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 others 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 ploice
nationwide are said to be linded 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 savrifice 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 state of satanism is part of a long war between the
forces of good and evil. |