A Very Weak Attempt to Link Sandy Hook to Satanism

As discussed in my last post, many conspiracy theorists are trying to link the Aurora and Newtown massacres to Satanism. The video below is one of the silliest examples of this effort. It attempts to connect the dots among a perfume commercial starring Lady Gaga (a favourite target of Vigilant Citizen, and others who search for Illuminati/occult symbolism in movies, music videos, and TV commercials), the latest Batman movie, Aurora, and Newtown.
The major flaw with this approach is that any number of interpretations can be made of Lady Gaga's videos. They are artistic, dark, and more than a little twisted. Beneath the video, I've added my own interpretations of some of the imagery in the perfume commercial to show you just how easy it is to bring your own experiences and perceptions to the table.


The "Matrix-style surgical probe": This is actually just a light mounted on a flexible, snake-like tube. It does not enter the statue.
The black bodysuit: I doubt this is a nod to Catwoman. Gaga likes bodysuits, as evidenced by the white Where the Wild Things Are-inspired latex bodysuit she wore at the beginning of the "Bad Romance" video.
The "trooper hat": An old-fashioned ladies' picture hat, updated

The mirror: Clearly a reference to Cocteau's Orphée, in which Orpheus is transported to the underworld by stepping into a mirror with a liquid surface. We know that Gaga admires French culture; she speaks French at the beginning of the video for "Papparazzi". We know she likes classic film, because she references Hitchcock four times in a single verse of "Bad Romance". And I'm not the only one who sees a correspondence between Cocteau and Gaga - check out this fan video of her song "Bad Romance", set to scenes from Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast. We are not dealing with Satanism here. The black mirror is a straight-up homage to French arthouse cinema.
[I wrote the passage above before re-watching the mirror scene in Orphée. When I reviewed it, I realized Gaga was definitely, absolutely, beyond any question in the world, re-enacting it. Watch it yourself, and note how Orpheus and Gaga extend their arms and place their hands in the same position as they cautiously approach the mirror. Note, also, that Gaga hesitates before the black mirror, while Orpheus allows himself to be coaxed into his mirror by an underworld minion. Give her credit for that, at least!
Fun fact: While Gaga's mirror is CGI, Cocteau filmed someone submerging their gloved hands into a pool of mercury to create the shimmery ripple effect.]
"Portrait: Death of Children (ovum and sperm)": I don't see ovum or sperm in this image, so abortion doesn't come to mind at all. The gold jewelry Gaga wears reminds me of slime mold.
"Look how they prequel shooting children!": But there are no children in this scene. There is a CGI rendering of a metallic Gaga aiming a gun at a flesh-and-blood Gaga. I don't think the metallic Gaga represents a child.
The backmasking of Lt. Paul Vance: I closed my eyes for this portion of the video, and typed my own interpretation of the backwards words. Someone says, "Let us now...worst-dressed. Now. Worst." Then Vance says, "Excellent. Herb get it done initiate get some I said go. Said the wood A sauce throat dead Sarah the one with oss nitiate.get some mean you left paw. Nnnnasty deep blue knew it he blew it no [or know] me luck. Still when this window go in and out ffth with a maze Gazoo [or kazoo] with your breath. With your breath a syndrome go pull out the waw never been there rash knees bucksters soreth give [gibberish that sounds like "Mickulick"]. Judith or a nay she not pay up.
So from this we can determine that Paul Vance is owed money by a woman named Judith, has an accomplice named Herb, and may or may not like The Flintstones.

As for production designer Nathan Crowley being related to the infamous occultist, Aleister Crowley was, as Nathan told the Art Newspaper in 2008, his grandfather’s cousin, but Nathan was "never allowed to even mention his name because we were a very Quaker family.”

Weak attempts to link the Connecticut shootings to Devil worship

Tabloids, Christian websites, and YouTube auteurs are attempting to link Newtown, Connecticut, killer Adam Lanza to Satanism - on the softest evidence you can possibly imagine.

A Daily Mail article quotes Trevor L. Todd, a "former classmate" of Lanza, as saying that Adam once had a "Satan worshiping" web page with a banner that featured the word Devil in a red, "Gothic-style" font. This vaguely-remembered website supposedly created by a middle school student is the only evidence presented to suggest that Lanza was a Satanist. To date, the web page's existence hasn't even been confirmed.
The article goes on to claim that FBI investigators "strongly believe he made use of devil-worshiping and suicide sites and boasted of his murder plans on message forums". No source is given for this information.

World Net Daily doesn't have any more solid information than the Daily Mail, but the writer of this article attempts to give the story some teeth by throwing in references to other murders committed by "Satanists". Aaron Klein even speculates about a possible Satanic conspiracy:

"Was Lanza part of a larger Satanic or ritualistic subculture locally or online in which he could have revealed his plans or could have even received support in preparing for the killings?"

Then he takes other media outlets to task for failing to report on the Satanic angle of the Aurora, Colorado shootings. "Although largely underreported, Satanic subculture and so-called devil worship has been a factor in numerous other mass killings, including the recent Batman shooting massacre."
At this point, Klein is forced to  concede that James Holmes wasn't actually a Satanist; he just liked the Joker as played by Heath Ledger a lot, and the Joker had Satanic attributes. You know, like every supervillain in every comic book ever.

Klein goes on to educate WND readers about other infamous "Satanic" murders, starting with the Manson Family killings:
"According to reports, Tate was originally selected to play the main character in her husband’s Rosemary’s Baby, a film about a pregnant woman who fears that her husband may have made a pact with neighbors to use her child as a human sacrifice in their occult rituals. Actress Mia Farrow ultimately got the role, while Tate did make a brief appearance in the film."
This is wrong on just about every level. Sharon Tate was never considered for the role of Rosemary in her husband's film. The film itself has absolutely nothing to do with the murders; the Tate/Polanski residence was targeted by Manson and his followers because Polanski and Tate were subletting the house from music producer Terry Melcher, a man Manson deeply resented for failing to turn him into a recording superstar.

Richard Ramirez is the next "Satanic" killer on the list, and he's the only one who really qualifies for inclusion. Ramirez did identify himself as a Satanist.
But Sean Sellers, the teenager who converted to Christianity in jail after murdering his parents? He may have promoted himself as a "reformed Satanist" who killed only because he was under the Devil's influence, but an examination of his criminal appeals tells a different story. Sellers was so desperate to escape the death penalty for crimes he admittedly committed that he pled diminished capacity due to demonic possession, and later claimed to have Multiple Personality Disorder. Sellers was a shrewdly manipulative man who knew exactly what he was doing at all times.

The last case Klein cites is the murder of Steven Newberry by a trio of teens, led by a charismatic thug named Jim Hardy. The killers practiced some rudimentary form of "Satanism" that mostly revolved around torturing and killing cats. The murder of their "friend" Newberry was a thrill killing that would have been committed with or without their childish attempts at devil worship.
Klein's efforts to lay the blame for Adam Lanza's crimes on Satanism are baseless. To call Lanza's evil deeds "Satanic" because he allegedly expressed interest in the Devil in his teens is just as absurd as labelling a murder "Christian" because the killer was once an altar boy.

Some Christians don't want to stop at blaming Satanism for the massacre, though. They also want to blame the victims' parents and even God himself, arguing that mass murder of 6-year-olds is God's just punishment for "kicking God out of schools". In the video below, Christian rapper Tireo tells us that God granted Satan permission to "demonize" Adam Lanza so that he would murder children, but the media won't disclose this because Adam was white. Also, the victims were handpicked (by God?) because their parents "had sin in their lives."

In the News

People often ask me, "But haven't you ever come across a real case of ritual abuse?". The answer is yes, I have. And I can tell you this: Almost without exception, that ritual abuse has involved small Christian cults, rather than international Satanic ones. For example, the Hosanna Church cult in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, was originally branded a Satanic cult that ritually abused children, but victims who testified at the trial of pastor Louis Lamonica Jr. mentioned only ritual abuse committed in a Christian context.
Now we have even graver allegations being made against a young Bible study leader in Kansas City, Missouri. Micah Moore, 22, has been charged with the murder of nurse Bethany Deaton, 27, and claims that he was persuaded to kill her by Bethany's own husband, Tyler Deaton. Tyler is an "ex-gay" who has headed a small, tight-knit Christian group for the past several years. Some members are so devoted to Tyler that they followed him from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, to his current home in Kansas City. Tyler and Bethany had been married for just three months when she died. Bethany's death on October 30 initially appeared to be a suicide (her body was found in a van parked near Longview Lake, a plastic bag over her head). No one suspected otherwise until Moore turned himself in earlier this month. He told police that Tyler has been engaging in "spiritual sex" with several of the young men who share his house, and that he routinely drugged Bethany so that his followers could rape her. Moore even claimed to possess video footage of these sexual assaults. Fearful that Bethany would tell her therapist about what was going on, Tyler approached Micah with the idea of murdering her and disguising her death as a suicide.
At this early stage, it's possible that Moore's story will turn out to be false. Maybe he killed his leader's wife on his own and pinned the blame on Tyler. However, at least three of the Deatons' four roommates have confirmed that Tyler was having sex with them and that he termed these relations "spiritual". The fourth roommate feels he was being groomed to become one of Tyler's sexual partners.
In Texas, Tyler felt that the official student clubs at Southwestern University weren't hardcore enough for him, so he formed his own independent group. Members would spend hours of every day in the campus chapel, praying and singing under Tyler's direction. They also engaged in "holy laughter", and attempted faith healing of severely disabled people on at least two occasions. Tyler preached to his group about the evils of homosexuality, claiming he "overcame" his own gay orientation through the power of Christ. By the end of the 2008-2009 school year, Southwestern administrators were so troubled by the group's activities that they denied Deaton further use of the chapel. That's when Tyler, Bethany, and several young men decided to relocate to a more sympathetic school, the International House of Prayer University in Kansas City. In Missouri, Bethany and Tyler attended Forerunner Christian Fellowship Church. They married in August of this year.
If the allegations made by Micah Moore are true, then a murderous Christian sex cult has been active on the campus of a Christian university for the past three years, engaging in ritualistic sex and rape under the direction of a charismatic but deranged leader. Will we call this group's practices "Christian ritual abuse"? Or will we continue to insist that abusive sexual practices are the exclusive domain of Satanists, when all evidence indicates that Satanic crime is, in fact, far less common than Christian crime? When you think about it, this makes sense. There are far fewer Satanists in America than Christians, so the rate of crimes committed by Christians should be much higher than the rate of crimes committed by Satanists. This includes sexual abuse and murder.

