THE SATANIC PANIC

While I question the value of some of the often absurd topics of most talk shows and how informative any program can be when it is limited to less than thirty or sixty minutes, is constantly interrupted by commercials and tries to deal with too many personalities and subjects in that short space of time, I think some of these shows perform a service whether that is their primary motivation or not.  However, all too often they perform a grave disservice, misinforming the viewing audience, either due to a lack of time to deal properly with the subject, having bitten off more than can be chewed, or by deliberately presenting a subjective, one-sided view with only the shallow pretense of objectivity and fairness.  Case in point:  Sally Jessy Raphael when the program recently dealt with "Satanic Baby Breeders".  First we heard from a woman who has often appeared on Geraldo.  She claims to have bred babies for satanic sacrifice, although there is no evidence whatsoever to support this claim and she has admitted to suffering from mental and emotional disorders, "remembering" her experiences with Satanism only after undergoing psychotherapy.  This was, by the way, the first time this woman has added on-stage weeping to her act - hard to believe when one considers all of the times she has appeared on various other programs like this without breaking down and crying.

This woman tells numerous grisly stories, working the audience up emotionally, programming them, employing emotionalism to cancel out their critical reasoning faculty.  Common mob psychology is used.  Another woman who is supposedly helping her, herself once a victim, adds strength, but of course no evidence or validation, to the first woman's improbable tale.  Next the first woman's attorney is brought out - a respectable looking woman who seems to lend further credibility to the horror stories we are all expected to believe on faith.  [It should be noted that a good appearance before people you expect a judgment from does not necessarily mean that that person is mentally stable and telling the truth.  Before going into court, for instance, lawyers do their best to improve the appearance and manners of their client so as to favorably impress the generally middle-class American jury.]

Only after the program was more than half over and the audience had been worked up emotionally, programmed, pitting three women against one, was a very calm, rational, attractive investigative journalist named Debbie Nathan brought out.  It was her opinion that the so-called former satanic baby breeders are either liars or suffering from delusions that they believe to be true, and that unscrupulous "investigators", "therapists", "lawyers" and the like, are capitalizing upon their delusions, often programming those who are mentally and emotionally unbalanced, perhaps due to a genuine but more common, more prosaic, traumatic experience, thus building upon the current satanic hysteria and so keeping their business thriving.  The journalist pointed to the lack of hard evidence and throughout the program hers was the only voice of reason.

Ms Nathan was hardly given a chance to speak, and then only after the audience had been programmed by the three preceding guests.  When she tried to make an important and rational point the attorney constantly interrupted her with inane comments - a common tactic of the "ambulance-chasing" segment of that profession.  Nevertheless, this brave [if perhaps foolhardy] journalist maintained her calm composure and polite manner, although a careful observer could see in the slight tremor of her right hand that she was restraining a great deal of understandably frustrated anger.  In my humble opinion, Ms Nathan was the only truly honest, rational and objective person on the set of Sally Jessy Raphael that day, and the way she was treated by the host, the other guests and the audience was a bloody disgrace.  However, this is rather typical, and because of this kind of media manipulation the viewing audience is constantly misinformed, the hysteria is further hyped, and greater strength and power is given to the liars, charlatans, unethical capitalists, and even the Satanists.  And for what?  For higher ratings which translate into greater profits for the people associated with the TV program and the network as well as for the liars and charlatans - all at the expense of not only the sincere students of the esoteric, but also at the expense of society and the general public as a whole.

Before I continue it is necessary to point out that I am not defending Satanism.  Every Newaeon reader should recall my May 1987 E.V. Encyclical Letter dealing with Satanist Michael A. Aquino and his Temple of Set - an article that so infuriated him that Aquino felt compelled [by his outraged ego] to produce an 8-page rebuttal that was nothing more than a petty attack upon me, failing to prove any of my allegations to be incorrect, which he then mailed out to probably far more people than had originally received my Encyclical.  Also there was my Autumn Equinox 1988 E.V. Encyclical Letter that revolved around a review of Satan Wants You by Arthur Lyons wherein I made mention of my firsthand experience with television talk show manipulation of the facts to further promote the satanic hysteria for the sake of higher ratings, thus greater profits, at the expense of the general public.  Furthermore, I have also written a three-part article entitled "The Great Satanic Conspiracy" which shows that I am as opposed to Satanism in any of its forms as I am to the irrational hysteria over it and the capitalization of the hysteria.  This article may be found in WYRD, a Pagan publication edited by Ms Goldie Brown, [then] Co-ordinator of the Pittsburgh Pagan Alliance [P.O. Box 624, Monroeville, PA 15146-0624; please send a SASE for further information from the PPA].

I do not approve of any form or manifestation of Satanism.  As a Thelemic magician, Pagan and esotericist in general, I do not believe in the Judeo-Christian Devil, Satan, a kind of "absolute evil" anti-god.  The concept is repugnant to all sincere and intelligent students of the esoteric, the so-called "occult".  GOD is The Absolute.  All of the apparent opposites that make existence possible are but relative concepts - qualifications and aspects of the absolute.  If indeed there were such a thing as the Judeo-Christian Satan, that is really nothing but a scapegoat used to excuse anti-social human behavior and harsh realities of nature that the Judeo-Christian culture cannot understand or reconcile with their ideal of God, then that Satan would of necessity be nothing more than an aspect and expression of The Absolute - GOD.

There can only be one Absolute.  To claim that there is an absolute evil as well as an absolute good is to make a contradiction in terms and to limit the being and power of GOD.  To all sincere students of the esoteric, Thelemites, Wiccans and the like, ALL THAT IS is GOD - whether we understand those aspects of GOD that we think of as "negative", or more ignorantly, "evil", or not.

The sincere esotericist or "occultist" sees, feels, experiences GOD in all things - not the Judeo-Christian Devil - and so all that exists, everyone that exists, however difficult it may sometimes be to personally accept, is "holy".

"The Devil" is merely the scapegoat, the excuse, created by the Judeo-Christian culture to explain away its failings and shortcomings, and those aspects of nature and human nature that they cannot reconcile with their immature and barbaric ideal of God.  The Judeo-Christian culture does not actually represent the majority of the world population - it is merely the loudest, most aggressively ignorant and prejudicial segment of the population.  This Satan that they speak of is the bastard child of the Judeo-Christian culture.  It never was a part of the Path of the Wise - "occult" philosophy, the Wiccan religion, Thelema, and so forth.  If ever we use terms like "Satanism" and "Satan" we are speaking of the concepts of the Judeo-Christian community, not our concepts, or we are speaking symbolically or poetically as HaSatan [Old Testament] and Satanas [New Testament] simply means "adversary" [as in a court of law] - perhaps employing the term with a bit of tongue-in-cheek.

As for Satanists themselves:  Wicca [Witchcraft] is essentially God/dess and community oriented.  Thelema, to continue the comparison, is essentially God-oriented [with focus upon the Daemon, not demon, a Greek word that means "god, goddess; fate, lot, destiny"; the Roman Genius, the Holy Guardian Angel or True Self] and Its purpose or True Will, which is the Will of the Universe, followed for the common good of all.  Satanism, on the other hand, whether we are speaking of the formal "religious" aspect or the informal self-styled Satanism, is ego-oriented.  Despite all of the fancy talk from the more organized groups, it all boils down to pure ego-gratification, the gratification of the petty desires of the "false self", often at the expense of others, infringing upon their rights and essential godhood.  This is completely contrary to the Path of the Wise, the true esoteric or "occult" philosophies which view ego as a somewhat necessary personal demon to conquer.  Satanism never was a legitimate esoteric philosophy.

While, as a decent man and in many ways a typical esotericist, I certainly do not approve of murder, rape, and the other true crimes against individuals and society as a whole, my primary objection to modern day Satanism, which may or may not be responsible for at least a portion of the crimes committed in our society, is that it steals bits and pieces from every religion and esoteric philosophy imaginable, twists and perverts essentially rational and beautiful concepts, uses them to serve the petty purposes of the Satanists, and as a result misinforms the general public and misrepresents the various philosophies that it has stolen knowledge from.  One of the results is that valuable information is kept from the general population and humanity's spiritual and intellectual evolution is retarded.

For instance, every time I try to share the wisdom of Thelema with others, for their benefit and enlightenment, my efforts are hampered because of the societal programming I find myself up against, thanks to the perversions of satanic pseudo-philosophy, the promotion of misinformation that television, newspapers and magazines are guilty of, and Hollywood caricatures of the esoteric.  This article, this review, is a case in point.  How can I plant the seeds of Thelemic and Pagan wisdom for the growth of a beautiful life-sustaining and enriching garden, until first I remove the weeds and rocks of ignorance, misinformation and deliberate mind-controlling programming by those who are opposed to genuine freedom in our society?

I have made the claim that Satanism steals knowledge from the legitimate esoteric philosophies and then perverts it to serve the petty ego-centric focus of Satanism.  Let me here give an example before continuing.  Anton LaVey, head of the Church of Satan, in his book The Satanic Bible, perverts and misuses the Enochian Calls or Keys that were supposedly transmitted by an "angel" to John Dee and Edward Kelly, who were Christians.  The first Call in Enochian, for example, begins

This has been translated by Aleister Crowley [The Equinox, Vol. I, No. 8, p. 103, Samuel Weiser, Inc.] and similarly by others as

LaVey, however, translated this as "I reign over thee, saith the Lord of the Earth", even though IAD means "God" and Balata "Justice".  In Enochian "Lord" is Enay, Na or Iabes, for example.  Likewise, while the final words of the first Call are translated by Crowley and others as

LaVey's unique and unsubstantiated translation is

In the second Call LaVey inserted "the great spawn of the worms of the Earth!" as well as "Hell", which was not in the original Enochian, removing the word "Righteousness", further elaborating upon the original, inserting what he felt like inserting, even going so far as to add "the All-Powerful manifestation of Satan!", which is also not in the original Enochian Call.

The Satanist also mistranslated "Micama! goho pe-IAD!", the first words of the third Call, as "Behold!, [sic] saith Satan", which Crowley and others have accurately translated as "Behold! saith your God!"

These are but a few examples only of the many perversions and misrepresentations of the facts that naturally inclines the inexperienced or superficial reader or investigator into believing that such material and those who promote it represent the so-called "occult".  Neither Aleister Crowley nor any other lover of the esoteric would approve of such individuals as Anton LaVey or Michael Aquino, and if A.C. were alive today he would be one of the first and loudest to speak out against such people.  Yet he is today all too often carelessly lumped into the same category, incorrectly called a Satanist, and used for sensationalistic purposes because of his fascinating life and character, actually blamed for the existence of the very people he would be the first to voice disapproval of!

Not only is the present review not a defense of Satanism, it is also not about Geraldo Rivera.  His massive, out-of-control ego will, of course, lead him to believe that it is about him personally, but in point of fact, Rivera is merely being reviewed and focused upon because he is the most outstanding example of the things this article opposes.  It is easier to make a point when speaking in specifics than it is when speaking in sweeping generalities.  However, if Mr. Rivera chooses to believe that this article is "a premeditated hatchet job" upon the dubious integrity of his character, then he is welcome to do so as an ego can reach a point of over-inflation and explode ... just as a thin-skinned, transparent balloon filled with hot air might.

One more thing may be worth pointing out in this unfortunately long but necessary preface.  "Destructive cults" are generally supposed to practice "mind control" in which the ability to think and reason critically is shut down in the minds of the followers of the cult, while fear of impending disasters that only the cult and its leader can save one from is instilled, and the leader is one who is said to be "charismatic".  Right.  Geraldo Rivera seems to have developed a large "cult following".  Employing sensationalism and evoking irrational over-reactionary emotionalism, he shuts down the critical faculty in the minds of his viewers, effectively practicing "mind control", while instilling in his viewers a multitude of fears, the so-called nationwide satanic network being but one of them, supposedly bent upon destroying all that we hold dear, in an effort to take absolute control of the world [as if the asses could ever really do that!], while also setting himself up as a kind of leader who can save us all from these evils if only we will believe and follow his lead.  It cannot be denied that many people feel that Geraldo Rivera is indeed a "charismatic" figure.

The subject of this review, even when dealing with or perhaps because we are dealing with specific examples, can become quite complex and unwieldy at times.  Therefore, I will review several individual programs and one particular special hosted by Geraldo Rivera in a kind of flowing, free-form style, after which I will attempt to summarize.  I make no pretense of being a great writer, despite my experience, nor am I a master of the English language.  If at times I make an error in tense or grammar, I apologize.  I am, at heart, still a simple farm boy - rather unorthodox by professional standards and sometimes crude.

A large portion of Geraldo Rivera's special "Murder: Live From Death Row" was devoted to the almost ancient history revolving around Charles Manson.  This is old news.  Very old, worn out, tired news.  Yet Rivera is apparently so desperate for sensational material that he has found it necessary to dredge up this faded, dusty story.

During the program we were treated to clips from an interview Rivera conducted in the prison where Manson is to this day being held.  All during the program Rivera threw about words like "evil" and "satanic", qualifying adjectives of so little actual meaning as to be laughable.  Furthermore, throughout the interview with Manson, Rivera's incredible ego kept getting in the way - and stomped on.  For instance, there was this exchange:

RIVERA:  "You know, where I come from, the guys with guts they do it [commit murder] themselves."

MANSON:  "Come on, man!  What if I just jumped on you and beat the dog shit out of you?  Would that make you feel any bigger?"

Rivera did not fool crazy Charlie for a minute.  Obviously Rivera was trying to play head games with the master of head games, trying to make Manson lose control and trying to coax him into making a death threat against him personally.  He was so persistent and so obvious that Manson finally said, "Quit trying to make me into your executioner."

During the program, Rivera, almost fanatic about trying to tie Manson in with Satanism and the fabricated national network of sinister satanic criminals, made this statement:

"I hear from law enforcement people in Southern California that he [Manson] was the first of the satanic cult leaders and that there are still crimes being committed in his name."

Vincent Bugliosi, author of Helter Skelter and "Manson Prosecutor", who probably knows more about Manson than anyone else, asked:

Rivera, with typical vagueness, answered:

[Now that was terribly authoritative, wasn't it!]  To which Mr. Bugliosi replied:

"I don't know of any murders that have taken place recently because of Charles Manson."

And who should know better than Bugliosi?

Milking the subject and his recorded interview with Manson as much as he could, Charles Manson was also made the subject of Rivera's regular weekly talk show, Geraldo, which aired in Pittsburgh on May 9th, 1988 E.V.  Rivera insisted upon calling Manson "the satanic cult leader", even though it is absolutely clear that he is not a Satanist in any specific sense of the word.  Manson is a philosophy blender.  He has absorbed and then chopped up and rearranged occultism, Nazism, Christianity [which a Satanist generally rejects entirely] and a number of other philosophies, mashed them up together in his head and then spews forth an amazing, almost dazzling, concoction with a crude but very effective delivery.  Yet during this program, Rivera asks, and the question is an obviously rhetorical statement:

"Satanic cults.  Was the Manson family the first?  Is Manson still a cult leader?  He claims to be the antichrist, yet at other times he even calls himself Jesus."

The question is asked.  However, it is quite clear that Rivera wants the viewing audience to accept the question as a statement of fact, which, unfortunately, many no doubt have.

Rivera's two guests, Jack Levin, professor of sociology at Northwestern University, author of Mass Murder: America's Growing Menace, and Robert K. Ressler, once with the FBI, co-author of Sexual Homocide: Patterns and Motives, who himself interviewed Manson upon more than one occasion, answered Rivera's question, but I do not think to his satisfaction.

