2,000 Greater & Lesser Mysteries/2,000 Greater and Lesser Mysteries.iso/psychol/mys01642.txt

Text File | 1994-06-10 | 53.0 KB | 911 lines

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other/magick #658, from [e-mail], 27153 chars, Mar 14 17:47 92
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TITLE: The Humanist on Satanic Crime Hysteria

+Date         : 14 Mar 92 17:47:30 GMT
+Subject      : The Humanist on Satanic Crime Hysteria
+Message-ID   : <[e-mail]>
+Organization : The Cellar BBS and public access system
+From         : [e-mail] (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano)


               Giving the Devil More than His Due
                       by David Alexander

         Reprinted from _The Humanist_, March/April 1990

     _"Never attribute to Devil-worshipping conspiracies what
     opportunism, emotional instability, and religious bigotry
     are sufficient to explain."_
                                            Shawn Carlson, Ph.D.


     Satanism is alive and well in the United States. It flourished
in the minds of a phalanx of Christian fundamentalists, political
extremists, bereaved parents, opportunists, and mentally unstable
individuals who have become self-appointed experts on satanism,
occult crime, and devil worship.

     These pundits of the puerile have created a lucrative
"information industry" selling what they claim are documented facts
through books, seminars, lectures, and tapes. In reality, what they
offer is little more than fundamentalist Christian dogma, the
aberrations of mentally ill individuals, the misdirected grief of
bereaved parents, and the fantasies of self-seeking opportunists
disguised and promoted as scholarship and criminology. "Satan-
mongering" is a growth industry promoting "information" on what is,
by every independent investigation, a nonexistent problem.

     Unsuspecting police agencies, news reporters, editors, and
producers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and talk show hosts around
the country have become the unwitting voices of the "new witch
hunters." Exploiting the irrational fear of the superstitious, the
credulity of the well-intentioned, and the media's insatiable
appetite for ratings-through-sensationalism, a few fanatical
individuals and their organizations have built an industry of fear
by spreading nonsense as scholarship.

     These are some of the conclusions that were reached after an
extensive investigation into satanism and those who profit from it.
Entitled _Satanism in America_, the two-hundred-plus-page report is
the result of a three-year study by its principal author and
investigator, Berkeley physicist Shawn Carlson, who led a team of
researchers under the auspices of the Committee for the Scientific
Examination of Religion (CSER), chaired by Dr. Gerald Larue,
emeritus professor of biblical history and archaeology at the
University of Southern California and the American Humanist
Association's 1989 Humanist of the Year. It is the most exhaustive
study of its kind ever undertaken.

     The report concludes, in part:

     It is now abundantly clear that a small minority of
     ultra-right-wing fundamentalist and evangelical
     Christians, believing in both the reality of Satan as a
     personality and that the Tribulation is at hand, are
     responsible for the misinterpretation, the dissemination,
     and in some instances the outright fabrication of facts
     to support what is essentially a religious doctrine.
     These people are not researchers in pursuit of truth, but
     crusaders against the Antichrist whom they believe _a
     priori_ is living now among us. We submit that people so
     deeply committed to this religious view can hardly be
     counted upon to render skeptical and well-reasoned
     critiques about the dangers of Satanism or occultism in
     American society.

                              * * *

     The central assertion of all the "experts" is that there is a
vast, highly organized network of devil worshippers in the United
States that has infiltrated all levels of local, state and federal
government, not to mention society at large. This conspiracy is
supposedly responsible for tens of thousands of kidnappings and
child molestations, not to mention the fifty thousand to two
million children-- depending upon the "authority" cited-- who are
ritually sacrificed to the devil each year. These serious
accusations, if true, mean that we are living in a much different
country than we all think we are.

     Think about the logistics required to kill two million people
a year. A recent example will provide us with some perspective.
During World War II, millions of Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, Poles, and
others considered "subhuman" by the Nazis were rounded up and
systematicalIy exterminated. A researcher from the Simon Wiesenthal
Center in Los Angeles told me that approximately eleven million
people (five million Jews and six million others) were liquidated
before and during World War II. The Nazis ran six major killing
centers and sixteen hundred smaller camps. Researchers estimate
that there were over one hundred fifty thousand people involved in
running and servicing the death camps, from railroad clerks to the
guards who ran the gas chambers. It was a large operation which ran
at its peak from 1941 to 1944. It takes a large and efficient
organization to exterminate two million people a year. There was
plenty of evidence available at the end of World War II supporting
the horror stories of death camp survivors. Could an organization
of one hundred fifty thousand crazed baby-killers-- an organization
a hundred times larger than organized crime-- exist without any of
us catching on? Where is the evidence for such an operation in this
country?

     Even the low estimate of fifty thousand ritual victims _a
year_ is a little less than the total number of Americans killed in
Vietnam _during the entire war_. Virtually everyone in the United
States over the age of thirty knew someone who was killed in
Vietnam or knows someone who knew someone who was killed. How many
people do you know who have been ritually sacrificed? Moreover, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation compiles statistics about crime in
the United States. If, as some "experts" claim, there are fifty
thousand _unreported_ ritual sacrifice murders being committed,
then we must have a nation of very inefficient police and sheriffs'
departments, as that figure is _two and one-half times_ the twenty
thousand murders annually recorded by the FBI. It is ludicrous to
claim that there are an _additional_ fifty thousand murders being
committed without any law enforcement agencies being aware of the
problem.

