Camp Gagnon - The Satanic Anton LaVey: The Man Who Created Satanism

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Who was Anton LaVey, the founder of The Church of Satan!? Today we learn about one of the most famous and powerful Satanists of all time—what drove him to a life of dark magic, the stories of his erratic tendencies and behavior, his luxury pets, and other intriguing parts of his life like his death and other stories… WELCOME TO CAMP 🏕️Shoutout to our sponsor: Morgan & Morgan, Cymbiotika, and BluechewCymbiotika: Go to https://partners.cymbiotika.com/CAMP for 20% off your order + free shipping👕🧢 GET YOUR CAMP DRIP HERE: http://camp-rd.com🏕️ Get Today In History Email Here (Free): https://camp.beehiiv.com/🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets Here: https://markgagnonlive.comTimestamps:0:00 Intro0:48 The Many Lies of Anton Lavey8:10 The Black House Era12:50 Anton Lavey Becomes Popular In Hollywood16:23 Lavey Curses Sam Brody19:12 The First Satanic Baptism26:20 Anton Lavey’s Other Children28:08 Michael Aquino Joins The Church of Satan32:05 The Final Words of Anton Lavey

Anton LeVay, one of the most controversial religious figures in American history. This is a guy who painted his house black, walked a leopard through downtown San Francisco, founded the Church of Satan right in the middle of the summer of love, and performed the first satanic baptism on his own daughter. But here's the thing. Pretty much everything LeVay told people about his past was made up. Crime team photographer, circus performer, affairs of Marilyn Monroe, all fake. But the wild part, the lies worked so well that he attracted Hollywood celebrities,

government agents and genuinely dangerous people into his movement. And oh boy, the stuff that actually happened way crazier than anything he made up. So sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. What's up people and welcome back to camp. My name is Mark Gagnon and thank you guys so much for joining me in my beautiful tent. In this very tent, every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating and controversial stories from some of the most remarkable and morbid and disturbed people from all time. I'm always joined by my dear friend. Christos, the Greek freak, the bald-headed legend.

How are you, sir? I'm glad you asked the word. All right, Christos. Enough. No time for dilly-dallying, okay? Sorry. But you did have a good weekend now? Great week ago.

All right, all right, all right. Guys, no time for this. We have to talk about one of, in my opinion, the more creepy and bizarre and disturbing men. I remember going on Wikipedia wormholes about this guy, back when I was just a boy and feeling, a little concerned. I'm not a fan of Satanism. But I am morbidly curious. So without further ado, let's jump in on the story of Howard Stanton LeVay, aka Anton LeVay. This was a guy born April 11,

1930 in Chicago, pretty ordinary middle class parents, Michael Joseph LeVay, Gertrude, Augusta, Coulteran. And this is a guy who, you know, would later claim to be the most evil person alive. And he started out just as Howard from Chicago. And this is where Howard LeVay starts fading into Anton LeVay. He went to Tomlpius High School in California but dropped out at the age of 16.

And that's when he claimed he joined the Clyde Betty Circus. After sort of shoveling animal crap and then working with big cats and then eventually playing creepy tunes on the callipy, he'd tell people, you know, he'd play songs

like Harlem Nocturn while soaking in the grit and sort of the grimy carnival life. According to him, this is where he learned the art of manipulation from sideshow hustlers and circus freaks. And whether or not it's all true, the story definitely set the stage for this dark persona that he would later embrace. And then comes the Wild Marilyn Monroe story. LeVay claimed that he met her in 1948 at a burlese theater in L.A. called the Mayan, back when she was still just an unknown performer. said he was playing in the band and she was stripping on stage and he didn't really notice her until he saw bruises on her thighs which in his words made her even more attractive according to

him they had a short fling lived together for a couple weeks in a motel on washington avenue and he kept a copy of her golden dreams calendar with a note that read dear tony how many times have you seen this love maryland one of le vay's most dramatic claims was that he worked as a crime scene photographer. He said he avoided the Korean War by studying criminology at City College in San Francisco, then landing a job with the San Francisco PD. According to him, he saw it all.

