In early April, the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council received an anonymous letter warning it of satanic activity in the city. “Please remove the Satanic Cult Church from Eagle Rock California,” it reads. Several months later, a similar anonymous letter turned up on the other side of the country. That letter, written to Mayor Carl Hokanson, implores, “Please remove the Satanic Cult Church from Roselle Park, New Jersey.”
![[Photo Credit: Petar Milošević via Wikimedia]](https://wildhunt.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/512px-Writing_a_letter-500x333.jpg)
[Photo Credit: Petar Milošević via Wikimedia]
While the letters don’t specifically call out the so-called cult by name, it appears that writer has been reading the old Criminal Intelligence Report. Published in 1988, the report lists a large number of U.S. and Canadian groups that were considered potentially dangerous. It was accompanied by an article titled “Satanism and Crime.” The article begins:
There is increasing evidence that the United States and Canada are facing a rapidly expanding area of criminal activity that some experts claim could be the most difficult to detect of any that law enforcement agencies have ever had to deal with. The computer files of Criminal Intelligence Report (CIR) magazine contain the names and addresses of three thousand Occult groups located in the United States and Canada. Within this listing are those who have a general involvement with and / or interest in witchcraft or pagan religious lore, history or practices
The list and article were part of the infamous Satanic Panic of the 1980s. This was also the period of time in which Pagan organizations fought the Helms Amendment, which proposed to remove tax-exempt status from Wiccan churches. Lady Liberty League was born out of that struggle.
In 1992, one of the leading FBI agents, Kenneth V. Lanning, published a report on Ritual Satanic Abuse. Lanning calls for education, research and calm in the wake of these on-going investigations. In the article, he remarks on the dangerous level of panic that had already occurred and attempts to dissect of the cultural meaning of the term “satanic.” In talking about an educational conference for law enforcement, Lanning wrote:
All of this is complicated by the fact that almost any discussion of satanism and the occult is interpreted in the light of the religious beliefs of those in the audience. Faith, not logic and reason, governs the religious beliefs of most people. As a result, some normally skeptical law enforcement officers accept the information disseminated at these conferences without critically evaluating it or questioning the sources.
As Lanning points out, there were few distinctions made between actual belief, religious practice, pop culture, and more. Anything that was not mainstream or was feared, to a degree, could have been and was labeled “satanic.”
The two recent letters were both addressed to cities that were on that 1988 Criminal Intelligence Report cult list. Both cities were once home to legitimate Pagan religious organizations. Eagle Rock was the original location of Feraferia, founded by Fred Adams and his partner Lady Svetlana in 1967. The organization was incorporated in California as a non-profit on Aug. 2 of that year. As noted by biographer and filmmaker Jo Carson, “Feraferia was designed to be a religion based on the bliss between lovers, with both the Goddess and the God.” The practice inspired Carson’s film, Dancing with Gaia (2009), and now has adherents around the world. However, it is no longer based in Eagle Rock.
The second letter, addressed to Roselle Park, was reportedly the home of a Wiccan-based organization called The Order of Osiris. A Circle Sanctuary guide from 1987 lists the group with this description:
Ancient religion and ethics revealed through World Teacher first manifested in Egypt, guiding humanity to peace through the Primal Creator. Members prepare for religious service and ordination. Women and men welcome.
The Order of Osiris also reportedly published a newsletter called, New Horizons, and may have had a sister group in Cranford, New Jersey. Ten years later, the organization was no longer listed in the Circle guides; nor does it appear to be active today.
As for the letters, investigators believe that they were written by the same person. The LAist, a California-based media outlet, first reported that the writer was a child. And, the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council didn’t take the warning very seriously. On its Facebook page, the council posted an image of the letter, saying, “We enjoy reading your letters and emails, like this one that came all the way from Milwaukee.” With few exceptions, most of the local responses laughed off the post as a joke.
Roselle Park took its letter a bit more seriously, turning it over to local police. A New Jersey handwriting expert confirmed that it was not a child. He told the local news, “Who ever is doing this is writing in such a way as to disguise their own writing. This is a very deliberate way of writing … This looks like a fabricated writing. I don’t think it’s a kid.”