Another Forerunner was in the news this week, when 19-year-old Two and a Half Men star Angus T. Jones declared in a video produced by The Forerunner Chronicles that he feels terrible about being on a show that is "filth" and might even be contributing to Satan's plan to subvert humanity. He urged Americans to avoid television altogether, in fact. He has since qualified his remarks, stating that he has a lot of respect for everyone who works on the show; he considers them members of his family. He has not attempted to explain how a program produced by such good people can be a tool of the Devil.
The man who appears beside Jones in the video is Christopher "Forerunner" Hudson, a YouTuber who believes that Jay-Z is a Satan-worshiping Freemason. Hudson also buys into and promotes a broad range of conspiracy nonsense: The death of Osama bin Laden was faked, Michael Jackson's death was engineered to distract the world from the Pope's plea for a New World Order, etc. 

Charisma magazine is the most popular Christian magazine in the world. Despite its conservative slant, the articles featured in it are usually timely and concisely written, with little of the bombast you'll see on TV programs like The 700 Club or Jack Van Impe Presents. What, then, shall we make of a recent article titled "Can You Be Raped by the Devil?", which claims that the Medieval notion of succubi and incubi invading our bedrooms at night is valid, and that the content of our dreams can be influenced by these demons? The article, which relies heavily on the anecdotal accounts of one former stripper, even suggests that sexual orientation can be altered by sexual demons. Does ancient superstition such as this really belong in the world's foremost Christian publication, read by millions? What is this teaching the younger readers of the magazine - that every wet dream they experience in adolescence is actually a visitation from a demon bent on making them gay?

The West Memphis Three are OUT!

This is a beautiful day: The day that I remove the "Free the West Memphis Three" posters from my blogs. After spending the entirety of their young adulthoods in prison, Jessie Misskelley, Jason Baldwin, and Damien Echols have been freed after a plea deal. Sadly, the deal prevents them from suing for wrongful prosecution or anything else related to their false convictions, and it is incredibly unlikely that West Memphis investigators will ever admit their mistakes and search for the real killer or killers.
Not just three, but six boys' worlds were destroyed by the murders of Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers. Now that the West Memphis Three have some justice, let's see some justice for the three boys who lost their lives. Enough time has been wasted.

I'm dismayed by some of the media coverage of this. For instance, ABC News posted a video with the sub-headline "Three men convicted of killing three boys in a satanic cult ritual are set free." Really? The prosecution couldn't present any evidence of a Satanic ritual, because there wasn't any. At all.

Bill Schnoebelen: Former Witch, former Satanist, former Illuminati member...

...and current conspiracy bullshitter.

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So far, most of the ex-witches and former Satanists in this series have either faded into obscurity or died. This is not the case with Bill Schnoebelen. He was one of the very first "Ex-Men" to dominate the Christian conspiracy lecture circuit, beginning in 1984, and he is still with us. He might be with us for a long time to come, too, because he has an uncanny knack for tapping into the conspiranoid zeitgeist, claiming to possess inside info on every new menace that looms up to imperil Western civilization (I call this Forest Gump Syndrome).

Schnoebelen claims to have been, at various times between 1968 and the present:

• a Wiccan
• a "high Druidic" priest
• an Ordo Templi Orientis initiate (2nd degree)
• a channeler
• a Satanist
• a member of the Illuminati
• a Mormon
• a Catholic priest
• a 90th Degree Freemason
• a 9th Degree Rosicrucian
  
• a Knight Templar
• a Gnostic bishop
• a spiritualist priest
  
• a vampire
• a naturopathic physician
• a member of Elizabeth Clare Prophet's Church Universal and Triumphant
  
• a fundamentalist Christian/ordained minister
  

Nowadays, he's also a self-declared expert on natural healing and the "medical conspiracy". I'm guessing he's one of those people who takes forever deciding in a restaurant.

He worshipped everything but this.

There is evidence that Bill Schnoebelen actually did do many of the things he talks about. But like John Todd, he smeared Mormons, Freemasons, and many other groups as closet Satanists, and made some claims that are profoundly absurd.

The Road to Everything

Schnoebelen was born into a devoutly Roman Catholic family in 1949, the only child of a tire shop co-owner and a housewife. He was raised in Jessup, Iowa. (3)
Bill says he was a faithful Catholic throughout his young adulthood, and even aspired to the priesthood, but was always prone to the dark and mysterious forces of the world. Trick-or-treating at the age of 8 or 9, he saw leathery, bat-like creatures filling the night sky. At 12, near his family's lake cottage in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, he saw a gigantic black figure rise up from the horizon to "bestride the heavens". It walked over him and vanished beyond a hillock. He believes this was a Wendigo. He also had more typical childhood fascinations like UFOs and haunted houses, but someday he would consider these further manifestations of evil in his life. (2)

After high school, Bill still intended to become a priest. First, though, he enrolled at a small Catholic school called Loras College, in Dubuque, Iowa. It was here, in that crazy year of 1968, that a few New Agey professors and the counter-fundamentalist influence of Vatican II persuaded Bill that man can become Christ. Christ, his liberal teachers taught him, was basically a magician or ascended master who had studied the occult. So, Bill began studying the occult to become more Christ-like. This was his first step into a revolving door of religious traditions that would keep him walking in circles for over 15 years. (1)

Step 1: Witch

After some occult study, Bill decided to become a witch. He wrote to Alex Sanders, the self-proclaimed "King of the Witches", who referred him to a Massachusetts-based coven. Bill ultimately reached the third degree of Alexandrian Wicca. Note, please, that his initiation didn't involve roosters or blood like the bizarre rites supposedly experienced by Doreen Irvine and Mike Warnke. Note also that Schnoebolen has not mentioned any Satanic scripture, like most of the "former witches" we've seen so far.

Bill graduated from Loras College in May 1971 with a major in music and a minor in education. (He claims he received his Masters in Theological Studies degree from the St. Francis School of Pastoral Ministry in 1980 and his Master of Arts degree in counseling from Liberty University in 1990.)
He says he took a leave of absence of absence from seminary in the early '70s. He taught music at a Catholic school for a couple of years, and met his future wife while volunteering as a counselor at a drug rehab clinic. Sharon Mullen, apparently one of the clinic's patients, was a married mother of two. Like Bill, she was deeply into witchcraft and the occult. Around 1973 she left her husband and kids to be with him. (3)
That summer, the couple traveled to Hattieville, Arkansas, to study under the "Grand Master Druid of all North America". Bill doesn't name this fellow, but he was Barney "Eli" Taylor. (3) Taylor ran something called the Mental Science Institute and taught herbal magic in the druidic witchcraft tradition. He made Sharon and Bill a high priestess and high priest, which basically means he issued them a certificate similar to the ones dispensed to John Todd and Tom Sanguinet by Gavin Frost in the '70s. It is incredibly unlikely that Bill and Sharon "learned all the mysteries of hermeticism and metal magic and natural medicine and more" in three months, as he claims. (1) Occult study is not a cram course.
They also saw hovering UFOs every single night, as they studied under the stars. Schnoebelen later contradicted this claim by saying he has seen UFOs about three times in his life. (2)

Bill and Sharon returned to the Midwest to "spread the gospel of witchcraft" (something witches generally don't do). They had a handfasting ceremony in Zion, Illinois, supposedly attended by 200 witches. (1)
They settled in Milwaukee to teach witchcraft and establish covens. Bill claims they drew in hundreds of eager followers, but one of those followers, Frater Barrabbas Tiresius, begs to differ. He claims the Schnoebelens founded just two covens in Milwaukee, containing 30-40 members. By this time, Bill had legally changed his named to Christopher Pendragon Syn, and Sharon called herself Alexandra. They both appeared to possess a great deal of occult knowledge, and at first the covens operated smoothly. According to Frater Barrabbas, things turned sour when Bill and Sharon formed complex romantic entanglements with their followers and began playing them against each other. He attributes the mental collapse of one of Bill's lovers to these cruel mind games. (3)

Step 2: Warlock, Mason, and Illuminati Member

As a result of his occult studies, Bill was a spiritualist priest and a trance channeler. He often consulted numerous spirit guides, the highest of which Frater Barabbas identifies as Ambrosius and Parlemanon. (3) Bill read Anton LeVey's Satanic Bible at the suggestion of one of these spirit guides, and promptly joined the Church of Satan. He reached the second degree, "Warlock", before realizing that LeVey's brand of Satanism was harmless "kid stuff". He aspired to what he calls "hardcore Satanism", and to enter that realm he had to become a Freemason. (1) (The supposed connection between Satanism and Freemasonry was also trumpeted by John Todd in the mid-'80s.)
Frater Barrabbas says it was his father who sponsored Bill into Freemasonry. After Bill reached the third degree, his interest waned and he stopped participating on a regular basis.

