h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just a quick few comments...mostly inspired by and/or taken from a book by JS La Fontaine entitled "Speak of the Devil (Tales of satanic abouse in contemporary England)"...

***Most of the children involved in the 80's "SR Abuse" wave were from neglected backgrounds, or already in Foster families.
***The statements they gave were not really reliable - being misheard or forced or bribed to get information.
***The few abusers that confessed had NO connections with the occult, let alone known Satanist/Wicca/Misc factions...
***No bodies or evidence or "cults" have EVER been found.

It seems, as with most allegations against alternative religions, that the moral majority got a little fanatical...trying to increase the attendance at churches, or just fear in the nations parents...what is MORE scary than a child being abducted, molested and then murdered? What I find shameful however, is that the people who MAKE these lies up, get away with it. Marilyn Manson has often been a target for these allegations (see his autobiography "The Long Hard Road out of Hell") and still continues to be...only recently accused of the molestation of a security guard. These charges were later dropped, and as far as I know, only the charges of physical assault still stand. How do these people get away with it? Is it because despite all they do, anyone under the guise of God, can do no wrong?

Pah. It makes my stomach churn. Lets hope ignorance about Satanism+other less mainstream religions fade in this new millenium.

Thanks for the article

> "No bodies or evidence or "cults" have EVER been found"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/england/newsid_1788000/1788452.stm

I think you're exaggerating just a teensy-weensy bit there?

> "What I find shameful however, is that the people who MAKE these lies up, get away with it."

Read up on false memory syndrome - it's entirely possible for people to be afflicted by memories which feel completely believable and real, yet are in fact untrue. In fact, most people have such false memories to various extents - though fortunately the memory glitches are typically in much less serious matters than ritual abuse.

I'm sure some people do deliberately make such memories up - others are simply the victim of their own organic brain...

I was actually referring more to the book than anything. If a REAL (As opposed to hiding behind the guise of) Satanic institution was found to be abusing/abducting/killing individuals, dont you think it would have been brought into the open? The simple fact is, that the only Satanic institutions arent as exciting as you would think. Through my own personal interest, the only evidence of this activity, has been in tribal groups in Africa...and even that is rare. Unless you are a David Icke afficiondo...and well then that would say it all.
And whether it is conscious or not, people should not be allowed to get away with branding people child abusers when the simple facts show that they arent. I will use the (Im assuming) well known figure of Marilyn Manson. Not only have Christian (Yes Christian!) groups issued death threats, they have issued propaganda claiming he advocates rape and child molestation at his concerts, alongside animal sacrifice, as well as taking part in them. These sorts of people are dangerous...and some of them do it on purpose.
Of course, I DO know about false memory syndrome, as well as child abuse, and Im not one to be dismissive. But the simple facts are, there is a clear campaign against Satanism! And these people - who will go to ANY lengths, as has been demonstrated in a variety of books - are dangerous. Is it OK for them to do this??

RE : False Memory Syndrome. I do need to review that, but evidence from the aforementioned book, suggests that the false memories are due again to the Judeo-Christian idea of Satanism being the average thought of the average person. Hence why it is so easy to be proved as a false memory. But as I said, I dont deny the precense of either the syndrome, nor abuse. Just the Satanic part! Im sure however, that abuse and FMS are very very rare...

I also dont mean to brand all Christians with the same title - only the institution

Well, I don't believe in the existance of an international conspiracy, but I think it'd be foolish to deny that some sick people exist. Check out the "Satanism and Ritual Abuse Archive" link in the above entry.

To what sort of satanism do you refer? LaVey Satanism, or some other type?

Cant check out the link...Ive only got access to here via hush hush methods...unfortunately access to that link is not possible!! Apologies. But Im pretty sure what will be there...
Im referring to Satanism as a whole...although Im personally subscribed to Laveyism, I defend the other groups, because frankly its not in existance there. Christian-Satanists are a WHOLE different section...and rather pathetic may I add, and nothing whatsoever to do with Satanism.

Sick people exist, and like any other person, I believe there should be harsher laws, but again...its not Satanism. Its just foul.

Uh...what else to say? I shall post up some statistics when I get the chance, from this book I have. Should prove interesting! Its one of those topics...

Just been perusing the old literature for quotes and refreshment purposes...thought you would be interested in Anton's thoughts and knowledge on the matter...

