Satanism vs. Neo-Pagan Witchcraft:

It seems to be necessary to preface every discussion of

Witchcraft with an explanation that, no, Neo-Pagan Witches

aren't Satanists. The Christian anti-God, Satan, has no

place in Pagan pantheons, either mythologically or

theologically. Plainly and simply, to non-Christians,

Satanism is the dark side of Christianity.

"Even today, Witchcraft is frequently misrepresented

by being confused with Satanism. Often the word Witchcraft

is used to represent two wholly opposite phenomena the

survival of ancient Paganism in one instance, and the

inversion of Christianity in another. Let us make it clear: a

Satanist is a renegade Christian, who, in his rebellion

against the authority of the church, worships Satan rather

than Christ. Such people are at times called witches and

warlocks in popular books and movies but they have little

to do with Pagan Witches. Satanists, for one thing, accept

the Christian duality between good and evil; Pagans do

not. Satanists may choose to worship evil rather than good

but they have utterly bought the Christian world view." 1

The word Pagan derives from the Latin paganus,

meaning "peasant" or country dweller. It is correctly

applied to indigenous (native) pantheistic folk religions and

peoples. The term "Neo-Paganism" is applied to the

modern re-emergence of ancient Pagan religious values,

including the sacredness of all Life and the worship of

Nature. Contemporary Witchcraft has been a major

component of the Neo-Pagan resurgence since England

repealed its anti-Witchcraft laws in 1951.

The Goddess and the God of Witchcraft

The many traditions of Neo-Pagan Witchcraft have few

universal theological precepts, but one of them is certainly

the veneration of the Moon Goddess, known most

commonly by her Roman name, Diana. She is perceived

as manifesting in triple form: as Maiden, Mother and

Crone. These triple aspects are identified respectively with

the waxing, full, and waning moons. Witches gather at

esbats every full moon, to sing and dance in Her

moonlight, share cakes and wine, and work magic to heal

each other, their friends, and the Earth. Many modern

Witches expand the concept of the Goddess considerably,

and see Her also as Mother Earth and Mother Nature.

Most traditions of Neo-Pagan Witchcraft also honor the

Consort of the Goddess in the form of the Horned God, who

is seen as Lord of Animals as well as seasonal ruler of the

Underworld. The most familiar version of the Horned God

is the Greek Pan, goat-horned and goat-hoofed, playing His

panpipes, guzzling wine from his freely-flowing wineskin,

and seducing nymphs in the woods. He is regarded as

lusty and jovial, epitomizing masculine attributes of ideal

father, brother or lover. As the Goddess of Witchcraft is

closely identified with the Moon, so the God is identified

with the Sun. In this way he may been seen mythologically

as the lover both of the Moon and of the Earth, and another

of His many epithets is Lord of Light.

Every light casts its shadows, and the Lord of Shadows

is the other face of the Lord of Light. The Lord of the

Underworld is the title of the God in Winter when He goes

underground with the animals to hibernate. Some traditions

had Him alternate with His brother as husband to the

eternal Goddess. Others, as in the Greek Hades, had a

year-round God of the Shadows.

The Devil You Say!

It is essential to clarify the historic relationship of Pan

and the Devil, as Christianity has tended to confuse the

two, giving rise to the accusation that Pagans are Devil-

worshippers because some Pagan gods have horns. Once

and for all, the Christian Devil is not the God of the

Witches! The genesis of the Devil comes from a merging of

two concepts: Satan and Lucifer. The original meaning of

the word satan is adversary, and his inclusion in the Bible

represents an attempt by later apologists of the Old

Testament to justify the more negative actions of a

benevolent God (such as the persecution of Job) by

attributing the actual dirty work to a testing spirit; the

original "devil's advocate." This entity was not considered

evil until after the Persian conquest of the Hebrews

introduced them to the Zoroastrian dualism of Ahura-Mazda

(the good God) vs. Ahriman (the evil God). This later

manifested in Christianity as Manichean dualism. The

Maintain equation was brutally simple: God=Good;

Devil=Evil. But it was not until the year 447 CE that the

Council of Toledo declared the legal existence of the Devil

as an actual entity, though he was still not thought of as

necessarily manifesting in human form.

