Professional Documents
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Satanism
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Satanism
Tamara L. Roleff, Book Editor
Daniel Leone, President Bonnie Szumski, Publisher Scott Barbour, Managing Editor Stuart B. Miller, Series Editor
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No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means, electrical, mechanical, or otherwise, including, but not limited to, photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Satanism / Tamara L. Roleff, book editor. p. cm. (At issue) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7377-0806-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 0-7377-0807-7 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper) 1. Satanism. I. Roleff, Tamara L., 1959 II. At issue (San Diego, Calif.) BF1548 .S37 2002 133.4'22dc21 2001040612 CIP0
2002 by Greenhaven Press, Inc. 10911 Technology Place, San Diego, CA 92127 Printed in the U.S.A.
Every effort has been made to trace owners of copyrighted material.
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Table of Contents
Page Introduction 1. Satanism Threatens Youth
Elizabeth Karlsberg
6 9 13 19 24 29 32 49 67 91
5. Anti-Satanism Is Bigotry
Michael J. Mazza
9. Social and Cultural Forces Were Partially Responsible for Satanic Panic
Susan P. Robbins
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Introduction
Satan and his various manifestations have been worshiped and revered for thousands of years. However, many people are confused over what makes one a Satanist. Some people think that anyone who believes in any religion other than their own is worshipping Satan, while others believe that any religion other than Christianity, Judaism, or Islam is Satanism. Still others believe that such religions as Santeria, Wicca, New Age, Druidism, and other neopagan religions are Satanism. However, true Satanists are none of the above. Contemporary Satanism began April 30, 1966 when Anton Szandor LaVey, a former carnival barker, founded the Church of Satan in San Francisco. LaVey wrote books titled The Satanic Bible, The Compleat Witch (later revised as The Satanic Witch), and The Satanic Rituals to explain his view of Satanism. According to LaVey, Satanists have an entirely different vision of Satan than Christians do: Satan does not live in or rule Hell; he does not have horns, cloven hooves, a tail, and a pitchfork; and he is not evil. Nor do Satanists worship him as a living deity; the Church of Satan explains that Satan is used as a purely symbolic figure. . . . Satanists do not even believe in the existence of any Gods or Devils. Instead, the church maintains that Satan is a force of energy, power, and sexuality, and a symbol of vitality, pleasure, and hedonism. Satanism is essentially a religion of the self; it holds that the individual and his personal needs comes first, LaVey asserts. In fact, the holiest day for a Satanist is his or her own birthday. The core beliefs of Satanism are found in the Nine Satanic Statements, written by LaVey in The Satanic Bible. They are: 1. Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence! 2. Satan represents vital existence instead of spiritual pipe dreams! 3. Satan represents undefiled wisdom instead of hypocritical self-deceit! 4. Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted on ingrates! 5. Satan represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek! 6. Satan represents responsibility to the responsible instead of concern for psychic vampires! 7. Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his divine spiritual and intellectual development, has become the most vicious animal of all! 8. Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification! 9. Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years! However, not all Satanists necessarily believe or follow all of these statements; since Satanism worships the self, it is a highly individualistic
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Introduction
religion and the beliefs may vary widely from one Satanist to the next. Satanism is recognized as a religion in the United States; the U.S. Army, for example, includes Satanism in its pamphlet, Religious Requirements and Practices of Certain Selected Groups: A Handbook for Chaplains. Although it is difficult to determine how many people are Satanists (the Church of Satan does not release membership information), the Army handbook estimated that there were between 10,000 and 20,000 Satanists in the United States when it was published in 1978. Most Satanists are adults who are serious about their beliefs. But Satanism also attracts teenagers, who are frequently dabblersthat is, as an act of rebellion against their parents or society, they practice Satanism, usually for a short period of time. These teen Satanists numbers are almost impossible to count as they do not belong to any organized satanic church (most organized satanic churchessuch as the Church of Satan require that members be eighteen years old to join). These dabblers sometimes engage in criminal activity such as vandalism and grave desecration, trespassing, and consumption of alcohol and illegal drugs. Researchers who study teen Satanists contend that the thrill of law-breaking makes Satanism even more exciting to them. Many people, especially conservative Christians, view Satanism and Satanists as far more threatening, however. Their concerns are based on Gothic Satanism, which first appeared during the Middle Ages. According to Church leaders of the time, Satanists were evil incarnate: They sold their souls to the devil, killed children in ritual ceremonies, changed shapes between animals and humans, flew on broomsticks, conducted Black Masses, and performed black magic to harm others. Some people believe that Satanists continue to practice many of these evil deeds, especially human sacrifice and ritual abuse. The first modern accounts of satanic ritual abuse and satanic human sacrifice appeared during the late 1970s and continued into the early 1990s. Since then, the reports have tapered off. The first cases consisted of several women who came forward independently and reported that they had recovered long-repressed memories of their sexual abuse and torture as children by satanic groups, some of which included members of their families. These women were from different parts of the country, yet their stories of sexual abuse, ritual murder of babies, cannibalism, and blood drinking were very similar. Then children in day care centers across the country began telling comparable stories of how they were sexually abused, were witnesses to murders in hidden rooms, and were forced to eat feces and the flesh of victims. In response to these claims, some therapists, law enforcement, and judicial officials theorized that an extremely organized secret network of Satanists was responsible for the violence. They estimated that Satanists were performingand getting away withas many as 50,000 ritual murders every year. Furthermore, they claimed, leaders of the conspiracy were noted members of the communitygovernment and law enforcement officials, teachers, lawyers, and doctors. Because of their importance in the community, these leaders were able to keep their satanic activities secret. Occasionally, child molesters, serial killers, and other criminals claim to be Satanists, asserting that the Devil made me do it or that they killed for the glory of Satan. Some infamous killers who claim to be Sa-
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At Issue
tanists include Charles Manson, Son of Sam serial killer David Berkowitz, and Night Stalker Richard Ramirez. Ramirez carved a pentagrama star with five points that is a symbol of Satanisminto his left hand and left court one day shouting Hail Satan! Satanists claim, however, that Gothic Satanism is a myth that was spread by church officials in the Middle Ages to frighten and persecute personal enemies and anyone who was different. Modern Satanists assert, in fact, that their religion expressly forbids human or animal sacrifice. According to LaVey, Satanism respects and exalts life. Children and animals are the purest expressions of that life force, and as such are held sacred and precious. Therefore, he adds, it would be very unsatanic to sacrifice or abuse either children or animals. Many law enforcement officials have carefully investigated claims of satanic abuse and ritual murder and have not found any evidence that these crimesas described by the survivorshave been committed. Kenneth V. Lanning, a supervisory special agent with the FBIs Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia, studied reports of satanic ritual abuse and ritual murder and concluded in a 1992 report that it is extremely unlikely that the claims of ritual abuse and murder are true: If and when members of a destructive cult commit murders, they are bound to make mistakes, leave evidence, and eventually make admissions in order to brag about their crimes or reduce their legal liability. He adds that law enforcement officials searched for evidence for eight years and found little or no evidence to support claims of satanic ritual abuse and ritual murder. He adds: Until hard evidence is obtained and corroborated, the public should not be frightened into believing that babies are being bred and eaten, that 50,000 missing children are being murdered in human sacrifices, or that satanists are taking over Americas day care centers or institutions. Satanism is a frightening religion to many people, and sometimes out of their fear come bizarre claims and allegations. At Issue: Satanism examines some of these claims and provides a broad perspective of what Satanism is and the controversies surrounding its beliefs and practices.
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hile there are no hard statistics to indicate just how many teens have fallen prey to Satans evil messages, law enforcement authorities all over the country have uncovered the telltale signs of Satanism in connection to many crime cases: An inverted pentagram or upside-down five-pointed star. (A pentagram right-side up is a symbol of white magic.) The number 666, or the letters FFF, which stands for the sign of the Beast. A goats head is the actual symbol for Satan. An upside-down cross, which signifies the rejection of Christianity, or, if you will, Christianity turned on its head. But its not simply the appearance of Satanic symbols that have authorities concerned. Its the violent and bizarre incidents that have occurred across the nationincidents that have indicated Satanists at work. Some nightmarish, but true, tales include: A 14-year-old student at York High School in Dupage County, Ill., who stabbed three students after being teased about his Satanic beliefs. Two of the victims were hospitalized. The boy reportedly carved an upside-down cross on his arm after being arrested. Two girls, ages 12 and 13, who carried out a Satanic murder-suicide pact in Montgomery County, Md. Both girls had told school friends they wanted to die so they could meet Satan. Aspirin was the only drug detected in either girls body.
Reprinted, with permission, from Satanism: The Scary Truth, by Elizabeth Karlsberg, Teen, June 1993.
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A 19-year-old young man who had practiced Satanism for at least four years was charged with killing his 38-year-old mother. Police and medical reports show that she had been stabbed 40 times. Her throat had also been slit. These gruesome accounts are just a few that have been recorded by The Cult Awareness Network (CAN), based in Chicago. This group is the only national, non-profit organization in the United States dedicated to helping those victimized by cults.
What is Satanism?
If you can imagine a world where good is bad and bad is good, then youve got some idea of what Satanists believe. At its root, Satanism is the perversion of religion. With devil worship, there are no laws, no rules, no cannots. The founder of the Church of Satan, Anton LaVey, once said that Instead of commanding members to repress their natural urges, we teach that they should follow them. This includes physical lust, the desire for revenge, the drive for material possessions.
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and alcohol abuse. David Toma says hes never met a Satan worshiper who didnt do drugs. Drug use complicates matters for teens who turn to devil worship, making it harder and harder to distinguish whats actually real and what only appears to be real when viewed through the fog of drugs and alcohol. Peopleteens includedwho feel the need to use drugs often do so because something in their lives is lacking. Often, that something is a good feeling about oneself. Teens who have a good sense of self realize that they have control, or power, over their own lives. They dont need Satanism. Even if their friends are getting involved with it, they are able to say, Thats not for me. The sad truth is that those who dont feel good about themselves may look elsewhere for a sense of power. And since positive influences may be nonexistentor unattainablethe negative ones look all the more inviting.
Davids story
Sometimes, teens are simply searching for a place to belong, and Satanism provides an instant social circle to plug into. One such teen, David (not his real name) explains how he got involved in devil worship. I was never very popular . . . kind of kept to myself most of the time, says David. One day at lunch, this guy came up to me. He seemed pretty cool, like he had it all together. He invited me to a party, and I decided to go. They were playing this weird music, and people were drinking and doing drugs, David recalls. They all seemed to be having a good time. It wasnt until this guy took me into a roompainted black, with candles everywhere and these posters of skulls with wings and stuff, that I realized these people were into something different. Even though it kind of freaked me out, I felt like, hey, these people want me to be a part of them. It felt really good. Pretty soon, I was going to cemeteries with them, doing rituals. Wed dig up graves, cut up animals and hang them from trees. Some of the people would drink blood. I never got into that, but my grades started dropping, and I got into drugs. Eventually, my parents went ballistic. They said I couldnt hang out with these people anymore. Then they forced me to see a therapist. Id go, but at first Id just tell a bunch of lies. Then, I dont know how, but the therapist made me see how messed up I was and how my life wasnt better because of Satanism; my life was just a big lie.
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At Issue
looking for some destructive alternative in the first place. In other words, you have to treat the cause, not the symptom, which may be Satanism. Trahan feels that for teens to achieve this, they need to have the confidence instilled in them that they have a good shot at success using traditional means. Before confronting someone you suspect is experimenting with Satanism, its a good idea to get more information to see just how involved the person is. Dont take or move any of the items you might discover. For guidance, you can write to: Cult Awareness Network [1680 N. Vine, Suite 415, Los Angeles, CA 90028]. Recently, a rather troubling letter turned up in TEENs mailbags. The person who sent the letter said that some people she was hanging around with were getting into some weird stuff that involved Satan. The letter went on to describe some of that weird stuff, which included rituals with animals, among some other pretty awful acts. Whoever sent the letter seemed genuinely concerned and wrote, I dont want to hang around with these people anymore. What should I do? The letter was signed, simply, Frightened. This letter, coupled with other things wed read and heard about, left us wondering just how many teens are involved with Satanism. It didnt take much investigating to get an answer. The sad truth is, Satanism is a threat in this country. David Toma, a former vice detective turned motivational speaker, has written about this threat in his latest book, Turning Your Life Around: David Tomas Guide for Teenagers. Toma says that in every school he speaks at, he asks the same question: How many of you kids know someone or have heard of someone involved in Satanic practices? He estimates that a full one-third of the students raise their hands. Whats even more disturbing is that some of these teens get so caught up in worshiping the devil that they destroy their own lives. This article is intended to increase teens awareness of the dangers of Satanic cults. TEEN Magazine does not condone devil worship in any form, and we urge you to report any incidents you may be aware of to a trusted adult or the appropriate authorities.
Warning signs
If you suspect that someone you know is experimenting with Satanism, The Cult Awareness Network suggests that you look for a combination of behavior changes, such as: bitter hatred toward family and family religion drastic drop in grades from As and Bs to Ds and Fs cut marks on the body little or middle fingernail on left hand painted black (left is evil, right is good) involvement with alcohol or illegal drugs use of a Satanic nickname use of various alphabets such as Egyptian, witches or one of their own creation.
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here did Satanism begin? In an indirect form, the predecessors of Satanism may be found in archaic religions in which gods were worshipped, not because of their inherent goodness, but because of their perceived power. For example, the ancient Greek and Roman gods were such an amoral assemblage of deities. Few showed many admirable character traits. These gods were often depicted with all the foibles and veniality of mere mortals. Many of the cults devoted to such gods and goddesses allegedly involved traumatizing rituals (e.g., the mystery cults). On the other hand, some religions specifically worshipped and supplicated overtly evil deities. However, in some cases appearances may be deceiving. For example, the Yezidi sect of Turkey, Syria, Armenia, and Iran, worship Ahriman (who, in the Zoroastrian religion, is roughly the equivalent of Satan). However, the Yezidi believe that Ahriman is no longer evil, having asked for and having received Gods forgiveness. They consider it an outrage to equate their Ahriman with the Satan of Christianity, and Islam.1
Excerpted from Cult and Ritual Abuse, rev. ed., by James Randall Noblitt and Pamela Sue Perskin. Copyright 2000 by James Randall Noblitt and Pamela Sue Perskin. Reproduced with the permission of the Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, Connecticut.
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Worshipping evil
In other cases, what appears to be the worship of an evil deity may simply represent the worship of a spiritual entity who no longer enjoys favored status. There are examples in history in which a cultures demons were really past divinities, no longer revered, and sometimes given new and less attractive roles. Such revolutions among the gods sometimes resulted from conquests, whereupon the new gods of the conquerors take the place previously held by the gods of the conquered. In other instances, evil may be revered or worshipped outright. In cultures in which Christianity is prevalent one might assume that the worship of evil would entail some devotion to Lucifer or Satan, the primary names given to the Euro-American spiritual representation of evil. To many traditional Christians, Satan and Lucifer are equivalent but different names for the same demon. However, many theologians make the distinction that Lucifer is the name of Satan before his fall. Within some occult traditions there is even a clearer discrimination between Satan and Lucifer. As already mentioned, within certain cults Lucifer is sometimes portrayed as a Promethean figure, the bringer of light. In the tradition of some Gnostics, Lucifer is represented as the rebellious spirit opposed to Christianity and the god of creation who is instead portrayed as the one responsible for introducing evil by creating a material world. Thus, Luciferianism reverses the Judeo-Christian-Islamic concept of a good creator and an evil demon. Satan is occasionally presented in such relatively benign terms2 but, more often, Satan is described as the personification of pure evil. Such a Satanic theology would attribute goodness to the JudeoChristian God, but Satanists worship Satan because he is perceived to be more powerful or because the cultist might view himself or herself as being beyond redemption by a benign deity. In this system of thinking, goodness itself is characterized as a weak, ineffective, and futile goal. Spence describes a similar dichotomy in views of Satanism and Luciferianism although he defines his terms slightly differently: Modern groups practicing Satanism are small and obscure, and unorganized as they are, details concerning them are conspicuous by their absence. Plentiful details, however, are forthcoming concerning the cults of Lucifer, but much discrimination is required in dealing with these, the bulk of the literature on the subject being manifestly imaginative and willfully misleading. The members of the church of Lucifer are of two groups, those who regard the deity they adore as the evil principle, thus approximating to the standpoint of the Satanists, and those who look upon him as the true god in opposition to Adonai or Jehovah, whom they regard as an evil deity who has with fiendish ingenuity miscreated the world of man to the detriment of humanity. (1993, p. 123) The wearing of dark, hooded robes is a commonly reported feature of these cults, but survivors describe a variety of different costumes and ritual acts. One patient arrived at my office with a ceremonial cowl.3 When she brought it to me, neither she nor I knew what it was. Without iden-
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tifying the patient to whom the item belonged, I asked other survivors if they recognized the article of clothing, and I was told that it was a cowl, a form of ceremonial headdress. The survivors indicated it was authentic, pointing to details of its construction that I had not even noticed. The patient who brought it to me reported that she had awakened from a trance in her own house. The cowl was on her head, but she did not know how or why it had gotten there. Some survivors describe the wearing of a miter by high-ranking members of their cult. The miter is a somewhat coneshaped ceremonial hat worn by Catholic bishops and abbots. Some of the artwork from earlier times depicting the trial and execution of heretics by the Inquisition shows them dressed in miters and robes.
The predecessors of Satanism may be found in archaic religions in which gods were worshipped, not because of their inherent goodness, but because of their perceived power.
An adult patient described an abusive act she once observed in which a naked woman was tied to a chair in front of a table where a bloody razor blade was prominently displayed. The woman was then blindfolded, and the perpetrator took a straight pin and slowly ran it across the victims body, causing slight scratches. According to my patient, the victims reaction showed her terrorshe believed she was being sliced with the razor blade, and consequently, she appeared to go in and out of numerous dissociated mental states. Acts of ritual murder also are reportedly simulated for the purpose of terrorizing those present into silence and creating further states of dissociation. Actual human sacrifice of children and adults may also be performed, but only on special occasions. Mock killings are performed more often and are designed to look as believable as real killings (Smith, 1993, p. 130). Barb Jackson (1993), another survivor, describes her observations of an abusive cult in which abusive rituals actually occurred but also were sometimes simulated. Both reportedly had the capacity for being overwhelmingly traumatizing.5 Hearing countless reports of ritual abuse by patients and others, an obvious question arises: why would anyone want to do these things? The
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stories seemed to lack any redeeming features whatsoever. What would motivate people to carry out such practices? When asked, the patients sometimes have an answer to such questions. The most commonly given explanation is that such rituals provide an intoxicating sense of power to those who are in the role of perpetrating the abuse. Such a practitioner experiences the sense of power over life and death, either simulated or in actuality. During such abusive acts one exerts great control over the minds of the abused and dominion over the creation of what might appear to be new souls or, as one patient explained, the souls of dead people, which can then inhabit the body of someone present at the ceremony. In actuality, these souls are more likely to be alternate or dissociated personalities created via traumatizing rituals. Nevertheless, in such a role, the cultist not only plays god, but for the purposes of those present, actually becomes the god (e.g., through a state of possession) and is recognized, respected, and worshipped as the god by the followers. On other occasions the cultist simply enjoys being in the powerful role of a god.6 The following was written by one of my patients about such an interaction. According to the patient, an abusive male repetitively claimed he was God before sexually abusing her: Was taken into a room and thrown down on a bed. The man was very big and blonde. Muscular. Over 6 ft. tall. Very angular features. Had been led to the room by others. He told them to leave me alone with him. Said he was going to teach me a lesson. We talked back to him. He got right in my face and said he was God. He repeated it over and over. He kept saying he was God. God. God. God. When we first were taken in to the room, we were scared. After he kept saying God, we were very compliant [sic].7 Another ritually abused patient sometimes switched to altered states, describing in tenor her experience of being tortured by gods. But the gods she described were not metaphysical abstractions; they were merely people who had taken on the role or persona of gods in rituals she had been forced to attend. My patient called one of these gods Satan.8
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parodied and the victim of the abuse is told to pray to God for help. No help is forthcoming because the participants deliberately orchestrate the situation so that no aid can appear under such conditions. In some circumstances, no relief is offered until the victim makes a sincere plea to Satan or until the victim is transformed by the torture into another identity (through dissociation), one who is a devoted follower of Satan.
The most commonly given explanation is that [criminal] rituals provide an intoxicating sense of power to those who are in the role of perpetrating the abuse.
The power that exists in Satanic (and Luciferian) cults is reportedly reflected in an organized hierarchy with incremental ranks.11 These positions may vary somewhat from one group to another, but one such hierarchy consists of: page, knight, priest (or priestess), prince (or princess), high priest (or high priestess), king (or queen), savior, and god (sometimes goddess, but goddess is not always the feminine equivalent of god and vice versa). As one increases in rank, one is taught more about the programming cues or triggers used in ceremonies with the other followers of the cult. Some of these triggers are relatively generic and thus can be used with a relatively large number of people. [One] example . . . is the repeated use of the word deep or deeper. When this word is used repeatedly, even unobtrusively, (e.g., in ordinary conversation) many survivors of Satanic and Luciferian cults will enter into a trance or show some other signs of change in mental state or other physical response such as an eyeblink or altered gaze. Those who increase in rank are not only taught a variety of triggering stimuli that they can use in controlling others (via such programming methods), but they are also reportedly deprogrammed so that their responses to these lower-level generic cues are less powerful. Thus, survivors who are higher ranking in the Satanic (and similar) cults are trained with more highly specific and idiosyncratic programming cues so that the majority of other members will not readily have control over them. Such control remains with the elite, who are higher in rank and skill.
