The Satanic Kindred Organization’s “History of Satanism” page, recently echoed by “God Discussion”

On a website called God Discussion, with the ability to send its blog posts to Google News, there’s a post titled “Theistic Satanism Booming on the Internet, says Catholic Conference: But Why Would anyone want to Worship the Devil?” by johnthomas didymus, June 7, 2011.

First, thanks to the author for linking to a page on my Theistic Satanism website. Alas he also linked to, as an alleged authoritative source, a page about “The History of Satanism” on the website of the Satanic Kindred Organization. That page contains some serious errors which are echoed in the God Discussion post.

Catholic priests who secretly practice Satanic rites?

In a comment on my previous post, Preliminary response to Michael Cuneo on exorcism, Raul Gil requested a separate thread to respond to my page about the murder case of Father Gerald Robinson in Toledo, Ohio (U.S.A.) on my Against Satanic Panics site. So here it is.

Raul, thanks for respecting the topicality of the original comment thread.

In particular, Raul wanted to discuss allegations about Catholic priests who secretly practice Satanic rites.

The Catholic exorcism trend and Italy’s Satanic panic

The recent movie The Rite is loosely based on a (supposedly) nonfiction book that was published two years ago, The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist by Matt Baglio. The book is about an American priest who spent his sabbatical year in Italy training to be an exorcist.

As Laura Miller explains in “Eat your saints, purge your demons,” Salon, March 27, 2009:

Father Gary Thomas, Baglio’s trainee exorcist, half fell into the job; he volunteered when, in 2004, the Vatican asked every Catholic bishop to appoint an official exorcist to his diocese. This startling development can be explained by the fact that for the past decade Italy has been gripped by an intermittent satanic ritual abuse panic similar to the hysteria that swept through the U.S. in the 1980s.

The JBFCS Cult Clinic and Satanism: A response to Arnold Markowitz, LCSW

(revised February 10, 2011)

Here in New York City, there is a Cult Hotline and Clinic run by the JBFCS (the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services). They provide various helpful services to ex-members of “cults” and to estranged families and friends of “cult” members. They are, as far as I can tell, the only place in New York City that offers such services.

Truly harmful religious groups certainly do exist, and it’s good that there are at least a few places, like the JBFCS Cult Clinic, where people who have been hurt by such groups can get help. But the website of the JBFCS Cult Clinic associates Satanism in general with “cults,” even though the vast majority of Satanist groups (or, at least, most of the ones I’ve run into) do not fit the JBFCS Cult Clinic’s definition of a “cult.”

Reply to venusinpieces

On my Theistic Satanism blog, venusinpieces posted a comment below my post Christine O’Donnell’s alleged “little midnight picnic on a satanic altar”, asking me to look at her allegations of what she calls “satanic ritual abuse” while at the same time saying that “the label of satanic ritual abuse somewhat of a misnomer, because the majority of these organizations tend towards a more syncretic religious style.” She also says, “I am actually quite inspired by many cultures that could be classified as satanic.”

Reply to Henry Makow fans

Someone posted a link to my post Aloysius Fozdyke, Satanic conspiracy hoaxter in a comment on a page on Henry Makow’s site. This led to a flurry of anti-Satanist comments being posted here on this site. I’ve let through — and will now respond to — those comments that do not also contain bigoted remarks against some other religious group too (such as Jews) and which do not contain threats of violence.

Reply to Geral Sosbee

Geral Sosbee posted a rambling, off-topic comment beneath my post America’s Most Wanted: The “Satan worshipers” who allegedly killed Kimberly Simon. His comment was about “the scenario today on the world stage with the fbi/cia/pentagon (and their minions, stooges,shills, thugs,punks,assassins,operatives, agents,informants,and police/national guard Gen d’armes, all acting as mafia type figures.” It ended with a bunch of links to pages on his website on which he claims to have been a victim of various fbi/cia-sponsored abuses.

Aloysius Fozdyke, Satanic conspiracy hoaxter

Yesterday, Satanic panic promoter (and all-around bigot) Henry Makow published an email from one “Aloysius Fozdyke,” alleged to be a “prominent Satanic insider.” This email was the latest installment in a saga which began, back on January 2 of this year, with the publication of a message from “Aloysius Fozdyke” by a grand conspiracy website called “Love for Life.”

The long, rambling January 2 message is obviously a prank. I mean, just look at the section about the “Order of the Toilet” and its “latrine doctrines.” To me, this reads like a parody of traditional occult orders.