The Lucifer story is a mish-mashed retelling of the

Canaanite myth about the overthrow of Baal by Mot and the

usurpation of Baal's throne by Athar, the God of the

morning star. The original Hebrew name for Lucifer was

helel ben shahar meaning "son of the day star" (the planet

Venus). The name Lucifer ("light bearer"), a Romano-

Etruscan title of the Sun God, was erroneously used when

the Bible was first translated into Latin.

Various Shadow Gods or Divine Adversaries

contributed to the creation of the Devil, including the

Canaanite Moloch or Mot, the Egyptian Set or Suteck and

the Roman Saturn. The final touch was that they placed all

Pagan gods and goddesses in an adversary position to

Yahweh, the God of Israel. This is because Yahweh, as a

monotheistic deity, considers jealousy to be a virtue rather

than a vice. This is a profound cultural difference from

Pagan pantheons and polytheistic peoples who co-existed

together, whether or not in harmony. Also since unbridled

sexuality, especially for females, was defined by Judeo-

Christianity as evil, Pagan gods and goddesses who were

especially sexual or sensual garnered the new sect's

especial hatred. Pan and Dionysos were by no stretch of

the imagination evil, adversary or even shadowy deities,

but because of their riotous celebrations the Devil acquired

Pan's horns and hooves and Dionysos' bibulous nature.

This final equation of the Pagan Horned God with Satan

was not established, however, until the year 1486, when

the Dominicans Kramer and Sprenger published the

Malleus Malificarum, or "Hammer of the Witches," wherein

they gave the first physical description of the Devil as he

is commonly depicted today, declaring that this was the

God worshipped by those they wanted to call "Witches,"

and thereby justifying the centuries of terrible persecution

inflicted on those who clung to the worship of the elder

gods.

The Devil is quite a modern patchwork quilt of other

people's ancient gods and spirits, but Christian apologists

put the cart before the horse when they try to explain that

all other Gods are just their Devil in disguise. This is a

very erroneous and intolerant attitude. No less an authority

than Jesus said: "By their fruits you shall know them." Pan

is a noble and worthy god even if He is a bit wild and

woolly; whatever else He is, He is not now nor ever was,

the Devil. 2

Witchcraft and Shamanism

Witches were the shamans, or medicine men and

women, of the tribal Celtic peoples of Europe, and they

functioned in precisely the same fashion as shamans of

any other tribal culture, be it American Indians, Africans, or

Australian Aborigines. In fact, and in time-honored tradition,

shamans are still commonly referred to as "Witch

Doctors." All shamans are specialists in herbal lore, and

the Witches of Pagan Europe were no exception. Usually,

but not exclusively, women, they practiced herbal

medicine, midwifery, augury, spell casting, and

counseling. Often dwelling alone out in the woods, Witches

lived close to Nature, and attuned to Her cycles. Their

gardens grew not only food, but also many kinds of herbs,

including those valued for their medicinal, anesthetic and

hallucinogenic properties. In a period of time when good

Christian folk maintained only those domestic animals that

could be considered "livestock" (i.e. useful to humans),

Witches frequently kept wild animal pets: foxes, weasels,

owls, ravens; and of course, the ubiquitous cats. Such

became known, appropriately enough, as familiars. When

Witches came to be persecuted, so did these familiar

animals, and the brutal capture, torture and burning of

millions of cats that accompanied the Witch burnings begat

the horrible Black Plague that devastated Europe in the

14th century. For the cats had kept the rat populations

under control, and it was rat fleas that were the carrier of

the bubonic plague bacillus, pasteurella pestis.