I mean, dead children from hit and runs, brutal murders, all the, basically the worst that humanity had to offer, right? And he claimed that's when he stopped believing in God. After seeing so much horror, he decided no loving God could exist. He also claims that at one point, he worked as a psychic investigator for the police,

handling what they called 800 calls, basically code for reports from people thought to be crazy. He said these cases involved ghosts, glowing figures in backyards, UFOs, noises in the night, and everything else that freaks people out. Here's the problem with all these compelling stories is that they were complete fiction. Journalist Lawrence Wright investigated LeVay's background

and found no evidence that he ever worked for the circus. For a 1991 Rolling Stone interview, Wright contacted the San Francisco PD and asked about LeVay's career as a forensic photographer and was told by the department that they had no record of LeVay working for them. And when confronted with this, LeVay told Wright that the department probably destroyed his employment record to avoid embarrassment. The Marilyn Monroe story, that didn't hold up either. People who knew her and even the manager of the Mayan theater said she never danced there and the place wasn't even a burlesque venue. then LeVay's own daughter, Zena, dug into his past and blew it all up. Turns out, he never worked for the SFPD, never went to City College, and apparently he did work for some carnivals, but definitely not the famous Clyde Betty Carnival. Almost everything he said about his early life was fabricated.

So why would someone create such an elaborate web of lies? And that's because LeVay understood something fundamental about human psychology that most people miss. we don't want our spiritual leaders to be ordinary. Think about it. Would you be more likely to listen to religious teachings from Bob the accountant or someone who'd supposedly tamed lions and investigated paranormal and witnessed the darkest aspects of human nature? I mean, from our episode about Gregory Rasputin, this is a guy, you know,

that intentionally dressed in sort of, you know, these strange clothes and wandered around Russia and Serbia just to sort of put on this air of being this, you know, wandering holy man. These guys understand that people want people that look like they know things. So LeVey used old carnival hustles to build his version of religion. Working with Carnies, he picked up tricks like billet reading, basically pretending to read sealed messages and how to fake psychic powers. He realized that people craved these sort of cosmic supernatural answers,

even when the truth was plain and kind of boring. So in facts didn't satisfy, he would speak. been something more dramatic to then keep them hooked. And this is where his big insight came from. Religion isn't always about what's real. Oftentimes, it is about what people want to believe. And LeVay's lies, they weren't random, right? They were calculated, and they added a layer to his sort of mystique. And what's fascinating is that LeVay's actual background was probably more interesting than the fabrication. So at one point, he did work as a psychic investigator, but this investigation led him to debunk supernatural claims, learning the tricks used by charlatans to fake supernatural powers.

For instance, he once investigated a supposedly haunted bar and discovered that the owner was a self-proclaimed spiritists and had been shining ghost-like images through a projector from the alcove and knocking glasses off the bar shelves with piano wire inserted through pinholes to basically trick people into believing her spiritual aura. But rationality, doesn't sell religious movements oftentimes, right? It's the mystery that does. So LeVay was creating what would become known as his mesophistalian image, which some Satanists believe was inspired by an episode of the Wild Wild West, featuring a character named Asmodius, whose persona was virtually identical to what LeVay would adopt. The genius of LeVay's lives was the timing. By the time people

started digging into his past, it didn't matter. He'd already built an entire movement. He'd written books, gained followers, even pulled in celebrities, the lies had done their job, right? They had turned Howard into, you know, Anton LeVay, the sort of dark, evil pope of America. But if LeVay was lying about his past, what was he hiding? And how did these lies help him create something so terrifying? Because the real story of what LeVay was building in San Francisco was far stranger than any fabricated biography. So in 1956, LeVay bought an old Victorian house. on California Street in San Francisco's Richmond District. But this wasn't just any house.

It supposedly used to be a Prohibition Aerospace, which probably fed right into his love for dark, dramatic spaces. Then he went full Satan with it and painted the entire thing black. Not just the outside, the entire inside, too, and he filled it with red ceilings and pentagrams and satanic statues. Think about what this must have looked like to the neighbors, right? Here's this old Victorian house that suddenly looks like it's in like a horror movie. or something sitting right there in residential San Francisco.

