|
Post by dem bones on Feb 27, 2009 9:26:40 GMT
The Strange Case Of The Survivor Syndrome Sub-Genre Cover artwork: Nun - Haxan c.1922 AB SVENSK FILMINDUSTRI: Tentacles - Planet Earth Productions "Tales of sex and devil worship put 19th century runaway nuns in the spotlight. BRIAN REGAL gives chase. The nuns' modern day counterparts, BOB RICKARD finds, are the alien abduction of Satanic abuse survivors who seek media attention" - Fortean Times # 87 (June, 1996) I always went a bundle on Black Magic 'non-fiction', and I'd read books by Kevin Logan and John Parker which, in their very different ways, referenced this strange sub-genre, but it wasn't until Bob Rickards article in Fortean Times that I gave a thought to the 'Satanic Survivor' industry. Cue several visits to a Christian bookshop on the Holborn viaduct, greedily seeking out copies of the ones with the best covers, as it seemed the more sensational the artwork (and title) - the better chance of cheap and nasty thrills! How right I was! Unfortunately, my enthusiasm for the subject was a short-lived thing. It wasn't that the books were much of a muchness, more "certain things were going on in my life just then", and many were bloodlessly sacrificed to the charity shop during a much-regretted book purge. It's only very recently i've started trying to get hold of them again. Mike Warnke & David Balsiger's inevitably 'controversial' best-seller The Satan Seller (Bridge, 1972: Logos International, 1973), reveals that, prior to his incarnation as "America's most popular Christian comedian", Mr. Warnke was a drug addict, "recruited into a satanic ring where he quickly rose to the position of high priest overseeing bizarre rituals and orgies". His claims have since been challenged and aggressively so by Christian journalists Jon Trott & Mike Hertenstein ( The Tragic History of Mike Warnke). To my great shame, The Satan Seller was one of the titles deemed surplus to requirements - it's actually indispensable! Warke to the contrary, in my limited experience of the survivor books, pamphlets and related material, the one-who-lived-to-tell-the-tale is almost invariably a young woman. Otherwise, the experiences of Dorothy Irvine, Audrey Harper and tragic suicide victim Caroline "Hannah" Marchant ("I Sacrificed My Babies To Satan: From Sex Orgy To Death At The Hands Of The Devil's disciples" - thank you, the Sunday People) read uncannily like a variation on Warnke's blueprint. Our heroine falls into the clutches of 'a bad lot', immediately becomes a prostitute, drug addict and the country's leading 'High Priestess' of Black Magic, witnesses, and sometimes admits to participation in, something really horrible (child sacrifice is popular, but many draw the line at animal cruelty!). Having reached her nadir, heroine-victim discovers Jesus, finds sympathetic Evangelist to write her life story - paying particular attention to the more sinful and degrading experiences - and all served up as a warning to the reader not to make the same mistakes she did. Book attains respectable-huge sales, celebrity survivor does the round of Talk Shows and Christian Alliance guest spots ...... and then some investigative occult author has to go and spoil things, point out that there is not a shred of evidence to substantiate her lurid stories, to which the Christian Right respond with dark mutterings of said whistle-blower's "hidden agenda". I've no axe to grind in this, not being over-fond of Satanists or the Christian Right as a rule, but have to say i'm inclined to take the detractors side over that of the attention seekers/ survivors [delete as you see fit] and their supporters. That said, being a shallow bastard, I tend to approach most occult 'non-fiction' in the same spirit i would a racy Dennis Wheatley black magic thriller, and on that level i've found From Witchcraft To Christ, Dance With The Devil and certain chapters of Andrew Boyd's investigation into the murky world of Satanic Abuse strangely enjoyable. If anyone has survived this post and remains the least interested, other titles you might like to consider include: Dr. Lawrence Pazder & Michelle Smith Michelle Remembers (Congdon & Lattes, 1980) Michael Esses - Michael, Michael, Why Do You Hate Me? (Logos International, 1973) Lauren Stratford - Satan's Underground (Harvest House, 1988) Judith Spencer - Suffer the Child (Pocket, 1989) Bob Larson - The Seduction of America’s Youth. (Thomas Nelson Press, 1989) Andrew Boyd - Blasphemous Rumours: Is Satanic Ritual Abuse Fact or Fantasy? - An Investigation (HarperCollins, 1992) And the first that came to mind from a detractor's viewpoint: John Parker - At The Heart Of Darkness (Sidgwick & Jackson 1993)
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Mar 9, 2009 14:53:22 GMT
Dorothy Irvine - From Witchcraft To Christ: My True-Life Story (Concordia, 1973) "As 'Daring Diana' she followed a life of prostitution, strip-tease, drink, drugs - and eventually witchcraft, where she became Queen of Black Witches. When freed from her sordid life and the power of demons, she became known as a trophy of grace." Sweet Jesus! I always figured Satanists were depraved, but I never for one second imagined .... I noticed many posters displayed in prominent places, unusual posters. "Come and hear Eric Hutchings at the Colston Hall," read one. "Thousands hear, hear you too," proclaimed another. Yet the posters didn't say who Eric Hutchings was or why he was coming to Bristol. There was only a picture of his face. At first glance I surmised he was an all-in wrestler. I was puzzled and determined to find out just who he was. I marched into the Information bureau, followed by my