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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Asking the blessings of Satan, a couple was married Tuesday night by a lion-tamer-turned sorcerer who pronounced the match ‘conceived in hell.” Throughout the dark rite, a 500-pound lion on the back porch grumbled throatily and bashed the bars of his cage with his paws. The bride was scarlet-gowned Judith Gase, 26, graduate of Goucher College and daughter of Edward Haile Case, former member of the New York Power Authority. The bridegroom was John Raymond, 35, who described himself as ‘‘a member of socie ty.” Anton Szandor LaVey wore devil horns while performing his first wedding in the Victorian living room of his black-walled Satanist church. About 30 disci ples of the self-styled priest of the Prince of Darkness wit nessed tthe wedding, plus an equal number of reporters As the sorcerer prepared for the ceremony, a nude girl with long flowing red hair reclined on a purple velvet robe atop a mantlepiece. That was to sym bolize earthly pleasure, LaVey said. Flanking LaVey and the hap py couple was the parapherna lia of the sorcery business — human skeletons, stuffed oppos sums and leopards, and a physi cian’s examining table which later became a bar. Black hooded and robed, La Vey rang along, recited an ode to the satyr Pan, then uttered incantations in a guttural out pouring LaVey said was a lan guage he invented. Occasionally Togare, the lion, muttered out in back. Raymond placed a ring on the bride's finger LaVey dismissed the question of the ceremony’s legality. “I am an ordained clergyman in the Satanic church, which I founded and which the law may not recognize,” he said. No marriage license was obtained. “This marriage,”’ said LaVey, “was conceived not in heaven but in hell, which is the mold from which heaven was cast and which has kept religion alive from the beginning.” La Vey held a sword over the cou ples’ head as he pronounced the words. A black-walled nuptial cham ber decorated with drawings of deadly nightshade awaited the couple, but first the party ad journed to a basement bar, reached through a trap door in a closet. The couple was toasted with a vodka punch scented with oil of eucalyptus. In the middle of the festivi ties, a fire engine, siren screaming, roared up in front of the mansion and firemen wav ing axes leaped out. Someone had turned in a false alarm ‘DEVIL’ GETS READY TO PERFORM MARRIAGE ‘CONCEIVED IN HELL’ High Sorcerer Anton LaVey of the Satanist church with his wife and pet lion, Tagore.
Newspaper Details
Oxnard Press Courier
Oxnard, California, US
Wed, Feb 01, 1967
Page 44
Full Page
Clipped by
Shanika M.