Daggers and skulls hung on the walls next to a coffin with a plastic owl perched on top. LeVay was essentially turning his home into like a haunted house attraction, except he was living in it full time. But the house and the decorations were just the beginning. LeVay understood that if you want people to think you're genuinely different, you can't just talk about it. You have to live it every day. And this is where Zoltan comes in.

LeVay's pet black leopard. This was a 150-pound killing machine that could basically tear someone apart in seconds. And LeVay, he would just walk it, you know, through downtown San Francisco, like it was no big deal. He would just literally walk around with his leopard on a leash. And the leopard wasn't LeVay's only attention-grabbing trick. He also drove a coroner's van around town. Just think about that, right? Most people avoid anything that reminds me of death, and here's LeVay, just leaning all the way in.

And by the early 1960s, LeVay started hosting Week occult seminars and witches workshops. These Friday night gatherings were unlike anything else in San Francisco at the time. He wasn't giving like dry lectures. He was putting on like a show. It was like part real occult talk, part performance art, part like mind game. LeVay mixed legit esoteric knowledge with this dramatic flair and psychological tricks, turning his home into a stage for the strange.

And I mean, people couldn't look away. All righty, don't skip forward, guys, because I am on. the road, world's fastest ad read, coming at you. I'm going to be at Portland, Oregon, Fort Worth, Texas, Austin, Texas, Stanford, Philly, Levittown, Chandler, Arizona, San Diego. I'm also going to be adding Toronto, Montreal, as well as Washington, D.C., and a bunch of other dates. D.S. are in the description also in probably the comments of this episode. Go see me on the road. Come hang out. I'll be hanging out with everyone after the show. Come shake my hand. Call me an idiot. Whatever you want to do, I will be there. Additionally, I will be doing my one hour of stand-up

comedy. I'm very proud of this hour. I'm really excited to share it with you guys. And it would mean the world if everyone could come on out. I'll see you guys. Let's get back to the show. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I want you to know that there are still good people in the world. And there are still people out there fighting for you. So here's a story. There's a guy riding a water slide, right? He's at this amazing water park. He's about to go down the slide. All of a sudden, as he's going down, flies into the air, lands on his back and has permanent life-changing injuries. He's still dealing with him four or five years later and he's having a hard time getting paid.

You know what I mean? He gets injured at this massive, massive water park owned by Disney of all people and can't even get a cent out of their attorneys. So that's why he called Morgan and Morgan. He called Morgan and Morgan and quickly they represented him in his lawsuit against Disney for damages, citing what they called lax safety measures. The lawsuit alleges that Disney either failed to warn him proper. or failed to make the ride safe, and they argue that the design itself created a dangerous condition.

And thankfully for this guy, because he called Morgan and Morgan, he will get justice in his case, just like the 500,000 other clients that got the compensation that they deserved over Morgan and Morgan's 35-year career. Morgan is America's largest injury law firm with over $25 billion recovered. I'm telling you, hiring the wrong law firm can be disastrous, and hiring the right one could substantially increase your settlement. With Morgan and Morgan, it's so easy to get started, and their fee is free unless they win your case. So, just visit for the people.com slash gagnon, Gagnan, Gagin, or dial Pound law. That's Pound 29. That is for the people.com slash gagnon or dial pound law. That's pound 529. This is a paid advertisement. Now let's get back to the show.

LeVay's parties drew in some pretty notable names in the San Francisco scene. anthropologist Michael Harner, astrologer, and sexologist Chester, Arthur the 3rd, sci-fi writer, Forrest, Ackerman, author Fritz Lieber, and cult filmmaker, Kenneth Enger. And it was just a wild mix of people all drawn to LeVay's strange rebellion, performance art, and occult flair. He wasn't just putting on a show, he was building a movement. So LeVay started a group called The Order of the Trapezoid, which later became the backbone of the Church of Satan.