     The concern over child abductions is also vastly overblown.
The overwhelming majority of child abductions occur within the
context of domestic disputes, with the perpetrator being one of the
parents. According to records compiled by the National Child Safety
Council, a branch of the Department of Justice, the number of
children who are kidnapped _by strangers_ is lower than one hundred
_per year!_ Of these, over the past five years, approximately half
the children-- less than two hundred fifty-- are still missing.
While it is very sad and destructive to a family when it happens,
the abduction of children by strangers is a relatively rare
occurrence in the United States.

     Here's an additional statistic from the FBI: over two thousand
children are murdered each year by their own parents!
Statistically, a child has a greater chance of being kidnapped or
murdered by his or her parents than of being kidnapped by a
stranger or ritually sacrificed by devil worshippers.

     The evidence offered by the Satan-mongers is primarily the
loosely detailed stories of alleged participants-- individuals who
often claim to have been high officials of devil-worshipping cults
and who assert that they have taken part in a variety of felonious
behavior, including rape, kidnapping, and ritual murder.
Coincidentally, these same people have books, tapes, and seminars
to sell about their "experiences" in order to "educate" the
conscientious police officer, the religiously gullible, or the
talk-show host hungry for ratings-through-sensationalism. As
anxious as they are to get their stories out to a credulous public
(and to sell their books and tapes), these born-again hucksters are
strangely reluctant to provide details (names, dates, locations,
and so forth) to any law enforcement agency or to assist them in
any way in investigating their allegations. Police agencies that
have tried to investigate these claims have run into a stone wall.


     An understanding of this social phenomenon is not possible
without examining some of the personalities involved.

     Michelle Smith is the author of _Michelle Remembers_, one of
the seminal books in the current hysteria over satanic conspiracies
in the United States. Smith had an alcoholic father who abandoned
the family and a passive, distant, alcoholic mother who died when
Smith was fourteen. After a miscarriage in 1976, Smith began her
second round of psychiatric sessions and, under hypnosis, recalled
her abuse and mistreatment as a child at the hands of a "satanic"
cult. She claims to have witnessed numerous paranormal happenings,
including an actual visitation from Satan incarnate, and she
describes satanic rituals, implements, and ceremonies in some
detail. Unfortunately, experts on the occult insist that what she
ascribes as sacred to satanists is completely inconsistent with
satanism and devil worship.

     As for bringing Smith's tormentors to justice, it should be
relatively easy to identify them, even years later, since the
members of this cult reportedly cut off the middle fingers of their
left hands as a sign of obedience to the Prince of Darkness.
Unfortunately, no independent evidence has surfaced to corroborate
any of the claims made by Smith. Her therapist, Dr. Lawrence
Pazder, became so involved with his patient that Smith eventually
divorced her husband and married Pazder, who was the coauthor of
_Michelle Remembers_.

     Lauren Stratford claims that as a child she suffered ritual
abuse at the hands of her parents' devil-worshipping group and that
later she bred babies for sacrifice to Satan. In her book _Satan's
Underground_, Stratford recounts having witnessed a miraculous
healing by Satan as well as several other weird paranormal
happenings; no evidence, however, is offered to support her claims.
Stratford is also strangely inconsistent about exactly how many
babies she bore for sacrifice. During an appearance on "Sally Jesse
Raphael," Stratford claimed to have given up one baby for
sacrifice, but on "Oprah" she upped the number to three.

     Dr. Rebecca Brown and her patient "Elaine" have appeared on
"Geraldo" to discuss their experiences with satanism. Brown and
"Elaine" have cowritten two books, _He Came to Set the Captives
Free_ and _Prepare for War_, both published by Jack Chick
Ministries, an outfit which specializes in fundamentalist tracts
and lurid, anti-Catholic and anti-Mormon comic books. In _Prepare
for war_, Brown lists a number of "doorways" to satanic power and
demon infestation. These include fortune tellers, horoscopes,
fraternity oaths, vegetarianism, yoga, self-hypnosis, acupuncture,
biofeedback, fantasy role-playing games, adultery, homosexuality,
judo, karate, and, of course, rock music, which is identified as "a
carefully masterminded plan by none other than Satan himself" This
book has been recommended as a serious reference in law enforcement
training material. With all of the problems modern police agencies
have to face, one would not think that "demon infestation" would be
high on the list.

     "Elaine," whose real name is Edna Moses, claims to be a former
high priestess of a satanic cult who was "rescued" by Dr. Brown, a
self-proclaimed "satanic cult detoxifier" who has allegedly
"rescued" over one thousand satanists. According to Chick
Ministries, both of these women are "available to assist with
interpretation of signs and symbols, to answer questions, or be of
assistance should you have an emergency need in the 'rescue' of a
Satanist."

     What Geraldo Rivera, ace investigative journalist, and Jack
Chick have not told you-- or did not bother to find out-- is that
"Dr. Rebecca Brown" is the defrocked Indiana physician Ruth Bailey,
who had her medical license removed by the Medical Licensing Board
of Indiana for a number of reasons. Among the board's seventeen
findings are: Bailey knowingly misdiagnosed serious illnesses,
including brain tumors and leukemia,as "caused by demons, devils,
and other evil spirits"; she told her patients that doctors at Ball
Memorial Hospital and St. John's Medical Center were "demons,
devils, and other evil spirits themselves"; and she falsified
patient charts and hospital records. The board's report states
that:

     Dr. Bailey also addicted numerous patients to controlled
     substances which required them to suffer withdrawal and
     undergo detoxification, and that she self,medicated
     herself with non-therapeutic amounts of Demerol which she
     injected on are hourly basis.


