Helen O’Hara wrote an interesting article for the UK’s Telegraph titled, “When the Devil was hot: how Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey seduced Hollywood, March 15, 2016 AD.
She begins with a dismissive tactic, “Religious zealots and Illuminati-conspiracy theorists often claim that Hollywood is in league with the Devil, and that most or all of its stars sold their soul to get ahead.” In other words, since the claims are made by they whom she takes it upon herself to label “Religious zealots and Illuminati-conspiracy theorists” you can feel free to dismiss them as nutters. This is a classic committal of the logical fallacy of both the ad hominem and genetic fallacy: bypassing discrediting an argument by attacking those making it and claiming that an argument is invalid due to its source.
Well, I do not know who sold what to whom but that “Hollywood is in league with the Devil” is obvious on many fronts: 1) consider the unethical content of the majority of their movies, consider that they all but refuse to make movies about traditional Christian family values (even though those movies are always big money makers), 3) they manipulate Bible stories out of any recognizable form (often peppering or premising such tales with Gnosticism), etc., etc., etc. and etc. For example, see my Alchemical Hollywood and generally my Movies section.
She then simply asserts, without a counter argument, that “They’re wrong, at least in the literal sense (a few souls may have been traded metaphorically).” Well, there is something at least. After a nothing to see here style intro, she notes, “For a brief period in the late Sixties, a man called Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, made inroads in the town and named film stars among his ranks.” In fact, the article is subtitled, “For a brief period in the late Sixties LaVey was rubbing shoulders with movie stars and Satanism took on a glamorous edge. But the brutal Manson murders changed everything.”
She seems to assume that Hollywood was influenced and then forgot about the whole thing, move on and that’s all folks; but let us see.
It is noted that via his work at the Clyde Beatty Circus Church of Satan founder and Satanic Bible author Anton LaVey, “became well-versed in the many rackets to separate the rubes from their money” (as per his official biography). Well, this is Hollywood 101, to the tune of millions.
LaVey, “adopted the motto of British occultist Aleister Crowley, ‘Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law’ (also a line from Rabelais)” as well as others, see “Do what thou wilt” Eckhart Tolle, Augustine and Aleister Crowley.
It is also noted that LaVey’s rituals “involving lots in the way of naked women, who lay down and became ‘altars’ for ‘High Mass.’” Well, within the Stanley Kuberick movie Clockwork Orange manikins of women are used at the hallucinogenic Korova Milk Bar as (altar-like) tables.
Helen O’Hara notes that “An early attempt to ignite interest in the church saw LaVey put on nightclub shows with topless ‘witches’ and a bikini-clad ‘Inquisitioner’, something too few religions have tried.” Wrong again, back in the day this was Paganism 101 what with temple prostitution, sex rituals, etc.
L to R: “Temple of Set” founder Michael Aquino (former “Church of Satan” priest), Sammy Davis Jr. and Anton LaVey.
Davis in Knights Templar regalia.
The actress Jayne Mansfield, known for “boundary-pushing sexuality in the 1950s” became LaVey’s girlfriend and High Priestess. A sorted affair ensued involving LaVey reportedly cursing Mansfield’s lawyer Sam Brody, Mansfield’s son being mauled by a lion, LaVey and his adherents appealing to Satan for his healing and ultimately, Brody and Mansfield dying in a car wreck. For details, see here.
Jayne Mansfield in Satanic ritual
Helen O’Hara then asserts that Roman Polanski’s 1968 AD movie Rosemary’s Baby, based on Ira Levin’s book, had Anton LaVey playing “the Devil himself in the rape of Rosemary.” Well, this is not very well known actually. The Internet Movie Database notes that Clay Tanner played the “Devil (uncredited).” Speculations are twofold, that LaVey was consulted, since the movie is about Satanism and may have played the Devil during the scene mentioned above. O’Hara does note, “It’s an uncredited role.”
A year after the release of Rosemary’s Baby’s Charles Manson’s “family” murdered Roman Polanski’s wife Sharon Tate. This event, so claims O’Hara, “put paid to any notion that Satanism might become mainstream.” Well, there are ties between the Church of Satan and Manson’s cult-family and one of these is that Susan Atkins “had danced as a topless vampire in a LaVey show called the Witches’ Sabbath before joining the Manson family.”
Susan Atkins
Another Manson cult victim was Jay Sebring “who had attended LaVey’s church around the same time as Davis.”
L to R: Jay Sebring, Roman Polanski & Sharon Tate
Helen O’Hara pinpoints this era as the Church of Satan’s “high point” which was followed “in the late 1980s and 1990s” by a people being “terrified of a Satanist menace, which met hysteria in cases like the trial of the West Memphis Three.” As I note in my Satanic Crime section: there was a certainly level of “Satanic panic” and yet, people take actions according to their believes and it would be utterly unprecedented if, for some never elucidated reason, Satanist are the only ones who never commit crimes based on their beliefs. This is particularly so when we consider that two of the most influential Satanists of the past century were Aleister Crowley and Anton LaVey both of whom affirmed that Satanic ritual human sacrifice murder was a-okay (see “On the Choice of a Human Sacrifice” – Anton LaVey’s Satanic Bible and Pope vs Satanic Temple – canonization & demonization of St Junipero Serra. Also, Since Helen O’Hara refers to the West Memphis Three case as involving, “three teenage heavy metal fans wrongly convicted of child murder,” you can learn about the West Memphis Three case, including Damien Echols diary of sorts about how he became progressively more and more possessed, see here.
A few hard rock stars, notably Marilyn Manson, associated with LaVey in these later years – he didn’t enjoy their music and preferred by this point to stay at home playing classic 40s love songs on his organ – but his organization was a shadow of even its limited height.
Marilyn Manson (as in Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson) with Anton LaVey
It is noted that “LaVey died in 1997, in a Catholic hospital” and his church’s center of operations moved from San Francisco from to, get this, New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. We also learn that today the church focuses on, for example, “women’s reproductive rights” which means that they are actively campaigning for a continuation of human child sacrifice which is known as abortion.
Thus, these are some of the issues covered in the article which is not very Hollywood heavy after all along with some corrections and elucidations.
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