Then on April 30, 1966, he officially founded the Church of Satan. And the date wasn't random. It was Valpurgisnach, an old European knight of wild celebration tied to witches and the supernatural. And by choosing it, LeVay was anchoring his new religion to centuries of occult tradition, making it feel older and deeper and more powerful than some new cult in San Francisco. In 1966, the hippie movement was just kicking off and right in the middle of all that flower power was LeVay, offering the exact opposite. While everyone was chasing the light and, you know, trying to find peace and love, LeVay leaned hard into the darkness. The Church of Satan was

described as the first above-ground organization in history openly dedicated to the acceptance of man's true nature, which is that of a carnal beast living in a cosmos that is indifferent to our existence. That is a direct quote that comes from the Church of Satan website. LeVay declared 1966 as year one, Ano Satanus, the start of the age of Satan. And he wasn't just launching a religion, he was announcing this new era to the world. And shockingly, it started to catch on fast. TV appearances and media coverage brought him early followers, and stories about his bizarre theatrical rituals at the Black House kept the Church of Satan in the headlines.

LeVay knew how to turn this controversy into publicity, and it worked. Several celebrities, including Jane Mansfield, who we'll actually talk about a little later, and Sammy Davis Jr. began associating with the church. But now that LeVay wasn't just attracting, you know, the curious minds, Hollywood was starting to take notice. Now, this is where Jane Mansfield comes in. In 1960, Mansfield was huge. And she met Anton LeVay during a trip to San Francisco in 1966 at the San Francisco Film Festival. But this wasn't some casual party encounter.

According to reports, she showed up unannounced at his house, demanding to see him. Almost always on hand was German paparazo Walter Fisher, a Hollywood photographer who specialized in scandal and sold gossip to magazines worldwide. And the result, some of the most bizarre and iconic celebrity photos ever taken. I mean, we're talking full on stage shoots, Mansfield holding skulls, LeVay, and a devil, costume, pentagrams, candles, tiger skin, rugs. There's actual photos of him performing mock satanic rituals with her posing beside him. Now, here's where things get even weirder. Even though there are photos of LeVe performing satanic rituals with Mansfield, the actress told reporters that she was Catholic and that she did not believe in his church,

but that she regarded him as a genius and an interesting person. So she's getting all this publicity from associating with LeVay, but she's also trying to maintain, you know, her traditional Catholic belief and give herself some deniability. But not everyone in Mansfield's life was on board with these satanic theatrics. And this is where we hear about Sam Brody. Her lawyer, boyfriend, and unofficial manager, he was handling her divorce and had basically inserted himself into every part of her life. And Brody, he thought the whole LeVay thing was a joke.

He didn't buy the rituals or the costumes or the devil talk to him. It was just nonsense, right? Just some more Hollywood weirdness. but that attitude would come back to haunt him. During one visit to the Black House, Brody made what would turn out to be a fatal mistake. According to reports, he disrespected one of LeVay's ritual objects. Some say it was a ceremonial skull

that LeVay had specifically told him not to touch. Now, sure, that might sound like some petty drama, but to LeVay, these weren't stage props. They were sacred, part of his actual religious practice. And this angered him so badly that LeVe put a curse on Sam Brody, prophesying that he would die within a year. Now, most rational people heard about the curse and just kind of lasted off, right? Until eight months later, June 29th, 1967, Mansfield, Sam Brody and the driver were killed

when their car slammed into a stalled tractor trailer. The details of the crash were horrific. The impact basically took the entire top off of the vehicle, and headlines at the time were announcing that the Hollywood star had basically been decapitated. But she wasn't actually decaditated. Her wig just flew off of her head. In the car with her were Sam Brody, their driver of Ronald Harrison, and her three children, including three-year-old Mariska Hargate,

who would one day become a famous detective Olivia Benson in Law and Order SVU. The media coverage was intense, and suddenly everyone was talking about LeVay's curse. Here was a guy who had publicly predicted that Sam Broe, he would die in a car crash within a year, and exactly eight months later, that is precisely what happened. And Hollywood took notice. Sammy Davis Jr., one of the biggest entertainers of the era, became an honorary warlock in the church of Satan. Davis was not just any celebrity, right? He was a part of the rat pack with Sinatra. He was one of the most talented entertainers of his generation,

and he was already somewhat controversial at the time because of his interracial marriage and his conversion to Judaism. By then, Leveille's church had expanded across the U.S. with local chapters or grottoes propping up in major cities. In just two days after poor devil had aired on TV, LeVay's right-hand man, Michael Aquino, called it a magnificent commercial for the church. Think about that. They were treating a primetime NBC comedy as literal advertising for Satanism, and somehow it worked. LeVay performed the first public Satanic baptism in history, and he chose his three-year-old daughter, Zena, as a subject. Now, think about this for a moment, right? Traditional baptisms are supposed to be joyful occasions.

