“When you once believed something that now strikes you as absurd, even unhinged, it can be almost impossible to summon that feeling of credulity again. Maybe that is why it is easier for most of us to forget, rather than to try and explain, the Satanic-abuse scare that gripped this country in the early 80's -- the myth that Devil-worshipers had set up shop in our day-care centers, where their clever adepts were raping and sodomizing children, practicing ritual sacrifice, shedding their clothes, drinking blood and eating feces, all unnoticed by parents, neighbors and the authorities.
Of course, if you were one of the dozens of people prosecuted in these cases, one of those who spent years in jails and prisons on wildly implausible charges, one of those separated from your own children, forgetting would not be an option. You would spend the rest of your life wondering what hit you, what cleaved your life into the before and the after, the daylight and the nightmare.”
-- Margaret Talbot, The Devil in the Nursery
1) Michelle Remembers by Michele Smith and Lawrence Pazder, M.D.
The pitch:
“For over one year, [Dr. Lawrence] Pazder listened as…Michele [Smith] painfully divulged the incredible story. Her mother had been forced by a group of prosperous Satanists to yield Michelle for use in their most important ritual. They tried in vain to convert her to evil, using both torture and cruel psychological manipulation.”
About:
“A best-seller, Michelle Remembers was the first book written on the subject of satanic ritual abuse ... The book has been discredited by several investigations which found no corroboration of the book's events, while others have pointed out that the events described in the book were extremely unlikely and in some cases impossible.
“[After publication of Michelle Remembers] Pazder was considered to be an expert in the area of satanic ritual abuse. …In 1984, Pazder acted as a consultant in the McMartin preschool trial which featured allegations of satanic ritual abuse.” -- Wikipedia
Sample passage:
“The others started doing this funny dance, and the nurse was doing it with them. She would bend down and walk in a slinky way, as if she were a cat, and then she would jump up and turn around, and then she would walk like a cat again, holding her kitten in her arms. Then Michelle got very scared, because they bent and took the kittens in their teeth, holding the cats by the napes of their necks. And then Michelle started screaming, because now they were biting the kittens in their teeth, chewing at their paws to make them come free, stopping only spit out the hair. Then they rubbed themselves with the cats’ blood, slowly, as they continued their catlike dance.”
2) The Satan Seller by Mike Warnke
The pitch:
"A former Satanist high priest reveals the demonic forces behind the fastest-growing and most deadly occult religion in the world."
About:
“After he got famous, I always wanted to write him a letter and say, ‘Mike, remember me? The one you gave the silver cross to? When were you able to have this coven of fifteen hundred people? Don’t you remember, about the most exciting thing we used to do was play croquet in Greg’s backyard?’ ” -- Dyana Cridelich, friend of Mike Warnke
“A generation of Christians learned its basic concepts of Satanism and the occult from Mike Warnke’s testimony in The Satan Seller… We believe The Satan Seller has been responsible, more than any other single volume in the Christian market, for promoting the current nationwide ‘Satanism scare.’
“After our lengthy investigation into his background, we found discrepancies that raise serious doubts about the trustworthiness of [Warnke’s] testimony.” -- Selling Satan: The Tragic History of Mike Warnke
Sample passage:
Background: Drug use and moral conflict over his actions as a Satanic high priest have led formerly mild-mannered college student Mike Warnke to become increasingly paranoid. Here he takes out his stress on his church-provided sex slaves.
“‘Where's my fix?'
'We're still looking for it,' Carmen answered. 'Where did you put the speed?'
'Speed? I don't want speed. The H.'
'H?' They looked at each other grimly. 'You don't have any--'
'The hell I don't. I picked some up yesterday. It's stashed in the sugar can in the kitchen cabinet. Why don't you chicks use your damn heads?' I jumped out of bed and grabbed them by the hair and knocked their heads together. 'You just need some sense knocked into you.' I laughed. 'Now, split.'
They rushed off, crying, to the kitchen."
3) Jay's Journal by Anonymous (Edited by Dr. Beatrice Sparks)
The pitch:
"Jay was a nice, bright high school kid who cared about good grades, good friends, and good times... When a charismatic friend lured him into a nightmare world of the occult, Jay couldn't handle it... Only in the pages of his journal could Jay express the dark forces that led to his suicide."
About:
"Beatrice Sparks…is known for producing books purporting to be the 'real diaries' of troubled teenagers [most famously Go Ask Alice]. Although Sparks always presents herself as merely the discoverer and editor of the diaries, records at the U.S. Copyright Office show that in fact she is listed as the sole author for all but two of them.