Notes
1. See Guest (1987). 2. For example, by Anton LaVey. 3. A cowl is a more tight-fitting hood-like article of apparel. The one brought to me was made of fabric that was somewhat stretchable and when it was worn it looked something like a ski mask with one opening exposing the wearers two eyes. 4. See Golston (1992). 5. Dr. Harry Wright, a Philadelphia dentist, described witnessing what appeared to be the ritual sacrifice of a child in a jungle village in Brazil. Horrified he planned to leave the village the next day but found the girl in
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At Issue
question was unharmed. He implies that this was accomplished by slight of hand (1957).
6. Symonds, a biographer of Aleister Crowley, and one of the editors of Crowleys autobiography, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, notes Crowleys conception of himself as a god (Symonds, 1979, p. 21). 7. Notice that the patient often uses the plural term we in making reference to herself. This is one of the frequently observed features of multiple personality disorder. 8. In some cases, perhaps many cases, the gods described by ritual abuse survivors may reflect not so much Satanism as other varieties of occultism. 9. Although some claim that there is actually a psychic or spiritual power to be achieved in such cults I have never observed any evidence of that. Instead the power that can be obtained is (1) the license to inflict harm on others during such ritual activities and (2) the opportunity to learn programming skills to influence or control others by using programming cues (often outside the context of the ritual activities). 10. E.g., see McShane (1993), p. 207. 11. Certain very high-ranking positions are held exclusively by certain individuals. However, in the tradition of some Gnostics (see Pagels, 1981) a variety of individuals may have some rotating role of relative importance (e.g., priestess or high priestess).
References
Golston, J.C. (1992). Ritual Abuse: Raising Hell in Psychotherapy. Treaty Abuse Today, 2(6), 516. Gueste, J.S. (1987) The Yezidis: A Study in Survival. London: KPI. Jackson, B. (1993, September). The role of ritual abuse and the sexual exploitation of children. Presented at the National Conference on Crimes Against Children, Washington, DC. McShane, C. (1993). Satanic Sexual Abuse: A Paradigm. Affilia, 8, 200212. Pagels, E. (1981). The Gnostic Gospels. New York: Vintage Books. Smith, M. (1993). Ritual abuse: What it is, why it happens, how to help. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. Spence, L. (1993). An encyclopedia of occultism. New York: Carol Publishing. Symonds, J., and Grant, K. (Eds.). (1979) The Confessions of Alelster Crowley. London: Arkana.
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The real issue isnt whether or not childrens stories of ritual sex abuse are honest accounts or lies, but whether or not the stories are verifiable. We need only recall that the original charges of witchcraft in Salem were made by young girls who were carried away by group hysteria. (Satanic Panic, p. 111)1
he specter of the Salem witch hunts loom over American society like the grim reaper lifting his sickle of death. Accusations of witch hunts seem to appear in our media everydayespecially when someone is accused of child abuse, or occult crime. The mere mention of witch hunt conjures images of mass hysteria, which overshadows all facts, and slays all hope for an honest debate or investigation. Anyone who is accused of fueling this mass hysteria is stigmatized with the label of witch hunter, and this alone is deemed sufficient reason to dismiss all their evidence and arguments, no matter how compelling. What we have in America today is hysteria over hysteria.
Reprinted, with permission, from Hysteria over Hysteria: Specter of the Salem Witch Hunts, by Gordon A. Magill, Web article at http://members.aol.com/dovelion/ritual/hysteria.htm. Copyright 1998 by Gordon A. Magill.
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Jeffrey S. Victor in his book Satanic Panic says: Dangerous, criminal Satanists and Satanic cults are an invented internal enemy. This . . . belief . . . brings together some fundamentalist Protestants and conservative Catholics who have been long-lasting conflicting parties over many issues in American society. It joins them with some secular child advocates and feminists, with whom religious traditionalists are currently in conflict over a wide range of family issues. It joins many secular police officers, social workers, and psychotherapists together with some Christian fundamentalist evangelists, groups which normally would be a bit distrustful of each others credibility and authority. (Pages 200203)1
Jeffrey S. Victor tells us it is not Satanists and child abusers we need to fear. It is fundamentalists, feminists, police officers, social workers, and psychotherapists who are inventing devils, scapegoating, perpetrating a dangerous hoax, and projecting their own fearful fantasies on society. Never mind that the agreement between long-lasting conflicting parties is a strong argument that there is occult crime. Never mind that the source of agreement between these long lasting conflicting parties is that they help people. The reasoning goes something like this: There are no devils and there are no devil worshippers therefore what we are to fear are the people who report Satanic crimes. Sure there are insane people who think they are devil worshippers; sure there are a few social deviants who use Satanism as an excuse to fulfill their deviant desires; sure there are a few kids experimenting with Satanism (probably because they are rebelling against some fundamentalist who gave them the idea in the first place); but there are no devils; so there are no devil worshippers; and there is no such thing as ritual abuse. Therefore, it is not Satanists we need to fearwhat we need to fear is mass hysteria and those who spread it.
Hard to believe
I admit that the thought of Satan worshippers abusing and murdering children is hard to believe, because it is outside the range of normal human experience. The Holocaust was hard to believe, because it was outside the range of normal human experience. The news that the nice neighbor next door slaughtered and cannibalized young boys is hard to believe, because it is outside the range of normal human experience. But this idea that the insane, deviant, and immature worship Satan in a vacuum, and that a wide cross section of helping professionals are spreading false rumors and fueling mass hysteria is hard to believe, because it is so unreasonable. If there was not an extremely vocal minority with impressive titles and degrees aggressively promoting this idea of a mass hysteria, it would be summarily dismissed. The degrees and titles of those who warn us that Satanic ritual abuse is happening in America are per-
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haps even more impressive. But somehow, either because of the aggressiveness of the mass hysteria proponents, or the attentiveness of the news media, the mass hysteria hypothesis has been accepted by many. There may be another reason for this acceptance. It may be that the advocates for victims of ritual abuse acknowledge their bias and are committed to fair debate, while there are proponents of mass hysteria whose sole commitment is to accomplish their hidden agenda. The very meaning of the word occult is hidden. Ritual abuse occurs in secret and those who commit this abuse do so in secret. Some who do so hold responsible, respectable, positions in society, and make decisions and take action based on their hidden agenda without stating their real reasons. Like the pedophile who asserts that he did not abuse or harm a child, because he redefines sexual contact with a child as love, the Satanist redefines ritual child abuse and murder as mass hysteria. I am not saying every proponent of mass hysteria is a pedophile or Satanist, but I am saying that some are aggressively fanning the flames of hysteria because they have hidden agendas. The question now is, how are we to ensure that those who redefine and distort facts are exposed.
The thought of Satan worshippers abusing and murdering children is hard to believe, because it is outside the range of normal human experience. The Holocaust was hard to believe.
This should be a concern for honest proponents of mass hysteria as well as a concern for advocates of ritual abuse victims. We either have people with hidden right wing agendas on one side, or people with hidden subversive agendas on the other side. The only way to eliminate hidden agendas from the public debate is to verify the facts. That seems to be what Jeffrey S. Victor is calling for in the opening quote for this viewpoint. That seems to be what proponents of mass hysteria are calling for when they ask where the evidence is. Well, if that is what they are really calling for, then why dont they call for the government to take the necessary steps to verify the evidence. Remember, ritual abuse is occult in nature, and the nature of the occult, just like the nature of child abuse, is that it is hidden and secret. Sometimes it sounds like the only evidence acceptable to the proponents of mass hysteria is photographs and videos, or fairly fresh bodies. Proponents of mass hysteria say children cannot be believed because they are not reliable witnesses. Adults who tell of ritual abuse cannot be believed because they are mentally ill, or have recovered memories which cannot be trusted. The police cannot infiltrate occult groups because they might infringe on their religious liberties. Therefore, according to proponents of mass hysteria there can be no eyewitness testimony unless it is from a practicing Satanist who successfully breaks from the group; and since there is no such thing as a practicing Satanist anyone that makes such a claim is a liar. Never mind that there are ways to determine if a childs testimony is true; never mind that there are ways to determine if recovered memories are true. Never mind that the purpose of the judicial system is
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to determine the whole truth. Show us the hard evidence! demands the proponents of mass hysteria, but do they really care about the evidence?
Hidden evidence
Matamoras, New Mexico, is one case where there were bodies and evidence of occult rituals, but the proponents of mass hysteria say that like every other case where there is hard evidence, it is the exception that proves the rule. Photographs depicting child pornography and bestiality were found in the Franklin murder case, and while that seems to go to motive, they are deemed irrelevant by proponents of mass hysteria. Do the proponents really care about evidence or do they only care about their own hidden agenda? Do they care about protecting children or do they care about protecting pedophiles? Do they care about protecting children or do they care about protecting Satanists? If they care about the evidence then they should call for the kind of investigation necessary to determine if evidence of occult crime exists.
Ritual abuse is occult in nature, and the nature of the occult, just like the nature of child abuse, is that it is hidden and secret.
Children who were abused by occult groups cannot be expected to know who was murdered and what was done with the bodies. Adults who recover memories of ritual childhood abuse were victims, not perpetrators. They were not privy to the secrets of the group. In many cases victims of ritual abuse know they traveled long distances, but do not know where the crime occurred. This does not mean there was no abuse. This does not mean there were no murders. The issue is not, as Victor says, whether or not the stories are verifiable. The issue is, did ritual abuse occur? And the only way to verify this is to treat ritual abuse like organized crime. Occult crime is hidden and it must be uncovered. Occult crime is organized (the occult emphasis on individual autonomy may make one central authority unlikely but there are many organized groups) and a nationally organized investigation must be conducted. Occult crime poses unique problems as members of the group are required to participate in unlawful drug use and depraved sexual acts. Occult crime has a spiritual belief system which must be understood and confronted within the bounds of the Constitution. Any call for evidence which does not call for steps such as these is mere polemic. The reports that are coming in of occult crime throughout our country demand that these steps be taken. The country cannot remain in a state of charges and counter charges of: ritual crime and mass hysteria; recovered memories and false allegations; occult conspiracies and right wing conspiracies. We must determine who is being deprived of the justice that our Constitution promises to all. We need to learn from history. The few who warned that Hitler must be stopped were labeled warmongers and fear mongers. Their reports were unsettling but they were true, and the consequences of ignoring their re-
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ports permittted unimaginable death and destruction. The proponents of mass hysteria ignore history and label anyone who warns us of unimaginable and unsettling crimes a rumor monger or conspirator. The proponents of mass hysteria ignore the history of the Salem witch hunts and label those who report occult crimes as witch hunters, but there is no comparison between the Salem witch hunts and reports of ritual abuse. When the Salem witch hunts occurred there was no United States of America; there was no Constitution; the government was in a state of transition and the governor was absent; the church was also in a state of transition; but even then the church and government themselves ended the excesses that were occurring. Today we have a Constitution, an established government, and past experiences to guide us in how to prosecute occult crime without depriving people of religious liberty. Today we have sophisticated investigative techniques and effective psychological methods to determine truth from lies. So stop the polemic about Where is the evidence? Stop this spreading of hysteria over hysteria. Join with the helping professionals who are reporting ritual crimes, and urge the government to take the necessary steps to determine what evidence exists.
Reference
1. Jeffrey S. Victor, Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend. Chicago: Open Court, 1993.
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ue to the ever-increasing amount of mail that we have received from young people who are new to Satanism, we feel the time has come to put together some information to help answer your specific questions and concerns. If you have read our books, you know that Satanism isnt about taking drugs, and it isnt about harming animals or children. Unlike many religions and philosophies, Satanism respects and exalts life. Children and animals are the purest expressions of that life force, and as such are held sacred and precious in the eyes of the Satanist. Besides, it is very unSatanic to take any creatures life against its will. It is equally un-Satanic to cloud your brain and impair your judgment with mind-altering substances. A real magician has no need of those kinds of things, as he should be able to bring about changes in consciousness by the very power of his Will and imagination. If you have not yet read The Satanic Bible, you should do so. It has a lot more information on our attitude toward Satan, and will give you a clearer idea of our philosophy, ideals and goals. Perhaps at first they will be difficult for you to understand, because you may have been raised in an environment that dictates that God=Good and Satan=Evil. The truth is that good and evil are often terms that people twist to suit their own purposes. Sometimes people will lie and try to make you think certain things just so you will do what they want you to do. Always remember
Reprinted, with permission, from Church of Satan Youth Communiqu, at www.churchofsatan. com/Pages/Youthletter.html.
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that the final judgment is yours. That is both a great freedom and a great responsibility. For us, Satan is a symbol of the power of that choice. There is no one way that a Satanist is supposed to be. Uniqueness and creativity are encouraged here, not mindless conformity. It doesnt matter what kind of music you like to listen to; it doesnt make any difference whether you prefer gothic music, black metal music, classical music, old popular tunes, or show tunes. It doesnt matter what style of clothes you like to wear. What does matter is that you are a mature, sensitive, self-aware individualist who revels in the Darkness, and who wishes to align yourself with others who share your views. In this world of prefabricated, media-saturated, unoriginal drones, it is up to the Satanist to cherish, maintain, and preserve true individuality and creativity. Satan represents freedom from hypocrisy, from convenient lies, and challenges that which is presumed to be true. He is strong and defiant, and inspires us to our own strengths.
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way of life they agree with. It is a purely personal decisionwe dont solicit memberships. But actual membership usually conveys to others that you are serious about your beliefs, and that you know enough about it to have read Dr. LaVeys works and align yourself with his spearhead organization. It usually grants you a certain amount of respect as an authority. If you were going to speak as a member of the Church in a public forum, you should actually be one. If you were going to start a grotto affiliated with the Church of Satan, youd have to be a member (again, youd have to be over the age of eighteen). But as far as benefiting from Satanism in your life, or defending true Satanism, those are the rights and responsibilities of every Satanist, official or not. My parents and friends dont understand me, and dont approve of my interest in Satanism. How can I make them accept my beliefs, and where can I go to perform my rituals? Unfortunately, most young Satanists face this problem. Few of us are lucky enough to have sympathetic parents, or others around like ourselves. However, as long as you are living under your parents roof and they are feeding and taking care of you, you do owe them a degree of consideration. Offer to let them read your books, and talk about what misunderstandings they may have from T.V. talk shows and Christian propaganda. But you cant force anyone to understand what, for you, is an obvious and magical revelation. If Satanism offends others who have necessary control over your life right now, do your studies and rituals in private. If you dont have a place at home where you can be alone, find a special spot on the beach, in a field, or in the woods where you can ritualize when you need to. While you are understandably enthusiastic about your new-found religion, it is not very Satanic to make yourself miserable by creating a problem with your parents when you have to live in the same house together, or at school where your real goal may be to aggravate those in authority in the guise of expressing your individuality.
Satanism isnt about taking drugs, and it isnt about harming animals or children.
Practice Lesser Magic. Remember that a competent Satanic magician should be able to size up any situation and weigh his choices of action to bring about desired results. Enthusiasm is certainly encouraged and appreciated, however Satanism asks no one to be a martyr. And keep in mind that most people simply arent going to understand because, ultimately, they dont want to. That is as it should be. Satanism is not for everyone. Satan, by his very nature, walks alone. He is the true individualist, the outcast. This doesnt mean that you cannot care about those who are close to you; Satan also represents love, kindness and respect to those who deserve it. It just means that you should not concern yourself with people who do not approve of you. Revel in your uniqueness; be proud of who and what you are. Achieve all you can with the strength and determination of Satan himself coursing proudly through your veins. When Satanism leads to positive changes in your accomplishments and attitude, your parents and other adults around you will notice. The best
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way you can represent Satanism is by providing a living example of how the diabolical arts have made you a stronger, more focused person. The results will speak louder than any logical argument you can present. Is it better to study and ritualize alone, or to work with others? Unless you are able to find others who are as knowledgeable about Satanism as you are, it is better to work alone. If you do choose to ritualize with others, you must make certain that they are 100% clear on what Satanism is all about. If they are into it just out of curiosity or for thrills, theyll get their thrills all rightthe wrong kind! Many young Satanists find they have one close, magical friend who they feel they can work with, but usually one of you is actually magically stronger and more sincere, and chances are thats you, since youre the one who has gone through the trouble of actually contacting the Church of Satan. Its often best for you to work and study alone, guided by the material in our literature, rather than have your magic and concentration diluted by wouldbe friends. As the saying goes, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. What that means in this case is that if you perform rituals with others who are not as serious and dedicated as you are, they will hinder your magic, not strengthen it. Many adult Satanists work and study alone by choice. Finding a true magical partner can be stimulating and rewarding, but if you need such a person in your magical progression, youll conjure one up (see Herman Hesses Demian or Illusions by Richard Bach).
Satan also represents love, kindness and respect to those who deserve it.
Dont be disturbed or frightened or think youre crazy when you feel contacted by the Dark Ones you conjure forth, or by the magical results you begin to produce. Youre not crazy for feeling the way you do about the hypocrisy, blindness and incompetence you see all around you. Nor are you crazy to see the results of your Black Magic. Approach the Dark Masters with the proper degree of respect and decorumthats what rituals are for, to establish a relationship. If you approach the demons respectfully, they will reward you with knowledge, guidance, and success. Your demon guide is within youdont look for it outside. You just have to contact that part of yourself and listen to it. That is the most important work anyone can do. Do I need all the things mentioned in The Satanic Bible to do my rituals? You dont need everything mentioned in Dr. LaVeys books to do an effective ritual. Maybe you dont have the money to obtain, or the private space to store, items such as swords, chalices, black robes, gongs and elaborate altars. Here is a powerful ritual you can perform tonight, and all you need is a quiet place where you can be alone, a Baphomet either on your person or in front of you, and a single black candle: Light the candle and set it before you. Sit up straight, breathe deeply and relax. Clear your mind of all outside thoughts. As you gaze at the flame, say in your mind or out loud, I am ready, oh, Dark Lord. I feel your strength within me and wish to honor you in my life. I am one of the Dev-
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ils Own. Hail Satan! Open your mind. It will take time. You may think you are ready, but you may still find you cannot let go right away. Concentrate on your image of Satan and on the word strength and listen to what comes up from yourself. You have answers for yourself that no one else can give you. This is a simple way of conjuring Satan into your life. Hell snap you into line and tell you what you have to do to be happy, strong and focusedand hell give you the stamina and courage to push yourself to do it. The path youve chosen wont be easy; sometimes it may be a nightmare. But when you are ready to face the challenge, it will be there.
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Anti-Satanism Is Bigotry
Michael J. Mazza
Michael J. Mazza is a Ph. D. student and teaching fellow in the Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also a veteran of the U.S. Naval Reserve and currently serves as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. Satanism is a legitimate, but misunderstood, religion. Its members are law-abiding and serious about their religion. Nevertheless, Satanists have been subjected to mean-spiritedand fraudulent propaganda based on the actions of a few misguided youth. Most Satanists are free-thinking rebels who make valuable contributions to society by encouraging others to rethink old prejudices and preconceptions.
n todays diverse college campus, people do a lot of educating about various forms of bigotry. Racism, sexism, anti-Semitismthese and other irrational forms of prejudice are rightly opposed by people of conscience. At the risk of sounding politically correct, I would like to take the opportunity to expose and denounce one of the last acceptable forms of bigotry in our enlightened culture. Im talking about anti-Satanism.
A legitimate religion
It might surprise some people to find out that Satanism is just as legitimate a religion as any other in the world today. Modern Satanism was essentially founded by the late Anton Szandor LaVey, whose classic work The Satanic Bible has been in print since its first publication in 1969. Like any religious movement, LaVeys original Church of Satan www.church ofsatan.com has spawned a number of offshoots, including the Temple of Set www.xeper.org, the First Church of Satan www.firstchurchofsatan.org, and the Sinagogue of Satan www.zoo-gate.fi/~lvythn/sos/. Research and educational foundations such as the Australian Satanic Council www.satanic.org.au also help educate the general public about this misunderstood faith.
Reprinted, with permission, from Anti-Satanism: Just Another Form of Bigotry, by Michael J. Mazza, Web article at http://users.cybercity.dk/~ccc44406/smwane/mazza.html. Copyright 1999 by Michael J. Mazza.
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I have corresponded and spoken with Satanists all over the world, and found them to be a diverse and interesting group of individuals. Most of them are hard-working, law-abiding people who are as serious about their religion as are members of any mainstream church. They are opposed to animal sacrifices and other harmful activities. Nevertheless, Satanists have been subjected to inaccurate and meanspirited propaganda since the establishment of the modern religion three decades ago. Typical of this anti-Satanic nonsense is Tipper Gores 1987 book Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society. In this book Mrs. Gore calls Satanism a cancer upon society. Mrs. Gores book contributed to the so-called Satanic panic of the 1980s. During this time sensational TV shows aired alleged exposs of Satanic cult abuses However, most of the anti-Satanic accusations were totally fraudulent. Professor Jeffrey S. Victor, a sociologist in the State University of New York system, has devastatingly exposed the anti-Satanic sham in his meticulously documented 1993 book Satanic Panic. Despite Victors work, many today are trying to keep the Satanic panic alive.
