Counseling Center:
Trigger is often movies or television
mystery series

Increased interest in Satanism and the Occult

Essen, Germany
May 5, 2000
Neue Ruhr Zeitung

Essen (dpa/lnw). More and more people are having problems with Satanism or the Occult, according to a statement by the Sect Info Counseling Center of Essen. The number of those seeking counselling in 1999 almost doubled from the previous year, and is up to 675.

Movies and television series like "X Files" stimulate interest in such practices, mainly with youth, said Sabine Riede of Sect Info Essen on Friday. It is also often difficult for the young audience to differentiate between reality and fiction in those situations, she said.

Mainly youth in difficult life situations are at risk. "Something, like after their mother dies, trying to get into contact with the deceased person," said Riede. Sect-Info Essen is the only center of this kind for counseling and assistance across the state to specialize in problems with sects and other destructive cults. On the whole, the number of inquiries decreased in 1999 from 3,313 to 2,910.

The number of inquiries about Scientology is in decline, said the counselor. Ever since the organization is under observation by Constitutional Security, it is "no longer so present." Interest has also dropped in fundamentalist Christian groups, which brought attention to themselves as early as 1998 with their visions of doomsday.

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