Zeena Schreck

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.

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 vinyl LP in 1968.

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 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.

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

"In 1985, a US news show called 20/20 accused The Satanic Bible of being responsible for child daycare Satanic ritual abuse, allegations which were new 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 out in public to do anything about it. He admitted that many media sources had already contacted him and 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."

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.

Zeena was married to her Radio Werewolf band partner and frequent collaborator Nikolas Schreck from 1988 to 2015.

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.

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.

Zeena was born in San Francisco to Anton LaVey and Diane Hegarty, co-founders of the Church of Satan.

In 1990, Zeena left the Church of Satan and renounced her father's teachings of LaVeyan Satanism.

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).

Zeena Galatea Schreck (née LaVey), 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 (SLM), which she founded in 2002.

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).

In a September 2011 interview, Zeena recalled,

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.

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.