Bill then branched out into esoteric Freemasonry. He claims he reached the thirty-second degree of Scottish Rite Freemasonry, as well, and in his lectures displayed the certificate issued to him. He says he also became a Rosicrucian (9th Degree) and a Knight Templar. (1)
Schnoebelen offers up a wealth of misinformation about Freemasonry and the Knights Templar. For instance, in his Prophecy Club lecture (c. 1996), he declared that Freemasonry is "basically Babylonian witchcraft" and is anti-Christian. He said Jacques de Molay was a pedophile (de Molay confessed under torture to homosexual acts; it's not known if he was really gay or not, much less a pedophile). He also talked about Jesuit mind control, claiming that Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises are "profoundly occult" in nature, and formed the basis of Illuminati mind control techniques. This is absurd. Loyola recommended meditation and daily prayer to achieve deeper devotion to God and indifference to the material world. If that's occultism, then virtually all priestly and monastic disciplines are occult.

Here's where Bill's story goes seriously off the rails. So far, none of his claims are particularly outlandish. But after he had covered "all the branches of Masonry there are to do", he signed his soul over to Satan in a Black Book (in blood, of course). The contract entitled him to seven years of anything he wanted, at the end of which he would be killed and taken to Hell. This wasn't such a bad thing, he explains, because hardcore Satanists view Hell as a sort of eternal party. (1)
This nonsense comes straight out of medieval folklore and has no basis in actuality, of course. You cannot sign a pact with Satan any more than you can sign a pact with God, or an angel, or the evil monkey who lives in your closet. Ask yourself, why did Schnoebolen admittedly work at a series of menial jobs throughout these years, if Satan had granted him anything he desired?

The silliness hits a new high with Bill's claim that he was recruited into the Illuminati when fellow Freemasons noticed he had an occult background. This is contradicted by Frater Barrabbas, who says the Masons were unaware of Bill's occult interests. (3)
Bill implies that his entry into the Illuminati wasn't assured, that he slipped in via some arcane loophole. Spirit guides provided him with the appropriate "secret passwords".
He describes three steps that each Illuminati Mason must go through, in addition to learning the arts of tantric sex and opening the third eye with hallucinogens. The first step is illumination. Bill described this as being "deluged in the blinding white light of Lucifer. It felt like my brain was being parboiled in pure light." Step two is communion with the dead, something he had already mastered as a trance medium. Bill claims he had long chats with Jesus, Buddha, Zoraster, Hitler, Aleister Crowley, and others.
Step three is sex with a fallen angel, an "appalling and bizarre" process. Bill was formally married to his angel, a ceremony we'll see again in the case of Dr. Rebecca Brown and the "former Satanist" known as Elaine. Apparently this is not considered bigamy, as Bill was already married to Sharon when he became an Illuminati member.
To accept this nonsense, one must accept that Richard Nixon and other high-level politicians did these things, too, because Bill informs us that many of the world's elite were fellow Illuminists.

Step 3: Priest

Wait, it gets stupider. To "level up" to the hardcore Satanic high priesthood, Bill had to recruit seven people to sell their souls, and become a Catholic priest. He says medieval literature supports his contention that all Satanic high priests are also Catholic priests. (1) However, it isn't required that you become an orthodox Catholic priest; it's good enough just to be "ordained", as both Schnoebolen and Mike Warnke were, as a "bishop" of the Old Catholic Church. This wasn't difficult. Bill found a "bishop" who was willing to ordain him in exchange for being made a witch priest. Frater Barrabbas identifies this man as Edward M. Stehlik. (3)

Bill then became involved with the Patriarch of the Gnostic Catholic Church in Chicago, and was also made a bishop in that church. Oddly, he refers to this church as the Order of Memphis and Mizraim. They are not the same thing. The Gnostic Catholic Church is a branch of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), and is not officially affiliated with esoteric Freemasonry.

At any rate, Bill claims to have reached the ninetieth of ninety-seven degrees in the Order of Memphis and Mizraim (never mind that it only has ninety degrees). He was also initiated into the OTO at some point. Now the story reaches its zenith of ridiculousness.

Step 4: Vampire

His mastery of Freemasonry in all its forms allowed Bill to "cross the abyss", an occult term referring to a state of enlightenment. Under the system of hardcore Satanism he had chosen, he now had to decide between two paths: Lycanthropy or vampirism. He selected vampirism, because the werewolves he knew had undergone some unpleasant experiences.

As it turned out, vampirism wasn't so jolly, either. In the church of a Chicago vampire cult, Bill was made to drink the blood of what he believes to be a fallen angel, and underwent a physical transformation: His blood type changed, he could consume only blood and Catholic hosts, his skin blistered in the sun, and he couldn't be near garlic. He carefully notes that he could not turn into a bat. Whew. For a minute there, I thought his imagination was getting the better of him. I mean, fallen angels and garlic are one thing, but bats? Let's not be silly.

A small harem of witches provided Bill with blood, but as time went on he required more and more of it. As a Milkwaukee Sentinal deliveryman, he would see a hooker and "it would be all that I could do not to leap on that woman and rip her throat out and just drink every drop of blood out of her body." Only his love for his wife prevented him from doing it. (1)

This is quite easily one of the most bizarre and least plausible claims ever made by an ex-witch in North America. It is also profoundly disturbing. I think it goes without saying that Bill Schnoebolen was not physically transformed into a vampire, so why on earth would he tell us about his homicidal fantasies? "Former Satanists" like to exaggerate their evil nature to make their Christian conversion stories as dramatic as possible (Mike Warnke essentially admitted as such on The Jim Bakker Show), but wanting to rip out the throats of prostitutes is beyond the pale. Even inventing such fantasies is indicative of mental imbalance, in my opinion.

Schnoebelen also claims to have been a cocaine addict during this period, though he was a peer counselor for addicts before and after his years as a Satanist. How and when he kicked the habit is unknown.

Step 5: Christian

As we have seen, all the testimonies of former witches and ex-Satanists feature dramatic conversion stories. This is the ultimate purpose of the testimonies; to show that anyone, even the most debauched devil-worshiper, can be saved by Christ.

There are problems with Schnoebelen's conversion story. He claims that in 1984, one of his "tithe checks" to the Church of Satan bounced and was returned to him with a note scrawled on it by a Christian bank teller: "I'll be praying for you in the name of Jesus."

This makes no sense in the context of his hardcore Satanism/Illuminati stories. Bill clearly stated that the Church of Satan was "entry level" Satanism, and that he had surpassed it by becoming a real, hardcore Satanist. So why was he still a member of the CoS nearly a decade later? To make a bad analogy, that would be like paying your Brownie dues long after you've become a Girl Scout.

The prayers of the unknown Christian bank teller triggered a chain of events that ultimately led to Bill's salvation. First, he lost all his magical and vampiric powers. This was a major setback, as he was "probably one of the most powerful warlocks on the west coast of Lake Michigan." This was when he decided he needed to become a Mormon. (1)

Yeah, you read that correctly. He had to become a Mormon. This is because the LDS church was founded "by witches, for witches", as a sort of deep cover. Schnoebelen later wrote a book about it: Mormonism's Temple of Doom. (1)
There is a minute grain of truth in this assertion. Certain practices of Joseph Smith, including the use of scrying stones, are indicative of folk magic. But to call Smith a full-fledged witch would be absurd in the extreme; he was a Christian, not an adherent of any earth religion or occult belief system. The modern-day beliefs and practices of Mormons in no way resemble witchcraft.
The allegation that Mormons secretly practice witchcraft or worship Satan is not unique to Schnoebolen's testimony, unfortunately. For instance, prominent conspiracy theorist A. True Ott, a former member of the LDS Church, claims that Mormons ritually sacrifice humans in their Salt Lake City temple. It is a smear intended to utterly discredit Mormonism, a sect that has been despised and feared by mainstream Protestants since its inception.