LEVIN:  "Well - satanic cults have grown in this country for the past - over the past - couple of decades, ah, but I think here [referring to a clip from the Manson interview] we see a face of Charles Manson possibly being facetious with us. ... You know, too often, and I think he [Manson] may be right here, we use Satan, drugs, insanity, television, movies as an excuse for what people do that we don't like."

RESSLER:  "I agree.  I don't see Charles Manson as a devout Satanist. I don't see him as participating in any satanic rituals that he didn't create himself.  He's what I call a self-styled Satanist.  He embraces Satan as an excuse for the anti-social acts that he does. ... And, ah, as far as Satan - he's not truly a Satanist."

Levin then pointed out that the infamous "Nightstalker" was not an actual Satanist, as certain sensationalists and fanatics have claimed, promoting the satanic hysteria in America to better market, build a market, for what they are selling the American people.

And again, to point out Rivera's greatest fault, his ego:  Ressler said that while he hopes both men remain in prison for the remainder of their lives, if he had to choose one for parole, either Watson, who performed some of the murders, or Manson, who orchestrated them, "Charlie would be out."  To this the somewhat less than humble Rivera replied:  "Oh, God. ... I think he'd be looking for me."  No.  Manson obviously does not give the proverbial rat's ass for Rivera and would do nothing that would give him the sense or appearance of importance.  In fact, throughout most of the interview, Manson was laughing at Rivera.

Now you should understand that while I find Charles Manson an interesting psychological study, I have no sympathy for him or his "family".  I personally feel that justice has not been served in their case when the death penalty was made illegal so that Manson, who is quite accustomed to prison life and even enjoys it to some degree, and the others may live for the rest of their lives at our expense.  They committed murders, created a hysteria that still infects people and is used by the unscrupulous, darkening the public image of those who were sincerely concerned about our country at that time as well as anyone interested in the esoteric, and for their crimes we provide them with room and board for the rest of their lives, working hard to make sure they have a roof over their heads and food in their bellies while we allow others to die of starvation and exposure to the elements in the outside world - those who have committed no crimes.  However, despite my particular feelings on the subject, I have to admit that when Rivera lost his temper during the interview, saying such things as "I get pissed off!", and in other instances, he proved that he was incapable of dealing with Manson's head games, that even with Charlie's tomfoolery, River's intelligence and wit is inferior to Manson's.  This outraged Rivera's ego, and this is the true cause of his hate and loathing of Charles Manson.

Enough of Charles Manson here.  Well, almost enough.  Unfortunately, Rivera refuses to accept reality and insists upon believing, or at least promoting the idea, that Manson was and still is the leader of a satanic cult, still very active in today's society.  Upon this subject and Satanism in general, Rivera remains completely illogical and unreasonable.  A raving fanatic.

Geraldo's topic sometime in November of 1987 E.V. was ... yep ... you guessed it.  Satanism.

Here we were treated to something that has become quite common on this talk show:  anonymous and disguised individuals who are supposed to be ex-Satanists, many of whom are young adolescents.  There is little credibility in the claims of people who hide behind disguises and phony names.  Yet on this program we were introduced to a cute adolescent called "Kim" who claims that she is an ex-Satanist.  She is hardly old enough to have had a long career in the cult.  We were also introduced to an older woman who was disguised.  She was called "Elaine", and this woman not only claims to have been a Satanist, but she also claims that she was a high priestess for seventeen years, governing a five-state region.

Once more Rivera tried to associate Manson with modern day [and mostly fanciful] Satanism.

A mother of a child who was supposedly "satanically abused" makes the statement that

"Six is - I'm not quite sure what it is in the satanic thing - but six is the Devil's number."

RIVERA:  "Six six six."

WOMAN:  "The number of the Beast."

RIVERA:  "Right."

Now wasn't that a terribly enlightening exchange!  Needless to say, partly because of religious prejudice, ignorance and propaganda, as well as a deliberate perversion of the facts [thanks to religious organizations employing hate and fear to convert and control, formal and self-styled Satanists, Hollywood and so forth], 666 is commonly and erroneously associated with Satanism, devil worship, the Judeo-Christian Devil and "evil" in general.  And just because someone may have 666 branded or tattooed on his flesh [as Aquino is said to have the number tattooed under the false hairline of his absurd hairdo!] it no more means that they truly understand or represent the concept of 666 than does the mass murderer who carves a cross upon his flesh.

To go into great lengths on the subject of the number Six Hundred Threescore and Six would entail the writing of a very thick book.  However, because Rivera and others have so often misrepresented this number's meaning and import, in some degree of proportion to that of the consistent slander of this number, I offer the following:

To begin with quoting the last chapter of the King James Version of the Bible, Revelation, Chapter 13, Verse 18:

"Here is wisdom.  Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six Hundred Threescore and Six."

The first thing we are told is that the mystery of the Beast and his number, 666, is a matter that can only be comprehended by employing wisdom.  Furthermore, it is a mystery that only he "that hath understanding" can truly comprehend and appreciate.  Such a person is an adept who has passed through that cataclysmic ordeal called "the Crossing of the Abyss" to achieve the magical, spiritual grade of Magister Templi, Master of the Temple, which is attributed to the third sephira of the Qabalistic Tree of Life called Binah - Understanding.  This "Understanding" is not the same as that achieved when one comes to know a thing through study of it as something different from himself.  It is the unique "Understanding" achieved when the knower becomes, through the experience called Samadhi, one with the thing known, realizing that between himself and it "there is no difference".  Is it any wonder, then, that people like Rivera fail to understand the mystery of the Beast 666?  Among many other things, this particular verse of the Bible also tells us that 666 is the number of a man.  Not The Devil.  Not a devil, demon or son of The Devil, but a man.  There is more to this still since in truth we are not completely human simply by way of the human form we possess.  I have often said that the thing most lacking in humanity is humanity itself.  Life is a series of ordeals and lessons that are meant, at least in part, to teach us how to become fully human.  Once full humanity is achieved, it is time to go beyond that and come to realize - to Realize - our essential godhood.  Revelation tells us that the Beast 666 is one who has achieved full humanity - a true "Man".  [All this applies to Womanhood as well, and I apologize for the language we are stuck with.]

666 is the number of the Beast [the first Beast] and the Beast 666 is the Antichrist.  However, again religious propaganda and ignorance have obscured the truth.  I cannot here repeat in its entirety the Newaeon Candlemas 1985 E.V. Encyclical Letter entitled "The Nature of the Beast", however, it is worthwhile to make mention of a few important facts before we go on with the number of 666.

BEAST may be, at least in part, a word derived from the name of an unusual ancient Egyptian god [godform or aspect of Very God] that obviously originated in Africa, where most believe humanity itself originated.  Unlike the slim, sleek, graceful humanoid godforms, some with stylistic animal heads to denote certain character traits, the ancient god BES was depicted as being short and squat, a dwarf, with a comically bestial face and protruding tongue.  He was, nevertheless, a symbol of the sun god at eventide and he became identified with Horus the Child, or Harpocrates - Horus and Harpocrates, otherwise called Ra-Hoor-Khuit and Hoor-paar-kraat, are important to both Thelema and the present Æon of the Crowned and Conquering Child.  Bes was considered, among other things, to be a renewer of youth and a protector of children.  Hardly "evil" by anyone's standards.

In a Gnostic tract entitled "On The Origin of the World" we find the following:

"An androgynous man was begotten, one of whom the Greeks call 'Hermaphrodites.'  But the Hebrews call his mother 'Eve of Life,' i.e. 'the instructor of life.'  But her son is the begotten one who is lord - afterwards authorities called him 'the beast' - in order to lead their molded bodies astray.  The interpretation of the 'beast' is 'the instructor.'  For he was found to be wiser than all of them."

There is reason to believe that among the many Gnostic sects who may have rivaled some of our wackier California cults there were sects that actually practiced a truer form of "Christianity", more closely following the teachings, public and private, of the Nazarene.  Today's orthodox Christianity is more the product of the fanatic convert "Saint" Paul and much later Vatican rule-making than an expression of the Master Jesus' original teachings.

No one has ever, so far as I am aware, honestly and objectively translated the Old and New Testaments of the Judeo-Christian Bible, and many of the words, phrases and entire verses have been translated in the most arbitrary and obviously slanted way.  For instance, in The Acts of the Apostles we are told that Paul temporarily blinded a certain magician whose Greek name was Elymas.  Elymas had a Hebrew name as well and it was Bar-Jesus.  Now whereas everything is consistently translated into English, we have here a Hebrew word that is left untranslated.  Why?  Simple.  To obscure the implication.  "Bar" means "son of", thus Elymas was also called the "son of Jesus", which was commonly the way to refer to someone:  So-and-so son of So-and-so.  Probably this Elymas son of Jesus preached a truer version of the Nazarene's teachings, and as Paul was constantly at odds with Peter, never agreeing with the genuine apostles who were taught directly by Jesus, he opposed this Elymas.  Probably the temporary blindness was nothing more than losing his temper and punching Elymas in the eye.  By refusing to translate "Bar", which the vast majority of readers will just gloss over and not seek an interpretation of, the priestcraft hides the fact that Paul was not such a "saint" after all and even more importantly, that Jesus was a married man who had had carnal knowledge of his wife!  [Guess who that most probably was, folks.]  It is worth noting here that Jesus was also called "Rabbi" by the apostles and others and in all probability it indicates that he was a genuine Jewish Rabbi.  An orthodox Rabbi at that time, and in this sense there were then only orthodox Jews, by law had to be a married man.

In passing it may also be interesting to note that in one of the gospels we are told that Barabbas was also called Jesus Barabbas.  Now Barabbas may be a corruption of Bar-rabbi, thus implying Jesus son of the Rabbi [of the same name].  Jesus Jr.!  Commonly considered a murderer, the label Rome put upon Barabbas, he was really a Jewish freedom fighter, struggling against the dictatorial occupying Roman empire.  The fact that Jesus took Barabbas' place and died in his stead, puts a whole new and more realistic light upon the crucifixion.  How could anyone, even the so-called Son of God [which Jesus never called himself, consistently referring to himself as the "son of Man", which, of course, all of us having fathers are], die for our sins?  Such a thing is but a primitive superstition based upon the old scapegoat concept and ritual.  It is more probable that the Rabbi Jesus agreed to take his son's place on the cross, as any father of worth would die to save his child if at all possible, if there were no other way.

Please excuse the long digression ... but wasn't it fun?

Similarly, "antichrist" [antichristos] has been consistently translated in the most arbitrary and slanted manner.  In some cases I have even seen it mistranslated as "enemy of Christ", and the Greek word "anti" certainly does not mean "enemy".  Usually it is not translated at all.  It, like "bar", is not explained.  It is merely interpreted as meaning "opposed to Christ", which is interesting since elsewhere in the New Testament "antitheos" is consistently translated as "God-like"!

In Liddell & Scott's Greek-English Lexicon, a standard reference work on the Greek language, we find that "anti" not only means "over against", "opposite" and "in opposition to", but also "before", "for the sake of", "instead of", as well as "equal to" or "like".  Therefore, as antitheos may be translated as "God-like", antichristos or antichrist may very well mean "Christ-like".

Christos or Christ, like the Hebrew Messiah, merely means "the anointed one" - it is not Jesus' last name! - and it is a title, like Soter or Saviour, that has been applied to many individuals, historical and mythical, long before the birth of Jesus.  Antichrist(os) is but another "anointed one" or World Teacher and leader who was prophesied to come when human consciousness as a whole outgrew the teachings of the previous Christ and lead humanity on to the Next Step of human evolution.  The Antichrist replaces the Christ, not because one or the other is "evil" or "good", but only in the way that, say, a nineteenth century science book is replaced by a twentieth century text on some specialized aspect of science.  The replacement of the old and worn out with the new and improved is a natural part of life and evolution, having nothing whatsoever to do with moralistic "good" and "evil".  Truly, the greatest and perhaps only real "evil" is ignorance and the unethical use of ignorance to dominate others and enslave them.  Naturally, the misconceptions regarding the Antichrist, the Beast 666, began with John the Divine, who did not fully understand his "visions" nor did he wish to accept those parts of the "visions" that indicated an eventual end to the doctrines that he had embraced.  However, not only do the "visions" of the Apocalypse show the end of the old way and the beginning of the new, but they also show the eventual declined of the new way and its replacement - this the Thelemites call the ending of the present Æon of Horus, the Crowned and Conquering Child, which replaced the Æon of Osiris, the Suffering and Dying God, and which will eventually be replaced by the Æon of Maat, Goddess of Truth and Justice.

As you can imagine, I could go on and on for a very long time to prove my point, but let us instead turn our attention more directly upon the number 666.

666 is not the number of the Judeo-Christian Devil.  There is nothing either "satanic" or "evil" about it.

"Six is," the woman on Geraldo said, "I'm not quite sure what it is in the satanic thing - but six is the Devil's number."  This is no doubt proof that the Hebrew six-pointed Star of David or hexagram is a satanic symbol and that therefore Jews are Satanists.  Unfortunately, there are many fanatic pseudo-Christians who might believe this nonsense to be true.

Eliphas Levi, who was not only a magician but also a Christian, is quoted in The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall as having said that

Qabalistically, six is the numeration of the central sephira of Otz Chiim, the Tree of Life, called "Beauty" and "Harmony", Tiphareth, representing the mediator [between God and Man, et al], and to which is attributed Sol, the sun.  Solar gods [and today's general idea of Jesus is patterned after the ancient solar deities who gave light to humankind, periodically died and were resurrected] are attributed to Tiphareth, the Tree of Life being, practically speaking, a kind of file cabinet for organizing all manner of concepts, ideas and things in existence.

The hexad, 6, was called by Nicomachus

"the form of form, the only number adapted to the Soul, the distinct union of the parts of the universe, the fabricator of the Soul, also Harmony."

"Six is also Benevolence, Peace, and Health, Acmon, one of the Cyclops (akmon, an anvil), and Truth.  By the Pythagoreans it was called 'the Perfection of parts.'  ...  It is formed by the multiplication of the first (beyond unity) odd number and the first even, it resembles the union of Male and Female, as in Marriage or in Androgyneity, Health and Beauty, on account of its symmetry.  It was called 'all-sufficient.'... panarkeia.  According to the Pythagoreans, after a period of 216 years, which number is the cube of 6, all things are regenerated, and they said this was the periodic time of the Metampsychosis or the re-birth of man after each death.  ...  On the 6th day Man was created according to Genesis.  On the 6th day of the week Jesus died on the cross.  In the Hebrew 'Book of Creation,' the 'Sepher Yetzirah,' the Hexad is spoken of:  the units representing the four quarters of the World; North, South, East, and West, and also height and depth, and in the midst of all is the Holy Temple.  ...  The 'Lily' which in all the old Annunciation pictures Gabriel presents to the Virgin has 6 leaves, and the flower shows 6 petals all alike, around a central three-headed stigma, as is botanically correct.  ...  Under the number, Six, too, we must not omit to mention the symbol of the double triangle, Hexapla, or Hexalpha, the Shield of David, it is used at present as a sign of the Degree of the Royal Arch in England.  ...  In Christian Churches we find the Hexalpha used to express the union of the Divine and human natures, deemed to exist in Jesus, the Christ of the New Testament.  The blending of the two triangles has also been used to typify the union of Fire and Water; for the early symbol of Fire was the triangle apex upward, and that of Water the same apex downward...  The Talmud says:-  Six things lay up capital for hereafter, and also bear interest in this world... Sabbat. 127. 1.  ... Solomon is called by six names ...  There are 6 kinds of Fire ...  The Tables of Moses were said to have been 6 handsbreadths long, 6 wide and 3 thick.  ...  The Angel of Death had no power over 6 holy persons ...  The Lion has 6 names in the Book of Job ..."  Et cetera.  From Numbers: Their Occult Power and Mystic Virtues by W. W. Westcott, a Rosicrucian scholar and a Christian.

