Anton LaVey history

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, metaphysical, or theistic inspiration.

Beginnings as a Satanist

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 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 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.

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.[citation needed] LaVey's body was cremated, with his ashes eventually divided among his heirs as part of a settlement.