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But more than that, Satanism challenges those of us who were raised in mainstream churches to rethink our old prejudices and preconceptions. As Anton LaVeys Satanic Bible declares, Satan represents undefiled wisdom, instead of hypocritical self-deceit! Surely thats something we should all strive for, regardless of our own theological orientation. Unfortunately, too many people are more interested in bashing other peoples religion than in truly seeking after wisdom.
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I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. W.H. Auden1
erhaps the most widely accepted claims about Satanism are claims about teenage involvement in Satanic cult activity. These claims are being disseminated across the country by various groups which are concerned about teenagers and their possible involvement in crime. Local police spread
Excerpted from Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend, by Jeffrey S. Victor. Copyright 1993 by Jeffrey S. Victor. Reprinted by permission of Open Court Publishing Company, a division of Carus Publishing.
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claims about teenage ritualistic crime in police conferences, in lectures to community groups, and in police magazines. Child protection social workers spread the claims in conferences about the problems of youth. Anti-cult organizations spread the claims at conferences about teenage involvement in religious cults. A host of religious evangelists spread the claims at church and community meetings about teenage Satanism. The particular claims vary, but there are many consistent assertions. Teenagers are generally said to be drawn gradually into an interest in occult ritual activity through a prior interest in heavy metal rock music, Dungeons and Dragons fantasy games, and books on occult magic. Some claims-makers also assert that secretive adult Satanists encourage these teenagers into deeper involvement in black magic ritualism and Satanic beliefs. It is commonly asserted that once teenagers become obsessed with Satanic magic and Devil worship, they are driven to commit increasingly serious anti-social acts, such as abusing drugs, vandalizing churches and cemeteries, and killing animals in ritual sacrifices. It is also commonly claimed that some of these teenage Satanists become so disturbed that they commit suicide and even murder. Some claims-makers assert that adult Satanists recruit new members into their secret criminal organizations from among teenagers in these Satanic cults. In her book, The Devils Web, Pat Pulling, for example, offers a brief synopsis of these claims about teenage Satanism. Law enforcement officials and mental health professionals now recognize the fact that adolescent occult involvement is progressive. The child who is obsessed with occult entertainment may not stop there, but he often moves on to satanic graffiti and cemetery vandalism. From that point, he easily moves into grave robbing for items needed for occult rituals, and he is just a step away from blood-letting. Bloodletting begins with animal killings and mutilations and progresses to murder if intervention does not take place.2 Some claims-makers have developed elaborate explanations of stages and types of teenage Satanism; all are constructed without any basis in systematic empirical research data. In a police magazine, Dr. Ronald Holmes, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Louisville, for example, offers a scheme for identifying the progressive involvement of teenagers in Satanism. While he admits in the article that there exists little reliable knowledge about the matter, he nevertheless fabricates an elaborate description of the stages of teenage Satanism. His underlying assumption is that teenagers learn Satanism much like someone learns a strange new religion. Stage 1. The youth in the occult is immediately drawn into the world of black magic and the worship of the devil because he is told that great worldly power and temporary glory will be his for the asking. . . . Stage 2. In this second stage, the initiate is now exposed to Satanic philosophies and becomes one with the demonic belief system. . . . This new member learns the prayers, spells, doctrines, dogmas of the faith, holidays, rituals, and the importance of being baptized in the blood of Satan. . . . Stage 3. Now that the youth has progressed into the world of the Sa-
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tanic, he is now accepted into the secret and religious ceremonies of the coven. He learns the various sabbats and the reasons for their celebrations. He participates in the sacrifice for Lucifer. . . . The Satanist at this level of participation and sophistication with the occult understands the proper animals for sacrifice. . . . One sacrifice that the new member into Satanism may become involved with is the human sacrifice. At this stage the member becomes acutely aware that humans are indeed sacrificed for the devil, and the form of sacrifice will take two forms: blood or fire. . . . Stage 4. In the final stage of total involvement in Satanism, the young person becomes firmly committed to the occult lifestyle. . . . In the sabbats, the initiate is intimately involved in sexual orgies which are often an integral part of the worship ceremonies. Obviously, for the seriously disenfranchised members of the youth subculture, this can be a powerful drawing force into full membership.3 Teenage Satanism is linked to the secret Satanic cult conspiracy theory by claims that adults from secret Satanic groups operate as the guiding hand behind this indoctrination into Satanism. In this way, claims about teenage Satanism are incorporated into the broader Satanic cult legend, and given apparent credibility with other atrocity claims about ritual child abuse, missing children, ritual child sacrifice, and serial murder. The president of the Cult Awareness Council of Houston, Texas, for example, was quoted in a professional journal about family related violence, as making these claims at a seminar concerned with ritual child abuse and teenage Satanism.4 According to the report about the seminar, she claimed that: Adult Satanists . . . provide an abandoned house for recruits where they engage in drugs, and sex, and listen to allegedly satanic, heavy metal music. . . . Initially, this is fun for the adolescents. Then, over time, and often while under the influence of some drugs, the recruits are encouraged to engage in various sexual behaviors. While the adolescents are engaging in sexual behaviors, and often unbeknownst to them, tapes of their activities are made. These tapes can be marketed as pornography, or they can be used to threaten or blackmail the adolescents into staying with the cult.5 When the average parent reads such assertions in local newspaper reports about teenage cemetery vandalism or animal mutilation, especially when the claims are made by so-called experts in teenage Satanism, they can easily be moved to fear that there is some grain of truth in the claims. Then, when they see strange symbolic graffiti on walls in their town, and teenagers in strange clothing displaying some of the same symbols, they can easily conclude that there is an epidemic of teenagers becoming involved in another new bizarre form of anti-social aggression, perhaps under the influence of adult, organized criminals.
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search about teenage behavior, we can see that what gets labelled Satanic activity by the claims-makers is a diverse collection of activities, including adolescent legend trips, teenage fad behavior, malicious teenage delinquency, and pseudo-Satanism among groups of psychologically disturbed adolescents. When these diverse activities are lumped together and viewed through the distorting lens of belief in the Satanic cult legend, they are misinterpreted as evidence of teenage Satanism. Teenagers engaged in these activities do not constitute a cult or a religion, any more than a motorcycle gang constitutes a cult or the hippie counterculture a religion.
The graffiti, cemetery vandalism, and altar sites usually mistaken for evidence of teenage Satanism are most often simply remnants of adolescent legend trips.
An adolescent legend trip involves the testing of a local legend about a scary supernatural site or paranormal incident.8 The local legend may focus upon a supposedly haunted house or cemetery, or a site supposedly frequented by a witch. Often, parts of a local legend are used like a script for a re-enacted performance of the legend; for example, the legend might be about a ghost called up from the dead, or a witchs ritual in the woods. Legend trips are in some ways similar to the ghost stories told and acted out around campfires during evenings at summer camp. A legend trip is a form of recreational entertainment. Even when magic spells are chanted or rituals performed, as they often are, the behavior is not an expression of any genuine belief in supernatural or paranormal powers. It is not in any way a religious practice. Instead, a legend trip, in order to be enjoyed, requires merely the temporary suspension of disbelief. This is much like what happens when people watch a supernatural horror movie in order to be frightened and amused. Too much skep-
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ticism and critical thinking makes the experience seem a bit ridiculous. There are a great variety of these local supernatural legends. Bill Ellis offers a summary of some themes. Babies are especially popular victims of the accidents or murders that provide the background for legend-trips. They are often associated with a Cry Baby Bridge, where their mothers murdered them or where they were flung out the window of a crashing car into the path of an oncoming locomotive. Decapitated ghosts, usually looking for their lost heads, also show up frequently. The headless horseman still rides near Cincinnati, but near Sandusky, Ohio, he has become a headless motorcycle man, his head cut off by piano wire stretched across the road, and near Cleveland the ghost is a headless little old lady in a Yellow Volkswagen. Headless women are twice as popular as headless men, and usually prowl bridges where they died in crashes or were murdered.9 A legend trip is a clandestine group activity, in which the presence of any adult is definitely not desired. One reason is that a legend trip functions as a kind of ritual for adolescents to prove their courage, much like some Indian adolescents used to prove their bravery by stealing horses from another Indian tribe.10 Another reason is that a legend trip usually involves deliberately transgressing the rules of adult society and even breaking laws, in order to enhance the exciting risk of danger.11 Adolescent legend trips are usually designed to shock and offend adult sensibilities. They are a way of playing chicken, so that adolescents can test their anxieties about challenging adult authority. In a sense, adults are the other tribe for teenagers on a legend trip.
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trips, according to the research, tends to be between twelve and eighteen, with participants more likely to be in their later teens.14 There are no records of Afro-American youth participating in legend trips, so the activity may be a cultural inheritance of people from Europe. The percentage of teenagers who experience a legend trip at least once is unknown, because there is no national survey of this activity. However, several localized studies indicate that between 14 percent and 28 percent of teenagers have participated in a legend trip.15 These activities have been going on for generations, long before the current Satanic cult scare. The remnants of adolescent legend trips are commonly mistaken by police experts on ritualistic crime, local clergymen, and newspaper reporters, for indicators of teenage Satanism or Satanic cult activity. What is seen as an altar for a Satanic sacrifice, may really have been a makeshift altar or a campfire site for a legend trip. Satanic graffiti spraypainted on the walls inside an abandoned old house, or on trees in a secluded wooded area, may really be the ersatz magical inscriptions necessary for an exciting legend trip. Similarly, more serious remnants of juvenile delinquency, such as mutilated animals and vandalized cemeteries, are commonly products of legend trips.16
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other words, so-called occult-related crime is primarily a matter of petty juvenile crime. Most importantly, the study concluded that the occult practices and paraphernalia in these kinds of crimes are a red herring across the trail, distracting the investigator from real issues or motives in the case.18 Many occult-related juvenile crimes are products of adolescent legend trips. However, additional circumstances also account for occultrelated juvenile delinquency. We can get a better understanding of what is happening, if we carefully examine the reliable research about pseudoSatanist juvenile delinquents in the broader context of what we know about teenage crime in general. In behavioral science, attempts to understand aggressive criminal behavior have led to the identification of two basic kinds of factors which contribute to such behavior: 1) personality dispositions toward deviant (meaning rule-breaking) aggressive behavior; and 2) group influences upon the person from participation in deviant subcultures which promote criminal behavior. The beliefs and values which a person uses to justify (to excuse) their aggressive and criminal behavior is usually learned and strengthened in a deviant group subculture. Criminologists refer to these beliefs and values as a deviant ideology. A deviant ideology functions to neutralize possible feelings of guilt. No particular beliefs are intrinsically deviant. Satanic beliefs can be used as a deviant ideology to justify aggression. So can beliefs about masculine (Macho) pride. Even beliefs about God, Christ, or the Bible can be used as a deviant ideology by some people to justify their aggressive acts. When people justify murder in terms of their personal Christian beliefs, we dont attribute the cause to the Christian religion. Instead, we seek the causes of their aggression in their particular personality dispositions and group influences. We must do the same when we learn about some vicious act of aggression committed by a teenager, who justifies what he or she has done by referring to some self-taught Satanist beliefs. It is misleading to focus too much attention on the excuse of Satanist beliefs, no matter how repulsive we may find them. The ritual acts and group beliefs of these delinquents does not constitute a religion anymore than do the ritual acts and group beliefs of teenage gang members, or than those of the Ku Klux Klan. Almost all teenagers who even profess to be Satanists lack any elaborate belief system focussed upon Devil worship. Instead, they have fabricated a deviant ideology in order to: justify their underlying personality dispositions to express aggressive hostility; or justify rebellion from adult social restrictions; or obtain public notoriety. This is what I mean when I refer to teenagers as pseudo-Satanist delinquents rather than as teenage Satanists.
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not involved in such activity. All of the teenagers were incarcerated at the Texas Youth Commission Reception Center, in Brownwood, Texas. All of them were interviewed using a sixty-one-page questionnaire about their drug use, delinquent behavior, school activities, family and peer relationships, and personality, as well as their involvement in Satanism. Damphousse identified the teenagers who were involved in Satanism, by means of their own admission that they had taken part, at least once, in some kind of formal ceremony to worship Satan or the devil.20 The information was then carefully analyzed, using statistical techniques to compare the two samples of juvenile delinquents.
Almost all teenagers who even profess to be Satanists lack any elaborate belief system focussed upon Devil worship.
The pseudo-Satanist juvenile delinquents differed from the other juvenile delinquents in several ways. 1) They were more likely to be white, rather than Afro-American. 2) They were more likely to be from middle class backgrounds, rather than working class or poor backgrounds. 3) They were more likely to have high intelligence scores on an I.Q. test, rather than average scores. 4) They were more likely to heavily use hallucinogenic drugs, rather than other kinds of drugs, such as cocaine or heroin, or no drugs. 5) They were more likely to feel that they had little power or control over their lives, rather than see themselves as having some degree of control over lives. 6) Finally, they were just as likely to be females as males, rather than mostly males. In other ways, the two sets of juvenile delinquents were similar. The research also found that the delinquents who participated in Satanic ceremonies, did so as part of a group activity, indicating that they were not social loners as is popularly believed. In other words, white, middle class, highly intelligent teenagers, who have a high need for control in their lives, are those who are most likely to justify their criminal activity in terms of a Satanist deviant ideology. It is important to keep in mind that these findings apply only to imprisoned pseudo-Satanist delinquents. So, we cant be sure how widely they can be applied to pseudo-Satanist delinquents who have not been arrested and imprisoned. Damphousse also sought to determine whether this pseudo-Satanist juvenile delinquency develops through some special circumstances. He could not find any truly unique circumstances. In terms of family relationships, peer group attachment, alienation from school, and personal problems, the pseudo-Satanist delinquents had backgrounds similar to those of other delinquents. Therefore, Damphousse concluded that teenagers become involved in pseudo-Satanist delinquency through essentially the same circumstances as other juvenile delinquents.21
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praisal of the underlying psychological causes of such criminal behavior. Explaining such behavior as being a product of religious cult brainwashing and the influence of evil religious beliefs is dramatic, but entirely misleading. The behavior of teenagers engaged in pseudo-Satanism needs to be understood in the context of what we know about juvenile delinquency. There is no single, comprehensive explanation of juvenile delinquency, nor can there ever be one. The criminal behavior in this catch-all category includes everything from truancy to murder. Therefore, we need to focus upon understanding specific forms of criminal behavior. Almost all of the crimes attributed to teenage pseudo-Satanists involve vandalism of cemeteries, churches and abandoned old houses, and the mutilation and killing of animals. Therefore, we need to ask about what satisfactions are obtained by young people through these kinds of behaviors. Simply calling the behavior irrational is meaningless circular logic and gets nowhere toward any understanding.
Explaining [criminal] behavior as being a product of religious cult brainwashing and the inf luence of evil religious beliefs is dramatic, but entirely misleading.
Some psychological insight into teenage pseudo-Satanist delinquency can be gleaned from a study of a small number of emotionally disturbed teens who were patients in a psychiatric clinic affiliated with a university in Canada.22 The study collected information from therapy sessions given to eight adolescents, ages thirteen to sixteen, who were in treatment for a variety of anxiety-related disorders and aggressive behaviors. It is not surprising, considering that they were admitted for psychotherapy, that most of them came from disrupted, dysfunctional families, or that most were involved in aggressive crimes against property. Six of the eight were heavy users of hallucinogenic drugs before they developed any interest in Satanism, and none of them were involved in any kind of Satanic religious organization. The Satanism of these youths consisted of making Satanic drawings and listening to heavy metal rock music (all eight), to participation in makeshift Black Masses (seven), to the sacrifice of small animals (two). Another series of case studies offers several sensitive portraits of emotionally disturbed teenagers who used magic ritualism to deal with their psychological problems. One case is that of a sixteen-year-old, who was undergoing psychotherapy for recurrent depression, severe identity problems (borderline personality disorder), and the abuse of hallucinogenic drugs.23 The youth first became involved with Satanic ritualism, at the age of eleven, after attending a Satanic mass with some friends. The most common ritual that he engaged in was one of his own creation, which he called making proposals. In this ritual, he concentrated his thoughts on making a request to the Devil to harm someone through his use of mental telepathy. The teenager developed elaborate beliefs around this supposedly magical ritual, involving calling up spirits and demons. The therapist suggested that the boy relied upon this magical thinking and ritualism in order to obtain feelings of power and control in his life.
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When the claims-makers focus our attention upon so-called Satanic beliefs, symbols, and rituals, they deflect our attention away from the real underlying problems of teenagers involved in pseudo-Satanism. It is much more useful to find out why so many emotionally disturbed and delinquent teenagers suffer from severe feelings of powerlessness and feelings of hostility. That should be the focus of our concern.
The practice of Satanic black magic rituals doesnt cause teenagers to engage in vandalism and animal mutilation.
Secondly, the behavior is an attack on the moral order of society and, thus, provides an outlet for feelings of hostility toward conventional society. Vandalism can be especially exciting if the objects of desecration are commonly defined as being sacred, as is the case with graves and churches. In such cases, the forbiddenness of the act of vandalism is heightened. Vandalism is the projection onto a public screen, of a negative, deliberately offensive identity, demanding attention. Finally, vandalism functions as an act which enhances group bonding, as adolescents share in a kind of secret, conspiratorial team effort. The practice of Satanic black magic rituals doesnt cause teenagers to engage in vandalism and animal mutilation. Instead, such activity is drawn from the same package of subjective meanings. Makeshift black magic rituals offer the excitement of getting away with socially tabooed, deviant behavior, assaulting the moral order of conventional society, and bonding adolescents together in a secret, forbidden activity. The
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black magic rituals provide teenagers, who suffer from severe feelings of powerlessness, with an ersatz sense of empowerment. Their feelings of empowerment are heightened when teenagers take the magic rituals seriously, as if the rituals actually provide them with some kind of power to shape their social environment. If disapproving adults also take the magic rituals seriously, in either fear or anger, rather than ridicule them, those adults inadvertently reinforce the teenagers attraction to black magic.
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no illusions here; many bad kids are downright nasty, malicious, and even sadistic.) Ultimately, choosing the self image of being a bad kid is preferable to having an ambiguous, ill-defined identity.
An evil self-concept
In a few children, the self-concept of being a bad kid can go to an extreme, such as when children regard themselves as being evil people. This is most likely to happen when children have authoritarian, punitive parents, who use religious threats to humiliate and control them.28 Michael Beck, a psychotherapist, has written about his own inner experience of having an evil self-concept as a child. I lived in constant dread of committing a mortal sin and dying without being forgiven. . . . Imagine yourself as being in some precarious position . . . and not knowing quite how you got there. Unrelieved dread leaves its indelible impression, and since anxiety generalizes, one grows apprehensive that things not evil are indeed evil merely because one becomes anxious about them. This is a particularly taxing issue during adolescence, when one is constantly preoccupied with sex. It is a mortal sin to think about sex. The prescription for handling sexual impulses is suppression. Since, whatever is suppressed intensifies and seeks expression, one is forced to handle a sticky wicketso to speak.29 Beck goes on to explain how some people who develop an evil selfimage can lead themselves to believe that their behavior is being controlled by the Devil. With even more damaged patients who think they are evil, the issue of their ability to deal with anger becomes a priority. They often turn anger against themselves. The extreme is the patient who becomes totally or partially identified with evil and feels that she or he is either Jesus Christ or the devil, or possibly believes the devil is controlling him or her.30 These observations by Beck that some people have a self-concept of being evil provide insight into why some teenage delinquents may be drawn to Satanic beliefs, in order to justify their aggressive behavior. Adolescents who see themselves as being evil, create a psychological environment consistent with their self-concept. They see the world as they see themselves, a place where malicious evil is more genuine than compassion. A therapists description of a seventeen-year-old girl involved in pseudo-Satanism illustrates the point. Christina was also using satanism to rebel against her parents religion. She did not keep her satanism a secret from her family. When her mother asked her directly about her satanic beliefs, Christina told her mother that there was nothing good in the world and that was why she liked satanism.31
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It is quite likely that a great many pseudo-Satanist teenagers are rebelling from an overly restrictive, traditional religious family background which emphasizes that the world is an evil place. The possibility needs to be investigated.
It is quite likely that a great many pseudo-Satanist teenagers are rebelling from an overly restrictive, traditional religious family background.
Much is also made about the supposed influence of Anton LaVeys Church of Satan in drawing teenagers into Satanism, primarily through their reading of his book, The Satanic Bible.33 Some of the claims-makers also assert that a secret conspiracy of adult Satanists are recruiting young people into Satanism, operating as secret cults across the country. Again, this assertion appears to be drawn from a religious model of thinking. The analogy applied here is one in which adult proselytizers recruit youth in psychological crisis to their religion. However, there is simply no evidence for this kind of speculation. The claims-makers are weaving a tapestry out of their own imaginations and fears.