Satanism: The Dark Side of Christianity

Satanism was not originally a religion itself, of course,

as Satan exists only in the theology of Judeo-Christianity

(and in Islam, too, as Shaitan), and there only as an

opponent of Yahweh, the supreme God. According to

Judeo-Christian mythology, Satan (originally known as

Lucifer, the light-bearer, greatest of the angels) had led a

rebellion of a third of the angels against Yahweh,

challenging Him for the Throne of Heaven. Lucifer was

defeated, and was cast down with his followers into the

underworld, where they all became demons and devils,

their white-feathered wings and golden halos becoming

bat-wings and horns. Not to mention the forked dragon

tails. The underworld, according to Christianity, became a

place of fiery torment for doomed souls, presided over by

Satan, now the supreme Devil. Even the largely erroneous

material circulated by File 18 and the Cult Crime Impact

Network specifies the relationship of Christianity and

Satanism as thesis/antithesis:

"Christianity and Satanism are the two inseparable

parts of the whole. You cannot believe in the existence of

one without believing in the existence of the other.

Satanists are not Anti-Believers in Christianity they are

counter-believers. The cult of Satan was developed on the

basis of the dualistic conception of Christianity. It is a

collective protest movement with one-sided and

exaggerated features which are the cause of its distorted

and usually destructive behavior. At the same time, it can

also be a creative force. It is a combination of the creativity

and destructive behavior that is so appealing to followers.

The drawing factor, over Christianity, is that 'anything

goes.' There are no constraints in Satanism." 3

Contemporary Satanism has grown from such roots of

rebellion and has put out many shoots. If you tell an

adolescent child that the normal sexual urges of puberty

are the inspiration of Satan, or indeed, that anything else

you strongly disapprove of is "of the Devil," then you can

hardly be surprised if normal adolescent hormonal

rebellion takes a Satanic overtone. Anton LeVey of the

Church of Satan and later Michael Aquino of the Temple of

Set have basically capitalized on the idea that human

nature will emerge and if this is defined as Evil then so be

it. The '60s and '70s saw numerous Satanic splinter

groups such as The Process Church emerge with a similar

message.

Periodic reports of isolated Satanic groups can be more

of a danger. Most seem to be groups of teenagers who

were experimenting with the occult and, lacking any

instruction or connections with the more harmless public

groups, created their own brand of homegrown Satanism

out of various books on black magic practices available

from bookstores. This variety of Satanism is fueled by the

powerful adrenaline rush of Heavy Metal music, liberally

laced with sado-masochistic sex and heavy drug use.

Their modern mythology and primary source of inspiration

comes from the overwhelming flood of mass media horror

movies of the genre of "Rosemary's Baby" and "The

Exorcist." Recent titles like "The Cult," "The Believers,"

"Omen," "Damian," "Bride of Satan," etc, are readily

available from any video store in the country. This variety

of Satanist becomes known to authorities usually when

they are caught desecrating graveyards or churches, or

from complaints lodged by parents of members. These

kinds of groups have actually been prosecuted and

convicted for criminal activities up to and including rape

and murder. Though they are not connected geographically

they do have a common set of symbols such as inverted

crosses, inverted pentagrams, the number 666 and so on.

