Long Hard Road Out Of Hell

....read and listen....

I had written, I had called, I had pleaded. Finally, I was granted an appointment. During a day off on the fall, 1994 Nine Inch Nails tour in San Francisco, the hotel phone rang. "The Doctor wants to meet you," came a woman's voice, stern & husky. I asked her if the Doctor would care to see our show the following night. I knew everything there was to know about the Doctor but he knew very little about me.

"The Doctor never leaves his house," she replied icily.

"Okay, when do you want me to come over? I'm in town for a few days."

"The Doctor really wants to meet you," she replied. "Can you come between one & two tonight?"

No matter what time the Doctor called for me & where he summoned me to, I planned to be there. I admired & respected him. We had a lot of things in common: We had experience as extravagant showmen, successfully placed curses on people, studied criminology & serial killers, found a kindred spirit in the writings of Nietzsche, & constructed a philosophy against repression & in support of nonconformity. In short, we had both dedicated the better part of our lives to toppling Christianity with the weight of its own hypocrisy, & as a result been used as scapegoats to justify Christianity's existence.

"Oh," the caller added before she hung up. "Make sure you come alone."

The Doctor ws the preferred name of Anton Szandor LaVey, founder & high priest of the Church of Satan. What nearly everybody in my life- from my black magic-dabbling high school friends to my Christian schoolteachers- had misunderstood about Satanism was that it is not about ritual sacrifices, digging up graves, & worshipping the devil.

The devil doesn't even exist. Satanism is about worshipping yourself, because you are responsible for your own good & evil.

Christianity's war against the devil has always been a fight against man's most natural instincts- for sex, for violence for self-gratification- and a denial of man's membership in the animal kingdom. The idea of heaven is just Christianity's way of creating a hell on earth.

I'm not & have never been a spokesperson for Satanism. It's simply part of what I believe in, along with Dr. Seuss, Dr. Hook, Nietzsche, & the Bible, which I also believe in. I just have my own interpretation. That night in San Francisco, I didn't tell anybody where I was going. I took a cab to LaVey's house on one of the city's main thoroughfares. He lived in an inconspicuous black building collared by a high, brutal-looking barbed wire fence. After paying the cab driver, I walked to the gate & noticed that there was no bell. As I contemplated turning back, the gate creaked open. I was as nervous as I was excited, because, unlike most experiences where you meet someone you idolize, I could already tell this one would not be a letdown.

I timidly entered the house & saw no one until I was halfway up the stairs. A fat man in a suit with a sweep of greasy black hair covering his bald spot stood at the top. Without saying a word, he motioned for me to follow him. In the times I visited LaVey since, the fat man never introduced himself or spoke. He brought me into a hallway & swung shut a heavy door, blotting out the light entirely. I couldn't even see the fat man to follow him anymore. Just as I felt myself panicking, he grabbed my arm & pulled me the rest of the way. As we followed the curve of the corridor, my hipbone collided with a doorknow, causing it to turn slightly. Angered, the fat man pulled me away. Whatever was behind there was off-limits to guests.

The fat man finally pulled open a door, & left me alone in a dimly lit study. Beside the door there was a lavishly detailed portrait of LaVey standing next to the lion he used to keep as a house pet. The oppostie wall was covered with books- a mix of biographies of Hitler & Stalin, horror by Bram Stoker & Mary Shelley, philosophy by Nietzsche & Hegel, & manuals on hypnosis & mind control. The majority of the space was taken up by an ornate couch, over which hung several macabre paintings that looked like they were taken from Rod Serling's Night Gallery. The oddest things about the room were the oversized playpen in the corner & the television set, which seemed out of place, a token of disposable consumerism in a world of contemplation & contempt.

To some people, this would all seem corny. To others, it would be terrifying. To me, it was exciting. All the power LeVey wielded he gained through fear- the public's fear of a word: Satan. By telling people he was a Satanist, LaVey became Satan in their eyes- which was not unlike my attitude toward becoming a rock star. "One hates what one fears," LaVey had written. "I have acquired power without conscious effort, by simply being." Those lines could have just as easily been something I had written. As important, humor, which has no place in Christian dogma, was essential to Satanism as a valid reaction to a grotesque, misshapen world dominated by a race of cretins. LaVey had been accused of being a Nazi & a racist, but his whole trip was elitism, which is the basic principle behind misanthropy. In a way, his intellectual elitism (& mine) is actually politically correct because it doesn't judge people by race or creed but by the attainable, equal opportunity criterion of intelligence. The biggest sin in Satanism is not murder, nor is it kindness. It is stupidity. I had originally written LaVey no to talk about human nature but to ask if he'd play theremin on Portrait of an American Familyn because I had heard he was the only registered union theremin musician in America. He never acknowledged the request directly.

