Anton LaVey, who founded the Church of Satan, died Oct. 29, 1997, of heart failure at age 67. His daughter, Karla, and girlfriend, Blanche Barton, kept LaVey’s death a secret for a week so as not to disturb followers during the church’s most important holiday, Halloween, according to news reports. After holding jobs as a lion tamer, organist, and crime photographer, LaVey wrote the Satanic bible and began the church in 1966. In 1967 he gained notoriety for conducting the first Satanic wedding. “We will follow in his footsteps…to keep the Church of Satan alive and strong,” Karla said. Materialism and hedonism are the two basic philosophies espoused by LaVey, according to the Dictionary of Cults, Sects, Religions and the Occult (Zondervan). “Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence, vital existence instead of spiritual pipe dreams, vengeance instead of turning the other cheek,” LaVey once explained.
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Goshen News Service, Nov. 10, 1997.
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[Original illustration at this number was added to HolwickID #24079]