Zeena Schreck


Zeena Schreck, known professionally by her mononymous artist name ZEENA, is a Berlin-based American visual and musical artist, author and the spiritual leader of the Sethian Liberation Movement, which she founded in 2002.
Raised within her father's organization, the Church of Satan, she came to international prominence early in life as the Church's first spokesperson, defending the organization during the 1980s. In 1990 she resigned her position, severed ties with her father Anton LaVey and his Church, and renounced the church's tenets. Since that time, her religion changed to Buddhism and she is now a teacher of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism.

Early years and family

Zeena was born in San Francisco, California 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 with a reenactment of the ceremony recorded for The Satanic Mass LP.
Zeena was subjected to hundreds of journalistic reports and interviews especially in 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 for twenty-seven years. 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." Zeena chose to retain her married surname.

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 were also imbued by 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.

Religious groups

In 1985, Zeena became the high priestess of the Church of Satan, and remained its spokesperson until 1990. 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.

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, through aggressive and leading questions, managed 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 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'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.
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.

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."
According to Zeena's homepage, remaining members of the Church of Satan and the LaVey family "reacted to her resignation by indulging in a typical cult-like character assassination campaign against her." Particularly active in the hostility against Zeena were Blanche Barton, Peter H. Gilmore, Peggy Nadramia, Boyd Rice, Lisa Crystal Carver, Daniel Ignace Kapelovitz, Larry Wessel, Stanton and Szandora LaVey.
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 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 Seth and Sethianism. 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. 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.
Shortly after Zeena Schreck resigned from the Temple of Set, a Disinfo listing for the Temple of Set from December 17, 2002 under the heading: 2002 Schism: The Storm Awakens reported, "High Priest Don Webb stepped down, and, on 9 September 2002, was succeeded by High Priestess Zeena Schreck. Six weeks after the Helsinki Conclave, Zeena, Magister Aaron Besson, Magister Nikolas Schreck and Magister Michael Kelly all resigned on 8 November 2002. Four Priests Alfred Rodriguez, Kevin Rockhill, Jared Davison and Richard Gavin also resigned. Temple of Set sources have claimed that eighteen Initiates have resigned while others have estimated the number at closer to sixty."
In one of the Sethian Liberation Movement's earliest public Frequently Answered Questions documents released, Disinfo referenced it in their post covering the Temple of Seth/Storm schism: "... document defines the new and as-yet unnamed group as ... a loose confederation of Setian Teachers and Students, an alliance of Orders." The group has eschewed the Temple's administrative and non-profit structure, as well as its degree system and titles. "We work together through mutual respect and interest, not through any organizational limitations or restrictions", the FAQ document states. Finally, its founders have sought to avoid the "magical society" structure of post-Theosophy groups: the confederation is "an ongoing Magical Working in which we may participate, a living, dynamic and evolving thing."
Zeena's homepage states, "Drawing on her own triumph over these and other dysfunctional family experiences, Zeena, a professional bereavement counsellor, founded The Sethian Liberation Movement's public outreach program PHOENIX to help others in similar situations." It explains that "Since 2004 Phoenix provides spiritual healing for victims of exploitative pseudo-religious organizations, former gang members, whistle-blowing ex-employees of corrupt corporations and governmental agencies, relatives of the violently mentally ill, and survivors of all forms of institutional abuse, including secretly abused children and spouses of prominent personalities."

Other media appearances

Zeena's website states: "Preferring to allow her work to speak for itself and indifferent to public opinion, Zeena has granted only a very few interviews since 1993."
In 2004 Zeena and Nikolas Schreck spoke about their book Demons of the Flesh on The Devil's Advocate radio show. In that interview, Zeena also spoke about the Storm and its incorporation of the tantric left way practices she writes of in her book.
In December 2011 Zeena Schreck spoke about the Sethian Liberation Movement on Nightwatch Radio while also promoting two of her short fiction stories, A Short History of Buddhism in Berlin and Lost and Found: A Fairy Tale of Sethian Awakening, in the literary journal Beatdom released December 2011. According to the Nightwatch interview Zeena Schreck states that the Sethian Liberation Movement is not membership based nor a 'group' seeking to fill dues quotas, or something to join but rather a practice.
In December 2012, Zeena Schreck was invited back to Nightwatch Radio. This time, promoting the 2012 Radio Werewolf release of The Vinyl Solution – Analog Artifacts: Ritual Instrumentals and Undercover Versions CD, the first authorized Radio Werewolf release in 20 years, and Beatdom's Crime issue #12 featuring a vintage portrait of Zeena on the cover and her theatre monologue, "Night Shift, Richmond Station".
On December 10, 2012, Zeena curated a stream of videos for Network Awesome's Live Music Show, with audio and visual clips arranged in an autobiographical manner.
On March 18, 2013 Network Awesome's daily program opened with an exclusive original production featuring Zeena Schreck's first one-on-one televised interview in 22 years, conducted by artist Jen Ray. Network Awesome spotlighted Zeena with a full day of programming, referencing various facets of her life. Other features in the day's program included archival interviews of Zeena and documentaries relating to her current spiritual pursuits and practices.
In 2016, a mock conspiracy theory in a vein similar to that of the Ted Cruz–Zodiac meme arose online, conflating Zeena with popular singer-songwriter Taylor Swift.