After sitting in the room by myself for several minutes, a woman walked in. She had gaudy blue eyeliner, an unnatural coif of blow-dried bleach-blond hair, & pink lipstick smeared on like a kid drawing outside the lines in a coloring book. She wore a tight baby-blue cashmere sweater, a miniskirt & skin-toned hose with a 40's garter belt & high heels. Following her was a small child, Xerxes Satan LaVey, who ran up to me & tried to remove my rings.

"I hope you're well," she said stiffly & formally.

"I'm Blanche, the woman you spoke to on the phone. Hail Satan."

I knew that I was supposed to respond with some kind of mannered phrase that ended with "hail Satan," but I couldn't bring myself to do so. It seemed too empty & ritualistic, like wearing a uniform in Christian school.

PART TWO

As she left, no doubt disappointed by my manners, Blanche informed me, "The Doctor will be out in a minute." The formalities I had seen so far, combined with everything I knew about LaVey's past- as a circus animal trainer, magician's assistant, police photographer, burlesque hall pianist, & all-around hustler- led me to expect a grand entrance. I was not disappointed. LaVey didn't walk into the room- he appeared. All that was missing was the sound of an explosion & a puff of smoke. He wore a black sailor's cap, a tailored black suit, & dark sunglasses, even though he was indoors at 2:30 a.m. He moved toward me, shook my hand, & said right off the bat in his rasping voice, "I appreciate the name Marilyn Manson because it's about putting different extremems together, which is what Satanism is about. But I can't call you Marilyn. Can I call you Brian?"

"Sure, whatever you feel comfortable with," I replied. Because of my relationship with Marilyn in the 60's, I feel uncomfortable because she has a special place in my heart," LaVey said , closing his eyes gently as he spoke. He went on to talk about a sexual relationship he had with Monroe that began when he was the organist in a club where she was a stripper. In our conversation, he planted the seed that his association with her made her career flower. Taking credit for such things is part of LaVey's style, but he never does it arrogantly. It's always done naturally, as if it were a well-known fact.

He removed the sunglasses from his goateed gargoyle head, familiar to thousands of teen dabblers from the back cover of The Satanic Bible, & instantly we were enmeshed in an intense conversation. I had just met Traci Lords backstage after a show at Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, & she had invited me to a party the next night. Nothing sexual happened, but it was an overwhelming experience because she was like a girl version of me- very bossy & constantly playing mind games. Since LaVey had a relationship with another sex symbol, I thought that maybe he could give me some advice on what to do about Traci, whom I was both confused & captivated by.

The advice that ensued was very cryptic, which was no doubt another way for him to maintain power. The less people understand you, the smarter they think you are.

"I feel like you guys belong together, & I think something very important is going to happen with your relationship," he concluded. It sounded more like the result of $50 & five minutes spent calling the Psychic Friends Network that something I expected LaVey to say.

He continued by sharing sordid details about his sex life with Jayne Mansfield & said that after all this time he still felt responsible for her death in a car crash because he had put a curse on her manager & boyfriend, Sam Brody, after a dispute with him. Unfortunately for Mansfield, she happened to be with him that night in New Orleans when a mosquito-spray tanker crashed into his car, decapitating them both. Although I was suspicious about some of LaVey's claims, his rhetoric & confidence were convincing. He had a mesmerizing voice, perhaps from his experience as a hypnotist. The most valuable thing he did that day was to help me understand & come to terms with the deadness, hardness, & apathy I was feeling about myself & the world around me, explaining that it was all necessary, a middle step in an evolution from an innocent child to an intelligent, powerful being capable of making a mark on the world.

One aspect of LaVey's carny personality was that he liked to align himself with the stars like Jayne Mansfield & Sammy Davis, Jr., also a Satanist. So it wasn't surprising that as I left he encouraged me to bring Traci to visit him.