While the identity of the writer is still not yet known, it does appear that the acts are linked to those old lists and hearken back to those old fears. Unfortunately, the 1988 Criminal Intelligence list is publicly available online and, therefore, accessible to any person wanting to “warn people of occult activity.” And, there are still a number of fundamentalist groups that openly report “watching” occult organizations. This includes organizations such as C.A.R.I.S., which happens to be based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and The Watchman Fellowship, which is based in Arlington, Texas. The latter organization maintains its own public internet-based occult index, which includes Feraferia but not the Order of Osiris.
At this point, only two letters have been made public. We are in contact with the Roselle Park police and we will update the story as needed.
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Correction: The article originally read that the Watchman Fellowship was based in Columbus, Georgia. It is actually now based in Arlington, Texas.
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As an old police officer and lecturer about the Occult during the 1980’s , it truely saddens me to see this old tired stuff being , started up again , well to be honest , never has really left us.
Satanic Panic is extremely harmful and has and can potentially become dangerous to the Pagan community.
During the 1980’s several individuals were caught up in cases involving “satanic elements ” , more popular were the McMartin pre school case , and the West Memphis Three cases.
Many more less publicized case did occurs in many jurisdictions, many were Child Abuse cases and divorce cases using Satanic Panic as a qualifier.
It was not unheard of for claims being made against Pagans , that they were unfit parents due to their beliefs , even to the point of losing their children .
The only way to truely fight this , is with education and by us as the Pagan community, showing positive examples of what a Pagan is.
We have been , for to long defined by movies and television shows as to what a Pagan is.
Not to mention the rap we get by the teachings of the Christian churches , as to our beliefs.
Back in the 1980’s when I lectured , I explained the difference to the people I spoke with, explaining that the activities we were seeing we attributed mainly to self styled or media styled ” satanists/ devil worshipers , and had nothing to do with the beliefs of Pagans as a whole.
Satanic panic is most harmful to Satanists, and Pagans often forget that they are not the targets of faith hate.
Eh? Of course Pagans were targeted by the wave of faith hate called the Satanic Panic. Satanists, specifically, were the most exposed. When a taxpayer-funded “expert” tells a roomful of cops in an atmosphere of panic about Satanism that my sacred holidays are “Satanic holidays,” I’ve been targeted.
I get where Damonleff is going, though I’m not sure if I can articulate it. There’s an element of frustration watching Pagans react to the Satanic Panic as a Satanist. There’s a frustrating predictability that happens whenever a slightly higher-status or higher-social-acceptability group is targeted by means of saying “you’re just like (lowest status/acceptability group)”, where the higher status group will 1) make it all about them, 2) run as far and fast as they can away from the lower-status group they’ve been identified with, and 3) sometimes smear the lower-status group themselves in the process of doing a full-court “we’re not like THEM!” run-away press. There were “witches against Satanism” buttons on people during the height of the Satanic Panic. Yes, you’re targets, but no, it isn’t all about you.
Complete agreement with your final sentence. I get when y’all are coming from now; thank you. I was involved with a group heavily into your (2) and edging toward (3), trying unsuccessfully to induce some moderation.”It’s not all about you” is an easy aphorism, but one doesn’t make coalition until one accepts that what happens to X is to that extent about X, just not in an exclusive way.
Honestly? I’d be happy to see more awareness that it happens to X *at all*. If you listen to most Pagan discussions of the Satanic Panic, you might be forgiven for assuming it was exclusively about Pagans. The narrative still sounds like “that awful time when bad things happened to us because people thought we were Satanists”. I have actually had Pagans tell me in one sentence how bad it was for Pagans and in the next actually tell me that Satanic ritual abuse happens– and I don’t mean 20 years ago, I mean a year or two ago!
I really can’t answer as to every conversation you’ve ever had with a Pagan about this. All I can say is, you were listening at the time of the Satanic Panic to a community in a mad scramble to get its shit together, not one with dire intent toward any other community.
Yes, that’s exactly where I’m coming from, thanks.
And, watch Stormwise doing it below. Satan isn’t OUR thing, he’s a CHRISTIAN thing. Eww, get it off me!