“[Jay's Journal] is based on 'true' events of 16-year-old Alden Barrett from Pleasant Grove, Utah, who committed suicide in 1971. According to a book written by Barrett's brother Scott … Sparks used roughly 25 entries of 212 total from Barrett's actual journal. The other entries were fictional…" -- Wikipedia
Sample passage:
"When I found out Tina was having our wedding in the cemetery, by the big tomb, I about died. It was like making a mockery of the whole thing. I knew we'd invited only the kids connected with O and it was to be part of the sacred ancient sacrament but... Anyway, it was fantastic! …we each cut our tongues and let the blood pour into each other's mouths. It was Nirvana. We were one! One blood, one toucla, one being!
When the chanting started Martin brought in a teensy mewing kitten. With one twist he wrung its little neck. Instantly we all put forth every gram of power at our command to bring it back to life again, that being the supreme taloa.
I don't know how the others felt but I concentrated until I thought my whole being was going to detonate, then I relaxed ... calling the cat's karma ... magnetizing its karma...but in vain, we had not yet advanced to that plane.
In a way the stilled kitten ruined the evening."
4) Satan's Underground by Lauren Stratford
The pitch:
“As a child, Lauren Stratford lived the agony of being trapped between two worlds - the outside world of school, church, and friends, where everything appeared normal, and the inner world of a twisted, satanic nightmare, where mind control, fear, and ritualistic child abuse were her constant companions.”
About:
“Lauren Stratford's story…became one of the key sources for promoting, perpetuating, and validating the satanic ritual abuse (SRA), ‘adult survivor,’ and ‘repressed memories’ hysteria that peaked in the early 1990s.
“In the years since the discrediting of Satan's Underground, Lauren developed a new story. …Lauren Stratford became Laura Grabowski, child survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a Polish Jew who was experimented on by the infamous Dr. Joseph Mengele, liberated to a Krakow orphanage at the end of the war, brought to the United States, and adopted by a Gentile couple at age nine or ten.” -- Lauren Stratford: From Satanic Ritual Abuse to Jewish Holocaust Survivor
Sample Passage:
“It was a Saturday night. Sometimes around midnight, I was rudely awakened. Before me was a large barrel, like an oil drum. I was lifted up and dropped into the barrel, and a lid was closed over my head. The darkness was total. And the silence.
A few minutes later, the lid was opened and something was dropped on top of me. As it slid down my skin, another something was dropped on me…and another…maybe three or four. The last object was positioned directly in front of me, on top of my stomach. Then the lid was slammed shut. Again, there was only darkness…and silence.
There was a smell. A horrible smell. What could it be? With so little room in my small prison, I slowly maneuvered my arms and hands above my knees so I could grasp the last object that was put in…
Slowly, fearfully I touched the object that was pressing against my stomach. It took only a few seconds to realize it was a small body. A baby’s body. It was lifeless, but not stiff. It had probably been sacrificed that evening, just a short time before.”
5) The Haunted by Robert Curren with Jack & Janet Smurl and Ed & Lorraine Warren
The pitch:
“You are holding in your hands perhaps the most shocking, terrifying, unforgettable story of demonic infestation ever told. And it’s true.”
About:
“[Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine] Warrens' most famous case, the Amityville Horror, has been thoroughly investigated by other researchers and revealed to have most likely been a complete hoax.
Sample Passage:
“It was a Saturday night. Sometimes around midnight, I was rudely awakened. Before me was a large barrel, like an oil drum. I was lifted up and dropped into the barrel, and a lid was closed over my head. The darkness was total. And the silence.
A few minutes later, the lid was opened and something was dropped on top of me. As it slid down my skin, another something was dropped on me…and another…maybe three or four. The last object was positioned directly in front of me, on top of my stomach. Then the lid was slammed shut. Again, there was only darkness…and silence.
There was a smell. A horrible smell. What could it be? With so little room in my small prison, I slowly maneuvered my arms and hands above my knees so I could grasp the last object that was put in…
Slowly, fearfully I touched the object that was pressing against my stomach. It took only a few seconds to realize it was a small body. A baby’s body. It was lifeless, but not stiff. It had probably been sacrificed that evening, just a short time before.”
5) The Haunted by Robert Curren with Jack & Janet Smurl and Ed & Lorraine Warren
The pitch:
“You are holding in your hands perhaps the most shocking, terrifying, unforgettable story of demonic infestation ever told. And it’s true.”
About:
“[Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine] Warrens' most famous case, the Amityville Horror, has been thoroughly investigated by other researchers and revealed to have most likely been a complete hoax.