The next day, Traci happened to be flying in from Los Angeles for our show in Oakland. I was badly bruised & banged up after the concert, so she came back to the hotel, where she bathed & mothered me. But, once again, I didn't sleep with her because I was still determined to remain faithful to my girlfriend Missi, though Traci was the first person I had met who seemed capable of melting my resolve. I told her about meeting with LaVey, & she gave me the whole Deepak Chopra, Celestine Prophecy, healing crystal, New Age rap about destiny, resurrection, & the afterlife. She didn't seem to understand what he was about, so I tried to clue her in as I sank into a restless sleep: "This guy's got an interesting point of view. You should listen to him."

When I brought her to his house the next day, she was a lot more cynical & self-righteous than I had been- at first. She walked in with the attitude that he was a hoax & full of shit, so she debated him whenever she disagreed even slightly with something. But when he said that a louse had more right to live than a human or that natural disasters are good for humanity or that the concept of equality was horseshit, he was prepared to back it up intelligently. She left the house in silence with dozens of new ideas swirling in her head.

On that visit, LaVey showed me a little more of the house- the bathroom, which was strewn with real or fake cobwebs, & the kitchen, which was infested with snakes, vintage electronic instruments, & coffee mugs with pentagrams on them. Like any good showman, LaVey only let you know what he was about in small pieces & revelations, & the more information he gave you the more you realized how little you really know about him. Near the end of our visit, he says, "I want to make you a reverend," & gave me a crimson card certifying me as a minister in the Church of Satan.

Little did I know that accepting that card would be one of the most controversial things I had dont to that point; it seemed then (& it still does) that my ordainment was simply a gesture of respect. It was like an honorary degree from a university.

It was also LaVey's was of passing down the torch, because he was semi-retired & tired of spending so many years advancing the same argument. No rock musician has advocated Satanism in any lucid, intelligent, accessible way since perhaps the Rolling Stones, who in "Monkey Man" came up with the line that could have been my credo, "Well I hope we're not too messianic/Or a trifle too satanic."

As I left, LaVey put a bony hand on my shoulder, &, as it lay there coldly, he said, "You're gonna make a big dent. You're going to make an impression on the world."

When I next met with LaVey a year & a half later on our "Antichrist Superstar" tour, we had a lot to discuss. I had seen the enemies I was up against, & not only were they capable of stopping shows & making unreasonable demands on our performances, but they were capable of, for no reason at all, taking away the one thing LaVey & I both stand for: personal freedom. Like LaVey, I had also discovered what happens when you say something powerful that makes people think. They become afraid of you, & they neutralize your message by giving you a label that is not open to interpretation- as a fascist, a devil worshipper, or an advocate of rape & violence.

On this visit to LaVey's house, I brought our bassist, Twiggy Ramirez, with me. We were allowed to enter one of the only rooms in his 13-chamber house I hadn't been in. It was behind the door his fat steward had jerked me away from when I first visited the house. The room was a private museum of arcana. The entrance was a giant Egyptian sarcophagus that had been propped up against the doorway. There was a rocking chair that had supposedly belonged to Rasputin, Aleister Crowley's pipe, a satanic alter with a giant pentagram above it, & a couch lined with the fur of some endangered species. We sat at an old wooden dining table (probably something Aleister Crowley used to snort heroin off of) & ate steak.

We spoke of religion, & how much of it is just a custom preserving practical codes of health, morality, & justice that are no longer necessary for group survival (like not eating animals with cloven hooves). It makes a lot more sense to follow The Satanic Bible, written with 20th-century humanity in mind, than a book that was written as a companion to a culture long since defunct. The last time I saw LaVey we had discussed Traci, so he asked me what had happened with her. I told him that she had blown me off & his optimistic prediction about our relationship was wrong. But after our show the next day, I found out she had been trying to hunt me down all along. Since by then I had a Top 10 album, our relationship had flipped on its axis, as LaVey said it would. When I first met Traci the fact that she was a star made her seem distant & unattainable. It crushed me, which made me stronger, filling me with the desire- the need- to become more of a fucking rock star. Now I had become one. This time around I was in charge, & I didn't give a shit because I only wanted her when I couldn't have her.

A year later, a few days after Halloween, I got a call at 4 a.m. telling me that LaVey had died. I was surprised by how sad I felt, because he had actually became a father figure to me & I never got the chance to say good-bye to him or even thank him for his inspirationl. But at the same time I knew that even though the world had lost a great philosopher, hell had gained a new leader.

Thanks to Manson USA for the article. For the complete autobiography go out and buy it! "LoNg HarD RoAd Out oF HEll"