Schnoebelen also claims he belonged to Elizabeth Clare Prophet's Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT), a cult-like New Age sect. CUT is currently based in Montana, but in the '70s it operated out of California. So it's not impossible Schnoebelen had some dealings with Prophet's followers. (2)

Like all the other people in this series, Bill portrays witchcraft and Satanism (falsely) as the exact same thing. He also claims that one of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS Church, Elder James E. Faust, personally told him that Lucifer is the god of Mormonism.

In a Prophecy Club lecture given around 1996, Schnoeblen openly encouraged Christians to fear, reject, and disdain Mormons and Freemasons. At the same time, he displayed a disdain for homosexuals, and a total lack of knowledge about the nature of sexual orientation. "If you've got one Mason in your congregation...you're gonna end up with a kind of bad apple spoiling the whole barrel routine...You never have one of these dudes in a church, 'cause they start recruiting. Masons are like homosexuals, they can't reproduce themselves naturally - yeah, amen! - they can only recruit." (1)

Though Mormonism was just another one of Bill's spiritual dead ends, it led him to true salvation by spurring him to read the Bible for the very first time (rather strange for a former seminarian!). He realized that St. Paul could never have been a Mormon - he doesn't explain why he reached this conclusion - and finally gave his life to Christ on June 22, 1984. (1)

As a Christian, Bill penned many books and tracts about the alleged evils of witchcraft, the occult, UFOs, Satanism, Mormonism, and Dungeons & Dragons. He claimed the creators of D&D consulted his Satanic coven in the late '70s because they wanted to make their game "authentic" (Dungeons and Dragons was created in the early '70s, and it's about as authentically Satanic as Taco Bell food is authentically Tex-Mex). His article "Straight Talk on Dungeons and Dragons" is still available on Jack Chick's website, along with the nonsense of John Todd. Chick is a strong supporter of Schnoebelen, and offers his book Lucifer Dethroned for sale.
Though he knows perfectly well that witches are not Satanists and Mormons are not witches, Schnoebelen continues to spread this misinformation via lectures, DVDs, and his With One Accord ministry.

In 2006, Schnoebelen sat down with Stephanie Relfe for a 9-hour interview that was packaged as a DVD, Interview with an Ex-Vampire. I've mentioned Mrs. Relfe on this blog before; she and her husband, Michael, used kinesiology to unlock Michael's buried memories of being a U.S. government slave on Mars. Both Relfes, back on Earth, experienced extensive contact with aliens (Michael was also repeatedly abducted by military personnel). Their first child was teleported out of Stephanie's womb by Reptilians.

Mrs. Relfe uncritically accepts Schnoebelen's stories at face value, even the most absurd and fantastical ones. She listens patiently as Bill describes how a fellow Satanist summoned a mighty demon in his garage. Bill was a scribe at this ceremony, so he witnessed everything. The man successfully summoned a slithery, tentacled monster that filled the room, but made the mistake of stepping outside his magic circle to answer the phone. As it turned out, the ringing was a demonic illusion and the man was whisked away to another dimension by the demon. Because the story wouldn't be believed, Bill said, he and the man's wife never bothered to alert the authorities to his disappearance. He doesn't provide names, a date, or a location.

Step 6: Naturopathic physician

"Naturopathy" is an extremely loose term that encompasses a broad range of alternative medicine, holistic health practices, and quackery. There are a few institutions that offer real degrees in naturopathy, but as Schnoebelen has not revealed where or when he received his, we have no idea if it's valid or not.
As the alternative health biz is hot these days, Schnoebelen gave another Prophecy Club lecture on the "medical conspiracy", explaining how the evil pharmaceutical companies are suppressing miraculous natural cures and whatnot. (4)

In the '90s, Schnoebelen said he was working as a counselor specializing in addictions treatment. This is a bit alarming, as he doesn't have any formal education or training in this field. Even more alarming is the fact that he believes there are about two million victims of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA) in the U.S., and treats some of those victims. In the '80s and '90s, even many fully-qualified professionals who treated SRA patients used highly questionable methods of treatment such as recovered memory therapy. I don't even want to imagine the psychological damage an amateur therapist like Schnoebelen could do. But then, I don't have to imagine it.
Schnoebelen says Dissociative Identity Disorder is caused by "scientifically inserted demons". This medieval notion - that mental illness can be attributed to demonic possession - has no place in modern therapy. Even if deliverance has some limited efficacy in alleviating a patient's symptoms, it doesn't address the underlying cause(s) of the condition.
Schnoebelen is also of the misguided opinion that once a person becomes a Christian, he/she is fully healed of all psychological trauma resulting from childhood abuse and has no further need of therapy. Therefore, his goal as a counselor is probably just to convince emotionally vulnerable people that they must accept Christ as their personal saviour. Using "therapy" as a cover for proselytization is unethical in the extreme.

Schnoebelen's take on history is equally mangled. He believes Josef Mengele was brought to the U.S. under Project Paperclip (he wasn't; he fled to South America with a Vatican-issued passport). He says Mengele had experimented with mind control and cloning in Germany (he had nothing to do with either).
He says we've been successfully cloning animals since the 1940s. Dolly the sheep was just a cover.
As evidence that a UFO crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, in the year of Aleister Crowley's death, Schnoebelen produced an artist's rendering of a "long-range photo" showing two military policemen walking a tiny alien on a leash. Since the object that crashed in the desert was not extraterrestrial, this drawing-of-an-alleged-photo is obviously a crude hoax. No sane, rational person would accept it as evidence of anything.
Schnoebelen also gives credence to Eisenhower's supposed meeting with aliens, Betty Hill's "map" of Zeta Reticuli, and Reptilian sightings in malls beneath Salt Lake City. He speculates that aliens are really fallen angels, paving the way for the Antichrist. He wonders if SRA victims and alien abductees have implants that are really "tiny remote-controlled neutron bombs". (1)

His Biblical exegesis isn't much better. Schnoebelen believes that in I Corinthians 11:2-16, Paul seems to be warning women to be under the headship of men so they won't be screwed by fallen angels. He suspects Adam and Eve may not have had blood until they ate the forbidden fruit, and that fallen angels must drink human blood to become sexually functional. (1)

When it comes to witchcraft, however, Schnoebelen shows himself more knowledgeable than his peers. He acknowledges that witches are just ordinary people, capable of love. He admits that Wicca is probably not ancient; Gerald Gardner's New Forest coven was, in all likelihood, fictional. He knows that the Druids had no written language, and that our knowledge of their practices and beliefs is limited. This is quite a contrast to John Todd, Irene Park, and Tom Sanguinet, who attributed all sorts of evil deeds to the Druids. (2)

Some (Very Obvious) Problems with Schnoebolen's Testimony

Why was he studying for a Masters degree in theology at a pastoral school and practicing Satanism at the same time, four years before he was saved?

Mormons are not witches. Mormons do not worship Lucifer. Witches do not worship Lucifer. If Mormons are secretly worshiping the Devil, why would Elder Faust confide this to two relatively new converts?

Freemasons are not Satanists, and Satanic high priests are not required to become Freemasons. Though rumours and hoaxes have attributed all manner of evil doings to Freemasonry, it is generally a benign fraternal organization.

Satanists are not required to become Catholic priests. Catholics are not permitted to be Freemasons. It is far more likely that Schnoebelen, like Mike Warnke, was drawn to the Old Catholic Church for reasons of his own, such as receiving the grand title of "bishop" without having to earn it.

Schnoebelen likened the Illuminati to Communist cells, compartmentalized in such a way that each member knows only one or two others. How, then, can the members engage in tantric sex with each other? How do they oversee and instruct one another? Who performed the ceremony in which he married his fallen angel? How can you even be sure the Illuminati truly exists, if you only know two of its supposed members?

Schnoebelen identifies Aleister Crowley as the key figure in his occult life, but gets many of the details about Crowley's life and work seriously wrong. He claims Crowley was "probably the most highly honored Mason in the world". In the recent Crowley autobiography Perdurabo, however, author Richard Kaczynski states that Crowley was not recognized as a Mason at all. Nor was Crowley a raper of children who "boasted of slaughtering 150 boys in a single year." Crowley did write of child sacrifice in his book Magick in Theory and Practice, but made it clear that not everything in the book should be taken literally. There is no evidence that he ever physically harmed a child. On the contrary, most children enjoyed his company.
Schnoebelen also blames Crowley for Hitler, the Tunguska explosion, and "Transyuggothian magick". Like John Todd, he suggests that H.P. Lovecraft had access to secret knowledge about demonic/alien entities. He says the Simon Necronomicon contains about half of the "real" Necronomicon, which is utter b.s. He points out that in both "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and "The Dunwich Horror", human women breed with nonhuman creatures. "I believe these stories are absolutely true..." (1)

Schnoebelen claims the Royal Secret of Scottish Rite Freemasonry is the sodomy of young boys, which occultists believe allows them to access a realm of "trans-Plutonian space" and gives them an illusion of immortality. He says even "good" Masons can be drawn into pedophilia and homosexuality. (1)
Again, he's betraying a total ignorance of sexual orientation and attributing atrocious crimes to an organization that is, for the most part, benevolent. Predatory pedophiles are not over-represented in Freemasonry, and no occult tradition requires one to rape children.