Families gathered to welcome a child into the faith community, lots of, you know, smiling relatives, maybe some cake or something. LeVay turned this completely on his head. Photographers captured the entire thing, right? This little girl in a black hood being dedicated to Satan and the left-hand path. here's this little kid, right? Curly-haired three-year-old who is wearing this tiny hood being used in what was essentially a publicity stunt designed to shock the world. The event garnered, you know, worldwide publicity

and was originally recorded on the Satanic Mass LP. Now, I mean, to me, it's like, that's just crazy. Like, at best, I mean, let's go with worse, right? At worst, this guy is dedicating his daughter to Satan, right? If Satan exists and is the, you know, embodiment of evil. I mean, it's a psychotic thing to do. Now, let's just say Satan's, you know, it's not real, or it's a mock thing, or he didn't really mean it. He still is using his three-year-old daughter as publicity in this bizarre ritual in order to promote his movement. I mean, the media just ate it up,

right? They went absolutely crazy. Here was a guy who had already made headlines for cursing Jane's Manfield's boyfriend to death, and now he's performing satanic rituals on his own kid. I mean, it's a circus. And from LeVeis. perspective, this was amazing. This is like ideal marketing. But here's the thing about using your children for publicity. They don't get to consent to it. And they're the ones that have to live with the consequences for the rest of their lives. Zena, who is now still alive, later claimed she grew up in an abusive household and became pregnant at the age of 13 and gave birth to a son at 14. Now, it is unsure where this child is now or who the father was. I mean, let's just be clear. This was the

our word. I don't know if we'll get demontized. This was sexual assault on this young child. I mean, you don't get pregnant of 13 consensually, which is psychotic. I can't believe this is not talked about more. I'm not sure through my research if this was a rumor or an allegation or something for publicity, but it is not

necessarily documented, you know, how this came to be and what crime actually took place. Zena stayed in the spotlight well into her mid-20s. She became a high-ranking member of the Church of Satan, and like her older sister before her, served as its public spokesperson,

doing interviews, appearing on talk shows, and defending her father's beliefs in front of the world. But in 1989, Zena chose to disown her father and had no more contact with him from that day forward. This wasn't just, you know, some petty family disagreement. This was a complete public rejection of everything LeVay represented. She eventually left the church, renounced LeVeyan Satanism,

and publicly speaking out against him and disowned her father. father completely. Following his death, she was recorded on TV shows claiming that she had proven herself to be the most competent satanic witch since her father died because she cursed him to a painful death. She contacted reporters to say her father was a wife-beater, which adds up, you know, another layer to her claims about growing up an abusive household. When someone who lived in that house for years is making these kinds of allegations, you know, it paints a very different picture of what LeVay was like behind closed doors compared to this public person.

Sona as a charismatic, you know, dark, spooky guy. Zena today currently resides in Berlin, Germany, and in 2002, Zina, along with her husband, Nicholas Shrek, founded the Sethian Liberation Movement. So she doesn't just reject her father's Satanism. She goes on to create a completely different spiritual path. Now, LeVay's other daughter, Carla, went in a completely different direction.

What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because your food sucks. That's right. We live in a country where, unfortunately, a lot of the food we eat. Even if you try to eat clean, pesticides and seed oils and who knows what else is in your, you know, your Cesar wrap. And that is why it is important to supplement your food. This is what I do on a daily basis and I do it with symbiotica.

