Satanic and Cult-Related Murder
- Satanism
- Founded by
Anton LaVey (“high priest” or “black
pope”)
- Started in San Francisco in April 30, 1966
- Started doing rituals in nightclubs then later
a movie, Rosemary’s Baby, was a success and stirred up media
of Satanism
- Dropped out of high school and joined the
Clyde Beatty Circus as a cage boy – fed lions, tigers, and leopards
- Later “graduated” to a carnival and learned
hypnosis and stage magic
- Then oddly enough he went to college and
majored in criminology and later became a forensic photographer
- Bored with traditional Christianity, he wrote
the Satanic Bible and performed public Satanic weddings and one
funeral
- About 200,000 Satanic Bibles have been sold
along with about 20,000 members to date
- LaVey died in 1997 and is succeeded by his
daughter
- Greatest influence on Satanism in the U.S. is
Aleister Crowley
- Became attracted to the cult while young
- Self-proclaimed drug and sex ‘fiend’ and wrote
many books on occult and magick, as well as a poet
- “I rave; and I rape and I rip and I rend” is a
line from one of his poems
- He enjoyed being called the “wickedest man in
the world.”
- Rock musicians are familiar with Crowley, such
as: Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin, and Crowley is also on one of the
Beatles album covers
- Satanic Bible
- Illustrates rituals, rites, holy days, and 9
statements of the Devil (PVC pp. 187,
189)
- Basic teachings of the trinity of the devil:
Lucifer, Satan, and the devil
- Bible is split into 4 different parts: Lucifer
(Air), Satan (Fire), Leviathan (Water), and Belial (Earth); each has own
symbol of environment
- 3 main rituals: Sex, Compassion,
Destruction
- Sex: Be the object of someone’s
affection to get them in bed, meaning any way shape or form get them
there
- Compassion:
can be done for
either yourself or another. It is performed when you desire
happiness, health, material or status success, meaning do something
that makes you one of these options
-
Destruction:
If something gets in your way, “destroy” it or get it out of your
way, “If a person happens to “coincidentally” fall under mishap, all
the better that it is not traceable to you. A Satanist
is responsible for their actions. “Get rid of the energy, not the
body”
- Typology (p. 191)
- Type I
- Actual members of Satanism
- Recognizes authority, as well as worships, and
organizational maintenance through contributions by members (much
like other religions)
- Only difference is that most other
religions ask you to be baptized or something along religious
lines to become a member of the organization; in Satanism, you
only need to fill out the necessary forms and pay the front and
annual fee
- If a someone would like to be baptized in
Satanism, then salt water will be used
- Must participate in human and animal
sacrifices
- Type II
- More cult related, not Satanic
- A cult is made of people bound together by a
leader and less of a sense of formal ritual and beliefs
- One example is The Charles Manson Family
- Created The Family and went on a
mass murdering of many people
- To this day they are in jail and gets
about 60,000 letters in the mail from people asking to be in
The Family
- Heaven’s Gate
- Headed by Do, members believed that they
were going to another planet, home, and they only way to get
there is by a ship behind the Hale-Bopp comet in which they had
to commit suicide to have their bodies be transported on, though
this is not like the Manson Cult, everyone died instead of
victims
- Henry Lucas and Ottis Toole
- Both convicted serial killers
- Joined a devil cult and kidnapped small
children to be sold for thousands of dollars for human sacrifice
and prostitution or to wealthy Mexicans. Lucas admitted to about
300 murders across the U.S.
- Type III
- Self-style form of rituals
- Usually a Gothic lifestyle or another type of
cult membership
- Mostly individual or small groups when
performing
- Perform animal sacrifices on small animals
such as dogs or cats
- Called “dabblers” or “losers” in Satanism
- They create their own form of the occult and
set up a small and simple set of ceremonies/rituals
- Ricky Kasso proclaimed to everyone in his
high school that he was a self-styled Satanist, practiced
drinking blood and other rituals. He stabbed a student to death
and showed other students what he did and where he dumped the
body. One student reported this, and in jail Kasso hanged
himself saying that this was the ultimate sacrifice
- Trinity of Satanism
- Like The Trinity of the Cross: Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit
- Trinity for Satanism: Lucifer, Satan, and Devil(s)
- Lucifer – primary “godhead” and ruler of
hell, can give/take power from followers, never been seen, is believed
to take any form, animal or human. Once the shining angel of God, then
cast into hell with his wife, Lilith and son Mendes. He also demands
human and animal sacrifice.
- Satan – Labeled as son, like in the context
of Jesus to God, Satan is the leader of the wasteland, the realm that
surrounds the earth, called on my Satanists.
- Devil(s) – They serve as a connection from
people to Satan, they are to tempt people to do work for the hierarchy
(Lucifer and Satan)
- Human Sacrifice: 2 forms
- Blood: This sacrifice is usually for
followers that want to give life to Lucifer
- The soul is believed as martyred and will
be reincarnated in another life
- Blood sacrifices call for the upper body
to be cut down to the pubic bone, the heart is pulled and mixed
with urine, blood, urine and feces.
