THE DEVIL'S SERVANT
Article by I.M. Kamp
UNCENSORED: ALL THE FACTS ... ALL THE NAMES [August 1967 C.E.]
[From The Collection of Butch & Sara Rung]

It was a helluva wedding.

The bride wore a bright red dress. The preacher wore a black cape lined with scarlet silk and a blood hood from which two white horns protruded. One of the guests, singer Barbara McNair, wore a cast on her broken leg and a pink ribbon on her big toe.

And the redhead reclining on the altar wore absolutely nothing.

This weird event, held recently in San Francisco, was the first marriage ceremony ever performed in this country by a devil-worshipping cult.

It took place in a spooky, black-painted mansion that was once a brothel and is now headquarters of the Satanic Church of America and home of its devilish pastor, Anton Szandor LaVey.

More than 100 spectators turned out to watch LaVey join socialite Judith Case, 26, and free-lance writer John Raymond, 35, in unholy matrimony. The red-clad bride looked lovely and the caped, hooded minister was suitably satanic.

But the main attraction was the nude altarpiece. luscious Lois Murgenstrumm, 21. The ravishing redhead lay on her back on the cold stone altar with nothing to warm her but the lights of TV cameras and the leers of onlookers.

Newspaper and television photographers fired away at the topless, bottomless beauty. They shot her from every conceivable angle--even though they knew the pictures would never appear in the press or on the video screen.

LaVey explained the naked girl's presence by saying: "An altar shouldn't be a cold, unyielding slab of sterile stone or wood. It should be a symbol of enthusiastic lust and indulgence."

Lois, he added, "symbolizes earthly pleasures."

The other decorations in the black-draped room weren't quite as earthy as the undraped redhead, but they were every bit as symbolic--candles and incense burning in human skulls, icons and sorcery signs on the walls, books on witchcraft and black magic, tinkling bells, gongs, shelves containing a stuffed menagerie of wolves, rats, ravens and owls.

There was also a real live lion named Togare. Kept in his cage during the ceremony, he was almost as big an attraction as the nude altarpiece.

LaVey acquired Togare a few years ago when he was working as a lion-tamer. The bald, bearded satanist also has been a carnival calliope player, pianist in a burlesque house, oboist in a symphony orchestra, police photographer, magician, hypnotist and "psychic investigator," specializing in the dehaunting of houses.

But he never made it big until he went to the devil.

Somewhere in his varied career, he started studying sorcery, witchcraft and the black arts. He learned many other people also were interested in these subjects. And he decided to give them an outlet for their demoniacal energies.

So now he's the devil's disciple--and its the most profitable job he's ever had.

As a suitable site for his Satanic Church, he bought a 13-room Victorian mansion which might have been designed by cartoonist Charles Addams. Located in the Sea Cliff section of San Francisco near the Golden Gate Bridge, it was once both the house and home of Mammy Pleasant, a famous medium-madam of the early 1900s.

Mammy Pleasant's house of pleasure catered to Frisco financiers, politicians, businessmen and other affluent types. When they crossed her palm with gold, she could conjure up either a ghost or a girl.

LaVey now lives there with his bewitching wife, Diane, and their daughters, Karla, 14, and Zeena, 3. The girls play with Togare as they would with a pet dog or cat.

The 500-pound lion guards the mansion's rear entrance, where a sign on the door warns: "DANGER, NO TRESPASSING, SURVIVORS WILL BE PROSECUTED."

At night, Togare sleeps on the floor of LaVey's bedroom. However, he is chained to an iron bolt because "we don't want him chewing up the furniture, which he likes to do."

LaVey, 36, describes himself as "a high priest of the devil, Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles or whatever else you want to call him."

In order to look the part of a devil's disciple, he shaved his head and grew a mustache and chin whiskers in the style favored by Dr. Fu Manchu and other villanous Mandarins. Unfortunately, he was unable to grow horns, hooves or a tail.

"And my ears aren't quite pointed enough," he concedes. "I'm considering having them reshaped through plastic surgery."

Founded only a year ago, the Satanic Church already is a diabolical success. LaVey receives inquiries and donations from people all over the country. He claims to have brought more than 2,500 black sheep into the fold.

Other Hollywood celebrities visit San Francisco regularly for private consultations with the devil's disciple. He casts spells for them, invokes the evil spirits and keeps them informed on what in Hell is happening.

While there is no fixed fee for these consultations, visitors are expected to leave cash contributions. If they don't, says LaVey, "they are simply asked not to return."

The self-ordained minister checks the financial rating of every prospective convert. In this church, there's the devil to pay. And those who can't afford his prices aren't invited to join.

"I have received much correspondence from people all over the world wanting to join the move to Satanism," LaVey said recently. "Most of the letters come from seemingly intelligent individuals."

"These people are engaged in a vast cross-section of occupations. Among them are businessmen, politicans, artists, teachers, doctors, lawyers and students."