Zeena Galatea Schreck ( LaVey; born November 19, 1963), also known by the mononym ZEENA, is a Berlin-based American visual and musical artist, author and the spiritual leader of the Sethian Liberation Movement (SLM), which she founded in 2002.
Zeena was raised within the Church of Satan, and came to international prominence early in life as the organization's first spokesperson, defending the church during the 1980s. She resigned her position in 1990, severed ties with her father, and renounced LaVeyan Satanism. Her religious path eventually led to teaching Tibetan Tantric Buddhism.
Early years and family Zeena was born in San Francisco on November 19, 1963 to Anton LaVey and Diane Hegarty, co-founders of the Church of Satan. On May 23, 1967, three-year-old Zeena had the first and most highly publicized Satanic baptism in history performed by her father. The ceremony garnered worldwide publicity for her parents, with a reenactment of the ceremony recorded for The Satanic Mass vinyl LP in 1968. Directly following that event, the child Zeena was subjected to hundreds of journalistic reports and interviews, particularly in adult tabloid crime and men's magazines. Anton LaVey biographer, Burton H. Wolf described a thirteen-year-old Zeena in his introduction to her father's The Satanic Bible as "Zeena, remembered by people who saw the famous photo of the Satanic Church baptism as a tiny tot, but now a gorgeously developed teenager attracting a growing pack of wolves, human male variety." In an interview with The Guardsman, she describes becoming a mother at the age of fourteen while living in "a stifling, dysfunctional family life."
Zeena was married to her Radio Werewolf band partner and frequent collaborator Nikolas Schreck from 1988 to 2015. In 2019, both parties issued a jointly written public statement on their respective websites stating, "[...]in 2015, after having been separated since 2007, we agreed to amicably divorce.[...]this will be our only public comment of clarification on what remains private transitions into new phases of two separate lives." Zeena chose to keep her married name stating in an FAQ on her website that she would not reinstate her born surname (LaVey) "due to the heavy weight of negative karma that travels with it."
Early artistic influences and training
Zeena's work as a photographer, visual artist, musician/composer and writer are heavily influenced by mystical and magical traditions. Stylistically, she gravitated at an early age to artists and mentors whose art was imbued with a mystical or magical vision.
As a teenager and young adult, she trained in and studied theater, drama and film. At sixteen years of age, Zeena passed the High School equivalency exam, which enabled her to leave High School early, begin working legally and enroll in City College of San Francisco, majoring in drama. In addition to CCSF's Drama Department, she also received instruction from Stella Adler Studio of Acting, Eric Morris acting coach, Viola Spolin's student Marcia Kimmell of The Next Stage Improvisation Theater San Francisco, and the San Francisco School of Dramatic Arts. Her study focus was Hellenic sacred drama, improvisation, and various branches of the Stanislavski 'system' and method acting.
The importance of lineage as a vehicle for passing down metaphysical energy guides Zeena's ritual art. She traces the lineage of her magical art to the mentorship of her godfather, filmmaker Kenneth Anger. During the 1960s and 1970s, Anger transmitted the influences of Curtis Harrington, Jean Cocteau, and Maya Deren on his own work to Zeena during her childhood and adolescence.
Zeena also became a long-time friend of director Curtis Harrington, who cast her as a Dietrich-like character in his last film, Usher (2000).
Religious groups In 1985, Zeena became the high priestess of the Church of Satan, and remained its spokesperson until 1990. In 1990, Zeena left the Church of Satan and renounced her father's teachings of LaVeyan Satanism. She later became a devotee of the ancient Egyptian deity Set, becoming high priestess of the Temple of Set in 2002, and forming the Sethian Liberation Movement later that same year.
Interviews, articles and reviews from 2011 to 2013 referred to her conversion to Tibetan Tantric Buddhism in the Drikung, Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineages, as well as her status as the spiritual leader of the Sethian Liberation Movement (SLM).
Church of Satan In the 1980s in the United States, there was a moral panic about Satanic ritual abuse, sometimes referred to as the "Satanic Panic". It started with the publication of the now discredited memoir Michelle Remembers in 1980, and culminated in the McMartin preschool trial, a heavily publicized trial which ran from 1984 to 1990, during which prosecutors managed, through aggressive and leading questions, to get over 300 of the preschool's children to testify that they had been sexually abused by their teachers as part of Satanic rituals. The charges were all eventually dropped. Media coverage during the trial tended to side with the prosecutors, and often singled out the Church of Satan as the culprit. This led Zeena to volunteer to serve as the Church of Satan's first spokesperson. In a September 2011 interview, Zeena recalled,
As the Church of Satan's spokesperson, Zeena appeared in nationally syndicated programs such as The Phil Donahue Show, Nightline with Ted Koppel, Entertainment Tonight, The Late Show and Secrets & Mysteries. She also appeared on the Sally Jessy Raphael Show, alongside her husband, debating several Christians who were invited onto the program to expound their own religious views. Internationally, she appeared in such media presentations as Italy's RAI Mixer show and Toronto's Industrial Video presentation dedicated to a compilation of Zeena's TV appearances, ending with a lengthy radio interview for CUIT.