Schnoebelen makes similar allegations against Michael Aquino, founder of the Temple of Set. He says Aquino was charged of child abuse three times, but the charges didn't stick "probably because of government involvement." (1)
First off, it was the government (the military) who investigated Aquino in the first place. Secondly, he was never charged with any crime. The investigations dead-ended, not because of government intervention but because the allegations were made by hysterical parents who feared that Colonel Aquino, an out-of-the-closet Satanist, was the child-raping, virgin-slaying devil of modern legend. It is very interesting that Aquino was never accused of a single crime until he outed himself as a Satanist.

In addition to his ridiculous stories about Catholic mind control and the Illuminati, Schnoebelen pulled out some of the same discredited conspiracy myths used by John Todd, such as the factoid that Freemason Albert Pike was a Satanist (a feature of the Taxil hoax). Also in common with Todd, he criticized Star Wars, soap operas, and romance novels. He told his Prophecy Club audience that because the U.S. government treats its citizens like "idiot children", they turn to drugs and booze and fantasy (Star Trek, Star Wars, soaps, etc.). "As a result of this, most people end up on the dole, or in mental hospitals." (1)
Excuse me? Most Americans are welfare recipients, and Star Trek is responsible for this? Since when?

If Schnoebelen legally wed a fallen angel, then I suggest he produce a marriage or divorce certificate to verify his story. Or at least pull out some wedding photos.

The stupidest and least tenable of all his claims, of course, is the assertion that he was a "real" vampire. Though Bill would have us believe that lycanthropy and vampirism are real supernatural phenomena with physiological manifestations, there is zero evidence to support that. No one needs to subsist on human blood. Blood type cannot change under any circumstances. If you are born AB positive, you will die AB positive. Faux vampirism and delusional lycanthropy certainly exist, but real vampires and werewolves do not. Duh.



Sources:

1. Schnoebelen's Prophecy Club talk "Exposing the Illuminati from Within" (c. 1996)
2. "Interview with an Ex-Vampire" (Schnoebelen's 2006 interview with Stephanie Relfe)
3. Frater Barrabbas Tiresius' 4-part blog series on Schnoebelen @ Talking About Ritual Magick
4. Schnoebelen's Prophecy Club talk "The Medical Conspiracy" (date unknown)

Mike Warnke: The Man Who Sold Satan

Mike Warnke (sometime in the '70s, obviously)

Warnke's Story

In January 1972, televangelist Morris Cerullo introduced a young man named Mike Warnke to the evangelical Christian community. Cerullo had a rare specimen, indeed: A real, live former Satanist who had found Jesus and wanted to share his testimony with the world. And he had the ability to do it. Warnke possessed native speaking ability and natural charm, enrapturing revival crowds with no visible effort. And to top it all off, he was funny. Warnke's blend of true confession, Christian stand-up, and born again sermonizing was a winning combination.

Morris Cerullo "cures" 4-year-old Natalia Barned of cancer in 1992


So winning that by 1973, Warnke had broken away from Cerullo to form his own Alpha and Omega Outreach ministry and published his autobiography (co-written Les Jones and David Balsiger of Noah's Ark infamy), The Satan Seller. It pushed Warnke into the national Christian spotlight, winning him speaking engagements at some of the nation's most popular evangelical venues.

With his niche firmly established, Warnke enrolled at Trinity Bible College in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1975, his first Christian comedy album (Alive!) cemented his fame. Warnke quickly became the best-selling Christian comedian of all time.


Despite his chequered past, Warnke seemed stable and well-prepared for ministry. He was a Vietnam vet married to his college sweetheart, the former Sue Studer. The Warnkes had two young sons. Fellow Christians were amazed at how far Mike had come in such a short time. Truly, this was God's hand at work.

Less than ten years earlier, Mike Warnke had been high priest in a violent Satanic cult, a drug dealer, and an addict. He viciously dominated and abused the women in his life, cut himself off from his family, and led his followers into increasingly demented behaviour. The way Mike describes himself on Alive!, he was a ruthless gangsta junkie - as badass as 50 Cent, looking worse than Sick Boy from Trainspotting:

"I'd had hepatitis four times from shooting up with dirty needles. I had scabs all over my face from shooting up crystal. I was a speed freak. I weighed 110 pounds soaking wet. My skin had turned yellow. My hair was falling out. My teeth were rotting out of my head. I'd been pistol-whipped five or six times. My jaw had been broken. My nose had been almost ripped off. I had a bullet hole in my right leg. Two bullet holes in my left leg."

His childhood, while not as tragic as Doreen Irvine's, had been rough. Born in 1946, he grew up in Coffee County, Tennessee, son of a truckstop owner called Whitey and his fifth wife. Whitey sold drugs and was mixed up with gangsters; he carried a tommy gun in his car, which was full of bullet holes from deals gone bad. He had affairs with many young women, including the teenage waitress who became his sixth wife after Mike's mother died in 1955.
For the next three years, Mike was at the mercy of a stepmother who whipped him with a dog leash at every opportunity.
Whitey died when Mike was 11. The orphaned boy lived for a short time with his mother's devoutly Christian sisters, and their influence stayed with him, just as Doreen Irvine's Sunday school teachers planted the seeds of salvation in her youth. Then he was sent to California, to live with half-sister Shirley Schrader, her husband, and their son. The Schraders raised Mike as their own child, bringing him up Catholic in the tight-knit community of Crestline.

Warnke's teen years were typical for a Catholic California boy in the '60s: Dances, parties, cruising with the guys. He never got into serious trouble, but he loved to tell tall tales and act out weird jokes. A favourite trick was to go into a restaurant with one of his pals and pretend he was a Russian who couldn't speak much English. The friend would "translate" for him. Later, at a college coffeehouse, he pretended to be an Englishman for eight months. In The Satan Seller, he boasts repeatedly that he could talk his way out of anything.

After graduating from Rim of the World High School in 1965, Warnke enrolled at a junior college, San Bernadino Valley College. It was here, on a grassy campus full of mission-style buildings, that he went to the dark side. He had already abandoned the church, having been kicked out of Bible study for asking too many questions.

San Bernadino Valley College

College gave him the opportunity to break away entirely. He severed contact with this family in Crestline, grew his hair long, and bought outrageous clothes that made him stand out on campus. He became a kind of guru of the quad, dispensing wisdom to like-minded freshmen. He hung around campus all the time even after flunking out of all his classes.

Though he doesn't give us many time markers, we know that everything Warnke experienced at college occurred between his enrollment in the fall of '65 and his enlistement in the Navy in the summer of '66. Keep that in mind.

In The Satan Seller, Warnke tells us he was already an alcholic by the age of 18. At college, a clean-cut fellow student he calls "Dean Armstrong" offered him some pot to counteract the sour stomach and blackouts that resulted from his continuous heavy drinking. Dependence on pot led to a dependence on speed, also supplied by Dean. He also dabbled heavily in peyote, mescaline, and LSD supplied as part of a government-funded research experiment. Then Dean suggested he try something even stronger. He directed Warnke to a gathering held at a posh house in the hills; beautiful hippies smoking pot, talking religion and philosophy before having a free-love orgy.
As Mike realized after attending several such gatherings, these people were Satanists or witches (just like Doreen Irvine, Warnke uses the terms interchangeably). The sex parties were just a lure to bring selected people into the coven.
His introduction to the coven was extremely gradual, unlike the sudden initiation described by Irvine. Though time markers are few and far between, Warnke gives us the impression that a significant amount of time passed before he was allowed to proceed to the "second level". In the meantime, he became a big-time drug smuggler and dealer for Dean Armstrong. He tells us the coven was handling a "large percentage" of the drug traffic for the Inland Empire at that time.

The "secondary meetings" consisted of rituals that were blasphemous but surprisingly tame. Initiates learned simple witchcraft. Warnke estimates there were "several hundred" regional coven members at this, from all walks of life. There were even a few ministers and priests.
Warnke itched to explore the deeper mysteries of the group, so he obediently served as Dean's drug gofer and message boy until he was admitted to the "third stage". This was the inner sanctum, the core group of real Satanists. Dean revealed that he was one of the leaders, a "Master Counselor" (there were three Master Counselors at a time, which is rather bizarre).

Warnke's first "third stage" meeting was a Black Mass held in a barn near Redlands. A nude girl laid on an altar consisting of a granite slab atop two sawhorses while the three Master Counselors desecrated the sacraments, uttered blasphemies, and read from the Satanic bible, which Warnke calls The Great Mother. It was apparently far less weighy than the massive Book of Satan used by Doreen Irvine's cult, because Dean was able to rest it on the naked altar-girl's stomach without crushing her. You'll notice, in the course of this series, that the world-wide church of Satan doesn't seem to have standardized scripture. At all. Each ex-Satanist describes different books, different magical systems, and different modes of worship. Orgies are the only consistent feature. You'd think that a secretive cult angling for world domination would be slightly more organized than this.

At the end of the Black Mass, the Satanists cast curses on enemies (i.e., ex-members who were telling people about the coven and Christians who were preaching and praying against Satanism). Warnke was so impressed with this that he asked to be initiated as soon as possible. Dean told him he could join the coven at the next full moon, three weeks later.

