A recent column by Francis Wilkinson in The Week Magazine puts an uncomfortable spotlight on Martha Coakley, the Massachusetts Attorney General who is a front-runner for the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. It seems her role in the notorious  Fells Acres Day Care Case is causing some waves among Democrats with a long memory for abuses of power.

“Coakley did not prosecute the case, which was already under way when she joined the office as an assistant district attorney in 1986. But years later, after the day-care abuse hysteria had subsided and she had won the office’s top job, she worked to keep the convicted “ringleader,” Gerald Amirault, behind bars despite widespread doubts that a crime had been committed … the convictions won by the Middlesex DA in the Fells Acres case have not borne up well. By today’s standards, the prosecution of the Amirault family, who owned and operated the day-care center in Malden, Mass., looks like a master class in battling witchcraft.”

It looked like “battling witchcraft” because these “ritual abuse” (aka “Satanic abuse” or “organized abuse”) cases often hinged on rumours and false testimony of an imaginary network of underground Satanic sex and abuse-cults. Children were often prodded and coaxed into false testimony, much of which is recanted when those same children grow up, and many innocent men and women spent years, sometimes decades, of their lives behind bars. In the instance of the Fells Acres case, children were interviewed by nurse and SRA true-believer Susan J. Kelley, who elicited flatly implausible testimony about sex with bladed implements and “clowns” in “magic rooms” from children that a judge later called “improper” and “biased”.

“The evidence in this case is nothing short of overwhelming with improper interviewing techniques. The bias toward the Amiraults by investigators and interviewers from the beginning. Parental and other family influences. All of it leading to these tragic results.”

Despite the mounting evidence that this case was handled improperly, and that it was very likely the Amirault family were innocent of the charges brought against them, Coakley stubbornly refused to revisit the case. As D.A. she opposed parole for the family despite many lawyers thinking this was a “travesty” of justice, and she made strange conditions for the release of Cheryl Amirault LeFave.

“Coakley had previously allowed Gerald’s sister, Cheryl Amirault LeFave, to be released from prison on the curious condition that she not submit to television or film interviews. According to The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz, who championed the Amiraults’ case in a series of articles and in a book, Coakley also requested that the Amiraults’ attorney, James Sultan, who was negotiating Cheryl’s release, stop representing Gerald, which would have further crippled Gerald’s appeals for freedom.”

These conditions, and this case, has made some Democrats uneasy about her candidacy, and seems to be causing her supporters to close ranks on the issue. As for Coakley, she defends her decisions regarding the case, saying she feels the Amirault family were indeed guilty.

“Based on my own extensive experience with child abuse investigations and cases, and my thorough review of all the evidence, including that which is often taken out of context and deemed “exculpatory,” I also believe the convictions were sound, and that he received a fair trial. It is for all of the above reasons that I, as Middlesex District Attorney, opposed his commutation, and I stand by that decision to this day.”

One wonders if this is a case of not wanting to admit to a mistake, access to some sort of mysterious insider knowledge that several lawyers, reporters, judges, and parole boards don’t have, or if Coakley is (like the judge that oversaw Gerald Amirault’s trial) an SRA true-believer. I sincerely hope it isn’t the latter, because if we see a revival of “Satanic Panic” in America, the last thing we need is a Senator willing to craft laws that will throw even more innocent people in jail based almost solely on improperly gathered testimony and hysteria.

If you thought the “Satanic Panic” years were over, that the global hysteria over “ritual abuse” in the 1980s and 1990s that ruined countless lives and enriched unscrupulous con-artists was nothing more than a fading bad memory, think again. According to Private Eye magazine the core of true believers never stopped believing and they’re mounting a come-back.

“…despite the fact that there has been not a shred of credible, physical, forensic evidence to substantiate the existence of Satanic ritual abuse, anywhere in the world, there is still an international network of zealots hell-bent on reviving and spreading the myth. For a few years in the late 1990s and early 2000s the believers quietly went to ground. There was a backlash here and in the US … Believers stopped talking about Satanic or ritual abuse and instead started using the terms organised or extreme abuse … there is now a growing and dangerous fight back in the form of books and conferences featuring speakers defiantly and proudly proclaiming the existence of “ritual abuse” and how to treat “survivors”.”

A quick look at Amazon reveals that SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse) “survivors” are still writing memoirs, and two books seemingly aimed at mental health and law enforcement professionals interested in SRA cases (“Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-First Century” and  “Forensic Aspects of Dissociative Identity Disorder”) were published in 2008. If the Satanic panics are making a come-back we all know what could happen next, a moral panic that will see innocent men and women jailed, sometimes for decades. Creating a situation where Pagans and occultists will have to watch their backs.

