More "Satanism" scare news from elsewhere

"Satanism" scares are far from confined to Africa, alas:

• Hungarians fast and pray to ward off Marilyn Manson, Reuters, Thu Jul 2, 2009. About "some Catholic churchgoers in Hungary, who have posted placards in and around the churches of Sopron, a town near the Austrian border in western Hungary, which is hosting a four-day music festival that lists Manson as one of the main acts."


• What the devil's going on? Headless stag sparks rumours of satanic mischief afoot, Daily Mail, 17th June 2009. The fears are not based on any evidence other than the cops' inability to think of any other motive for the killing. This news story claims, near the end: "Deer skins and heads are believed to be used in satanic rituals in a tradition that harks back to pre-Christian pagan Britain." Where on Earth did that factoid come from??? See also Satanists deny beheading deer near Northwich by y Andrew McCreaddie, Northwich Guardian, Thursday 25th June 2009. The latter article quotes only some members of the (LaVeyan) Church of Satan. We theistic Satanists need to start speaking up for ourselves too.


• Rome church stops holy water over satanic rite fears, CathNews, June 16, 2009. "The Santa Maria Stella Maris church at Fiumicino, near Rome, has stopped offering holy water to worshippers because the parish priest fears it is being stolen for satanic rituals." At the end of the story is a link to the source, on a website called ADNKronos: Italy: Rome church links thefts to 'satanic rites'


• Religious Symbol Intolerance by Fern Joan Marder, Newark Interfaith Spirituality Examinar. About Radioliberty.com and its list of symbols that it claims are occult-based. The Radio Liberty page begins by saying, "Occult symbols are fast replacing Christian symbols in our culture. Therefore, we encourage you to use this list to warn others, especially Christian children who intentionally wear and display them because they are popular." The RadioLiberty.com site is also full of grand conspiracy claims and even endorses a variant of ye olde anti-Jewish blood libel, with an apparently-approving link to a video titled "Zionist Jews Sacrifice Babies for Satan - Oprah Winfrey." Fortunately, stuff like this is far from mainstream here in the U.S.A. at the present time. But it is indeed growing within various fringe subcultures.

On the other hand, I also came across a very interesting recent blog post about the "Satanic Ritual Abuse" scare. I've discussed it on my Wordpress blog, in the post San Fernando Curt on the SRA scare.

More Satanic panic stories from Africa

AllAfrica.com has a story, Zambia: Katete Pupils Expulsions Queried, Times of Zambia, 24 June 2009, about an official reaction to a school expelling students for practicing "Satanism":

EASTERN Province education officer, Pilila Jere has demanded a full report from Katete Girls Boarding High School management on the expulsion of five pupils accused of practicing satanism.

Ms Jere said in an interview in Chipata yesterday that she was shocked to learn that the pupils had been sent away from the school without proper investigations and formal communication with her office.

Ms Jere said one of the parents whose child was sent away from the institution which is run by the Reformed Church in Zambia (RCZ) complained to her about the school management's decision.

"It is saddening and shocking that pupils were sent away from the school on suspicion of practicing Satanism. Such allegations require exhaustive investigation," she said.

Meanwhile, on a South African news site called IOL, there's a story about two accused murderers whose defense is apparently "some Satanists made us do it": Money, sex blamed for Lotter claim by Tania Broughton, June 22 2009.

And, according to a South African news site called The Citizen, the SA Police Service has a "Satanism unit" and purported "Satanism experts": "JOHANNESBURG - Satanism expert Dr Kobus Jonker, former head of the SA Police Service’s satanism unit, is to evaluate convicted schoolboy murderer Morné Harmse to assist the South Gauteng High Court in deciding whether the boy was out of touch with reality because of 'influences from the dark side' when he fatally wounded a fellow pupil with a samurai sword," according to the news story Satanism expert to quiz killer, 6/16/2009. I have to wonder if these "Satanism experts" are anything like the fundamentalist Christian "Satanism experts" who stoked the Satanic panic of the 1980's and early 1990's here in the U.S.A.

P.S.: Just now, after posting the above, I came across another AllAfrica.com story from today: Zambia: We Killed 300 People, Ex-Satanist Teens Testify, Times of Zambia, 2 July 2009. This story is about two teenagers being sued for slander by Kamba Ward PF councillor Oscar Himanga, whom they claim initiated them into Satanism eight years ago. Supposedly, at Himanga's instigation, they then killed hundreds of people by magical means. The boys made some pretty darned fanciful claims, such as, "The boy testified that the next day, Mr Himanga took him and his friend to an old warehouse in Kawama where they found white men who were half humans and half snakes" and "He said after they were initiated, he had powers to turn into a dog and two people had seen him do that."

Roundup of recent international "Satanism" scare news

Searching Google news for stories about "Satanism," I find the following:

• Crimes against Religious Leaders in Russia Likely to Trigger Witch Hunt by Paul Goble, Georgian Daily, May 27, 2009, about the concern that recent violence against mainstream religious leaders may trigger witchhunts against people of nonmainstream religions.


