SYSOP'S NOTE:  Let's clear the air about Satanism. It is,
apparently, a real phenomena in America today. All too often
the topic of Christian fundamentalist ire, most discussions
on it (including this one) are naive, over-generalized, and
confused. Real Satanism is a Christian heresy. It is
irrelevant to involve a discussion of Satanism with Dungeons
and Dragons games, rock music, homosexulity, or to confuse
it with witchcraft, magick, and other Pagan beliefs. Nor are
most Satanists involved in criminal practices. Someday I may
try to write an unbiased article on Satanism. In the mean
time, this one, with all its falacies, will have to
suffice...


IS SATANISM LINKED TO CRIMES?

By Thomas D. Elias, Scripps Howard News Service


   SAN FRANCISCO - From small towns like Sanford, Me. and big cities like 
San Francisco and Los Angeles, a steady stream of crime reports are 
indicating that Satanism - devil worship - is becoming a fast-growing but 
still unmeasurable force in America. 
   When Richard Ramirez, the accused Night Stalker, raised his right hand 
in a Los Angeles courtroom, where he was accused of 14 murders and dozens 
of other felonies, his palm displayed an inked pentagram. 
   The five-pointed star within a circle positioned with two points up to 
symbolize the devil's horns was found at several Night Stalker murder 
scenes and the wife of one victim testified that Ramirez forced her to 
"swear on Satan" she wouldn't alert neighbors by screaming. 
   In Huntington Beach, Calif., 33 small animals kept in an elementary 
school yard were slaughtered last May, a crime that police say was 
apparently part of a Satanic ritual. 
   In Contra Costa County, Calif., the battered body of a 17-year-old boy 
who had graduated from playing "Dungeons and Dragons" to being involved 
with a Satanic coven was found dead at the bottom of a cliff near San 
Francisco Bay last year.  He had told his father and otherws that he wanted 
to leave the group. 
   Police call the death a suicide, but a coroner's report says the body 
bore marks more like those from a beating with sticks than bruises 
typically received in a fall. 
   Scores of reports link child molestations to Satanic rituals featuring 
chalices of blood and participants either nude or wearing black hoods. 
   Altogether, as many as 800 crimes now under investigation by police 
nationwide are said to be linked somehow to devil worship. 
   Detectives from seven western states last spring held a closed-door 
session to play strategies against Satanism. 
   One tactic they reportedly agreed upon:  Deny its involvement in crimes 
to discourage publicity and copycats.
   Consistent with that idea, police and prosecutors are almost invariably 
hesitant to label devil-worship and sacrifice as the motive behind any 
crime and no one has been convicted of a crime on the basis of Satanic 
involvement for more than a decade.
   "There was talk about drinking blood and allegations that people 
involved worshipped the devil and had certain ceremonies," says Stephen 
Tauzer, a Bakersfield, Calif., prosecutor handling a case where as many as 
80 adults have been suspected of molesting up to 60 children.  "But we're 
not trying the case on religious grounds.  I know Satanism exists as a fad 
and that there are reports of cremated victims.  But I have a hard time 
concluding that anything as large as cremating victims would not have 
witnesses."
   Police usually say Satanism exists, but has only peripheral involvement 
at most in crimes committed by alleged Satanists.
   "One hears about cases," says Joseph Kranyak, a crime analyst for the 
San Bernadino, Calif., police department.  "But when you track them down 
you find you're mostly chasing shadows.  The vandalous nature of these 
things may not be organized and conspiratorial, but a response to stimuli 
like rock music."
   And some of the leading fighters against Satanism say there is a 
distinct difference between organized Satanists like those belonging to San 
Francisco's Church of Satan and "freelance Satanists."
   "In the formal churches, you get no murders, only symbolic actions," 
says Karen Hoyt, executive director of the Berkeley, Calf.-based Spiritual 
Counterfeits Project.  "But freelancers sacrifice animals and reportedly 
infants, although no one has found a body as yet."
   Church of Satan members adamantly deny any use of actual or animal 
sacrifice, although "The Satanic Bible" written by church founder Anton 
LaVey spells out rituals calling for "symbolic" human sacrifices.
   "I'm a Satanist and I don't want to molest children," says Blanche 
Barton, LaVey's personal secretary.  "The Satanic Bible says both animal 
and child sacrifices are illegal, so the whole idea of sacrificing to 
release energy is bull.  But a lot of groups have adopted Satanist images 
like hoods and gongs."
   But the Satanic Bible does say that "Satan represents indulgence, 
instead of abstinence" and that "Satan represents all the so-called sins, 
as they all lead to physical, mental or emotional gratification."  And in a 
chapter titled "On the Choice of a Human Sacrifice," LaVey adds that 
"anyone who has wronged you" is a "fit and proper human sacrifice" and "you 
have every right to (symbolically) destroy them."
   Opponents of Satanism believe many "freelance" practitioners omit the 
admonition to make sacrifices "symbolic," and use the Satanic Bible to 
justify psychoses or perversions.
   Covens centered around drugs, homosexuality, sexual fetishes, child 
molesting and other illicit activities are known to use rituals from the 
Satanic Bible and a later companion volume.  So do groups using Druidism, 
Celtic witchcraft and Egyptian mythology.  Even "children's covens" are 
known to use such rituals.
   Like many fundamentalists, Roger Burt, an evangelical minister and 
president of the Christian Counseling Association in suburban Los Angeles, 
believes the current spate of Satanism is part of a long war between the 
forces of good and evil.
   "People who are getting involved in Satanism are looking to get the 
power of demons and use it for themselves," he says.  "It all centers on 
power over their peers, especially among teenagers, which is where this is 
growing fastest.  This is not just a fad of the '80s.  It is actual 
spiritual warfare.  Spiritual possession has great power in attracting 
young people."
   Games like Dungeons and Dragons, with medieval imagery, help attract 
children and teenagers to Satanic rituals, which sometimes involve archaic 
dress.
   Rock music groups are even more of an influence, according to many 
police officials.
   Burt lists heavy metal groups like AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, 
Motley Crue, Blue Oyster Cult and Merciful Fate among the most influential.  
All have performed music with a Satanic-style message that critics contend 
is taken literally by many listeners.
   Burt says membership in Satanic groups has grown to "at least 60,000," 
with about one-third in California, the world's main center of modern 
Satanic activity.
   Hoyt and Burt agree that young children are often recruited by parents 
or teachers, then molested or forced to watch and participate in ritual 
killings of animals.  Some are photographed during rituals and later 
blackmailed into continuing either via threats to show the pictures to 
parents or threats of harm to the parents.
   Runaway teenagers, the anti-Satanists say, are an especially fertile 
class of recruits.
   Other experts contend that many teenagers join Satanist cults willingly.
   "Many kids believe there is a force for evil in the world and some think 
it is the really powerful force in the universe," says Rabbi Jack Bemporad 
of Tenafly, N.J., a nationally-known expert on cults.  "A lot of them 
believe in demons, which are mentioned in the New Testament.  Kids also 
have a lot of range and anger and a feeling of powerlessness because of the 
threat of nuclear war and the increasing complexity of the world.  The come 
to feel if the world is going to destroy itself, they might as well glory 
in it."
   In short, says Bemporad, they feel "If you can't beat evil, you might as 
well join it."