It is obvious that among most of the peoples of the world, the number 6 has always been considered important and even "holy".  Much of what I have here quoted should be known to Geraldo Rivera ... who, I believe, has a tiny 6-pointed star tattooed on his hand.  Good Lord!  Does Rivera have upon his hand the Mark of the Beast?

Quoting from the same scholarly little book by the late W. Wynn Westcott regarding the infamous 666:

"666 is the pet number of Godfrey Higgens, as referred to Rasit (RSVT), 200 + 60 + 6 + 400 [RSVT being the Hebrew letters Resh, Samekh, Vau and Tau, their numerical equivalents being the numbers above. -ED], which he insists means Wisdom - or as most believe - Beginning or Principle:  the first words of Genesis are be-rasit, In the beginning.

"666.  The number of the Beast, the number of a Man, has been associated with Satan, Mahomet, the Pope and a hundred others.  It is also the number of SVRT, the Hebrew word for the Sun.  It occurs in Revelations xiii.18.

"666 is also the diameter of a circle whose circumference is 2093, which is the diagonal of a square whose sides are 1480, the number of Christos.  It is also the sum of the numbers 1 to 36.  It is also the number of Syene [Sigma, 200 + Upsilon, 400 + Eta, 8 + Nu, 50 + Eta, 8 - ED] in Greek, a place in Egypt at which, if a pit be dug, said Eratosthenes, the rays of the Sun at the Summer Solstice shine perpendicularly into it."

[Note:  Christ or Christos, in Greek Chi Rho Iota Sigma Tau Omicron Sigma, 600 + 100 + 10 + 200 + 300 + 70 + 200, and interestingly 2093 is the numeration of Apollonius of Tyana, Apollonios Tyana, whom some have identified with Jesus as being the same individual. K.]

According to Sepher Sephiroth, 666 is the numeration of ShM IHShVH, "The Name Jesus".

My own extensive research into the gematria of the Greek Qabalah has brought to light a great deal of information, long obscured, regarding the mysterious 666 - a solar number in blessed trinity.

666 is, for instance, the numeration of Iapetus in Greek - the husband of Themis and father of Prometheus, who brought light [wisdom] to humankind, for which he became one of the prototypes for the dying and resurrecting god.  Iapetus was looked upon as the father of all humankind by the early Greeks.

666 is also the numeration of e phren, the mind, reason, understanding; to agoraomai, the speaker, orator; e ieroprepes, the reverent; to egatheos, the most holy, the hallowed; to ibidos, the ibis, the bird sacred to Thoth, the Logos; lampetis, the lustrous one, being a name of the Antichrist according to Iranaeus; nikaeis, the victorious; o niketes, the conqueror; omiletes, a scholar, hearer; etc.

All this and more can be found in such works as the Encyclical Letter I have mentioned, other material published by Newaeon, and various books written by a multitude of scholars, many of whom happen to be Christian.

It is worth pointing out that there is only ONE Antichrist spoken of in Revelation, distinct from the many pseudo- or false-christs, as well as the false prophet, also mentioned therein.  Today we have seen some of the pseudochrists fall on national television - Bakker and Swaggart to name but two.  The late Jim Jones was obviously a pseudochrist.  There have been and are many, primarily to be found in the Judeo-Christian community.  We may even stretch a point just a very little and view individuals like Geraldo Rivera as a pseudochrist!

This digression may seen rather over-long and burdensome, but by comparison and in relation to the number of times 666 [The Antichrist, the Beast, et al] has been misrepresented, mistranslated and slandered without even scriptural basis for the lies, it was but a word whispered in the wind.

When a woman ignorantly says "... six is the devil's number", and people like Rivera claim that "Six six six [is] the sign of the Devil", perhaps confusing his own personal demon with The Devil, then in a casual manner I answer their rude and barbaric ignorance with a great deal of civilized knowledge and rational, logical intelligence.  Learn the lesson.

Returning to the Geraldo program on satanism in November of 1987 E.V., the father of a supposedly satanically abused child stated "I know of over thirty children" who were so abused, and he says that there should be "human rights for children".  I agree wholeheartedly, as too would Aleister Crowley if he were alive today - a man who loved children so much that he took a stronger personal stand upon abortion than I can by never using the word "abortion" in his writings but qualifying it each time as "criminal abortion".  [Of course the professional Thelemic stand would have to be one of "pro-choice" since until the cord is cut and the infant takes its first actual breath, it is not an individual but a part of the mother's body and no one may regulate what another may or may not do with his or her body - the only thing that is truly ours as we come into the world; the last possession we leave behind when we die.]  Avoiding another long digression, I, as a man and a Thelemite, hold the child abuser and molester in the lowest esteem.  My idea of punishment for such a crime might [I almost hate to admit this!] be very much the same as that often suggested by Morton Downey Jr.  Consider the man and just imagine what I mean.  However, it should be remembered that the Salem witch trials, for example, during which innocent people were accused of witchcraft and in some cases executed, were precipitated by bored adolescents who then got carried away with their prank, got caught up in it, wanted to please their parents and the authorities, became afraid of being discovered as pranksters and then themselves being punished, and who were too easily believed, their testimonies, in some instances, even coaxed by the authorities who wanted the community to believe the wild tales so that their own petty, personal desires might be served.

And here we go again, folks!

"Elaine", the disguised ex-satanic high priestess [so-called], in case you have forgotten after all this time, said that the ultimate goal of satanists is absolute control of the world.  Please.  Don't make me laugh!  How many satanists have you met?  I have encountered more than enough of them.  If indeed their ultimate goal is world domination [great stuff for films and novels!], we have absolutely nothing to fear since the collection of ego-centric individuals that make up the satanic community, formal and self-styled, all wanting to be THE leader, too busy imagining themselves to be great and powerful to ever settle down to hard work to become what they imagine themselves to be, cannot even get together and agree upon things long enough to have a single, small working group.  There is no way ... no way ... these petty little egotists can ban together in the kind of solidarity it would take to create a nationwide organization with any true power, let alone take over the world.  Fearing a nationwide organized network of satanists is like fearing a cartel of conspiratorial killer clowns!

The huge membership numbers that the satanists boast of are largely imaginary and exaggerated.  Primarily, the membership consists of silly little people all over the world who do nothing more than subscribe to a satanic publication, perhaps exchange a few letters and fantasies with like-minded pen-pals, and that is about all they ever do.

Certainly there may be a few formal and self-styled satanists who are guilty of various crimes, but in relation to the overall numbers of satanists, compared to the overall number of Christians, for example, and the "bad apples" in their bunch, I am sure that statistics will prove that the majority of crimes in this and other countries are committed by people who are or believe that they are Christians.  And in truth, this also includes those who are or think they are satanists, for satanism is generally nothing more than a reactionary movement against Christianity, the Judeo-Christian culture, and their ranks are made up almost completely of people who are either ex-christians or come from Christian families, having had a Christian upbringing and education.

On the November 1987 E.V. program [almost forgot what we were reviewing, didn't you!], a so-called "detoxifier", who supposedly helps those who have suffered from satanism, claimed that the satanists had attempted to take her life many times.  Presumably, since she seemed quite lively on Geraldo, the satanists consistantly failed in their attempts.  Here we have an example of another idiocy being promoted on television.  On the one hand we are constantly told that these satanic criminals and murderers are highly organized throughout the nation, very powerful, that there are high officials, police officers and doctors among them, while on the other hand we are constantly told by so-called ex-satanists, cult investigators, detoxifiers, deprogrammers, and the like, that numerous attempts had been made upon their lives, but the satanists have consistantly failed in their attempts.  Incredibly inconsistent.  A world famous musician steps outside and is blown away by a single man with a gun.  Presidents have been assassinated by lone gunmen, sometimes at point blank range and sometimes from great distances with a rifle - we have even seen a solitary man easily make his way past numerous Secret Service men to fire upon and hit President Ronald Reagan - and yet we are supposed to believe that a vast organized network of satanic murderers, partially composed of gun-bearing police officers and doctors who probably know of hundreds of quiet ways to kill a person, cannot succeed in murdering the large number of so-called ex-satanists, cult investigators, and their like, upon an individual basis - individuals who are unprotected and generally unarmed?  If the satanic network exists and is composed of such buffoons as these, surely the rest of us sould have nothing to fear!

Listen to the statements.  Tally them up.  Reason it all out.  Then whenever possible, interject reason and logic into such unreasonable and illogical nonsense to deflate and defeat the charlatans and the mentally deluded.

Yet Rivera again refers to the impossible as if it were possible by speaking of an "organized network of satanic cults".  Give me a break!  A large group of satanists could not even organize themselves enough to agree upon more than three things at a time.

Oh ... Maury Terry, author of The Ultimate Evil, was also on this program promoting his rubbish that inflames and capitalizes upon the current satanic hysteria.  If someone would donate a copy of that book to the Newaeon library [I just cannot bring myself to buy the book when Newaeon has so many other needs], I would be more than happy to review it in The Newaeon Newsletter in my usual gentle and loving way.  [1997 E.V. NOTE:  A copy was later obtained and reviewed.]

The 6th [an "evil" day, of course!] of October 1988 E.V. and there I was sitting through yet another installment of Geraldo.  This time the subject was "Teenage Satanism".  Here we were introduced to "Sam", an adolescent "warlock" and "Former Satanic Cult Member", we were told, disguised with a wig, false beard and sunglasses, who claimed to have been raised in satanism because his father is a member of Hell's Angels and his mother is in the Mafia.  Oh give me a break!

There was also "Kurt", another adolescent, disguised so that we can only see a profile behind a screen, and he not only claimed to be a "Former Satanic Cult Member", but a high priest.  A high priest!  Fresh out of puberty and already a high priest.  If the requirements within a satanic cult are so few, or so low, that someone so young could attain such a high office, then I do not think the rest of us have a bloody thing to fear from such a "nationwide satanic network".  Seriously!

"Tod", another adolescent, whose face was disguised by electronic image blocking, was also identified as a "Former Satanic Cult Member".  It was "Tod" who claimed that satanists communicate in Enochian [which he mispronounced the first time he said it] - an extremely difficult language to learn and speak.  I'll say!  Too difficult for the likes of these so-called "Former Satanic Cult Member(s)".  And while Enochian is very effective as a means of achieving altered states of consciousness in a ritual context, it does not lend itself easily to simple discourse.  Anyone with real knowledge and personal experience would know this.

In this program, like all of Rivera's "shows", we were treated to such Geraldoisms as "There's an evil abroad in the land."  He calls it satanism.  I call it rude ignorance and the capitalization upon ignorance.

"Six six six," Rivera said, pointing at the numbers crudely spray-painted on a wall, "the sign of the Devil", and we were shown a place where satanic rituals were supposedly held.  A place I figure adolescents use to play with spray paint, smoke a little grass, drink a little alcohol and have a little "illicit sex".  It was a place that no genuine satanist, formal or self-styled, would choose for a ritual in my opinion, for even the crudest and silliest of them would want to hold their rituals in a place that was more impressive so as to better reinforce the fantasy that they are something greater than they feel that they are deep down inside.

"Tod", like most of these "ex-satanists", claimed to have witnessed numerous murders, which would make him an accessory to murder if not an actual murderer himself.  This being supposedly true, and him admitting to it on national television, one has to wonder how it is that he is free to move about in the world as he does, appearing on TV.  Of course "Tod" claimed that there are police who are involved in the "satanic network".  I will not deny that there are bad cops.  In every group of people there are both good and bad.  I will not even deny that there are some police officers who may happen to be "satanists".  However, if this is true, I would hazard to guess that they are in the small minority, and furthermore, those who are not satanists or bad would certainly want to get the bad cops out of their ranks.  I also have confidence in our law enforcement and criminal justice system and find it very difficult to believe that so many people would be guilty of or accessories to murder, and not only get away with it, but be free to appear on national television time and time again to virtually brag about it and in some cases write books about it, profiting from those supposed murders, sometimes [they claim] not only of children and babies, but their own children.  What we see here is a pattern.  A deliberate attempt to further shake our confidence in all state and federal authorities.  Don't trust the police, we are told, or the politicians, or our doctors and morticians, our day care workers, and so forth, because they just may be evil, murderous satanists.  Should the hysteria get further out of hand I am sure it will become even more clear than it already is just who we are supposed to trust.  After all, their word is God's word...

Grave desecrations were, on this program, pointed out as if they were a sure sign of satanism.  Forget that such a thing could be the result of a simple, mindless prank or even something like a scavenger hunt.

A "Teen Satanic Expert" was paraded before us and pointed out that drugs play a very important part in satanic rituals.

"Hallucinogenics are commonly seen - and I think what happens is that it changes their perception as to what's going on around them - so they don't know if it's really happening or if they're hallucinating it."

While this person was trying to lend credence to the organized satanic network conspiracy theory, he actually succeeded in explaining a number of the perverse and bizarre details of the alleged satanic rituals.  No doubt there are people who have attended some kind of ceremony during which drugs were taken after which the people hallucinated such things as human sacrifice.  Perhaps the hallucination was actually generated by observing the sacrifice of an animal or even a plastic baby doll.  Certainly it would explain why human bodies are not found but sometimes animal carcasses and even parts of baby dolls are discovered at the sites of so-called satanic rituals.

Also on this program was a woman who is with a group that "investigates occult crimes".  She blamed her son's suicide on the game of Dungeons & Dragons.  Furthermore, she is one of many who blame "certain types of heavy metal music" for satanic activity and adolescent suicide.  Does the word "scapegoat" ring in your ears too?  Perhaps the true root cause for such things is to be found closer to home.

A woman from Parents Music Resource Center claimed that heavy metal music typifies everything in "the occult".  Well excuse me!  Does this lady even know what "the occult" means?  For two decades now I have been "into the occult".  I'm a farm boy.  I prefer classical, symphonic music, modern jazz, "mood" and "new age" music.  I am rock 'n rolled out - never was a big fan anyway - and I cannot stand punk and heavy metal music.  If music lyrics go on about The Devil, suicide, and the like, in my informed opinion, it does not in the least typify "the occult".  After twenty years of devotion to the study and practices of the esoteric arts and sciences I dare say I know a bit more about it than this lady does.  In fact, I can probably more accurately explain the mechanics and feelings of childbirth to her than she can explain the intricacies of the so-called "occult" - but you do not see me running about acting like an expert on the subject of childbirth.

In most instances, heavy metal music is nothing more than a form of adolescent rebellion, an expression of their frustrations.  Certainly if a few already mentally and emotionally unstable youths take it seriously they may use it as a springboard to go off the deep end.  However, take the heavy metal music away and it may very well be the more gruesome passages of the Bible that they use as a vehicle for their insanity - in fact, this has actually been the case in more instances than those involving heavy metal music!  And if you take away this essentially harmless means of venting adolescent frustration and anger with a world into which they were born, wherein they have so little say, practically no control, and can sometimes see the faults of society more clearly than those of us who have gotten used to them, we may see an even greater increase in teenage suicide and antisocial behaviour.  Remove the means of expressing and venting frustration and anger and there will be a much greater number of adolescents silently reaching the boiling point and then exploding.