     A psychiatrist appointed by the board to diagnose Bailey
described her as "suffering from acute personality disorders
including demonic delusions and/or paranoid schizophrenia."

     Refusing to appear before the board, Bailey moved to
California, changed her name to Rebecca Brown, and began working
with Jack Chick. Despite this questionable background and
the fact that she has been denounced by numerous Christian
ministers, Brown continues to appear on talk shows and at police
training seminars spreading her nonsense.



     Pat Pulling is the founder of Bothered About Dungeons and
Dragons (BADD). First published in 1974 and translated since then
into a host of languages, "Dungeons and Dragons" is the most
popular of the fantasy role-playing games. These games are
sophisticated versions of "cops and robbers" or "cowboys and
Indians"; they are vehicles through which adolescents and adults
can exercise their imaginations. Since 1974, there have been over
five hundred different fantasy role-playing games introduced into
the market.

     Pulling founded BADD after her son, Irving "Bink" Pulling II,
committed suicide. Pulling blames her son's death on playing
Dungeons and Dragons and on a curse placed on him by the game's
leader or "dungeon master" a week before his suicide. In her book,
_The Devil's Web_, Pulling states that there were no indications
her son was troubled and that she had no warning of his impending
suicide.

     Pulling appears on talk shows and advises police departments
on teenagers who play fantasy role-playing games. In her
_Interviewing Techniques for Adolescents_, she offers the following
profile of teenagers who are potentially suicidal or who are headed
for an involvement with Satanism: adolescents between the ages of
eleven and seventeen, from all walks of life, from middle-class to
upper-middle-class families, over- or underachievers, intelligent,
creative, or curious. Some are rebellious, some have low
self-esteem, some are loners, and some have been abused physically
or sexually. Unfortunately, this is hardly an exclusive list, as
one or more of these criteria could be applied to every teenager in
the country.

     She also states that fantasy role-playing games are the number
two method used by satanists to seduce children, right after "Black
Heavy Metal Music." Other methods of recruitment include:
"obsession with movies and videos which have occult themes;
collecting and reading/researching occult books; involvement with
'Satanic Cults,' through recruitment; and some are born into
families who practice 'satanic cult rituals.'"

     Among her many suggestions for the police officer interviewing
a troubled adolescent is to ask if he or she "has read the
_Necronomicon_ or is familiar with it." This advice betrays
Pulling's lack of skills as a researcher. _The_ Necronomicon _does
not exist!_ It is the fictional creation of H. P. Lovecraft, the
popular fantasy-horror pulp writer of the 1930s. The book,
described as having been written in blood on parchment made from
human skin by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, was supposed to contain
all sorts of ghastly occult lore; those who read it went insane.
Since 1978, several clever promoters have produced books called
_The Necronomicon_. Most are gibberish; one version repeats its
Romanized Arabic text every ten pages, the author having assumed
that the majority of readers would never wade through more than ten
pages of his nonsense. Needless to say, none of these books is an
authentic occult text written by a mad Arab in human blood; they
are simply money-making schemes capitalizing on a notorious name.

     In her capacity as "occult investigator," Pulling has made a
number of outrageous charges that she fails to support with
evidence. In an interview in the Richmond, Virginia _News Leader_,
Pulling estimated that "about eight percent of the Richmond
population was involved in Satanic worship at some level.' This
number, called "conservative" by Pulling, comes to about fifty six
thousand people-- more than the number of Methodists in the area,
as the interviewer was quick to point out. Pulling then attempted
to correct herself, arguing that she had meant the number of people
actively involved in the occult, whatever that distinction may
mean.

     Pulling's profile of potential recruits or victims is as
flawed as her statistics. She claims that virtually any child
between the ages of eleven and seventeen is a candidate for
seduction into satanism. Furthermore, this seduction supposedly
takes place at times when a parent is least eely to be present.
Therefore, if you have an intelligent child from a good background
and he or she is out of your sight, the child is open to
recruitment by satanic cultists who, according to Pulling, are
_everywhere_.

     Pulling's main claim-- that her son was driven to suicide by
playing Dungeons and Dragons without having exhibited any earlier
signs of trouble-- is contradicted by statements she made which
were published, oddly enough, by one of the Satan-mongers who
supports her work. Larry Jones is the founder and director of the
Cult Crime Impact Network, Inc. (CCIN), and publishes _File 18_,
which is directed toward 'law enforcement agencies and the clergy.
Jones's organization is housed in the Trinity Fellowship Church in
Boise, Idaho. There is nothing objective about his newsletter, as
its stated position is: the only true and lasting solution to
"Devil-worship or Satanic involvement is a personal encounter with
true Christianity and with the central figure of that faith, Jesus
Christ."

     Jones published a transcript of a lecture Pulling gave in 1986
at the North Colorado/South Wyoming Detectives' Association Seminar
in Fort Collins, Colorado. Pulling stated then-- but not in any of
her own publications or subsequent interviews-- that several weeks
before his death, her son had been displaying "lycanthropic"
tendencies such as running around the backyard on all fours and
barking. Pulling was also quoted as saying that, within the month
before her son's death, nineteen rabbits he had raised were
inexplicably torn apart, although no loose dogs were seen, and a
cat was found disemboweled with a knife. Other sources indicated
that Bink was despondent over fitting in at school and had written
"Life Is a Joke" on the blackboard in one of his classes. Shortly
thereafter, he shot himself in the driveway of his home.

     It is clear that Bink Pulling was a seriously disturbed young
man whose behavior could be interpreted as demonstrations of great
rage and frustration. Yet his mother continues to insist she had no
warning that her son was troubled.

