The founder of modern Satanism despised rock music, advocated strict law and order, and died in a Catholic hospital. This episode separates the self-made myth from the factual reality of Anton LaVey, born Howard Stanton Levy, a lifelong entertainer who treated philosophy and religion like a grand carnival act.

A gifted keyboardist who played lounges and bars, LaVey fabricated a sensational backstory of circus lion taming and psychic police work, then physicalized his brand in 1960s San Francisco. He founded the Church of Satan in 1966 and codified a synthesized philosophy into the Satanic Bible, becoming a master of media spectacle.

• Investigators found no evidence for his circus, Marilyn Monroe, or police claims, and even his daughter called the stories fiction
• His shaved-head persona closely echoed a cult-leader characte ...