Six Degrees of Anton LaVey

An Accidental History of My Encounters with the Occult Underground

By Thomas L. Vaultonburg

I was sitting at home in Rockford, Illinois, on a Saturday evening, listening to Tucker Carlson interview a man named Conrad Flynn about occultism in the entertainment industry, when I had a rather peculiar realization. Somehow, without ever setting out to do so, I'd spent a surprising amount of my adult life rubbing elbows with people connected to the American occult underground. This was news to me, especially considering that I've never been particularly interested in joining a secret society, summoning a demon, or participating in anything that required ceremonial robes.

I've been enjoying Carlson's podcasts lately. Whatever one thinks of his politics, I find his apparent intellectual awakening interesting. He seems to be reconsidering a great many things he once accepted as settled truths, and I've been enjoying following him down some of those roads. Not necessarily because I believe everything he or his guests say, but because the conversations themselves are often fascinating. There's something compelling about watching a person who spent decades inside the American political and media establishment begin questioning the assumptions that shaped his career.

In one episode, filmmaker Sean Stone, son of Oliver Stone, discussed secret societies, occult traditions, and the possibility that powerful people have access to spiritual knowledge unavailable to the rest of us. In another, Flynn, who also comes from an entertainment family, described researching occult influences in popular music and discovering what he considered striking similarities between the industrial music scene and certain philosophical currents in Silicon Valley. Both conversations touched on the possibility that something more than ordinary human ambition might be operating behind the scenes of modern civilization.

That second conversation caught my attention for reasons I hadn't anticipated. Flynn began talking about industrial music, occult imagery, and the people who helped create that peculiar cultural landscape. And I thought, wait a minute. I know some of these people. Not in the sense that I once stood in line to get an autograph. I mean I actually worked with some of them.

The Industrial Music Connection

Years ago, I was one of the founders of 317 Art Collective in Rockford. Among the artists who became involved was a former member of the Chicago industrial band My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult. If you're unfamiliar with Thrill Kill Kult, the name should give you some idea of the aesthetic. The group emerged from Chicago's industrial music scene with a combination of electronic music, exploitation-film imagery, religious irreverence, and theatrical occultism. Their work was steeped in the atmosphere of forbidden rituals, sinister organizations, and the more disreputable corners of popular culture.

Another member of 317 was Matt Schultz, who had been involved with Pigface, the industrial supergroup assembled by Martin Atkins, formerly of Public Image Ltd. Schultz also worked with Lab Report and developed a substantial body of visual art, music, and other creative projects. Matt approached me about editing an early manuscript of his book The Dark and the Light, which dealt with his experiences, including his time in the industrial music scene and living with Martin Atkins. I worked with the manuscript and got to know something about the people and circumstances behind that particular chapter of musical history.

Nothing about my conversations with these people suggested that they were custodians of some terrible supernatural secret. They were musicians and artists. They were creative people who understood the value of atmosphere, imagery, provocation, and performance. Industrial music made extensive use of occult symbolism, but in my experience the imagery was largely theatrical. It was part of the art. That doesn't mean nobody involved in industrial music took occult philosophy seriously. Some certainly did. It simply means that a pentagram on an album cover doesn't necessarily indicate that somebody has established communications with the Prince of Darkness. Sometimes a pentagram is just good graphic design.

What made Flynn's interview so interesting was that he wasn't merely talking about the theatrical side of industrial music. He was tracing the intellectual traditions that influenced some of its more adventurous practitioners, and following those traditions into a place I hadn't expected: the contemporary world of artificial intelligence.

Nick Land, Artificial Intelligence, and the Demons of Revelation

One of the central figures in Flynn's discussion was Nick Land, a British philosopher whose work developed during the 1990s at the University of Warwick. Land became associated with the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit, an experimental intellectual collective whose interests included cybernetics, capitalism, science fiction, electronic music, occult philosophy, and the possibility that technology might eventually transform human existence beyond recognition.

Land's writings became influential in accelerationist thought, particularly the idea that technological and economic systems might develop beyond human control. But Flynn was interested in something stranger than conventional philosophical speculation. He described Land's interest in occult traditions, including the work of Aleister Crowley and Kenneth Grant, and the ways these ideas overlapped with the experimental and industrial music underground.

Then Flynn made a claim that caused Carlson to interrupt him. According to Flynn, Land's philosophy envisions artificial intelligence eventually becoming so powerful that it acquires seemingly godlike capacities, transcends humanity, and brings about something resembling the biblical apocalypse. Flynn went so far as to say that Land believes we are building the demons described in the Book of Revelation through artificial intelligence.

That's quite a leap from an industrial record with a pentagram on the cover.

I should distinguish Flynn's interpretation from Land's own documented statements. Land has certainly written and spoken about technological singularity, superhuman intelligence, and apocalypse. But I haven't established that he literally believes artificial intelligence will manufacture the demons of Christian scripture. Flynn's interpretation may be more theological than Land's own philosophy. Nevertheless, the conversation raises an intriguing question about the strange territory where technology, religion, and human imagination intersect.