     Contrary to Pulling's claim, there is no independent
verification from any respected authority that fantasy role-playing
games contribute in any way to teen suicide. Dr. S. Kenneth
Schonbert of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York
conducted an in-depth study of over seven hundred adolescents who
had attempted suicide. Not one case indicated that any role-playing
game was a reason for their attempt. The Associated Gifted and
Creative Children of California conducted a survey of all major
American cities in which coroners were asked to review the
psychological autopsies of adolescent suicides. Not one case
indicated that Dungeons and Dragons or any other role-playing game
was a contributing factor. The Centers for Disease Control in
Atlanta released its own report which found no compelling evidence
that suicide was more prevalent among teens who played Dungeons and
Dragons. Finally, the American Association of Suicidology in
Denver, Colorado, a widely respected source of information on teen
suicides, agrees that the evidence shows role-playing games are not
a significant cause of teen suicide.

                              * * *

     Maury Terry is the author of _The Ultimate Evil: An
Investigation into America's Most Dangerous Satanic Cult_ (he also
supplied an introduction for Pat Pulling's book). In his book,
Terry attempts to link mass murderers Charles Manson, David "Son of
Sam" Berkowitz, Henry Lee Lucas, and several others into a
nationwide satanic conspiracy of immense proportions. Terry
"documents" his thesis though egregious leaps of logic, bits of
oddly interpreted "evidence," and the highly suspect testimony of
such "experts ' as David Balsiger, who will be discussed in a
moment.

     Terry creates implausible connections-for example, between the
Son of Sam, the Process Church of the Final Judgement, and the Ordo
Templi Orientis (OTO). He concludes:

          Since the [Son of Sam] letters contained so many clues,
     I went back to them and to other Berkowitz writings with which
     I was now familiar. Doing so revealed definite connections to
     Process-like terms. For instance, Berkowitz has written he
     needed a "messenger on earth"; and messenger was a Process
     rank-as were "father" and "master:' . . . The Borelli letter
     contained the phrase "honour thy father" using the British
     spelling of "honor:' The Process was founded in Britain, as
     was Aleister Crowley's O.T.O. chapter. Additionally, the
     Breslin letter said: "Now the void has been filled"; and the
     "bottomless void" was definitely Process terminology. That
     letter's return address, in part, said "Blood and Family"; and
     the Process had referred to itself as "the family."

                              * * *

     Obviously, Maury Terry has not been exposed to much training
in logical thinking or rational investigative techniques. His
theory is conspiracy "reasoning" at its best.

     Terry's lack of logic was not without a price. The California-
based Ordo Templi Orientis brought a defamation suit against him.
The _New York Law Journal_ for June 24, 1988, reports:

          Defendants, publisher and author of a book expounding the
     theory that a nationwide Satanic cult is responsible for
     numerous notorious murders in recent times, were sued for
     defamation by an organization the author alleged was part of
     the Satanic network. The court refused to dismiss the action,
     finding that the allegations in the book, reiterated by the
     author in two television interviews, gave rise to a cause of
     action if plaintiff could substantiate the facts averred in
     its complaint.


     The case was settled out of court with an undisclosed sum of
money paid to the OTO, as well as an agreement to strike all
references to the OTO in future editions of the work.

     The allegations against the Process church in Terry's book
were copied virtually verbatim from a now-obscure book, _The
Family_, published shortly after the Manson murders. The author of
_The Family_ [Ed Sanders, a member of The Fugs] lost a defamation
suit brought against him by the Process church; part of the
settlement included striking all reference to the Process church
from future editions. So much of the book was based upon these
false allegations that it wasn't possible to remove them all and
still have a book. _The Family_ subsequently went out of print.
Terry has not been sued by the Process church because it no longer
exists; thus, he is able to reprint with impunity material which
has previously been judged inaccurate and libelous.

     David Balsiger, one of the "experts" cited in Terry's book, is
co-author with Les Jones and Mike Warnke of _The Satan Seller_, a
book that purported to be Warnke's "confession" as a former priest
of a devil-worshipping cult (Warnke also claims to have been a
high-ranking member of the Illuminati.) Warnke's credibility-- such
as it is-- is severely damaged by his refusal to identify his
former co-conspirators. Throughout _The Satan Seller_, he maintains
that the members of his former cult are involved in rape, animal
mutilations, and drug smuggling. Yet, despite his newfound
born-again beliefs, Warnke has yet to supply law enforcement
agencies with names, dates, or any other evidence necessary to
assist them in investigating his claims. It's interesting to note
that the first edition of _The Satan Seller_ was published in
1972-- before the appearance of the first "satanic victim,"
Michelle Smith-- and contains no mention of child abduction, child
sacrifice or child pornography rings. Warnke himself admitted on
'The 700 Club" that he had no knowledge of the child sacrifices
that other "survivors" talked about. He also claims that devil
cults murder two million children a year.

     As for David Balsiger, Warnke's coauthor, he has quite a stake
in the current anti-satanist hysteria. Balsiger owns and operates
Writeway Literary Associates of Costa Mesa, California, which
publishes his _Occult Activity Profile, Witchcraft/Satanism Ritual
Calendar_, and _Occult-Satanic Homicide Clues_. He also publishes
and distributes Jack Roper's _Analyzing Occult Activity Supplement_
and the _Occult Investigation Slide Training Series_, aimed at the
law-enforcement market. Balsiger has also written a number of
"nonfiction" books, including _In Search of Noah's Ark_, and is
closely affiliated with the Christian ultraright. His _Presidential
Biblical Scorecard, Candidates Biblical Scorecard,_ and _Family
Protection Scorecard_ all rate political candidates according to
Balsiger's version of "biblical principles" His other activities
and associations read like a shopping list for members of the
extreme political right.

