Knud Langkow(1931-2004)

Knud Langkow, born 1931 in Copenhagen, was a Danish civil servant and celebrity, best remembered for having created a fictitious satanic cult on the Danish island Anholt. He was the son of Charles Langkow, owner of a galvanization company at Amager. In 1954 Knud Langkow sailed out on the M/S Sibonga, a trip of six months that took him around the world. More voyages would follow. It seems that it was these adventures that broadened his fantasy, knowledge of the world and of different cultures, and he brought home plenty of artifacts and with the unusual experiences. Back in Copenhagen Knud Langkow found work at Statens Museum for Kunst/The Public Museum for Art as a switchboard operator. In 1972 he moved in with his partner, Vita Andresen. The couple was inseparable up till Vita's death in December 2003. Knud Langkow saw life as unbearable without his beloved which led to him taking his own life by her grave on New Years Eve 2003. In the late 1960's he began to create his now world-famous fictitious satanic cult. To some a legendary multinational prank orchestrated by a simple clerk with vivid imagination, to others a work of art, an installation, non-existent performance or maybe an exceptional happening. Knud Langkow wrote series of letters sent to various renowned persons signed "High Priestess in the Satanic Cult at Anholt", Alice Mandragora. The letters contained cryptic texts with satanic themes, often referring to a satanic cult at the island Anholt. These letters could also for invite priests to strange funeral services or even imaginative orgies at Anholt. He produced professional-looking coins with satanic designs and placed a large number of them in churches, museums and elsewhere. About 300 coins with satanic designs have been found around Eastern Denmark but these satanic coins have also appeared in the U.K and Sweden. This was all meant to lead to the date May 13, 1973, and the almost deserted island of Anholt, where Knud Langkow created an installation of Polynesian-looking masks, bones wrapped in string, a fake human head on a stake that was planted in the sand through a child's sandal strap, driftwood, shrubs, stones and much more. Knud Langkow's fictitious satanic cult has been documented and dramatized in the documentaries "Satankulten på Anholt/Island of Lucifer" (2012) and "Den danske satankult/The Danish Satanic Cult" (2020). His niece, Danish author Lene Langkow Saaek, published in April, 2020 the story in her book, "Manden bag Satankulten på Anholt/The Man behind the Satanic Cult at Anholt".