Beer-lovin’ anti-Satanist

More foul-mouthed nonsense, this time from an anti-Satanist believer in grand conspiracy ideology — or, perhaps, from someone whose idea of a joke is to pretend to be an anti-Satanist believer in grand conspiracy ideology? Below is an edited version of a rejected comment from someone named Jesse, with an email address proclaiming a fondness for beer. Apparently he had consumed quite a bit of his favorite beverage before writing the following:

Some improvement in local news coverage of Kim Simon murder suspects

Well, it looks like recent Church of Azazel press release (see my previous post) might have influenced subsequent reporting by the Utica Observer Dispatch about the murder of Kimberly Simon, although we didn’t get mentioned. According to the latest Utica Observer Dispatch news storyn, 3 persons of interest in Simon case were questioned in 1980s by Rocco LaDuca, March 17, 2010:

More about the Kimberly Simon murder case, featured on “America’s Most Wanted” tomorrow

Below is a copy (minus contact info) of a press release I sent out today regarding a murder case that will be featured on “America’s Most Wanted” tomorrow, for which the currently-suspected perpetrators are a small group of “Satan worshipers.”

America’s Most Wanted: The “Satan worshipers” who allegedly killed Kimberly Simon

I’ve been working on a Statement against violent crime and vandalism for the Church of Azazel. We absolutely need to finish writing this statement now, because, on Saturday, March 13, America’s Most Wanted will air a show about an old cold case of a murder committed back in 1985, for which the currently suspected perpetrators are a local group of “Satan worshipers.”

Previously another person, Steven Barnes, had been convicted of murdering Kimberly Simon, a 16-year-old who had been attending Whitesboro High School in Oneida County, New York, back in 1985. Last year, Steven Barnes was exonerated after having spent more than twenty years in prison. So the investigation has been reopened.

Suspicion now falls on a group of “Satan worshipers” who had been interviewed by the original investigators and who were not charged with the crime back then.

On violent crime and vandalism involving “language or symbols related to Satanism”

Yesterday I finally got around to writing a draft of the Church of Azazel’s statement against violent crime and vandalism in the name of Satan or Satanism.

I would urge all law-abiding Satanist groups to make a similar statement, condemning violent crime and vandalism on whatever grounds are appropriate to the group’s own particular paradigm.

Alas, it appears that vandalism involving “Satanic symbols” is a rising trend these days. So, we do need to distance ourselves from it.

A book about the SRA scare by Paul R McHugh

I’ve come across some reviews of a book, written within the past year, about the recovered-memory aspect of the Satanic Ritual Abuse scare: Try to Remember: Psychiatry’s Clash over Meaning, Memory, and Mind by Paul R McHugh.

San Fernando Curt on the SRA scare

I recently came across a very interesting blog post about the “Satanic Ritual Abuse” scare of the 1980′s and early 1990′s: Inconvenient untruth, San Fernando Curt’s Blog, Talking Points Memo (TPM), June 22, 2009.

San Fernando Curt observes that the Satanic Ritual Abuse scare isn’t talked about very much anymore. He quotes and links to a Summer 2001 Women’s Quarterly article, Sex, Lies, and Audiotapes – hysteria over rape and sexual child abuse by Rael Jean Isaac, who points to the role of feminists in launching the panic. Curt claims that the reason why the SRA scare isn’t talked about very much anymore is because the feminist movement is, allegedly, a sacred cow whose mistakes no one dares discuss.

I disagree.

Moral panics

Searching Google News for “Satanist,” I came across an opinion piece, Hugs! The Lamest Teen Moral Panic Ever by Pareene, Gawker, Thu May 28 2009, which begins with the following sarcastic reference to the Satanic Ritual Abuse scare of the 1980′s and early 1990′s:

In the good old days of the culture wars, your teenagers, after years of being raped by Satanist daycare workers, were all organizing “Rainbow Parties” and smoking weed three times more powerful than the stuff you smoked all the time in high school. Now they are just hugging?

Hank Hanegraaff — an example of fundamentalist/evangelical Christian beliefs about Satan

Today I surfed onto a blog belonging to a fundamentalist/evangelical Christian named Hank Hanegraaff, who runs something called the Christian Research Institute (CRI).

He seems to be, in some ways, one of the more honest and reasonable evangelical Christian public figures. Back in the early 1990′s, CRI published some articles debunking the “Satanic ritual abuse” scare , for which I would like to thank him. Back then, standing up against the SRA scare required quite a bit of courage.

In most other ways, though, I still have to regard him as being very much in the enemy camp, for reasons aptly summed up here on RationalWiki (although, as I’ll detail later, the RationalWiki page contains some inaccuracies).

Anyhow, I would like to call attention to some things he says that are of interest both to Satanists and to Pagan Witches.

Refutations of some classic libels against Jews

Recently, there seems to have been revival of classic libels against Jews, such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and ye olde blood libel, in many parts of the world.

I’m not Jewish, but I have a personal interest in this topic, as a member of another, much smaller religious minority which has frequently been a target of what can best be described as warmed-over anti-Jewish propaganda. Also, I live in New York and have had quite a few Jewish friends.

Below, I’ll discuss some classic anti-Jewish claims, with links to sites refuting them.