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The social process is similar to that which led to the rapid increase in the hippie subculture during the mid-1960s. The small number of strange countercultural youth in Haight-Ashbury were given sensationalized attention in the mass media. It was a dramatic story. Then, as the mass media reports were imitated by young people in other cities, the numbers of wouldbe hippies grew rapidly. Once they were widely condemned in public presentations, they were imitated by even more rebellious youth. (Remember the billboards urging teenagers to get a haircut?) This does not imply that the mass media created teenage pseudoSatanism. It didnt. Certainly, much of the newspaper sensationalism contributed to its spread. Paradoxically, most of the attention was drawn to it by local police, social workers, and clergymen, in their public lectures condemning teenage Satanism. What this self-fulfilling prophecy means is that a society often gets the kinds of deviants it fears and condemns most.
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rootless. I suspect that one of the circumstances which draws together bands of adolescents into pseudo-Satanic ritualism in search of power over their fate is their alienation from stable family and friendship groups. Rootlessness is commonplace among lower class adolescents who live in urban poverty. However, similar conditions are also being experienced by more and more middle class adolescents.
With all of the publicity condemning certain symbols as being Satanic, it was inevitable that many teenagers would adopt those same symbols as a way of shocking adult authorities.
The criminologist Gwynn Nettler suggests that advanced, industrial societies are producing more and more unwanted youth from fragmented families, youth who are disconnected from stabilizing adult influences.34 Many of these youth account for the seemingly senseless crimes of aggression which plague modern community life. Connectedness to caring intimates is one of the prerequisites for adequate self-esteem, for having a self-image as an appreciated, unique, and good person.35 I believe that those middle class teenagers who are most likely to be drawn into pseudo-Satanism are those who are disconnected from loving and caring parents and/or are ostracized from conventional middle class peers at school. They are likely to experience themselves as inhabiting a hostile, uncaring world, in which peoples maliciousness is more real than their love. For them, evil is more real than goodness.
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It would be useful for community agencies to develop youth programs aimed at enhancing the self-esteem of socially ostracized and alienated, middle class adolescents. The state of California is already developing such a program.37 However, it is extremely difficult for social agencies to provide intimacy and genuine caring when these comforts are lacking from parents and peer groups. Some teenagers who aspire to be Satanists are responding with rage to their own self-hatred. It is a self-hatred born out of lives empty of the love which heals. Perhaps the most malignant evil of our time is the harm caused by neglect and indifference, in societies offering abundant material satisfactions at the cost of poverty in human relatedness.
Notes
1. W.H. Auden, September 1, 1939, W.H. Auden, Selected Poems, ed. Edward Mendelson, (New York: Random House, 1976). 2. Pat Pulling, The Devils Web (Lafayette, LA: Huntington House, 1989), pp. 4142. 3. Ronald M. Holmes, Youth in the Occult: A Model of Satanic Involvement, The Journal (Official Publication of the National Fraternal Order of Police, vol. 18, no. 3 [Summer 1989]: 2023; reprinted in CJA File, pp. 1320, quote from p. 1617). 4. Paula K. Lundberg-Love, Update on Cults Part I: Satanic Cults, Family Violence Bulletin (Summer 1989): 910, published by University of Texas at Tyler. 5. Lundberg-Love, 1989, p. 9. 6. Bill Ellis, Adolescent Legend-Tripping, Psychology Today, August 1983, 6869; Bill Ellis, Legend-Trips and Satanism: Adolescents Ostensive Traditions as Cult Activity, The Satanism Scare, ed. J. Richardson, J. Best, and D. Bromley (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991), pp. 27996. 7. Jan Harold Brunvand, The Study of American Folklore: An Introduction, 3rd edition (New York: W. W. Norton, 1986). 8. Ellis, 1983; Ellis, 1991. 9. Ellis, 1983, p. 68. 10. Ellis, 1991. 11. Ellis, 1983. 12. Ellis, 1991. 13. Ellis, 1983. 14. Ellis, 1991. 15. Ibid.
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16. Ibid. 17. Michigan Department of State Police, Michigan State Police Occult Survey, (Investigative Service Bureau, Michigan Department of State Police, June, 1990). 18. Ibid., p. 9. 19. Kelly Richard Damphousse, Did the Devil Make Them Do It? An Examination of the Etiology of Satanism among Juvenile Delinquents. (Unpublished Masters Thesis, Department of Sociology, Texas A & M University, May 1991.) 20. Damphousse, 1991, p. 30. 21. Damphousse, 1991. 22. Dominique Bourget, Andre Gagnon, and John Bradford, M.W., Satanism in a Psychiatric Adolescent Population, Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 33, no. 3 (April 1988): 197202. 23. Amy M. Speltz, Treating Adolescent Satanism in Art Therapy, The Arts In Psychotherapy 17 (Summer 1990): 14755. 24. Jack Katz, The Seductions of Crime, (New York: Basic Books, 1988). 25. William J. Chambliss, The Saints and the Roughnecks, Society 11, no. 1 (Nov./Dec. 1973); reprinted in Deviance: The Interactionist Perspective, 4th ed., ed. Earl Rubington and Martin S. Weinberg (New York: Macmillan, 1981), pp. 23647, (p. 246). 26. Thomas J. Scheff, Suzanne M. Retzinger, and Michael T. Ryan, Crime, Violence and Self-Esteem: Review and Proposals, The Social Importance of Self-Esteem, ed. Andrew M. Mecca, Neil Smelser, and John Vasconcellos, (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1989), pp. 16599. 27. Morris Rosenberg, Carmi Schooler, and Carrie Schoenbach, Self-Esteem and Adolescent Problems: Modeling Reciprocal Effects, American Sociological Review 54, no. 6 (1989): 10041018. 28. C. Daniel Batson and W. Larry Ventis, The Religious Experience: A SocialPsychological Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982). (See chapter 7, Mental Health or Sickness?) 29. Michael Beck, Acquisition and Loss of an Evil Self-Image, Evil: Self and Culture, ed. Marie C. Nelson and Michael Eigen (New York: Human Sciences Press, 1984), pp. 17080, (p. 172). 30. Beck, 1984, p. 177. 31. Speltz, 1990, p. 150. 32. Robert D. Hicks, In Pursuit of Satan: The Police and the Occult (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Press, 1991). 33. Anton S. LaVey, The Satanic Bible (New York: Avon, 1969). 34. Gwynn Nettler, Killing One Another (Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson, 1982). 35. Aminah Clark, Harris Clemes, and Reynold Bean, How to Raise Teenagers Self-Esteem (Los Angeles: Price, Stern and Sloan, 1978). 36. Jeff Brookings and Alan McEvoy, Satanism and Schools, School Intervention Report 3, no. 5 (AprilMay 1990), Learning Publications Inc.: Holmes Beach, Florida, pp. 910. 37. California State Department of Education, Toward A State of Esteem, The Final Report of the California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility, January, 1990; Andrew M. Mecca, Neil J. Smelser, and John Vasconcellos, eds., The Social Importance of Self-Esteem (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1989).
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here are NO satanic ritual child abuse cults. A pretty bold statement? How about this one: It is not possible to experience horrible abuse over the course of several years, such abuse including being forced to participate in rape, murder and cannibalism, completely forget about it and then, with the help of a therapist, support group or instruction book, suddenly remember it in shocking detail. Those who claim this scenario is possible ignore both scientific research and the fact that those recovered memories, while full of lurid sexual and other abuse, commonly neglect to include details that could prove that the events took place. Current research on the brain, and memory, simply does not support the idea that a person could forget years of hideous experiences and remember them later. Some of these recovered memories have contained information that is possible to disprove, for example remembered abuse set in the attic of a house that does not have an attic. Many of the proponents of recovered memories refuse to address either side of this issue, instead accusing doubters of further abusing the survivors by not believing them. As far as satanic ritual abuse by Devil-worshipping cults goes, a study funded by National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN),
Reprinted, with permission, from Hysteria for a New Millennium: Satanic Child Abuse and Recovered Memories, by Sharma Oliver, Web article at http://members.aa.net/~sharma. Copyright 2001 by Sharma Oliver.
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completed in the fall of 1994, asked 6,900 psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers, and 4,655 district attorneys, child protective services and police organizations, how many cases of the satanic ritual abuse they had ever found. While they reported over 12,000 accusations, not one actual, proven instance that even slightly approached the stories reported by survivors turned up. There have been a few cases of individual criminals who claimed their crimes were satanically inspired as part of an argument that they were not responsible for their crimes, a few instances of gangs of drug dealers led by individuals who used what they claimed were satanic rituals to control the gang and supposedly protect it, one case of a married couple who practiced what might be considered magickal/sexual rites involving themselves and their underage son and quite a few incidents of vandalism and minor crimes committed by small groups of teenagers who were doing the usual teenage rebellious stuff. In each case the media whipped the public into a frenzy with stories of satanic activity. When the stories later fell apart, little attention was paid by those in search of an audience. The study found NO evidence of any sort of the organized ritual abuse networks, intergenerational groups or international groups reported by survivors. A similar study in Great Britain of 84 cases of child sexual abuse spanning three years that involved accusations of satanic abuse also found zero evidence of the existence of any sort of satanic activity. Kenneth Lanning, FBI agent in Quantico, Virginia has become the top ritualistic abuse investigator in the country. He has repeatedly stated that there are NO satanic ritual child abuse cults in existence in this country, let alone multigenerational and multinational ones. The existence of satanic child abuse cults, like the alligators in the sewers, Kentucky fried rats, Snuff Porn, and Poisoned Halloween Candy, is an urban myth. These stories are widely believed to be true but are not. Such stories may serve to externalize societal fears and give people something to guard against. Better a known danger, even if false, than just living with the relentless stress of change which leaves one feeling helpless to act. To date, there is absolutely no evidence for satanic ritual child abuse cults. However, it is impossible to prove that something that did not happen, did not happen. Many books, articles and studies have been published discussing this hysteria, and many websites exist which deal with both false accusations of child abuse and the aftermath for those accused and the children coerced into making these accusations. Further sources of information are listed at the end of this article.
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While most mainstream professional therapy organizations are now more cautious about recovered memories, many still refuse to criticize their members who practice it or take meaningful steps to prevent client abuse via this methology. Over the last twenty years this hysteria has swept through law enforcement, nursing, social work, therapy, and the various body therapies. Too many members of these professions are still believers. The therapeutic professions and the professionals who work in child abuse prevention have been a growth industy for the last few decades; it is in their financial interest to foster the idea that there is an epidemic of child abuse, both satanic and sexual, taking place today. Repressed and recovered memories simply do not exist in the form suggested by the widely published first person stories about it. While it is possible to forget individual childhood or adult events, even very traumatic ones, it is not possible to forget years of rape, beatings, cannablism, and murder. There are also many instances of individuals in the past not labeling experiences that happened to them, or things that they did, as abuse that now would be considered such. When history and traditional power structures are reassessed, those experiences are sometimes seen in a different light. Slavery was not seen as wrong for much of human history and was supported by governments and religions. Beliefs change, for example much of what is now considered date rape was simply how sex often happened in my teen years (the 1950s) and some of what was then considered ordinary discipline would now be considered child abuse.
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been verified by physical evidence, and some of which have been proven factually wrong. Commonly those memories appear after the survivor has been hypnotized, participated in a survivors support group or read a survivors self-help book such as The Courage to Heal or The Right To Innocence. The previous, by Beverly Engel, advises in the introduction, If you have ever had reason to suspect you may have been abused, even if you have no explicit memory of it, the chances are very high that you were. Really? Is there any other aspect of life to which this standard of reasoning applies? It is a good idea to read books and articles from several points of view before deciding what you believe. And that includes this article.
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It is interesting to note that the satanic abuse accusations happen almost exclusively within Caucasian groups.
In all of the big daycare child sexual abuse cases it was said that the children were being used to produce child pornography. In zero of these cases was any such material introduced into evidence. While this certainly does not prove that none exists, it is interesting to note how quickly that charge is made and how it adds to the hysteria. Why do the accusers do it? Some just want to make a name for them-
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selves as being tough on crime; others are therapists or bureaucrats whose job it is to find evidence of child abuse and who get paid or funded in relation to how many victims they find. The vast majority of these people appear to really believe in what they are doing. They are usually acting from laudable impulses, trying to protect children, but they have gone overboard. Parents fear for their childrens safety and are frightened by these terrible stories, often not knowing what to believe. The results are often lucrative for those specializing in this field. While these people undoubtedly believe theyre helping children, are they? In 1974, in response to real needs, Walter Mondale proposed and saw passed into law the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, CAPTA. This legislation, which has been amended and made more draconian over the years, provided millions of dollars to state governments to set up child protection units, usually under the social services bureaucracy in each state. These millions came with a set of rules which have done at least as much harm as good. In order to get the money, states had to pass legislation which stated that no person making an accusation of child abuse in good faith could be held responsible for anything which happened to the accused or the child as a result. This was meant to protect those who would be afraid to make reports unless they had both anonymity and immunity from lawsuits. In practice this meant that the police, prosecutors, social workers, neighbors, angry spouses during divorce proceedings, anyone . . . could make an accusation which would be thoroughly investigated no matter how improbable the charges. Plus the criteria for child abuse, particularly sexual abuse, has expanded to include normal parental touching if the state investigator decides it was improper. Why do people believe these claims? All one has to do to see that these wild accusations cannot be true is to really examine what is being said. Go find and read the transcripts from the big daycare child abuse cases. Many of them are available on the internet or in books. In the McMartin case, the first to get wide publicity, children were hounded until they agreed that all manner of abuse had taken place. This including that a horse was killed with a baseball bat to frighten them. Stop and think. The average horse weighs between 800 and 1200 pounds. Not only would it be difficult to kill with a baseball bat, unless it was hit perfectly the first time it would probably thrash around, wreck the room, possible hurt some children. And what exactly could be done with the body? Children in these cases have reported that they were taken up in spaceships, that they were raped with butcher knives, that snakes were put into their mouths, but for some reason they never mentioned any of this to their parents at the time because they were too scared. Of course no evidence of any of this other than the extremely doubtful testimony of children was ever introduced. There was never any medical evidence introduced showing the damage some of these actions would have caused, if they had actually happened. Children less than six years old were questioned repeatedly until they began making up stories to satisfy their interrogators. But the accusers learned something important at McMartin. The children were videotaped in that case during their interrogations and those
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tapes showed to what lengths the questioners went to get the children to agree they had been abused. In fact, the accusers would not accept any answer other than the one they wanted. Jurors reported that seeing those tapes caused them to doubt the accusations. After that accusers avoided taping interviews saying that it was abusive to the children to be taped. A few horrible and highly publicized cases of child abuse and murder further inflamed the public, and encouraged the government to pass yet more intrusive laws in the name of protecting children. The facts as charged cannot stand examination, neither do the numbers hold up. In the case of satanic abuse, claims are made that between 50,000 and two million children are being sacrificed in satanic rites each year. If that were true, most of us would have lost a blood relative or at least know a family who has lost a child. It is estimated that actually 300,000 children are reported missing each year. (Their pictures are on milk cartons.) So what happens to these children? Around 200,000 are taken by non-custodial parents in divorce fights, 100,000 run away or are thrown out by their parents and approximately 200 per year are kidnapped by strangers. While even one child being kidnapped and murdered is one too many, it does not require the existence of a vast, secret, international conspiracy of satanic cults to explain how these children disappear. A report disseminated by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) Child Maltreatment 1995, Reports From the States to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, depicted more than three million reports of alleged child abuse and neglect that year. However, two million of those complaints were determined to be without foundation or false upon investigation. The ordeal these families were put through is dismissed as irrelevant by those who continue to imagine child abuse under every rock, and in every home.
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of the public morals will ever see it. Given the content and ratings of all these media, its clear we want sexual information. But we wont tolerate what we consider to be child pornography: It is outside the protection of the First Amendment. However, if a story involving children and sex is presented as factual or as part of mainstream entertainment, particularly if it is violent, it is permissible and can be read or viewed even by people who would never allow themselves to look at ordinary sexually explicit media, let alone that featuring children. A mainstream movie such as The Prince of Tides, starring Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand, can contain the brutal anal rape of a nineyear-old boy as its key scene without it being even mentioned in the reviews. After all, they killed the guys who did it and it was presented as awful, so it could not possibly be illegal, could it? As a nation, we are obsessed with sex. Unfortunately we also fear it, and repress our own interest in it, so it must be disguised and made unpleasant or violent to quiet our fears that watching it might arouse us, and to make information about it something a respectable person needs to know. I feel that this erotophobia, fear of erotic pleasure, is beneath at least some of the impulse behind both writing and reading the satanic abuse stories, and their popularity. Just as this type of story in mainstream media has allowed and encouraged respectable people to read about and discuss sex, so the intensity of the attacks against pornography, the gay-lesbian menace, sex education and child sexual abuse has created an audience for that media.
The strongest force behind the satanic ritual child abuse panic is people who fear, distrust and want to get rid of any religion other than their own version of conservative Christianity.
As an unintended result, members of the general public are becoming a great deal more knowledgeable about their own interests and desires, the gay and lesbian communities are becoming more and more known and accepted, more people have seen and will tolerate pornography, and bisexuality, a label generally unknown just a few years ago, is becoming an accepted sexual identification. In my analysis, this American obsession, and fear, regarding sex illustrates our inner conflicts between our intellect and our deeper drives, fears, hopes and dreams. These conflicts are written out in the popular literature, particularly the urban myths, of the times. We project our fears, and our desires, onto some other who is not like us; our urban myths tell us who the current other is. Right now, our other is satanic, homosexual, criminal or aliennote that UFO abduction stories usually include sexual examinations. When something is labeled as forbidden and dangerous, it is easy to wonder if it could possibly be all that bad. After all, the people telling us how bad the stuff is must have looked at it, and they seem more or less ok. Furthermore, the urge to take at least a peek is very strong, particularly if one is raised in a belief system that labels any sexual impulse as
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very dangerous. So not only does the reading of satanic child pornography, along with other types of sexual media, become permissible, it becomes almost an obligation to gain information to protect children and society. I believe that a similar shocked, yet titillated, voyeurism fuels the current pop fascination with sadomasochistic imagery.
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It is interesting to note that the satanic abuse accusations happen almost exclusively within Caucasion groups. I know of no daycare or church child sexual abuse scandals among any other ethnic group. Are they less perverted than whites?
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fewer people questioned the status quo. Any sexual information other than that which they provide their own children is objectionable to them.
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the longer people were in therapy for the treatment of repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse, the sicker they got. Now, these were individuals who had no memory of childhood abuse before being exposed to the media or therapies that support these ideas. Nothing I am stating here should be taken to suggest that I do not believe that there are many survivors of childhood abuse with continuous memories. I know they exist and, in fact, fear that the current hysteria over spectral evidence will be used to distract society from dealing with the actual problems of abused children. Another growth industry in therapy is in the discovery and treatment of people with multiple personalities, supposedly caused by satanic ritual or other sexual abuse in childhood. Before 1975 there were less than one hundred cases of multiple personality reported historically. The Three Faces of Eve was one of the earliest popular books on this subject. Now there are thousands of cases, a sub-specialty in therapy for the discovery and treatment of these patients, and dozens of books written by supposed survivors.
The third force driving this panic is a less-thanresponsible mainstream news media.
Meanwhile, there is a significant growth industry in the area of satanic abuse self-publication, with desktop publishing pumping out titles like I Was a Priest for Satan and How to Identify and Treat Survivors of Ritual Abuse Who Dont Know Whats Wrong with Them (I invented these titles, but they capture the flavor of the real ones). A huge bureaucracy has grown up at all levels of government around investigating families, identifying abused children and dealing with it. Billions of dollars has been, and continues to be, spent tearing families apart with false allegations of child sexual abuse. Satanic abuse allegations are not getting as much attention currently in the mainstream legal cases anymore, as those who pushed a belief in it are not winning in court very often. Many are being sued by those they hypnotized into believing their families tortured them. The third force driving this panic is a less-than-responsible mainstream news media that puts accusations and suspicions of satanic crimes on Page 1, and when the facts come out a few days, weeks or months later, usually give them a two-inch mention on Page 27, if at all. While there has been responsible reporting of child abuse, there has also been an unfortunate amount of tabloid-type coverage, with much less followup when the truth comes out. At times, the mainstream media appears to go into a feeding frenzy in its search for lurid accusations. The press has usually given a great deal more coverage to the prosecutions point of view than that of the defendant accused of ritual abuse. Daytime TV talk shows also feed the frenzy. Geraldo Rivera has produced several specials on Satanism. He considers himself an investigative journalist, but when interviewing Richard Ramirez, the Nightstalker, a serial murderer in prison in California for killing several people, he listened wide-eyed to Ramirezs explanation for his crimes. I killed for the Dark Lord. . . . He promised me dominion over 10,000 souls if I killed for
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him, the criminal raved while holding up his hand to the camera, showing a pentagram and devils head tattooed on his left palm. A responsible investigative journalist might have asked a question or two, such as What does having dominion over 10,000 souls get you? Do they type? Do they do your laundry? Do they have a plan to get you out of prison? How can you tell that you have dominion over 10,000 souls? But not Geraldo. He just stared in awe at the jerk he was giving national airtime to, as if he believed this guy was actually something other than a selfserving psychopath who felt like raping and killing some people and did. In another special, Geraldo interviewed some obviously mentally ill women who claimed they had been used as breeders for satanic cults. He never mentioned whether he asked any of them to be medically checked to see if theyd ever even been pregnant. Geraldo also raved on and on about the proof he had of the international satanic conspiracy. His proofalmost everyone he spoke to told him it didnt exist! Thats proof, dontcha know, either that the interviewees are in on it or that they are too afraid of those satanic folks to even talk about them. Stung to the quick by criticism of his brand of television sideshow, Geraldo published a challenge to other TV talkshows to become more responsible in early 1996. Of course, he is not planning to implement the new guidelines until the fall, or at least not until after sweeps week. Mainstream publishers have also behaved irresponsibly by publishing as non-fiction the books from alleged survivors of cult abuse, and those written by therapists who treat them, either without doing the necessary background research to evaluate the claims or by simply accepting that recovered memories are a valid source of factual information with no physical evidence to support it. These abuse stories are compelling! They are so awful, and so dramatic, that they can suck you right into their emotional center. However, they also sound a great deal like the spectral evidence used to convict witches in Salem, Massachusetts. Once you really understand what an urban myth is, you can spot them everytime.