And what do we discover on this program that supposedly backs up the claim that heavy metal music is the tool of The Devil [as almost every new form of music has throughout history been accused of being, as well as singing, dancing, playing cards, and other means of obtaining simple pleasures]?  A young boy supposedly influenced by satanic heavy metal music murdered his mother and then took his own life with his boy scout knife.  [Are you ready for a satanic infiltration of the Boy Scouts of America?]  We are shown a picture of his bedroom, and above his desk on the wall there are heavy metal posters, a piece of paper just below the centre upon which is drawn a pentagram in a circle, yet at the very centre of this on the cleared space of wall was a properly hung Christian crucifix.  A gross and sadistic symbol, by the way, of pain, torture, suffering and death, that the Christians use instead of the child Jesus or the resurrected Christ.  It might be legitimately argued that the most obscene thing on the wall was the depiction of a tortured, bleeding man nailed to a wooden cross!  We were also told that the boy came from a devout Christian family.

Between segments the Cult Awareness Network was advertised.  This is fairly common.  Warnke Ministreries is also frequently advertised between segments of such programs.  Such groups will, and please mark my words, prove to have been the cause of more harm than good in the not-so-distant future, and as I have recently been able to sit back and say "I told you so" over the Bakker and Swaggart scandals as well as the arrest of priests and ministers for such crimes as pedophilia, I will one day be able to sit back and smugly say "I told you so" again.

Finally Rivera promoted a book entitled Cults That Kill.  Again, I would love to review the book if someone would be kind enough to donate a copy to the Newaeon library.  [I would ask for donations too, but I am afraid that does not work as well in the occult community as it does in the so-called Christian community.  You folks are all either too cheap, too poor or too damn savvy for that!]  [1997 E.V. NOTE:  A copy of the book has since been obtained and reviewed.]

October 24th, 1988 E.V.  What!  Again?  This time Rivera's weekly talk show program was on "Satanic Breeders".  No.  These are not devices for breeding little satans.  Or maybe they are, in a way!

"Satanic Breeders" are women who claim to have either belonged to a satanic cult or been enslaved by one and used to produce babies for ritual sacrifice in most cases, and sometimes as a means of growth for the cult membership.

A photograph of a satanic altar is shown and to my amusement what do I see under a human skull that may or may not be real?  A copy of the infamous Necronomicon.  Obviously Rivera is also unfamiliar with the fictions of the late H. P. Lovecraft, and he is not aware of the fact that from those delightfully constructed horror stories several versions of the fictitious grimoire of the old dark gods of Lovecraft's mythos have been manufactured for fun and financial profit.  The Necronomicon is not satanic.  It is not even bloody real!

What, I wonder, would have been concluded if under a human skull he had found The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Brown?  Would he still take the so-called satanic altar seriously?

We were also shown a photograph of a baby in a bottle that was supposedly used in a satanic ritual.  It was labelled CYCLOPES and quite obviously it was a medical specimen that was malformed and never had life.  Whether it was purchased or stolen matters not in this case.  It was plainly not the victim of a satanic sacrifice.

This program, by the way, was used to promote Rivera's special on devil worship - kind of an appetizer.  Yes, we are, very slowly, by a torturous way, coming to that.

I liked this statement.  Rivera said,

"For the last several months my staff and I have been investigating Devil worship, working hard to expose the satanic underground in this country.  ...  The most wretched allegations concern human sacrifice, particularly the recurring claims that babies have been bred for ritual slaughter.  We found no hard evidence to substantiate the claims, but the allegations are so widespread, and they are so consistant, we felt that they just had to be aired."

There are too many wild allegations and claims that are also widespread and consistant to list here, and if we were to reason as does Rivera, and I use the term "reason" loosely here, I suppose that all these allegations are equally legitimate, that we should soon expect the reappearance of Elvis Presley, the Kennedys, Bruce Lee, Janis Joplin, and others since there is a widespread, consistant belief that these people are not really dead.  The same is said by some of the late Marcelo Motta in the occult community.  Then again, who knows?  That bad penny just might turn up again!

Personally I am sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for the Geraldo Rivera special - UFOs: EXPOSING THE ALIEN CONSPIRACY!

There is no hard evidence to substantiate the claims, but the allegations of extra-terrestrial visitations and the kidnapping of humans by mysterious and often sinister E.T.s are so widespread and so consistant [never mind the fact that in this media mad society consistancy is made laughably easy], that perhaps it just has to be aired by Geraldo Rivera!

We heard from one so-called "breeder" who makes the talk show circuit regularly - and why not?  She has a book to promote!

There was yet another who is supposedly a former cult member who had been required to sacrifice her two first born and who is now working as a therapist [qualifications?] to help other recovering former satanic baby breeders.  Big surprise:  she suffered [past tense?] from a mental disorder - multiple personalities.  It kind of makes you wonder who is talking at the time and if there is anyone else in there who might disagree completely with the allegations of the former satanic baby breeder.

We were also introduced to "Donna", a woman in a wig and dark glasses, who was supposedly a breeder that the woman just mentioned is now "helping".  The woman was obviously - obviously - mentally and emotionally retarded, and it was just as obvious that she was trying to remember to say what she had been told to say.  This use of the mentally handicapped is absolutely disgusting.

At this point we were shown a lovely water colour painting done in blacks, greys and red on a white background which was bizarrely interpreted as flesh torn from the bodies of babies hanging out to dry!  My God ... I would love to see their results from an ink blot test - Rivera's especially!

Then there was another "breeder" that we have seen too much of on these talk shows who claims to have first given birth at the age of twelve and who admits to suffering from a multiple personality disorder.

"Annette" is a disguised former satanic baby breeder and cult member, we were told, that Rivera said "remembers giving up at least two of her children."  Remembers?  At least?

"Annette" said, "I am remembering twice", when asked how many babies she gave birth to for sacrificial purposes.  She also claimed that she first conceived at the age of eight or nine and explained that "we are stimulated from day one."  Stimulated?  Psychologically twisted, more likely - even if they are consciously and deliberately lying to help feed the fire of hysteria and discredit "the occult" in general for some ulterior purpose.

"Gloria", another disguised ex-satanic breeder [so-called], claimed she first gave birth at the age of nine [or was that twelve?] and then again at the ages of ten and eleven.  This lady is such a genius that she kept saying "feces" when she meant "fetus" and Rivera had to correct her.  In fact, extremely low intelligence seems to be common among these women who claim to be former satanic breeders.  One thing, however, seems obvious:  they are most certainly full of feces.

"Annette" claimed that the disguise was to protect others that she is now helping, all of this having happened to her decades ago [and so made even more difficult to verify or refute], and the main reason usually given for the various disguises seems to be to protect the ex-satanists, investigators, and their like, from social persecution in their community and retribution at the hands of the satanists.  However, whether they are wearing wigs, fake beards, dark glasses or they are hiding behind screens so that only a silhouette is visible, filmed in shadow or what not, what can still be seen, by their voices, what they say, how they say it, by the events that they describe and so forth, not only should anyone familiar with them in their community be able to identify them, but certainly their former cronies in the cult [if the stories were true] would be able to recognize them.  In all probability, if these horror stories were true, the rest of the cult would have had them pegged as traitors long before they made it to network television.  In my opinion these so-called former satanists and the rest are not disguised to protect them against social persecution in their community and satanic retribution - they are protecting themselves from being revealed as charlatans.  Their disguises are used to protect them from the truth and to inhibit the possibility of the truth coming to light.

And again:  women going on national television, admitting to the murder or the participation in the murder of their children, free to appear on television, sell books and so forth?  I have a little more confidence in the criminal justice system than to believe that.  However, of course, the woman who claimed to have been a breeder, is now "helping" other ex-breeders, and has admitted to having suffered or is suffering from a mental disorder, pointed out that police officers are involved in the satanic cults - themselves practising satanists.

We also heard from a twenty-eight year veteran of the FBI.  Like everything else, we are expected to believe that the man is not a complete charlatan and that he has been thoroughly checked out before appearing on the talk show, and that the host and producers of the program are being honest.  If true, and probably it is in this case, I would dearly love to know the FBI's "off the record" opinion of him.  Trying to get information out of the FBI is like trying to get somewhere by riding a carousel.  At any rate, this distinguished looking grey-haired man [with obvious fundamentalist leanings] claimed to have been investigating satanic crimes for nine years, he believes the whole thing, and he is frequently a guest on these talk shows.  However, it is obvious from what he said that all of his information is, at best, secondhand information from others whose word he is entirely relying upon.

Thank God for Dr. Lee Coleman.  A voice of reason.  "Talk is cheap," he said.  "Is there any evidence?"  No.  Of course there is no real evidence to support any of this.  The satanists, we are told, you know, the guys who cannot even pull off a simple assassination attempt of solitary, unprotected and unarmed individuals, no matter how many times they try [and the former FBI man claimed to have escaped several such attempts ... ahum], are so devilishly clever that they are able to consistantly cover their tracks and destroy all evidence of their extremely messy crimes.

Dr. Coleman pointed out that no real evidence is found to support the many wild allegations, but that there is evidence of where the children's stories, for instance, are coming from.  Dr. Coleman, who carefully studied the tapes of numerous interrogations of children who were supposedly satanically abused, suggested that Rivera should do a show on that - which, of course, Rivera is not likely to do.  I am fairly certain that if pressured into doing so, Rivera would manipulate the facts enough to obscure the truth further and protect the claims that he is currently promoting.

What Dr. Coleman suggested is best summed up when he said:

"The evidence is, that overzealous, well-meaning but overzealous, police officers, social workers and therapists, are interrogating children, so sure that something terrible has happened that the children come to believe that something terrible has happened, and their little imaginations begin to work, they do their best to please these interviewers, and end up talking about the very exact things you're hearing here today - that children get abused in the process, terribly abused, their parents get abused, and innocent people are going to prison right this minute because of it."

As a reply to this, one of the so-called "breeders" who admitted to suffering from a multiple personality disorder, rudely interjected:

And disturbingly, the audience applaudsed this irrational outburst, ignoring the extremely rational statement made by the doctor.  It becomes a pretty scary world when the reason of the physician is ignored and the ravings of an admitted lunatic are applauded.

By the way, in one program the father of a supposedly satanically abused child who is also a doctor of some sort, claimed that little children do not have the capacity of imagination, experience or vocabulary necessary to invent stories of satanic rituals, human sacrifice and cannibalism.  This is especially true if they have had no exposure to such ideas.  Sounds good, but it does not stand up to the facts.  Fact:  in this media-gone-wild society, how can anyone not be exposed to almost every conceibable possibility?  Fact:  children are far more imaginative than adults who generally get so hung up on the practical needs of every day life that they almost forget how to imagine things.  Fact:  I attended a rare family get together, which I seldom do.  My family is composed of housewives, automobile mechanics, bricklayers, and the like.  There was there a cousin I almost never see, and like all of the other members of my family [me being the "weird" one of the bunch], she has no real interest in occult things.  Yet her sweet little daughter, three years of age I think, who apparently had a crush on me, with this sweet little smiling angelic face, out of the blue said:

This from a normal little girl with as little exposure to such ideas as is possible, without provocation.  Of course she did not seem to comprehend the horrible implications of this and probably took her statement less seriously than she would take the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel.  I could go on a long digression about race memories possibly inherited through DNA and all, but I think it is sufficient to say that we should give children, however young, more credit for their capacity to imagine all manner of things beautiful and horrible in their rich fantasy lives and stop treating them as if they were "dumb" animals incapable of thought.

Well, Rivera admitted that they have seen no hard evidence that sacrifices have taken place, with the exception of the photograph of the baby in the bottle, he pointed out.  Dr. Coleman then pointed out the obvious:  that that fetus was nothing more than a specimen that had never had life, obviously deformed.  Reasonable.  Yet, reason was not what this show was all about.

The ex-FBI man told us that the satanists are clever in the way that they hide and destroy the evidence of their crimes [I have not yet met a truly clever satanist, by the way.]  and then went on to talk about all the signs that they leave behind that police officers are not intelligent enough to recognize - things like pentagrams carved on the chest of a corpse.  Not only is this contradictory, but I think we have to give the police a little more credit for their intelligence than this!

This fellow also went on to tell us, the viewing audience, that the authorities in law enforcement and the politicians are doing virtually nothing about the satanic "network" in this country.  Could it be that they have discovered that the so-called "network" is nothing more than a bunch of loosely organized, independent, individuals who mostly talk a good game but do not actually play?  At least it is nice to know that just because a person burns a little incense and reads books on the occult the police are not likely to crash through his door and haul him off to jail in handcuffs to be charged with a crime that seems to have certain satanic elements!  Hell.  The police would have no trouble finding me since I voluntarily gave my name, and all variations thereof, along with both the Newaeon address and my private residential address and telephone number to the Allegheny County District Attorney of Pennsylvania in case he should need it some day!

Rivera, oh so logically, then argued that if there is evidence of child abuse, "doesn't it lend credibility" to the accusations of satanic ritual sacrifice?  Answer:  no.  There is evidence of people disappearing and then reappearing in their community after a length of time has passed.  "Doesn't it lend credibility" to the claims of abduction by extra-terrestrials?  Or might not it serve to make more credible the stories of people who said that they travelled to the centre of the earth, where they encountered an entirely different civilization, and then returned to tell the tale?  Get real.  There is, however, a parallel between some stories of satanic abuse and abduction by extra-terrestrial beings.

Then there was "Doc" Joseph Marquis, "Former High Priest in the [get this one] Illuminati".  This lisping ninny has appeared on other talk shows claiming to be a high priest of satanism, connecting satanism, Witchcraft and the largely fanciful and imaginary Illuminati nonsense, ranting and raving about how they secretly control the world.  There is absolutely nothing credible about this man.  Whitley Strieber, on another program, even pointed out on television that there was something terribly fishy about the guy.  You betcha!  Want to bet that this twerp never was a member of a satanic cult and that he is and always has been associated with some radical fanatic group of pseudo-christians?  Considering how ignorant he is about occult matters, promoting the joke of the Illuminati as if it were a fact, it is my guess that he is perhaps one of many individuals purposely creating and/or promoting the satanic hysteria for idiotic purposes not entirely unlike those that are attributed to the fanciful nationwide satanic network.

The proof, "Doc" said, that all of this nonsense is true is the people coming forth to tell their stories of involvement in and escape from the network of satanists.  The ex-FBI man agreed and claimed that the fact that the stories told are basically the same is proof of the truth of the stories.  Get the impression that these people could not reason themselves out of a wall-less room and that no one seems to learn from history?

These people that Rivera and others have given valuable airtime to do not seem to need much in the way of proof to come to their certain conclusions.  Thank God they are not judges!  But dear Lord, they could be called upon to do jury duty.  Think of that!

The program went on and the woman who claims to have been an ex-breeder who is now "helping" others, came around to admitting that she had been institutionalized, not once, but three times, with "incurable schizophrenia".  Operative word:  INCURABLE.  She also admitted to suffering from a multiple personality disorder ... get this ... manifesting over two hundred personalities.  Wonder if there were two hundred members of the satanic cult she was a member of...