She was also interviewed in a broadcast of "Devil Worship: Exposing Satan's Underground" released by Geraldo Rivera in 1988. Zeena sat alongside the Temple of Set founder/High Priest Michael A. Aquino, and repeatedly denied the rumors circulating at the time that the Church of Satan was in any way involved with ritual abuse. She also called the testimony of claimants involved into question, asking them rhetorically why, if people were being forced to give birth to babies for sacrificial rituals, no remains had ever been found.
In 1989, Anton LaVey's 1971 book The Compleat Witch, or What to Do When Virtue Fails was reprinted as The Satanic Witch, with an introduction by Zeena. She toured the U.S. promoting her father's work in his absence, as he was no longer interested in making media appearances. Most of the appearances were made at the behest of the Church of Satan as its spokesperson.
In 1989, while promoting the book, Zeena appeared with her then husband Nikolas Schreck (not a member of the COS) in an interview with televangelist Bob Larson, during which they both refuted any Satanic criminal ties, and pressed Larson on his own ideals, stating that it was hypocritical of him to endorse such claims by Christians, pointing out the Christian background of many criminals, and violent acts within Christian history, such as the crusades.
Zeena was also in regular contact with law enforcement agencies and personnel, including Detective Patrick Metoyer of the LAPD and Robert D. Hicks, law-enforcement specialist with the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services and author of several precedent-setting treatises including In Pursuit of Satan: The Police and The Occult. In Pursuit of Satan began the wave of authoritative reports debunking the Satanic Panic. Much of what Hicks gleaned from Zeena's dialogs with him was included in this treatise. Prior to Zeena's dialogs and meetings with government agencies, police and law enforcement had only a very limited knowledge of Satanism. In 1992, the FBI issued an official report refuting the criminal conspiracy theories of this time.
Zeena's Interview on KJTV with Tony Valdez, 1990, was the last interview she granted as public representative and High Priestess of the Church of Satan before resigning.
In a March 2013 interview televised by Network Awesome, Zeena spoke for the first time on camera about her experiences with media during the "Satanic Panic" years.
Leaving the Church of Satan, 1990 In 1990, she resigned from the Church of Satan and renounced LaVeyan Satanism. According to Zeena's official web site, "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 actually 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."
After her renunciation of the Church of Satan, Zeena Schreck severed use of her born name "LaVey" and legally changed her last name, for all official matters, to "Schreck". In a December 30, 1990, open letter to Michael A. Aquino of the Temple of Set, she stated: "In light of all of the factors herein, I also officially severed my given surname [LaVey] and now prefer to be known only as Zeena. As I feel naturally aristocratic, I also have no need for the empty titles of Magistra or High Priestess that have been bandied about and fought over."
Since then, she does not accept correspondence addressed to "Zeena LaVey," "Zeena LaVey-Schreck", or any variant using the name LaVey.
Temple of Set
Zeena began to pursue ancient religious practices relating to the Egyptian god Set and setianism. She has stated, "While I was residing in Vienna, I visited a museum where a Sethian altar lives. It was there that I had a very profound experience that enabled me to clearly see the course for my future." At the time, she was also practicing traditional tantra and yoga. Her experiences within those two systems, as well as her central role and life's experience in other occult and esoteric milieux, would contribute considerably to the content of her book Demons of the Flesh, co-authored with Nikolas Schreck.
In 1997, Zeena and co-guest Nikolas Schreck once again debated Christian Minister Bob Larson. This time she did not represent Satanism but rather Sethianism, though the interview was titled "Showdown With Satanism". At the time she was III° Priestess of Set.
In 2002, Zeena became High Priestess of the Temple of Set.
Sethian Liberation Movement The Sethian Liberation Movement was founded on November 8, 2002, after Zeena Schreck resigned from the Temple of Set with four Masters of the Temple of Set (one Master, Magister Michael Kelly, was also a member of the corporate Board of Directors for the California non-profit organization The Temple of Set). Details of the departure were explained in a letter dated November 8, 2002, from the newly departed Temple of Set Council of Nine member to an Adept IIº member regarding the events leading to Zeena's resignation and the founding of the Storm, later renamed the Sethian Liberation Movement.