• A bunch of stories from two days ago (May 25, 2009) about the arrest of 104 alleged "Devil worshippers" in Iran. Here's the Reutors story, containing the most detailed account I've found so far. The New York Times carried an abbreviated version. AFP carried the story today (May 27), as did Sky News. As we will see in the next batch of stories, below, there is reason to doubt the claim that the people arrested are in fact "Satan worshippers."


• Some stories about prohibitions on heavy metal music concerts in the Middle East. There is currently such a ban in Jordan, according to the Global Post story Rock and a hard place by Tom A. Peter, May 25, 2009. On the other hand, the ban has been lifted in Morocco, according to the Global Voices story Morocco: When Arabs Rock by Hisham, May 24th, 2009, and The National (UAE) article Morocco’s metalheads make return by John Thorne, May 6, 2009. In both cases, heavy metal is/was banned because of rumors about "Satanist" and other un-Islamic content.


• Some tales of dubious allegations of "Satanism" in South Africa: (1) South Africa: Drugs and Satanism Surrounds Child's Death Lavern De Vries, allAfrica.com, April 22, 2009, about a legal wrangle between the dead child's natural mother and foster parents, and (2) Satanist takes blame for deaths, News 24, May 13, 2009, about the "confession" of an obviously mentally ill 15-year-old girl. Hopefully it will be obvious to most people that the allegations here are unlikely to be true. South Africa has been going through quite a Satanic panic lately, according to various news stories linked in the blog entry Satanic Panic in South Africa, posted on September 29, 2008 by Richard Bartholomew.

"Witch Hunt" -- on the Bakersfield cases

I recently came across this review, by Aaron Whitehead, of "Witch Hunt" a recent MSNBC TV documentary about one of the first alleged cases of "Satanic ritual abuse" back in the 1980's.

Here are some other reviews:

• Los Angeles Times - ‎Apr 10, 2009‎


• San Jose Criminal Law Examiner


• KGET 17 - ‎Apr 10, 2009‎


• Bakersfield Now

Though I didn't get to see it, I'm VERY glad that such a documentary was aired recently.

See also my collection of links about the Bakersfield cases on my "Against Satanic Panics" site.

Church of Azazel - some good news for a change

As of a month ago, here in New York, I've found a very passionate co-administrator for the Church of Azazel. So, perhaps we will, finally, begin to get it off the ground as a local group.

Another local group that I run, NYC Satanists, Luciferians, Dark Pagans, and LHP Occultists, has been thriving lately too.

I've added the following to the bottom of various "Contact" pages on my websites:

My online activities are very intermittent, due to a hectic work schedule. I sometimes neglect my blogs for months at at time. If I do not promptly approve or respond to a comment you posted on one of my blogs, you may call my attention to it via Noelle, co-administrator of the Church of Azazel, via the Church of Azazel's Myspace page, which is run by Noelle.

Reply to miscellaneous old comments

I was away from this blog for about six months from the fall of 2008 until early this spring. When I returned, I found quite a bunch of comments awaiting moderation. A general response:

1) A few people asked about Jew-haters in the Satanist scene. My thoughts about them are here:

• Against neo-Nazism among Satanists. See especially A brief critique of anti-Jew racist ideology.


• New Yorkers Against Religion-Based Bigotry, Project Against Grand Conspiracy Ideology. See especially Resources for debunking grand conspiracy claims, and for documenting their political significance.

2) Several people wrote messages that implicitly requested a private email response. I do NOT automatically get the email address of people who post on this blog. If you want an email response, you'll need to post on one of my other blogs.

3) To the person who asked about Demonolatry: The best source is the OFS Demonolatry site. See especially their books, especially The Complete Book of Demonolatry.

4)To the person who asked about "scriptures": Don't look for "scriptures" in the sense of allegedly infallible revelations. Do not trust any such claims. Think for yourself, and study history and other scholarly information that may be relevant to your beliefs, or to things that you are contemplating believing.

5) I accidentally deleted a few comments. Apologies to those whose comments I deleted (other than span and other obviously inappropriate comments).

Paranoia about "Satanist" rock music in Tunisia

I recently came across the following news stories about the British rock band Anathema and a scheduled concert of theirs in Tunis, Tunisia (in Africa), which was cancelled by officials due to fears of "Satanism":

• Blame The Devil For Tunisia Canceling Anathema - Pollstar, Apr 13, 2009


• British Rockers Caught up in Tunisia Satanist Row - Contactmusic.com, April 10, 2009

On the murder of George Weber by John Katehis

Last week there was a flurry of news stories about the death of WABC (New York) news reporter George Weber at the hands of 16-year-old John Katehis of Elmhurst, Queens.

