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More Tales From the Dark Side: The Strange Case of Rosemary’s Baby
Christine Hall
In 1967, director Roman Polanski made one of the most delightfully evil movies ever released by mainstream cinema. True to the old adage that great films are made from mediocre novels, Rosemary’s Baby was based on the just so-so novel by Ira Levin which tells the story of Rosemary Woodhouse, who is manipulated by her husband and his “witch” friends to have the devil’s baby.
It seemed natural that Polanski would hire as consultant Anton La Vey, who had recently gained notoriety in San Francisco by proclaiming himself to be the high priest of the Church of Satan and declaring “the year one,” the year of the devil, a sentiment that was repeated in the movie by a coven of devil worshippers. It also seemed natural that the director would use this self proclaimed Satanist to play the devil in this film, where he is seen impregnating the drugged Rosemary in a series of quick subliminal flashes. However, what seemed like a perfect fit might have had dire consequences for everyone involved in this project.
The aftermath of “Rosemary’s Baby” reads like a series of “coincidences” devised by the writers of The ‘X’ Files. Less than a year after the film’s release, Polanski’s wife Sharon Tate was among the first to be brutally murdered by the “family” of Charles Manson, who, not unlike La Vey, regarded himself as an evil magician. “His rationale is that he is a conscious mirror of our society, which sees in him a reflection of its own evil,” writes E. E. Rehmus in The Magician’s Dictionary. “As ‘man’s son,’ which he sometimes calls himself, he is the embodiment of mankind, just as Christ, being God’s Son, was the embodiment of God. Therefore, any evil that Manson does is simply the will of Man through him.”
As the saying goes, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Charles Manson and his tribe can be seen as being the embodiment of Rosemary’s child rising from the darkness of the collective unconscious, as if Satan himself was being unleashed on mankind. This is stuff that screams for the involvement of the supermarket tabloids. Was this a force that was created by the evil La Vey in his ritual on-screen performance? Had a spell been cast on American culture?
Those who believe in magic say that magic usually effects those closest to the ritual the most, which would definitely seem to be the case here. Polanski not only lost his wife in one of the most notorious episodes in American history, but was later unable to curb his darker appetites and got caught in a trap involving an underage girl which has made him a fugitive from American justice.
Mia Farrow, who played Rosemary, has spent her life rescuing children and collecting babies, as if seeking to atone for the child that she unleashed upon the world in this movie. Eventually, she followed Rosemary’s lead and got involved in a long term relationship with actor/director Woody Allen, who was willing to sell her motherly devotion to fill his own appetites for pubescent women, in this case Farrow’s adopted daughter. The man who played her husband in the movie, John Cassevettes, spent the rest of his life making low budget independent movies and refusing to “sell-out” to advance his career. As Guy Woodhouse in Rosemary’s Baby, he had been more than willing to sell his wife’s motherhood in order to advance his career as a Broadway actor.
There are other “coincidences” as well. The movie was filmed on location at the Dakota apartment building in New York City, the same place where John Lennon was murdered in 1980 by crazed “fan” Mark David Chapman. Manson has claimed that the Lennon-McCartney song “Helter Skelter” had been the inspiration behind the murder of Sharon Tate and others.
Untouched by all of this was Anton La Vey, the invoker of the devil and evil magician who might somehow have a hand in all of this mayhem. Before falling in league with Satan and becoming the devil’s ambassador, he already had a colorful career. He had played oboe in the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, worked as a lion tamer, assisted in hypnotism shows and had even been a police photographer. After declaring his alliance with “the left-hand path,” he served as consultant to “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Mephisto Waltz,” another tale of evil incarnate.
In 1969, La Vey published “The Satanic Bible” which was followed three years later by the companion “The Satanic Rituals.” By 1985, La Vey was being regarded in the past tense. In the “Dictionary of Mysticism,” Nevill Drury writes, “The Church ceased functioning in 1975 and has now been replaced by the Temple of Set...” That may or may not be true. An organization that identifies itself as the Church of Satan has a web site that claims that the Set people are lying and that La Vey’s church never ceased functioning.
Unfortunately, “The Satanic Bible” is often a curious teenager’s first exposure to alternative spirituality, as the book promises great personal power without having to worry about any consequences. Many who work at New Age stores spend considerable time counseling young people who have fallen under the influence of La Vey and people like him, trying to turn them in a more positive direction.
No matter how it’s sugar coated, evil always begets evil. The aftermath of Rosemary’s Baby should tell us all we need to know about Anton La Vey and his followers.
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