___________________________________________________________________________


'SATANIC BIBLE' AUTHOR DENIES RESPONSIBILITY
By Thomas D. Elias, Scripps Howard News Service

   SAN FRANCISCO - Some people call him Satan.  Others say he's merely the 
Devil's advocate.
   Anton LaVey says he doesn't care what they think, although with a shaved 
head, a small pointed beard and an all-black costume broken only by a red 
necktie, he takes pains to look like the common image of a devil.
   "If the shoe fits," says the author of "The Satanic Bible," "I'll wear 
it.  But I don't claim it.  I'd rather be known as a devil's advocate with 
a small 'd,' a champion of individual freedom."
   Many opponents of Satanism claim LaVey's books, "The Satanic Bible" and 
"The Satanic Rituals," inspire many of the crimes linked to Satanic symbols 
and rituals.
   LaVey doesn't argue with them.
   "Anything can be misused," he says.  "When I was a kid, every time there 
was a murder, the murderer would say something like, 'God made me do it.'  
A lot of psychotics are doign whatever they're doing and saying they're 
Satanists as a way of getting themselves off the hook.  There are crazies 
and there will always be crazies.  Whatever is around that they can lay 
blame on, they'll do it."
   Many of Satanism's opponents point to passages in LaVey's books that 
they contend specifically encourage crimes ranging from murder to grave-
robbing.
   One instruction in "The Satanic Rituals" calls for waving a human arm or 
leg bone through the air, but offers no hint of where to get it.
   "I figured people the bone someplace other than by killing a person," 
LaVey said.  "But if they're going to kill, I hope they at least get a 
deserving victim."
   LaVey says he has no personal knowledge of any murders attributed to 
Satanic practices, although he recalls meeting Richard Ramirez, accused 
Night Stalker killer in the Los Angeles area.
   "When I met Richard Ramirez, he was one of the nicest, most polite young 
men you'd ever want to meet," said LaVey, 56.  "When I met him in 1983, he 
was a model of deportment.  I suppose that shows even murderers may not be 
all bad.  Maybe he did his murders for reasons other than Satanism.  Maybe 
he was disturbed or had an axe to grind."
   His Satanic Bible specifically prohibits animal and child sacrifice, but 
approves of "symbolic" adult human sacrifice.  Readers are told to choose 
their own victims and to graphically visualize "appropriate" revenge in a 
voodoo-like procedure.
   "It's just a short step from that to action," says Rabbi Jack Bemporad 
of Tenafly, N.J., a cult expert.
   Says LaVey, "Of course murderers can use my books.  But they can use the 
Holy Bible, too.  That's the most incendiary book ever written.  There's 
raping and patricide and matricide and killing your own kids in there."
   Responds Bemporad, "Comparing his book to the Hebrew Bible is like 
trying to compare Shakespeare to a comic book.  There's violence in 
Shakespeare and the Bible, sure, but there's a great moral sense, too.  The 
Bible has the ethics of the western world in it, but it couldn't legislate 
away the reality of its time."