“In the United States, Canada, and Europe, people have reported being ritually abused under the banner of satanism, Christianity, various pagan and pantheistic belief systems, white supremacy movements, nazism, Santeria, voodoo, etc. At the present time, satanism is either the most common ideology under which ritual abuse is practiced or it is receiving the most attention.”

Remember, the last time this exploded into the mainstream even Oprah jumped on the Satanic Panic bandwagon (something I don’t think she ever apologized for). How do these Satan panic peddlers stay afloat when the inevitable backlashes happen and the light of truth and reason shines on their money-making schemes? One has only to look the extensive underground network of conservative evangelicals and Pentecostals who are still convinced that Satan is not only a spiritual adversary, a personification of evil, but has “troops on the ground” as it were.

“A month ago I was with my wife and two other ladies in the car, including one who was formerly a witch but now a full on born-again Christian. In fact I have personally cast out many demonic spirits out of her. She told us that one of her friend’s (who also was a witch) father was a high priest in the coven. When she was a small girl, he told her that he had a surprise for her birthday. He blind folded her and told her to cut the cake. After cutting, her blind fold was removed and she was horrified to see that she had cut through the neck of a baby. Could this be happening in Australia?? Yes, it is.”

The non-stop culture of “spiritual warfare” against imaginary Satanic “witches” and “warlocks” inevitably leads to spiritual (and sometimes physical) action against real-live Witches and ultimately the horrors of false accusation for owning the wrong books, listening to the wrong kind of music, or practicing the wrong religion. You may think it would never happen to you, but if the police ever search your home after a false accusation of “Satanic abuse”, what will they find on your bookshelf?

“If they came for you tomorrow, innocent or not, what would your bookshelf tell the world about you? Go and have a glance now, and ponder whether those volumes you’ve accumulated really are the possessions of an innocent person…”

The best way to combat this hysteria ever reaching the mainstream again is to be as out and open as possible. To be visible, outspoken, and unafraid of the “mainstream”. This doesn’t mean we have to lose the mysteries central to some of our faiths, but that  we must constantly dispel the shadows of rumor and gossip so we can combat the lies with reason. To engage with the media and press on our own terms so that never again will another innocent man or woman be jailed or put on trial by a “spiritual warrior”, unscrupulous therapist, “occult expert”, or child (grown or not) who’s imagination has been warped and led astray.

The South African press is currently riveted with the story of Morne Harmse, a young man who seemingly experienced some sort of psychotic break, donned a Slipnot-esque mask, and went on a rampage with a ninja sword killing one teenager and wounding three others. Harmse, who plead guilty to the crimes, just underwent a sentencing trial where the court called expert witness Dr. Kobus Jonker.

“Sword killer Morne Harmse may not have been a practising satanist, but he was dabbling in the occult.  This was according to satanism expert Dr Kobus Jonker, who testified this morning in the pre-sentencing hearing of the teenager who went on the rampage with a ninja sword at his school last year, killing a fellow pupil.  He took the stand as the expert witness called by the court.  Jonker, a retired policeman, said he had established the police’s occult-related crimes unit after being told to look into the issue by former minister of law and order Adriaan Vlok.  Between 1981 and 2000, Jonker investigated hundreds of occult-related crimes and testified in 30 to 40 murder cases. This earned him several nicknames, including “Donker Jonker”, “The Hound of God” and “God’s Detective”. His unit was disbanded after human rights groups claimed that it was not constitutional in a country that guaranteed religious freedom.”

If that names seems familiar, it’s because Jonker was essentially the face of “Satanic Panic” in South Africa. Jonker and his now-disbanded “Occult Related Crimes Unit” essentially spread Christian propaganda regarding the “occult” and “Satanism” under the auspices of law enforcement. Jonker and his group  were also profiled by Kerr Cuhulain, who pointed out the many troubling aspects to the (mis)information this unit was spreading. So what did this “expert” have to say about Harmse? That he wasn’t a Satanic murderer because he didn’t fit his almost comical list of stereotypes.