I do question whether these beliefs have become quite as widespread as some folks claim. Pro-Israel hawks have seized upon the promulgation of anti-Jewish libels as a justification for their own intransigance, which makes me wonder whether some of them might be exaggerating just a tad. Nevertheless, the revival of traditional anti-Jewish nonsense does indeed seem to be a real and growing menace.

“Voodoo, black magic or Satanism, call it what you like” – No!

In a news story from the Tenerife Canary Islands in Spain, Gruesome goings-on in Arona’s cemetery, Fortnightly Tenerife News, Spain – Mar 27, 2008, the first sentence says:

Voodoo, black magic or Satanism, call it what you like, the gruesomely shocking results have scandalized the residents of Arona and have angered and horrified the relatives of those whose bodies have been desecrated by some profoundly unbalanced individuals.

No, don’t “call it what you like.” Find out what it is. Don’t just go randomly slurring nonmainstream religions.

Witchhunts and (real) ritual murder, in Africa and India – roundup of recent news

Some interesting speculation: Does Climate Change Mean More Witch Hunts? by Freakonomics, New York Times Blogs, NY, 4/25/2008:

Welcome, Theistic Satanists (and others)

Hi everyone! I’d like to experiment with the idea of using WordPress categories/tags to create a de facto unmoderated forum, as a possible replacement for my Theistic Satanism forums on Yahoo, in the event that I decide to phase out the latter.

For every tag, WordPress.com has a page of all the recent posts on WordPress.com with that tag. So, if a bunch of us regularly use a sufficiently rare tag, that page becomes a defacto forum for all relevant posts by us here on WordPress.com.

Publishing this post with the tag “theistic Satanism” will enable me to find the page for the tag “theistic Satanism.” I’ll then add a comment with a link to that page.

To put a tag on a post the first time, type the tag in the text field under the heading “Categories,” next to the “Add” button, at the top of the side panel of the page where you write a new post, and then click the “Add” button before you publish the post. To add the same tag again to a subsequent post, check the checkbox for that category/tag.

As we can do with the tag “Theistic Satanism,” so some of us can also do with the tags “Black Goat Cabal” and “Church of Azazel.”

To try out another neat feature, let’s experiment with trackback pings. In your post, put a link to this post. (Note: That’s a link to this individual post, NOT to the page for the tag, or to my home page.) Soon afterward, a link back to your post will automatically appear as a comment on my post.

Gwan Garrison, the next Mike Warnke?

I recently ran into the following two stories, both on the website of Baptist Press in Tennessee:

• A ticket from Satanism to holiness by Gwan Garrison, April 2, 2007
• Many Satanists prefer the shadows , by Joe Westbury, Posted on Apr 2, 2007

Gwan Garrison claims to be an ex-Satanist. Googling “Satanism Gwan Garrison,” I found the following earlier versions of the above two articles, on Christian Index, a Georgia Baptist site:

• The devil had my heart, but Christ wanted my soul by Gwan Garrison, Pastor, Franklin Baptist Church, March 29, 2007
• Satanism: a real force in the world March 29, 2007

His bio seemed awfully fishy to me.

I also found some witty and thought-provoking commentary on About.com, on Witchvox, and on J-Walk Blog.

On About.com, in an article titled “Satanic Panic, or ‘I was a Satanic Witch (No, Really, I Could Fly and Everything!)’,” Jennifer Emick sums up Gwan Garrison’s story as follows:

Baptist Pastor Gwan Garrison talks about how much he enjoyed “persecuting Christians,” and he’s sure to mention (with the amount of accuracy typical in these stories) his “Satanic altar” and his “crystals.” It’s light fare compared to some of these stories- no bloody sacrifices, no marriages to Satan- but there is a glowering cat and a high-voltage Satanic bible- and there is, of course, that ever-present character, the tirelessly persistent evangelical whose refusal to stop pestering the ungodly results in his miraculous transformation.

Satanic panic in Russia?

A Russian Orthodox public movement called the “People’s Council” has made some ill-informed, panic-stricken claims about Satanism:

• “People’s Council urges authorities to equate Satanists to terrorists,” Interfax-Religion, Russia – Apr 2, 2007

It released a statement claiming that “ritual murders” and various other nasty activities are all “characteristic of Satanic organizations.”

The statement is said to mention several ritual murders including the allegedly notorious “murder of three Optino monks killed by a Satanist on Orthodox Easter.” (I found no further information about this crime via Google.)

The statement also says, “There is an enormous number of Satanic organizations and groups acting in Russia today. Many of them are united in a single branchy network.”

Yeah, right.

The statement then goes on the mention the “Church of the Satan” [sic], failing to note that the Church of Satan has been an above-ground organization for over 40 years and does NOT endorse any kind of criminal activity.

I found the following blog entry:

• “‘Satanists as dangerous as terrorists! World at risk from Satan cults’ claim Russian Orthodox,” Signs of Witness

It closes with the comment, “It could be that Religious Right Hysteria is the real ‘danger to Society…’”