Elon Musk has also famously compared the development of artificial intelligence to summoning a demon, although he was warning about the dangers of creating something humanity might not be able to control. What interests me is how readily people on opposite sides of the technological debate reach for the same supernatural vocabulary. Some fear that we are summoning something beyond our control. Others contemplate the emergence of an intelligence so powerful that it might appear divine. Either way, we're back to gods, demons, creation myths, and forbidden knowledge.

And suddenly the connection to my own history became clearer. The industrial musicians I'd known were part of a cultural world that explored occult symbolism, altered consciousness, technological alienation, and the boundaries of human experience. Decades later, some of those same questions are being asked by philosophers and technology developers contemplating artificial intelligence. The connections are intellectual and cultural, not evidence of some coordinated supernatural enterprise.

Perhaps what interests me most is that human beings keep returning to ancient religious imagery whenever they encounter something they cannot yet fully comprehend. We once imagined supernatural beings who possessed extraordinary knowledge, answered questions, and influenced human affairs. Now we're building machines that can answer questions, generate images, write books, and participate in conversations about their own existence.

I don't know whether the universe contains anything genuinely supernatural. But I suspect that if it does, it has no particular obligation to inhabit the machines we're building, any more than it had an obligation to appear at Anton LaVey's house because someone put on a robe and lit a candle.

Still, it's a remarkable journey from the Chicago industrial underground to Nick Land's technological apocalypse. And I would never have thought to connect any of it with my own experiences until a Saturday evening listening to Tucker Carlson in Rockford.

The Devil Comes Over the Transom

My strangest brush with this territory actually occurred through Zombie Logic Press. As the editor of a small independent publishing house, I've received an astonishing variety of unsolicited manuscripts over the years. At one point I estimated that roughly 500 arrived annually, many of them children's books. Every so often, however, something genuinely unusual came over the transom.

In 2013, that something was a manuscript from Burton Wolfe.

Wolfe was no ordinary aspiring author. He had written an early biography of Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, and had known LaVey personally during the organization's formative years. He had enjoyed considerable access to LaVey and his famous black house on California Street in San Francisco. And now he wanted Zombie Logic Press to publish another book about him.

My initial reaction was disbelief. Why on earth would someone with Wolfe's credentials approach my little literary press in Rockford, Illinois? I checked him out, expecting perhaps to discover an elaborate prank. But he was exactly who he claimed to be. I spent a weekend reading the manuscript. It was excellent. Exhaustively researched, full of fascinating details, and written by someone who had actually been there.

Naturally, I began entertaining some rather grandiose possibilities. Was this the opportunity that would finally put Zombie Logic Press on the map? Had the universe somehow selected me to publish this remarkable book? Was there, dare I say it, some hocus-pocus involved? I even consulted an attorney about the proposed contract and the legal implications of publishing the manuscript.

But the longer I considered the project, the more uneasy I became. There were complicated questions involving LaVey's legacy, competing interests, and how the history of the Church of Satan ought to be told. I could imagine becoming entangled in disputes I had neither the resources nor the inclination to manage. Ultimately, I declined. It wasn't because I disliked the book. Quite the opposite. I thought it deserved publication. I simply didn't believe Zombie Logic Press was the appropriate publisher, or that I could give the project the attention it required.

Still, I had enjoyed the experience enormously, and I took advantage of my correspondence with Wolfe to ask a few questions. Naturally, I wanted to know about the celebrities.

Hollywood, Satan, and the Guest List

The Church of Satan emerged in San Francisco in 1966, and Anton LaVey quickly became a recognizable figure in American popular culture. His shaved head, theatrical appearance, and flair for publicity made him an irresistible subject for journalists and photographers. Hollywood developed a fascination with him, and stories circulated about famous actors, musicians, and other celebrities attending ceremonies at his house.

So I asked Wolfe what he had actually witnessed. His answers were considerably less sensational than I'd hoped. According to Wolfe, celebrity participation in Church of Satan ceremonies was not nearly as common as popular mythology suggested. There were certainly people from the entertainment industry around the movement, particularly during the late 1960s and early 1970s, but the gatherings weren't necessarily crowded with movie stars. He indicated that a captain of industry and his wife might be more likely attendees than a major Hollywood celebrity.

That was interesting in its own right, although perhaps not quite as glamorous as the stories I'd imagined. After reading Wolfe's manuscript, I also came away thinking that Anton LaVey might have been a more interesting character before he founded the Church of Satan. He was a musician, a showman, and a man who understood the psychology of an audience. Whatever one thinks of his religious philosophy, he had a remarkable talent for creating an atmosphere in which people felt they were witnessing something extraordinary.

And that, in itself, is a fascinating human accomplishment.

Coven, Jinx Dawson, and the Black Mass

A couple of years later, in 2015, I wrote another blog entry about the occult in popular music after acquiring a copy of Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls, the 1969 album by the band Coven. Coven was fronted by Jinx Dawson, whose theatrical performances and occult imagery helped establish a visual vocabulary that would become familiar in heavy metal and other forms of rock music. The album famously concluded with a recording presented as a Satanic Black Mass.