     I'll let Father Richard Woods of Chicago's Loyola University
Theology Department have the last word on Balsiger and Warnke and
their shared fantasy. Father Woods observes in his scholarly book,
_The Devil_:

     Purporting to be a veridical account of a young man's meteoric
     rise to power in a vast Satanic conspiracy and his abrupt fall
     from "grace," _The Satan Seller_ would be an incredibly bad
     novel. But although he was a drug, drenched and paranoid
     speed-freak with delusions of grandeur during the events
     narrated, Warnke (and his ghostwriters) assure us that the
     incidents occurred "absolutely as described." Truth is indeed
     stranger than fiction.




==========================
other/magick #659, from [e-mail], 25998 chars, Mar 14 17:48 92
--------------------------
TITLE: Part 2: the Humanist on Satanic Crime Hysteria

+Date         : 14 Mar 92 17:48:07 GMT
+Subject      : Part 2: the Humanist on Satanic Crime Hysteria
+Message-ID   : <[e-mail]>
+Organization : The Cellar BBS and public access system
+From         : [e-mail] (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano)


     Geraldo Rivera must be included in any list of Satan-mongers  because
his production company, the Investigative News Group,  produced the
television special "Devil Worship: Exposing Satan's  Underground," broadcast
by NBC on October 25, 1988. This program,  watched by more people than any
other television documentary in  history, was distinguished by its almost
total lack of credible  information; it substituted sensationalism and hype
for accurate  investigation and scholarship. "Devil Worship: Exposing Satan's
 Underground" was cited by a New York sociologist as contributing to  the
escalation of a rumor panic in upstate New York.
     Rivera often devotes his daily talk show, "Geraldo," to the  topic of
satanic crime, using as "authorities" many of the  personalities investigated
in the aforementioned CSER report. In  one typical program, Rivera opened the
show with the following  statement:
          Satanic cults! Every hour, every day, their ranks       are
growing. Estimates are there are over one million       satanists in this
country. The majority of them are       linked in a highly organized, very
secret network. From       small towns to large cities, they've attracted
police and       FBI attention to their satanist ritual child abuse, child
   pornography, and grisly satanic murder. The odds are this       is
happening in your town.

     With that introduction setting the tone, Rivera paraded a  number of
well-known Satan-mongers before his audience, with nary  a critical question
asked of the lot. He began by interviewing  three parents whose children were
allegedly molested by satanic day  care workers. One parent mentioned that,
while her child had been  in therapy for some months, she did not realize the
ritual-satanic  aspects of her child's abuse _until she attended a seminar_
that  educated her in this subject. Only after the mother attended this
seminar did the stories of child sacrifice and other horrific  details begin
to surface. Unfortunately, Rivera did not pursue  this, leaving his viewers
in the dark as to what seminar this woman  attended and who had organized it.

Rivera then introduced "Elaine" (Edna Moses, already  profiled), "for
seventeen years a high priestess of a satanic cult  that 'governed' five
states." Elaine was shown in profile, behind  a screen-- a theatrical device
designed to validate Elaine's fear  of retaliation from her fellow satanists
and thereby heighten her  credibility. Elaine rattled on about her life as a
high priestess  in a satanic conspiracy bent on ultimately ruling the world.
She  contended that ritual child abuse was designed to make the  recruitment
of children into satanism easier when they were older  and stated, "It is
terrifying to think that over two million are  missing in this nation right
now and that a number of them have  been murdered, maimed, or are in satanic
cults practicing satanism  today." As we have already seen, that statement is
without a shred  of credible evidence to back it up. Rivera did not question
it at  all.


     Next came Dr. Rebecca Brown (the defrocked Dr. Ruth Bailey),  whom
Rivera introduced as the author of _He came to Set the  Captives Free_ and
the person who helped get "Elaine " and over a  thousand others out of
satanic cults. Rivera asked Brown about her  methods of 'detoxing" a cult
member. One of Brown's suggestions was  for the cultist to "get out of state,
change your name, and  disassociate yourself totally from the area you were."
As we have  seen, Brown took her own advice-- only in her case the area she
disassociated herself from was Indiana after the Medical Licensing  Board
declared her incompetent as a physician and questioned her  mental stability.
  Brown informed the audience that there have  been numerous attempts on her
life. Rivera questioned her on her  relationship with the authorities. She
responded, "I have a very  distant relationship with the authorities because
my job is to  bring people out, not turn them in to the police. However, I do
 work with police and FBI pretty extensively. If I know of someone  who is
not willing to stop what they are doing, I'll be the first  one to tip the
police off." These conflicting statements were not  explored by Rivera at
all.
     At the end of the program, Rivera provided his audience with  the
address of a post office box in Chino, California, for those  who wanted to
obtain information about Brown's book. A check with  the post office showed
that the box was rented to Chick  Publications or Chick Ministries (the
records are not precise), yet  no mention of the connection between Brown and
the extremist Chick  Ministries was made by Rivera.
     Rivera also introduced several other "experts" on the show,  including
Maury Terry and Detective Kurt Jackson of the Beaumont,  California, Police
Department. Jackson affirmed the existence of a  vast, organized conspiracy
of satanists intent on world domination.  According to Jackson, the
conspiracy met in Mexico City in 1981;  information about its plans was
supposedly intercepted by a fellow  law enforcement official.
     What Jackson was obliquely referring to was the notorious  "WICCA
letters." WICCA is supposedly an acronym for the Witches  International Coven
Council (no one seems to know what the "A"  stands for except that it is
necessary to make the acronym work,  the word Wicca being the correct
terminology for the earth-spirit-  based religion vulgarly known as
"witchcraft"). WICCA is supposed  to have met in Mexico City in 1981 to draft
a plan for world  domination. The source of this material seems to be Dave
Gaerin, a  deputy sheriff in the San Diego County Sheriff s Department.
Gaerin  reported his "discovery of these letters in an issue of _Exodus_,  a
magazine published by a fundamentalist ministry in San Antonio,  Texas. The
original article described the "decoding" of these  documents, without
explaining what that term meant. The CSER  research team was unable to locate
anyone other than Deputy Gaerin  who has ever seen the original documents.

