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Rare pix of Anton LaVey performing Satanic rites, cavorting with Jayne Mansfield and Forry Ackerman


Edgar Swank in cloak, two female members of the COS, Anton LaVey, Lois Murgunstrumm on the fireplace altar, and Diane LaVey.
 
The Black Pope, Anton Szandor LaVey, was, depending on who you ask, either one of the great 20th Century iconoclasts or merely a moderately successful con artist. Either way, LaVey, who founded the Church of Satan in 1966, certainly knew how to work the press—and he certainly made good copy for the tabloids. His books The Satanic Bible, The Satanic Rituals, and The Compleat Witch sold millions of copies and his church, at its height, boasted of hundreds of thousands of members (though some have challenged those numbers).

A gorgeous hardcover photography book titled California Infernal was released in May by Trapart books in an edition of 400 copies. The tome contains over 100 rare and previously unseen photographs of Satanist Anton LaVey, as well as film star Jayne Mansfield and Famous Monsters of Filmland publisher Forrest J. Ackerman.
 

 
The photos, the work of freelance paparazzo Walter Fischer, capture LaVey at home in the infamous “Black House”, the headquarters of the Church of Satan, as well as at the “Ackermansion” and Mansfield’s Hollywood “Pink Palace.”

Though some of the photos are staged for publicity, many of the most intriguing photos are candid shots of LaVey doing relatively normal stuff. My personal favorites are a series of shots of LaVey geeking out over Ackerman’s collection of horror movie ephemera.

The majority of the photos were taken in the Church of Satan’s second year of existence. Anyone with an interest in LaVey as a cultural icon or in the history of the COS, would be well-served to pick up a copy of California Infernal by following this link. It makes an excellent companion piece to the exhaustive, and also-recommended, The Church of Satan, Volume One and The Church of Satan, Volume Two by former COS member Dr. Michael Aquino.

Here’s a gallery of some of the photos published in California Infernal which Trapart Books was kind enough to share exclusively with Dangerous Minds:
 

 

LaVey and “Forry” Ackerman.
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Christopher Bickel
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07.21.2016
09:18 pm
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Joe Pyne: The godfather of pinhead TV
10.02.2010
02:22 am
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I grew up watching Joe Pyne and marveling at his bitter rants. He was the template for Fox News and geek journalism.

Lewis Marvin was a stone cold freak who happened to be very very rich. He was the heir to the Green Stamps fortune and with his inheritance established the hippie community Moonfire in Topanga Canyon. Moonfire was at the epicenter of Southern California’s new age scene, drawing a mixed bag of rock and rollers, actors, groupies and wandering flower children. In this clip, Pyne attempts to scramble Marvin’s already scrambled signals. Pyne, an ex-Marine, was notorious for his loathing of hippies, beatniks and pinkos. He was the Bill O’Reilly of the sixties…without any intellectual pretense.

Witness Marvin as he boldly confronts Pyne and the screaming tomato.
 

 
Joe Pyne locks horns with Anton LaVey after the jump…

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Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.02.2010
02:22 am
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