This woman claimed, as have others like her, to have successfully passed a lie detector test and this is supposed to prove that she really was and is all that she claims to be.  However, polygraph tests, for instance, are not admissible in a court of law because they are not reliable.  Interpretation of the results will vary to some degree depending upon the examiner's judgment, and if the wrong questions are asked, or asked in the wrong way, the wrong conclusions could be drawn.  For instance, if I were asked if I have black hair and blue eyes as it is listed on my license and appears to be and I said yes I could very well fail the test because my physiological reactions might indicate an untruth.  Being restricted to only Yes or No I would not be able to explain that my hair is so very dark brown as to virtually appear to be black and my blue eyes often appear to be grey in the winter and green in the spring, it is just easier to list them as black and blue.  However, if the question were rephrased and I were asked if my hair colour was listed as black and my eyes blue on my driver's license I would have no trouble when answering yes.

Also, a person with practiced or natural skill at controlling his or her physiological reactions could fool a polygraph.  A pathological liar could also give false readings.  And perhaps more important here is the fact that a person suffering from delusions, BELIEVING THEM TO BE REAL, would naturally tell lies as if they were true because to that person's disordered mind they are true - however false they are in fact.

So the woman passed a polygraph examination.  Wonderful.  Perhaps she was at that time manifesting her satanic breeder personality.  I am not impressed.

Can you believe it?  Guess what is up next.  October 25th, 1988 E.V. - a day that will live in the anals of history.  [Pun intended.]

"Six six six," Rivera again misinforms the viewing audience, "the sign of the Devil."

Twice during the program the camera focused upon the number 93 crudely painted on the front door of a place that was supposedly the scene of a "satanic" crime.  Fortunately no mention was made of the 93 to slander the concepts that it represents.  It is, by the way, the numeration of the Greek word Thelema, which means "Will", more elaborately, "purpose for existing", as well as Agape, meaning "Love", the nature and means of achieving one's True Will.  What, exactly, it meant to the person who painted it upon the door we can only imagine.

Perhaps we should note here that the phrase that 93 essentially represents, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law", which is always followed by "Love is the law, love under will" - love hardly being a concept that is compatible with satanism and devil worship - does not mean Do as you bloody well please, as satanists commonly mistranslate it, serving the petty desires of their own ego or false self.  "Do what thou wilt" is, in fact, the strictest possible bond, as well as the means of individual freedom.  It simply means to discover your True Will, which is God's Will, the Will of the Universe, your specific individual purpose for existing, and turn all of your efforts and energy into accomplishing that.  To discover and do one's Will often means to ignore, not to cater to, the petty desires of the ego.  This is quite the opposite of the satanic idea.  Those who claim to be experts, who claim to know what they are talking about when they talk about Aleister Crowley and yet insist upon the satanically perverse misinterpretation of this statement, which is the Law of Thelema, prove that they are lying asses who claim expertise upon a subject that they have not actually studied, for the meaning of the Law is often explained quite clearly by Crowley in many of his numerous writings.  Liber II in the so-called Blue Equinox [Samuel Weiser Inc.], for instance, explains that

then goes on to further elucidate the matter.  Either the "experts" who claim that A.C. was a satanist who advocated that people should cater to the dictates of their petty egoic desires are charlatans and liars, or they are brain dead and/or illiterate.  Those who rely upon such "experts" are therefore no better.  Thelema also teaches that one should learn to rely upon oneself, stand upon one's own two feet, which, by the way, makes Thelema unique since reliance upon a priestcraft or cult leader is contrary to the Law of Thelema.

To continue, we again had Rivera talking about a "Nationwide network of satanic criminals", once more connecting Manson with satanism, then referring to the treatment usually given the idea of a so-called satanic network he claimed that

"often the choice is to avoid confronting it, ignore it, find other explanations or laugh it off.  That is not the choice we have made tonight."

True.  The choice that Rivera and his staff made was to exploit the hysteria, milk it for all that they could get, exacerbating the situation, further spreading irrational fear and panic, going beyond healthy skepticism and encouraging distrust of authority, taking the focus away from the true causes of our country's problems and turning our attention towards dead ends and unprofitable avenues, and when all the rhetoric is said, the truth of the matter is that Rivera and his staff went for the high ratings, to make the big bucks, and tried to ensure their positions.  This, however, seems to have somewhat backfired.

We were introduced to "Spike", another undereducated youth who is supposedly a "Former Satanist", reintroduced to "Kim", and then two more "Former Satanist(s)", disguised adolescents, are brought in and called "Joe" and "Lou".  Once more [how tiring it all becomes], heavy metal music is tied into "the occult".  "The occult", a very generic term, by the way, is used as if it were a filthy word, employed to discredit the multifaceted fields of esoteric art and science.

Teenage satanic activity, Rivera told the viewing audience, is increasing in this country.  What he consistantly fails to discuss, either deliberately or because of grossly superficial thinking, are the reasons, the causes for this supposed increase in satanic activity among adolescents.

The youth with the satanic boy scout knife was brought in and used again.  Ozzy Osbourne, one of the nicer, milder heavy metal musicians, via satellite, was brought into the special, although we hardly had a chance to hear from him and it was obvious that he was only being used to make it appear as if the program was treating the subject fairly.  Likewise, Zeena LaVey was a guest on the program.  Now Zeena is a lovely woman, the daughter of Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, and if nothing else, LaVey certainly brought some lovely women into the world.  Her purpose on the show was also to give the appearance only of fairness, although, of course, she thought that perhaps she could do some "good" - relatively speaking.  Rivera hardly turned to her, and while she managed to make a few good points, these were largely lost upon the viewing audience, overpowered and submerged by the tons of sewage spewed forth by Rivera and a number of other guests.  Zeena, by the way, hardly seems awful and sinister - although, mind you, I am certainly not a fan of Anton LaVey, his books and his "church".  She is, in fact, too demure, soft-spoken and fails to be aggressive enough to get her point across and often she was cut short by Rivera when she tried to say something.

Michael Aquino [I just cannot bring myself to call the man "doctor" because he has a degree in political science - unless, of course, he were to cure an ailing politician or sick house bill!], head of the satanic Temple of Set, an offshoot of the Church of Satan, was at least more aggressive than Zeena and forced a few worthwhile comments into the program.

You know, I dislike everything about Geraldo Rivera - his ego and personality, his unethical behaviour, his insincerity and hypocrisy, his perverse idea of journalism, and so forth - but because his actions almost force me to side with satanists like Aquino and LaVey, whom I think the world would be much better off without, I come very close to hating Rivera.

We heard from an adolescent, supposedly a satanist, convicted of murder and incarcerated at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.  We were told of "Four teenagers who had been dabbling in satanism"; of Pete Roland, convicted of murdering another adolescent named Newberry, by beating him to death with a baseball bat.  This was out in the woods.  Rather blows away the idea of a satanic temple, the victim stretched upon a perverse altar, to have a hideously ornamented dagger thrust into his trembling body, doesn't it?  A baseball bat.  Seriously.  Too prosaic.  At any rate, we also heard from the boy's mother who said "he even got to where he avoided eating meals with us."  Does that possibly suggest a more common reason for his antisocial behaviour?

One of the points Aquino managed to make was

"by our own standards, the people who you've shown on these film clips would not be satanists, either in present or the past.  Rather they would be the failures of a conventional religion."

He was trying to be tactful with that last phrase, by the way, trapped in the midst of the followers of that "conventional religion".  Anyway, upon this point [ugh] I tend to agree with Aquino.  While I would not go so far as to say that there is no one associated with either the Temple of Set or the Church of Satan capable and perhaps guilty of antisocial and destructive behaviour, experience has shown me that the vast majority of these formal satanists are talkers, not doers.  They talk a good game, but they do not actually play beyond a certain point.  For the most part, any of these satanists who might wish to actually do something "evil" instead of just fantasizing about it, are incapable of pulling off anything really awful due to gross incompetence.  Even those with titles, degrees and high scores on I.Q. tests prove themselves to be incompetent, insecure asses by their interest in and association with satanism in any of its forms.  And while Aquino made an important point, it is worth noting that essentially the satanists that belong to his Temple and LaVey's Church are also "the failures of a conventional religion" - evidence of the failure of the Judeo-Christian culture and religions.

The film version of The Exorcist is, Rivera said, a dramatic example of satanism that "dealt with ridding the body of Satan".  Remember, this is said by a self-professed "investigative journalist" who is supposed to be a careful researcher and trained observer.  The problem here is that The Exorcist DID NOT actually deal with "ridding the body of Satan."  At one point in the film the entity possessing the girl was asked to identify itself whereupon, using the girl's body, it leapt up and shouted that it was "the Devil!"  Quite obviously the entity was putting the interrogator on, telling the priest what he had expected to hear, what he wanted to hear.  In the beginning of the film, the possessing entity was correctly identified at least twice, most clearly in a bizarre scene incorporating the exorcist, a sand storm, two dogs fighting, and an ancient statue.  [In the sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic, the possessing entity was even more clearly identified.]  The entity that possessed the girl was called Pazuzu - not the Judeo-Christian Satan, but a kind of dark god.  In the original book by William Blatty, page 6, the artifact first found to identify the being was called

"a green stone head of the demon Pazuzu, personification of the southwest wind.  Its dominion was sickness and disease."

Later, during the scene mentioned above, page 8 of the book, it is again identified as "The demon Pazuzu."  If Rivera and his staff had actually done any thoughtful research, viewed the film, they should have made note of the images shown, checked them out, and correctly identified them as images, not of Satan, but of Pazuzu.  To insist that the one is the same as the other is to say that there is no difference between one individual and another, or one distinct and unique concept and another.  I make mention of this small matter because it typifies the kind of half-assed evidence and shoddy pseudo-journalism that is a common trademark of Geraldo Rivera, and it is something that everyone can easily check out.

RIVERA:  "Devil worship is as old as religion itself.  It's the grim alternative; the flipside of life.  Evil over good.  Dark over light.  Satan over God himself."

Here we have another key that unlocks the mysterious true source of the problem.  Devil worship in any form is the extreme reaction to an extremist religion that suppresses and oppresses, unrealistically, unhealthily, the natural, healthy desires of a people.  If the religion were more realistic, more "forgiving" of human frailties, more understanding and ... Godly ... devil worship, satanism, would not be evoked.  The one extreme brings the other into existence.  This is natural.  This is life.  This is what existence is all about.  Perhaps devil worship is a "grim alternative", but the operative word here is ALTERNATIVE.  The person trapped in an absurdly restrictive society, unable to lawfully explore his or her natural desires, told, for instance, that oral sex and masturbation are unnatural vices that will condemn a person to hell for eternity, told that birth control on a planet that is quickly becoming overpopulated while also losing all of its natural resources is a sin, will naturally seek an escape from such oppression.  If devil worship is the only alternative to this that the person can find, is it any wonder that that person may choose it?

Again, no big surprise, we were shown the allegorical drawing of Baphomet and it was erroneously identified as the Judeo-Christian Devil.  Boring.

And then came the part of Rivera's special that forced me to employ him and his programs in this review as a specific example of a problem in our society.  The action that naturally invoked my justified and righteous reaction - this article.  It is part of my True Will to not only further establish Thelema in society, but to also defend Thelema and its "founder", Aleister Crowley, therefore Rivera, through his egoism and ignorance, as well as his reliance upon the poor scholarship of so-called "experts" like Maury Terry, no doubt, forced my hand.  I really have no choice but to respond as he has, upon national television, slanderred and misrepresented the man and so also the philosophy I am honour bound to defend.

Exactly what Rivera said on his special, flashing the commonest, most sinister looking photograph of Crowley that he could find on the screen [perhaps ignoring the friendlier looking pictures of the man], was this:

"Forced underground by the religious hysteria of the middle ages, satanism was resurrected, first by an Englishman named Aleister Crowley in the early twentieth century. ..."

Then he went on to talk about Anton LaVey, thus linking the two in the mind of the viewing audience.

I have already pointed out that a genuine study of Crowley's works would prove to anyone that he would thoroughly disapprove of men like LaVey and Aquino as well as how they pervert the esoteric philosophies that he loved.  Crowley was obviously not a satanist and cannot be held responsible for bringing satanism to America.  He obviously considered the whole concept so laughable that he has hardly even touched upon the subject of satanism in all of the many books he has written.  The Judeo-Christian Satan was to him a repugnant concept, and the current satanic ideal would be no less repugnant to his sensibilities.  The Black Mass, which, by the way, he never held or attended, was to him nothing more than a rude farce.  And while it is true he may have said many "negative" things about "Jesus", that is to say, the perverse caricature of the Nazarene, the vulgarly barbaric deification of the Master Jesus who was a World Teacher, it is also true that he admired the historic character of the man and has said just as many "positive" things about him.  In point of fact, Crowley felt the need to express many points of view, some of which were actually contrary to his nature, and when speaking "negatively" of others he did not exclude himself from harsh criticism, while at the same time he had "positive" things to say about those same people, ideas and concepts.

Crowley, in Magick in Theory and Practice, mentions the idiotic fear people have of the natural processes of life such as putrification and death when discussing the magical formula of IAO:

"This 'Devil' [the O-stage of IAO] is called Satan or Shaitan, and regarded with horror by people who are ignorant of this formula, and, imagining themselves to be evil, accuse Nature herself of their own phantasmal crime."

This alone shows that A.C. was far deeper than the superficial pseudo-intellectuals who accuse him of satanism.  He placed marks about the word "Devil" to depersonalize it, qualifies it with the word "This" to show that there is more than one aspect of that impersonal concept, and in one swoop displays the inane ignorance of those who believe in a personal, individualized Devil.

"The Devil does not exist," he also stated.  "It is a false name invented by the Black Brothers [an abstract force and its servants who seek to retard or defeat human evolutionary progress] to imply a Unity in their ignorant muddle of dispersions.  A devil who had unity would be a God.*"

The above in brackets, of course, I inserted.  In the footnote he elaborated:

"*'The Devil' is, historically, the God of any people that one personally dislikes."

This any historian or scholar of any worth will agree with.

Interestingly enough, this man who is not only falsely accused of being a satanist but also of resurrecting satanism, has actually written very little about the concept of satanism although he was a prolific writer.  The fact of the matter is, satanism as we know it today did not even exist in his time, 1875 - 1947 E.V., and when Crowley uses words like "satanism" and "satan" he is generally referring to an adversarial attitude towards the absurdly unnatural restrictive ideals of Victorian Christianity, especially fundamentalist sects like the Plymouth Brethren which his family belonged to.  Remember, "satan" essentially means "adversary", as in a court of law.  It is, like "christ", a word, a title, an ideal, and was not originally thought of as a name - the personification of adversity is a relatively recent development, and the idea that this adversity personified represents a moralistic "evil" is an even more recent development, relatively speaking.

Furthermore, Crowley used terms like "satan" and "satanism" with typical tongue-in-cheek at times, while at other times he employed the terms in a poetic sense - it should never be forgotten that as a man he was above all else a poet.  Of course those without sound intelligence and solid knowledge, without a true sense of humour, and/or without any understanding of poetic imagery, perhaps hoping to find something apparently incriminating so that they can vindictively lash out at a man whose intellect is or was far superior to theirs, enraging their egos, maybe wishing to capitalize upon the sensational, have done and continue to do their damnest to pervert the meaning of Crowley's words for their own petty personal reasons or misguided idealism, thus misrepresenting the man and his extremely, even beautifically logical teachings, and so further obscure the Light of Wisdom from the rest of society who desperately needs such Light so as to make their way out of the barbaric wilderness and darkness of ignorance.

Crowley was a multifaceted man who could appreciate every possible point of view, who sought to express every possible point of view in writing, and because most critics and so-called experts are generally narrow, one-dimensional, bigoted, prejudice, ego-centric, dirty-minded people, all that they can see in Crowley is the pettiness that is actually within themselves.