“Dr Kobus Jonker, testified that although Harmse had been experimenting with Satanism and witchcraft, his involvement in such practices was superficial … Jonker said certain items and rituals typically present in a Satanic murder were absent in Harmse’s case … the bedding and curtains in Harmse’s bedroom were coloured, whereas a practising Satanist would have had only black or red. There were also no blood smears or animal parts found in his bedroom … candle wax found on the ouija board under his bed was white, pink and yellow, whereas a Satanist would have used only black and red candles … Jonker said that on the day of the murder, Harmse had not spoken in any demonic language…”

What demonic language exactly? Backwards Latin? What? That Jonker was allowed to peddle this nonsense at a high-profile murder trial mocks the entire proceeding. The family of the murdered boy and the family of Harmse have to sit and listen while this man prates on about black and red candles? He and the judge that allowed this should be ashamed. A judgement on sentencing is expected by September 10th, let’s hope that decision is aided by real expert/clinical analysis and not the imagination of a born-again Satan-hunter.

It seems to happen with almost every strange animal death, law enforcement and journalists start wondering if the event had “occult” or “Satanic” connotations. Since a “Satanic” (or Santeria/Voodoo) headline sells more papers than “disturbed teenagers”, we rarely get an injection of common sense in these proceedings. Often, the more mundane truth is briefly reported long after the sensationalist damages have already been done. For instance, a recent deer beheading in Knustsford, England had all sorts of wild Satanic speculation behind it (including linking it to a blatantly obvious attention-seeking e-mail from a “Satanist”).

“The incident came just days after the Guardian received an anonymous email claiming Satanists were worshiping in Knutsford … Deer are said to be used in satanic rituals as sacrificial animals. It is also believed their skins are used as cloaks and headdresses during devil worship rituals.”

Naturally, actual Satanists objected to being portrayed as maniac deer-beheaders. In that same article, tucked away at the very end, the most likely scenario is reported.

“However, last week it emerged the killing could have been a failed attempt at poaching. A man who attended the scene, but would not be named, said the criminals appeared to have gutted the young stag to prepare it for sale.”

But you see, “bungling poachers” doesn’t have the same zing to it as some mythical occult underground in Knutsford. Some moron trying to make some money by poaching just doesn’t excite the audience. It’s a farce disguised as journalism, a scary puppet-show that can lead to “Satanic Panics” and ruin people’s lives.

My semi-regular round-up of articles, essays, and opinions of note for discerning Pagans and Heathens.

The Aquarian Tabernacle Church (a Wiccan tradition/church) has sent out a press release concerning new developments regarding the Woolston-Steen Theological Seminary. The online school is getting a makeover, and gaining a new vice-president and administrator.

“The Woolston-Steen Theological Seminary, given degree granting authority by Washington state in 1999, is having a face lift this spring … In addition, WSTS proudly announces the appointment of Kirk White as interim Vice President and Administrator of the Woolston-Steen Theological Seminary. White, a well known Wiccan author and respected High Priest, is co-founder of the National Association of Pagan Schools and Seminaries, a past co-National First Officer of Covenant of the Goddess, North America’s oldest and largest association of Witches and Wiccans. White also founded and served for 10 years as President of Cherry Hill Seminary. In 2006, Wildhunt.org named him one of the “25 most influential modern living Pagans today”. Since 2007 he has served as a consultant to new and established Pagan seminaries across the United States and we are pleased to have him working with us.”

Bringing Kirk White onboard seems like a move for WSTS to gain some more credibility as a Pagan seminary, though that might be hampered by the fact that the school’s dean is Belladonna “Wife Swap” Thompson. It should also be noted that “degree granting authority” isn’t the same thing as accreditation. So always check to see who exactly your teachers are, and what qualifications they have to be teaching you the subject at hand. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I am on the BOD of Cherry Hill Seminary, but I have no particular animus or rivalry with WSTS.

When is “witchcraft” our “Witchcraft”? By that I mean, what do journalists and authors like Bob Morgan mean when they say a young woman was kidnapped and initiated by a “a coven of witches”? A South Alabama paper reports on the e-publication of a book by one of their reporters concerning a young woman who claims to have been held hostage for years by a Californian “coven” called “The Brotherhood”.

“At the age of 15, Nikki Russo checked into a California hospital for treatment of an eating disorder. It was in this hospital that she was eventually abducted by a nurse, initiated into a coven of witches and thrown into a dark world filled with drugs, alcohol, abuse and intimidation. Nikki Russo hopes The Pomegranate Seed will be a warning to readers not to take anything for granted where cherished institutions are concerned. Today, Russo’s story and struggle to recovery is chronicled in the new book The Pomegranate Seed — Nikki Russo’s Sojourn Through Institutional Failure and the World of the Occult.”