This is simply because most of their imagery is an

amalgam of readily available mass media sensationalism

composed of Heavy Metal subculture from groups like

Motley Crue and Black Sabbath and the ubiquitous "Devil

Cult" movies. When major established religions preach

that the end of the world from a nuclear holocaust is part of

God's plan for salvation, it should not be surprising that

the resulting fear and sense of despair of "Youth deprived

of a Future" should occasionally take on such a twisted

form of "eat, drink and make merry..." Similar attitudes

gave birth to Satanism originally during the time of the

Dark Ages with the onset of the Black Death and the

resultant economic chaos in Europe. What we need to

understand about this phenomenon is that such "... small

ephemeral Satanic groups, most consisting primarily of

young adults and/or teenagers, some led by psychopaths

and/or sociopaths continue to come and go. While they

pose no threat to the larger society, they do pose an

immediate danger to those involved in them and are

frequently involved in criminal activity, from dealing in

drugs to rape and murder." 4

Adult Survivors

"However, beginning in the 1980's, a new and different

set of reports on Satanism began to appear. Possibly the

first to receive any public notice was that of Michelle Smith

which appeared in a book [Michelle Remembers, Congdon

& Lattes, NY, 1980] written by Michelle and her

psychiatrist, Dr. Lawrence Pazder. Michelle Smith had

gone to Dr. Pazder seeking help with her continued

emotional distress following a miscarriage and a recurrent

nightmare. In the course of these sessions she gradually

told a story of her having been involved in a Satanic cult in

Vancouver, B.C., as a five-year-old child in 1954-55. The

events described were not a part of her conscious memory

prior to the sessions with Dr. Pazder. As the story unfolded

she told of her mother being forced to surrender her for a

ritual, the Feast of the Beast, and of her forced participation

in the group for over a year, during which time the group

tried unsuccessfully to convert her to their beliefs and

practices. Though attempts were made to uncover

independent evidence of the existence of the group, none

could be found." 5

Soon after Michelle's book appeared, The National

Enquirer published a questionable account of a woman

who also claimed to have been raised in a devil cult and

prepared for marriage to Satan. The account took all the

elements from the Michelle story including the ritual

calendar. Since that time, similar accounts have popped up

all over the country. Perhaps there are such cruel

underground generational Satanists; child abuse is clearly

a reality and often twisted religious beliefs do play a part

in it. But it is the abuse that we should focus our attention

on, not the legitimate practice of any religion, regardless of

its orthodoxy.

Satanism and Non-Christians

It should be clear from the above that people who have

no belief in Christianity (i.e., Pagans, Buddhists, Hindus,

etc.) cannot be Satanists, since the two faiths, Satanism

and Christianity, are inseparable mirror images of each

other, each dependent on the other for its justification and

existence. Thus Satanists use the inverted cross to

symbolize their complete reversal of everything

Christianity stands for. Interestingly, many contemporary

Satanists also use the inverted pentagram, symbolizing as

well their complete reversal of everything Witches stand

for, as the right-side-up pentagram is the universal symbol

of Neo-Pagan Witchcraft.

Nor are Neo-Pagans the least bit interested in the

Christian or Islamic Satan/Shaitan figure with whom the

fundamentalists are so obsessed. One has to be a

Christian or a Moslem to believe in this "God of Evil," and

frankly, the whole concept seems silly to the average Neo-

Pagan. Genuine Satanists fall into four overlapping

categories: fundamentalist Christians and Moslems

themselves, who are constantly talking about "Satan's"

power and influence; Conservative Orthodox Satanists,

who are right-wing racists looking for metaphysical

excuses to behave the way they would anyway; Liberal

Heterodox or Punk Satanists, who are kids doing it to

annoy their parents; and what journalist Paul Sulin calls

"the Sincere Sociopaths:" folks who are crazy to begin

with, believe that they are evil (often as a result of growing

up in abusive families), and who then latch onto the prime

Western image of Evil and proceed to enact the sick

fantasies that the fundamentalists have created. All of

these people are stuck in the standard dualism of

conservative monotheism.

Neo-Pagans are interested in worshipping Nature and

the gods and goddesses of the "Old Religions" not the

tired, old abortion of monotheistic dualism. The Pagan

deities were ancient long before the monotheistic religions

were even founded; the Horned God of the Wildwood was

worshipped by our Pagan ancestors for tens of thousands

of years before the Christian church invented "The Devil."

Christians are welcome to their creation; Pagans will stick

with Mother Nature's.

