Born April 11, 1930, Anton LaVey discovered many of his Satanic Witch formulas as a lucky consequence of being an observant and impressionable young man during the height of American prurience -- World War Two. While most men were overseas fighting the last patriotic war, competition was fierce for any able bodied man back on the home front . Girls became giddy for male attention, tempting and teasing outrageously, far from the watchful eye of husbands and boyfriends. Their antics were not lost on LaVey.
When he ran away from home at 16 to join the Clyde Beatty Circus, LaVey worked his way quickly through the ranks from roustabout and cage boy to organist and lion trainer. The future Black Pope had begun to learn the prurient secrets that evoked more erections for brazen farm girls on the midway than the desultory stripers in the hootchy kootchy shows. His liaisons with world renowned temptresses Marilyn Monroe and much later Jayne Mansfield who both understood the powerful aphrodisiac of remaining approachable and vulnerable added new tricks to his erotic repertoire.
The
closest LaVey ever came to a straight job was after taking courses in
Criminology at San francisco City College, Landing a job as a police photographer
for the San Francisco Police Department. But even during that period in
his life, settling down with his first wife to raise their eldest daughter,
Karrla, Anton exercised his seminars pursuits y taking professional girlie
photos, snapping Weegee like human interest shots on the way to his assigned
auto crashes or suicides, and painting some disturbing art work in a style
somewhere between Ivan Albright and Charles Addams. LaVey's magnetic attraction
to the eerie and supernatural haunted him during his police work. He spent
an increasing amount of time answering 800 calls repeat complaints of ghosts
mysterious moans UFO sightings, possessions-reports no one else wanted
to
handle because they were "spooky" or "weird." As one
of the first psychic investigators in the country,LaVey soon
found he had an enthusiastic clientele (and the delight of the press) as
a ghost hunter and hypnotist. It also seemed he was gathering quite a group
of unusual characters around him with similarly sinister and unusual interests
which he eventually dubbed the Magic Circle.
In the late 1950's,settled into his notorious "Black House"near the Sea cliff area of San Francisco,LaVey decided to supplement his popular Friday night lectures on the bizarre and occult with "Witches'Workshops." It was time to communicate his his formulas to women willing to use them for their own self-glorification and power,The Satanic Witch is a workbook that contains all the nasty little feminine tricks that LaVey began teaching his carefully-selected witches tricks long before he founded the Church of Satan in 1966.
Today,LaVey continues to advocate true liberation for women brave enough to risk jealous ridicule from their "sisters" The Satanic Witch is a good introductory text for LaVey's Satanic philosophy--a system of thought based on rational self-interest, sensual indulgence, and the constructive uses of alienation. Though more reclusive and misanthropic than during the early years of the Church of Satan,LaVey's organization has become the international rallying point for a new generation of iconoclasts.
It is LaVey's blending of misanthropically manipulative views with his delight in pursuits like music, magic and sexual stimulation the tar combined in The Satanic Witch. Satan--as a literary metaphor for the ultimate prider rebel,the alienated anti-hero who revels in his beastly/fleshly instincts yet remains always the gentleman--seems an inviting real model in our apocalyptic age.As a reflection of the three-dimensional villain,Anton LaVey is a complies,and in many ways frighteningly deceptive man.Supremely ego-driven,he initiates first meeting LaVey, many are disarmed by his wit,talent and an almost self-deprecating manner.Those who have the opportunity to be around him for any length of time eventually see a seething, brutal side to LaVey.He speaks with such fervor one doesn't need to question his sincerity.
One of LaVey's agendas for the Church of Satan, along with taxation of all churches and advocacy of artificial human companions is to smash the current androgyny--return to a world where men look like men an women look like women.The Satanic Witch vividly explains how to go about it. As even a cur soy reading will show, LaVey respects self-aware women as his most powerful allies in his struggle for an elitist,mere disciplined,more Satanic world.
According to LaVey, Fantasy along with androids is becoming increasingly important in our changing sexual scene. Because of the looming spectre of AIDS, people are becoming more circumspect about their sexual liaisons returning to the only safe outlets prurience and voyeurism. Women are relearning the arts of flirtation and subtle exhibitionism. We must revive glamour and little boy nastiness whether feminists yell about women exploiting their bodies or not. Women can exploit their differences to gain more power. But they must be highly evolved women. Most women will continue being sheep and buy what they're programmed, emotionally and economically. Advanced, Satanically oriented women can choose their own lifestyle rather than have it thrust upon them. They can enthusiastically participate in all kinds of exercises, rituals if you will, to break down the brian washing feminism has done on contemporary young women. Sadomasochistic revelries shape changing deviltry discipline games women are looking for more of that sort of thing in their private lives because its the ideal therapy. But again they must be extremely self aware to be willing to initiate such satanic debaucheries. If you're just one step up from the gutter you're too afraid of going backward to participate in vile, degrading activities. but advanced women will insist on more fantasy, formality, metaphor, imagination and magic in their relationships.
CHURCH OF SATAN
ANTON SZANDOR LAVEY