“Renowned horror author Ray Garton gave an interview … discussing his experience with Ed and Lorraine Warren while he wrote a reputedly ‘non-fiction’ book titled Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting. The book is an account of the alleged haunting of the Snedeker family in Southington, Connecticut. Ray Garton discussed how during the process of developing the book he became increasingly frustrated, as the family could not keep their story straight, when he confronted Ed Warren about his frustrations Ed told him ‘not to worry,’ that the family was ‘crazy’ and that ‘all the people who come to us are crazy. You think sane people would come to us?’ Ed Warren also advised Ray to ‘just make the story up using whatever details [he] could incorporate into the book, and make it scary.’” -- Wikipedia
Sample passage:
“Q. How would you describe her?
A. [Pause on tape.] To be honest, I even hate to think about her. [Pause again.] Her skin was paper white, but it was covered in some places with the scaly surface I mentioned, and then in other places with open sores, the kind you’d think a leper would have or something. And these sores were running with pus.
Q. How old was she?
A. I would estimate around sixty-five or seventy. I can’t be sure. …She had long, white, scraggly hair and her eyes were all red and the inside of her mouth and her gums were green…
Q. What about her body?
A. That was the weird thing. Her body itself was firm, you know, like that of a younger woman.
Q. What did she do?
A. [Long pause.] She paralyzed me in some way. I saw her walking out of the shadows to our bed and I sensed what she was going to do but I couldn’t stop her.
Q. Then what?
A. Then she mounted me in the dominant position and she started riding me. That’s the only way I can describe it.”
----
Sample passage:
“Q. How would you describe her?
A. [Pause on tape.] To be honest, I even hate to think about her. [Pause again.] Her skin was paper white, but it was covered in some places with the scaly surface I mentioned, and then in other places with open sores, the kind you’d think a leper would have or something. And these sores were running with pus.
Q. How old was she?
A. I would estimate around sixty-five or seventy. I can’t be sure. …She had long, white, scraggly hair and her eyes were all red and the inside of her mouth and her gums were green…
Q. What about her body?
A. That was the weird thing. Her body itself was firm, you know, like that of a younger woman.
Q. What did she do?
A. [Long pause.] She paralyzed me in some way. I saw her walking out of the shadows to our bed and I sensed what she was going to do but I couldn’t stop her.
Q. Then what?
A. Then she mounted me in the dominant position and she started riding me. That’s the only way I can describe it.”
----
*
p.s. Hey. So, the new week kick-starts with this crazily great guest-post from the highly noted writer Natty Soltesz aka the generosity infused d.l. Bacteriaburger, and I surely need not even encourage you to make fast work of it then tell the mastermind what you're thinking. Thank you so much, Mr. B, and, of course, thanks to all of you who do his bidding. Oh, Artforum just put up a piece where my collaborator and great buddy Ishmael Houston-Jones talks about his, Chris Cochrane's, and my upcoming recreation and performances of our 1986 theater collaboration 'Them' at NYC's PS122, if anyone's interested to know more about it. You can find that here. ** Pisycaca, Thanks for the yay, Montse. There's much more of that kind of stuff on the way, for better or worse. Well, your aunt having a brother is something they really can't overlook, right? I really hope that gets settled without much more preoccupation and stress on your part. I bet Argentina is looking pretty idyllic right now. Awesome that you guys got to hook up with Tender Prey and the Wolf. It looks like I'm going to end up missing Bret Ellis' events. Between my obsessive hunkering down with the novel and the fact that it seems to start pounding rain every time one of his gigs is imminent, I've ended up deprived. Oh, well. But this Saturday is Nuit Blanche, my favorite Paris day/night of the year, and I'm super excited for that. Hope the picnic-cum-b'day party was a blast. Love to you guys. ** David Ehrenstein, My only encounter with Harry Smith involved him acting extremely creepy, which I think I've mentioned/ described here before. Thanks a lot for the link re: the new Criterion edition of 'The Thin Red Line'. I'll be ordering that any second. Oh, I'm going to be rewatching Pasolini's 'Pigpen' in the next day or two because it's a reference point in my novel. Do you have any pre-viewing advice or tips for a Pasolini skeptic like me? ** Sypha, Man, I hope the weekend smoothed away some if not all of your headache. How are you? When I finish 'IB', I'll definitely give you my thinking. I only made it through maybe 40 minutes of 'The Fountain' before I had to turn it off. I think Aronofsky's thing is just really not mine. ** Pilgarlic, I can imagine the lovely screwiness that would shape a Halloween parade in Little Five Points. NYC