Morgan is apparently sensitive to accusations of “Satanic Panic” since he first reported on Nikki Russo, and claims that the book is filled with legal documents and depositions. However, neither the initial 2007 report by Morgan, or the 2009 piece on his subsequent book, goes into any detail as to what exactly this “Brotherhood” was practicing, and how they are linked with California’s occult community. This lack of detail is all explained as a way to honor the victim, but it also denies us any clear notion as to what this group was. I have no doubt that Russo was abused if she says she was, I’m just skeptical concerning how “witchy” these “witches” were.

World of Wonder shares with us some “homo history” in the form of ancient examples of same-sex marriage.

As Africa was the birthplace of civilization it should come as no surprise to find that the earliest known reference to same-sex marriage in history can also be found there. Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep were royal manicurists in the court of Pharaoh Niuserre during Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty. The artwork in their tomb leaves no doubt that they were viewed as a couple. The men are depicted in near constant embrace. They are shown with their noses touching (the most intimate embrace permitted in Egyptian art of the time, a form of kissing). Even their names speak to the intensity of their bond. When the names Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep are put together, it translates into “joined in life and joined in death.”

Just goes to show you that there is nothing new under the sun, and that different cultures and times had different reactions to same-sex relations. To claim a singular constant for legal and social public bonds is myopic at best and revisionist at worst.

I understand that some people don’t like Barack Obama, but the intense white-hot loony anger he invokes in some people is just plain amusing (when it isn’t frightening). A recent letter published in a Virginia newspaper now compares our “Marxist” president with Pagan hero Julian the Apostate!

“God has given America her very own 21st century ‘Julian the Apostate’, better known as the Marxist, Barack Obama. Now before any of Obama’s supporters hastily come to his defense, consider the fact that his ideologies are blatantly Marxist, yet, he is not alone in his Marxist tendencies … If the reports of Obama’s Marxist passion were not enough to wake up the Christian community to the fearful danger of a ‘Julian Administration’, the issues of abortion and homosexuality should have made it crystal clear that professing Christians should not accept such an individual as the leader of America. The community of Christendom should have rejected such a blasphemer out of hand. Yet, for the sake of party, race, historical precedence or simply a hatred for the prior administration, those Christians professing allegiance to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe have grossly erred in their judgment, and along with hypocrites, heathens and traitors are responsible for destroying the roots of traditional American Christianity … At the outset of the Obama administration, a vicious war was declared against both Christ and all those that call themselves by His Name. Even now many of those Christians who supported him initially are finding themselves the target of his wrath. His goal is, and always was, the eradication of Christianity through government policies aimed at solidifying a Marxist, Totalitarian, immoral Statist order. This is nothing short of fascism.”

Ah! I love the smell of paranoid conspiracy theories in the morning, it smells like victory. Somehow I doubt Obama is going to “eradicate” Christianity, but if paranoid pastors keep invoking Flavius Claudius Julianus, they may not like what his spirit (once called) will do. This is the fellow who wrote “Against the Gallileans” after all.

In a final note, since yesterday was Earth Day plenty of reporters were out looking for a religious angle. These ranged from those who interviewed Pagans about their connection to the Earth, to snarky bloggers mocking right-wing hysteria that Earth Day was a conspiracy to get red-blooded Christian Americans to start worshipping Gaia.

“Earth Day, Green Week, Global Warming, Cap and Trade, Radical Environmentalism, Gaiaism. These and similar beliefs are rapidly becoming a state sponsored religion. This is a worldwide religion, not just an American movement. The end goal of this religion is to halt the industrial and economic advance of man, and to make man subserviant to Gaia, the earth as a living super-organism: Earth as God.”

I can’t believe our super-secret conspiracy to slowly re-paganize the Earth has been discovered! Curses! Foiled again! How will we ever spread our plans for a worldwide religion based on a living super-organism now!

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

Johann Hari at Slate.com, heartbroken by witnessing the ongoing brutal persecution of women and children as “witches” throughout Africa, reads through two recently released books, “The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-hunting in the Western World”, and “The Last Witch of Langenburg: Murder in a German Village”, for insight.What he finds are some haunting commonalities as European, American, and African people from different eras find the “other” within their own ranks. Scarred communities responding to collective trauma by lashing out at the primal giver of life.