giggling friends. "Who is Eric Hutchings?" I asked the woman behind the counter. "I haven't the faintest idea," she replied. "Someone must know," I insisted, explaining about the many posters I'd seen. "I do believe he is an evangelist or a preacher of some sort," spoke up another woman. I nearly fainted. Oh no! Not again. I couldn't get away from them. "As if we haven't got enough preachers in Bristol without him poking his nose in." I was angry and raised my voice in protest. By this time I had a small audience who were amused, if a little puzzled, by my outburst. "Come on, girls. Let's get out of here." They duly followed me, in fits of laughter. "As my giggling friends watched, I proceeded to pull down every Eric Hutchings poster I could find. I was conducting my own crusade as champion poster-puller. "Has everyone gone crazy in this city of churches?" I was saying. "Has everyone got religious mania?" Much to my astonishment just a few days later even more posters had been put up. It seemed that six replaced each one I had removed. My anger flared again, but I changed my tactics. Instead of pulling down the posters, I drew a big bushy beard on the face of Eric Hutchings, or a huge handlebar mustache, much to the delight of my friends. (from the culmination of the terrifying Chapter 13: No Way Out. Relax, she gets "Out" in Chapter 14, so no harm done.) I'll say one thing for Satanism. It's a piece of piss to become the King or Queen of it, or at least, it is if books like this (and there are legion) are anything to go by. It's always amazed me that people who peddle their survival stories are never the coven dogsbody, but always the monarch of all the country's Satanists or High Priest/ Priestess at the very least, though I suspect this is often news to their dastardly subjects. Obviously, their dark doings are miles too evil to tell you about so they don't bother - there's just the occasional reminder of how evil they were: "I know that witchcraft is real. Was I not at the top as queen of black witches?" as Dozzer puts it - but becoming #1 doesn''t seem to require any time or effort, so you can forget old fogey Dennis Wheatley and his "lifetime of serious study" nonsense. The fact that my copy is an eighteenth printing from September, 1988, suggests they shifted a few copies of this. As Mick Mercer once said: I shake my head even as I type ...
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Mar 9, 2009 15:09:13 GMT
I'm glad I wasn't drinking when I read this or you might have had something on your conscience by now, Dem!
Love it.
David
PS re the piece of piss business, I received a letter donkeys years ago offering me the opportunity of being made high priest of some Odinist group. They even sent me a copy of a magazine they produced. I threw it away long ago but I think it was called Raven Banner - or something like that. I never replied, highly tempted though I was at rising so quickly in their ranks!
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Mar 9, 2009 17:34:09 GMT
Some might call it a lucky escape, but all I see is missed opportunity. You could have joined, got up to not very much, had your road to Damascus-instant conversion moment when it got boring and written your own best-selling 'Satanic Survivor' blockbuster. Actually, you probably still could. From what I've seen of the genre, hands on involvement probably isn't entirely necessary .... You can't know how sorely tempting it is to drop what I consider to be the undisputed classic in the field on the board, but it would cause too much trouble, so please do not identify author, book or members of the cast if you recognise them. Suffice to say, we are asked to believe by the 'victim's biographer, that his innocent wife-to-be was lured into a Satanic Lodge where she made the usual world record meteoric rise through the ranks to become their 'High Priestess', etc., etc. Apparently, the long-term plan was to have her give birth to Anti-Christ (probably a lousy excuse on behalf of the Cult's leader to impress upon his wife the necessity of giving the new recruit a serious seeing to). Despite the mandatory prostitution, the animal sacrifice, the profanation of the sacred host, the black sorcery, the "lesbian dancing" and some chubby fellow trying to force a black candle up her bum, still our heroine, a woman of "above average intelligence", didn't realise until it was too late that her nice new friends were anything other than white witches performing benevolent spells to heal a neighbour's sick calf and the like. Enter heroic husband on a white charger at the eleventh hour, etc. Of course, certain critics can be uncharitable and, when it was pointed out that, you can be as reformed as you like, but you'd still have to have been either twisted or very, very stupid to allow anyone to talk you into becoming a pet-slaughtering hooker and novelty candelabrum in the first place, the author did an about face and threatened 'litigation' if anyone so much as repeated these vindictive untruths. His wife had somehow become a 'High Priestess' without ever indulging in the nasty business that was so mandatory to other members of the crew, it seems. Some Satanic Lodge they must have been. Have not read this in years and might be getting it mixed up with a similar offering, but I think we can safely anticipate more of the same To The Devil - A Daughter histrionics in: Audrey Harper with Harry Pugh - Dance With The Devil (Kingsway, 1990) Foreword by Geoffrey Dickens, MP A Young Woman Struggles to escape the coven's curseBack cover blurb: She was the Devil's dancing partner, and he wasn't going to let her go without a struggle.