RE : what he calls "self appointed occult investigators"
- "They obviously don't know the first thing about what I've written or what I advocate. If they'd read my books instead of just waving them in the air, they might know something about Satanism. But they seem to prefer making it up as they go along."

RE : Satanic Child Abuse.
- "In Chicago, there's a centre for Multiple Personalities studying 'adult survivors of SC Abuse'. Now whats that supposed to mean? There was no modern, organised Satanic movement before I came along, and here are all these middle-aged women telling how they were raped and tortured as children, when their parents belonged to a Satanic cult? That would have been in the 1940's. There were none! Lord knows, I looked. Producers dont send camera crews out to track down there women's parents and get their stories; no one looks up the womens psychological histories."
- "You can't just look at a room, see what looks like an upside-down star or an Ozzy Osbourne poster and say, "This is a Satanic crime.""

ALSO :
In Oct 1989, the COMMITTEE FOR THE SCIENTIFIC EXAMINATION OF RELIGION issued a report on the claims of "breeders" and "Satanic survivors" and concluded the following :
"The most shocking claims, those involving the abductions and ritual murder of children, are easily shown to be false. The allegations of large scale Satanic conspiracies are totally without foundation. In fact, the available evidence leaves only one reasonable conclusion : THEY DO NOT EXIST! (orig in italics)"

All from Blanche Bartons "The Secret Life of a Satanist (the authorized biography of Anton LaVey)"

Hope I dont get sued!

A late response to Lucinda, who posted the link about the 'Thames torso' - That was ritual abuse, but it certainly wasn't *Satanic* abuse, as far as I can tell. Certainly not in the sense that most people use.

Sorry to go off topic - I'm just testing something on the site.

True enough - I shouldn't lump 'voodoo' abuse together with 'satanic' abuse, though there are similarities...

off-topic?

How come I'm subscribed to this conversation, but it's not showing up in my 'my conversations' popup?

Ahh well.

My followup was off-topic - the servers were misbehaving and I needed to observe the behaviour. That's also the reason the entry in your conversation list didn't get updated (I looked for it and it was still set that the last posting was in January sometime).

I think this is a phenomenon that needs to be investigated - *seriously*. I think there is a strong possibility that there might be cults who call themselves satanists and who do torture and murder people. Even if they don't call themselves satanists, if they do torture and murder people we ought to know about them. I personally do believe that not all religion is benign. There used to be many religions in which people carried out human sacrifices - very often children. I can see how some of these 'traditions' might still be carried on today. I think it's a misconception to believe that our modern world is civilised. I've seen way too much proof that human lives, especially those of children, are still generally not respected. I find it frankly hard to believe that there would *not* be such cults today.

Not all the people who claim 'satanic ritual abuse' are Christians.

Suppose I state this:

- Some such abusive cults exist
- Radical Christians as well as other people tend to accuse their opponents of being satanists, and accuse all satanists of being torturers/murderers
- People in abusive cults have ways to hide their abuse and point to the false accusations of the radical christians, easily shown to be unfounded, as a cover to hide behind
- People who claim histories of abuse may have implanted false memories. These memories may *either* originate from brainwashing from christian groups, or brainwashing from abusive cult groups. However, it's not necessary that all memories of abuse in cults are false

These statements, I believe, sufficiently cover the available evidence and can serve as a working hypothesis for investigation ... anybody disagree?

I agree.

Just to kind of sum up my thoughts...more for my benefit than yours!! Its always intensely VITAL to keep society safe to live in, and so regardless of whatever title people give to themselves- Christian, Satanist. Jew, Muslim, whatever - in NO way should their religious beliefs be held over societies structure, nor should others be stigmatised because they hold the same beliefs. Any murderer/child abuser/whatever that calls themselves a Satanist is much like a hooligan that goes along to a football match under the guise of a fan just to beat on people and smash horses into oblivion (see the last Millwall riots). From my perspective, I will always feel the need to quash the *Satanic* ritual abuse myth, because, as I said at the beginning, it simply never existed!

If anyones interested, I recommend the following books :
*The Satanic Bible (1966) Anton LaVey
*Speak of the Devil - Tales of Satanic Abuse in Contemporary Britain (2000?) J.D La Fontaine
*Lucifer Rising (unknown) Gavin Baddley

There are other books that detail the rise of modern Satanism and specific beliefs of Laveyism and other *Churches*, as well as what occurred during the 1980's, but these three are the best I've come across so far...if I do come across any better, I'll be sure to add...