“Yet this doesn’t explain why witch hunting keeps taking the same form every time, with only mild variations. Why, in particular, is it almost always targeted at women? … Demos [author of "The Enemy Within"] believes there is a primal reason for this. “A mother—a woman—is the primal Other, the nonself from which the self is progressively distinguished; further, she disposes a kind of absolute power to meet, or reject, infantile need,” he writes. “As such, she retains forever afterward an aura of what a discerning psychologist has called ‘magically formidable’ qualities.” So when we begin to suspect all-powerful dark forces, we suspect women first—because our mothers once held all-encompassing powers over us.”

So perhaps the two sides arguing over who exactly were killed during the European witch-hunts are both (to differing extents) right. There most likely wasn’t a surviving witch-cult dating to before the advent of Christianity, but perhaps women were especially targeted because on some level they became representatives of the primal mother. A communal subconscious rebellion against a dark Creatrix who they blamed for their suffering and torment. So the Mother (and her young offspring) must be cleansed and destroyed. Of course Hari points out a far simpler reason for why women were targeted, they were easy prey.

“I think this misses a starker and simpler explanation. Women are generally weaker than men. They are less able to defend themselves from braying mobs. They are easier to pin down and turn into a screaming, denying receptacle of evil. The mobs usually choose the weakest women of all—old women and little girls.”

Hari’s article ends with the “Satanic Panic” and “Satanic Ritual Abuse” madness of the 1980s (a madness we are still feeling the ramifications of) as proof that it can still happen in advanced and “rational” America. Indeed, Hari references former VP candidate Sarah Palin’s interactions with self-proclaimed “witch-hunter” Thomas Muthee as proof that this madness never fully goes away (it can be of little coincidence that Palin’s Third-Wave pals, with their anti-goddess rhetoric get along so well with a man who lies/brags about terrorizing women). That example, and the (so-far) isolated cases of witch-related abuse here on our own shores, should keep us ever vigilant (especially when it is very dangerous to be a “witch” in a recession). We must, as Hari writes, in times of hysteria and panic demand hard evidence and settle for nothing less.

“…the hysteria will happen again. We don’t know yet who the victims are, but they are out there, oblivious. There is an enemy within—dormant in our own fragile minds and emerging with paranoid intensity at times of stress. Our only antidote is to insist on evidence. Whenever there are charges against a person or group, we must ask insistently: How do we know? Show me the proof. Show me three times. Show me 10.”

A reoccurring question at The Wild Hunt has been: “why should Pagans care about witch-hunts in Africa or the Middle-East”? While I have argued (somewhat pragmatically) that as modern Pagans and Witches spread around the globe, we will have no choice but become a factor in places that are persecuting “witches” (as is already happening in India and South Africa), there is another possible answer emerging. That all witch-hunts are connected by a common thread of fear and hatred, and if they aren’t addressed and stopped by the forces of tolerance and rationality, they become like a virus spreading beyond the “host” community.

I certainly don’t agree with everything Starhawk says, but she does have a point that modern Pagan Witches have chosen to reclaim the label “witch” for themselves. It is folly to think the African or Middle-East witch-hunts will forever stay safely away from the “real” Witches in America, Europe, or Australia, or that when it is exported it will be forever contained in immigrant communities. Someday, if we continue to insist that women and children being killed as “witches” if faraway lands isn’t a “Pagan” problem, we might wake up to find our own communities poisoned by a need to find “the other” within their own ranks. What better place for the panicked and hysterical to look than the increasingly public and “out” community of self-proclaimed “Witches”?

We’d like to think that the age of dangerous life-destroying rumors concerning “Satanic” and “occult” practitioners is long over, but a quick look at the Austin Chronicle’s recent examination of the “Satanic Panic” scare of the 1980’s and 90’s (aka “Satanic Ritual Abuse”) shows how some people are still suffering from the after-effects of this madness.

“Fran and Danny Keller were each convicted of sexually assaulting Christina Chaviers, and each was sentenced to 48 years in prison. For the Kellers, now 58 and 68, respectively, it was effectively a life sentence. They’ve since come up for parole, but neither will acknowledge the remorse that is a requirement of release – after 17 years, the Kellers still fiercely maintain their innocence. And in fact, the Chronicle’s reinvestigation of the Fran’s Day Care case has revealed serious problems with the state’s case against the Kellers – including questions about the quality and reliability of the state’s medical evidence and forensic interviews. Moreover, the sensational nature of the charges themselves, in a period of hysterical national rumors about supposed “satanic ritual abuse” at day care centers, made it virtually impossible for the Kellers to receive a fair or even rational trial.”