I'm very sorry to hear about this. I feel bad for the families of both. Also, of course, I'm concerned about possible repercussions for gays and for BDSM people, and, even more so, the possible repercussions for Satanists and various religious minorities that have been popularly confused with Satanists.

According to various news reports, Weber paid Katelis for "violent sex," having contacted him via an ad on Craigslist. For whatever reason, the scene got out of hand, and Katelis ended up stabbing Weber. Katelis claims to have freaked out when Weber got out a knife first. The cops don't believe his story because of the large number of stab wounds. Katelis admits that both he and Weber were on drugs, and blames the drugs for his alleged freak out.

On some GLBT sites, such as Tips Q, there are articles about how the religious right wing is using this tragedy to vilify gays in general. Alas, when members of unpopular minority groups commit crimes, they are too often seen as reflecting on the group as a whole, whereas, when other people commit similar crimes, they're seen as just aberrations.

Some though not all news stories brought out a "Satanism" angle. The New York Post and WPIX said he was a fan of Anton LaVey. The New York Post article even mentioned the Church of Satan, yet also called Katehis a "Satan worshipper" - a bit of a contradiction, because the CoS emphatically does not believe in "worship" of anything but oneself. We were not given enough details to determine what kind of Satanism Katehis actually believed in, if any.

The Norwegian Black Metallers grow up

This past week, the Village Voice published Peter Beste and the Many Shades of Black Metal by Annie Fischer, June 3, 2008, a review of True Norwegian Black Metal, a large-format coffee-table book of photos by Peter Beste, published by Vice Books.

Back in the 1990's, the Norwegian Black Metal scene was notorious for murders and church-burnings. (See various pages linked in the section on Maniacal musicians in my article Tabloid prophecy fulfillers: Satanism's real-life criminal fringe: How should law-abiding Satanists respond? on my website Against Satanic Panics.)

The Village Voice quotes Beste as saying:

"In comparison to the early behavior, they aren't terribly violent anymore," he says. "They maintain similar [political and social] views, but they just . . . well, I think they mostly just kind of grew up. They saw that burning churches didn't really serve a purpose — if anything, it made the Christian community stronger. To rid Norway of Christianity . . . it's just not a realistic goal."

I'm glad they now realize that burning or otherwise vandalizing churches serves no valid purpose whatsoever. Indeed, if the point is to attack Christianity, it's completely counterproductive even in terms of that goal, for exactly the reason Beste mentioned: It just makes the Christian community stronger, if anything. I too made that very same point several years ago in my article The purpose of blasphemy in Satanism on my Theistic Satanism website.

Private rites of blasphemy can be a good catharsis. But there is no good reason to destroy or damage other people's property in the name of Satan or Satanism.

Responses to Julian Karswell, so far

So far, I've written three posts to Julian Karswell on my Wordpress.com blog. In forward chronological order, they are:

• Satanisms and politics: To Julian Karswell - May 17, 2008


• Further reply to Julian Karswell - May 22, 2008


• Satanisms and politics: More about Julian Karswell’s blog - May 24, 2008

Below, I'll copy and paste the first section (out of eight sections) of the third post, discussing what I see as the central issue between Julian and me:

In a post titled Nature of the Beast, Julian brings up one of my biggest problems with LaVeyan Satanism:

Most Satanic thought is predicated on the creation of a vaguely right-wing state where people would prosper according to their abilities. Strangely most of the Satanists I have had contact with, or read about, have been creative, thoughtful and non-violent (unless pushed). They often have 'alternative' lifestyles and sexualities. A Satanic state, given human nature, would very quickly become a state run by those with the skills to make the most money, for the benefit of the same! I've met enough of that type of person (and their Philistine ways) to know that sensitive arty types, and sexual 'deviants' would be the first against the wall in such a state.
Are Satanists really turkeys voting for Christmas?

You've hit the nail on the head here, Julian. That being the case, why do you continue to equate "Satanism" itself with LaVey's "vaguely right-wing" value system? Why do you continue to use the term "Satanic state" to refer to LaVey's ideal society, or something very similar to that?

It seems to me that Satanists need to move away from advocacy of pure capitalism and "social Darwinism" and advocate, instead, an agenda which would actually benefit the "sensitive arty types and sexual 'deviants'" who are, in fact, Satanism's core constituencies.

What, then, is Satanism? See the What is Satanism? page on my Theistic Satanism site.

For an example of a form of Satanism I think is far better suited to Satanism's core constituencies than LaVeyan Satanism, see Hekate and the Satanic School by Tim Maroney (circa 1990, edited 2002).

In another post, Julian talks about what he calls the Children of Leviathan: "creative, unworldly, given to interests in the occult and arcane aspects of life ... attracted to the shadows rather than the light, delving into the hidden things and nature’s secret ways, rather than accepting the readily presented norms."

That's a pretty good description of what I think Satanism (or Satanisms) should be about, while at the same time encouraging practicality.