     The WICCA letters are clearly modeled after the notorious  "Protocols of
the Learned Elders of Zion" and are taken seriously  only by those who know
nothing about occult history and witchcraft.  In the WICCA letters, the
occult word _magick_ is spelled without  the "k"-- something that would never
be done by anyone actually  involved in the occult. Even those who support
the notion of an  international satanic conspiracy have called the WICCA
letters  ludicrous.
     In all fairness to Rivera, it should be noted that the  pressure of
producing a daily talk show is tremendous and that talk  show staffs often do
not have the time or the interest required to  thoroughly check credentials.
Talk shows do not present facts and  validated information; rather, they are
"infotainment," shows  loosely designed around interview or magazine formats
presenting  information as entertainment. These shows are never to be given
the  same credibility as the nightly network news or national news  magazines
such as _Time_ and _Newsweek_. However, even with this  understood, one would
think that, given the scope and seriousness  of the allegations made by these
people, some checking would have  been done. This is especially true in the
case of Rivera's NBC  special, "Devil Worship: Exposing Satan's Underground,"
since  enough time and money certainly _were_ available for adequate
research. Of course, with adequate research, there would have been  no
sensational program, as research would have shown the problem to  be
nonexistent.
     Talk show hosts have a tremendous influence on the public.  Geraldo
Rivera, Phil Donahue, Sally Jesse Raphael, and Oprah  Winfrey, as well as
their counterparts in a host of smaller  markets, all have a loyal and
trusting following. Clearly, this  trust is not always merited.



     One final Satan-monger of note is that grand old man of  conspiracy
theory and perennial presidential candidate, Lyndon  LaRouche. Currently
serving time in federal prison for his  conviction on fraud and conspiracy
charges, LaRouche blames his  problems-- and those of much of the world-- on
communism, drugs,  rock music, humanism, role-playing games, homosexuality,
and the  New Age movement, which he believes are all part of an
international conspiracy to usher in the "New Dark Ages."
     LaRouche's organizations publish _The New Federalist_ and  _Executive
Intelligence Review_. Their current resident "authority"  on occultism is
Bruce Director, who tours the country addressing  church and community groups
under the auspices of the Executive  Intelligence Review News Service
(EIRNS). His connection with  LaRouche is not publicized.
     LaRouche also founded the Schiller Institute, which publishes  _Save
Your Child's Life_. This pamphlet makes several astounding  and absurd claims
about witchcraft and satanism, cites false and  alarmist statistics, and
urges its readers to ban occult books from  libraries, close down stores
which sell occult or New Age  paraphernalia, and stop the sale of rock music
in their cities. A  second LaRouche pamphlet, _Is Satan in Your Schoolyard?_,
is  distributed by Sue Joyner, a "former occultist" and founder of  Watchmen
Alert to Cultic Harassment (WATCH), a ministry to witches  and satanists. The
cover of the pamphlet has a photo of "Satanist  Robert McNamara, the former
president of the World Bank," and  charges that the Episcopal Cathedral of
St. John the Divine in New  York City happens to be one of the major centers
for the spread of  Satanic sexual violence in North America."
     LaRouche has formulated an inventive connection between his  current
legal problems and Wicca, which he wrongly holds to be a  form of devil
worship. Judge Williams of the U.S. District Court  for the Eastern District
of Virginia has ruled that Wicca is a  legitimate religion which should be
recognized in Virginia prisons;  this same federal district court is presided
over by Chief Justice  Albert V, Bryan, Jr., who was the judge in LaRouche's
trial. In  addition, Judge John Butzner of the Fourth Circuit Court of
Appeals  upheld and expanded the Wicca ruling; Judge Butzner also happens to
be the person who denied LaRouche's petition that he and his  codefendants
remain free on bail pending their appeal. LaRouche  also maintains that Mary
Sue Terry, the state attorney general of  Virginia who prosecuted his case,
"announced that she was a drug  pusher." (In fact, Terry merely stated
publicly that she supported  Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke's campaign to
de-criminalize drugs.)


