Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

LaVey, Anton Szandor 145
versed in the many rackets used to separate the
rubes from their money, along with the psychology
that lead people to such pursuits. He played
music for the bawdy shows on Saturday nights,
and for tent revivalists on Sunday mornings,
seeing many of the same participants at both. All
of this provided a firm, earthy background for his
evolving, cynical worldview.
When the carnival season ended, LaVey would
earn money by playing the organ in Los Angeles
area burlesque houses. Moving back to San
Francisco, LaVey worked for awhile as a photographer
for the police department, and, during the
Korean War, enrolled in San Francisco City
College as a criminology major to avoid the draft.
Both his studies and his occupation provided him
with grim insights into human nature. At this
time he met and married Carole Lansing, who
bore him his first daughter, Karla Maritza, in
1952. A few years earlier LaVey had explored the
writings of Aleister Crowley, and in 1951 met
some of the Berkeley Thelemites. He was unimpressed,
as they were more spiritual and less
“wicked” than he supposed they should be for
disciples of Crowley’s libertine creed.
During the 1950s, LaVey supplemented his
income as an early psychic investigator, helping to
investigate “nut calls” referred to him by friends in
the police department. These experiences demonstrated
to him that many people were inclined to
seek a supernatural explanation for phenomena
that had more prosaic causes. His rational explanations
often disappointed the complainants, so
LaVey invented more exotic explanations to make
them feel better, giving him insight into how religion
often functions in people’s lives.
In 1956 he purchased a Victorian house on
California Street in San Francisco’s Richmond
district. It was reputed to have been a speakeasy.
He painted it black; it would later become home to
the Church of Satan.
LaVey met and became entranced by Diane
Hegarty in 1959; he then divorced Carole in 1960.
Hegarty and LaVey never married, but she bore
him his second daughter, Zeena Galatea, in 1964
and was his companion for many years. Hegarty
and LaVey later separated, and she sued him for
palimony. The case was settled out of court.
Anton LaVey, the founder of modern religious Satanism
(Archive Photos)
LaVey’s final companion was Blanche Barton, who
bore him his only son, Satan Xerxes Carnacki
LaVey, on November 1, 1993. She succeeded him
as the head of the church after his death on
October 29, 1997.
Through his “ghost busting,” and his frequent
public gigs as an organist, including playing the
Wurlitzer at the Lost Weekend cocktail lounge,
LaVey became a local celebrity and his holiday
parties attracted many San Francisco notables.
Guests included Carin de Plessin, called “the
Baroness” because she grew up in the royal palace
of Denmark, anthropologist Michael Harner,
Chester A. Arthur III (grandson to the president),
Forrest J. Ackerman (later, the publisher of
Famous Monsters of Filmland and acknowledged
expert on science fiction), author Fritz Leiber,
local eccentric Dr. Cecil E. Nixon (creator of the
musical automaton Isis) and underground filmmaker
Kenneth Anger. From this crowd LaVey
distilled what he called a “Magic Circle” of associates
who shared his interest in the bizarre, the
hidden side of what moves the world. As his