We now see the darker side of Warnke. Up to this point, he's just a speed freak curious about Satanism. After the third meeting, he's kind of a monster. He admits to holding his girlfriend captive in his apartment for a week, using her as his "whipping girl", then pushing her out on the street for no reason.

At his initiation, also held in the barn, Mike knelt naked in the center of a circle and received a new Satanic name, Judas. He was "baptized" with holy water mixed with urine. He was given a black robe, a hood resembling those worn by Eastern Orthodox priests, a silver ring to be worn only for "Satanic business", and a necklace bearing his zodiac sign. This ceremony bears little resemblance to Doreen Irvine's initiation ritual, which involved drinking the blood of a sacrificed rooster. Instead of signing a parchment, Warnke signed his name (in his own blood) within a large leather-bound book. Some of the names already inscribed in it appeared in green ink, and Dean explained that the blood magically turned green as soon as someone betrayed Satan.
This group called itself The Brotherhood.

To his credit, Warnke tells us much more about the beliefs and attitudes of Satanic witches than Doreen Irvine did. He informs us that Satanists believe in God, but reject God in favour of the thrills and short-term benefits Satan can provide. They have elaborate rituals and spells. They don't just burn Bibles, like Irvine's "black witches". Nor does Warnke claim to have superpowers like those Irvine developed; he can't levitate, kill birds with his mind, or make himself invisible.
But Warnke doesn't get too specific about the doings of his cult. He doesn't reveal any of the contents of The Great Mother, doesn't provide real names, and gives only vague descriptions of meeting places.

Mike learned a lot about Satanic witchcraft in a very short time. First, a female witch revealed to Warnke that the powers of spells, curses, and potions came from demons. These demons had been pressed into service by their master, Satan, and performed their tasks reluctantly. So if any rule was broken or any mistakes made, the demon could lash out violently against you. An "enraged demon" had clawed her forehead once, leaving a nasty scar. Later, he learned that two Satanists had been crushed to death by an invisible force because they carelessly stepped on the wrong part of the circle during a ceremony.
Next, Dean made it clear that he was expected to go out and recruit new members. In stages, he would lure them to a female witch's apartment for sex, then offer drugs, then ease them into witchcraft. Dean supplied him with a fake ID so that he could cruise bars for "marks". Mark brought 1000 people into the Brotherhood in this manner, raising regional membership to 1500. He repeats this number at least four times in the book.

At some point, Dean told Mike that the "big guys" were giving him a big promotion, and Mike would be taking his place as a Master Counselor.
One week later, again on the night of a full moon, he was initiated into his new role. He became the "Master of Ritual" (the other two counselors were known as the Keeper of the Seal and the Keeper of the Books). Perks of Mike's new job included free rent, free groceries, a chauffeur, unlimited drugs and alcohol, and two pretty "roommates" who submissively catered to his every whim. According to Warnke these two young women were considered "slaves, or menials, or whatever", and were "just there for show and for my pleasure". But they also performed secretarial tasks, did all the cooking and cleaning and entertaining, and prepared his snacks and his drugs.

At meetings, Warnke intoned certain chants while he "exorcised" ritual knives with belladonna-laced incense, outlined a pentagram on the floor with the tip of a sword, and mock-disemboweled the naked girl on the altar. At some point he would summon a demon to do the bidding of the coven (the pentagram had to be outlined perfectly, because it magically "caged" the demon; if there was even the slightest break in the pentagram, the demon could escape and do serious damage).
After this was done, Satanists could step forward with petitions to curse their enemies.
Warnke introduced two innovations into meetings: Blood-drinking and host desecration. These things had never been done by the coven, and Warnke says he took "sadistic pleasure" in watching the female witches nervously take their first sips of blood.

From this point in his narrative, Warnke begins to hint that the "fourth step" in the Satanic hierarchy is the Illuminati. The people at this level were well-dressed professionals, almost aristocratic in bearing. Strangely, Warnke never asked his fellow Satanists about the fourth level. He seemed content to let the upper echelons remain shrouded in mystery until he was considered worthy to join their ranks.
Perhaps he was satisfied with the power he wielded. Warnke ritually summoned demons at each Satanic ceremony, and the demons did his bidding. He tells us demons are capable of possessing people and driving them to insanity and suicide. They can cause disease and impede spiritual growth.
One night, to impress a childhood pal who was visiting, Warnke summoned a demon and ordered it to burn down a bar. A short time later, the building was ablaze.
Later, the coven cursed the two young daughters of a Valley College professor who had spoken dismissively of witchcraft, and caused an ex-member to have a near-fatal car accident.

Impressed with his performance as a Master Counselor, some fourth-stagers sent Warnke to a gathering of high-level witches organized by Bridget Bishop of Salem, Massachusetts - a descendant of the first witch executed during the Salem witch trials. (Some of Bishop's descendants do still live in the area, and a decade ago several of them called for Bridget's full exoneration. A "Bridget" was not among them. According to Warnke, Bridget Bishop was a stunningly beautiful young woman who lived in a large old house stuffed with antiques.)

At this witch convention, the main topic was organization. We learn that the U.S. Satanic witch movement has a corporate-style structure and uses tactics culled from big business and the military to keep everything running smoothly.
Hearing this, Warnke had his New World Order revelation. He suddenly realized there could be a fifth stage controlling everything, not just Satanism but world events.

"A world-wide, super secret control group with perhaps as few as a very dozen at the top...with key men controlling governments, economies, armies, food supplies...pulling the strings on every major international event...and not just now, but for generations, centuries, since the beginning of civilization...manipulating men by their egos and their appetites, rewarding and depriving, enraging and pacifying, raising up first one side and then the other, maintaining a balance of frustration, bitterness, and despair?" (p. 93, ellipses in original)

He heard other attendees talking about the demons that had controlled the worst dictators of history: Nero, Hitler, Stalin. A light went on in his head, showing him that demonically inspired Satanists and their human puppets were the force beyong international finance, politics, war, industry, and everything else.

"I laughed, a little hysterically, but the light show wouldn't shut off. So that was how it was done! The global-conspiracy buffs were right, after all. Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray, Sirhan B. Sirhan - they were the pawns of a much bigger plot."

Keep in mind that Warnke was supposedly having this revelation in 1965 or '66. Ray and Sirhan were nonentities.

He also realized that he and all the other Satanists were just pawns in Satan's campaign of jealousy and hatred, and that Satan probably hated humans just as much as he despised the God who had denied him his rightful place in heaven.
It didn't bother him too much. He just got on with his Satanic business. He attended another witchcraft convention in New York, where he learned that some Satanists were sacrificing their fingers (mentioned repeatedly by Doreen Irvine) and eating human flesh.
Warnke introduced both practices to his coven, and added cat sacrifice to the rituals as well. He also suggested that his group collect blood from stray dogs if they couldn't get enough human volunteers, and he later learned that reports of exsanguinated dogs shot up 500% in the area.
After an occult convention in San Francisco (where he met Anton LaVey), he used a new "formula" during a meeting and inadvertently sent a young woman into a screaming, frothing fit of demonic possession.
In accordance with The Great Mother, he decided it was time to start raping virgins at sabbats. He and three other Satanists convinced a college student named Mary to accompany them to the orange grove where they usually held their rituals, then violently forced her to disrobe and lay on the altar. She was raped by an unspecified number of men before being taken to a doctor affiliated with the coven - someone who wouldn't talk.

Meanwhile, Warnke's speed use was spiralling out of control and he was becoming very paranoid. He feared the Mafia, Communists, and every bump in the night. The higher-ups evidently decided he was a liability, so his slave-girls were instructed to give him an overdose of heroin. While he was drifting in and out of consciousness, cult goons removed him from his apartment and dumped him on the sidewalk in front of a hospital. He registered as John Doe and went through agonizing withdrawal for a week.
When he returned to his pad, the slave-girls were gone and most of his Satanic paraphernalia had been removed. He had been ejected from the Brotherhood. He also lost his part-time job at a hamburger stand.
With few choices left, he joined the Navy. Withdrawal made bootcamp a nightmare, but the two Christian men in his unit lovingly tended to him day after day. These guys, Bob and Bill, seemed to be filled with a calm and peace that the others lacked. One day, Warnke's eye fell on Bill's Bible. It was open to John, and 3:16 caught his eye. He picked up the book and began reading it in the privacy of a broom closet. He found himself unable to put it down, so he read throughout the night. By dawn, he was saved.

After basic training, Warnke visited his family for the first time since he left Crestline for Valley College. While there, he ran into an old classmate named Sue Studer, another born again Christian. They were soon engaged. He told her all about his Satanic past. Both Sue and Mike claim that Satanists were gunning for Mike at this time; their friend Lorrie narrowly escaped being shot while snooping around a warehouse where the Brotherhood was gathering, and someone fired on Mike's car from a Cadillac.

Mike himself was a danger to those around him. Still in the grip of demons, he tried to strangle Sue one night. She realized what was happening and ordered the demons to depart in the name of Jesus, which seems like a rather strange reaction to a murder attempt by your fiance.