Yes, I love Symbiotica because it is the easiest way for me to supplement my food and get all the nutrients that I need that I should be getting for my food. But unfortunately, I don't because, you know, the world and capitalism or whatever. But with symbiotica, I'm able to get my magnesium, which I take every single night that helps me to sleep. I take my colostrum, which is great for my gut health. It helps my skin, and it gives me an immune boost. And the thing that I'm most excited about is mineral shilagit. Shilagit is an ancient mineral resin that literally comes from the Himalayas.

It sounds crazy, but it's not. It's right here in this little jar, just a little dab into some warm water. And since I've been taking it, I mean, it's full of like folvic acid, you know, trace minerals, all the stuff you should be getting from your food, but you're not. And since I've been taken, I feel sharper. My energy is more consistent and stable. I'm not reaching for the third coffee. instead the Sheila Jeet keeps me locked in.

Another thing I love about symbiotica is that instead of taking a handful of pills and people look at you like a crazy person, they actually get curious. They see you taking this awesome little liquid gel pack that tastes amazing. And they go, oh, what is that? What are you taking right there? And I tell them I'm taking my symbiotica for my health because I'm trying to live till I'm 180 years old. So if you're interested in reclaiming your health for the summer, feeling better, having more stable energy and doing it in the tastiest way possible,

go to symbiotica.com slash camp, use the promo cook camp, and you will get 20% off your order and free shipping if you go to symbiotica.com slash camp or click on, you know, the description. You'll see the links right there or even in the bottom of this banner. Now let's get back to the show. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I'm sitting here in my beautiful tent. As you can see, every week, day in, day out.

And people always ask, they say, Mark, how do I have a tent like that? I want to sit in a beautiful tent and invite a lover, a friend, you know, someone that I appreciate and adore. I want to give them a good time inside my tent. Well, it's easy. Thanks to the good folks over at bluechew.com. That's right. Bluechew is the original OG brand offering chewable tablets. And what do these tablets do?

Oh, I'm glad you asked. They are going to give you the, just a stronger, harder, and longer lasting sexual performance. That's right. They're going to help you pitch a tent any place, anywhere. And the best part, it's all done online. That means you don't have to go to a doctor's office and, you know, talk to them, be like,

Oh, you know, I'm feeling some type of way. Look, this is not for people that are, you know, lacking necessarily. This is for people to want to have the best experience of their life, whether it's Valentine's Day, birthday, a funeral. Who knows? Whenever you need it, you never know when you could use Blue Chew. And we have a special deal for the listeners of this program. That's right.

Try your first month of Blue Chew for free. That's right. Completely free. Mark, is it going to work for me? Is this? Hey, it's free. Why not just try it? Visit blu-chew.com for more details and important safety information,

and we thank Bluchu for sponsoring this podcast. All right, now let's get after it, and let's get back to the show. Carlo LeVay was born July 1952 to LeVay and his then-wife, Carol Lansing. And after her father's death, she founded the first Satanic church with headquarters in San Francisco. The fact that both daughters ended up founding their own religious organizations tells you something about how deeply their father's influence shaped their lives. They just went in different directions with it. But perhaps the most telling detail about LeVay's relationship with his family is what he named his final child.

On November 1st, 1993, his companion, Blanche Barton, gave birth to Satan, Xerxes, Karnaki, LeVay. This man literally named his son, Satan. Not as a nickname, not as like a stage name, just his child's actual name. It said that he doesn't have anything to do with the Church of Satan. anymore, but their website actually describes him as, quote, the only son of Anton Sandoor LeVay, and his mother is Blanche Barden. He is currently leading in private life while growing into a fine young man. The picture that emerges from LeVay's family life is pretty disturbing, right? This three-year-old satanic baptism wasn't really about religious conviction. It was just generating headlines and

establishing credibility, and that's best case scenario. But LeVe's darkest practices weren't reserved for celebrities. They were happening right in his own home. And the consequences would haunt him for the rest of his life. Because the man who claimed to represent humanity's true nature was about to attract followers who would take his teachings in directions

that he might not have even anticipated. LeVay probably thought that he was going to attract like artists and intellectuals, maybe some rebellious free thinkers and create a club of cool kids. Instead, he ended up with a very different crowd. And some of these people had agendas that went way beyond.

