This historical sit-down, originally titled The First Family of Satanism, serves as a fascinating time capsule of the Satanic Panic era, capturing the sharp ideological divide between Bob Larson’s evangelical world and the Schrecks’ elitist Social Darwinist philosophy.

Recorded in 1990 and later released in 2002, the program features Bob Larson, a well-known Christian evangelist, engaging in a direct conversation with two prominent figures in the Satanic and occult communities: Zeena Schreck, the daughter of Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, and Nikolas Schreck, leader of the Werewolf Coven, a modern pagan and occult group with ties to the Church of Satan. 

The conversation begins with Larson questioning the Church of Satan’s sincerity in its founding in 1966. Zeena defends her father, Anton LaVey, stating that the showmanship and gimmicks (like using nude women as altars) were necessary to pave the way for Satanism to be a recognized religion. She also confirms several Satanic legends, including her father’s alleged affairs with Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, as well as Mansfield’s devout membership in the Church.

Nikolas Schreck presents a bold, apocalyptic view of the 1990s, predicting it would be the Satanic Century and describing Christianity as being in its last extravagant death throes. He argues that religious media’s growth is actually a sign of its end, as it has turned to entertainment, something he claims Jesus would never have condoned.

Zeena was raised within the Church of Satan and during the 80s was the organization’s first spokesperson, as her father was in exile. How did she end up speaking for the Church? She told Obsküre Magazine, “In 1985, a U.S. news show called 20/20 accused The Satanic Bible of being responsible for child daycare Satanic ritual abuse, new allegations then. … I called my father and asked him what his media strategy would be to deal with this catastrophe. Nothing. He didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, it didn’t concern him. It wasn’t anything he needed to worry about. He certainly wasn’t going to do anything about it in public. He admitted that many media outlets had already contacted him and that he was just going to ignore it until it went away. I tried to convince him that this would only get worse if he didn’t respond and that he really needed to get someone to answer calls quickly, or it would be taken as an admission of guilt or suspicion. Finally, he admitted he had no one to deal with interviews or media. I offered to help temporarily until he found someone. This was not what I’d intended to do with my life; I had other plans.”

She was also a major part of working with police departments to defuse the Satanic Panic. In 1990, she resigned her position, severed ties with her father and renounced LaVeyan-based Satanism before embracing Tibetan Tantric Buddhism and forming the Sethian Liberation Movement in 2002. She said, “In the process of defending the Church of Satan from these unfounded claims in the U.S. mass media, Zeena’s media appearances attracted a new upsurge of membership to the formerly moribund organization even as she began to question and ultimately reject the self-centered philosophy she promoted. As she toured the United States on behalf of the Church of Satan, Zeena’s crisis of faith reached its highpoint when she learned that most of her father’s self-created legend was based on lies and that many of his works were plagiarized. When jealousy and spite motivated Anton LaVey and his administrator, Densley-Barton, to endanger Zeena’s life, she could no longer continue to cover up her progenitor’s true character in good conscience. This behind-the-scenes tension should be kept in mind when viewing or hearing Zeena’s interviews from that time.”

As for Schreck, he founded the music and performance collective Radio Werewolf and was affiliated with the Church of Satan and the Temple of Set, but later disavowed both and became a Buddhist. Schreck was part of the Abraxas Foundation, an occult-fascist think tank that included Boyd Rice, Adam Parfrey and Michael J. Moynihan. At one point, as he padded out pro-AIDS brochures, his ear was cut off. 

Bob Larson? I listened to him every day as a child. The pastor of Spiritual Freedom Church in Phoenix, Arizona, hosted Talk Back and went after, well, everything I loved from heavy metal to role-playing games. He went from doing exorcisms on the radio to charging people nearly $300 to do them over Skype.

This is a sit-down among all three, and it’s no different from a bunch of people high at a party talking psychology. Yet it’s a wonderful relic of a time I lived through, one that never went away.

You can watch this on YouTube.