As a Satanist, one could say that Satanism permeates all aspects of daily life, but for me this as natural as breathing, and is largely an unconscious process and a result of following my instincts and passions. Satanic rituals are not a requirement of Satanism and should be used as an optional cathartic tool for those that gain psychological benefit from structured ceremonies of the kind found in our texts. Through the designs, clothing and merchandise that I create for ASPculture.
There is no requirement to celebrate any holidays, but as someone who embraces science, nature, and pre-Christian pan-European traditions, I tend to indulge in and observe the vernal equinox, Ostara, Walpurgisnacht, the founding of the Church of Satan, summer solstice, autumnal equinox, Halloween, and Yuletide, winter solstice, Saturnalia and New Year's Eve. The Satanic Rules seem pretty reasonable. It doesn't seem to allow much room for negotiation.
What's the philosophy behind that? Obviously if somebody approaches you in the street in a non-threatening manner, and continues to bother you after you ask them to stop, physically destroying them would be an irrational, unwarranted, and illegal response.
However, it is important to note that as strict advocates of law and order, we demand that each Satanist operate within the legal parameters of their country of residence with regards to all actions. As Satanists are free to align with any branch of politics, or remain apolitical if they wish, there are likely some anarchist and libertarian members of the Church of Satan. Anarcho-capitalism and libertarianism in general appear more conducive to Satanic ideals.
Mencken, one of the earliest Americans to identify as a libertarian, along with fellow traveller, Ayn Rand, were influential on Anton LaVey and Satanic philosophy, particularly in their advocacy of heroic individualism and rejection of religion, mysticism, supernaturalism in general. A point of departure between Satanism and libertarianism that I have noticed, is that many schools of libertarian thought have a delusional view of human nature.
This faulty notion leads many libertarians to conclude that all humans have equal potential ability and free will to become masters in any field of human endeavour, so long as the person is afforded the opportunity and necessary education.
This utopian view of human potential is unfortunately unrealistic and un-Satanic. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Recommended How the Satanic Temple is turning religion upside down. Recommended Shedding some light on a misunderstood subculture on World Goth Day.
Recommended What a photographer learned spending 3 years capturing dominatrixes. Already subscribed? With so much parallel emphasis on fearing strangers in your neighborhood and Satan in your home, a collision of the two was practically inevitable. In , a since-discredited memoir called Michelle Remembers became a scandalous bestseller based on its purported detailing of a childhood spent undergoing a wealth of shocking occult sexual abuse.
Its co-authors were controversial psychologist Lawrence Pazder and his wife Michelle Smith, a former patient whom Pazder claimed to have regressed into childhood through hypnosis. However, thanks to widespread and credulous media attention, Pazder and Smith were able to double down on their story, and Pazder became seen as an expert in the arena of what would come to be called satanic ritual abuse SRA.
They could be your child's caregiver. The false narrative of Michelle Remembers would directly impact the nation for over a decade. Its dark occult fantasies helped to spark the rash of wildly dramatic, highly unfounded accusations of satanic ritual abuse that were attached to a string of daycare centers throughout the s. This fear would ravage communities, lead to two of the most notorious criminal trials in US history, and ruin multiple lives before it finally subsided — and some of its victims are still serving sentences today.
The earliest of the wave of satanic ritual abuse cases began in Kern County, California, in Between and , the investigation into these labyrinthine claims would send at least 26 people to jail in interrelated convictions, despite a complete lack of corroborative physical evidence for any of the claims.
Nearly all of those convictions have since been overturned , including that of one man who served 20 years of a year sentence, and those of two parents who were sentenced to years in prison after their own sons were coached to accuse them of abuse. This template — a spiraling investigation, wild claims, no evidence — would remain consistent for more than a decade throughout the subsequent wave of failed prosecutions of satanic ritual abuse in day cares and schools across the US.
Among them was the disastrous McMartin trial , which became — and remains — the largest, longest, and most expensive trial in California history. In , one parent accused one of the staff members at the McMartin preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, of abuse. During the investigation, police allowed an unlicensed psychotherapist named Kee MacFarlane to conduct examinations of children who attended the day care. The eyebrow-raising claims included allegations that day care owners had built secret underground tunnels that led to ritual ceremonies, had ritually sacrificed a baby, flushed children down toilets, and could turn into witches and fly.
After six years of investigation and litigation of a five-year trial, the case ultimately essentially evaporated due to a lack of evidence. One by one, all charges against the day care staffers were dropped. The McMartin preschool building was razed in In , the Justice Department thoroughly debunked the myth of the satanic ritual abuse cult. But though accusations of satanically motivated child abuse rituals had pretty much died out by the mids, law enforcement continued to treat Satan as a potential criminal indicator — as we see in this police training video , The Law Enforcement Guide to Satanic Cults.