to anything LeVay had planned for. Let's talk about the Satanic Bible for a moment, because this is something most people don't know about LeVay and his most famous work. The Satanic Bible itself is believed to be largely plagiarized from the social Darwinist and racist manifesto, Might is Right. Might is Right was basically a book arguing that stronger people have the natural right to dominate weaker people,

and it contained a lot of racist and anti-Semitic content. So LeVay took this existing text with some pretty extreme ideas, and reworked it into his satanic philosophy. Whether this was intentional or not, who knows. But it does mean that his book contains ideas that appeal to people with specific political views. More specifically, people who generally believed in racial hierarchies and social domination.

And sure enough, those kinds of people started to show up. One of them was James H. Mandel, a major figure in the American neo-Nazi movement, not just some fringe extremist, right? This guy is, you know, he's wild. He has a hatred of Christianity that drove him to seek out this alternative belief system, and he became drawn to this blend of fascism and Satanism, and that search led him to Anton LeVe.

According to Nicholas Goodrick Clark in his book, The Black Sun, James Wagner, a former security echelon commander, recalls that relationships between the NRP, the National Renaissance Party, and the Church of Satan were cordial. Mandel and LeVay frequently met at the NRP offices and in the Warlock Bookshop in New York. So these weren't just casual encounters. They were having regular meetings to discuss how fascist politics and satanic religion might work together. But the most significant figure to emerge from LeVe's inner circle was Michael Aquino.

Aquino first connected with LeVay while serving as a psychological warfare operative in the U.S. Army, stationed deep in the jungles of Vietnam. Aquino returned to the States and was soon made a high-ranking priest, editor of the church's Cloven Hoof newsletter. As the years passed by, Aquino grew more and frustrated with LeVey's policies, and in Aquino's eyes, LeVey had always refused to believe in Satan Satan as an actual supernatural being. Now, the high priest was selling priesthoods in the church for, you know, cash. Aquino felt that this undermined what he saw as the serious purpose of Satanism. So, in 1975, Michael Aquino broke away from LeVay, and he didn't leave quietly. He took a significant chunk of the church with him. Some say it was 28 members. Aquino claimed it was closer to 100.

Either way, it was a major split. And out of it, he founded the Temple of Set. A more tightly organized religion centered around the Egyptian god Set, who Aquino believed was the original figure behind the Hebrew Satan. This creates an interesting contradiction at the heart of LeVay's movement. LeVay himself was an atheist who saw Satan as a symbol rather than a real entity. He viewed his Satanism as a philosophy of individualism, not literal devil worship, but many of the people he attracted interpreted his teachings very differently. It's like LeVay created this intellectual structure for rebellion and self-empowerment, and he was using Satanism just almost as like, you know, this figure for, you know, rejection of, you know, the rigidity of, you know, Christianity or other Abrahamic religions. But once it was out there, he couldn't control. how people would use it or what they did with it.

And the gap between his intended philosophy and what some followers actually practiced became a serious problem internally. So, although LeVay had sparked something powerful, he couldn't fully control what it became. LeVe's church attracted some real dangerous people and the connections they revealed would expose a web of disturbing activities

that went far beyond religion. Because by the 1980s, it was becoming clear that LeVay's creation had taken on a life of its own and not in the ways that he necessarily wanted. So by the 1990s, Anton LeVe's influence had faded. The man who once drew global attention in courted celebrities was now dealing with health problems and internal conflicts and financial instability. The Church of Satan never had more than about 2,000 members at its peak.

And after Michael Aquino left in 1975 with a sizable number of followers to form the temple of set, the organization shrank even further. LeVay's income depended most on book sales and membership fees, which weren't enough to sustain the cost of running. this religious institution. And his personal life was equally strained. His daughter, Zena, publicly disowned him in 89, and a bitter divorce left his estate tied up in legal battles

between his longtime partner, Blanche Barden, and one of his daughters. LeVay's health had been deteriorating due to heart complications linked to rheumatic fever. On October 29, 1997, he died from pulmonary edema at St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco, a Catholic hospital. Not saying we'd have anything to do with it. but just ironic. Rumors about LeVe's supposed deathbed confession began circulating years later, especially in a lot of Christian circles.