Happy Hunting folks!

Always be wary of newspaper portrayals. They clearly have *no* idea of real, make-believe or even theatrical o.t.t drama queen Satanism, hence details like:
'They carved a six-pointed Satanic star into his corpse' (on the recent German 'Satanic vampire' murder).
Also, a tendency to label where there is no trace of ritual- I forget the details, but there was a very recent case in the UK of your average typical quiet loner, into role-playing games and the Internet, of course, murdering his grandmother or similar elderly guardian. In the first paragraph the report screamed 'Satanic murder' but on scanning the rest no mention could be found of ritual except for unspecified 'black magic' interests, the aforementioned antisocial tendencies and his research into a 'cult founded around a little-known Mexican artist' (who turned out to be the quite well-known Frida Kahlo. )
Another good book dealing specifically with the Scandinavian black metal scene and Satanic trappings is 'Lords of Chaos' (Michael Moynihan & Didrik Soderland) which goes into detail about the murder of Sandro Beyer by two 'friends' of his, who were bored and didn't really like him anyway. It was certainly not a planned, ritual Satanic murder, but of course was hailed as such in yet another inadequate report.

Isn't the six-pointed star jewish??

Yeah, weird couple. Full marks for fashion style, if not for ethical judgement.

exactly... I toyed with the idea of pretending to be an annoyed Jew writing a strong letter to the newspaper, but had no stamps.

The recent Vampire Killing in the London area made me smile rather morbidly when it came to The Sun's reporting. They are the main instigator of anti-Marilyn Manson and other metal stars (unless of course they need interviews/middle page spreads)...in the Saturday 3rd August paper, they mentioned that the Vampire Killer (his name escapes me at this moment) was into pop music, implied that he was a relatively normal lad besides his obsession for vampires...however in the News Of The Word reporting the next day, they revealed so exculsively that he was obsessed with Marilyn Manson, who of course was the cause of the Columbine incident.

Instead of ranting and possibly being arrested, I'll vent a piece of knowledge over here instead. Hopefully, future generations will be reading this instead of back issues of tabloid papers...

Manson was in NO way responsible for the Columbine incident...not based on the view that music doesnt influence people to kill...but because the two boys didnt even LISTEN to his music. They thought he was a "faggot* (their words, not mine. So bearing in mind this piece of information...it is more than likely that the Sun/News of the World has YET again issued another slanderous comment against one said musician. I personally know that one reporter Dominic Mohan has been the ring leader of these reports in this whole rigamarole, owing to his distateful comments after Columbine. I urge you lot to think twice when reading papers...because if you believe what you read, you might as well not have a mind of your own.

Rant over. Annoyed Jew letter thing v.funny. You should have done it!!

Oh, I stopped believing the papers before I even started reading them.

Manson does seem to inspire far far far more bother than he's worth, doesn't he? I bet sometimes he wishes he were an insurance salesman or something.
Honestly! I listen to worse music than his and I do *crochet*, for fadge's sake. It might inspire me to drive past townies with the volume up and windows down, grinning ghoulishly, but never to actually take an axe to them. No, that would be my own decision based on years of non-Satanic ritual 'you are a freak' abuse.

Wahey! I can pick up this thread again, owing to the new digibox-friendly skin!



Would that be death-metal then? I've never really liked that. Don't they tend to favour Paganism/Norse mythology anyway...?

Bah. Misconceptions are completely ridiculous. I can only hope that one day, stupidity becomes a biological disease and they all die out. And that tabloids are forced to print the truth as opposed to half-infomation.

I only cringe at the thought of the trouble I will cause in the future. The Catholics are REEEEEALLY gonna hate me...

One question. Can you only grin ghoulishly with the aid of make-up, or are your features easily arranged that way? I've always wondered. I don't seem to have that ability...

Real research done on Satanic Ritual Abuse:

1992 FBI report stating categorically that no SRA claim they had ever investigated stood up to scrutiny: http://www.rickross.com/reference/satanism/satanism1.html

A series of articles providing indepth research on SRA and related claims by a Pagan police officer: http://www.witchvox.com/protection/kerr_intro.html

Real research? If you had, then you would have at least come up with

http://www.religioustolerance.com

Which has the all the necessary facts about misunderstood religions you would ever need.