In addition to examining the sad lack of real justice for the Kellers, the paper has also published companion pieces on the history of the Satanic abuse scare, and issues concerning children and testimony. People like the Kellers, and the West Memphis 3, are still wasting away in jails thanks in part to a moral panic dreamt up by Christian fundamentalists, unscrupulous “therapists”, various “cult experts”, and media-fueled folk legends (supported in the past by talk-show hosts like Donahue, Geraldo Rivera, Oprah Winfrey, and Sally Jesse Raphael). Sadder still, there remains a hard-core contingent of “survivors” and true belivers who are simply waiting for the cultural winds to shift again so they can peddle their fear and spectral evidence once more. So long as people are prosecuted or remain jailed due to rumors, unfounded beliefs, or misinformation concerning new religious movements the “Satanic Panic” era will never truly end.

Back in November I wrote a post about the remaining “occult crime experts” that still travel the country informing local law enforcement, parents, and community leaders about the “evil” that lurks within their neighborhoods. That particular post singled out retired police officer (and occult “expert”) Don Rimer. Rimer was singled out in the past by Kerr Cuhulain (himself a former police officer) as someone with a decidedly mixed track record of being fair and accurate.

Don Rimer

“I believe that Rimer is sincere … I think that he is making some effort to properly define Wicca to selected audiences. I think that he is doing this because he knows that people like me are watching and he is concerned about liability. I don’t believe for a minute that he knows the difference between Neo-Pagan religions and Satanism. Rimer has said that he is willing to listen and learn and I will endeavor to educate him.”

After my post Rimer appeared to defend his reputation in the comments section.

“I teach parents the warning signs. If that is fear, yes I teach fear … I teach law enforcement about the rituals. If that is fear, yes I teach fear … I will continue to teach, consult, and investigate Ritual Crime as long as those crimes are committed. I provide that service to local, state, and federal agencies across the United States and Canada.”

Since then he has popped up now and then to take issue with how I report on a story.

“You have written about me before, accusing me of hating Wiccans. Wrong, wrong, wrong.”

Well here we go again. WAVY in Virginia reports on the “vampires” in our midst, and guess who pops up as an “expert” in all things evil and vampiric? You guessed it!

“With the advent of Twilight and TrueBlood, we’re seeing people, not just children, not just teenagers, but people are starting to take on that kind of a lifestyle,” says [Don] Rimer. “Very reminiscent of what people did when Ann Rice wrote Interview with a Vampire . Now people are playing games.  New games are coming out. There’s new merchandising that is associated with this and as long as they play their games and conduct their behavior lawfully, no one has a problem with that, but we’re having crimes associated with it.”

The text really doesn’t do justice to the sensationalistic television segment, complete with strange camera angles, spooky lighting, fog, and sound effects. Rimer goes on to depict a couple high-profile crimes as connected to the vampire craze, and inserts only the barest whisp of a disclaimer regarding the millions of people who enjoy vampire-themed media or participate in the vampire subculture/lifestyle and don’t commit horrendous crimes.

“Like in any society, we have good and evil. There are people involved in that that have no intention of committing crimes and then those who do.”

After that CYA (cover your assets) moment, he quickly veers back into how dangerous the vampire life is.

“There are people in that culture (who) believe they have the right to take human blood by whatever means necessary.  Then others are just playing a game. It’s just a game. It’s a movie, it’s a book and we just want to look that way. We’re just going to go to a club, but there’s all kinds and children getting involved in that don’t know the difference.”

Oh, and like all occult “experts”, Rimer gives the vague checklist of “warning signs”. Wearing black, writing backwards, strange new friends, “dark” make-up, and the number “7″ (which he claims is the vampiric number). The kind of list that gives parents the excuse they need to ship their children off to boarding schools, and not face that the problem could be with them, not their kids. I’m not saying that the occasional occultist loon-bat doesn’t occasionally pop a gasket and do something horrible, but these “trends” of occultic crimes are all correlation without causation (and very often have very mundane motivations behind them). In fact, many “occult” crimes could have just as easily been “crazy Christian” crimes if the troubled souls in question had picked up a Bible instead of “Twilight”. Yet you don’t see retired police officers traveling the country informing people of the hazardous effects of improper Bible-reading, giving lists of Christian “warning signs” (prays a lot, starts quoting the Bible randomly, sees demons), and intoning darkly about the dangers of unsupervised Bible study.

