Susan Sward, Chronicle Staff Writer
SAN FRANCISCO
At the center of the room yesterday stood a wax figure of Anton LaVey,
the founder of the Church
of Satan who had died 10 days before. His skin was shiny white, his
head shaved, his cape black.
On his chin was a beard usually described as Mephistophelian.
On either side of LaVey sat two of his High Priestesses -- his longtime
companion, Blanche Barton,
and his daughter, Karla LaVey.
``It makes it
like old times,'' murmured Karla LaVey, a black- haired woman in her mid-40s.
``We
haven't done
anything like this since the 1960s,'' she told the dozen or so reporters
and camera
people crowded
into the musty room.
It was in 1966
that LaVey first garnered publicity with his founding of the Church of
Satan in San
Francisco. Three
years later, he published his Satanic Bible, which followers say has sold
close to 1
million copies
worldwide. In 1968, he said he served as a technical adviser for the movie
``Rosemary's
Baby'' and played the role of the devil in the film as well.
The San Francisco
media went wild for this Chicago-born, self- proclaimed sorcerer who lived
in a
13-room black
Victorian.
It was as if
LaVey had been invented to give reporters endless material for stories.
He had a lion
caged in his
house until the neighborhood rebelled at the animal's roars and the beast
was shipped off
to the zoo and
eventually to a private animal farm.
Then there was
the satanic baptism for his 3-year-old, Zeena. The satanic marriage ceremonies.
The
Wednesday night
charm school for witches with aphrodisiac potion recipes. And his alleged
affair
with actress
Jayne Mansfield.
One book detailing
LaVey's exploits quoted a retired San Francisco police inspector as recalling
the
night he dropped
by LaVey's home and saw Mansfield ``lying naked on (LaVey's) grand piano.
I'll
never forget
that sight.''
LaVey, speaking
with the author of the book, said of Mansfield: ``She liked to be humiliated.
She
longed for a
stern master.''
LaVey preached
that life should be lived to the fullest, and he complained that he never
got enough
credit for helping
start the human potential movement.
But there was
always a sense that LaVey might not be taking himself entirely seriously.
Asked by
Chronicle reporter
Jerry Carroll in 1986 what this devil business was all about, LaVey replied
with a
tincture of
melancholy, ``It's a living.''
In recent years, LaVey's name appeared infrequently in the mainstream press.
The 67-year-old
LaVey died on October 29 of heart disease at St. Mary's Hospital, according
to
the San Francisco
medical examiner's office. But the media didn't learn of his death for
several days.
Family members
said later that they performed a satanic funeral for him on Tuesday in
Colma where
he was cremated.
In the wake of
his death, Barton and his daughter said it was important to understand
what LaVey
stood for --
how he loved to question viewpoints everyone seemed to treasure.
``He did believe
in the devil,'' insisted Barton, a blonde woman who is the mother of LaVey's
four-
year-old son,
Xerxes. ``He believed in magic. He practiced it religiously.''
At this point, Karla injected: ``He didn't believe in a devil with horns and tails.''
Details of exactly
how LaVey practiced his magic were a bit sketchy. In a 1967 interview,
for
example, LaVey
told a reporter he placed a small curse on the Sutro Baths ``and 36 hours
later it
burned down.''
That was in 1966.
So was he doing these sorts of hexes in more recent times, Karla was asked.
``They were more
personal in nature,'' she responded enigmatically. ``And they were always
deserved.''