Analysis of Anton LaVey (Founder of the Church of Satan) | Was LaVey a Con Artist?

hello this is dr grande today's question is can i analyze the life and death of anton levay just a reminder i'm not diagnosing anybody in this video only speculating about could be happening a situation like this if you enjoyed this video please like it subscribe to my channel and consider supporting me on patreon i'll put the link to patreon in the description for this video so first i'll start with the background of anton levay and then i'll move to my analysis anton levay was born howard stanton levy in chicago illinois on april 11 1930. levi never actually legally changed his name but he used the name anton levay so much that he is now known by that name so i will refer to him as anton levay levay's family moved to california when he was young he was raised in the san francisco bay area he became interested in a variety of musical instruments at a young age for example he played the pipe organ he also took an interest in the occult and the supernatural starting at age seven levy claimed that he dropped out of high school at age 16 to join the circus but it's not clear if that actually happened he was known for lying and exaggerating about his past he began developing a cynical view of organized religion mostly due to perceived hypocrisy he believed that religious people held others to a moral code which they themselves did not follow he started working as an organist in nightclubs and bars in los angeles in 1948 he believed himself to be a genius on the keyboard levy claimed to have dated marilyn monroe before she was famous but the evidence suggests he was lying he returned to san francisco in 1950 and in 1951 he married a 15 year old girl named carol lansing they would have a daughter in 1952 levay started studying at city college of san francisco and he claimed he worked as a photographer and psychic investigator for the san francisco police department no evidence supports these claims i guess being a psychic investigator means you would always have an excuse to leave any given situation like he could be talking to the police chief or whoever and say well this has been an interesting talk but i have to go a call is coming in but your phone isn't ringing it's a psychic call i suppose being a psychic investigator means never having to be caught in a boring conversation i also wonder if psychic investigators have a different miranda warning they use to read the suspects like you have the right to remain silent but it won't help because i can read minds levi divorced in 1960 and entered into a long-term romantic relationship shortly after with a woman named diane haggerty in 1963 they had a daughter levay started to become a popular figure in san francisco he did a few things that attracted attention to himself he used to take his pet leopard for walks on the street his personal vehicle was a coroner's van he gave live performances as an organist and performed so-called paranormal research eventually he started hosting lectures every friday night on rituals and the occult just to name a few topics that he covered vampires lycanthropy and cannibalism a few people suggested to levay that he could take his beliefs and form a religion levy founded the church of satan on april 30 1966 and proclaimed 1966 as the year one he performed a satanic wedding baptism and funeral he created documentation for his new religion where he outlined rituals and ideology for example he wrote the satanic bible and a book titled the satanic rituals levi had an uncredited role in the 1968 film rosemary's baby he played satan this boosted his popularity many people wanted to interview him he had a number of followers and was making a living off of his new religion for many years but then he ran into a problem rosemary's baby was directed by roman polanski the followers of a man named charles manson killed polanski's wife sharon tate as well as other people who were in the same house at the time one of those people was a man named jay sebring sebring was a member of the church of satan furthermore susan atkins one of the members of the manson family and one of the murderers had performed as a vampire in one of levay's shows the public was not willing to accept levay's connection to charles manson his career started a slow decline that continued for many years and would never turn around they and haggerty broke up in 1984 even though they were never formally married it was a common law marriage so they had to go through a divorce levy was financially devastated in this divorce he started seeing a woman named blanche barton they would have a son in 1993. on october 29 1997 anton levay died of pulmonary edema he was 67 years old now moving to my analysis anton levay was a classic con artist he was described as a colorful figure with considerable personal magnetism and a born showman his potential personality profile would be high and openness to experience low conscientiousness high extroversion low agreeableness and mid-range neuroticism levay said that his interest in the church of satan was strictly from a monetary point of view and that most of the followers of his church were fanatics cultists and weirdos he admitted several times that he lied and embellished details of his life he said he did it to charm the public he was able to cause a tremendous amount of outrage which garnered him a phenomenal level of attention from the media the more attention he gained the more extreme behaviors he manifested he manipulated many people especially in the san francisco bay area outside of his intent to take advantage of his followers like to take their money he was an advocate of his own brand of counter culture he wanted to call attention to the downsides of religious belief to point out hypocrisy and to challenge the religious leaders to admit their mistakes they did actually want some of his ideas to be taken seriously it wasn't all supposed to be