Stories claim that he panicked in his final moments and regretted everything, saying, quote, oh my, oh my, what have I done? However, the Church of Satan and Blanche Barden have both confirmed that these stories are false. According to medical facts, someone dying from pulmonary edema would be physically unable to speak. LeVay was cremated after a private satanic funeral attended by close family, and the infamous black house in San Francisco, and the church's headquarters were demolished in 2001. After his death, his daughter Carla founded the first satanic church and claimed to continue his original teachings. Zena, on the other hand, moved to Berlin and co-founded the Settian liberation movement distancing herself from her father's work entirely, but still practicing some version of spiritualism and potentially magic, just not in a satan liberation. way. It's alleged that she actually has converted to Buddhism later in her life and now follows

that religious philosophy. LeVay left behind several books that are still in print, including the Satanic Bible, the Satanic Witch, and the Satanic rituals, which together have sold over a million copies. His philosophy, while never mainstream, still has a cultural footprint. But in the end, the man who built a religion around individualism and rebellion died in relative obscurity. His movement splintered, his home destroyed, and his family completely fractured. The legacy of Anton LeVay is still around and in some different forms, often at odds with each other, and far from the vision that he ever claimed to lead. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of Anton LeVay. Now, I've heard things about him, right? I hear people say all the time,

like, oh, this guy, he wasn't actually a Satanist, he just used it as a tool, da-da-da-da, and sure, right, I can understand that. There might be a difference between someone that antagonizes the religious right by using Satanism versus someone that is actually a Satanist. Other people would be like, oh, that's one of the same thing.

The outcome is the same. I don't know if that's necessarily true. Regardless, I've heard people make the claim that Anton LeVay wasn't actually a Satanist, but his movement in creating, quote, the Church of Satan, obviously drew in people that were Satanous. And by using, you know, a lot of, you know,

might is right philosophy in his books, he attracted people that had, you know, pretty disgusting and racist ideas, which even further pushed his movement from sort of a dark hedonistic philosophy into outright hatred and violence. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if this guy was actually Satanist or working for the evil one, but based on the way his life turned out, it seems like, I don't know, the devil got his get back. I'm curious to know what his daughters are up to now, or maybe his son. I mean, he lives a private life.

Born in 1993, I mean, he's in his 30s. He's probably just still out there just living. Poor guy. I mean, probably, you know, didn't grow up with a dad, which is always a bummer. But I wonder what he thinks about what happened with his family. I wonder if he's going to start a religious movement. And maybe just joining Catholicism, dude, I'm telling you. It's so much easier, right?

Or you can go Greek Orthodox. Either one, you know what I mean? I'm not even going to really split here. Just go to Hill song, right? Sing the songs. It's, you know, Jesus. Just go Jesus. Do that?

That shit is far. Regardless, this has been another episode of camp. I would love to know what you guys think. Please drop a comment below. Did I miss anything on Anton LeVay? Were there details that I blindly skimmed over? I would love to know what you guys think. And so please drop a comment.

I read all of them, YouTube, Spotify. I go through every single one. So please just be nice. All right. Anyway, thank you guys so much for joining. And I will see you next time here at camp. Peace. What's up, people?

Quick announcement. If you are a fan of Camp Gagnon or Religion Camp, I have great news because we are dropping history camp. That's right. This is the channel we're going to be exploring the most interesting, fascinating, controversial topics from all time throughout all history, right? You probably know about Benjamin Franklin, I don't know, Thomas Jefferson, Nicola Tesla. Interesting figures from history, and you probably learned about it in school,

and they were pretty boring, but not here. No. As you know, I was raised by a conspiracy theory, so I'm going to be diving deep into all of the interesting, strange, occult, and secretive societal relationships that all of these famous influential men from our shared past have. So if you're interested, please go ahead and subscribe to the YouTube channel. It will be pinned in the description as well as the comments. And if you're on Spotify, this doesn't really apply to you, but these episodes will be dropping as well.

Just go ahead and give us a high rating because it really helps the show.