In 1967 the newlyweds settled in San Diego, where Mike went through training to become a Navy medic. They befriended a pastor who is now a household name: Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind novels. When Warnke told him about the Brotherhood and their efforts to scare him, LaHaye replied, "I've been attacked by witches," and filled him in on the history of the Bavarian Illuminati.
Every Christian who heard Mike's story was equally supportive and accepting. No one suggested that he turn himself in to the police for abduction and rape. No one advised him to seek psychological help or drug treatment. In fact, church members urged him to become a Sunday school teacher!

Just as Sue learned she was pregnant, Warnke was shipped to Vietnam. In this dismal atmosphere of death and devastation, he soon reverted to drinking and popping pills. His newfound faith in Christ dwindled. Though he was not supposed to be armed, he was, and one day an officer ordered him to execute a suspected Vietnamese spy.
In October '69, his unit was withdrawn. He returned to California in March of the following year. By this time, he had 3-month-old son, Brendon.
Their Christian friends helped Warnke regain his footing in the faith. He began giving his testimony at Jesus People gatherings in San Diego, Coronado, and La Mesa. Dick Handley introduced him to Anaheim Bulletin writer/photographer David Balsiger, who would become one of his co-authors. Balsiger was also a media director for Morris Cerullo at this time, though Warnke doesn't mention that. Cerullo and Balsiger had constructed an educational "witchmobile" full of occult paraphernalia, and Cerullo wanted Balsiger's help in writing a book titled Witchcraft Never Looked Better. In the end, Balsiger and Warnke left Cerullo out of their collaboration (Balsiger assisted Cerullo with his '73 book The Back Side of Satan).
Balsiger considered himself something of an occult expert, and Warnke donates several pages to his "knowledge". Among Balsiger's pearls of wisdom:

- "We discovered that occult practitioners open themselves to mental derangement, criminal tendencies and possible self-destruction or the destruction of other persons...many witches say that only Satanists and black arts practitioners go off the deep end and kill people or commit other crimes, but we researched eleven recent criminal cases...[and] occult practices were directly or indirectly linked to each case." He doesn't explain who conducted this research, how it was conducted, how occultism was connected to the cases, or even which cases were examined. We pretty much have to take his word for it.
- "witchcraft is being taught as an official course or as part of a lecture series in public schools all across the country under a variety of course titles, including the 'Literature of the Supernatural'."
- "40 to 50 percent of those undergoing treatment for various neuroses in and out of mental institutions have dabbled in the occult, and it never occurs to most psychiatrists to ask about this, nor would they know how to deal with it if they did ask." (Balsiger's wife, Janie, chimes in, "That's because it's a spiritual problem, and only a Christian psychiatrist would be able to cope with it successfully.")
- The peace symbol has a Satanic origin. Also, "it was used on Hitler's Nazi death notices and as part of the official inscription on the gravestones of Nazi officers of the SS, the leaders of which, incidentally, were Satanists." (The Morning of the Magicians by Bergier and Pauwels is cited as a source for this factoid)
- "In some parts of the country the occult epidemic is more serious than the drug-abuse scene among young people."

At the urging of Balsiger and others, Warnke applied for early release from the Navy (he had four years left to serve) so he could launch an anti-occult ministry.
He tries to convince us that Satanism poses a real threat to the average American. On page 195 he writes, "Drug pushers and political revolutionists are using devil worship as a way to rake in millions of dollars, weaken the government, and destroy law enforcement." When a reporter asked for his opinion on the Manson murders, he said, "Well, the main point here is that lots of crimes are committed as a result of occult involvement, and people should report to the police if they see someone going around wearing human bones as jewelry, or if there's a group meeting under a full moon."

What Warnke advocates, basically, is a new witch hunt. He even scoffs at the notion that Medieval and early modern witchhunts were "nothing but mass paranoia". At a press conference, he urged people to "get uptight" with bookstores that sold occult literature and theatres that screen horror movies.

As soon as his early release was granted - which Warnke portrays as a miracle - he began setting up speaking engagements to share his testimony.
Morris Cerullo, the preacher who got him started on this path, is not mentioned anywhere in The Satan Seller. He and Warnke had a falling-out when Warnke went off on his own, and Warnke reportedly forbade Cerullo from using any part of his life story in his revival sermons. Cerullo did include some of Warnke's anecdotes in his '73 book, The Backside of Satan, however, and those tidbits would come back to haunt Warnke.

The story of The Satan Seller concludes with Mike and Sue starting out on their glorious new ministry. At the end of the book is a list of suggestions for combatting the occult: write to congressmen and senators about the occult menace, picket bookstores and movie theatres, and "investigate schools" to make sure they aren't teaching kids about things like supernatural literature.

Warnke networked widely in the evangelical community, forging ties with the Jesus People, the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship, Pentacostal preachers, Charismatics, and anyone else who unquestioningly accepted his testimony. They adored him. He was real, solid proof that an occult underground was devouring America's youth.

As mentioned in Part I, Warnke moved Sue and their two children to Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1974 so he could attend Trinity Bible College. The Warnkes became friends with another student at the bible college, Carolyn Alberty. Her testimony, while not as thrilling as Mike's, still grabbed attention: She was "third-generation Mafia", with a dad who ran gambling dens and a mom who ran brothels.
By the end of the school year, Mike and Carolyn were having an affair.

It was also around this time that Warnke made the peculiar decision to become a deacon in the Syro-Chaldean Church, a renegade offshoot of the Eastern Orthodox church. He would later lace his own services with Orthodox accoutrements such as gaudy robes and incense, which is very much at odds with the negative picture he paints in The Satan Seller of the "almost sensual" trappings of Catholicism. (p. 7)

After graduating from Trinity in the spring of '75, the Warnkes moved to Denver. Mike lured his mistress, Carolyn, there with the promise of employment at Pastor Wally Hickey's Happy Church, where Mike held an unpaid position as an evangelist for one of the church's lay ministries.
By the end of the year, he and Carolyn were openly a couple and his "employment" with The Happy Church was over.

In September '76, Mike moved with Carolyn to Nashville. He divorced Sue that December, despite desperate efforts by friends to negotiate a reconciliation. In early '77, Carolyn and Mike married. Though a few Christian associates frowned heavily on the divorce and remarriage, it didn't put a serious dent in Warnke's public image. He appeared on the cover of the October '76 issue of the Christian magazine Harmony. In the article, he's quoted as saying, "Now, I'm a strong civil rights advocate. The last time I had been in Alabama was with Dr. Martin Luther King, back in my college days when I went down there on Freedom Rides. The last time I was there was to march in a civil rights demonstration. "
As you know from Part I, Warnke was in college (very briefly) in 1965. The Freedom Rides were in '61, when Warnke was 15 years old and living in California.

In the fall of 1978, the future seemed bright for Mike Warnke. His three albums were the most popular Christian comedy albums every recorded, and his '79 tour was going to be his biggest yet. He had also written a second memoir, Hitchhiking on Hope Street.
He was touring continuously while Carolyn remained in Nashville with her mother. You can probably see where this is going. In Kentucky, Warnke met a young woman named Rose Hall and began courting her openly. The lovers met in various cities while Warnke was on the road, dishing out Christian comedy and salvation.
His relationship with Carolyn allegedly turned violent. One night that summer, according to Carolyn, Mike shoved her into a wall during a fight and split her head open. He told her, "If you go to a local hospital and tell them what your name is, I'll kill you. I don't have to do it physically. I can do it from another room or another state."
They divorced in November. Warnke told several friends that Carolyn had died.
In January 1980, he married Rose Hall. She would take a more active role in his ministry than either Sue or Carolyn, but this union was also doomed.

Sometime after his third wedding, Warnke became a "bishop". Independent "bishop" Richard Morrill had married Carolyn and Mike in Nashville, and in 1980 he consecrated Warnke a bishop in his "Holy Orthodox Catholic Church, Eastern and Apostolic" (registered in the state of Texas).
In 1982, Mike and Rose registered their own ministry as "The Holy Orthodox Catholic Church in Kentucky".

The centre of Warnke's ministry remained anti-occult, though. Throughout the early eighties, he and Rose traveled the country warning Christian audiences of the occult menace, and described their work in Kentucky helping victims of Satanism. One such victim, a little boy they called "Jeffy", was so traumatized by years of Satanic ritual abuse that he had lapsed into catatonia.
To date, no one has been able to locate "Jeffy".

On May 6, 1985, ABC's 20/20 program aired a special on Satanism in America, The Devil Worshipers. This allegedly "skeptical" report by Tom Gerold was alarmist in tone from beginning to end. On the Ricky Kasso case: "Despite numerous signs that Kasso was into Satanism and rock music associated with devil worship, police steadfastly refused to label this case Satanic. The offical explanation: A drug-related crime." Well, it was a drug-related crime. The victim, Gary Lauwers, allegedly stole ten packets of angel dust from Kasso, and Kasso (a small-time dealer) vowed he wouldn't get away with it.
Much of the program is taken up with the problems of juvenile graffiti, dog mutilations, and horror movies, but then Warnke shows up as a "former Satanist" to describe some of the practices of devil worship. He sits behind an arrangement of props that include a sword, a goblet, and a human skull. Holding up a bone, he explains that Satanists use them to tell the future. He says he was drawn into Satanism as a young man because he "wanted to be somebody special."
Cut to stark black-and-white photos of a teenage boy's corpse. Writing is faintly visible on his skin. "This is a 15-year-old boy who also wanted to be special," Tom Gerald tells us. The boy hung himself after scrawling Satanic slogans and symbols on his body. As we'll see, tying a bizarre teen suicide to Warnke's cult confessions was not a wise journalistic move.
Other "occult experts" interviewed for the program included "cult cop" Sandi Gallant and Dale Griffis, a former police chief whose academic credentials were exposed as bogus during the trial of Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin.