Today, this video seems laughable, but the humor fades when we consider just how many real people were persecuted due to these brazen stereotypes about devil worship. In fact, although most satanic ritual abuse cases eventually resulted in overturned convictions , at least three people are still serving prison sentences for crimes that most likely never happened.
In , Cuban immigrant Frank Fuster was accused , along with his undocumented wife , of molesting eight children, despite coercive interview sessions and a lack of physical evidence. Fuster was sentenced to six consecutive life terms, or a minimum of years in prison. As of , he has been imprisoned for over 35 years and will not be eligible for parole until He reportedly has no legal representation.
North Carolina inmate Patrick Figured is, at age 72, still serving time for a conviction due to coerced allegations of ritualistic abuse. And Joseph Allen, age 63, has been serving time in Ohio since for a highly bizarre case in which he was convicted of ritualistic child abuse along with another woman, even though the two had never even met. She was later exonerated.
The list goes on and on. One Florida school principal spent 21 years in prison after being convicted of false SRA claims ; he was released at the age of 80 and ordered to move to another country.
In El Paso, two preschool owners each spent 21 years in prison. In , three members of the Amirault family of Malden, Massachusetts, were convicted of false child molestation charges, following yet another pattern of false memory coercion from children. Two of the defendants spent 10 and 20 years in prison before being paroled in and , respectively.
The third defendant died of cancer in prison before her conviction could be overturned. She was exonerated in — the year after she died. The period of nationwide moral hysteria that came to be known as the Satanic Panic began in with the publication of Michelle Remembers , a biographical account of the repressed memories of the childhood ritual abuse purportedly suffered by Canadian psychiatric patient Michelle Smith.
Written by Smith and her psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder, whom she later married, Michelle Remembers detailed the abuse that Smith alleged she experienced at the hands of her mother and other members of a Satanic cult during the mids in her native British Columbia. Pazder, who was originally treating Smith for depression following a miscarriage, helped Smith surface these memories by means of regression hypnosis, a highly controversial psychotherapeutic technique whose validity has been widely called into question by members of the mental health community.
Tabloids publicized the new book widely, after which Pazder and Smith embarked on a lengthy book tour across the U. In the years that followed the publication of Michelle Remembers , people all over the country began to come forward with stories of their own latent memories of childhood abuse at the hands of Satanic cultists, or allegations of pedophilia and devil worship against members of their own communities.
Law enforcement agencies nationwide began holding seminars intended to help officers recognize the signs of Satanic ritual abuse. The now-famous Pazder, who had become a leading authority on the matter, attended hundreds of such seminars throughout the s. These people cover their tracks very well. When they dispose of a body, they use that body as well. They will cremate that body, they will use the ashes that will become part of what they will continue to present to that particular group.
And they will disperse that. In the vast majority of reported cases of Satanic ritual abuse, it was the testimony of the allegedly abused children themselves that damned dozens of innocent people to lengthy prison sentences and a lifetime of social exile. However, subsequent review of these cases revealed that much of this testimony was obtained through coercion and suggestive interviewing techniques by overzealous social workers, and that these statements were rarely questioned by investigating officers.
Despite the utter lack of evidence to corroborate claims of Satanic cult activity, new cases continued to be reported—and believed—nationwide, yet officials were no closer to uncovering any vast organized conspiracy by intergenerational Satanic cults. Before most professionals had seen their first case, I had consulted on and analyzed dozens of them. Lanning also offered several alternative explanations for similarities among the disparate eyewitness accounts, including pathological distortions commonly observed in cases of Munchausen syndrome.
It was the first time anyone had objectively challenged the commonalities in cases of ritual abuse that police forces across the country were taking as irrefutable evidence of Satanic cult activity.
Of course, nothing I wrote would reach or convince everyone of my point of view. I received several letters from some questioning aspects of what I had written or said. One officer wanted me investigated by Congress. Perhaps most upset were those law enforcement officers who were making money and getting status as experts in this area. If something wasn't happening, why do so many intelligent, well-educated professionals believe it is?
There was a need to believe. In my opinion, this concept, more than any 'moral panic,' was the foundation of Satanic ritual abuse allegations—the need to believe the children even without corroboration. If you do not believe everything a victim alleges, what do you believe? This need for belief complicated matters considerably for investigators handling already sensitive cases.
As the burden of proof became irrelevant in cases of Satanic ritual child abuse allegations, Lanning noticed a gradual shift in the dynamics of victimology. Although impossible to prove, it is plausible that at least some of what children were claiming had been done to them was true.
The difficulty, according to Lanning, was separating the truth from the fantasy. But many people—and the criminal justice system—seem to believe that if you can disprove one part of a victim's story, then the entire story is false. I believe people should be considered innocent unless proven guilty, but I also believe that a certain number of these cases involved a seed of truth that got buried. The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect commissioned a study to assess the claims being made by clinicians across the country.
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