     To be accurate, there is organized religious satanism in the  United
States. It is a small but legitimate minority church, its  size and belief
structure having nothing to do with its right to  exist under the
Constitution. The main satanic church, the Church  of Satan, was founded in
the mid-196Os by Anton Szandor LaVey, a  former circus animal trainer who was
at one time best known for  keeping a lion on the back porch of his modest
Richmond District  home in San Francisco. LaVey is the author of _The Satanic
Bible_,  which has reputed sales of over half a million copies. In the book,
LaVey rejects the Christian versions of both God and the devil.
     A natural showman, LaVey plays his role well, shaving his  head,
dressing in sinister clothing, and calling himself "the Black  Pope." He has
become the main focus of attention for many  unenlightened Christian writers
who never bothered to read what he  has written and therefore have no idea
what he believes in. This  ignorance has resulted in endless free publicity
in markets that  LaVey would never have been able to penetrate on his own.
His best  advertisers have turned out to be well-intentioned Christians
writing to "protect" the public.
     There are several other, smaller satanic churches and worship  groups
within the United States, but the total combined membership  of organized
satanic churches has been authoritatively put at _well  under one thousand_.
No member of any of these groups has ever been  implicated in any ritual
crimes. Moreover, LaVey's much-maligned  _Satanic Bible_ directs the believer
not to engage in any  antisocial acts; LaVey specifically singles out
criminal acts  against children, drug abuse, and harming animals as things
that  are absolutely forbidden by his religion.
     Yet, thanks to the hysteria generated by the new witch  hunters,
millions of dollars and countless work hours are wasted by  police agencies
in attempts to investigate a nonexistent criminal  phenomenon. Inaccurate
information supplied by these supposed  authorities at police seminars on
satanic crime have caused well-  intentioned but misled police officers to
see occult or ritualistic  aspects to crimes where none exist.
     This is especially true in reports of satanic or ritualistic  child
abuse. According to Inspector Sandi Gallant of the San  Francisco Police
Department, fewer than one hundred credible  reports of _ritual_ child abuse
have been filed nationally over the  past five years. None of those accused
were members of any satanic  church or identified devil-worshipping cult.
Only a fraction of  those reports resulted in convictions. Of those cases
that did  result in conviction, the majority occurred in day care centers and
 involved a single pedophile or pornographer who, working alone,  used
ritualistic trappings to frighten children. into participating  and keeping
silent. As the CSER report states:

     Some allegations of ritual child abuse are frivolous.
     Child abuse allegations can be a powerful weapon in a
     custody dispute. This, coupled with the fact that
     interrogation techniques for abused children are highly
     experimental and have dubious results, makes it even more
     important that ritual child abuse cases be handled
     carefully and with a healthy amount of skepticism.


     It is not as simple as "believing the children" or not, as  some would
have it. Unfortunately, this aspect of the issue is far  too complex to go
into in detail in this article. There are  organizations such as Victims of
Child Abuse Laws (VOCAL), a group  of adults falsely accused of child abuse,
with many cases on file  in which children were coached, threatened, or--
through their own  malice-- chose to lie. This is a dimension of the child
abuse  problem that requires much more investigation and research by
competent professionals.
     In a "standard" child abuse case, victims are often required  to repeat
their story as many as thirty times to a variety of  strangers. When the
abuse takes on ritual or occult trappings, the  child has to retell his or
her story upwards of ninety times, often  being paraded on television to
recount the horrors of the  experience again and again in order to
substantiate some  individual's or group's position on satanism. For "the
greater  good," the child is made to relive the incident over and over,
possibly compounding the damage and further postponing any   sort of
psychological healing.



     Most of the "experts" investigated by the CSER are   either
fundamentalist Christians or have received most of their  information from
fundamentalist Christians. Their simplistic  approach echoes their religious
beliefs: anything that is "occult"  is necessarily satanic. Minority
religious groups such as Wiccans,  Neo-Pagans, Santeros, and native Americans
have all been accused of  practicing devil worship. In other words, if it
isn't Christian by  the fundamentalists' definition of _Christian_, it is
automatically  satanic.
     Congress has not been free of the taint of this irrationality.  Senator
Jesse Helms recently proposed an amendment to a Senate bill  that would have
eliminated tax exemptions for any religion that  "has as a purpose, or that
has any interest in the promoting of  Satanism, or 'witchcraft' provided . .
. 'Satanism is defined as  the worship of Satan or the powers of evil and
'witchcraft' is  defined as the use of powers derived from evil spirits, the
use of  sorcery, or the use of supernatural powers with malicious intent.'
This means, I suppose, that, if you get your supernatural powers  from some
other source and do not use them maliciously, you can  operate a tax-exempt
organization. The question that begs to be  asked is: "If I have supernatural
powers-- from whatever source--  why would I care if I had tax-exempt status
or not?" Presumably, if  the Helms amendment became law, those Christian
groups that  occasionally pray for the death of selected Supreme Court
Justices  would have their tax-exempt status removed. In my opinion, Senator
Helms is to representative democracy what Howdy Doody is to brain  surgery.

     Minority religions are being persecuted for no other reason  than that
they appear different and, by some definitions,  "satanic." Both
psychological and physical damage is being done in  highly localized "rumor
panics" that are occurring across the  country. Fed by inaccurate and often
sensationalized reporting by  local media, these situations are quickly
capitalized on by the  Satan-mongers.
     This past Halloween in Tustin, California, for example, a  number of
cats were found mutilated. Investigators from Orange  County Animal Control
concluded that increased construction in the  nearby foothills had caused a
loss of habitat for coyote prey.  Coyotes were being forced to invade the
urban setting and prey upon  cats, the condition of the cats' bodies clearly
indicating predator  attacks.
     A tiny group of "true believers" saw the mutilation of the  cats as
evidence of ritual satanic activity and refused to accept  the initial
conclusion of the animal control officers. The county  was forced into an
expensive, in-depth investigation expending  hundreds of work hours and tens
of thousands of taxpayers' dollars  to make certain that no ritual satanic
cat mutilations were taking  place. Ron Hudson, chief of Field Services of
Orange County Animal  Control, told me that, in the interests of full
objectivity, the  office had all of the mutilated cats submitted to a
necropsy by a  veterinarian. Over one hundred animals were examined, after
which  it was duly announced that the evidence was consistent with the
animal control investigators' initial conclusion-- that coyotes  were preying
on the cats.
     This was, of course, ignored by the local extremists who  exploited the
situation by bringing in one or two outside  "experts," forming an
organization, instituting citizen patrols,  and offering a reward for
information leading to the arrest of the  "satanists" who were perpetrating
this atrocity. Although Orange  County Animal Control acted promptly and
properly, the county  taxpayers will have to foot the bill for the hundreds
of additional  work hours needed to address the rumor panic brought about by
a  handful of people who believed that satanists were operating  locally.