For years Audrey carried a dark secret. Anyone could see she was a drug addict; some knew about the stealing and the degrading life she'd led. But she could tell no one, not even those closest to her, about the coven and the horrors she had witnessed there.
Now Audrey tells her story, providing evidence of the reported rise in ritual and sexual abuse among adults and children today. The cold fear that once held her in the depths of misery has gone. Dance with the Devil reveals why, and offers hope to those influenced by Satanism — as well as help to those who fight against it.
'The occult is hurting so many — including children. Audrey's honest and powerful story helps us to hear the cries of the victims and to understand what is really going on' - Kevin Logan author of Paganism and the Occult
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Sept 27, 2012 7:41:57 GMT
Brian Greenaway - Hell's Angel (Lion, 1985: originally 1982) Blurb: Brian Greenaway was president of a Hell.s Angel chapter. He was violent, full of hate, deeply into drugs. Then, in Dartmoor Prison, he had an experience which changed his life. In this powerful, real-life book he tells his story."How could someone as rotten as me have a relationship with God?" No Satanic interludes in Brian Greenaway's famous autobiography, but it follows the Dorothy Irvine model in so many other respects, i've included it here rather than the Agro Gallery. The wonderful comic book adaptation (Christian Publicity Organisation, undated: artist uncredited) was given me by a kindly Post Office chaplain after mischievous colleagues tipped him off that I was a "vampire."
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jun 13, 2018 9:59:03 GMT
Thanks to Justin Marriott for providing the following scans. 2 X Satanic Survivors .... Audrey Harper - Deliverance Means Love (Kingsway, 1992) "How to love people away from the devil" - by one who's been there (although some Pagan's dispute that she actually has, but we suspect they're still sore that she escaped their coven of horrors! See also Dorothy Irvine's From Witchcraft To Christ and derivatives). Cover unforgivably low key. Nicky Cruz - Satan On The Loose (Lakeland, 1974 [?]). "Lifting the lid off respectable society" by the author of Run, Baby Run, Devil on the Run, The Corruptors, Armageddon By Morning, & Co. Probably not a survivor testimony per se, though earlier works are. Bob, the Royal Mail chaplain (East London Chapter) who very kindly provided me with the Brian Greenaway comic, spoke highly of this fellow. ..... And a pair of all-action Exorcists! Trevor Dearing (with Dan Wooding) - Exit The Devil (Logos Publishing International, 1976) By the author of Junkies Are People Too, England's Exorcist Tells About Supernatural Powers, Uganda Holocaust and Rick Wakeman, The Caped Crusader. Marc Alexander - The Devil Hunter: The Incredible Account Of The Work Of A Modern-day Exorcist (Sphere, 1981). Mark 'Plague Pit' Ronson meets the Rev. Dr. Donald Omand, Britains busiest celebrity exorcist!
|
|
|
Post by helrunar on Jun 28, 2019 22:26:37 GMT
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jun 29, 2019 19:55:52 GMT
Not sure if this excellent read qualifies as SSF but it sure is a book for our times - or seems that way to me. Francis Hill - A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of The Salem Witch Trials (Hamish Hamilton, 1996) Blurb: " Her [Francis Hill's] carefully researched and compelling account helps us to enter Salem life in such a way that the protagonists become real individuals with mundane problems and frustrations familiar to each one of us. As we read, we learn how boredom, envy, a sense of injustice or of being marginalized — trivial ills that we have all experienced — can fester and explode into a destructive violence that assumes truly diabolic proportions’ — from Karen Armstrong's introduction to A Delusion of Satan
" . . . in her fascinating and disturbing chronicle of the witch-hunt . . . Frances Hill offers an important lesson about the tragic consequences of intolerance and religious fanaticism that is just as relevant today" - Boston Globe
"Impeccably researched and intelligently written . . . A Delusion of Satan is an informative, fascinating, depiction of mass hysteria" — Los Angeles Times
|
|
|
Post by cauldronbrewer on Jun 30, 2019 12:35:01 GMT
Not sure if this excellent read qualifies as SSF but it sure is a book for our times - or seems that way to me. Francis Hill - A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of The Salem Witch Trials (Hamish Hamilton, 1996) I read this one when I went through a Salem witchcraft trial phase about 15 years ago. I also visited the town itself a couple of times, including once on Halloween (during a rainy afternoon, so it wasn't that lively). Shirley Jackson wrote a book on the topic, The Witchcraft of Salem Village, which I own but haven't read. My wife has a copy of the children's novel The Witch of Blackbird's Pond, another book I should read one of these days.
|
|