Anton Szandor LaVey never really made it big as a lion trainer, police photographer, magician, exorcisor of haunts or musician. He applied his musical talents in oddly-assorted places - as a pianist in a burlesque house, at a calliope keyboard and in the oboe section of a symphony orchestra.

But he has a perverse showmanship which will not be stifled.

Currently it appears that LaVey has found a metier that bodes success. Impersonating the devil, he presides as high mucky-muck in the "First Satanic Church in the United States," founded less than a year ago and already a diabolical success. It is not clear whether he has been influenced by Aleister Crowley whose truck with the devil preceded LaVey's in time and whose stature as a satanic go-between is not likely to be surpassed.

To the door of LaVey's eerie home in an ordinary middle-class neighborhood in San Francisco, Calif., come all sorts of people--except those without money--to attend "services." He claims 2,500 members support the church by leaving donations after private consultations. Each potential follower is subjected to LaVey's own financial analysis. The less affluent, he told me, "simply are asked not to return."

"It's going over very well, thank you," he says.

Billing himself "high priest of the devil, Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub or any other evil name you can think of," the six-foot, 36-year-old LaVey sports a shaven head, neatly trimmed Ming beard and red velvet robes which add strikingly to the illusion that he is in fact the devil. He concedes his ears "aren't quite pointed enough," but he says, "I've considered plastic surgery."

LaVey's 13-room house, painted black of course, doubles as his church. Its history is appropriately wicked for the venture. It formerly served as a brothel, an astrologer's headquarters and once was a speakeasy.