Also:
1) “satanic” is lower case, 2) attempts to place Pagans and the
letter-writers on equal status and reason with the letter-writer as an equal (or even a superior– references their Bible as a way of disputing the blood libel), 3) attempts to make common cause with the higher-status group instead of showing solidarity with the group whose libel Paganism is getting smeared with. It’s a textbook example of what I’m saying, and it happens in nearly every instance like it, across contexts.
I don’t read Stormwise that way. I see him educating believing Christians about the Scriptural roots of what they associate with Satanism. Don’t know how many read this blog, though.I would never attempt to reply to whoever authored those letters. I don’t even know why they were news. I suppose TWH has a mission to turn over every rock of that sort.
No, I don’t mean the lines about animal sacrifice and the like, I mean this: “You could read just about any book written by Pagans, who mostly consider Satan to be a very Christian concept” That’s primo “eww, get it off!” just as “Satanists are reverse Christians” is, a thing I see said over and over by Pagans. (It’s also not correct, as adversary/combat myths predate Christianity.)
Similarly, the choice to respond to this news story by wanting to educate Christians, and thereby respond to a story about a low-status group (to which you belong) being associated with a lower-status group by speaking to/appealing to the higher-status group (whose members are spreading the libel), isn’t an isolated choice but a typical response in a situation like this. I’m not trying to pick on Stormwise, who I’m sure is very well intentioned, their post just happened to demonstrate the point pretty well. It’s a recognizable pattern seen everywhere from what happens when you compare any non-white US group who isn’t Black with Black people to something as silly and trivial as comparing any bunch of geeks slightly higher up the Geek Hierarchy Chart (say, LARPers) with furries. You occasionally do see someone figure out why zero-sum games are bad ideas and encourage solidarity with the lower status group against the high-status one, but it’s depressingly uncommon.
I see the pattern you’re pointing out. Thank you for your patience.
What I meant, Northern_Light_27, was hardly “Eww, get it off me,” but simply ‘get your ducks in a row’ before starting up a whole bunch of unnecessary drama … something I guess we could all benefit from doing. I’m sorry you took my comment the way you did – although I believe your statement that you had no intention of ‘picking on’ me, it’s obvious you took offense, and this was not my intention. As you point out in a further comment, adversary / combat stories do exist before the Old Testament, and in numerous other cultures. However, the relevant adversary to this discussion happens to be the one named in the Bible; and that is the name that I used. It was also not my intention to “educate Christians” with my response, otherwise I would have addressed my response to Christians, in general (while I also have my doubts about how many Christians read this blog, it would not surprise me if the person I addressed were already familiar with it). Most of the Christians I know are already aware of these things, and require no further education on the matter. I addressed my response to one person in particular, whom I happen to feel is misguided at best, off his rocker at worst. I’m also making no attempt to appeal to any group of people, as you suggested – again, please check to whom my response is addressed. Also, as you point out in your comments, ‘satanic’ can just as easily refer to an adversarial nature as to a religious movement – I used the word in its lower case form deliberately, as Satanism (from what I understand) is not one and the same with the satanism to which the person I addressed most likely referred. I used the separation as an attempt to show some respect, fully cognizant of the desire toward stronger community bonds to which I later referred in my comment, and I do regret that this wasn’t clear enough to you. One more thing, in particular, that I would like to clarify is the following misunderstanding: “”You could read just about any book written by Pagans, who mostly
consider Satan to be a very Christian concept” That’s primo “eww, get it
off!”” No, that is simply the truth: most of the Pagans I am familiar with see the Satan named in the Bible as a very Christian concept. It has nothing to do with a dislike for Satan, it has to do with Satan simply not existing in the majority of the ancient cultures most modern Pagans seek to draw from, until after the introduction to Christianity. I hope this clears things up a little more, and I hope you will now not feel so offended.
I’m not offended by your post. My point is about a pattern, not a post, and how good people’s comments can easily fall into them without them realizing it. Any part of a pattern can be completely innocuous, it’s the whole that’s offensive.