By linking troubled teens and isolated crimes with any vague occult angle they cand find, ritual crime experts create a comforting fantasy world of a pervasive directed evil that can be fought. It is a narrative that says “if only we can prevent our children from reading/watching media concerning vampires/werewolves/the occult then we will be safe”. But like all fantasies it isn’t true. Horrible things still happen. They happen even when you remove all troubling literature and occult-laced media from the public eye. It is a fact that the remaining “ritual crime experts” fear to engage with, because they’d be out of a job if all of this was believed to be truly random and had more to do with isolated cases of mental illness than with what movies these people watch. No doubt Don Rimer will be along in the comments shortly to tell me how wrong I am…

If you ever needed an example of how journalism can change the religious aspect of a story, look no further than the media outlets currently doing retrospectives on the kidnapping and killing of Mark J. Kilroy twenty years ago. Kilroy was a University of Texas pre-med student on spring break in Mexico. On March 14, 1989 he was kidnapped and ultimately killed by a group of drug traffickers lead by the charismatic and insane ex-fortune-teller to the stars Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo.

“Kilroy arrived at South Padre Island on March 11 with friends Billy Huddleston, Brent Martin and Bradley Moore, joining the tens of thousands of students who each year made the trek to a warm sun, alluring beaches and unfettered nightlife on both sides of the border. Sometime during a visit to Matamoros on their third day in the Valley and into the early morning hours of March 14, Kilroy became separated from his group. They never saw him alive again … Constanzo’s followers selected Kilroy at random. Most of the other victims were competitors in the drug trade.”

Now, here’s where things get tricky. Constanzo adhered to his own twisted and distorted variant of Palo Mayombe, and ran his drug operation like a cult (complete with brainwashed followers), with numerous ritualistic human sacrifices (mostly competitors) being done to “feed” his magical power. The Mexican press dubbed Constanzo and his followers “narcosatánicos” (Satanic drug dealers), sensationalistically linking Constanzo’s warped Afro-Carribean practice with Satanism. Now, twenty years later, The Brownsville Herald’s report takes the time to unwrap the tangled story interviewing anthropologist Tony Zavaleta, an expert in African diasporic religions who advised police twenty years ago and witnessed first-hand the horrifying work of the cult. Zavaleta makes it clear that Constanzo was a madman engaging in a twisted and isolated distortion of Palo.

“…they also found evidence of “Palo Mayombe,” an imported Afro-Caribbean religion. It would be engrained into their memories. Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo, the ringleader of the drug gang, gave the religion a “bad name” in the “self-styled” manner in which he practiced it, anthropologist Tony Zavaleta said … He has met with Palo Mayombe practitioners during the past 20 years in the Rio Grande Valley, other Texas locations and Mexico City and, “They all, with no exception just lament what Constanzo did and he caused them so much harm and so much damage (to their religion).” Zavaleta said he recently talked to a “santero,” a person who practices Santería, who also is a “palero” and a “padrino.” And in talking about the 20th anniversary of the Rancho Santa Elena massacres “he went into a rant about Constanzo, about ‘ese loco,’ ” Zavaleta recounted.”

Now, compare that excellent bit of journalism by Emma Perez-Trevino with the report by local television station KVUE.

“…the work of a satanic cult, the leader, a Cuban-American who promised drug traffickers protection in exchange for human sacrifices … the satanic cult’s so-called godmother was a student at Texas Southmost College, now U.T.-Brownsville … Many still refer to it as the work of the devil, just across the border from a Spring Break paradise.”

Even though KVUE also interviews Zavaleta, they don’t include any information from him about the formation of this cult, satisfied to call it “Satanism” and move on. Now think about how many people saw that television newscast as opposed to reading the two in-depth pieces from The Brownsville Herald and you start to see how religious misinformation starts to spread. I suppose “Satanist” has a bit more “zing” than “twisted and isolated offshoot of Palo Mayombe”, but it isn’t correct and clouds the true facts of this horrible event. As horrible as this case was, and no doubt as much as ethical practitioners of Palo and related faiths wish this wasn’t in their history, the truth can ultimately benefit them. If labeled “Palo”, ethical journalists can at least find and interview modern practitioners who can explain the distorted nature of Constanzo’s insane cult. But if they are “Satanists” then people make all sorts of troubling associations, and most likely triger interviews with “Satanic Panic” peddlers who have a vested interest in inflating a largely imagined threat (or genuine modern Satanists who will have little to no knowledge about the case).

While I acknowledge that there are many decent and tolerant Christians out there, it is a fact of life that extremists, loud-mouths, and the badly behaved often get the lion’s share of news coverage. While I’m normally content to ignore the occasional wacky thing said by some conservative Christian or Catholic somewhere (lest my blog become a WorldNetDaily watch), occasionally you encounter such a great confluence of anti-Pagan/occult hysteria that you have to point it out.