Geraldo Rivera has a nasty habit of taking his false conclusions and allegations, his shoddy pseudo-journalism, too far, but so far as I am concerned, when he misrepresented Crowley, and so Thelema, and thus even yours truly by implication, he crossed the line.

During the devil worship special the cattle mutilations on a Louisana farm were brought up, implying satanic ritual sacrifice, yet the picture shown was completely unconvincing.  The hole in the chest was probably made by a predatory animal, and if the prey was somehow incapacitated it need not have even been a large animal.  Nevertheless, I myself have seen wild dogs bring down a deer, and they will inevitably go for the throat and/or the unprotected, soft underside of the prey.  The missing eyes, ears and tail were also pointed to as sure signs of satanic activity, despite the fact that they would be what smaller scavengers would naturally go for.  Who knows?  Perhaps the long-decayed animal carcass was the result of a satanic or pseudo-satanic ritual sacrifice, however unlikely that is, and more probable it is that another animal had attacked it for food.  The important thing here is that the existence of the carcass and its condition was in no way irrefutable proof of satanic activity, and certainly it was not evidence of an organized nationwide network of satanists.

We were also treated to a midnight tour of the Presidio grounds which was extremely unimpressive, and we were shown very crude spray painted graffiti that was supposed to prove that satanic worship had occurred in that area.  However, to me it only looked like a place where adolescents had played with cans of spray paint, perhaps smoked a little dope, drank a little and enjoyed some "illicit sex".  After two decades of study, research, practice in the esoteric arts and sciences, experience, more than half of which, through Newaeon, has put me into direct contact with all manner of people including satanists, I find it hard to believe that even the silliest self-styled satanists were not inclined to hold their rituals in more impressive surroundings.  And although we were not shown this, Rivera claimed to have seen an altar.  Whatever it actually was, the probability is great that if anything it had been used simply as a bed.

"Joseph" was introduced to the viewing audience - another disguised individual who was supposed to have been a satanist as well as a "Former US Army Intelligence" man.  Even if this were true he actually added nothing more substantial than his presence to the allegations made by Rivera.

A young boy was shown, called a "Victim", and was supposedly sexually abused by his father whom his mother said is a satanic high priest.  Here we go again.  Not just a member of a satanic cult, but a bloody high priest.  Lots of Indian Chiefs ... very few Braves.  One wonders if divorce and child custody proceedings were in the works at the time and if this woman, perhaps with justifiable concern, thought that this would help her to obtain legal and exclusive custody of the possibly [and commonly] abused child.

In one instance during this program "robes" and "candles" said to have been used in some kind of ceremony were considerred proof positive that a satanic ritual had taken place.  The fact that it was held in an episcopal church seems to have clinched it.  Do I have to here point out the absurd leap in logic that was made to arrive at these conclusions?  Again we see here something that is not a part of the "occult", the genuine esoteric arts and sciences, used to prove the wickedness of the "occult".  It sounds to me to have been more an act of rebellion against Christianity by Christians [or pseudo-christians, if you will] than anything else.

Yep.  And we again had Maury Terry and his book The Ultimate Evil inflicted upon us.

We were also told that often occult or satanic books were found in a residence as if this too were absolute proof that satanism was behind the crime in question.  I often wonder what would be made of my library?  There one will find the works of Aleister Crowley, several versions of the Bible in English, Yiddish and Greek, for instance, as well as an English/Hebrew, with commentary of The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, The Book of Mormon, Anton LaVey's The Satanic Bible and The Satanic Rituals, Buddhist and Hindu works and reference material, The Tao Teh Ching, books on alchemy, astrology, the tarot, Witchcraft, Greek, Roman and Gaelic mythology, The Collected Works of William Shakespeare, an anthology of English literature, books on Druidism, werewolves, vampires, angels, Theosophy, the martial arts, The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, volumes on UFOs, biographies, The I Ching [various versions], numerous novels, both classical and popular, etc., etc., etc.  What would, for instance, an "expert in occult crimes" or an "undercover satanic investigator" or Geraldo Rivera himself conclude from a perusal of my library?  Probably that I am some mad satanic criminal.  I think there may be a sex manual or two in the library as well and one day I hope to have the time to obtain and study such books as Hitler's Mein Kampf.  [Later given a copy as a gift.]  That would really convict me!

Seeing my home altar upon which rests a reproduction of the Egyptian stele of the 26th Dynasty priest Ankh-af-na-khonsu, called the Stélé of Revealing by Thelemites, and the sword that lies before it, a similar conclusion would probably be drawn - ignoring the figure of Venus, Goddess of Love, formed in the hilt of the sword and the single red rose of love and compassion laying atop the sword blade to represent the idea that aggression and reason [the symbolic meaning of the magician's sword] should always be tempered with love and compassion for others as well as for life itself.

I wonder just how many times the innocent contents of a person's apartment or home have been considered proof positive of satanic involvement.  During this particular Geraldo Rivera special it was said that a "ceremonial robe" was found in the bedroom of an alleged satanist.  Ceremonial robe or simple bathrobe?  I have a bathrobe that is black and has on it a red dragon.  Might this be considered a "ceremonial robe" I wonder?  Of course I do have actual ceremonial robes as well, but that hardly makes me either evil or a satanist!

Again the Manson interview film was recycled - it is a wonder it had not been worn out! - and Rivera said that

"Along with Hitler, cult leader Charles Manson is today's top satanic celebrity."

It is stretching a point to even say that Manson's ragtag group was a "cult" and certainly it stretches the point beyond credibility to compare crazy little Charlie with Adolph Hitler!  Get real.

And so it goes.  A photograph of the chest of a corpse was displayed and the wild scars on it were shown to be an inverted pentagram, proving that this had been a satanic murder.  Trouble is that without superimposing a pentagram over the corpse's chest the scars appeared to be random and while they could be interpreted as being a very badly drawn pentagram, they could have also been interpreted in a number of ways that the imagination can conjure up.  And anyway, how hard would it be for even the most unskilled "artist" to carve five very definite lines on the chest of a corpse and connect them so that it could be unquestionably identified as a pentagram?  I guess satanic murderers are supposed to be incapable of drawing straight lines.

During one of the Manson interview clips Charlie makes a very intelligent statement that Rivera, of course, uses to illustrate Manson's sickness.  [I am not disputing Manson's sick mentality, only Rivera's perception of facts.]

MANSON:  "Satan means ... whatever I want it to mean. ... It's everything that human beings don't understand, it's all their fears, it's what they're not sure of.  You dig what I'm saying?  Satan to me would be God."

Manson was often capable of saying some very intelligent and witty things, while Rivera is condemned, it seems, to constantly utter only dull rhetoric.  How his ego must have been stung to know that crazy Charlie is more intelligent and wittier than he!

When "Convicted Murderer" Charles Gervais refused to talk about his case on the special, Rivera got pissed again and finally asked "Did you use satanism as a defense?"  Gervais simply and dispassionately answered "Yes".  And here we have something more to consider in the scheme of things which Rivera glossed over as quickly as he could.

I loved this one.  The ex-FBI agent turned "Cult Investigator" [not Robert Ressler] made the following statement:

"I cannot say that there's a network of satanic murderers. ... I can say that there is a network of these people across the country who are very active ... they have their own people who specialize in surveillances, and photography, ah, and in assassinations."

Follow that?  Essentially what he said was that he cannot say that there is a network of satanic murderers but he can say that there is a network of satanic assassins, i.e. murderers.  When a man makes statements like this there are really only two things that one should do:  Either place no credence in anything he says and maybe have him institutionalized, or elect him into public office.

Squiggly lines and an alchemical symbol were pointed out as sure signs of satanism.  We heard from Sharon, a "Former Satanist", her face not shown, whose former husband was, yep, you guessed it, "a high priest" in a satanic cult.  Clips from the amusing but farcical film Rosemary's Baby were shown to further muck things up.  Then came the "Former Breeder(s)" again - all of them - including the poor retarded girl that had been so sadly used by these people.  Rivera told the viewing audience that

"Because the charges are so bizarre, most mental health professionals distance themselves from the entire area of satanism."

This, at least, improved my general opinion of mental health professionals who are probably, generally speaking, wise enough to see all this crap for what it is.

Consistancy of the stories was again pointed out as proof of their reality.  Reminds me of the consistent and persistent stories that one can contract venereal disease from toilet seats and go blind if one masturbates!  And hasn't it ever occurred to Rivera, as it does to any good cop during interrogation, that this consistancy and complete agreement between "suspects" often points to collusion, the great similarity of testimonies pointing to frequent rehearsals?

Zeena [Oh if only you weren't a satanist, my dear] managed to say

"You have to understand that everything, every single thing you've, um, given as examples of satanism here are completely from a Christian standpoint; that everything you've, um, put forth as being considered satanic is not considered satanic by my standard, and my definition of satanism."

Very good, Zeena, however, I fear the viewing audience, by and large, either ignored or quickly forgot what you said.

"Many law enforcement officers," the ex-FBI man said, "are apathetic and don't want to get involved" in exposing the cults.

More than likely, the truth of the matter is that most of the law enforcement officers have already wasted a lot of time and energy to discover that the cults and occultists in almost every case are innocent of the alleged crimes, and while perhaps offensive to their sensibilities, not guilty of the atrocities that people like this "Cult Investigator" and Rivera feed upon.

Warning signs for parents were given towards the end of the special - so vague that they could apply to just about any adolescent phase that is normal for human beings.  Among the so-called warning signs were "Abrupt emotional changes", as if this were unnatural for growing, rapidly changing, children; "Rejection of parental values", which is also often part of the growing up process and largely a matter of subjective perception; and one of the most horrendous of all, "Meditating, chanting, use of a new vocabulary."  Right.  How many already confused, frustrated and rebellious adolescents, I wonder, are now being further confused and frustrated for no good reason at all, creating the very problem possibly well-meaning parents are trying to prevent?  My dear old dad believed that incense was addictive, like [shudder] "drugs".  I thought of incense as an alternative to the stink of gasoline, grease and oil, not to mention his cigarettes, that he brought into the house when I lived with him and my younger sister.  [He is an automobile mechanic.]  And I am certainly not addicted to incense.  [Excuse me while I dash off to light up another joss stick for a hit of sandalwood!]

RIVERA:  "It [satanism] seems, ah, particularly strong ... to be, ah, very strong in the so-called Bible Belt and among Fundamentalist Christians."

Thank you, Jerry old boy.  You have helped me make my point.

Reverend James Lebar of the New York Archdioses called The Devil "a reality", referring to "the power of evil" and "the force of evil", and said that "It's that thing which disrupts ordinary human life."  Ordinary human life?  Are we talking about the Catholic priesthood here with its vow of chastity - an unnatural and unhealthy restriction that, for a time in the news, has proven to be the instigator of sexual improprieties among the priestcraft?  Are we talking about family life as depicted in an early Walt Disney movie?  Ordinary human life?  Ordinary human life is by nature self-disruptive.  Incest, wife-beating, husband abuse, alcoholism, infidelity, sexual addiction [I like that one], complete apathy and a lack of love, murder, kleptomania, ad infinitum, are all aspects of "ordinary human life".  Good Lord, Rev. Lebar!  Don't you watch the Geraldo show every week?

What we have here is the common scapegoat mentality.  These normal things are called abnormal, not of man, an essentially noble creature, and certainly not of God, therefore they must come from some other source, some evil and destructive source - the Devil made them do it.  Well pardon me, but while man has a divine soul does he not also have an animal body?  And what of the source of "evil"?  Fine, let us say that Satan is the source.  Did not God create Satan?  And if God is indeed omniscient, when he gave Satan as well as man freewil, did he not know that the results would not be entirely "good"?  Is God, then, not ultimately responsible for all of the evil that Satan supposedly causes?  Are you as tired of theological nonsense and dualistic irrationality as I am?

Finally the bottom line from Rivera:

"Michael Aquino is right when he says there have not been any successful prosecutions for this horrible allegation. ... it has never been proven in a court of law.  Obviously it needs more investigation, but if these things are happening - then there should be a national task force of federal, and state, and local cops working together..."

Nickname Geraldo Rivera "Cotton Mather Jr.".

Fine.  Then my suggestion is simple.  Let us put together a task force of real experts and authorities and investigate the so-called "Former Satanic Cult Members", "Breeders", "Cult Investigators", "Cult Detoxifiers" and "Deprogrammers", the "Ministries" and the anti-cult organizations, and investigate as well the motivations and the techniques of investigations such as those done by Rivera and his staff, and let us see how well they stand up to the close scrutiny!  If you live in the area where Rivera does his program, where some of his guests come from - if you can gather the information from talk show transcripts or other sources - politely but thoroughly check out their stories, search out documentation and/or corroboration and then either pass the information on to me or write an article and see to it that it is as widely published as possible.  You might even make a few bucks out of it!  Instead of just complaining, get off your butts and do something!  Too long have we been overly polite or just damn lazy and apathetic.

Well, after this program I was rather down and angry.  I mean, enough is enough, but when Crowley, who had been grossly slandered by the yellow journalism of his day and is still being slandered and misrepresented to this day by sensationalistic authors and even organizations claiming to represent him and Thelema, was suddenly maligned on national television, that was the final straw.  And when he was similarly slandered on the debut of Gideon Oliver, no doubt thanks to Maury Terry's book, I grew determined to pursue a more public campaign with a fierce aggressiveness I have not as yet unleased.  Later that evening, after Rivera's special, flipping the channels I stopped for a moment during Johnny Carson's monologue long enough to hear him call Rivera's devil worship special "crap".  Carson followed this with more Geraldo jokes.  In fact, even more than when Rivera publically humiliated himself over the Al Capone vault opening, it seemed that his special on devil worship turned him into the media joke that he most certainly is.  A bad joke to be sure, but a joke nonetheless.  An unkind caricature of an investigative journalst.  In fact, not only had so many people found him laughable that I was encouraged by the perception of people I had come to believe were not at all that perceptive and clear-headed, but he also ceased to be a real human being in many people's eyes and became instead a living caricature.  A cartoon figure.  As a matter of fact - and here the Master Keallach must admit that he sometimes watches Saturday morning cartoons! - a new Superman cartoon titled "The Big Scoop" featureed a character named Hector Davis - a phoney looking TV investigative reporter who asked "Were the pyramids of Egypt actually microwave ovens?"  On a television program called "Metropolis Exposed", in this cartoon, Davis, under the guidance of Superman's archenemy, Lex Luthor, tried to expose the Man of Steel's secret identity.  Perry White, editor of the Daily Planet, grumped:  "Just proves TV will do anything for ratings."

Funnier still was an episode of the new RoboCop cartoon series.  In this one an unscrupulous, sensationalistic television "investigative reporter" named Julio Solara, with thick black hair and a big bushy machismo mustache, is in trouble with KRUD News because of his low ratings.  So, re-editing film footage of RoboCop in action, serving and defending the public, he distorts the truth to make it look as if Officer Murphy [that's RoboCop for those of you who never saw the movie or watch Saturday morning cartoons - you poor wretched bankrupt souls] is a menace to the public welfare.  Naturally, since art imitates life, if you will excuse the turn of phrase, Solara fails miserably and becomes a public laughingstock.

Well, folks, I still have to summerize, so wake up and bear with me a moment longer.  Almost as if Rivera were saying "Nah ... nah nah ... nah ... nah.  So there!" the first of March of this new year brought us a familiar topic on Geraldo:  "Satan's Blackmarket/Sex Slaves, Porno & Drugs".  No.  Rivera was not trying to be sensationalistic.  Whatever gave you that idea?

