Anton Szandor LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, died of pulmonary edema on October 29th at St. Mary's hospital (now there's irony for ya). He was 67. His daughter and Blanche Barton, his longtime companion, have promised that his work and the church will live on.
Quoting from an Associated Press article:
...LaVey's brand of satanism was not about evil or animal and child sacrifice, family members said. It was more about rational freethinking and a disdain for the hypocrisy he believed corrupted Christianity. The satanic images were simply convenient symbols intended to provoke a strong reaction and to force thought.
He preached living for the day, instead of for an afterlife that nobody can prove exists, they said. He did not believe in the devil as an anthropomorphic being with horns and a tail, but rather as a Jungian archetype conjured up by mankind.
Sunday, February 28th, 1998 danlyke@flutterby.com