Review: The Black Pope

The Black Pope by Burton Wolfe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Interview with Burton H. Wolfe Outsight Radio Hours #563 12-Dec-10 from a forthcoming anthology of my interviews:

Hey, Burton. Welcome to Outsight Radio Hours.

Burton H. Wolfe: Hello, Tom. Glad to be here.

Hey, wonderful to have you. Wonderful to have you. I have read two—both of the books. I want to talk to you about today and really enjoyed them. Kind of a lot of insights there. The first one I read, so I’ll ask you about that one first, is The Black Pope, your updated biography of Anton LaVey, founder of Church of Satan and a man of many other talents. One of the things I like most about the book, actually, was the sort of telling of the sort of history of the ’60s and a lot of its points and intersections Anton LaVey had, like particularly with Monroe and Mansfield. Did you think about it when you were writing it as sort of a history of an era as well?

BHW: No. I thought of it as biography of Anton. The history is just incidental to his life since he was such an important part of the 1960s and 1970s and remains so today, actually.

And, why would you say he is important today?

BHW: Well, he was part of a kind of explosion of subcultures that occurred in the 1960s, you know, the hippies. There were protests against what was going in Vietnam. There was even a certain amount of opposition to standard—the standard establishment—whether it’s in politics or religion or whatever. And, he was at the forefront of all that. One, one of the most audacious of all the anti-establishment critics, this is the guy who had the audacity to identify himself as The Devil’s representative on Earth.

You know, at the same time I was reading your book, Burton, I happen to be reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers at the same time which, if you haven’t read it, sort of makes the case that the—the amazing, the incredible individual is often a product of, say, time and opportunity. And, I guess, in the context of that, do you think there would have been an Anton LaVey, a self-described devil’s representative eventually anyway, or was there really something unique and peerless about Anton LaVey?

BHW: Oh, certainly, there was something unique and peerless about Anton. You can’t replace him. He was, he was one of the most unique characters in the history of the feel of humanity. But, yeah, the times produced him for sure to a certain extent. And, I don’t know that he could gain the kind of popularity today that he did then especially with all the sensitivities that are occurring these days. The… Yeah, we’re going backwards, so there’s a lot more freedom of expression in the 1960s and 1970s than there is today. And, it’s remarkable when you find that, but it’s true.

Well, interestingly, a lot of what he chose to express to you in the original edition of the biography, you found out it was false and this biography corrects it. How important was that to sort of clear the air or settle the case on these, on these issues regarding Anton for you?

BHW: Well, how important anything turns out to be, who knows? I made mistakes in the original biography called The Devil’s Avenger published in 1974 by Pyramid Books. And, you can’t get it because of—after there was opposition and even boycotting the bookstores. The publisher took all the books back and burned them and did not even give Anton and me a chance to buy some up. And I did not want those mistakes to be left there for history. I’m trying to get The Black Pope in to print as so that it’s more than just an e-book. And, it could get in to the libraries and the important part of history that he was can be in print form. So, I, and I, you know, I just felt an obligation to correct mistakes that I made, that these are the worse mistakes I ever made in the whole history of my writing career. And, if there are any writers listening to this or would-be writers, don’t make the mistake that I did. That was… That… Don’t get so close to your subject that you just accept the story’s details without going in to, doing a lot of research and checking a lot to make sure he is telling the truth.

Yeah. That’s really interesting. And, because, I think that’s some good advice, but that’s part of the most sort of compelling part of the book to me is, is you were right there to witness the life that you were, you were documenting at that time particularly; a colleague of Anton’s.

BHW: Yeah. Well, we were friends. We did a whole lot of things together. That was the problem. The other problem was the first stories that I told about them were, were checked out. Those were in to magazine articles. But then, and once, once they checked out, I just sort of let him go and run with the stories. That book fortunately, I’m glad now that the copies were burned and there are so few more around. So, there’s not too much damage done. That book, by the way, is a collector’s item. Yeah. People still want it for whatever reason, maybe. You have to pay Amazon.com $400 or something like that last time I looked to get a copy of the thing. And, what I keep telling people when they ask about it is don’t bother. It isn’t worth 10 cents because there are too many errors. Get my e-book. Type Mind Opening Books into your web address bar and that will take you to the website and show you how to order the book. And then, you’ll get the true story of Anton.
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