Anton LaVey - Biography
Anton Szandor LaVey (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 or theistic inspiration.
Содержание |
Biography
Ancestry and early life
LaVey was born as Howard Stanton Levey in Chicago, Illinois. His father, Michael Joseph Levey, was a liquor distributor from Omaha, Nebraska. His grandfather, Leon Levy, was born in Paris, France and emigrated to to the United States in 1886, settling in Douglas County, Nebraska, where he married Louisville-native Emma Goldsmith, who was of German Jewish ancestry, two years later. Lavey's mother, Gertrude Augusta Coultron, was born to a Russian father and Ukrainian mother who had immigrated to Ohio in 1893; both became naturalized American citizens in 1900. According to his biography, however, his ancestry includes Georgian, French, Russian, Ukrainian, Alsatian, German, and Romanian.
LaVey's family moved to California, where he spent his early life in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Globe, Arizona. His parents supported his musical interests, as he tried a number of instruments; his favorites were keyboards such as the pipe organ and the calliope. He did covers of instrumentals like Harlem Nocturne by Earle Hagen.
LaVey's biography claims he dropped out of Globe High School in his third to join a circus and later carnivals, first as a roustabout and cage boy in an act with the big cats, then as a musician playing the calliope. LaVey later claimed to have seen that many of the same men attended both the bawdy Saturday night shows and the tent revival meetings on Sunday mornings, which reinforced his increasingly cynical view of religion. He would later work as an organist in bars, lounges, and nightclubs. In the foreword to the German version of the satanic bible he cites this as the impetus to defy Christian religion as he knew it. He accused church goers as employing double moral standards. While playing organ in Los Angeles burlesque houses, he allegedly had a brief affair with then-unknown Marilyn Monroe when she was a dancer at the Mayan Theater. This is challenged by those who then knew Monroe, as well as the manager of the Mayan, Paul Valentine, who said she had never been one of his dancers, nor had the theater ever been used as a burlesque house.
According to his biography, LaVey moved back to San Francisco where he worked for three years as a photographer for the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). He dabbled as a psychic investigator, looking into "800 calls" referred to him by the police department. Later biographers questioned whether LaVey ever worked with the SFPD, as there are no records substantiating the claim. During this period La Vey was friends with a number of writers associated with Weird Tales magazine; a picture of him with George Haas, Robert Barbour Johnson (whom he had met in the circus as an animal trainer and painter of carnival scenes) and Clark Ashton Smith appears in Blanche Barton's biography The Secret Life of a Satanist.
In 1950, LaVey met Carole Lansing and they married the following year. Lansing gave birth to LaVey's first daughter, Karla LaVey, born in 1952. They divorced in 1960 after LaVey became entranced by Diane Hegarty. Hegarty and LaVey never married; however, she was his companion for many years and mothered his second daughter, Zeena Galatea LaVey, in 1963. At the end of their relationship, Hegarty sued for palimony.
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 new unintentional hypocrisy 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 of Aleister 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.
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, allegedly "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, Aleister Crowley, 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 by Michael 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.
Death
Anton LaVey died on October 29, 1997, in St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco of pulmonary edema. 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 in Colma. LaVey's body was cremated, with his ashes eventually divided among his heirs as part of a settlement.
LaVey related books
Books by LaVey
- The Satanic Bible (Avon, 1969, ISBN 0-380-01539-0)
- The Compleat Witch, or, What to do When Virtue Fails (Dodd, Mead, 1971, ISBN 0-396-06266-0); republished as The Satanic Witch (Feral House, 1989, ISBN 0-922915-00-8); re-released with an introduction by Peggy Nadramia, and an afterword by Blanche Barton (2003, ISBN 0-922915-84-9).
