Satan Scare

To: zee-list
Subject: [zee-list] LaVey, clowns, etc.
From: Lauranz the-Terrible
Date: Mon, 06 Dec 1999 19:53:38 EST


Jez asks, concerning my meeting LaVeyan Satanists, "In the old days? As in on this list or IRL? Wish I lived somewhere that would allow me to meet Satanists IRL."

It was back in, um, 1970 or 71, when I was working at the way cool bookstore. I was the resident witch, and had a free hand in ordering whatever I wanted for the occult section. Oh, those were the good old days.

One fine afternoon when I was at the cash register a guy and a girl came up to pay for a pile of my magick and witchcraft books they had selected. As I was ringing up the sale, the fellow whipped out his Church of Satan membership card and dramatically shoved it in front of me while his friend kind of grinned, waiting to see my response. I knew what I was supposed to do: I was supposed to go white, draw back in fear, gasp in horror, cross myself or whatever...heh heh heh...I smiled brightly and said, "Hey, wow, Szandor LaVey's Satanism, man, that's swell," or some such cheerful stuff. And then they saw that I was wearing a gold ankh ring, uh oh, they thought they were going to scare someone, and here, oh goodness, this person isn't scared, this person is obviously a good ten years older than them, this person is obviously into the occult and knows more than they do, oh dear...and they ended up scared of *me*.

Oh, it was a hoot!

They were trying so hard to be EEEEVILLLL SATANISTS, the way kids nowadays try so hard to be evil chaos magicians. Unfortunately these kids came from good homes, with decent good parents who taught them good values, and no matter how hard they tried to be evil, the fact that they were really nice, decent young people kept coming through.

I got to know them, and we became friends. They were really, really nice people. I miss them, Wayne, Leslie, Sue, Bill, and the whole bunch who kind of hung around with them. Gawd, by now they're in their mid-forties. I wonder whatever happened, and if they are into magick still....

Pennsylvania? Misread? I was in PA sixteen years ago. I've been in NY State since then. And I'm fixing to move back home to PA this year.

As for the clown class, so many people were afraid of clowns and had such negative reactions to clowns, I didn't take the class.

Back to the subject of LaVey...what are people doing nowadays? What is the Church of Satan doing? Is everybody solitary and alone and just hanging out in Cyberia? What is going on now that LaVey has died? What do LaVeyan Satanists do? And do tell us about your mailing list. Where can we find it, etc?

Love,

Lauranz