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the temperance movement, the current branch of the womens movement that gets the most press coverage and support has sidetracked into fighting smut and changing laws to protect women. Feminist organizations such as Feminists for Free Expression, the Northwest Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce and even several of the larger state NOW organizations have publicly taken stands against the MacDworkinites, but they get much less press coverage that the smut-chasers.
It is mainly women and children who are being abused, and/or jailed, by the current [sexual/satanic panic] hysteria.
How did it happen that a movement begun to assist women in achieving status and opportunity equal to men went bonkers over dirty pictures? It was simple. An alliance was formed between religious fundamentalists, who wanted to get rid of all sexual media, and feminists, who wanted to get rid of sexual media they felt degraded women. This alliance enabled both groups to be taken much more seriously by the mainstream press, so they got a lot more coverage as each legitimized the other. Both liberal and conservative watchdogs who would ordinarily attack those suggesting such sweeping changes to the Constitution said nothing out of respect for the members of their own political camp who were involved. Unfortunately both groups were obsessed with sex and sexual media, which while entertaining to argue about will never change the real balance of power. The hubbub diverted public attention from any focus on real social change. This alliance with the far right has changed feminism much more than vice versa and has moved fundamentalist feminism further from the concerns of most Americans. There are a number of women, however, Susie Bright, Laura Antoniou, Dorothy Allison, Pat Califia, Carol Queen, Sallie Tisdale and Annie Sprinkle just to name a few, who are reclaiming their sexuality and declaring that sexually explicit media, porn if you prefer that term, is good in itself, and they refuse to apologize for writing it, enjoying it and defending it.
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sent thousands of copies of homoerotic media though the mail nationwide in fundraisers asking for money to prevent this stuff from being available. Are these people an unconscious satire of themselves? The perfect example of this is child pornography. Only a very small number of adults find explicit depictions of young children having sex erotic. A much larger group of adults find explicit depictions of teenagers having sex erotic, and until recently most states considered teens from around age 15 or 16 capable of consenting to sexual activity and marriage. In the name of protecting children, which most of us would think of as the very young, from being sexually abused, explicitly depicted or being exposed to sexual information, the religious and feminist forces of conservatism have pressed for and succeeded in having the age of consent raised to age 18 in many states, and in making sexually explicit media more difficult to obtain. Now this indeed creates more child sexual abuse and child pornography, since sexual behavior and explicit media that were legal under the previous statutes are now illegal, and teenagers and adults now have less access to sexual media they find entertaining or sexual information that they may feel they need to make life decisions. Since child pornography featuring young children is very rare, as there is such a small market for it, to find anything other than fantasy stories one would have to search relentlessly. So for years the U.S. government has been reproducing the child porn in its collection, and spending endless time and tax money to try to entice people to buy it, so it can then arrest the buyers. The laws against possession of child pornography do not apply to the government, and they are replicating it to protect us from it.
If recovered memories come to be widely accepted as proof in courts of law, anyone could be accused of anything.
The current media uproar of the moment is over cyberporn. Quotes such as At the click of a mouse button, explicit pornography is available to children would be laughable if they were not fueling the attempt to control and censor the Internet. I invite anyone to jump aboard the Information Superhighway and see if you as an adult can do anything at the click of a mouse button. It takes real expertise to find and display those naughty pictures, few of which are any different than what is widely available in magazines and are of less quality as the computer screen is inferior to print media. Most explicit sexual media costs money on the Internet, which would preclude children from purchasing it without their parents credit cards. But in their war for the public attention, sex and danger sell a lot of magazines, newspapers and air-time. Have these changes had any positive effect on the safety of children? Not in my opinion. These forces, and the contradictions in all our feelings regarding sexuality, feed the generalized fear that we have for the safety of our children, ourselves and for the future of society as we know it. Like Desert Storm, and
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for some the O.J. Simpson trial, the satanic ritual abuse stories draw our attention until we cannot seem to look away or think clearly. They also create an instant stardom of a sort for those who come up with the most spectacular stories, and an acceptable reason (I was abused as a child) for any sort of personal irresponsibility a person wishes to indulge in.
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book saying such experiences are true when they are fiction? The writers of the satanic and recovered memory fiction wont say. Undoubtedly, some believe their stories to be true. As for the others, fame and fortune could be two reasons. Another reason is that first person true stories need not be as well written as fiction in order to sell. I would be less concerned about this whole issue if these satanic abuse accusations and recovered memories were not destroying peoples lives, including those who believe it happened to them. Possibly everyone has a fantasy other whose fault it is that the world is not going right. Have you stopped to think who yours might be? Maybe it is the Christians, or the feminists, the multinational corporations, the militia, the Democrats or Republicans, the immigrants, welfare recipients, the governmentwho do you blame for the problems of the world? The next few years will probably see increasing craziness as all these forces build to the millennium. I fear many more people will be falsely accused and imprisoned before a return to rational standards is demanded in accusations and trials. We humans do not know how to get along respectfully in multicultural groups. Yet we are moving toward a world society. What are we going to do?
Internet Resources
An e-mail list is available for people interested in discussing and learning more about this social controversy. To subscribe to it, send email to witchhunt-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. You can also go to the website at http://groups/yahoo.com and sign on. Search for witchhunt if you are not already a member and subscribe. After you are accepted, you will be able to read the archives of the discussion. Eric Krocks Stop Bad Therapy site: This site contains a wealth of information. www.stopbadtherapy.com. Dean Tongs site which provides resource information and more for those unjustly accused of child abuse. His new book is due out in a August 2001 ELUSIVE INNOCENCE: Survival Guide For The Falsely Accused (Huntington House, 2001). Thanks for his help with this article: www.abuse-excuse.com. False Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse Website: www.falseabuse.com. Laura Pasleys Website: She originally recovered memories while spending several years in therapy, and is now a retractor, i.e. a person who has come to realize she was duped by her therapists. She sued, won several million dollars and is now committed to exposing this witchhunt: www.geocities.com/ heartland/pointe/3171/. The Ontario Centre for Religious Tolerance maintains a webpage which deals with ritual abuse, recovered memory and etc. for those who wish to learn more: www.religioustolerance.org.
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atanism has been much discussed of late, primarily by the popular media and less so by the scholarly community. A very few analysts have seen it as a nonthreatening new religious movement, one among many that have attracted members since the 1960s. Many more people have seen Satanism as an unhealthy, perhaps even criminal enterprise that hurts all those who encounter it. In this view, Satanists are likely to be child abusers, murderers, and substance abusers, and are constantly looking for others to harm or to recruit. Children and adolescents are the most vulnerable to the seduction of the Devils grasp; thus the activity must be stopped to prevent further innocents from being led astray down the path to Hell. Those who see Satanism as dangerous have described it as a belief system that uses occult magic and employs ritual practices that constitute a travesty of Christianity (Moriarty and Story 1990, 187). For these individuals, religion refers to Judeo-Christian practices and belief system commonly associated with Western culture (Moriarty and Story 1990, 187). Those who accept such a definition of Satanism are Christian evangelists (e.g., Larson 1989), ex-Satanists (e.g., Stratford [1987] 1991; Warnke
From Teenage Satanism as Oppositional Youth Subculture, by Kathleen S. Lowney, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, vol. 23, no. 4 (January 1995), pp. 45384. Copyright 1995 by Sage Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications, Inc.
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1972), and many in the psychiatric community (e.g., Moriarty and Story 1990; Wheeler, Wood, and Hatch 1988). They hold that Satanists are dangerous peopleto others, especially innocent children, and even to themselves. They regard them as mentally disturbed individuals, often addicted to drugs or sadistic sexual practices. The psychiatric description that Satanists are dysfunctional or sick comes almost entirely from three sources: hospitalized teenagers diagnosed as Satanic practitioners (Belitz and Schacht 1992; Bourget, Gagnon, and Bradford 1988; Moriarty and Story 1990; Steck, Anderson, and Boylin 1992), prisoners whose crimes were said to have been inspired by Satanism, and ex-Satanists, many of whom subsequently converted to Christianity. Those who hold to this explanation proclaim that American moral values (religious faith, family unity, etc.) are breaking down, and that Satanism has flourished in such a morally bankrupt social environment. This construction of Satanism has been prominently expressed in popular media, especially on television talk shows.1 Talk show hosts rely on psychiatric experts to explain the danger to Satanists and to those they might victimize. According to this explanation, the cause of these sick or deviant behaviors is the Satanic faith that practitioners espouse. The most common prescription is counseling (be it exit counseling [religious in nature] or psychotherapy). Therapeutic intervention is seen as the sole means of releasing the person from the Devils grip (e.g., Rudin 1990; Speltz 1990; and Tennant-Clark, Fritz, and Beauvais 1989).
A social-scientific explanation
The other primary explanation is a more social-scientific one. Satanism is understood to encompass a range of beliefs and practices: it can be simply mislabeled youthful playfulness, or it can be a social movement that is seemingly harmless though often flamboyant (Richardson, Best, and Bromley 1991a), or it may even be the rationale for criminal behavior (Crouch and Damphousse 1992; Taub and Nelson 1993). In the earliest sociological literature, Satanism, or more precisely, certain organized Satanic groups that Taub and Nelson (1993) called the Satanic Establishment, were seen to have achieved a measure of social legitimation (p. 525) in the American religious plurality. These groups contain adult, not juvenile members: Alfred (1976) found that the vast majority of members in the Church of Satan were middle-class white people in their forties, thirties, and late twenties, including many professionals (p. 194). Moodys (1974) study of the (Satanic) Church of the Trapezoid, and Bainbridges study (1978) of The Power, a Satanic cult, also characterized their members as adults. These establishment groups had a cohesive theology and praxis, and did not involve themselves in criminal conduct, nor did their values differ significantly from those of many other American organizations (Taub and Nelson 1993).
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Richardson, Best, and Bromley 1991a) rather than an analysis of actual practitioners. So much of our knowledge about teenagers involved in what popular culture calls Satanism stems from the work of folklorists. Ellis (19821983, 1991b) has argued that teenagers act out local legends by visiting haunted sites, a practice called legend-tripping. He stated (1991b) that legend-tripping frequently includes acts of deviant behavior such as graffiti spray-painting, breaking and entering abandoned churches, and vandalizing graveyards. This is not real Satanism but ostentation, the physical re-enactment of local legends. The role-playing done on these legend-trips is the significant thing to the adolescent, and the legend serves mainly as an excuse to escape adult supervision, commit antisocial acts, and experiment illicitly with drugs and sex. Both legend and trip are ways of saying screw you to adult law and order (Ellis 19821983, 64). Ellis has argued that, given the hysteria instigated by the moral panic, law enforcement officers, educators, mental health professionals, and parents have overreacted and inappropriately labeled legendtrippers as Satanists. Ellis comes close to arguing that there is little actual Satanic religious behavior among adolescents; what seems visible is more often simply misunderstood, mislabeled legend-trip activity. The disturbed explanation given by the mental health professionals, the folklorists legend-tripping explanation, and to a lesser extent the constructionist literature that explores the anti-Satanist claim-making agenda, assume that there is a dominant culture against which individual young adults are reacting with their Satanic behaviors. These explanations privilege this dominant culture, arguing that healthy teens would not feel alienated from peers, parents, community, and that these adolescents eventually will stop rebelling and join the real, adult world. This theoretical privileging of one culture accomplishes two things: first, it keeps the analysis focused on bad or sick individuals rather than on the level of the social group, and second, it does not allow for an analysis of teenage Satanists as social critics of the dominant culture.2 The voices of adolescent Satanists are absent from the sociological literature. Gaines (1990) briefly discussed what she called Satanteens, with little analysis of their beliefs. Crouch and Damphousse (1992) discussed self styled or youth subculture Satanists. They assume that all such Satanists sometime engage in activities that are not only bizarre by conventional standards but also criminal (p. 5). They offer no firsthand data to support this claim. Crouch and Damphousse agree with Taub and Nelson (1993) that youthful Satanists should be classified as members of the Satanic Underground, with its reputed participation in antisocial or criminal behavior. Activities of these individuals or groups are less structured and lack the organizational dimensions of the Satanic Establishment (p. 525). Here again, theoretical dichotomies such as Satanic Establishment versus Satanic Underground are too simplistic. Critical questions must be asked about these descriptions of adolescent Satanism: underground to whom? antisocial according to whose moral perspective? conventional according to whose viewpoint? less structured according to whose standards? Terms such as these also imply a privileged position, in this case by the sociological analyst. These would not be the terms used by many youthful Satanists to describe their own activities.
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The Coven
Ethnographic accounts of modern-day adolescent Satanists are needed, including accounts of Satanists who are not hospitalized in a psychiatric facility, and accounts that give participants explanation for their religious behaviors. In this article I analyze five years of fieldwork with the Coven, a Satanic adolescent subculture in a Southern community I shall call Victory Village. What emerges from these data is far removed from the psychiatric interpretation. Although it is a view from belowthe explanation constructed by the teenage Satanists themselvesit is not an examination of the Taub and Nelsons Satanic Underground. The Coven did not participate in major criminal activities. What the Coven did was to present a critique of the dominant culture of Victory Village. Thus the Coven is yet another example of how youth subcultures can challenge the hegemony of the dominant culture (e.g., Brake 1980; Cohen 1980; Fox 1987; Gaines 1990; Hebdige 19793). Their subcultural opposition operated on several levels simultaneously: first, it was collective articulation of a cultural critique; second, it allowed them to establish and maintain a new self-concept; and third, it provided a symbolic challenge to the dominant cultures value system. What the Coven did was to play with the social categories and boundaries of Victory Village. These were so accepted by many in the community that they had become almost imperceptible over time. The Coven made visible the dominant cultures valued statuses as it simultaneously rejected them. But its rejection of the dominant culture antagonized Victory Village. To understand what the Coven got from its Satanic faitheven in the face of such rejectionrequires listening to the story of Victory Village from these adolescents perspective. I tell their story as they told it to me, first by explaining the dominant culture as they saw it and then by describing their critique of that culture. In particular, I focus on their development of a Satanic style as an expression of their opposition to Victory Village.
Method
I have been on my colleges Speakers Bureaua faculty list of those willing to speak to the community on topics related to their expertisesince I came to this institution in 1987. I was listed as an expert on new religious movements/cults, because my doctoral dissertation focused on a well-known new religion. One day in March of 1988, three calls came in to the Public Relations Department and were referred to me. The calls either asked me about, or informed me of, Satanic activities in neighboring high schools. The first and third calls were from Christian ministers who wanted me to speak to their youth groups about what was happening. The second call was from an employee of a nearby bookstore who knew of me, notifying me that during the last six weeks there had been over thirty-five special orders placed for The Satanic Bible (LaVey 1969). That very day I began interviewing members of the press, law enforcement, and school systems for their perspective on what was occurring. These interviews, plus background reading on Satanism (academic and popular),
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took up the bulk of my research time for the next two months. I also went to one of the youth groups, less as an expert than as a listener. From those Christian young adults I gathered not just names of possible Coven members, but also learned more about their behaviors and favorite hangouts. For the next several months, I frequented locations where, according to the Christian youths, the Coven met. Primarily this meant going to the mall on Friday nights and observing until it closed. From the non-Satanist youths descriptions of the Covens style, I was able to identify possible members quite easily. Through background interviews with youth ministers and others, I learned of more names; sometimes members even were pointed out to me. Thus even before contact was made with the Coven, I was able to begin to sort out membership status and style matters. I sat and observed numerous interactions of the Coven while members played games, as well as their interactions with non-Satanic youth, the shopping public, food court workers, and mall security guards. Initially I observed from a distance; over time I would chat with some members and other young adults at the arcade. I was becoming a social fixture at the mall. These observations gave me some idea of the groups norms, structure, and argot prior to the interviewing phase.
Over time, Satanic beliefs, practices, and rituals were constructed by members to . . . critique the dominant culture, and . . . create a new self-identity.
Simultaneously, I began visiting other locations I heard the Coven discussin particular local bridgesbut I went on Friday afternoons or Saturday mornings, when it was less likely that I would meet the group, because the Coven visited them after the mall closed on Friday nights. These visits gave me some sense of the less public activities of the Coven. I took photographs of these sites when I found evidence of Coven activities: Satanic graffiti, such as Playing with black magic is fun or Satanic pentagrams painted on trees to mark the way into a rural meeting site; non-Satanic graffiti but signed with Coven nicknames, such as one male who often went by the name of Casper. He tended to paint Casper loves. Not only could I trace his whereabouts with these messages, but I could also follow his romantic history as well. I continued to talk with Christian youth groups; from them I realized that I needed to know more about high school culture. Therefore I continued to visit the mall and video arcade; I interviewed local merchants (bookstore, music store, alternative clothing stores, etc.) I also began to observe the areas of the high school parking lots when school was getting out. After about one year, I became known as an expert in Satanism. This status opened some new research opportunities. I was given permission to attend an Occult Crime Workshop for Georgia law enforcement officers. I was the only non-law enforcement person present during the three day workshop. The workshop fit the model described by Hicks (1991a, 1991b, personal communication): a law enforcement officer presented a great deal of datamostly clips from television talk shows. His analytical framework blended the psychiatric explanationSatanists were sickieswith a
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heavy dose of conservative Christianity. He showed little understanding of other religions (confusing Santeria with Voodoo, for instance) and labeled any new religious movement, such as the Unification Church, as Satanic. Claims about the growing number of Satanic or occult crimes were repeatedly made, with no evidence presented to support them. While there, I interviewed five police officers from various jurisdictions in Georgia, as well as local officers who also attended the workshop.
Coven members grew increasingly hostile to the outside world as they saw it, in particular due to the fact that the Coven felt [the community] would never change.
Throughout the course of the research, I was invited to attend or to lecture at workshops on Satanism for social workers (local and state level), probation and parole officers (state level), and educators (local level). During these meetings I conducted interviews, primarily with those people who stayed afterward to discuss specific work-related incidents. I have interviewed local (Georgia) television reporters and print journalists, and I had several telephone interviews with a Florida television anchor who ran a week-long special on the evening news about teenage Satanism. Although certainly not systematic, it can be argued that the interviews with these professionals might well represent concerns about the worst cases of alleged Satanism among Georgia and Florida teenagers. By mid-1989, some Coven members agreed to be interviewed. This took a long time to arrange due to ethical concerns about studying minors involved in Satanism without the informed consent of their parents or guardians.4 More males than females agreed to one-on-one interviews, although there were several opportunities for informal group discussions (especially about makeup) with females during observations at the mall. Interviews were often unplanned. Twice members or former members showed up at my faculty office ready to talk.5 I learned to keep a notebook, camera, and tape recorder with me. Interviews were most often unstructured. I let the member lead our discussion, and asked questions mostly for clarification. During later interviews, and only with certain subjects, I was more directive and brought up topics for discussion.
Interviews
All the young adults interviewed were involved with the Coven, though membership status varied. I interviewed four very active members; two less active members; and two ex-members. From mid-1989 to 1991, I conducted over fifteen interviews; they ranged from just under one hour to several hours in length. Most often the interviews occurred in a setting chosen by the Coven member. This often meant that interviews were done outdoors, sometimes while sitting on the hood of a car, often with a car stereo playing in the background. Interactions with the Coven, especially at first, were sometimes problematic. They were not sure how to treat me and how much they could
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trust me. I was a teacher, yet not their teacher; I was an adult yet I had no real authority over them. Some of this awkwardness disappeared during the observational stage, especially after the Coven knew who I was and became used to me. We eventually negotiated a friend role (Fine 1987) that was comfortable for them and for me. I dressed casually during observations; I deliberately purchased compact discs at the music store for personal enjoyment when in the presence of the Coven; some members had much to say about my taste in music. These behaviors allowed interactions to occur that facilitated the friendship role. Perhaps the two most disconcerting issues that emerged during the research were religion and confidentiality. For eight years I have worn a Christian cross. It had become such a part of my presentation of self that I often forgot it was there. Coven members, once they felt comfortable around me, sometimes commented about it. Because I asked them about their jewelry and why they wore it, I responded in kind. Often this led into conversations about religion. I was expected to participate, not just observe, and I did, sometimes sharing moments in my life that were either religious highs or lows. These conversations were quite comfortable for me. Where religion became problematic was when adults who knew I was studying the Coven expected that my research goal was to talk members out of Satanism. In particular, some Christian adults felt strongly that I was letting them and/or the community down if I was not deconverting the teens. I was not always successful at explaining that deconversion was never my goal. Several times these adults asked me if I was a secret SatanistWhy else was I not trying to get the kids out of the Devils grip?