has a wild, mostly gay one, but I'll be sitting on the plane back to Paris when it's happening. And France doesn't do Halloween, the fools, except at Disneyland Paris, and their idea of Halloween is not mine, needless to say. I built those monster models too. I used to turn our basement into haunted houses at the drop of a hat and charge neighborhood kids to survive them. The models helped. Also, my grandmother's profession was taxidermist, and she used to give me her old stuffed coyotes and gila monsters and lions and stuff, so I think my haunted houses were actually borderline terrifying. ** Mark, Hey, Mark. Oh man, if you wouldn't mind doing that, I mean sharing some excerpts from those letters, that would be incredible and would obviously totally make the post I'm starting to build. Yeah, I mean, thank you profusely, if that works out. Or, well, thank you in any case. I'm going to see if I can find that Sharits novel via alibris, etc. Wow. Pinkeye is gruesome. Heavy curative French vibes, man. ** Changeling, Halloween is your birthday? I'm sure you've had to live with horrible related quips re: that all your life. Me, I think it's proof positive of divinity. If I wasn't so skint, you'd have a skyscraper of a box to drag home from the UPS office, man. Me too. Yeah, I want to see your zombie picture. Who wouldn't? I saw your comment in time, and I did cross my fingers for your rehearsal that night, and how did they do? Thanks about the ghost stories. Yeah, seeing them again, I was pretty okay with them. I should do more posts like that. Dude, get some sleep. Are you sleeping yet? My weekend was mostly just me working on my novel. Had dinner with my agent, nice. Got photographed for Butt Magazine, which was almost painless. Tons of rain. It was a fair weekend, I guess, all in all. ** Killer Luka, You should have bagged that Hasidic boy. No, I admire your propriety. One or the other. I used to have this thing where blond Jewish guys were like kryptonite. It wasn't conscious or schematic. Some blond guy would make all wobbly in the knees, and it would inevitably turn out that he was Jewish. Strangest thing or not. I wonder whatever happened to Jason Pickleman. He was deadly. How was it with George? Let me guess, ha ha. ** Oscar B, You back? I think you are. Sorry about the temperature and weather. Winter dropped in while you were gone. I hear your performance killed. Is there video? Let's talk. Six days to Nuit Blanche! ** El Caimán Divino, The only Aronofsky I was able to stand is 'Pi'. And I liked it much more after I saw his later stuff and thought back. Your book really sounds like it's going to be amazing and unlike any book I've read. Man, I'm excited. Have you started yet? If I was a billionaire or close, I'd buy a plot of land somewhere, build a faux-castle or whatever, fill it with Halloween animatrons instead of furniture, and die a very happy man. Sigh. ** Empty Frame, Hey. I did Google 'Lewes Crescent' just now and, oh yeah, very nice environs. Beyond English nails it. Cool that an English guy would think so too. Buckled shoes are so ready for a big comeback. This is fashion week in Paris, so let's see. Have you been able to get back to making art yet? ** Kiddiepunk, You ain't seen nothing yet, babes! ** Ishmael, Ishmael! Dude, you're here. That's so cool. I just linked the folks up to the Artforum thing not fifteen minutes ago. The photos you've been sending me are so, I don't know, intense, moving. Brings everything back. Chris sitting in the corner with his guitar and gear. Etc. I can't wait to get there and feel like I'm part of it. I'm going through the texts and thinking about whether they should change or not, I mean apart from revising some parochial sentences and stuff. Let's talk. Let's Skype and brainstorm. Oh, and I love the idea of you doing a kind of prelude appearance in the piece. I think that's an amazing idea. Anyway, I'm super excited to get there, see you, ... everything. But, yeah, let's talk very soon, if you're up for that. A ton of love to you, Ish. ** Steevee, Oh, re: 'EtV'. I think maybe the cut shown at Sundance was the full-length version. That's what people I know who saw it seem to think. Really hope your foot starts behaving itself. Don't push it too far, obviously. ** Mark Ward, Hey, man! Wonderful to see you! Your tape, yes, yes, and in fact I gave it to Stephen O'Malley to translate into a version I could listen to, and he hasn't ponied up yet, now that you mention it. I'll track it down. Sure, more music would be awesome, if you don't mind, and if it's easy. Cool that you got see 'Jerk' and liked it. Yeah, Jonathan, the actor, is just amazing. I don't think anyone else could pull the piece off. 