RIVERA:  "This is one of those topics almost too hot to handle", he said, then mentioned the high ratings the devil worship special received, and also told the viewing audience that because of that program he has received more support from people in the field.  Translation:  more nuts, phonies, and unscrupulous individuals wishing to use and capitalize upon the irrational hysteria and sensational mumbo jumbo.

Rivera also claimed that the "critics were hysterically unimpressed."  Hysterically unimpressed?  And he calls himself a journalist!  Hysterical:  "emotionally uncontrolled and wild" [Webster's].  While to be unimpressed implies a sense of indifference - a lack of emotion.  No wonder Rivera is associated with such individuals as the ex-FBI man turned "Cult Investigator".  They speak the same Orwellian language - much more difficult to understand than Enochian!

Then came the mysterious parade again:  "Janise", a "Former Satanic Prostitute" who used drugs and admitted to hallucinations as a probability in regards to the wild allegations.  She was disguised behind a screen, supposedly once married to a satanist.  I do not believe she mentioned whether or not he was a "high priest".  "Carol", also a "Former Satanic Prostitute", hidden behind a screen, supposedly a survivor of ritual abuse, admitted to a lot of psycho-therapy, which is when she started "remembering" her experiences.  "Angel", an "Undercover Satanic Counselor" with a ton of frizzy red hair I hope was a wig for disguise.  He claimed that the police are in on the satanic conspiracy and Rivera seemed to defend the majority of police officers, but was he just playing both ends against the middle again, trying to give the appearance of fairness so as not to alienate himself from the legitimate law enforcement community?  If so, I think he is failing here as well.  This very day I had the chance to talk with some city police officers here and they all seem to have a very low opinion of Rivera.  Then there was "Rex", wearing sun glasses and an awful wig that may not have been a disguise.  He is supposed to be an "Undercover Satanic Investigator" with Citizens Against Ritual Abuse [C.A.R.A. ... cute].  Another fellow, we were told, "Infiltrated [a] Satanic Cult".

Clips from previous shows were tiresomely recycled.  The author of a book entitled Satanism [Gee ... that's imaginative ...] was brought out.  The "Former FBI Agent" turned "Cult Investigator" made yet another reappearance on the show - like a nasty veneral infection he just won't go away - and again he told us that the law enforcement community [you know, the guys with all the education, training and experience in criminal detection] does not know how to handle satanic crimes, or does not want to handle them.  He also implicated morticians as being suppliers of human body parts for satanic ritual purpose.  Ho hum...

Torture, we were told, is used by satanists to recruit members and prostitutes.  I hardly see the need for that as there are so many people out there more than willing to sell their bodies and souls!  I would think that the promise of money and completely unrestricted pleasure would be a far better means of recruitment!

A catalogue, never clearly shown, was continually referred to.  Rivera did not want to give out the name and address of the company, he claimed, because he did not want his viewing audience to send for the products offered in the catalogue.  It offered, we were told, human body parts and the idea that this might have been a fraud or a put on never seemed to occur to Rivera and his crew.  Of course it may have been legitimate.  If there is a market for something in this society, no matter what it is, you will find someone willing to satisfy that market.

Rivera did, at least, point out, and brush off, the fact that the catalogue specified that the body parts for sale are "legal specimens".  What I found amusing was that we have heard a lot of talk about how the evidence of satanic murders mysteriously disappears and yet here we are now told that that evidence may be purchased by mail through a catalogue!

Finally, after a big build up, just before the program ends, Rivera gave us the big "update" - another earth shattering result of his devil worship special:  "Ah-keen-Oh", he told us, as he pronounced Aquino's name, because certain congressmen were outraged by the news regarding him on the special and how the charges against him for child molestation in the Presidio affair were dropped, have had the U.S. Attorney reopen the case and Michael Aquino is now under Grand Jury investigation.  Well, folks, knowing how I just love that man to death [now there's a thought!], you can imagine how broken up I was over this news.  I went out and bought drinks for all my friends.  Then, however, I moaned a bit over the kind of thinking that may have gone into this possibly wise decision, but brightened up and laughed when I remembered that the total positive results of "Exposing Satan's Underground" was to achieve high ratings from a viewing audience [myself included, of course] that is generally more fickled than the fans of a mediocre rock group, and an industry that is even more fickled still; more nuts and charlatans flocked to the Messiah of Muck; and one satanist, only one single satanist out of how many more, is now out of the frying pan and in the fire, may or may not be guilty [you know what I am betting on!], but will probably get away scott free - although even the conviction of a single man hardly justifies the expense not only of time and money, but to the evolutionary progress of society as a whole that the hysteria evoked retards.  The ends do not, in this case at least, justify the means.

Okay.  Enough!  More than enough!

When, after the devil worship special and before the latest program on "Satan's Blackmarket" aired, a black activist on Geraldo started a fight with an equally obnoxious white supremacist skinhead and an on-air brawl ensued during which a chair was thrown and Rivera's nose was broken, the critics saw that as the final straw.  Rivera had to have had some idea that that would happen as that particular black activist had, shortly before this, started another on-air fight on The Morton Downey Jr. Show.  Either Rivera was being completely incompetent or extremely unethical.  But what the hell!  As Perry White said:  "Just proves TV will do anything for ratings."

The broken nose was perhaps a little more than Rivera had expected, but it should have given him some idea as to how things can go when you lack ethics and a true sense of responsibility, pushing a situation too far for something as essentially meaningless as ratings.  It certainly proved both Rivera's lack of sound judgment and good taste, as well as his inability to control a situation.

The November 14th, 1988 E.V. issue of Newsweek magazine then published a story entitled "Trash TV", a picture of Rivera with his broken nose on the cover.  Faster than you could say "responsible journalism", Rivera made a special public appearance on television to reply to the magazine's coverage.  He claimed that Newsweek and not him was guilty of tabloid journalism.  To prove his point, he made a big production of the fact that they ran his picture on the cover, making "Trash TV" the lead story when, he said, they should have been covering the presidential election.  However, as usual, Rivera's ego was in the way of his good sense and he maniacally leaped to a typical wild conclusion.  Newsweek, a reputable, informative, responsible news magazine that I have enjoyed receiving, was merely covering the top media story of the time.  Furthermore, before Rivera made his public reply and accusations on television, the magazine had already put together a special, thicker edition of Newsweek dedicated entirely to the presidential elections.  Therefore mention of the elections in the regular issue would have been redundant.

The November 14th issue of Newsweek carried another article entitled "Sex, Death, Drugs and Geraldo" by Charles Leerhsen.  Therein it was written that

"Responding to charges that his narcissism overwhelms his news sense, Rivera compares himself to Edward R. Murrow."

Right.  'I'm not saying I'm perfect, but God and I could be twins.'

"Rivera," the article stated, "graduated from Brooklyn Law School near the bottom of his class..."

Here an honest mistake may have been made, and Rivera was quick to point it out.  In the following edition, the magazine fairly printed a letter from Rivera in the Letters to the Editor section which read, in part:

"Your story was a premeditated hatchet job. ... I did not finish 'near the bottom' of my class at Brooklyn Law School.  In fact, I was a scholarship student who graduated 19th out of 330."

Note that he can dish it out but he certainly can't take it.  And who would know more about premeditated hatchet jobs than the master of them?  Rivera, typically, recognizing his own faults and less than noble motivations in others is unable to see them in himself.  Furthermore, this error, if it was an error, does not seem to matter much when we discover in a January 1988 E.V. edition of TV Guide, in an article by Doug Hill entitled "Is Geraldo Rivera Running Out of Control?", that Rivera is quoted as having said [italics mine]:

"'I always had the feeling of Manifest Destiny,' he says.  'When I got into the law business [he was graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 1969], I always felt I would be a huge lawyer, even though I went to a crummy school.  Once I got into the TV business, I thought that I could be the No. 1 guy - [the network anchor] chair was my goal.  When I got fired, for the first time since my semester in law school, I questioned my destiny ... I felt fear.  Real fear.'"

So he did not graduate "near the bottom of his class" but instead "19th out of 330".  Who cares?  By his own admission he graduated from "a crummy school" which, presumably, then had low, "crummy" standards!  Bet Brooklyn Law School really likes their alumnus now!

And look at the ego that his words are soaked with.  But why is his ego so inflated?  He was going to be a "huge lawyer" ... and failed.  He was going to be "the No. 1 guy" in the TV business ... and got fired ... more than once, by the way.  And now this "investigative journalist" is doing what?  Hosting a television talk show, interviewing transsexual lesbians with Mary Ann and Ginger fixations, anorexic transvestites who were formerly Roman Catholic priests, mentally deranged individuals who believe they are or are passing themselves off as former satanists, and there he is wrestling bikini-clad women in oil and boxing with women on the air.  Can you imagine the late Edward R. Murrow in boxing shorts, duking it out on TV with a gorgeous woman in a bikini, giving plenty of T & A to the viewing audience during Sweeps Week?

The article by Doug Hill also went on to say that

"One former producer at 20/20 who refused to work with Rivera there goes so far as to predict that Rivera could turn into a demagogue, spinning ever further out of control. 'He is an absolute raging zealot.' this producer says.  'He goes slightly amok in believing he's this white knight. ... I don't think he realize what he's doing is wrong - that he has to be ethical when he goes after the unethical.  He sees himself as this crusader, and like most crusaders, he tends to go overboard. ... He's like some charismatic figure gone astray.'"

The December 5th, 1988 E.V. issue of Newsweek carried a small article by David Gates with Tim Padgett and Pamela Abramson entitled "Networking to Beat the Devil/But are the 'Satan sleuths' really on to something?"  The article points out that

"investigating satanic crime may be a growth industry."  Also that "It's hard to say whether criminal acts by satanic cults are actually on the increase.  Should figures include murders by isolated sickos who think the Devil made them do it?  Vandalism by anomic Ozzy Osbourne fans?  Rivera's video inquisition found ritualistic murders at an all-time high, yet Kansas City Police say Satanism had nothing to do with a torture and sexual-abuse case to which Geraldo devoted a quarter hour."  And further:  "Patrick Hayes, an investigator in the Jasper County, MO., prosecutor's office, is skeptical.  His recent work on the supposedly satanic murder of teenager Steven Newberry turned up nothing spookier than disturbed kids and heavy-metal songs with nasty imagery."

Finally, before summerizing, one last item from an article which appeared in the January 9th, 1989 E.V. edition of The Pittsburgh Press entitled "NBC's Tartikoff swears off 'Trash TV'" by Robert Bianco.  Herein Mr. Bianco wrote:

"In a vain attempt to head off the inevitable, NBC Entertainment President Brandon Tartikoff opened his press conference by swearing on a stack of bibles, brought into the room by a priest, that he would never buy 'any more specials from Geraldo Rivera.'"  And:  "At least a repeat seems unlikely.  'I would not say that it was our finest hour ... I don't think you'll be seeing any more programs in that vein from NBC with Geraldo or anybody else.'"

Three cheers for Mr. Tartikoff if he keeps his word ... real bibles and priest or not.

Now, if you are still awake, please read on and and I will summarize my observations and conclusions.

We have a talk show host, the worst of the bunch [Larry King of Larry King Live seems to be the best that I have watched, if he can be considered a talk show host], running a number of programs and specials, employing very poor investigative techniques, or perhaps deliberately misinforming, misleading and manipulating the viewing audience to promote the fabulous idea that there is a nationwide organized network of satanic criminals responsible for a great number of crimes in an effort to destroy the American way of life and take over the United States.  Oddly enough, this great and powerful organization seems to be so incompetent that, even with several attempts, it cannot even succeed in eliminating single unprotected antagonists, while solitary killers like Oswald and Hinkley, to name but two, had no trouble defeating the efforts of the Secret Service to assassinate and nearly assassinate Presidents of the United States.  Furthermore, no hard evidence is produced to back up the wild hysterical stories and what little circumstantial evidence is presented does not hold up under even casual scrutiny.  All we really have are the stories.  Their consistency is easy to explain in this media mad society that makes information readily available to all, and the allegations made are really as old as humankind itself anyway - ritual sacrifice, cannibalism, and so forth - going back to primitive times when such things were so common as to be taken for granted.

The people telling these stories are middle-aged and older women, generally of low intelligence, usually admitting to a multiple personality disorder, incurable schizophrenia, and other mental disorders for which they have undergone extensive psychotherapy and even been institutionalized.  It comes to light that at least in most cases these women [and others] do not actually "remember" their horrible involvement in a satanic cult until in the midst of psychotherapy.  More likely than not, many of these women actually believe what is essentially a delusion, perhaps a symbolic representation of a genuine traumatic experience that they suppressed for a long time due to their inability to understand how their experience could have occurred.  How, for instance could a father sexually molest his young daughter?  Simple.  The Devil made him do it!  The Devil was behind it all.  Their fears and anxieties are symbolized by a cult of satanists, perverse devil worshippers, as are their own sick desires and guilt complexes.  They give rational symbolic form to their subconscious psychological complexes, their personal demons, just as the typical UFO contactee, a person who had undergone an unexpected altered state experience, interprets in three-dimensional rationalistic, physical terms, his contact with subconscious psychological complexes, generally the little aliens, and brief, baffling contact with the supraconscioius, i.e the union of the subconscious and the conscious, the True Self, Genius or Daemon, which is generally interpreted as the larger alien being that the contactee seems to feel a special strong rapport with.  In both cases, with the deluded who believe that they were involved in a satanic cult and those who believe that they have made frequent contact with extraterrestrial beings, there are those who are more than willing to exploit them and their delusions for their own profit and glory.

Under hypnosis the line between fact and fantasy is very thin and often breaks.  The "therapist" may also suggest, directly or indirectly, accidentally or intentionally, an alternative reality or encourage a deluded person into further building upon or believing that delusion to be a fact in the physical world.

A person suffering from a delusion, believing a fantasy to be factual reality, will naturally pass a polygraph examination with little or no trouble, and the fantasies will register as if they were facts.  In a way, if a person has accepted rational physical symbols for abstract realities, believing the symbols of the abstract truth to be the truth, mixing the planes [of consciousness], as it were, then these symbols are realities to that person.

We also have adolescents, teenagers, who were under the influence of powerful hallucinogenic drugs when they committed crimes and engaged in antisocial behaviour and who probably believe that the delusions that they experienced while under the influence were real, their minds confusing fact with fiction, the drugs impairing the ability to distinguish one from the other.  There are also those who enjoy the attention that they are getting, and others who may have been encouraged to either invent entirely their wild stories or embellish the common actual facts with fanciful satanic dressing.

We have criminals in prison convicted as murderers claiming that they were members of a satanic cult and that their crimes were satanically motivated.  Low intelligence is again noted in many of these plus the fact that a large number of them are adolescents.  Probably some actually believe the satanic aspects of their crimes, having abused drugs and no longer being able to distinguish between actual fact and sick fantasy.  No doubt many of them see this hysteria as an opportunity to have a little fun with the society that they blame for their situation and circumstances, a means of rebellion and revenge - scare the hell into society and then sit back and laugh at the discomfort they have caused.  For some it is a last ditch effort to lessen their sentence by informing upon others, or to try another plea that might get them out of prison and into a psycho ward.  Some may have even been promised assistance in making life behind bars more bearable or of shorter duration if they cooperate and invent satanic motivations and angles to crimes that they committed for more prosaic reasons.