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tanists by the time I concluded my research, though they were no longer active in the Coven because they were in colleges away from home. All were White; almost all were from middle- or upper-middle-class families. A third of the membership was female; a female was the charismatic leader for over two years.
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Even dominant groups developed particular styles. The football players dressed conspicuously, in football jerseys, school colors, and sweats. They used a specialized argot to talk about their games, training procedures, and opponents. Cheerleaders also had a particular presentation of selfappropriate makeup, hairstyles, and weightas well as a language of cheers and planning activities for the athletes. Band members had props such as uniforms and instruments, which readily identified them. Thus each group developed a unique style that both bonded members to each other and served to socially locate them. Although these status hierarchies divided the student body, there was a unifying force in the high school, indeed in the community. Christian faith was normative in Victory Village. A woman, shopping in the local mall, expressed this social fact to two Coven females, when she yelled at them: Okay, youve made your point; you dont like my religion [the woman was wearing a Christian cross and had just come out of a Christian bookstore]. But this is a Christian communitywe dont want you around either. So go, why dont you? Just leave, go somewhere, maybe Atlanta, some big city where there are more like you . . . just go, before my daughter gets to high school next year. Christianity permeated Victory Village. Prayers were said before football games. Weekly church attendance was customary among both adolescents and adults. Symbols of the faith were very visible; Christian crosses were commonplace as jewelry, especially among females. Most athletes and cheerleaders belonged to Christian organizations. Living the Christian lifestyle, as preached to adolescents, involved self-control of the body to be an excellent athlete, sexually chaste, and physically attractive. Thus membership in the larger body of the faithful to some degree mitigated the status divisions in Victory Village High School: adolescents saw each other frequently in church.
Socially marginalized
Nevertheless, some students were socially marginalized. Mark, an exmember of the theater group and the most prolific of the Covens graffiti artists, can serve as an example: I knew they didnt want me in class. They all sat together. . . . I let em . . . What the hell did I care anyway? They never would have talked to me anyway. I made em uncomfortableif they couldnt see me, they could go on the way they always werepraying a lot, yet being god damn mean to anyone below them. . . . I let em think they were better than me, . . . cuz dammit, I knew the truth. The truth, for Mark, was Satanism. He described an incremental
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conversion process, whereby social bonds developed both prior to and simultaneously with his conversion to this Satanic group.7 I never felt accepted at this school. Always felt different sometimes that hurt, sometimes I was glad to be different. Whod want to be like those motherfucking hypocritical Christians? . . . Love your enemiesya, lets see that attitude on the football field some Friday night! . . . Then I noticed her one day, at lunch I think. She was an outsider too could see that by her hair. But something was different. . . . She seemed proud of it. I began to find out about her; hang around her. She fascinated me, especially her appearance. . . . Everyday was something different . . . She seemed exciting, daring others to challenge her. . . . So I got to know her, Zena. She was proud, proud of her uniqueness. I wanted that tooto feel better, no, good about myself. Dont remember just how it happenedmaybe I was drunk when I finally did itI finally asked her about it. And she showed me her truth. So I borrowed it [The Satanic Bible] for awhile. . . . If it worked for her, gave her all that fucking air of being above those shitty athletes and rich snobs . . . well, I wanted it too. Marks story was typical. All of the Covens membership shared this extremely marginalized social location at the high school. Many had been members of the artistic groupalready a lower status group, but they did not want to continue interacting with that group. Chris, a Coven member for three months, said, I got tired of all the rehearsals. I had better things to do with my time. So over a period of months, the Coven was formed. It created a mechanism to decrease individual marginality by inventing a new solidarity for its members, yet in so doing, its members actually increased their social isolation by espousing a Satanic idioculture (Fine 1982) and style that is not the normative culture of Victory Village.
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This hostility became channeled into a streetwise analysis of the dominant culture; in other words, the Coven settled on the role of social critic. Its mere visual presence was challenging to some in the community, even prior to their understanding the groups religious convictions. To those who knew this, too, the Coven was seen as threatening to the communitys social harmony. And the Coven perceived this. Mark, a long-time member and sometimes leader, said: I know lots of people in this fucking community wish we would disappear, or worse yet, be shipped off to [a local psychiatric hospital]. Too damned bad. . . . were not going anywhere. Im not sick . . . least not the way they mean it. Im fucking sick of always being put down cuz I dont play football. Well too damned bad. Why is chasing a fucking ball up and down a field such a fucking god-given talent in this community? If I did that, coach says I could be important. Well, hell, I am important, dammit even though I fucking cant play football, dont want to play football. And if they dont see it, my friends [the Coven] do. We know were important, see, if nothing else, we make them feel better about themselves . . . They can pray for us [laughter]. Like I need their motherfucking prayers. . . . Their God is weak. He cant even make [the county high school football] team win, even when they pray before a game . . . and they think He will save the world, save them? Hell no. . . . God dammit, Satan is all power; so am I. I want nothing to do with them, the adults who run this shitty place, nor their fucking kids who prance around the field or cheer on their team. No thanks, I will make my own way. . . . dont want to live like them, no way. Dont want to look like em, talk like em. . . . I dont want to be one of them, fucking never do I. The Coven, like many subcultures, found its role, its cohesiveness in social criticism of the dominant culture from which it felt rejected. Lacking the social power to change that culture, Coven members chose to change themselves as a statement to Victory Village. Brake (1980, vii) has written that subcultures arise as attempts to resolve collectively experienced problems arising from the contradictions in the social structure, and that they generate a form of collective identity from which an individual identity can be achieved outside that ascribed by class, education, and occupation. This is nearly always a temporary solution, and in no sense
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is a real material solution, but one which is solved at the cultural level.
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personal biography, will culminate in the end time, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. All phenomena led to this one salvific event. For Christians, therefore, all time has a future emphasis. Believers orient their actions toward this ultimate goal; to live with little or no sin is to look forward to the Second Coming with joy instead of dread. Football athletes, cheerleaders, and the band practice for next games or the next season. For the Coven, there was no ultimate goal toward which time was oriented. Rather, Satanists lived in and for the present. Life is the great indulgencedeath, the great abstinence. Therefore, make the most of lifeHERE AND NOW! There is no heaven of glory bright, and no hell where sinners roast. Here and now is our day of torment! Here and now is our day of joy! Here and now is our opportunity! Choose ye this day, this hour, for no redeemer liveth! (LaVey, 62). Following LaVey, the Coven did not divide social reality into past, present, and future. There was only the present. Alice, a member for just several months, nevertheless was able to articulate this part of the Covens worldview: What I want now, is what I want. If my desires change, it is because there is a new now. This disparity between their views of temporality only deepened the rift between the two worldviews. The Satanists could not comprehend living life toward a future heavenly goal that one might not even attain, while Christians considered the Satanists emphasis on fulfilling ones desires in the present as hedonistic and self-indulgent, if not sinful. Thus the two worldviews clashed; their theologies were antithetical. Christian deportment, success in relationships and on the football field these were the dominant cultures values internalized by Victory Villages adolescents. But the Coven rejected these values, choosing instead to pray to Satan, living for the moment and for self. Although Coven membership fluctuated over the years, its theology remained relatively constant. The Coven was theologically eclectic, using The Satanic Bible (1969) and several other books, such as The Necronomicon (1980) as a basic framework. Here too, the Coven saw itself as opposing Christian reliance upon only one sacred text. Mark, a member for over sixteen months at the time of our interview, said, We dont have to be tied to just one book, written ages ago. No words in red for us, we interpret the [Satanic] Bible as we see it. It speaks to me differently each fucking day. And I just live it out.
Music
Thus personal experience was another theological source. Coven members brought to sabbat what was happening in their lives and the group ritually processed these life events. Several kinds of rituals were held; the most common involved members coming together at an isolated site, saying a few prayers to Satan, having a bonfire, drinking beer and wine coolers, criticizing Victory Village, and listening to rock music. Music offered both a way to ventilate emotions and to bond. [M]usic is important because it articulates aspects of kids lives, at a real or fantasy level (Brake 1980, 157). As Mark said, Like, Ive had a shitty day. Ill go to sabbat, and be able to work through it all. Often I cant put it into words, but Ill play
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a song that says it all. Everyone understands then. Im not too good with words, anyway. The Covens musical tastes shifted constantly. Their heavy metal favorites alternated between Megadeth, Motley Crue, Poison, Metallica, Guns and Roses, Ozzie Osbourne, and Anthrax; yet some members also like rap music and country songs.12 More rarely top 40 music could be heard from their portable stereo headsets. When questioned about this eclectic musical range, Chris, a guitar player himself, reported, Yeah, I like metal music best. . . . guitars wailing. But mostly, its what is being said. If its bitching about the fucking world weve inherited, then I will probably like it. . . . but once and a while, I like a love song too. Coven members discussed both the structure of the music (guitar solos, etc.) and the lyrics. They seemed very aware of the lyrics, often interpreting them for me. In this, the Coven diverged from some of the findings in the literature about adolescents and heavy metal music (e.g., Prinksy and Rosenbaum 1987).
Sex rituals
Music was also a critical component of what the Coven called its sex rituals.13 The Coven enjoyed discussing these rituals in a vague and secretive fashion in front of outsiders, particularly high school teachers, as a way of, as Alice put it, shaking up the establishment. For instance, Zena, the charismatic leader, was known by the ritual name, The Sex Goddess. This Satanic name was often dropped before nonmembers (especially teachers) in an attempt to confound, embarrass, and worry the larger social world. And it worked. One local teacher called me after hearing such a conversation. All they do is have sex. Sex and Satan. Thats all they write about in my class. Im worried about them. Coven followers often laughed at the consternation their supposed sexual antics created. And yet despite their nomenclature, these rituals did not, to my knowledge, involve sexual intercourse. The sexual innuendos, however, clearly functioned as a source of power over nonmembers. Most often these sex rituals involved the working of spells, often based on the sex chapter from The Satanic Bible (LaVey 1969), which focused on one members sexual desire for someone else (either a member or a nonmember) and the spiritual mechanisms needed to accomplish that romantic goal. Spells tended to be highly personal in nature, composed by the individual but shared in the ritual context of sabbat. Members supported one another throughout the duration of the spell through prayer, conversation, listening to music as ritual activity, and confidencebuilding behaviors. Spells detailed the magical steps necessary to requite ones sexual desire for the other person. Mark shared a version of his spell for getting the girl of his dreams to go to a prom with him. 1. Pray to Satan about this every day. Ask for his guidance and support. 2. Change pattern of walking in the hallways in order to come into contact with the girl. 3. Begin to make eye contact with her. 4. Borrow/steal something of hers [a pen]. 5. Talk to her, initially about inconsequential things. 6. Talk to her about Satanism and how Satan is the most important
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person in his life, forever. 7. Use the personal object ritually to connect her to him forever. [This involved tying her pen to a pen of his. He carried them around for over two weeks.] 8. Eventually, ask her to the prom. For each step in the spell, he had specific Satanic prayers, which were to be repeated several times a day for the magic to become efficacious. These prayers consisted of poems that he had written, lyrics from love songs, passages from LaVey and other Satanic works about sex and love, and even a smattering of Emily Dickinson, whom he was studying in school. These prayers were the way he motivated himself to carry out these eight steps. The Coven provided a system of social and liturgical support for Mark; at least three sex rituals occurred during this two-week process. The sex rituals were collective encouragementthe prayers were heard by all; members supported Mark in his quest for a closer relationship with the female in question. Through this ritual process, Mark structured his interactions with the female. He slowly progressed from being near her, to conversation, and he hoped, to a dating relationship. Slowly he gained enough confidence to approach this particular female (who was a fringe member of the group) and ask her out. By selecting a female who was at least somewhat familiar with Satanism, he further reduced his chances of romantic failure. He reported that the ritual was a success, of a sort. The female did agree to go to the prom with him. However, he claimed to have had a miserable time. She dressed up; that is to say, she wore a prom dress, whereas Mark wore his typical attire, jeans and a heavy metal t-shirt. From that moment on, they seemed to have nothing in common. The date was a motherfucking disaster. When asked to give a theological explanation for the apparent failure of his spell, Mark initially said that he had just picked the wrong fucking broad to work it on. When he continued, I guess she just wasnt really committed to my god. He [Satan] showed me that by getting us together, and then having her go Christian on me. Think she was a cheerleader or something. Neither Mark nor members in the Coven doubted their deity nor their belief system; the failure was due to inconsistent human followers. I thought she was a true believer. But when I saw her all dressed up, I knew she wasnt. She wasnt as attractive to me then. . . . I had to keep asking myself why I had wanted to date her.
The Coven saw itself as a small group operating in darkness, ritually illuminated by sacred candles and a campfire, calling forth demons to do its bidding.
The Coven discussed this spell and its aftermath for some time, both in and out of Marks presence. Eventually members constructed an explanation of what happened: Mark was being too like them (the Christians, the athletes) for even wanting to go to the prom, for wanting to date. This prom date entered into the groups folklore; five respondents told me some version of this story. In the social history of the Coven, this sex ritual concretized opposition to dyadic relationships, for they re-
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flected all that was bad about the others. From this point on, the Coven became an extended friendship network, but it did not condone dating relationships. To be dating was to be, in Alices words, a fucking cheerleader or at least acting like one. Thus the Covens belief system was constructed so as to be flexible enough to allow members to view socalled failures as partial successes. These successes only further reinforced their Satanic, oppositional belief system. This particular date/ritual was central to the Covens subculture for yet another reason. It served as a triggering event (Fine 1982, 55) for the development of a normative style. Thereafter, the Coven standardized what was and was not acceptable clothing for its members. Whatever the Christians, the athletes, or the cheerleaders wore was unacceptable.
Satanic style
The Coven recognized civil Christianitys control of the body for social purposes and explicitly rejected it. Coven members not only did not participate in the male athleticism and female presentation of self described above, they deliberately ridiculed it. Coven males laughed at the jocks who spent time working out in a gym. This stress on athleticism robbed them, in the Covens mind, of time for more enjoyable activities. Male members took pride in not looking athletic. Steven, tall, thin, with his hair flowing loosely about his shoulders, told me, I dont want anyone to confuse me with them; I look different, I look like I want to look. For Coven males, this style entailed consistently wearing black clothing, often heavy metal t-shirts, and long hair, pulled back in a pony-tail. Ed, a clerk at the local mall who frequently interacted with Coven members, referred to the Covens male members as throw-backs to the sixties. During the first few months of existence, members wore black trenchcoats with the word Megadeth (the Covens favorite heavy metal band at that time) on the back. This apparel was even more striking given that the trenchcoats were worn in weather well above seventy degrees. Coven women, however, showed the most visible opposition to the other way. For almost 14 months, two young women wore solid black clothing. For much of the same time, they wore black nail polish as well. However, this was not the most obvious stylistic shift. Zena, for well over a year, changed her appearance on an almost daily basis. She would dye her hair different shades; her favorites were fluorescent colors. Each day her newly colored hair would be sculpted into a unique design. Mark, who first learned of the Coven after speaking to Zena regarding her hair, explained: To make such a drastic change everyday made the artificiality of the whole thing [appearance and presentation of self] so apparent to us. She was trying to ridicule their focus on self by overidentifying with it. However, Zenas most obvious flaunting of norms came when she settled on one particular hairstyle. She dyed her hair white, with a strip of black extending from ear to ear across the back of her head and another strip from forehead to neck. What she had created on her head was an upside down Christian cross. She quite consciously reversed symbols in an attempt to articulate her own theology. Over the next few months, this hairstyle became popular with other female members. Although not all the high school, let alone the community of Victory Village recognized
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the symbolism of the upside down cross, the difference in presentation of self alone, was enough to be labeled as deviant. Those who recognized her hairstyle as a symbolic expression of her belief system were quite shocked. While observing the Coven at the local shopping mall one evening, I overheard someone tell her that God would never forgive her for what she was proclaiming through her hairstyle.
The Coven enjoyed discussing [sex] rituals in a vague and secretive fashion in front of outsiders . . . as a way of . . . shaking up the establishment.
Makeup also served to emphasize the Covens defiance of the norms of Victory Village. Spurning makeup styles taught in fashion magazines, many female Coven members wore a very white foundation, black or dark purple eyeshadow, black blush, and either black or deep purple lipstick. Members reported that they enjoyed these colors. The goal of makeup shouldnt be about attracting boys, but being true to oneself, being faithful to Him [Satan]. The females viewed their presentation of self as symbolic affiliation with and membership in the Truth that Satan represented. Thus Alice, who wore not just purple blush, but for a brief time also wore a small hand-drawn Satanic pentagram near the outer corner of one eye, reported that, I wear my makeup to say that I love Satan, just as she [one of the cheerleaders at the high school] wears her little gold cross to say that she is a Christian. Only hers is wrong; mines right. Some female members admitted to devouring [womens] magazines. They spent time learning what style (clothes, hair, makeup) was in fashion in order to reverse it. In this they were like some punk subcultures who have been studied (Fox 1987). Travers (1982) has argued that punkers do know the ritual idiom that they violate, and in fact they know it in very fine detail because all their public life is lived in the narrow ground between normal appearances and illegal appearances (p. 281).
Jewelry
Many Coven members flaunted their opposition to Victory Village in yet another symbolic way. They wore jewelry that advertised their religious worldview. Some Coven females and one male would wear an upside down Christian cross as an earring. This was an obvious inversion of Christian symbolism. However, other members chose to be more subtle, buying a set of tragedy and comedy mask stick pins. However, they would only wear the tragedy one. Even this more subtle component of their Satanic style drew comments. I witnessed two Coven females buying such pins. They first asked the clerk if the set could be broken upthey only wanted to buy one of them. The clerk, nodding her head sympathetically, said, I understand . . . who would want to wear the depressing one, with the sad face, after all? She seemed shocked when the members said, We would, thats the fucking one we wanted to get. The purchase complete, the females opened their packages and threw the comedy pin away. The clerk stared after them, shaking her head and muttering about theyre trouble.
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So the Coven flaunted their theological differences with the surrounding society through a new style. By changing their presentation of self, they literally embodied their change of social allegiance away from the communitys standards toward those of their own making. Like punk styles before it, the Covens style ran counter to what the dominant culture would deem aesthetically pleasing (Fox 1987, 349). However, style was not constructed de novo; the Coven appropriated style elements from Victory Villages dominant culture (Levine and Stumpf 1983). Makeup was not rejected, just makeup used as sexual enticement; religious symbolism was not repudiated, just Christian versions. The Coven practiced bricolagethe deliberate creation of, not just a Satanic style, but a Satanic self-concept from available cultural elements. Coven members believed they became powerful through their connection to the Devil. I can do anything when I am with my God. Doesnt matter what anybody says. . . . He gives me the power to do anything. I can be whatever I want to be . . . no one can tell me what to do, when to do it. Let them fucking try . . . He [the Devil] and I will show them who is the boss. I am. By acquiring what they considered to be devilish power, Coven members achieved a significant goalthey reversed, in their perception, the high schools status hierarchies. They were no longer at the bottom among the freaks, but were at the very top of the hierarchythe Satanic chosen few. This new achieved status worked for themthey felt better about themselves.
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and therefore the Coven were really the most powerful; after all, it was the football players who backed down after just a few moments of confrontation. Several weeks after the incident, Mark, who was present but was not the Coven spokesperson, said to me, See, they didnt dare fight with us. Those motherfucking big guys were afraid of us. . . . and you ask what Satan has done for me lately? Interactions such as this one simply reinforced the Covens conclusion that it, and not the rest of Victory Village, was powerful and in control. In their minds, the status hierarchies had been completely reversed. However, the stronger and more visible the Satanic style became, the stronger some in the communitys concern became. Baron (1989) has noted that, subcultures, and many of the activities that take place within them, represent symbolic violations of the social order that provoke censure from the dominant culture (p. 208). The Coven was not able to persuade Victory Village nor the high school to modify their value systems. Indeed, for some members of the community the Coven and its religious critique were considered so disturbing that they demanded social action. Victory Village mobilized to eliminate at least the outward signs of Satanism. There was talk of a high school dress code, which would prohibit visible signs of belonging to the Coven; law enforcement had, for all intents and purposes, closed off the Covens favorite ritual site, Ghost Bridge, by patrolling it, and the local mall made it clear that, as a group, the Coven was not welcome insidemall security forced them to leave for, according to a security officer, other customers dont like them. Despite this community hostility, their Satanic style empowered Coven members. Commitment to the style bonded the group to each other (Fox 1987) and to their new worldview. Thus the development of a Satanic style created a visible collective, though oppositional, identity for the Coven. Both the Coven and members of the community could see the visible accoutrements of Satanic commitment. Coven style norms were expressed through symbolic inversion (Lincoln 1989). It was only by changing themselvestheir worldview, their bodiesthat the Coven could have any measure of success.