Warnke on 20/20 in 1985

Contributions to Warnke's ministry topped $1 million in 1985, and reached over $2 million each year from 1987 to 1990. By '91 he had released eight albums and produced a video (Do You Hear Me?). Until the spectacular collapse of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's multimedia Christian empire, he was a regular guest on The PTL Club.

Warnke's account of his year as a Satanist had become more elaborate over the years. Though the only famous person to appear in The Satan Seller is Anton LaVey, Warnke told Morris Cerullo and others that Charles Manson attended one of his coven's rituals in 1966 and was unimpressed, apparently disappointed that Warnke only pretended to disembowel the nude altar girl. Manson also attended the same San Francisco occult conference as LaVey, Warnke said.
Between June 1960 and March 1967, Manson was in jail for violating the Mann Act and his probation. Warnke could not have met him in the flesh unless he traveled out to McNeil Island penitentiary.

These weren't the only stretchers Warnke was telling. In '82, he told Contemporary Christian Music magazine he had earned a Ph.D in philosophy, a master's degree in theology, and a second master's degree in Christian education. Since his single term at San Bernadino Valley College back in '65, the only schooling he had was his year in bible college. The degrees were completely fictional.

Beginning in late '86, the Warnkes talked of establishing a treatment facility for children rescued from Satanism, and began taking donations for it. This centre never materialized. By April of 1987, the lovely brick complex of Warnke Ministries in Burgin, Kentucky, consisted of offices, chapel, and library. There were no medical facilities, no rehab quarters, and no staff trained to deal with traumatized children. Dr. John Cooper was hired as director of the centre in 1989, but was fired later that year without treating a single child.

Mike and Rose separated the same year. They divorced in '91, and six weeks later Mike married his fourth (and current) wife, Susan Patton. They returned to California. Mike published his third book, an "educational" tome titled Schemes of Satan, quickly followed by his fourth book (co-written with Rose), Recovering from Divorce. Warnke was becoming something of an expert on the latter subject.


Exposed

Warnke's fibs and confabulations had not gone entirely unnoticed in the Christian world. In the late '80s, Cornerstone magazine quietly launched an investigation into his ministry and background. This was a publication of Jesus People USA, established and run by Christians. Warnke was being examined by his own people.
Cornerstone writers Jon Trott and Mike Hertenstein had already examined Lauren Stratford's popular memoir of child abuse and Satanic worship, Satan's Underground (which we'll see later in this series). They found that Stratford's story didn't correspond in any way to the known facts of her life. This was a disappointment to the many Christians and anti-occult activists who had supported "Lauren" and promoted her testimony, but the publishers of Cornerstone felt the truth was more important than protecting the reputations of fellow Christians.
They took the same approach to Warnke's background. Trott and Hertenstein interviewed family, classmates, friends, associates, and former employees of Warnke. They also waded through a swamp of divorce proceedings, financial documents, and academic records to ferret out which of Warnke's many claims were true.

The results were stunning. Trott and Hertenstein learned from Warnke's own mother (half-sister Shirley Schrader) that he had not wandered away from church life as a teenager. In fact, he asked to be confirmed as a Catholic in his senior year of high school.
When he was supposedly living with two slave-girls in a Satanic bachelor pad, strung out on speed, with bleached hair down to his butt and black-painted fingernails, Warnke was actually engaged to a devoutly Catholic nursing student named Lois Eckenrod. They met within the first two months of college, got engaged in the winter of 1965, and spent every day together until Mike joined the Navy the following June. Lois says Mike was a Christian who always kept his hair short. He lived alone. He showed no signs of drug or alcohol abuse.
His college friend Greg Gilbert, with whom he lived for a while, described 18-year-old Warnke in much the same way. He was part of a loose-knit group of clean-cut, mostly Christian, students who bowled, played croquet, and drank very little.
His high school and college buddies had never seen him take a drag, much less move hundreds of kilos into the Inland Empire at the behest of Satanic kingpins. While Mike "Judas" Warnke was supposedly lopping off the fingers of devil-worshipers and sipping blood from a chalice, the real Mike Warnke was bowling, sharing hot fudge sundaes with his Catholic girlfriend, and listening to folk music at campus coffeehouses.
While Warnke claims he avoided his family after enrolling at college, Shirley Schrader says Mike had Christmas dinner in Crestline with the family in '65. She noticed nothing out of the ordinary about his appearance or demeanor.

The recollections of his friends and family members weren't the only things that contradicted Warnke's story. Trott and Hertenstein used the handful of time cues in The Satan Seller to figure out just how long it took Warnke to become a drug-addicted Satanic high priest. In their side-article "Why the Dates Don't Work", they explain how his chronology is flat-out impossible.
They also sorted out Warnke's confusing claims about his education, learning that he didn't possess a single degree aside from the one issued by Trinity Bible College - a nonaccredited school.
They heard allegations of death threats and abuse from Warnke's second wife, Carolyn. They learned that he had carried on an affair during this marriage even before meeting his third wife, Rose.
They spoke to former ministry employees who quit or were fired after they realized that all the money being raised wasn't being spent in the ways it was supposed to be spent. The rehab center for child victims of Satanic ritual abuse, for instance, never existed as anything more than a fantasy.

Cornerstone published the results of Trott and Hertenstein's research as a cover article in June 1992: "Selling Satan: The Tragic History of Mike Warnke".
Testimonials supporting Warnke immediately cropped up: David Balsiger, first wife Sue Studer, Bob Larson, Pat Matrisciana, Joanna Michealson, and others stood behind him. Note that all of these people met Warnke after his supposed year of Satanic involvement.
His record label, Word, also pledged loyalty to Warnke. Warnke himself penned a scathing letter to Cornerstone, declaring that he stood by his autobiography "exactly as published", boasting of his "nationally recognized expertise on the occult", and dismissing ex-wife Carolyn as a "cold-hearted and calculating temptress".
The Lexington Herald-Leader then picked up the ball, printing an expose of financial irregularities in Warnke's ministry.
Word promtply dumped Warnke.

In September, the Warnkes shut down their ministry. Warnke ultimately admitted that his coven of 1500 Satanists actually consisted of 13 people. He declined to give their names, claiming that 8 of them were deceased, and never provided any evidence in support of his testimony.

In the spring of 1993, a panel of ministers assembled to sort out Warnke's problems, both spiritual and financial. The group rebuked him for his ungodly behaviour, recommended changes to his ministry (including accountability reports and salary caps), and advised that he pay back taxes to the IRS. Warnke reportedly complied with everything.

Warnke's ministry took a severe beating for a few years, but in the grand tradition of American preacher scandals, he was rehabilitated and welcomed back into the arms of the Christian community. By 2000, he was back on tour. The born again was born again.
But he wasn't entirely chastened by his scandal. In 2002 he published a book titled Friendly Fire: A Recovery Guide for Believers Battered by Religion, in which he vented about his treatment at the hands of other Christians. And to this day, he maintains that his experiences with Satanism are essentially as he described them back in the '70s.

Today, Warnke and his fourth wife run Celebrations of Hope Ministry. Warnke's fellow preachers skirt around the whole Satanic thing these days, focusing instead on his trials and triumphs as a temporary Christian pariah. During Warnke's appearance on The New Jim Bakker Show in 2007, Bakker told the audience, "Mike was saved out of Satanism or something."
Warnke's own comments during this show are illuminating. He joked that exaggeration on the part of televangelists is "evangelasticity". Explaining how he got into comedy/ministry, he said, "I was a child of the Jesus Movement, and of course in the Jesus Movement we all had to have a testimony. If you had been to seminary, if you had six doctorates, if you'd been in the ministry for 25 years, nobody wanted to hear a word you had to say. If you killed your mom, in say 15 minutes they'd let you pass [into] the church." In time, he realized that his own "four-star testimony" was bumming out his audiences, so he leavened it with comedy.
He says he entered the Navy to escape murderous Satanists. He figured there wouldn't be any Satanists or homosexuals there.

Today, Warnke is a "Right Reverend", and the website of Christian Communion International identifies him as a doctor.

The long hair is gone, the evangelasticity is a little less springy, but he's still the same "former Satanist" who scared the hell out of millions of Christians for nearly two decades. His four-star testimony convinced them that all witches, Pagans, and Satanists are a threat to every American family, and that the occult menace of Halloween celebrations and rock music must be destroyed.
The rehabilitation of his career demonstrates that truth is of secondary importance to certain quarters of America's faith community.