Beneath the bright colours and pop soundtrack of Swinging London lurked a darker counterculture. As the 1960s embraced psychedelic experimentation and rejected old certainties, a new fascination with the occult, ritual magic and Satanism took hold. From Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan in America to London’s own Process Church of the Final Judgement, the Devil became an unlikely icon of rebellion, attracting artists, musicians, celebrities and spiritual seekers drawn to the promise of forbidden knowledge and life beyond convention.

In this talk, Gary Lachman explores the rise of Satanism in the 1960s and the extraordinary story of the Process Church, founded by two former Scientologists who established their headquarters in Mayfair before building one of the era’s most infamous and enigmatic movements. Discover how apocalyptic beliefs, countercultural idealism and the occult converged on the streets of London, creating one of the strangest chapters in the city’s modern history.