Let’s start over at Catholic Culture, Dr. Jeff Mirus explains what is “animating” the “dissident” (read: liberal-leaning) Catholic dioceses and communities.

“The leaders in the worst dioceses and religious communities, in addition to having permitted themselves to be shamefully co-opted by the larger secular culture, are frequently animated specifically by personal vice (often homosexuality) or by various hybrid spiritualities with pagan roots (sometimes Wicca).”

Sometimes Wicca! Gasp! Choke! At least they aren’t using… Ouija Boards!

“After a few minutes, I found myself in the board game section. There, to my shock and dismay, amidst the games of Operation, Battleship, and Snakes and Ladders was a pile of Ouija Boards. For those of you who may not be familiar with a Ouija Board, it is a “game” where the players seek to contact spirit entities for guidance. I felt my stomach tighten within me as I imagined innocent children being lured into the occult by this dangerous “game” at a place where children should be safe — a toy store.”

Looks like Baptist pastor Richard Jackson has been watching “The Exorcist” a few too many times. It could have been much worse though, they could have been Hawaiian.

One of the “preachers” told a Korean student that he is going to hell for his Buddhist beliefs and told Hawaiians they are going to hell because they worship false gods and believe in witchcraft, she said.

That lovely bit of racist theology came from the rabidly anti-gay folks at Bema Ministries. It almost makes the routine rantings of the conservative Anglicans at VirtueOnline seem quaint.

“New Age themes of self-deification animated the biennial “Sacred Circles” conference on women’s spirituality at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. on February 13-14. Rather than the masculine “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” of Christian creeds women sought out the “the Feminine Divine” within themselves. But this time, ecclesiastical support was not limited to Protestant denominations. The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, offered continuing education credits through its Center for Spirituality and Social Work to intrepid women journeying towards the Feminine Divine.  In contrast to its supporters, the event never purported to be Christian. Instead, the conference was possibly “the largest interfaith women’s spirituality gathering in the world.” Church sponsors included the Episcopal –run National Cathedral, which devoted a paid staffer as the “Sacred Circles” convener, the Episcopal Church Office of Women’s Ministries, which offered scholarships, and Catholic University’s Center for Spirituality and Social Work, which offered academic credit for attendance.”

Shocking! Next think you know Catholic nuns will be tolerating the presence of goddess-worshipers!

Fear of a Pagan planet can be used in an argument against just about anything, even marijuana.

“If we could remove the stigma, they say, then people could love God and love marijuana as well. I am not convinced, nor should you be. Marijuana use fits well with certain religions that worship the earth. Several pagan religions use marijuana to enhance their “spiritual experience.” But this cannot be the case with Christianity.”

Pot as a gateway drug to idolatry? Gateway to ordering a pizza maybe, but Paganism? Still it’s obvious things are getting bad, I mean, Christian cops who claim to see demons roaming their headquarters are getting their guns taken away!

“A cop who allegedly once claimed to have seen a demon in Police Headquarters is suing the NYPD, saying brass stripped him of his badge and gun because he’s too religious … His religiosity “escalated to point where he neglected his job and schoolwork, isolated himself, did not eat and focused exclusively on religion.” He also fasted for weeks at a time, and by the time he was committed to a psychiatric ward, he had dropped 20 pounds … He contends he’s now doing better and wants to be restored to full duty. The medical board rejected his request in December, noting a doctor’s finding that ‘he appeared to identify with God and acted as if he was superior to others and God-like.’”

Yes, this is obviously a man who should be given a gun and allowed to police a multi-religious city.

I suppose the real question is why Christians are so overly concerned with “the occult” and “Paganism” when actual real-live modern practitioners are such a tiny fraction of the population. I think that writer (and fellow Pagan blogger) Gus diZerega hit on it when he said that modern Pagans “represent the rise of something Christian leaders thought they had vanquished long ago”. The fall of (European) pre-Christian paganism was supposed to be Christianity’s first big victory, it is something that many Christians still brag over (because barbarity, inhumanity, and intolerance ended when the Christians took over). But if the Pagans are returning, and according to some hysterical Christians (and overly optimistic Pagans), growing at explosive rates then that could call into question the inherent superiority of the Christian “truth”. A final unraveling of Christian dominance. That seems one of the only logical reasons why this small group gets so much attention from Christian book publishers, evangelists, and various pundits.