And it absolutely is about a dislike for Satan and Satanists, that’s where you’re wrong. Mary doesn’t exist in the majority of ancient cultures modern Pagans seek to draw from– neither does Sophia, neither does Shekhinah. Amazing how you can include any of those three in your rituals or your overall Paganism and nobody gives a toss, but name Jesus or Satan and it’s suddenly a Very Big Deal. Neopagans aren’t nearly as far from Christianity as most would like to believe. That’s not an insult, btw, it’s just an observation. It has nothing to do with whether a given entity shows up in pre-Christian lore and everything to do with the degree of conditioned flinch reaction. Getting away from Jesus is a conscious act, the flinch there is obvious. Flinching at Satan, though, is imo a much less conscious reaction to the Christian culture we’re all conditioned in– nobody conditioned in Christianity wants to be associated with Satan, even if they’re Pagans. (That’s true of any least-status group. That’s why I’m pointing out the pattern.) Look, if cultural conditioning were so easy to shake off, blood libel plain wouldn’t *work*.
My personal opinion is that you are seeing a lot more in my writing, and it’s conformity to a certain pattern, than is actually there. I fully respect that you see a problem, and I appreciate your willingness to call attention to problems that you see. However, from my perspective, having taken steps to respect Satanists while specifically addressing someone else entirely in my original comment, it seems now as though you are trying to stuff meanings into my words that weren’t there to begin with. I tried to explain where I was coming from, and what my intentions were; and you have responded by telling me that my interpretation of my own words is wrong. It seems you are determined to use my comment to illustrate a disturbing pattern, regardless what I explain to you; so I have to wonder whether your criticism of knee-jerking and flinching isn’t the pot calling the kettle black. So, just to be clear, I have no problems or even dislike for any of the characters named in the Bible, or any other religious tradition for that matter. It is therefore quite unlikely that my comment was born out of some subconscious dislike for Satan or disregard for his followers; but rather out of a dislike for the actions of someone abusing religion by trying to spread fear, without actually understanding the religion he was abusing to begin with, as I have already indicated. You can interpret that to your heart’s content, it will not alter the meaning of my words or intentions.
Okay.
would that be, not the *only* targets of faith hate?
Otherwise, it’s unaware of who all ARE targets of faith hate–and not just minority religions, either.
Quite right!
Goddamnit even us atheists are targeted by satanic panic. Anyone who isn’t Judeo-Christian is. Pagans, Muslims, even socialists and communists. Even rock and roll, for crying out loud, is.
Cults of all kinds absolutely exist, you don’t need to “believe in” them (e.g. Scientology). Worldwide Satanist conspiracies to molest children and force their female victims to abort children, however, are a myth.
To most people, cult = kill your mother, eat your father, rape your dog. I don’t think Scientology is viewed that way.
A bit of advice and an open note to our pen-pal in Wisconsin ….
Think animal sacrifice is a satanic thing? Read the Bible: Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus are places in the Old Testament that come to mind, where animal sacrifice is encouraged. Think rebelling against authority is a satanic thing? Read the Bible: the entirety of the New Testament is based around the reformist efforts of Jesus, who was executed at the behest of the Israelite Temple because he was openly challenging their authority. Think Paganism is a satanic thing? You could read just about any book written by Pagans, who mostly consider Satan to be a very Christian concept; but since you haven’t taken the time to read your own book, I guess all our books will have to just wait a while 🙂 At any rate, I hope you enjoy the attention you’re getting now: you are providing us with another good reason to strengthen our community bonds, while exposing your own ignorance across the globe.
You write as if you think the person(s) who wrote these letters may be interested in dialogue. I salute your enthusiasm.
I prefer to start with optimism 😉
Not surprising here in WI lot of Church influence and zealots here
On the bright side, in one town, the local police are investigating the identity of the letter writer, rather than taking seriously any of his or her accusations. In the other town, no one is taking the letter seriously at all. This is a long way from “cult experts” lecturing law enforcement in Satanic Ritual Abuse and “how to spot the adult recruiter”, though I’m sure that still goes on here and there, as well.
Some of the most effective anti-defamation work during the panic was done by Pagans educating police organizations about the lack of forensic evidence for any of the wilder charges. Most cops don’t want to waste their time looking for perpetrators of imaginary crimes.
Of course the best answer is to say, “We are not going anywhere and anyone thinks we can be removed is going to need really good lawyers.”
Like… reeeeaaaallly… I thought people were over this long ago…. must be some nutcase who cranked this out..