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way of life. Lacking the material power to institute social change either in the high schools social structure or in the wider community, the Covens critique could only operate at the symbolic level. Analysis of the Coven shows that both the psychiatric and folklore explanations of adolescent Satanism are inadequate. These adolescents were not mentally disturbed, nor were they engaging in major criminal activity. What law-breaking they didsome underage alcohol consumption, minor vandalism of local bridges (spray-painting graffiti), and occasionally driving while intoxicatedare acts many non-Satanist teens also have committed. Nor were they experiencing just intergenerational rebellion against their parents. The Covens critique went far deeperit questioned the basic values of Victory Villageathleticism, Christianity, heterosexual dyads, and the nature of achievement, beauty, and power. Yet the form taken by this resistance [was] somehow symbolic or magical, in the sense of not being an actual successful solution to whatever is the problem (Cohen 1980, ixx). Clothing styles, haircuts, and prayers to Satan did not change the dominant culture of Victory Village. They were not meant to do so. The Coven chose these changes as its way of managing the alienation it found in the social structure of Victory Village and its educational facilitiesmanaging it through confrontation. Oppositional subcultures thrive on conflict; they need it. It is only through confrontation with the dominant culture that their subcultural choicesmoral, stylistic, sexual, aestheticcan be constructed and routinized. Cultural belligerence was the central behavioral tactic of the Coven. It took pleasures in antagonizing Victory Village. It is through their resistance to community norms that oppositional subcultures gain attention, albeit negative attention. Such opposition allows them to reduce their feelings of alienation or status frustration (Cohen 1955) by creating a new identity that is in contradistinction to their earlier, now rejected, socialization.
Coven members not only did not participate in the male athleticism and female presentation of self. . . , they deliberately ridiculed it.
That a dominant culture reacts to an oppositional subcultures nonnormative behavior by labeling it as deviant or sick and in need of changesomething the psychiatric explanation of Satanism has certainly donemay be sociologically understandable. Oppositional groups challenge the entire social system. Institutions of social control must then be utilized to maintain normative order. Thus it was not surprising, in recent years, to see the American therapeutic and religious institutions as well as the mass media mobilized to prevent Satanism from spreading. Given the separation of church and state, these institutions can do little about what Taub and Nelson have called the Satanic Establishment. Such institutions were more able to mobilize themselves around claims about the deviant lifestyles of the alleged Satanic Underground, in particular as it might involve children and adolescents. However, such claims about underground Satanic criminality, psy-
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chosis, substance abuse, and evil need to be investigated by sociologists. The central social actor in these claimsadolescent Satanists who are out there worshipping Satanhave been missing from the both the popular and scholarly literature. By listening to their voices it can be shown that, at least for Victory Villages Coven, they were not about murder and mayhem, but social criticism. Their collective goal was not to abuse themselves nor others, but to confront a social system in which they no longer believed. Simplistic categorizations rarely capture the complexities of social life. The Coven was neither part of the Satanic Establishment nor the criminal Satanic Underground. It was an oppositional subculture that chose Satan as the symbol with which to critique its community. In its view, Satan gave members the ability to confront what they found distasteful in their community while giving them a new, important identity. Their theological and cultural inversion of Victory Villages norms was successful for them.
Notes
1. Since 1980, there have been thirteen major talk shows about Satanism (Phil Donahue, Sally Jessy Raphael, Geraldo Rivera, and Oprah Winfrey). For an analysis of how Satanism was constructed on these talk shows, see Lowney (forthcoming). 2. Ellis argued that legend-tripping is mainly done in heterosexual dyadic pairs, not in larger social groupings. He alluded (1991b, 281) to clusters of adolescents who frequent trip sites. A cluster that specializes in visits to haunted spots may thus be termed an occult-oriented folk group, since members often gather and share knowledge about other aspects of the supernatural and anomalous. But even he does not consider the possibility that adolescent Satanists are an organized social movement. 3. Certainly there are differences between the Coven and the subcultures discussed in these references, the primary one being social class: the Coven consisted almost entirely of middle- and upper-middle-class youths. Nevertheless, there are more similarities than differences. 4. My colleges Human Subjects Committee and I communicated in writing about this research several times and met once. This research raised numerous ethical questions. I felt that I might be harming my potential research subjects if I contacted parents who were not aware of their childrens activities and asked permission to interview their children about Satanism. Conversely, I felt uneasy contacting parents and obtaining informed consent to ask about religion in general when I knew I was interested in only Satanism. The committee for its part, struggled with statutes that did not adequately cover participant observation research. We reached a compromise position: it would be best if I did not interview teenager Satanists unless they had already told their parents about their involvement. I was permitted to obtain birthdate information from potential sources and often followed up with a contact when the person was no longer a minor. For this same reason, I have not collected data at Coven meetings, nor on the grounds of the high schools, because minors often were present. Some data were undoubtedly lost by operating under this compromise, however it provided the only opportunity for the research to continue. 5. Three other times underage members or ex-members showed up to talk with me. For ethical reasons I did not talk to these young adults.
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6. For a detailed account of life in another football town that has many parallels with Victory Village, see Bissinger (1990). Gaines (1990) analysis of Bergenfield, New Jersey also noted the linkage between football, social status, and religion. 7. His conversion seems to exemplify the Lofland-Stark model (1965) with two exceptions. Mark was uneasy saying that he was at a turning point in his lifehe felt that he had always been differentand that high school was no worse, but also no better than previous times in his life. He also had a difficult time sorting out whether extracult attachments had been cut off before meeting the group or after cult bonds had been formed. On further reflection, Mark could not clearly state that he had had any bonds to anyone in the high school prior to joining this group. 8. Following LaVey (1969), the Coven used this term for its ritual meeting time. 9. Again, Elliss analysis is correct, as far as it goes. Some of these bridges were local legend sites. However, Coven rituals were not connected to these legends. 10. LaVey (1969) has spoken of holding rituals between the four elements of air, water, fire, and earth. Clearly, a bridge meets that criterion. 11. Most law enforcement officers did not feel that the Coven caused trouble. Their regulation of Coven activities was low-key and mostly focused on underage drinking and driving, spraypainting of graffiti, and bonfires not well doused. Local officers did not handle the Coven differently from other teens in the community. This approach was in stark contrast to other jurisdictions present at the Occult Crime workshop I attended. In large measure the Victory Village law enforcement response was led by the sheriff and city police chief, who tried to prevent rumors from spreading. 12. The Coven might have been seen by some outsiders to be a heavy metal subculture. It was only in discussing the religious inversions that it became apparent how important the Satanic theology was in the subculture. It was the latter that set the Coven apart from heavy metal subcultures. See Gross (1990) for a profile of heavy metal subcultures. 13. For instance, this was the first Coven term I encountered during the research. They kept mentioning it, but it took almost a year before such a ritual was explained to me.
References
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Levine, H.G., and S.H. Stumpf. 1983. Statements of fear through cultural symbols: Punk rock as reflective subculture. Youth & Society 14:41735. Lincoln, B. 1989. Discourse and the construction of society: comparative studies of myth, ritual, and classification. New York: Oxford. Lippert, R. 1990. The construction of Satanism as a social problem in Canada. Canadian Journal of Sociology 15:41739. Lofland, J., and R. Stark. 1965. Becoming a world saver: A theory of conversion to a deviant perspective. American Sociological Review 30:863974. Lowney, K. Forthcoming. Speak of the devil: Talk shows and the social construction of Satanism. In Perspectives on Social Problems, volume 6, edited by J.A. Holstein and G. Miller. Greenwich, CT: JAI. Moody, E.J. 1974. Magical therapy: An anthropological investigation of contemporary Satanism. In Religious movements in contemporary America, edited by I.I. Zaretsky and M.P. Leone, 35582. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Moriarty, A.R., and D.W. Story. 1990. Psychological dynamics of adolescent Satanism. Journal of Mental Health Counseling 12:18698. The Necronomicon. 1980. Edited with an introduction by Simon. New York: Avon. Prinsky, L.E., and J.L. Rosenbaum. 1987. Leer-ics or lyrics: Teenage impressions of rock n roll. Youth & Society 18:38497. Richardson, J.T., J. Best, and D.G. Bromley, eds. 1991a. The Satanism scare. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Richardson, J.T., J. Best, and D.G. Bromley. 1991b. Satanism as a social problem. In The Satanism scare, edited by J.T. Richardson, J. Best, and D.G. Bromley, 317. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Rudin, Marcia. 1990. Cults and Satanism: Threats to teens. NAASP Bulletin 74:4652. Speltz, A.M. 1990. Treating adolescent Satanism in art therapy. The Arts in Psychotherapy 17:14755. Stratford, L. [1987] 1991. Satans underground: The extraordinary story of one womans escape. Gretna, LA: Pelican. Steck, G.M., S.A. Anderson, and W.M. Boylin. 1992. Satanism among adolescents: Empirical and clinical considerations. Adolescence 27:90414. Taub, D., and L.D. Nelson. 1993. Satanism in contemporary America: Establishment or underground. Sociological Quarterly 34:52341. Tennant-Clark, C.M., J.J. Fritz, and F. Beauvais. 1989. Occult participation: Its impact on adolescent development. Adolescence 24:75772. Travers, A. 1982. Ritual power in interaction. Symbolic Interaction 5:27786. Victor, J. 1989. A rumor-panic about a dangerous Satanic cult in western New York. New York Folklore 15:2349. . 1991. The dynamics of rumor-panics about Satanic cults. In The Satanism scare, edited by J.T Richardson, J. Best, and D.G. Bromley, 22136. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Warnke, Mike. 1972. The Satan seller. Plainfield, NJ: Logos International. Wheeler, B.R., S. Wood, R.J. Hatch. 1988. Assessment and intervention with adolescents involved in Satanism. Social Work 33:54750.
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Social and Cultural Forces Were Partially Responsible for Satanic Panic
Susan P. Robbins
Susan P. Robbins an associate professor and associate dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Houston Graduate School of Social Work. The panic over satanic ritual abuse (SRA) is a modern version of the medieval witch hunts. As in the days of the witch hunts, American society was undergoing a significant transformation. Media sensationalism about cults, child pornography, rising crime, economic insecurity, and family instability contributed to the belief in ritual abuse of children. These concerns were enhanced by therapists and counselors who advocated the theory of victimization. These factors combined to make a climate ripe for a societal panic about a satanic conspiracy and satanic ritual abuse.
eginning in the early 1980s, stories of well-organized satanic cults began to emerge in police reports of horrifying crimes. Not surprisingly, these accounts became increasingly widespread as they also came to be well-publicized by the media. A multigenerational, underground cult network was allegedly orchestrating gruesome satanic rituals that routinely included child sexual abuse, ritualistic torture, mutilation, and human sacrifice (Bromley, 1991; Nathan & Snedeker, 1995). Both media and police reports were based on first-hand accounts of childhood ritual abuse from adults in psychotherapy who claimed that they had recovered previously repressed memories, and from young children in day care who allegedly suffered satanic abuse while in the care of Satanist teachers and caretakers (Jenkins, 1992; Jenkins & Maier-Katkin, 1991; Mulhern, 1991; Nathan & Snedeker, 1995; Victor, 1993). Although these accounts of satanic ritual abuse (SRA) varied to some degree, most shared common themes and were based on anecdotal descriptions of early childhood sexual abuse at the hands of parents or caretakers. Recovered memories of SRA most typically included brainwashing,
From The Social and Cultural Context of Satanic Ritual Abuse Allegations, by Susan P. Robbins, Issues in Child Abuse Accusations, vol. 10, no. 2 (1998). Copyright 1998 by Institute for Psychological Therapies. Reprinted with permission from the publisher.
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being drugged, sexually abused, and being forced to watch or participate in satanic rituals, drinking human blood, and ritual murder. Such early ritual initiation was supposedly preparation for an eventual role as a breeder who delivered infants to the satanic cult solely for the purpose of ritual sacrifice. Children in day care who made accusations of SRA against their teachers and caretakers gave accounts of ongoing, and often daily sexual abuse that typically included violent rape, and vaginal and anal mutilation with sharp objects. Such acts allegedly took place during normal day care hours and included the presence of magic rooms, tunnels, clowns, jungle animals, animal mutilation, and flying. Allegations such as these were often accepted as factual accounts, despite the fantastic nature of the stories and the lack of evidence to support such claims. It was believed, after all, that children would not lie about sexual abuse and that adults could not invent such realistic and consistent memories of horrific abuse. This article examines the multiple, interrelated, and converging social and cultural forces in American society that gave rise to such SRA allegations and explores the factors that sustained both public and professional belief in widespread ritual abuse. Previous literature in this area has described the influence of specific social factors and trends in the growing therapeutic enterprise (Mulhern, 1991; Nathan & Snedeker, 1995; Pendergrast, 1996; Smith, 1995; Victor, 1993; Wakefield & Underwager, 1994), but none has fully examined the convergence of historical, social, cultural, professional, and ideological forces and their combined influence on the subsequent reporting of and belief in SRA.
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slavery, child pornography, and child sacrifice for satanic purposes (Richardson, Best & Bromley, 1991). While such fears may be rooted, in part, in real dangers, they have been found to be widely over-exaggerated and exacerbated by questionable public statistics that warn of a host of dangers to children. Underlying such fears is a primary concern regarding the sexual abuse of children. Despite the fact that sexual abuse of children is a very real and tragic social problem, public concern about child abuse and CSA [child sexual abuse] was not mobilized until these were publicly defined as a problem that cut across social class boundaries (see Costin, Karger & Stoesz, 1996; Hacking, 1995; Pelton, 1981). Although the data have consistently and clearly indicated that violence, child abuse, and CSA are strongly overrepresented among the poor, the myth of classlessness and the subsequent acceptance of child abuse as a middle-class problem was a key factor in the spread of our current concept of CSA. In addition to separating the problem of abuse from the less appealing issue of violence associated with persistent poverty, the new mythology of abuse became extremely profitable for the growing industries of psychotherapy and law. It also increased the likelihood that legislation would be passed and funded to provide services that were not linked directly to conditions of poverty (Costin, Karger & Stoesz, 1996; Pelton, 1981). It is within this social and cultural context that allegations of CSA and SRA in day care settings first arose in the early 1980s. Although satanic cult rumors predated this by more than a decade, the first ritual child abuse allegations and arrests occurred in 1983 in the famous McMartin Preschool case (Victor, 1993). According to Nathan (1991), by mid-1984 reports of ritual child abuse skyrocketed and, by 1987, over 100 such cases had been validated by child protection agencies and police, despite the total lack of admissible evidence in many cases. In response to such allegations, criminal evidence statutes were reformed to make it easier to prosecute such cases and a new cadre of police, mental health, and child welfare specialists claiming expertise in SRA developed new methods to elicit SRA affirmations and discourage denial and recantation. As these new and questionable methods were taught to other professionals through a series of training seminars and specialty conferences, the epidemic of accusations of ritual abuse in day care settings began to grow as well.
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further solidified with the 1978 mass suicide/murder of the followers of charismatic leader Reverend Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana. From this point on cults were seen as groups that were brainwashed into submission and labeled as being authoritarian, totalistic, dangerous, destructive, fanatic, and violent (Victor, 1993). Despite a growing body of empirical research that questioned the validity of this stereotype and demonstrated that most new religious groups are, instead, characterized by an impressive diversity, these ideas became central to the negative conception of satanic cults as well (Beckford, 1985; Robbins, 1995a, 1997; Victor, 1993).
The news media have played an important role in the general publics perception of and belief in satanic cults and cultic crime.
Although there is no evidence to support the claims of widespread satanic crime, proponents of satanic conspiracy theory continue to pose an argument that is virtually irrefutable (Bromley, 1991). The lack of evidence is cited as proof of the successful clandestine operation of the
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cult. Thus, according to Victor (1993), sensational claims of cult survivors have come to be transformed into irrefutable truths.
Anti-cult organizations
The rise of new religious cults in the 1960s and 70s led to the formation of anti-cult groups that were initially composed of parents who were concerned about losing their children to destructive cults (Robbins, 1992; Shupe & Bromley, 1991; Victor, 1993). By the 1980s, anti-cult groups achieved greater organizational stability, and were able to draw media attention to their cause. Central to their allegations was the idea that cult members were victims of brainwashing that was achieved through the use of drugs, hypnotism, and other forms of coercive mind control (Shupe & Bromley, 1991). As the anti-cult movement became more sophisticated, they forged an alliance with sympathetic social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, social scientists, lawyers, and police. Professional newsletters, journals, monographs, and seminars on destructive cultism quickly proliferated and gave greater credibility to the idea that cult members were victims of mind control. As reports of satanic crime and SRA began to surface in the 1980s, parallel coalitions emerged to confront what they believed to be the new and growing threat of satanic cults. Similar to the dissemination of earlier allegations of cultic mind control, claims of a satanic conspiracy, CSA, ritualistic abuse, and kidnapping were quickly spread through conferences and literature for police and mental health counselors, through fundamentalist articles, books, and radio programs. Eventually, sensationalistic stories of SRA made their way into the mainstream media (Bromley, 1991; Crouch & Damphouse, 1991; Jenkins, 1992; Victor, 1993).
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such crimes and practices were proven to be untrue, they received sparse media attention. Thus, uncritical and sensationalized reporting have helped shape, support, and perpetuate the publics belief in SRA and cultic crime (Robbins, 1995a, 1997).
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one of the cornerstones of the Incest Survivor movement. The revival of Freudian seduction theory led the way for what would soon become a largely uncritical acceptance of uncorroborated accounts of repressed memories of repeated sexual abuse and recovered memories of SRA.
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companied the quickly changing and unstable job market, fluctuating economy, profound changes in family structure, changing social roles, and the increasing demands on women, many of whom now found it necessary to join the labor market as well as be responsible for child care, the disease model turned our attention inward and backward. Newly selfappointed experts in addiction and dysfunction turned to the prototypical Freudian model of individual pathological functioning based on alleged parenting deficiencies in early childhood (Kaminer, 1993; Pendergrast, 1996; Smith, 1995). Popularized versions of Freudian-based object-relations theory emerged as one of the primary theoretical explanations of adult dysfunction (see Smith, 1995; Wood, 1987). Although early American feminists criticized Freudian theory for its distinctively anti-female assumptions, later feminist thought embraced a revised form of psychoanalytic theory that accepted many of Freuds fundamental assumptions about the nature of the unconscious and the importance of early childhood experiences in the formation of adult personality (see Chodorow, 1978). While rejecting the idea of female inferiority that was pivotal to Freuds work, both psychoanalytic feminism and an emerging body of radical feminist writing portrayed male domination (i.e. the patriarchy) as the root of womens oppression and the primary cause of psychological disorders. Violence against women (physical, sexual, and psychological) was seen as a primary force through which women were denied control over their lives and choices. The recovered memory movement readily embraced the idea of male violence, particularly that of repressed CSA at the hands of fathers, stepfathers, and other male authority figures. Women (overwhelmingly white and middle class) who sought counseling for alcohol and drug problems, depression, eating disorders, and a variety of other conditions were told by their therapists that they were abuse victims because they showed the symptoms of CSA, despite the fact that most had no conscious memories of such childhood violence. Many were encouraged to abreact, or recover and relive the repressed memories, and to join ongoing incest survivor self-help groups to aid in their recovery. More recently, a newer third wave of feminism has produced scathing critiques about feminist theory and practice that is rooted in the concept of victimization (see Kaminer, 1995; Robbins, Chatterjee, & Canda, 1998). Requiring women to assume the role of the victim, a person who is perpetually in recovery, has been criticized for being disempowering as well as being a suppression of womens rights to sexual, psychological, and economic freedom. Nonetheless, victim feminism, as it has been dubbed, was an integral part of the recovery culture that emerged in the 1980s.
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a pivotal book, The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, advanced the purely ideological position that if you think you were abused, and your life shows the symptoms, then you were (Bass & Davis, 1994.) Written by two women with no formal training in psychology or counseling, this book became the veritable bible of the sexual abuse survivor movement. With victimization now elevated to an even higher and more desirable status, women were told, and many came to believe, that they could not trust themselves, their self-knowledge, or their actual memories. Ironically, this new therapeutic ideology, allegedly rooted in feminist thought and concern for women, actually replicated the oppressive patriarchal model of therapy in which the patients selfknowledge was inferior to the therapists expertise.
One of the significant factors in the spread of [satanic ritual abuse] stories was the rediscovery and embracing of Freudian theory [of recovered memory].