     To date, cats killed by coyotes are still being found, but  since it is
no longer Halloween the media have little interest. It  was a perfect
Halloween story and received plenty of air time, with  the animal control
office's correct explanation only occasionally  being included-- and, even
then, the reporter often ended the piece  by saying "Regardless of which side
you believe..." This is a  predilection of the news media that is often
overlooked by the  general public: the journalistic device of giving equal
weight to  differing opinions in the interest of "fairness," _even when one
or  more of the opinions have little or no basis in fact_. It is easier  for
the reporter to report all views than to dig for the truth.  This disposition
of the media creates in the minds of the viewing  or reading public the
impression that all opinions have equal  weight, when often they don't.
Inflammatory groups such as those  discussed here frequently consist of five
or six people who are  savvy enough to call a press conference and little
else. This sort  of reporting does not inform the public and does more harm
than  good.
     The CSER report offers several recommendations to those  interested in
investigating satanism or supposed occult crimes:        Consult only
credible experts. Avoid those who tell "survivor"
     or "breeder" stories unless and until their allegations are
     borne out by law enforcement investigations. Seminars on
     occult crime featuring these people should be avoided. The
     CSER report provides a list of experts whose information was
     found to be reliable and accurate.        Do not rule out talking to
practitioners of the occult. Most
     occultists are law-abiding citizens and are quite willing to
     aid the police. Occultists are no more likely to protect one
     of their own than Catholics are likely to protect a fellow
     Catholic, and so on.          Concentrate on the central aspects of a
crime and treat any
     occult trappings as peripheral. Do not go after larger
     conspiracies on general principle; do so only if the evidence
     in the case directly suggests such a conspiracy is involved.
Whenever possible, actively inform the public about the truths
     and myths of "satanic" crime. Critical investigation is more
     easily carried out in an atmosphere free of hysteria.
     From the evidence provided in the CSER report, we can come to  several
conclusions:            There is no vast, organized satanic conspiracy in the
United
     States.         Tens of thousands of children are not being ritually
     sacrificed every year.         The organized satanic groups that exist
in the United States
     are small, legitimate minority religions which are protected
     by the U.S. Constitution. All of these groups expressly forbid
     murder, child abuse of any kind, and the ritual harming of
     animals.         Ritualized child abuse exists only on a very small
scale. The
     ritual trappings are used as a tool to scare the victim into
     silence and are not part of some religious service.         Criminal
acts attributed to satanists or devil worshippers are
     the acts of individuals or small groups of three or four
     people who are not associated with other such groups. These
     self-styled "satanists" usually make up their own rituals and
     use devil worship to justify their antisocial behavior.         Devotion
to Satan or some evil force by individuals who commit
     antisocial acts is a symptom of their mental illness-- not the
     cause of their behavior. Those "satanic" murderers who have
     been investigated have turned out to be individuals whose
     hatred of society was _manifested_ in devil worship, and
     antisocial behavior-- not _caused_ by it.        For a variety of
reasons-- including religious fanaticism,
     mental illness, bereavement, and outright opportunism-- a
     small number of people continue to perpetuate an industry of
     fear on a credible public to no good end.
     Finally, to fully understand this contemporary social  phenomenon, we
have to turn to history and the themes of  traditional folklore. In his
research on the great witch hunt in  Europe from the fifteenth to seventeenth
centuries, historian  Norman Cohn discovered a single enduring paranoid
theme: that  somewhere in the midst of the larger society there lurks another
 society-- small, well, organized, and clandestine-- that threatens  the
existence of the larger society and is addicted to inhuman  practices.
     Cohn found that this was a recurrent myth throughout human  history.
Ironically, this myth first appeared during the second  century and was
directed against the early Christians. It had its  antecedents in earlier
anti-Jewish polemics. Its most infamous  recent appearance was in Nazi
Germany, where it was used against  the Jews. Its latest incarnation is the
current wave of anti-  satanist hysteria promoted by fundamentalist
Christians and others  with their own secret agenda. These modern-day witch
hunters are  distinguished by their use of modern communications technology
to  spread ancient foolishness.
     As should be obvious by now, this article is in no way to be  construed
as an endorsement of belief in satanism. As an ethical  humanist, I deplore
the exposition of all nonsense, regardless of  the label attached to it.
However, this is a religiously and  philosophically pluralistic society in
which many belief systems  are allowed to exist and flourish, no matter how
disturbing those  beliefs are to some. This is the price that must be paid if
society  is to remain free. The best answer to nonsense is good people
continuing to speak out against it.


Brian "Rev. P-K" Siano
[e-mail]
Organizer of the Delaware Valley Skeptics (though opinions posted are my own,
and not representative).
"Not only does Bush have a depression on his hands, now he's got this self
pitying, pathologically lying pornofreak on the Supreme Court." -- Robert Bly,
in conversation with Deborah Tannen.