CHURCH OF SATAN FOUNDER DIES

The man who founded the Church of Satan and played the devil in the 1968 occult movie classic, “Rosemary’s Baby,” is dead. Anton Szandor LaVey died Oct. 29 of pulmonary edema following years of heart problems. He was 67. The onetime lion trainer and professional organist began his church in 1966, gaining national attention when he performed a satanic wedding and baptized his first daughter in the church. His appetite for entertainment remained throughout his years as head of the Church of Satan, playing bizarre organ music for hours each day and, for a time, keeping a lion as a pet.

LaVey’s version of Satanism was more contempt for Christianity, rather than the typically accepted traditions of human and animal sacrifice associated by some with devil worship. “My father was considered by some as the world’s most dangerous man, but he would never hurt a living thing. My father loved animals and children,” his daughter, Karla LaVey, told the Associated Press.

In 1969, he published The Satanic Bible, a work that sold briskly in secular bookshops for many years. He wrote and published three other volumes, with a fifth book to be published posthumously this year. LaVey’s family stated they “will continue in his footsteps to do as he directed to keep the Church of Satan going and keep it strong.”

—MKG

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