- Burning: considered a killing of
vengeance or destruction.
- This is a human execution for those who
have done something against the cult or leaked out information
and deserve to die
- Doesn’t matter whether you are in the cult
or not
- A burned death is not reincarnated, the
soul goes directly to Lucifer
- Hierarchy of Hell
- Hell is like the Heaven that Christians
believe when going to the afterlife.
- 2 classes of humans in hell: Good Satanists
and Bad Satanists
- Bad Satanists serve the Good, the Bad
Satanists are demons that carry spells of good/evil to the
people on Earth
- Devices used (pp. 198–199)
- Many devices are used when performing a ritual or
ceremony
- Such as: candles, an alter, chalice, black
robes, elixirs, etc.
- Satanic Masses
- Initiation Mass
- Offered to new members when accepted to the
Satanic Group, either type I or II. The new members will participate
as an acolyte and sworn to secrecy
- Gnostic Mass
- Open to outsiders that want to join the
Satanic group, demons are called on to help the nonmembers join
- Mass of Angels
- Purpose of mass is to seek power from Lucifer
to protect high priests from demonic powers
- On this night, a black bird is killed and
portions of its body is distributed among members
- Mass for the Dead
- Purpose of mass is to ask Lucifer to free the
deceased from the fear of going to hell and make his demons obey
- A lamb is then sacrificed and portions of
its body is ground up into powder and buried with the lamb
- The Black Mass
- This is a mockery mass of the Roman
Catholic mass and done for evil purposes, only done one night a
year
- Men wear black robes, women were sexually
erotic dresses (presumed that these dresses intensified the
adrenal for the men’s energy)
- A nude woman lays on the alter, then all
males have sex with her, then inserts a bread wafer after
intercourse, then eaten
- Satanic Ceremonies
- Night of the Beast
- Lasts 3 weeks and starts on the third full
moon of the year
- Purpose is to power up and gain new power to
see in the future
- Most joyful time for Satanists
- New members are first made to keep a pact with
Satan to give his/her soul to Lucifer, then learn black magic, know
vocabulary, and lastly participate in human sacrifice
- Basically the ceremony starts by sacrificing a
goat, putting it on an inverted cross and 13 priests walk around it
counterclockwise until the blood drips down on one of them, they are
“martyred” along with his wife (if married) or a woman in the grotto
(crowd of followers), first male then female
- All bodily fluids are mixed then drunk
- Priest is said to become an overlord or a
bishop in Satanism
- Passover
- A ceremony to reaffirm beliefs in Satanism,
only one night with a sacrifice of a high priest and his wife (also
known as “Bride of Lucifer”)
- The May Day Rite
- Occurs on May 1, celebrate new year and new
life in Satanism along with sacrifices.
·
Crime Scene Elements (a quick guide on p. 206)
o
Circle of salt
§
Usually used in Type I, not as much with II and III
§
Any amount of salt would be suspected of a ritualistic crime scene
§
Bowls of salt of different color mean different rituals (p. 203)
o
Candles
§
Important role in ritual
§
Black and white candles signify Type I, different colored signify
Type II and III, mostly when profiling look for the wax unless you get lucky
with the actual candles
·
Only one white candle is used for Type I
o
Destruction or mockery of Christian symbols
§
Inverted crosses hung above an alter, animal that was sacrificed
above an alter, broken Christian statues, crosses, crucifixes, etc.
o
Satanic symbols (p. 204)
§
Drawings of a hexagram or inverted pentagram enclosed in a circle,
Satanic alphabet, mark of the beast (666), swastika only if other Satanic
symbols are around it
o
Blood
§
Type I may leave human and animal sacrifice ritual scenes, but
this is rare if planned because blood and other “things” are used in the ritual
of blood, in the ritual of burning, most of the time no blood is found
o
Bodies
§
Usually bodies won’t be found because at the end of rituals,
bodies are moved/buried so that the soul can come back later for reincarnation
§
Burned bodies will mostly be left though, these 2 reflect Type I
Satanists, if the body is found, more than likely it is by accident than
investigation
§
Type II and III are more disorganized by leaving the body at the
ritual scene
o
Animals
§
Usually small – dogs, cats, frogs, rabbits, etc.
§
Mostly due to Type III
§
Usually a goat is the main sacrifice, if a goat is not sacrificed
then profilers know it isn’t a Type I but more of a Type III
Reference
Holmes, R. M.,
& Holmes, S. T. (2002). Profiling satanic and cult-related murders. In R. M.
Holmes, & S. T. Holmes (Eds.), Profiling violent crimes: An investigative
tool (3rd ed.) (pp. 185–207). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Additional background:
http://www.satanicrituals.com/
On the Web:
http://www.csbsju.edu/uspp/CrimPsych/CPSG-8b.htm
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