The Burning Times

It is truly ironic that, though it is the practitioners of

Witchcraft who have historically suffered real abuse and

persecution, the Witch has somehow continued to be

misrepresented as the villain. Christianity did not become

the world's dominant religion by peaceful conversion, but

by the sword and stake. As the legions of Caesar had

forged the Roman Empire over the dead bodies of

countless tribal peoples of Europe, so did its heir, the Holy

Roman Empire, continue the tradition. Declaring them

"heresies," agents of the Holy Inquisition hunted out and

ruthlessly exterminated every religion, sect or tradition

that would not convert to "The One True Right And Only

Way." Witches, however, lived outside of any organized

religious structure, and were largely ignored until the 13th

century, when the Church had finally gained enough power

to deal with grass-roots Paganism.

"In the 13th century the Church opened its long-drawn-

out conflict with Paganism in Europe by declaring

'Witchcraft' to be a 'sect' and heretical. It was not until the

14th century that the two religions came to grips... In 1324

the bishop of Ossory tried Dame Alice Kyteler in his

ecclesiastical court for the crime of worshipping a deity

other than the Christian God...

"The 15th century marks the first great victories of the

Church. Beginning with the trials in Lorraine in 1408 the

Church moved triumphantly against Joan of Arc and her

followers in 1431, against Gilles de Rais and his coven in

1440, against the Witches of Brescia in 1457. Towards the

end of the century the Christian power was so well-

established that the Church felt the time had come for an

organized attack, and in 1484 pope Innocent VIII published

his Bull against 'Witches.' All through the 16th and 17th

centuries the battle raged. The Pagans fought a gallant,

though losing, fight against a remorseless and

unscrupulous enemy; every inch of the field was disputed,

but the Christian policy of obtaining influence over the

rulers and law-givers was irresistible. Vae victis [Woe to

the conquered] was also the policy of the Christians, and

we see the priests of the Papacy gloating over the

thousands they had consigned to the flames while the

ministers of the Reformed Churches hounded on the

administrators of the law to condemn the 'devil

worshippers.' What can have been the feelings with which

those unhappy victims regarded the vaunted God of Love,

the Prince of Peace, whose votaries condemned them to

torture and death? What wonder that they clung to their old

faith, and died in agony unspeakable rather than deny their

God." 6

It should also be pointed out that the court recorders at

the Witch trials were specifically instructed that, whatever

gods or goddesses the accused actually claimed to

worship, what went into the record was "Satan," or "The

Devil." And what wonder if some of those who had come to

believe the Biblical history taught them by the

missionaries, monks and priests of the conquering faith,

concluded that the story must have gotten it wrong

somehow? That if there had indeed been a rebellion in

heaven, it was clearly evident that the winner had not been

the God of love and peace, as his propagandists claimed,

but rather a God of cruelty and evil; of war and violence,

wrath and jealousy. (This had, in fact, been an old Gnostic

tradition.) The clear implication was that the defeated

Lucifer must have been the good guy, and surely many

must have swarmed to his allegiance in this belief. While,

of course, true adherents of the Old Religions certainly

knew better, and continued their faith entirely distinct from

Christianity, there were surely, then as now, many ignorant

people who were simply too unsophisticated or too

illiterate to question the Christian paradigm once it became

established. And thus did Satanism as a belief and a

practice come into being, spawned by the Church, and

forever to be locked together with it in a fatal embrace of

mutual antagonism. Whether or not the persecuted

peasantry who came to side with Satan against their

oppressors thought of themselves as "Witches," the

Church and the authorities of the Holy Inquisition certainly

identified them as such:

"The heart and center of the persecution of Witches

was that they were Satanists, that they had rejected the

rightful God and given their allegiance to his arch-

opponent, and that in their 'sabbaths' or meetings they

worshipped the ruler of evil, carnality and filth. Some of

those accused as Witches do seem to have taken the Devil

for their god, worshipping him as an equal opponent of the

Christian God, over whom he would eventually triumph.

