Lucifer, Arisen

"It was an odd relationship," admits BeauSoleil. "He was fascinated by me ... I'm not gay, and I was not interested in him in that way."

As in most Anger productions, filming was low budget and sporadic. On one occasion, Anger hired a light show to drench BeauSoleil's naked torso with zebra patterns as he stood in front of black velvet, raising and lowering his arms. Another time Anger filmed his Lucifer smoking a joint from a skull-shaped roach clip contraption.

BeauSoleil's new living arrangement didn't bode well for his band.

"It was a psycho scene, quite frankly," says the violinist, LaFlamme. "Kenneth Anger was a nut case, and Bobby was getting nuttier, and with these other people hanging around, it just wasn't a healthy working environment."

When the bassist, Leopold, was jailed on a pot bust, the Orkustra fell apart. BeauSoleil quickly assembled a new band from the growing numbers of Haight Street musicians and called it the Magick Powerhouse of Oz. The group began rehearsing moody, modal jams that BeauSoleil anticipated would form the basis of the Lucifer Rising soundtrack. Unfortunately, it didn't happen that way.

In September 1967, BeauSoleil and Anger put together a show at the Straight Theater. "The Equinox of the Gods," as the event was billed, was meant to be a kind of buzz-builder for the film. Footage Anger had shot of BeauSoleil would be shown, the Magick Powerhouse of Oz would play, the Congress of Wonders would do a comedy routine. As the climax, Anger would perform a Crowley invocation to summon the gods of the autumnal equinox.

The night of the performance, BeauSoleil says, Anger took LSD.

"He was really ripped," says Howard Kerr, of the Congress of Wonders.

The Straight was packed. Anton LaVey sat in the balcony. In the beginning, everything went according to plan. The band did its set, the Congress made the room laugh, then Anger launched into his invocation. He ran around the dance floor area below the stage, waving some striped fabric and wielding -- by some accounts a cane, by others a rattle -- as if it were a magic wand. Then things went horribly wrong.

There was a soundtrack playing behind Anger, recalls BeauSoleil, and at some point in the invocation it broke down. Others who were there don't remember this, but nobody has forgotten what happened next. Anger became extremely agitated, screamed, "I love you!," and hurled his makeshift wand into the audience. It hit Gabe Katz, a former editor of the Haight Street newspaper the Oracle, in the forehead. The blow tore open Katz's skin, and blood gushed over his face. The room went to chaos.

According to BeauSoleil, Anger was convinced his young protégé had had something to do with the soundtrack's malfunction. In any case, that evening marked the end of their partnership. BeauSoleil returned home a few days later to find the locks changed, his truck disassembled, and his murals painted over in white. He kicked down the front door, retrieved his things, and put his car back together. Anger filed a complaint that resulted in a warrant for BeauSoleil's arrest; the filmmaker claimed that BeauSoleil had stolen belongings from him, including the footage of Lucifer Rising. BeauSoleil denies this. The bad vibes were heavy; BeauSoleil beat a retreat to Los Angeles.

"Kenneth Anger came back to the theater the next day and put hexes on everything and cursed everything," says Luther Green, who ran the film projections at the Straight Theater. "Some people hung garlic in there afterwards."

People who knew the two say Anger also put a hex on BeauSoleil. Considering what happened next, it's tempting to believe in such things.

Bobby BeauSoleil met Charles Manson in 1967 at a house party in Topanga Canyon. Though Manson was 13 years older than the 20-year-old BeauSoleil, the two connected, both musically and personally. Manson had his guitar that evening, and BeauSoleil jammed with him on an instrument called a melodica (like a harmonica, but with keys). Later that year, BeauSoleil joined Manson's garage band, the Milky Way.