "Rosemary's Baby."
Among other things, Mr. LaVey made himself available, for fees of $2 to $100, to spend the night in a graveyard watching for ghosts, to keep night watches on haunted houses, or to advise clients on matters from the emotional to the spectral.
Mr. LaVey's last book, "Satan Speaks," is scheduled for release in the spring of 1998, preceded by his last interview in Seconds magazine.
"He was a defiant, bold man, who acted on his convictions with great personal courage," said daughter Karla. "Some called him the world's most dangerous man; that was because he was not afraid of the consequences of being considered evil."
She said she and Barton would continue the Church of Satan.
Besides Karla LaVey and Barton, Mr. LaVey is survived by a 4-year-old son, Xerxes.
Another article from the examiner as well..
Church of Satan founder dies; Church to live on
KARYN HUNT, Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Anton Szandor LaVey, who founded the Church of Satan and played the devil in the movie ``Rosemary's Baby,'' has died. He was 67.
LaVey died of pulmonary edema Oct. 29 after years of heart problems.
``We will continue in his footsteps to do as he directed to keep the Church of Satan going and keep it strong,'' daughter Karla LaVey said.
Born in Chicago, LaVey was a man of many interests. He worked over the years as a lion trainer, professional organist, crime photographer, artist, hypnotist and psychic. But he was always drawn to the unexplored and unexplained, family members said.
He founded the Church of Satan in 1966 and made national headlines the next year for performing a satanic wedding, then baptizing his first daughter in the Church of Satan.
But LaVey's brand of satanism was not about evil or animal and child sacrifice, family members said. It was more about rational freethinking and a disdain for the hypocrisy he believed corrupted Christianity.
He preached living for the day, instead of for an afterlife that nobody can prove
exists, they said. He did not believe in the devil as an
anthropomorphic being with horns and a tail, but rather as a Jungian archetype conjured up
by mankind.
``My father was considered by some as the world's most dangerous man, but he would never hurt a living thing,'' Karla LaVey said. ``My father loved animals and children.''
Still, LaVey played the image to the hilt. He was often seen walking around the neighborhood, bald head gleaming, black cape flapping. For years, he kept a lion and a tarantula as pets and he spent hours each day playing eerie organ music that could be heard on the sidewalk outside his home.
The family home, a late 1800s Victorian hidden behind a chain link and barbed wire
fence, is painted black throughout with red ceilings,
pentagrams and satanic statuettes. Daggers and skulls hang on the walls next to a coffin
with a plastic owl perched on top.
He wrote five books, including ``The Satanic Bible,'' ``The Satanic Witch'' and ``The Satanic Rituals,'' of which there are more than one million copies in print combined. Each has been translated into nearly every major language.
His final book, ``Satan Speaks,'' is scheduled for release next spring.
``He wasn't what people would perceive him to be,'' said his grandson, Stanton LaVey, 19. ``He was a sweet and caring, highly intelligent individual.