humorous and entertaining the difficulty is that levy's philosophy was highly inconsistent and he himself was a hypocrite for example he talked about the values of personal freedom yet in his own organization he micromanaged his followers levi's attitude towards satan was somewhat connected to romanticism romantic literary scholars often think of satan as a misunderstood hero someone who was trying to resist tyranny but was ultimately brought down by his own pride they think of satan as someone who had individuality persistence audacity and courage while at the same time recognizing these traits under certain circumstances could lead to disaster in this way of thinking the concept of satan is a being who has some positive attributes but who is unable to avoid taking them too far romanticism is a much more sophisticated philosophy than what levy actually came up with even though it did inspire his work to level satan was not real rather he was a symbol of levay's dedication to materialism the word satan actually comes from a hebrew word meaning the adversary they thought of satan as a counterculture representative the ultimate non-conformist being a member of levay's church meant rejecting established orders and political systems not actually worshiping satan levay founded a church with the name of an entity in which he did not believe they explained the use of satanic rituals by saying they were a type of psychodrama therapy again he really didn't believe in satan therefore it was simply a way for people to fully express their rejection of society and religion he eventually moved away from philosophy tied to the occult and more toward trying to prove that there was no such thing as the supernatural in addition to romanticism another source of inspiration was frederick nietzsche here are a few examples of concepts in which levi and nietzsche both believed good and evil were ideas imposed by early christians christian morality denies pleasure and life christian morality attempts to control the human instinct toward domination and morality should not be abandoned but it should be replaced with a new morality levee's philosophy indicated that people should try to get the most pleasure out of life while exerting some self-control this sounds a lot like responsible hedonism an idea that albert ellis a famous mental health professional put together based on ancient philosophy in addition to the sources i already covered levi was inspired by other people like anne rand aleister crowley and jack london to write the satanic bible levay plagiarized several works including a book written by arthur desmond titled might is right desmond wrote it under a pseudonym levay removed some of the more offensive passages like those related to racism but levay's book is still used by some neo-fascist groups some people have referred to levaze plagiarism as satanizing because he did change things a little bit to make it more about satan so levay simply looked around at different things in the world and said this needs more satan i guess one could say that satan ice is a combination of evangelize traumatize plagiarize aggrandize polarize romanticize and demonize levi had a lot of critics many followers of satan complain about the church of satan saying that it doesn't advocate worshipping satan properly levay was selling priesthoods in his church even though he didn't believe satan existed interestingly levay ostensibly tried to convince people that members of the church of satan were not devil worshipers so a man founds a church called the church of satan and then complains that people confused it with devil worshipers levi worked to clear up this confusion about as hard as aleria baldwin did when she was trying to convince people she was not spanish people have accused levay of using the same tactics that corrupt religious leaders used he has been compared to jim jones david koresh and jim baker levay was an unsuccessful con artist his net worth the time of his death which was rumored to be in the millions was actually only sixty thousand dollars he often claimed that he had hundreds of thousands of members in his church in reality he never had more than three hundred he was able to tap into anti-christian sentiment to trick journalists into writing stories about him many didn't bother to investigate levay at all even though he was clearly lying about his past levi was a pseudo-intellectual who just happened to come across a fraudulent scheme that was embraced at the time but he couldn't actually turn it into a profitable business one thing that levy did accomplish however was demonstrating the seemingly limitless scalability of a portion of the population he founds this church by badly plagiarizing the work of other people and mixing in a common counterculture message that was relatively simplistic he lies so much that anyone should have known he was a fraud he tells his followers that satan is not real after founding a church based on satan and he later admitted he only did it for the money even with all this there are still people who believe that levi was selected by satan to spread a message of giving into one's desires those are my thoughts on anton levay please put any opinions and thoughts in the comments section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always i hope you found my analysis of this topic to be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 251,124

Keywords:

Id: YKGU01JyNpQ

Length: 12min 52sec (772 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 22 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/SSF415]

Actually disappointed that Grande fell for the "Rosemary's Baby" myth, but it was interesting that he drew a line between that and Manson.

[u/[deleted]]

He absolutely was a carnie and a con, but dammit he was an effective one.

[u/alderstrauss]

Yea... This video shouldn’t be a credible reference. He jumps to wild conclusions based on gross misunderstandings/exaggerations.