'This Is How You Will Disappear' will tour, yeah. It's touring now, on its way to Japan and Korea at the moment. I don't know if it'll get to the UK. We really hope so, but it's an expensive piece to import and mount, so that might hold it back from going some places. I'm good. I'm furiously trying to finish a new novel at the moment. That's pretty much my life right now. Excellent about Bored Bear Recordings. I'll go find and bookmark the presumed website, Yeah, you sound really up and great, and that sounds great to me. I hope to see you again soon. ** Ken Baumann, Gracias, Kenster. (I'm in this -ster phase, sorry, but it means I'm in an affectionate stage, which I guess is okay, at least from a distance, ha ha). Oh, I'm just glad I don't reek of my vegetarian status. Although sometimes people have said I smell like one, whatever that means. What are you up to right now, artistry-wise? Novel, film stuff, ... what? Ha ha ha, you're killing me with this 'Room' stuff. Killing with kindness, I mean. Holly crap, what next? Everyone, have you reached your 'The Room' saturation point yet? I don't think so, not if you haven't played the game, courtesy of Mr. Ken 'Room' Baumann. Ongoing thankfulness to you, buddy. ** Alan, Hey. Thanks a lot for emailing me the sidebar stuff. It's weird. The blog seems to have ended up in some kind of limbo state, neither its old self or a new self. I literally cannot change anything about the sidebar. There is no option to. I think I need to load the blog into a new version of its original Minima template and hope that solves things. That's what I'm told. I'm nervous to do that, but I think I will shut my eyes tight and push the button later today. Oh, and thank you for forwarding me that upset escort's comment. I would never have known about it otherwise. I removed his photo, so hopefully all is well now. Yeah, thanks a lot for all of that, man. When there's a strike here, they sort of put all the available manpower on the metro lines most frequented by tourists, so that might be why their trip was relatively undisturbed. More strikes scheduled for the 2nd and the 12th. We'll see. So, has your novel been read? Anything you can pass along? ** Postitbreakup, Hey! Great to see you! Glad you liked it. How are you? What's going on? Has the new job become old hat now? ** Plexus, Boo! I saw your traces. ** Bill, Potluck, I'm guessing? ** _Black_Acrylic, I'm glad someone liked the cotton candy puking clown. I thought he was special too. I seem to be alone in my special fondness for the head banging skeleton. There's just something about him. Oh, so that Milliband guy is a good choice in theory? It's so hard to tell from way over here. Over here, they mostly talked about how he's a Math nerd, and I thought that could go either way. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, Well, I'd come to your haunted house. I've never met a haunted house I didn't like at least a little. Literally never. Well, except when Knotts Scary Farm turned the lights up the tiniest bit too bright in the 2002 incarnation of their Alien Encounter Maze. If you ask me, your prejudgement of 'Requiem for a Dream' based on its fans' waxing would prove to be correct if you saw it. Hotel, private, future ... okey-doke. ** Allesfliesst, Thanks about that sentence. I can't remember what it applies to. Something worthy, I hope. At that time, Courtney Love struck me as a whole lot more interesting than she was being given credit for. Nowadays, all bets are off. ** Tender Prey, Hi, Marc. I'm really happy that you guys got to meet and hang out with the great Pisycaca super-duo. And vice versa, of course. Oh, yeah, the Stooges, sure, absolutely. Cuts right through the retrospective mythologizing. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Diaz's slowness is a big plus in theory in my book. That'll get me flipping through one of his books at Shakespeare & Co. at the very least. It seems like I must have done a John Wieners post, but I can't remember. I'll hunt through the old blog's ruins, and, if it's there, I'll restore and relaunch it. Thanks, Jeff. 'Dogtooth' is still on my 'really want to see' list. I don't think it played here. But I'll check and watch for a torrent too. ** Will Decker, Hey. Yeah, I kind of figured you'd be happy with that new Tony Duvert. Excellent. I'm still eking my way through it due to novel distractions and reading about five other novels at the same time. Is that right about Bangkok eventually heading underwater? The Dutch know dams and waterworks like the backs of their hands, so that prediction is very ominous. I rarely wear short pants. Mostly only when my long pants are in the washing machine or when I visit my dad in cozy Hawaii. Good luck with the Chicago preparations, and I hope 'Rent' entertains you. ** Nb, Laughing is no problem as long as me rubbing my chin and going 'hm, interesting' isn't a mood wrecker. ** Chris Cochrane, Yeah, it sounds very exciting, Like I told Ish, it's trippy and fondness central seeing you in those pix making music in the corner again. Can't wait to get there and get my hands, uh, dirty. ** Bollo, Hey, man. Yeah, are those animatrons not Turner Prize worthy? That castle sounds amazing. Did you take photos? Were there mysterious orbs and unexplainable transparent faces in the grain of the walls' wood and stuff? Happy Monday, man. ** Okay. Forget me and think only about Bacteriaburger and his lending library now, okay? See you tomorrow.
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