Kevin Logan - Satanism & The Occult

[dem bones]

Kevin Logan - Satanism & The Occult: Today's Dark Revolution (Kingsway, 1994).

Foreword by David Alton, MP

Part 1 - The Problem
Part 2 - Some Solutions

Blurb:

Are we really to take seriously the news that possibly thousands of intelligent adults in our nation are in league with the devil and believe in witchcraft, magic and even human sacrifice?
Vicar and author-journalist Kevin Logan knows too many victims of the occult not to take some of the reports very seriously indeed. Avoiding fanciful dramatics on the one hand and a dangerous complacency on the other, he tells us the truth based on his own and others' careful research, and gives guidelines for those who wish to help victims and see society change for the better.

'Sadly, despite years of warnings, the church appears ill-prepared to handle the occult explosion, and often resorts to indifference or denial as a response. The government's attitude is no better. I believe this book will be a valuable contribution to the process of altering such views.' - David Alton, MP

In 1994 News Of The World ran a mini-series, Sin, Sex And Satanism 'exposing' a number of fellows they'd already outed twenty years earlier. You might think these guys would be wary of talking to journalists by now but, evidently, nothing could be further from the truth. A lot of it was pretty dodgy (the NOTW seem to have difficulty understanding that Paganism and Wicca are entirely different beliefs to Satanism): one laughable episode saw three of their female reporters masquerading as schoolgirls to entrap poor old Raymond Bogart, a man who believes himself to be possessed of a "third eye" (must have been on the blink that day) who tried to make them a present of a home made dildo. Another serial interviewee apparently admitted that he passed on the task of sexually initiating women into his group if they were "ugly," allowing a minion the dubious pleasure because "I'm only human."

Shortly afterwards, much of this material resurfaced in Rev. Kevin Logan of the Evangelical Alliance's Satanism & The Occult. To be fair Logan was appalled at the media hounding of Bogart, and you can sense he's trying to be as even-handed as his belief system allows. Trouble is, on occasion he relies heavily on material supplied by others, one of whom, a walking fancy dress party notorious for telling flame grilled whoppers about anyone who doesn't recognise him as God's spiritual advisor, is responsible for a deplorable slur on a bunch of young Goths whose 'sin' is a fondness for dressing up like something out of Dracula And The Virgins of the Undead.

Other than the Logan's eye view of the media, my favourite chapter is Revolution In The Arndale, Rev. Kev takes a stroll around the shopping arcade and finds occult symbolism coming at him from every which way, in particular "the Music/ Tape shop".

"Records, CD's, tapes and tee-shirts are shot through with the occult. It started as far back as the Beatles who included the bald head of Aleister Crowley on their sixties album Sergeant Pepper ... ..." "Unfortunately, to compile a complete A-Z of horrid pop bands would require an entire book, so Logan has to content himself with just the 'A's which must have really pissed off all the B-Z's. The lion's share goes to Abaddon of Venom (!), but Logan is also upset that "Alien Sex Fiend are delighted to announce in their RIP album that they're "feeling zombified" and are "dead and reburied" .... Atomic Rooster assure their congregation that "the Devil hits back." Psychic TV fans needn't feel unfairly dismissed as plastic Satanists because Gen and the Temple Ov Psychick Youth get a page to themselves in the round up of worldwide evil organisations. But then again, so do the Vampyre Society ....

Part Two, 'Some Solutions', well ... I'm sure his heart is in the right place, but his guides to DIY Deliverance and the dubious advice on 'counselling' others into sharing your Christian beliefs is where my own tolerance level ..... gave out.

[lovecraftian]

Ah. David Alton was a devout Catholic as well as an Member of Parliament. Kevin Logan was an evangelical Anglican vicar.  Both from north west England.  Both happy to promote their own brand of religion by targeting others as 'the enemy within'. I first saw Kevin Logan on TV around 1984 in a programme called 'Lucifer Over Lancashire' which took in the Pendle witches and modern pagans, and spoke to KL as an interested party.  I think he was involved in the Reachout Trust to rescue pagans from their 'cults'?  Their publicity must have worked wonders for the sale of Wheatley-styled books.

[David A. Riley]

I remember Kevin Logan too. He was always banging on about the dangers of the occult in our local newspapers years ago. Haven't heard of him for years. A real blast from the past!

[andydecker]

Jan 2, 2017 16:01:27 GMT lovecraftian said:

Both happy to promote their own brand of religion by targeting others as 'the enemy within'. 

And it still works 40 years later  Thank God I am Atheist, as Dave Allen used to say.

[dem bones]

Lancashire is a county in northwest England. Pendle Hill in Lancashire was the site of the famous 17th century Pendle witch trials, which resulted in 11 people being hanged for witchcraft, some of whom had freely confessed to selling their souls to the devil. In this period, Lancashire had a large number of witch trials relative to the rest of England. Today, Pendle's tourist industry is largely based around a witch motif. In the 1980s a local vicar attempted to have a large cross erected on Pendle Hill to stave off what he saw as an epidemic of devil worshipers there; he was denied a permit, but the episode was the basis of a 1987 BBC documentary called Lucifer Over Lancashire, named after the Fall song. The vicar, one Reverend Kevin Logan, claimed that there were around 30 covens of witches in the vicinity of Pendle Hill, and to this day many local Christians see the area as a hotbed of devil worship, perhaps influenced in part by an image that is embraced by local business as a source of tourist revenue.

"It was broadcast on BBC on 30 March 1987 7:40PM, as part of the 'Open Space' series. It focused on Rev. Kevin Logan of Accrington, and his fears about witchcraft in his area (close to Pendle)."

Various contributors to The Annotated Fall re Lucifer over Lancashire (they might have mentioned the title's similarity to Lewis Spence's Nazi Occultist story, Lucifer Over London which, from what we know of his interests, MES may well have been aware of.