They looked to Satan for power and pleasure in this world

and for a happy future in the next, and they vilified Christ

as a traitor and a cheat, who had made promises which he

did not keep, and who had gone away to live in heaven

while Satan remained with his faithful on earth." 7

"The Witches and sorcerers of early times were a

widely spread class who had retained the beliefs and

traditions of heathenism with all its license and romance

and charm of the forbidden. . . in their ranks every one who

was oppressed or injured either by the nobility or the

church. They were treated with indescribable cruelty, in

most cases worse than beasts of burden, for they were

outraged in all their feelings, not at intervals for

punishment, but habitually by custom, and they revenged

themselves by secret orgies and fancied devil-worship,

and occult ties, and stupendous sins, or what they fancied

were such. I can seriously conceive what no writer seems

to have considered that there must have been an immense

satisfaction in selling or giving one's self to the devil, or to

any power which was at war with their oppressors. So they

went by night, at the full moon, and sacrificed to Diana, or

'later on' to Satan, and they danced and rebelled. It is very

well worth noting that we have all our accounts of sorcerers

and heretics from Catholic priests, who had every earthly

reason for misrepresenting them, and did so. In the vast

amount of ancient Witchcraft still surviving in Italy, there is

not much anti-Christianity, but a great deal of early

heathenism. Diana, not Satan, is still the real head of the

Witches." 8

The Baby-Stealers Myth

The public justifications for these persecutions were

based on a most remarkable myth, pervasive throughout

European history from the second century CE. The myth, or

fantasy as historian Norman Cohn labels it, postulated the

existence, somewhere in the midst of the larger society, of

"another society, small and clandestine, which not only

threatened the existence of the great society, but was also

addicted to practices which were felt to be wholly

abominable, in the liter sense of anti-human." 9

J. Gordon Melton of the Institute for the Study of

American Religion explains that "though the myth first

appeared in the second century as a polemic against the

Christians, it had its antecedents in earlier anti-Jewish

polemics. Jews were accused of worshipping a donkey-

headed god and of keeping gentiles prisoner in the temple

in Jerusalem for the purpose of sacrifice. However, in the

second century, the Christians were accused not only of

worshipping a donkey's head, but of revering the genitals

of their priests, sacrificing and devouring the blood of

babies, and a wide variety of perverted sexuality. "The

existence of this myth, which had its last major

appearance in Nazi Germany, where it was used against

the Jews, provides a framework for a discussion of the

most recent accusations concerning contemporary

Satanism." 10

One wonders what would be the commonly held "facts"

about Judaism if Hitler had been as successful in his

efforts against the Jews as the Medieval Church was in its

eradication of Pagan Witchcraft. But you don't have to have

lived in Nazi Germany to have heard the vicious

propaganda that Jews kidnap unbaptized Christian babies

and grind them up into Matzoh balls. And before the Jews,

it was the Gypsies who were the purported child-stealers.

During the Witch-hunting hysteria previously mentioned,

these same accusations were leveled at Witches. Today,

continues Melton, "as currently hypothesized by the

advocates of the theories on contemporary Satanism, there

exists a network, national, if not international in scope, of

small groups of Satanists. These Satanists, financed by

wealthy sexual perverts and sociopaths, practice the most

barbaric and inhumane rituals which involve widespread

torture, murder, the sexual abuse of children, the mutilation

of animals, and even cannibalism." 11

The myth that an easily-targeted group of relatively

defenseless people are engaged in the stealing, torture,

ritual sacrifice and cannibalism of innocent children has

proven throughout history to be quite sufficient to engender

public support for a campaign of extermination directed

against the accused. In the case of this current Witch-hunt,

extensive police investigation over the past decade has

failed to corroborate the existence of an actual Satanic

conspiracy. In those cases of ritual child abuse that have

actually come to court, the vast majority have involved

Christian clergy: "Hundreds of children molested by

Catholic priests in the United States during the past five

years have suffered severe emotional trauma, say

parents, psychologists, police officers and attorneys

involved in the cases." 12

"The Roman Catholic Church in the United States has

been forced to pay millions of dollars in damages to

families who contend that their children have been

sexually abused by priests. In spite of that, the problem

has grown so severe that many lawyers and victims say

the church ignores and covers up such cases." 13 The few

cases of child abuse involving "Satanic elements" that

have been tried have not revealed any organized Satanic

cult, but rather a handful of sick and demented individuals

claiming they committed their crimes because "the Devil

made me do it." If such a conspiracy exists, it will remain

to be uncovered by the police; hopefully in cooperation

with the people who have come forward as spokespersons

for the survivors of actual cases of Satanic Ritual Abuse.

