TEMPLE OF SET
Post Office Box 470307, San Francisco, CA 94147

STATEMENT FOR _WITCHCRAFT, SATANISM & OCCULT CRIME - FIFTH EDITION_
by Michael A. Aquino, Ph.D.
High Priest of Set
March 26, 1993CE

_The "Satanic scare" of the 1980s_

In 1980 a Canadian psychiatrist named Lawrence Pazder published
_Michelle Remembers_, a book in which his client/wife Michelle Smith
alleged that (a) as a child she had been sexually abused by
Satanists and (b) because the experience had been so traumatic, she
had repressed all memory of it until Pazder's "therapy" revived it.

On September 30, 1990 London's _Mail on Sunday_ newspaper, as the
result of extensive investigation into Smith's background - to
include interviews with her father, her first husband, her
neighbors, and Canadian occult historians of the 1950s - exposed the
book as a fraud. But in the intervening ten years _Michelle
Remembers_ inspired a devastating epidemic of copycat accusations
directed against legitimate Satanists, non-Satanic occultists, and
many other innocent people who had nothing whatever to do with the
occult.

A secondary theme - Satanic preying upon children in day-care
facilities - was invented by Judy Johnson, a woman diagnosed with
acute paranoid schizophrenia by the UC Irvine Medical Center, when
in 1983 she alleged that _Michelle_-style "Satanic sex rituals" had
been practiced on her child at the McMartin Preschool in Los
Angeles. A witch-hunt, swollen with zealous prosecutors and abuse-
finding "therapists", commenced which again provided inspiration for
a flood of similar accusations, witch-hunts, massive financial
claims, and publicity posturing across the United States. Johnson's
role was quickly forgotten. Four months before the McMartin trial
started in 1987, police found her lying naked and face-down in her
son's bedroom, dead of an alcoholism-related liver disease - her
phone off the hook and the Yellow Pages opened to "Liquor Stores".
(_Los Angles Magazine_, October 1989).

A third theme - that of being used as a "breeder" for Satanic-
sacrifice children - was most widely sensationalized by a woman
named Lauren Stratford in her 1988 book _Satan's Underground_. Later
Stratford's book was exposed as a fabrication by the Christian
magazine _Cornerstone_, but by then the nation abounded with self-
proclaimed "breeders".

Professional "ex-Satanist" and fundamentalist evangelist Mike Warnke
jumped on the latest bandwagon to claim that in his "Satanic high
priest" days he had seen such "Satanic crime" firsthand. In 1992
_Cornerstone_ and the _Lexington Herald-Leader_ exposed Warnke's
"Satanic past" as a complete fabrication, and the "ministry" he had
built upon it was tax-exemption-revoked and placed under
investigation by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

When evaluating the "Satanic crime" myth of the 1980s, one must bear
in mind that before _Michelle Remembers_ there was *no* "Satanic
child abuse" - *no* "Satanic survivors" - *no* "Satanic breeders" -
*at all*. The 1980s' epidemic of accusations, "recollections", and
persecutions was built upon nothing but opportunism, greed, and
ignorance. It was simply the latest "urban myth" to follow bigfoot,
flying saucers, and Elvis-alive - with one difference: It was not
funny. Great numbers of innocent people, including hundreds of
children scarred by grotesque sex-indoctrination "therapy" - were
the tragic victims.

_Modern Satanism and Witchcraft_

Prior to the _Michelle Remembers_ epidemic a wide variety of non-
traditional religions had flourished in the United States and
abroad, among these Satanism (sometimes called "black witchcraft")
and Wicca (sometimes called "white witchcraft").

Satanism as an organized, codified religion did not exist before
1966, when Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan. This institution
functioned until 1975, when its organizational structure and
international membership were replaced by those of the Temple of
Set. The Church of Satan considered itself not an inversion of
Christian ideal values, but rather an expose of Christian
institutional corruption and a laboratory for a new sense of
individual responsibility. The Temple of Set emphasized and
developed the concept of personal evolution while disassociating its
symbolism and iconography entirely from those of Judaeo/
Christianity.

Wicca was never represented by a single institution, but came into
being in the mid-1960s as the result of interest in the European
pagan-history speculations of Gerald Gardner and Margaret Murray.
Wiccans considered themselves as nature-worshippers and disclaimed
any Christian association or symbolism whatever.

From the outset Satanists and Wiccans generally didn't like one
another and avoided interaction.

Satanists considered Wiccans as naive, hypocritical dilettantes who
exploit the sinister glamor of the term "witch" but shrink from
offending Christian society by acknowledging its Satanic origin or
connotation.

Wiccans considered Satanists as occultists who have "gone to
dangerous extremes" and "played into the hands of fundamentalists by
deliberately flaunting Christianity's evil-terminology".

Fundamentalist Christians cdn't have cared less about such
distinctions, but considered *all* occultism - by which they mean
anything not fundamentalist Christian - to be "evil from the Devil"
and deserving of persecution and extermination. The _Michelle_-
inspired myth gave them a golden opportunity to launch such a
pogrom.