Music and performance art

The 8/8/88 Rally

On August 8, 1988, a large gathering converged on the Strand Theater in San Francisco for the film debut of a 'mockumentary' about Charles Manson. The event, planned and carried out by Nikolas Schreck, was the largest single gathering of this kind in history. Zeena spoke at the beginning of the rally and a film of her baptism was played. In a 2011 interview with Zeena for French music magazine Obsküre, she stated that 8-8-88 "would be the only performance that Nikolas, Evil Wilhelm , and I ever performed live together. That marked the transition point spanning three phases of Radio Werewolf: 1) the Nikolas Schreck/Evil Wilhelm collaboration, 2) the solo Nikolas Schreck phase, and 3) the Nikolas Schreck/Zeena collaboration." Also featured were NON, Amok Press and Kris Force, a musician who at the time owned the Strand Theater. Geraldo Rivera's "Devil Worship: Exposing Satan's Underground" film crew filmed the event, as well as interviews with all involved, to use for the network special.

Radio Werewolf

From 1988 to 1993, Zeena was co-director of the experimental musical project Radio Werewolf. She served as composer, vocalist, musician and graphic designer on the Radio Werewolf recordings "Songs for the End of the World", "The Lightning and the Sun", "Bring Me The Head of Geraldo Rivera", "These Boots Were Made for Walking", and "Love Conquers All." Her performances were exclusively European-based at that time.
In 2012, Radio Werewolf released The Vinyl Solution – Analog Artifacts: Ritual Instrumentals and Undercover Versions Compact Disc, the first authorized Radio Werewolf release in 20 years.
In 2016, Classic Rock magazine ranked Radio Werewolf No. 4 on their 'The 25 weirdest bands of all time' list, stating: "Formed during the height of 'Satanic Panic' hysteria in mid-80's America, Radio Werewolf was once considered 'the most dangerous band in the world', largely due to the notoriety of their vocalist, Zeena Schreck...". In 2016, The Top Tens Most Satanic Bands listed Radio Werewolf, "Yes!, Since when does Heavy Metal have to be the only satanic music. Why not dark organ Gothic/Deathrock."
In 2019, Amy Haben's article "Subversive Grooves: Music From the Dark Side," for the February 25 edition of online zine Please Kill Me, describes Radio Werewolf and Zeena, "Radio Werewolf is one of the coolest bands you probably never heard of. It's a dark trip on to the set of a vintage horror movie. Zeena's version of Nancy Sinatra's, "These Boots Are Made For Walkin’," features a World War II-esque sample sound of marching boots to kick it off the song followed by a deep bass line reminiscent of Nilsson's "Jump into The Fire." Zeena seduces with sultry vocals and smacks a bit of German into the middle of the tune.

Solo music career

Performa 13, New York

On November 8, 2013, the visual art performance biennial Performa presented Zeena accompanied by New York musician Hisham Bharoocha and Danish musician Anders Hermund, for a vocal based work that tapped into the ritual use of sacred syllables from Vajrayana, Shaktism and Sethian-Typhonian left-way tantric practices, "originating from emptiness, gradually transforming into a sound and voice collage on a stage set design by Frank Haines." This was Zeena's first solo performance in her native country since her expatriation to Europe in 1990.
David Sanderson described the event, "Jingling bells and padded footsteps echoed in the darkness. The curtains silently parted, dramatically revealing an electrified, vermilion environment. Dead center, with hands held in the Mudra position, stood the seemingly twenty-foot tall goddess Zeena. With a painted gong behind her, Bharoocha and Hermund adorned her sides. Bharoocha lit incense that swept through the audience as Zeena's commanding gaze pierced us all."

Wave-Gotik-Treffen music festival

On May 23, 2015, after a 24-year retreat from musical performances, Zeena made her official return to music in Europe, now as a solo artist, at the Wave-Gotik-Treffen festival in Leipzig, Germany. The concert, held amid "the sacred, magically charged ancient artifacts housed in Leipzig's Egyptian Museum," was a unique ritual soundscape which Zeena composed especially for the theme of that environment. She was accompanied by Cory Vielma and John Murphy. This was John Murphy's second to last performance. Having suffered a long illness, John Murphy died less than five months after this concert. In accordance to Murphy's wishes, Zeena conducted the traditional Tibetan Buddhist ceremony for the passing of consciousness as he died. In 2016, a tribute to John Murphy as a 3CD compilation set entitled "All My Sins Remembered – The Sonic Worlds of John Murphy" was released by The Epicurean record label. On it, a live track from Zeena's WGT concert, featuring Murphy's electronic-percussion is included. The CD booklet also features cover portrait of Murphy by Zeena.

First Solo Recording

It was announced on Zeena's homepage that March 11, 2020 is the release date of her first solo recording, "Bring Me The Head of F.W. Murnau: A Ghost Story in Six Acts," inspired by news reports that the director's head had been stolen from his grave under mysterious circumstances. Many of the sounds incorporated in the tracks were captured in field recordings at Murnau's former residence in Berlin and at his grave-site in Stahnsdorf, Germany. The recording was issued as an EP in CD format, beginning with a pre-release limited, signed and numbered edition of 89 followed by open edition and digital download through the Zeena Schreck Bandcamp site.

Discography

As Solo Artist