- The Satanic Rituals (Avon, 1972, ISBN 0-380-01392-4)
- The Devil's Notebook (Feral House, 1992, ISBN 0-922915-11-3)
- Satan Speaks!, introduction by Blanche Barton, foreword by Marilyn Manson (Feral House, 1998, ISBN 0-922915-66-0)
Books featuring writings by LaVey
- "Misanthropia", Rants and Incendiary Tracts: Voices of Desperate Illuminations 1558–Present!, edited by Bob Black and Adam Parfrey (Amok Press and Loompanics Unlimited, 1989, ISBN 0-941693-03-1)
- "The Invisible War", Apocalypse Culture: Expanded & revised edition, edited by Adam Parfrey (Amok Press, 1990, ISBN 0-922915-05-9)
- "Forward", Might is Right, or The Survival of the Fittest by Ragnar Redbeard, LL.D., edited by Katja Lane (M.H.P. & Co., Ltd, 1996, ISBN 0-915179-12-1)(respected the book of the dead)
Books about LaVey
- The Devil's Avenger: A Biography of Anton Szandor LaVey by Burton H. Wolfe (Pyramid Books, 1974, ISBN 0-515-03471-1, Out of print)
- The Black Pope by Burton H. Wolfe (a drastically revised and updated edition of The Devil's Avenger; available at http://mindopeningbooks.com/)
- The Secret Life Of A Satanist: The Authorized Biography of Anton LaVey by Blanche Barton (Feral House, 1990, ISBN 0-922915-12-1)
- Popular Witchcraft: Straight from the Witch's Mouth by Jack Fritscher ; featuring Anton LaVey (University of Wisconsin Press : Popular Press, 2004, ISBN 0-299-20300-X, hardcover, ISBN 0-299-20304-2, paperback)
- The 2009 play 'Debate' by Irish author Seán Ferrick features LaVey as a character. He is one of four witnesses in a case between God and The Devil, and events from both his life and after his death are used as evidence. He was portrayed by Mark O'Brien and Fiachra MacNamara
Recordings of Anton LaVey
- The Satanic Mass, LP (Murgenstrumm Records, 1968; re-released on CD with one bonus track, "Hymn of the Satanic Empire, or The Battle Hymn of the Apocalypse", by Amarillo Records, 1994; Mephisto Media, 2001)
- Answer Me/Honolulu Baby, 7" single (Amarillo Records, 1993)
- Strange Music, 10" EP (Amarillo Records, 1994; now available through Reptilian Records)
- Satan Takes A Holiday, CD (Amarillo Records, 1995; now available through Reptilian Records)
See also
- Satanism: An interview with Church of Satan High Priest Peter Gilmore
External links
Writings by LaVey
- The Nine Satanic Statements
- The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth
- The Nine Satanic Sins
- Pentagonal Revisionism: A Five-Point Program, 1988
- The World’s Most Powerful Religion
- Enochian Pronunciation Guide
- Letters From The Devil from The National Insider, Vol. 14, No. 17, April 27, 1969.
- On Occultism of the Past from The Cloven Hoof, September, 1971 c.e., Volume Three, Number Nine.
Interviews with LaVey
- Section concerning Anton LaVey in Chapter XII (Satan in the Suburbs) of "Occult America" by John Godwin (Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1972)
- Section concerning Anton LaVey in "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sorcery, But Were Afraid to Ask" by Arlene J. Fitzgerald (Manor Books, 1973)
- “Anton LaVey: America’s Satanic Master of Devils, Magic, Music, and Madness” by Walt Harrington in "The Washington Post Magazine", February 23, 1986.
- “Anton LaVey / The Church of Satan Interview” by Eugene Robinson in "The Birth of Tragedy", No. 4 “The God Issue”, November 1986 - January 1987
- "Dinner with the Devil: An evening with Anton Szandor LaVey, the High Priest of the Church of Satan" by Reverend Bob Johnson in "High Society", August, 1994.
- "The Doctor is in......" by Shane & Amy Bugbee in "MF Magazine" #3, Summer 1997.
- Interview with Anton LaVey by Michelle Carr and Elvia Lahman, originally published in the September 11, 1997 Velvet Hammer souvenir programme.
About LaVey
- Anton Szandor LaVey: A Biographical Sketch by Magus Peter H. Gilmore, on the Church of Satan's official website.
- Anton LaVey: Legend and Reality
- Anton Lavey by Alex Burns at disinformation.
- Find A Grave Entry
- People of Significance entry for LaVey
- Anton LaVey entry on NNDB
- Short biographical sketch with particular focus on his influence on Marilyn Manson, taken from "Spin magazine" (February 1998, pg. 64).
Обсуждения
Пожалуйста войдите / зарегистрируйтесь, чтобы оставить комментарий