There are very young children who, in some cases no doubt, actually have undergone some terribly traumatic experience such as being sexually abused by a parent.  In many cases they too no doubt suppressed the experience and upon remembering it have added embellishments to the experience that they come to believe are true, as often the line between fact and fantasy is very thin indeed for children.  Also there are the well-meaning interrogators and therapists as well as the less ethical ones who no doubt, by accident or intentionally, suggest certain satanic aspects that the child then takes [as would a person under hypnosis] and builds upon, accepting the result as absolute truth without realizing otherwise.  In the case of the child, no doubt out of a desire to please the adults, their parents and authority figures, and so obtain their love and attention, this is probably very common indeed.

As I have pointed out, in the case of some of the women, the adolescents and the prisoners, these people may have undergone a genuine altered state of consciousness experience.  It is common for there to be an apparent blank in their memory for a time, which is usually when the reasoning aspect of the brain is processing the abstract information that it obtained while in the astral state of consciousness, as I generally call it, on a "higher" or "inner" plane or level of consciousness.  At this time the most appropriate physical forms are assigned to the abstract realities so that the reasoning mind can better cope with them.  Somewhere along the line, between the astral state of consciousness and the somatic state of the "lower" or "outer" plane or level of consciousness, there is a mixing of the planes and the physical symbols are mistaken for realities upon the somatic or physical level - that is to say, the symbols of reality are mistaken for the reality itself.

UFOs and superior intelligences from outer space generally represent a hope of salvation for humankind in general, while expressing fear, insecurity and concern over the fate of humanity and one's own individual fate.

The satanic network is another manifestation of the dis-ease of society, displaying all of the fears and horrors of the primitive subsconscious aspect of mind - a less healthy, and more disturbing set of inner experiences.

We also have investigators who generally do not seem to have the support of the orthodox law enforcement community, and who are making money directly or indirectly off of the hysteria, sometimes promoting books that they have written.  These people and their books are advertised and marketed by such talk shows as Geraldo, as are the others who are capitalizing upon the hysteria, at the expense of truth, social order, and the spiritual and intellectual evolution of humanity as a whole.

There are the therapists, phoney, incompetent and unethical, who are also capitalizing upon the hysteria; the anti-cult groups and religious organizations, the cult deprogrammers [many of whom are guilty of the federal crime of kidnapping and actually boast of employing this method of operation] - and all of them are profiting in some way from the hysteria that they naturally wish to perpetuate in order to maintain the demand for the services that they offer for a price.  It is also found that many of the so-called investigators, therapists and so forth, have very definite leanings towards the radical Fundamentalist and Reconstructionist aspects of "Christianity", as far removed from the original teachings of the Nazarene as one can imagine.

Talk shows, their hosts, producers and so forth, as well as the networks, are of course making a great deal of money off of the hysteria, as are many authors, magazines and newspapers - so naturally they would like to see it go on.  Hysteria sells!

Self-styled satanists are really enjoying the hysteria as it provides them with an effective means of rebellion and reinforces their fantasy self-images of power and importance.

Even formal satanists enjoy and help along the hysteria as it makes their fanciful claims of power in the world seem believable and it sends a message to those who are unsatisified with the way that things are in the world, adolescents and others who feel oppressed and restricted, that satanism is an effective means of rebellion - a real attention getter.

We, the viewing audience, are expected to believe women who are suffering from mental and emotional disorders, convicted murderers, easily influenced little children, rebellious adolescents, incompetent and unethical therapists, investigators, deprogrammers, lawyers, anti-cult groups, religious organizations and the like, all of questionable integrity with motivations of a possibly capitalistic nature, as well as talk shows hosts, producers and television networks that are obviously manipulating the facts and making quite a bit of money from the satanic hysteria.  In other words, we are expected to trust people that under any other circumstance no one in their right mind would trust.

Some of the results of this hysteria and the promotion of the hysteria by way of television talk shows and other means are:

[1]  Satanism is shown to be an effective means of rebellion, a real attention getter, encouraging adolescents and antisocial individuals to involve themselves either in some form of satanism or the pretense of it.

[2]  Satanism is shown to be a powerful organization beyond the reach of the law, giving credence to the fantasy that the formal and self-styled satanists entertain and try to promote, and this actually helps the satanists in recruitment.

[3]  Charlatans and unethical individuals are advertised and promoted nationwide, and in the process of practicing their cons, the hysteria is further hyped, and instead of helping individuals, more harm than good is done, although in some cases it may appear otherwise - for a while.

[4]  Due to the gross misinterpretations, misrepresentations, misunderstandings and lies that are promoted, valuable knowledge and information that the esotericist is in possession of, that proposes solid solutions to societal and individual problems, based upon sound psychology, is kept from the very people who need it most, thus effectively retarding the spiritual and intellectual evolution of the species as a whole, interferring with humanity's attempts to take the Next Step along the evolutionary Path of the Wise.

[5]  Our society is filled with further irrational hatred, distrust, bigotry and prejudice, that worsens the dis-ease that society is currently suffering from.

[6]  Law enforcement officers are often sent upon wild goose chases, investigating essentially harmless, innocent people while the real criminals are given time to escape.  No doubt some criminals, capitalizing upon the current wave of hysteria, leave some occult-seeming signs at the scene of a crime just to throw the authorities off of their scent and direct their attention elsewhere.  In some cases, after having investigated numerous occultists and finding them innocent of the crimes they were alleged to have committed, the police are likely to be cynical to the point of ignoring the next occultist accused of a crime and that may be the one out of many who is guilty.

No doubt a small minority of the allegations are at least partially true.  Perhaps occasionally a formal or self-styled satanist is guilty of the various crimes Rivera wallows in as a pig wallows in its own filth and mud.  However, statistics are bound to prove that the vast majority of murders, assaults, robberies, rapes, and so forth are committed by Christians or people who consider themselves Christians, or those who have decided to rebel against the Judeo-Christian society that they feel oppresses them, and there are just as many cases if not more of people who claim that God, and not Satan, told them to commit their crimes, inspired not by heavy metal music, games like Dungeons and Dragons, occult books and the like, but by the Bible.

Rivera himself called satanism the "grim alternative" to Christianity.  Satanism is but an extreme reaction to an extremist, restrictive and oppressive Judeo-Christian culture.  Remove the inane laws, maintaining only the most basic ones that do indeed protect life and property from antisocial behaviour; relax the unnecessary restricitons, the moralistic rules, since one man's morals are often another man's emotional poison, and the desire to rebel weakens.  Spend more time and energy upon making life richer and more rewarding for people and, for instance, less time regulating what is and is not lawful in the privacy of their bedrooms, between two consenting adults, and you lessen the desire to rebel even more.  If the Judeo-Christian culture were not so barbarically, archaically restrictive it would not have engendered the rebellious reaction to it called satanism.  Satanism is not and never has been a legitimate aspect of "the occult", the esoteric arts and sciences.  Satanism is the bastard child of the Judeo-Christian culture, and there if anywhere is where the finger of blame should be pointed.

Ingratiating himself, Rivera claims that his main concern is for the people, and he claims that he deals with topics too hot for most others to handle, that he goes right to the root of the problem and exposes it.  My answer to this is "Bull".  Obviously Geraldo Rivera's main concern is Geraldo Rivera.  Furthermore, if Rivera were a physician he would be considered a quack [and that rhymes with hack], for he is not treating the cause of the dis-ease in our society when dealing with such subjects as satanism, real or fanciful.  Rivera is merely treating a symptom of the dis-ease, afraid of the really too hot to handle topics.  He parades himself about as if he were a tough guy taking on an organized national network of murderers because he knows, at least deep down inside subconsciously if he will not admit it consciously to himself, that it is all a fantasy, that the satanists are basically, for the most part, harmless bags of hot air incapable of organizing upon any large scale for anything.  Interestingly, modern day satanism is a sloppy collection of stolen ideas, terminology and so forth, twisted out of their original shape and misused to serve the petty desires of the individual egos of the cults.  Likewise, the so-called nationwide satanic network is a very messy collection of facts regarding criminal activity, mixed with a great deal of fantasy, all twisted out of their original shape and misinterpreted to serve such petty egos as Geraldo Rivera's.  We have here a case of the pot calling the kettle black!  We also have a whimp strutting about as if he were really a tough guy when in fact he may be too much of a coward to attack the real source of the problems in our country - the absurd, unhealthy, oppressive restrictions of the Judeo-Christian culture which has long ago perverted the original teachings of the prophets, this being done primarily by the priestcraft in an effort to control the populace and stay in business.  Of course Rivera, if he is capable of seeing past his ego for a moment to recognize this, is never going to truly take on the real cause of the dis-ease in America - it would cost him too many fans and viewers, then his ratings might drop.

Archaic values that were once necessary, long ago, to maintain the strength and integrity of the tribe or clan, as well as certain religious laws whose only true purpose is to control the people so that the priestcraft may remain in business, in power, must be eliminated.  Morality that goes beyond common sense ethics, the respect for oneself and others, which forces everyone to adhere to relative moral codes as if they were absolutes is doomed to evoke rebellion.  Rules such as the vow of chastity that Catholic nuns and priests must take are absurdly unhealthy, for the human being, the human soul, craves this physical union which in its deepest aspects is a representation of one's union with and dissolution in GOD.  Placing these unhealthy, permanent restrictions upon a man or woman, does not generally kill the natural desire.  Instead it usually strengthens and perverts the desire.  Thus we have the greater incidents of homosexuality in convents and seminaries - not the healthy expression of love between true homosexuals, but the perversion of natural heterosexuals.  [Heterosexuality for the natural homosexual would be a perversion.]  We have recently, for a brief time only, had a glimpse of the problem of pedophilia among ministers and priests.  These are not the problems, the dis-ease of our society.  They are but the symptoms.

Because of a proliferation of laws, rules and regulations in the Judeo-Christian culture, we have become a society of liars and hypocrites, and we have become so conditioned that we generally do not realize this.  We have laws on the books, for instance, in most states, which prohibit marriage between two consenting adults just because they happen to be of the same sex.  These may be two people who are acting in accordance to what is natural for them and who are deeply in love and wish to spend their lives together.  Thus this law is denying them their civil rights which Americans are guaranteed by the Constitution - civil rights which are supposed to belong to everyone.  The law either forces these people to live unhealthy lives - to live a lie, live without love, or live "in sin".  It denies them the rights guaranteed to a heterosexual couple, as well as the legal protections should illness or death strike one of them.  And what is the source of this law?  Perhaps it is based upon the regulating of what is and is not lawful, sexually, between two consenting adults, in privacy, perhaps as an expression of their love for one another.  We have on our books laws against "sodomy" and oral sex, as well as just about every other sex act imaginable - sexual expressions and techniques that not only are practiced by homsexuals but also by many if indeed not most, heterosexuals - many of whom also happen to be those who are charged with enforcing the very laws that they are breaking.  And what logical, rational reason do we have for such laws as these?  Do they protect people?  No.  They do more harm than good by prohibiting and inhibiting natural, human behaviour, restricting healthy human appetites - not only for the physical gratification that is obtained through sexual intercourse, but also for the emotional and spiritual pleasure that is achievable.  They force us all to lie to protect ourselves, to become hypocrites, thus encouraging us to lie and practice dishonesty and deceit in other aspects of our lives.  The sexual acts themselves are not as degrading, if degrading at all! as dishonesty, deceit and hypocrisy.  And behind the laws that govern the sexual acts we find one thing and one thing only:  the religions of the Judeo-Christian culture.  Hypocrisy giving rise to further hypocrisy.  Does not our Constitution demand a division between church and state?  And yet here we have but one of many examples of how religious moral codes have been made into civil laws.

I have here used sexual issues to illustrate my point, but one may easily find many more examples of the dis-ease in America and the true sources of it, such things as satanism being but a symptom of the dis-ease.  Even if we were to eliminate the symptoms, the dis-ease, if not attacked directly, will remain and new symptoms will continue to develop and gradually destroy entirely our society.

I am not a Communist or anything of the like.  I am an American and I happen to think that our system is one of the best if not the best on the planet.  But that does not mean that there is not room for improvement.  It does not mean that it is perfect as it is.  Change is stability, and as everything living must constantly grow, develop and evolve, so too must our American society evolve in order to remain alive, vital and strong.  Our basic values that respect all life, individual freedoms and so forth are fine and based primarily upon common sense.  However, there are far too many rules and regulations that are based upon relative religious moral codes, and these infect the body and brain of our society, create dis-ease, and also create such symptoms of the dis-ease as satanism and the satanic hysteria.

Yet there are segments of our society which thrive on the dis-ease.  Parasitic entities that protect, worsen and feed off of the dis-ease in our society.  The organized, "orthodox" religions of the Judeo-Christian culture are doing their best to keep things as they are.  Change, evolution, is necessary for the health and growth of society as a whole, but if permitted by religious authorities, humanity will naturally evolve out of a desire or need for the current forms of religion which, themselves, stubbornly refuse to evolve according to the natural, universal laws of nature.  These, then, do their best to halt evolution - intellectual and spiritual evolution - but at best all they can do is to retard and pervert that evolution which will continue no matter what, for evolution and change are an essential facet of nature and life.

There are also the unorthodox religious organizations of the Judeo-Christian culture, roughly and perversely based upon the original teachings of Judaism and Christianity, and some of these are politically and financially powerful.  Essentially they would like to keep things as they have been because they have learned to profit tremendously from the current state of affairs, and their profit is at the expense of the health of society and the individuals that compose society.  These organizations, fundamentally parasitic, are not satisfied with maintaining the current stagnation, but wish to reconstruct society so that they can better and more completely dominate the masses and profit from that domination.  They not only seek to inhibit intellectual and spiritual evolution, to retard it, but they are also moving towards devolution - attempting to move in reverse along the evolutionary path.  This, of course, again is destined to failure as the natural course of evolution is forward and the natural course is inevitably the strongest.  However, in the process of attempting to defeat nature, the universe, i.e. GOD and the ways of God, a great deal of discord and disharmony is created.  Evolution, while it cannot be halted, can be retarded and perverted.  Just as a great river cannot be completely stopped from flowing, evolution can be damned, controlled in unnatural ways, and the flow can be diverted.  While this may have beneficial results when we are talking about rivers, the results in regards to evolutionary flow is another matter entirely since the flow is towards a complete union, or reuinon, of humankind and GOD.  Therefore, those orthodox and unorthodox religious organizations of the Judeo-Christian culture which are essentially inhibiting, retarding and trying to halt the progress of evolution are leading us away from, keeping us from, GOD, which they hypocritically claim to be trying to steer us towards.

Is there a genuine conspiracy behind the hysteria of a great satanic conspiracy?

In a manner of speaking, yes.  Oh, it is not terribly well organized.  A small body of individuals representing various religious organizations, television networks, and the like, do not sit around a table and plan world domination.  However, such things as the current wave of hysteria serve the purpose of many who thrive upon the current societal level, and they naturally wish to continue surviving, thriving, and thus do not wish to see any substantial change take place that might cause humanity to evolve out of the desire and the need for them.  Whether we are talking about Fundamentalist [pseudo-]Christianity or "reality based" television talk shows, they are profiting from the hysteria and wish to continue to profit.  To this end they will do whatever it takes to maintain the current status quo, even if it means the invention and spreading of lies.  And a factor that makes it difficult to sometimes reveal those lies is that they themselves may have talked themselves into believing the lies or believing that the lies serve God in some way.  Unwilling to face the truth of themselves, they desperately cling to the belief that what they are doing and saying is for the greater good of all and to serve God.