Although as acknowledged Satanists the Temple of Set bore the brunt
of the fundamentalist attack, Wiccans quickly learned that they were
hated and targeted just as much by fundamentalists. This climate of
persecution forced the Setian/Satanic and Wiccan/neopagan
communities into a necessary if uneasy alliance in which doctrinal
distinctions were set aside in favor of cooperation against the
common fundamentalist threat. Cooperative efforts such as the
Alliance of Magical and Earth Religions (AMER) did much to expose
and discredit the fundamentalist agenda.

Not all Wiccan groups approved of such a joint effort, the common
threat notwithstanding. The Wiccan Church of All Worlds sought
rather to serve up Satanism as a sacrifice to the fundamentalists,
hoping thereby to appease them. In 1989 CAW issued its _Witchcraft,
Satanism & Occult Crime_ booklet, endorsing the fundamentalist hate-
stereotype of Satanism while vehemently disassociating Wicca/
neopaganism from this same stereotype. The booklet quickly gained a
reputation as the classic model for a cowardly sell-out to the
forces of fundamentalist intolerance.

Somehow the Temple of Set was not consulted for the preparation of
the first four editions of this booklet. Editor Tim "Otter G'Zell"
Zell now tries to alibi this with the excuse tht the time he
"had no contact" with the Temple - although its address was public
knowledge and very easy to find. [In the case of the 4th edition,
Zell cited two of its office addresses dating back to 1987 inside
the back cover.]

Instead "a brief history of Satanism" was written by one "Reverend"
Donald Frew, a "Wiccan Priest and Elder". Although it was not
mentioned in the booklet, Zell asserted privately that Frew had a
"past connection with the Church of Satan". 1966-75 membership
records of the Church dt include Frew's name as either a Priest
nor a member, nor was he ever mentioned in its _Cloven Hoof_
newsletter. His "history" compares favorably with Geraldo Rivera for
accuracy, objectivity, and depth of research - which managed not to
include contact with the Temple of Set either. It's amazing how
difficult we are to find.

An inflammatory "cult danger evaluation frame" by Isaac Bonewits was
included in and promoted by the booklet. Again not mentioned in the
booklet, Bonewits was an early member of the Church of Satan who was
thrown out of it in disgrace by Anton LaVey and thereafter embarked
on a personal vendetta of self-justification and misrepresentation
of LaVey and the C/S. In 1991 Bonewits wrote a venomous article for
Zell's _Green Egg_ magazine emphasizing the "sacrifice Satanism to
the fundamentalists" theme to its Wiccan target audience. Once again
Zell somehow neglected to mention Bonewits' past C/S involvement,
disgrace, and expulsion.

Zell's "glossary of witchcraft, paganism, and the occult" uniformly
paints Wiccan terms in the most rosy pastels, and just as uniformly
gives Setian/Satanic terms their most Christianized, negative, and
destructive connotations.

The _Michelle_-theme of "adult survivors of ritual abuse" is
pandered to by the ludicrous, degrading "volunteering" of assorted
Wiccans to provide "therapy" to such "survivors" in yet another "Do-
it-to-them-not-us!" plea for fundamentalist mercy from a 1988 CAW-
convention. Although the medical term "Multiple Personality
Disorder" (MPD) has been vulgarly misappropriated and distorted by
_Michelle_-exploiters as a further v for their scam, Zell
endorses this farcical tabloid-trash by promoting it in the booklet
as well.

A particularly charming grotesquerie of the booklet is a June 1989
letter from Sandi Gallant, affirming that Satanism and neopaganism
may not be criminal after all. Gallant neglects to mention that,
more than any other single person in the United States, she was the
original "cult cop" who not only promoted the _Michelle_-hysteria in
the early 1980s but also privately profited from it by the active
merchandising of lectures and video/audio-tapes exploiting the
theme. At the time Gallant wrote the letter for Zell, she was under
investigation by the San Francisco Police Commission's Office of
Citizen Complaints for deliberately creating a distorted and
defamatory image of Satanism to both law enforcement and the public,
a finding which was formally sustained by the OCC on November 22,
1989.

The booklet finales with Wicca-not-Satanism endorsements from a
Christian theologian from the University of Southern California, the
United Campus Ministry  Colorado State University, and yet another
"Satanic ritual abuse survivor". It is difficult to judge which of
the three is the most comical.

But at least as bizarre is Zell's 1993 invitation to the Temple of
Set to legitimize this obscene booklet by participating in it and
"noting whatever changes you would like to see made in the various
references to Satanism ... your recommendations will receive serious
attention." w that the _Michelle_-scam - aided, abetted, and
commercially exploited by Zell's booklet for four years - has
finally been exposed and discredited nationwide, not just by the
Temple of Set and reputable occult scholars but also by such
authoritative/disinterested sources as the FBI (_Investigator's
Guide to Allegations of "Ritual" Child Abuse_, National Center for
the Analysis of Violent Crime, 1992), Zell wants to be buddies. "I
can understand that some of the references to Satanism would not sit
well with you."

The Temple of Set, grateful for Zell's notice, is accordingly
pleased to contribute this letter [only] to the fifth edition of his
booklet.


--- Origin: The Mountain Oracle, P.O.D.S. for CO. Springs (1:128/101)