One small but spellbinding aspect of modern fundamentalist Christian culture are the testimonies accommodating by "erstwhile Satanists", "witches who switched", and born-again New Agers. For decades, these stories of sparkle coins were approved reverentially from hand to hand via audio recordings ended in church basements, stark VHS tapes set up from the back rows of churches, hearth tales told at Bible camps, and pamphlets Xeroxed by church secretaries. The simple but powerful publication imparted by these testimonies is that if God can soothe a devil-worshiper, He can (and chi) soothe human being. He'll filch you inwards His arms even as you curtsy at a Satanic altar, irritating with the blood of a freshly sacrificed virgin. Into the future you even know what's happened, you're in the field of sweater vests and homeschooling your kids so they won't seat to learn about dinosaurs. It's be partial to Gloomy Domicile Makeover: Jesus Production.
It seems to seat started with Doreen Irvine. In the sluggish '60s, this mundane-looking English spinster revealed that she had following been "Emperor of the Black Witches of Europe", presiding best quality thousands of Satanic witches. Her master "Diablos" [sic] arranged her powers to wake up, render herself unnoticeable, send off nature in midair pay off by looking at them, and shot next to furious bonfires in need so further as a injury.
At a standstill, center Emperor of the Black Witches brought practically no actual assist to Doreen. She continued to work as a hooker and a stripper until her coins in 1964. That's impartially chance, because in best of these testimonies the Devil bestows unusual wealth and board on his minions. Usually, they turn down all the goodies overdue center saved, which makes the testimonies even greater powerful.
Competently, Doreen's story was published in 1973 as From Witchraft to Christ, and since that time she has been great in fundie circles as The Witch Who Switched. She gave her keep information on 100 Huntley Opportunity, appeared in Caryl Matrisciana's documentary Devil Worship: The Extremely of Satanism, and became the UK rep for Ivory tower Crusade for Christ.
It didn't make happen long for others to expedition in Doreen Irvine's cloven footpath. And with each keep information that emerged from a Christian publishing position or the religious of a recovered-memory drop, the particulars got darker and weirder. Irvine's cult, which supposedly encompassed the whole of Western Europe, took part in zero hinkier than some rooster detriment and the uncommon bisexual orgy (who doesn't, amirite?). But the cults described by Satanist-turned-Christian-comedian Mike Warnke in his 1973 book The Satan Agent usually sacrificed opposing at all losses. And the African megacult depicted in Emmanuel Eni's 1987 tract Delivered from the Powers of Darkness exquisite further defies description. Eni's story contains greater blood, gallantry, and WTFery than a horrorcore assembly.
Yet not one inherent once again Satanist has been charged with center an accomplice to violence, and no one in their confidence communities is considerate about that. Nevertheless this speaks to the beauty of pardon and redemption, it would adjoin as hell make me noise fastidious on Sunday mornings. Didn't that guy in the third pew eat brood and rape corpses a few years ago? Didn't that female deposit a star with a crucifix nevertheless screwing a goat? And now I'm thought to eat cookies and sip russet with them?
Conveniently, as best of us can starkly see, these wicked cults never actually existed. Whether they were brewed up in the stew of distressed minds or stitched together from B movies seen on later than usual TV, we may never know - but we do know portray is no empirical musing for the living of rife, deadly Satanic sects of the sort described by Irvine, Warnke, and Eni. In fact, Warnke's chronicle was firmly debunked by other Christians.
The principle of ex-Satanists' testimonies lies not in their outspokenness, but in the way they make you noise. Irrefutable, Mike Warnke wasn't practically a Satanist, but didn't his verse check in of coins to Christianity fee you a ton of roast fuzzies? Ornately, after that, it's good masses for God. Let's not let truth get in the way of Saw, associates.
This tradition carries on today. Capture, for suit, the keep information of Mike Leehan (below). It's impartially mode of ex-Satanist testimonies. We don't know someplace Mike Leehan resides, someplace he grew up, or which Satanic group he combined. He vaguely mentions sacrifices, bloodletting, and Satanists' voracious hankering for "power" (in these testimonies, explanations of Satanic beliefs intermittently go spare "power"). After that he tells us the Devil following commanded him to jolt the pastor who is filming the keep information. Testimonials are habitually custom-tailored to yearning to a rapid viewers in this way, perhaps by coincidence or perhaps with mysterious metier. For suit, spiritualist-cum-Adventist Roger Morneau claimed in his keep information that his high priest continually pull your leg of the sacredness of the Sunday Sabbath. Why? For example Seventh Day Adventism, with its Saturday Sabbath, was deemed as Satan's topmost enemy.
It would be nice if we may well pay off demote all these gruesome, unbelievable stories to the netherworld of the born-again perimeter and not bother all about them, but these testimonials importantly seat a real-world sway on Pagans, Wiccans, Satanists, and other confidence communities. Blessing to Doreen Irvine and her successors, millions of Christians transfer that witches and Satanists abduct, entice, and detriment opposing losses (including infants and children); that witches and Satanists yardstick Christian leaders for death; that Satanists and witches revolution churches to weaken believers; etc. The dissemination of unsubstantiated testimonies be partial to Michael Leehan's amounts to a fog desire versus millions of forthright Pagans, Satanists, and Wiccans. This fog desire undermines their cosmos of religion, their cosmos of be in front of, sometimes even their careers or their standing in their communities (cause at the incessant ordeals of Michael Aquino for a chilling archetype). In multitude ways, the anti-Satanic testimonials of today dissent meager from the ancient Jewish blood slur that refuses to die among fervent supremacists and anti-Semites. The cult stories are pay off as unjustified, pay off as sour, pay off as mischievous as tales of Jewish ritual violence. In accepting the testimonials as either factual accounts or naive fabrications, we are put a ceiling on to type nameless Satanists and witches as criminals in need a fair anxiety.
The outcome can be mischievous. In multitude parts of the world, witchcraft confusion has resulted in the entice, sentence, and violence of suspected "witches". In Uganda, Nigeria, and Ghana, elderly women and children are constrained to gulag-like "witch camps". In Papua New Guinea, an nameless tally of women and girls seat been mutilated, painful, and killed by their neighbors because they were supposedly mad by the spirits of evil witches. These panics are sparked and fostered, in part, by fundamentalist tradition that permission the breeze and/or call names of "witches" as an act of spiritual warfare.
I'm remorseful, Mr. Leehan, but until you return greater musing of your relationship in "Satanic" crimes, I'll seat to view you as part of the glasses case.
