The whole theory of what Satan is, it's Lucifer, the highest of the seraphim, the bearer of God's light, who at a certain point comes to believe he is what is being revealed to him.

I went to the Mary Lee Burbank School in Belmont. And it was a place where you, like, learned to go to the store? And I was saying, Oh God, I want to learn something else. I wanted to learn to read and write better and do mathematics better. They were very much into Abstract Expressionism and that artsy stuff. And where most kids did what I call meaningless blobs, I could render perfectly.

When [my father] reached his majority, he was the head of the family. Everybody depended upon him. He went into a very uptight appearance; he would wear Chesterfield coats to work, Homburg hats, really getting into the whole thing. He knew people like Oscar Levant. He loved New York. He wanted to live there.

I think [Theosophical and Masonic books] wasn't that I was inspired so much. I was corroborated by them.

I mean, these are really dedicated people [in Lovecraft Society] when it comes to [h.P.] Lovecraft. But in the top floor of the John Hay Library, you have all of Lovecraft's archives. And messing around in there, I noticed, I said, what are these paintings? And the librarian told me, "Well, those are Pickman's paintings." I said, "I thought this was like something he made up, like The Necronomicon, that kind of stuff." And he said no, that the guy actually existed.

The whole theory of what Satan is, it's Lucifer, the highest of the seraphim, the bearer of God's light, who at a certain point comes to believe he is what is being revealed to him.

I was born rather late in [my father's] life, in his mid - 40s. And so what he did up until the time he was 15, I think probably from age 12 to 15, my grandfather made him demonstrate mediumistic powers at the Exeter Street Theater, the first Spiritualist church in the United States.