The actual Satanic abuse statistics, however, do not

support the requirements of the new Witch-hunters, who, in

order to whip up the kind of public hysteria that can give

them power and credibility, must point their fingers at an

identifiable and accessible scapegoat. Thus they have

chosen, once again, to lay their myth of child-stealing and

ritual human sacrifice at the feet of the Witches. By

continually identifying Witchcraft with Satanism, these

current Inquisitors hope to justify and validate their cause.

For there are well over 100,000 practicing Neo-Pagan

Witches in America today, according to such genuine

authorities as Margot Adler. 14 Many Witches are highly

visible in their communities: they publish books,

magazines and directories; operate stores; conduct public

rituals; give classes, workshops, interviews and lectures;

and appear on local radio and television programs. Since

Witchcraft is still little understood by the general public,

who are frequently unable or unwilling to look deeper than

the vast smoke screen of misinformation promulgated by

churches, movies and popular fiction, Witches are easy

and visible targets for persecution. It must be remembered

that, in the previous episodes of Witchcraft persecution

hysteria, it was the Witches who were the victims, not the

Christians.

Witches, and those conveniently accused of beings

Witches, died by the millions during the terrible centuries

of the holocaust they remember as "The Burning Times."

They have no wish to repeat that experience today. The

Aquarian Anti-Defamation League was founded in 1973 with

the motto: "Never Again the Burning!"

Notes and References:

It is not the purpose of this article to determine the

validity or extent of actual ritual child abuse or

contemporary Satanism. The interested reader is referred

to the quoted 13-page paper by J. Gordon Melton, which

covers these topics in depth.

1. Jong, Erica, Witches (New American Library, New

York, 1981) p. 52

2. Zell, Morning Glory, "The Lord of Light," Green Egg,

Vol. XXI, No. 82; Aug. 1, 1988 (POB 1542, Ukiah, CA 95482)

p. 12

3. "Dynamics of Counter Religions" (The Cult Crime

Impact Network, 222 N. Latah St., Boise, ID 83706, 1985)

4. Melton, J. Gordon, "The Evidence of Satan in

Contemporary America: A Survey;" a paper presented at

the meeting of the Pacific Division of the American

Philosophical Association, Los Angeles, March 27-29,

1986. (Available from the Institute for the Study of American

Religion, POB 90709, Santa Barbara, CA 93190) pp. 7-8

5. Ibid. p. 11

6. Murray, Margaret, The God of the Witches (Oxford

University Press, New York, 1931) pp. 21-22

7. Cavendish, Richard, "Satanism," Encyclopedia of

Man, Myth and Magic, Vol. 18 (Marshall Cavendish, New

York, 1970) p. 2479

8. Leland, Charles Godfrey, Legends of Florence,

(David Nutt, London, 1896)

9. Cohn, Norman, Europe's Inner Demons, (Meridian,

New York, 1977) p. xiii

10. Melton, ref. cit., p. 1

11. Ibid.

12. Akron Beacon Journal, Jan. 3, 1988

13. The Miami Herald, Jan. 3, 1988. See also

Shadowcraft, Ammond, "Molesting Ministers and

Pedophiliac Priests: Child Sexual Abuse by Christian

Clergy," Green Egg, vol. XXI, no. 84; Feb. 1, 1988, pp. 18-

20 ($5 postpaid from POB 1542, Ukiah, CA 95482)

14. Adler, Margot, Drawing Down the Moon: Witches,

Druids, Goddess-Worshippers and Other Pagans in

America Today, revised and expanded edition (Beacon

Press, Boston, 1986) p. 418