I remember being rather disappointed by much of the music itself. Dawson's voice reminded me of Grace Slick, but the songs struck me as closer to psychedelic or progressive rock than anything resembling heavy metal. I compared them unfavorably with bands such as Iron Butterfly. The Black Mass was another matter. It was clearly designed to make an impression.

What interested me about Coven was that its members appeared to have a more serious interest in occult traditions than many of the musicians who subsequently adopted similar imagery. They weren't simply copying the Church of Satan's publicity campaign, and the band had its own identity and history. Whether any particular ceremony involved something genuinely supernatural is another question entirely. But there's no denying the effectiveness of the performance.

The costumes, the symbolism, the ritual language, the suggestion of forbidden knowledge—all of these elements can create a powerful experience without requiring anyone to demonstrate that an actual supernatural event has occurred. And popular entertainment has been making use of that distinction for a very long time.

The Secret Knowledge Business

Which brings me back to Tucker Carlson and his guests. One recurring idea in these conversations is that powerful people may possess access to hidden spiritual knowledge or forces unavailable to ordinary people. I have no particular objection to the possibility that there are mysteries in the universe we haven't begun to understand. I certainly don't imagine that human beings have exhausted the possibilities of existence.

But I've never been especially persuaded that billionaires, politicians, entertainment executives, or members of exclusive societies have a private Oracle of Delphi in the basement.

I studied the sociology of power years ago, including the work of Max Weber and G. William Domhoff. One thing that stayed with me is that concentrated power doesn't necessarily require elaborate secrecy. Wealthy and influential people have institutions, foundations, professional networks, political relationships, and social connections through which they exercise influence. Much of this is perfectly visible if anyone cares to look. The powerful aren't necessarily hiding. They've simply learned that there's no particular advantage in making a spectacle of themselves.

And while wealth can purchase all manner of extraordinary experiences, I see no reason to assume it can purchase greater access to whatever might be genuinely sacred. Andy Warhol once made an observation about Coca-Cola that has always resonated with me. The president can drink a Coke, a movie star can drink a Coke, and an ordinary person can drink a Coke. Money can't buy a better Coke.

I tend to think something similar might apply to the spiritual universe. A billionaire can purchase an enormous mansion, fill it with elaborate ceremonial objects, invite a hundred influential people to a masked ball, and stage something resembling a scene from Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. But I don't know why any of that would make the supernatural more likely to answer the telephone.

There's another line I love, from George Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Peter is admiring a rifle and observes that the only person who could miss with it is the sucker who has enough money to buy it. Possession and mastery are not the same thing. Neither, I suspect, are wealth and spiritual understanding.

If something truly sacred exists, I have difficulty imagining that it's particularly interested in being trifled with by people who can afford expensive costumes.

Back in Rockford

The oddest part of this entire experience is that none of these connections occurred to me until I listened to Conrad Flynn discussing occultism, industrial music, and artificial intelligence. I had known people from the industrial music scene through 317 Art Collective. I had worked with Matt Schultz on a manuscript. Burton Wolfe had been an unusually interesting prospective author. Coven was a band whose album I'd written about years earlier. I had never considered these experiences part of a single story.

Then, sitting in Rockford on an otherwise unremarkable Saturday evening, I suddenly realized that I had encountered quite a few people with direct connections to a cultural history that was now being discussed on one of the country's most prominent political podcasts.

It's a peculiar thing about living in a place like Rockford. You can spend years believing you're a considerable distance from the centers of cultural activity, only to discover that some of the people involved in those activities have been sitting across the table from you all along. The distance between an obscure Midwestern arts collective, the Chicago industrial underground, Anton LaVey's San Francisco, and the philosophical arguments now surrounding artificial intelligence turned out to be considerably shorter than I'd imagined.

I don't imagine these experiences make me an authority on occultism. They certainly haven't convinced me that I've brushed against any supernatural forces. Mostly, they've reminded me how interesting people can be, how interconnected the worlds of music, art, literature, philosophy, and religion often are, and how easily the mythology surrounding a cultural movement can become more elaborate than the experiences of the people who actually participated in it.

I still find Carlson's conversations entertaining. I'm willing to entertain the possibility that his reconsideration of the world is genuine, and I enjoy listening to people explore subjects that don't usually receive much attention in mainstream political conversation. The connection Flynn draws between experimental music and artificial intelligence is particularly intriguing, even if I don't share his apparent willingness to interpret technological developments through supernatural explanations.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about artificial intelligence isn't that it might provide a doorway to some hidden spiritual realm. Perhaps it's that human beings, confronted with something genuinely new, keep returning to the same ancient stories about creation, forbidden knowledge, and powers beyond our control. The language changes, the machinery changes, but the questions remain remarkably familiar.

I don't need to believe every extraordinary proposition to appreciate an extraordinary story. After all, I once spent a weekend wondering whether the universe had selected my little publishing house to bring an important book about Anton LaVey into the world.

Then I called a lawyer.

And ultimately decided to let the Devil find another publisher.

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