Newly recovered memories of CSA were sometimes accompanied by even more horrific accounts of childhood abuse that included torture, abuse, and murder in satanic cults. Although some of these stories first surfaced in the early 1980s (Nathan, 1991), they became quickly fueled and spread by the popular media, and an uncritical belief on the part of a small cohort of therapists that their patients accounts reflected real memories of cult abuse. In this context, SRA survivor stories became a primary focus of therapy. New and often barbaric techniques to invoke abreaction were taught at professional seminars and were justified by the idea that SRA survivors suffered Multiple Personality Disorder (later renamed Dissociative Identity Disorder) that was reinforced by sadistic satanic cult brainwashing. As SRA and MPD became inextricably linked with one another, stories of satanic abuse gained credibility through their association with a psychiatric diagnosis. Through its inclusion in the primary manual used to diagnose psychiatric disorders, the aura of medical acceptance validated the treatment of satanic possession and abuse, despite the fact that there was no verifiable evidence that any such abuse had occurred. Skeptics were always critical of this diagnosis and were quick to label MPD an iatrogenic disorder, a disorder that is actually caused by the treatment itself. Although SRA claims are now being examined with a more critical eye by the media and most therapists, the diagnosis of MPD/DID continues to be linked to dissociated childhood trauma. Many therapists are now approaching such cases more cautiously, however, due to the fact that a large number of people have now recanted their SRA memories, questioned their diagnosis of MPD/DID, and some have won very high profile lawsuits against their therapists for implanting memories of SRA and CSA that never occurred. In addition, professional organizations that regulate mental health counseling have now issued statements or guidelines warning about the use of hypnosis and other therapeutic methods aimed at the recovery of repressed memories (Pendergrast, 1996).
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The numerous social and cultural forces that gave rise to the widespread belief in SRA coalesced at a time in which American society was undergoing significant transformation. New societal fears about cults, child pornography, rising crime, family instability, and a growing concern for childrens safety, all contributed to the belief in the ritual abuse of children. Fueled by media sensationalism, these apprehensions and concerns became further enhanced by a growing self-help movement and counseling industry based on defining lifes problems in terms of addictions and ones status as a victim. This was then coupled with the renewed ideological belief that present day problems stem from early childhood trauma and family dysfunction. This paved the way, in part, for the rise of an increasingly profitable therapeutic enterprise built on peoples fears and dissatisfaction. Although many of these forces were interactive and intricately built upon one another, they must also be placed within the larger social context of the day in which real and unsettling changes in the industrial economy were accompanied by economic insecurity, changing family forms, and increasing anxiety about family stability and sex roles. It is the confluence of these multiple factors that made the climate ripe for a rumor panic about a satanic conspiracy that led otherwise reasonable people to believe in fantastic and unfounded accounts of satanic ritual abuse.
References
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Organizations to Contact
The editors have compiled the following list of organizations concerned with the issues debated in this book. The descriptions are derived from materials provided by the organizations. All have publications or information available for interested readers. The list was compiled on the date of publication of the present volume; the information provided here may change. Be aware that many organizations take several weeks or longer to respond to inquiries, so allow as much time as possible. American Family Foundation (AFF) PO Box 413005, Naples, FL 34101-3005 (941) 514-3081 fax: (941) 514-3451 e-mail: infoserv@affcultinfoserve.com website: www.csj.org AFF is a secular research organization that studies psychological manipulation and cults. Its mission is to educate the public and help those who have been adversely affected by participation in a cult. It publishes the research journal Cultic Studies Journal, the newsletter Cult Observer, and the study guide Satanism and Occult-Ritual Activity: Questions and Answers. Christian Research Institute (CRI) PO Box 7000, Rancho Santa Margarita, CA 92688-7000 56051 Airways PO, Calgary, Alberta T2E 85K (949) 858-6100 fax: (949) 858-6111 Canada: (800) 665-5851 The Christian Research Institute seeks to encourage orthodox, biblical Christianity. CRI disseminates information on cults, the occult, and other religious movements whose teachings and practices are inconsistent with the institutes biblical views. The institute publishes the Christian Research Journal, the Christian Research Newsletter, and the articles What About Halloween? and The Hard Facts About Satanic Ritual Abuse, among others. Church of Satan (CoS) P.O. Box 390009, San Diego, CA 92149-0009 e-mail: nadramia@panix.com website: www.churchofsatan.com The Church of Satan was founded on April 30, 1966, by Anton Szandor LaVey and is the first religion devoted to Satan. The church is openly dedicated to the acceptance of humankinds true naturethat of a carnal beast, living in a cosmos which is permeated and motivated by the Dark Force called Satan. Satanists believe they are their own gods. Its website offers published interviews with LaVey and articles explaining the theory and practice of Satanism and satanic thought. Cult Awareness Network (CAN) 1680 N. Vine, Suite 415, Los Angeles, CA 90028 (800) 556-3055 fax: (323) 468-0562 e-mail: can@cultawarenessnetwork.org website: www.cultawarenessnetwork.org
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CANs primary goal is to promote religious freedom and the protection of religious and civil rights. CAN gathers information about diverse groups and religions, maintains an extensive reference database, and sponsors conferences open to the public. The network also staffs a national hotline for individuals who are concerned that their friends or relatives may be involved with a questionable religious group. CAN publishes a newsletter periodically as well as a variety of brochures and booklets on religious conversions, belief systems, life styles, and related issues. False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) 1955 Locust St., Philadelphia, PA 19103-5766 (215) 940-1040 fax: (215) 940-1042 website: www.fmsfonline.com The FMSF documents and studies cases of adult children who suddenly have recovered repressed memories of childhood abuse. The foundation has a separate database that provides information, copies of journal articles, and reports that are skeptical of claims of satanic ritual abuse and repressed memories. It also publishes the bimonthly FMS Foundation Newsletter. First Church of Satan (FCoS) PMB 172, 203 Washington St., Salem, MA 01970 website: www.churchofsatan.org The First Church of Satan is an offshoot of the original Church of Satan. According to the FCoS, there is a race of beings, known as daemons, that is more developed, spiritually and physically, than humankind. The church also believes that daemons are the progenitors of humans, that humans are inherently divine, and that humans create God in their own image. The First Church of Satans website offers many articles on its beliefs and philosophy, including The Complete Sermons of Lucifer, The Satanic Trinity, and Children and the Left-Hand Path. Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance PO Box 514, Wellesley Island, NY 13640-0514 Box 27026, Frontenac PO, Kingston ON Canada K7M 8W5 fax: (613) 547-9015 website: www.religioustolerance.org The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance is composed of a small group of volunteers who provide accurate information about minority religions (including Satanism), religious fraud, hatred, and current religious topics. It hopes its efforts to counter misinformation spread by others will lead to understanding and tolerance and decrease bigotry. The organization presents, compares, and contrasts all sides of each issue in its publications, such as Does Satanic Ritual Abuse Exist? and Satanism: Religious Satanism, Gothic Satanism, Satanic Dabbling, Etc. Spiritual Counterfeits Project (SCP) PO Box 4308, Berkeley, CA 94704 (510) 540-0300 (510) 540-1107 e-mail: access@scp-inc.org website: www.scp-inc.org SCP is a Christian ministry that monitors spiritual trends, including cults, the occult, Eastern religions, and the New Age movement. The organization maintains an extensive library with files on cults and new religious movements and offers films, tapes, leaflets, outreach services, and counseling to the
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public. Its publications include the SCP Newsletter and the SCP Journal, as well as a variety of books and educational materials. Temple of Set PO Box 470307, San Francisco, CA 94147 e-mail: ED@xeper.org website: www.xeper.org The Temple of Set broke off from the Church of Satan during the 1970s. Believers worship the Egyptian god Set, whose priesthood can be traced to predynastic times. Set is the oldest known form of the Prince of Darkness. The temple is designed as a tool for personal empowerment, self-cultivation, and above all, to honor and enshrine consciousness. The Temple of Sets website offers many articles on its philosophy and beliefs, such as Why Should I Join the Temple of Set? Setian Philosophy, and Xeper: The Eternal Word of Set. Watchman Fellowship PO Box 13340, Arlington, Texas 76094 (817) 277-0023 fax: (817) 277-8098 website: www.watchman.org The Watchman Fellowship specializes in the study of new religious movements, including cults, the occult, and the New Age movement. The organization researches claims of questionable cult practices and provides counseling for former cult members. It offers several articles, videotapes, and books on Satanism, and publishes the Watchman Expositor magazine. Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center PO Box 67, Albany, OH 45710 (740) 698-6277 fax: (740) 698-2053 website: www.wellspringretreat.org Wellspring provides treatment and counseling for victims of cultic or religious abuse or mind control. The center researches and archives information on the various groups, cults, and cult phenomenon. It offers numerous books and articles about cults and victims of cults, and publishes the Wellspring Journal.
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Bibliography
Books
Gavin Baddeley David V. Barrett J.H. Brennan Raymond Buckland Nigel Cawthorne Bill Ellis Marc Galanter J.S. LaFontaine Lucifer Rising: A Book of Sin, Devil Worship and Rock n Roll. Medford, NJ: Plexus, 1999. Sects, Cults, and Alternative Religions: A World Survey and Sourcebook. London: Blandford, 1998. Magick for Beginners: The Power to Change Your World. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1999. Practical Candleburning Rituals. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1999. Satanic Murder: Chilling True Stories of Sacrificial Slaughter. London: True Crime, 1995. Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000. Cults: Faith, Healing, and Coercion. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Speak of the Devil: Tales of Satanic Abuse in Contemporary England. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. In the Name of Satan. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1996. Larsons Book of Spiritual Warfare. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1999. Satan Speaks! Venice, CA: Feral House, 1998. The Satanic Bible. New York: Avon, 1977. The Kingdom of the Cults. Rev., updated, and expanded ed. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1997. Lure of the Sinister: The Unnatural History of Satanism. New York: New York University Press, 2001. Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground. Venice, CA: Feral House, 1998. Satans Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern Witch Hunt. New York: BasicBooks, 1995. Satanism: Rumor, Reality, and Controversy. Rev. ed. New York: Rosen, 1998. The Origin of Satan. New York: Random House, 1995.
Bob Larson Bob Larson Anton Szandor LaVey Anton Szandor LaVey Walter Martin Gareth J. Medway Michael Moynihan and Didrik Sderlind Debbie Nathan and Michael Snedeker Allen Ottens and Rick Myer Elaine Pagels
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Bibliography
George Palermo and Michele C. Del Re Bob Passantino and Gretchen Passantino Daniel Ryder David K. Sakheim and Susan E. Devine Jeffrey S. Victor Satanism: Psychiatric and Legal Views. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1999. Satanism. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995.
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Cover-Up of the Century: Satanic Ritual Crime and World Conspiracy. Noblesville, IN: Ryder Publishing, 1996. Out of Darkness: The Controversy Over Satanism and Ritual Abuse. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1997. Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend. Chicago: Open Court, 1993.
Periodicals
Bette L. Bottoms, Kathleen R. Diviak, and Suzanne L. Davis Alexander Cockburn Mary de Young Jurors Reactions to Satanic Ritual Abuse Allegations, Child Abuse and Neglect, September 1997. Kathas Silence, Counterpunch, October 26, 1999. Available at www.counterpunch.org/pollitt.html Breeders for Satan: Toward a Sociology of Sexual Trauma Tales, Journal of American Culture, Summer 1996. Speak of the Devil: Rhetoric in Claims-Making About the Satanic Ritual Abuse Problem, Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare. June 1996. Adolescent Satanism: Rebellion Masquerading as Religion, Counseling and Values, vol. 39, January 1995. Satanic Ritual Abuse: A Chapter in the History of Human Cruelty, Journal of Psychohistory, Winter 1995. Satanic Tourism: Adolescent Dabblers and Identity Work, Phi Delta Kappan, September 1994. I Saluted a Witch, Time, July 5, 1999. Adolescent Attraction to Cults, Adolescence, vol. 33, September 22, 1998. The Unholy Family: From Satanism to the Chronos Complex, Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture, Fall 2000. What Do Children Know About Religion and Satanism? Child Abuse and Neglect, November 1997. Case Studies of Children Presenting with a History of Ritualistic Abuse, Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, AprilJune 1996. Investigators Guide to Allegations of Ritual Child Abuse, January 1992. Available at: www. religioustolerance.org/ra_rep03.htm Finality or Justice? Nation, October 18, 1999.
Mary de Young
Shirley Emerson and Yvonne Syron Gail Carr Feldman Gary Alan Fine and Jeffrey S. Victor S.C. Gwynne-Killeen Eagan Hunter Marcia Ian
David P.H. Jones Garnet F. King and Beatrice Yorker Kenneth V. Lanning
Katha Pollitt
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A Consolidation of SRA and False Memory Data, November 1996. Available at: www.iccom.com/ usrwwww/jlquan.connsldra.doc. Blame It on the Devil, Redbook, June 1994. Grim Details Emerge in Teen-Age Slaying Case, New York Times, October 15, 1997. Satanic Cults Ritual Abuse of Children: Horror or Hoax? USA Today, November 1993. Speak of the Devil: Tales of Satanic Abuse in Contemporary England, New Statesman, February 27, 1998. Adolescent Satanism: An Intersubjective and Cultural Perspective, Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture, Fall 2000.
James Quan
A.S. Ross Kevin Sack Jeffrey S. Victor Richard Webster Timothy J. Zeddies
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Index
addiction treatment programs, 9798 animal sacrifice by teens, 11, 12, 34 as unsatanic, 8 Australian Satanic Council, 29, 30 Beck, Michael, 43 Berkowitz, David (Son of Sam), 8 black magic, 33, 4142 see also satanic rituals child abuse (sexual), 34, 91, 92 claims of, 93 lack of evidence on, 50 legislation protecting accusers for, 54 as outrageous, 54 questioning children for, 5455 as cutting across social class boundaries, 93 hysteria and panic over, 53, 94 Christian groups fighting, 60 and fear of religions other than Christianity, 60 fundamentalist feminists influencing, 63 news media influencing, 6162 and racial/ethnic fears, 59 social forces influencing, 5960 and therapy industry, 60, 61 and recovered memories, 49, 5051, 98 self-publications on, 61 and societys obsession with sex, 5558 as urban myth, 50 Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974), 54 Christians/Christianity culture of, vs. teen satanic culture, 7879 in dominant culture, 75 early cults of, 52 fears of, 60 fighting satanic hysteria, 60 satanic rituals as parody on, 1617 Satanism as threatening to, 7 Church of Satan, 6, 24 membership in age requirements, 25 being ready for, 28 is not required for being a Satanist, 2526 offshoots of, 29 profile of members, 68 Cornerstone (publisher), 60 Coven. See Satanists, teenage cowl, 1415 crime juvenile, 7 deviant ideology justifying, 38 and evil self-image, 4344 and legend trips, 3537, 69 vs. other juvenile delinquents, 3839 as petty crime, 3738 profile of delinquents, 40 and pseudo-Satanism, 3841 and rootlessness of teens, 46 and satisfaction from deviant identity, 4243 and self-fulfilling prophecy, 4445 teen Satanists do not engage in, 86 types of, 37, 40 vandalism, reasons for, 4142 occult/satanic hidden evidence of, 22 lack of evidence on, 94 satanic symbolism linked with, 9 Satan/Satanism held responsible for, 78, 50 see also child abuse; satanic ritual abuse Crime Victims Compensation, 61 crimina excepta, 55 Cult Awareness Network, 12 cults demonization of, 9394 organizations against, 95 see also Satanism; Satanists cyberporn, 65 Damphousse, Kelly Richard, 3839 day care centers allegations against, 15, 92 McMartin case, 51, 54, 93
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At Issue
abuse, 6162, 9596 portraying Satanism as dangerous, 68 memory, recovered, 4951, 96100 miter, 15 Mondale, Walter, 54 Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), 99 murder, ritual, 7, 15 music, 33, 80 National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN), 55 Necronomicon, The, 79 Nettle, Gwynn, 46 Nine Satanic Statements, 6 Noblitt, James Randall, 13 Oliver, Sharma, 49
demon guide, 27 deviant identity, 4243 deviant ideology, 38, 39 drugs, 1011, 39 treatment programs, 97 Dungeons and Dragons (game), 33 Dworkin, Andrea, 63 Ellis, Bill, 36 Engel, Beverly, 51 evil, worship of, 1314 see also Satan family, 98 Felix, Minicus, 52 feminists, 63, 9899 First Church of Satan, 29 Freud, Sigmund, 96, 98 Gergen, Kenneth J., 59 Gore, Tipper, 30 Gothic Satanism, 7, 8 heavy metal music. See music Holmes, Ronald, 33 Holocaust, 2223 human sacrifice, 7, 15 in teenage Satanism, 34 as unsatanic, 8 Jackson, Barb, 15 jewelry, 8384 juvenile crime. See crime, juvenile Karlsberg, Elizabeth, 9 Katz, Jack, 41 King, Paul, 10 Kisser, Cynthia, 10 Lanning, Kenneth V., 8 LaVey, Anton Szandor, 6, 10, 29 on animal and human sacrifice, 8 on Satan, 31 legends, 3537, 69 legend trips, 3537, 38, 69 Lesser Magic, 26 Loftus, Elizabeth, 51 Lowney, Kathleen S., 67 Lucifer, vs. Satan, 14 MacKinnon, Katherine, 63 Magill, Gordan A., 19 Manson, Charles, 78 Mazza, Michael J., 29 media influencing panic on satanic ritual
parents disapproval and lack of understanding by, 2627 hearing claims on teenage Satanism, 34 Perskin, Pamela Sue, 13 pornography, 34, 6465 psychology. See therapy Pulling, Pat, 33 punk subculture, 83 Ramirez, Richard (Night Stalker), 8, 62 Rivera, Geraldo, 62 Robbins, Susan P., 91 Satan vs. Lucifer, 14 Satanists on, 6, 31 symbol for, 9 see also Church of Satan Satanic Bible, The (LaVey), 24, 29, 30, 79 Satanic Panic (Victor), 30 Satanic Ritual, The (LaVey), 6 satanic ritual abuse (SRA), 15 and anticult groups, 95 Christian ceremonies parodied in, 1617 claims of common themes in, 9192 demanding evidence for, 2122 dismissed as mass hysteria, 2021 fearing, 20 as hard to believe, 20 vs. learning lessons from history, 2223
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as unproved, 8, 4950 and fears about children, 9293 first modern accounts of, 7 hidden evidence of, 22 hysteria and panic over does not protect children, 6465 history of, 52 media influence on, 9596 as modern version of witch crazes, 92 news media influencing, 6162 as providing a sense a power, 1516 real victims of, 6566 and recovered memory movement, 49, 9697, 99100 self-publications on, 61 see also child abuse; crime; satanic rituals satanic rituals, 40 conjuring Satan into your life, 2728 demon guide as within for, 27 items for, 27 practicing alone, vs. with others, 27 sexual, 8082 see also satanic ritual abuse Satanism causal link with crime, lack of, 9495 as challenging mainstream religions, 3031 as dangerous, 6768 defined by Satanists, 10 and drug use, 24 forbidding human and animal sacrifice, 8 on judgment of good and evil, 25 as legitimate religion, 29 panic and hysteria over, 30 parents disapproval and lack of understanding on, 2627 predecessors of, 13 as respecting life, 24 social-scientific explanation of, 68 telltale signs of, 9 uniqueness and individuality expressed in, 25 see also satanic ritual abuse; Satanists Satanists core beliefs of, 67 garments worn by, 1415 misconceptions on, 6 number of, 7 positive characteristics of, 30 pursuit of power by, 1617 requirements for being real, 2526 Satan defined by, 6, 31
111
teenage, 7 advice for, from Satanic Church, 2425, 28 behavior changes as warning sign in, 12 claims about, 3233, 34, 44, 45 commonly asked questions by, 2628 communitys hostility toward, 8485 and development of deviant identity, 4243 dominant culture of, 7475 criticism of, 70, 7678 drugs and alcohol influencing, 1011 and evil self-image, 4344 explanations for as inadequate, 86 as privileging dominant culture, 6970 helping, 1112, 4647 hysteria and panic over, 6869 jewelry worn by, 8384 and legend-tripping, 3537, 69 music of, 80 as an oppositional subculture, 8587 profile of, 40, 74 reasons for turning to Satanism, 10, 11 research on, 7074 rituals by, 40 sabbats, 78, 7980 sexual, 8082 as socially marginalized, 7576 stages of, 3334 style of, 8283 subculture of, vs. Christian culture, 7879 symbolism of, 45 teen behavior labeled as, 3435 violent and bizarre acts by, 910 see also crime, juvenile worship of evil by, 1314 see also satanic ritual abuse; Satanism Satan Seller, The (Warnke), 60 Satans Underground: The Extraordinary Story of One Womans Escape (Wilson and Stratford), 60 Saturated Self, Dilemmas of Identity in Modern Life, The (Gergen), 59 self-concept/image, 43 self-esteem, 11 self-help movement, 9798
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Toma, David, 11, 12 Trahan, David, 11, 12 twelve-step treatment programs, 9798 urban legends/myths, 35, 50 of the past, 58 social forces and current, 5960 U.S. Army, 7 vandalism, 40, 4142 victim feminism, 99 Victor, Jeffrey S., 20, 30, 32 Warnke, Mike, 60 Wilson, Laurel, 60 witchhunts, 19, 23, 55 Yezidi sect, 13
sex rituals. See Satanists, teenage Sinagogue of Satan, 29 Starkey, Marion, 55 Stratford, Lauren, 60 symbolism for Satan, 9 used by teenage Satanists, 45 teenage Satanists/Satanism. See Satanists, teenage Temple of Set, 29 therapy and feminist thought, 98 influencing hysteria over child sexual abuse, 61 and recovered memory movement, 9697, 9899 recanting of, 100 and satanic ritual abuse, 99100 twelve-step recovery, 9798