Transcription
[Music] It was bullig, and the slyy toes that gyron gimble in the way, all mensy with the burrow goes, and the mum rats out of grave. Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jube-Jube bird, and shun the fumious bander snatch.
There are quite a few interesting and complicated dangers in the world of the occult that many of the young people getting involved in these days don't know about or decide to ignore. Some of these dangers are unscrupulous, dishonest gurus who are just out to take your money. Some of them are amateurs who decide that they're just going to mix in all the drugs they can think of with magic, because anything that gives them a weird frame of mind is groovy. And there are quite genuine psychic dangers to your very soul, as well as your body and your mind.
The thing that I'm interested in is the freedom of the human race from these useless, uh, excrements of taboo and and cruel complexes that have been inculcated into them by Pauline Christianity. I have a psychic gift, and I I'm using it now; I'm using it more publicly than I have ever before. But I also have an identity. Those of us who are in ritual magic or ceremonial magic are perhaps seeking something a little different. We are seeking to uh move ourselves up into a level of consciousness, to join with the divine energy of the universe.
I wanted to believe in something or have a hope, and so this guy introduced me to this woman who was about 47, and she claimed to be a witch. And she took me under her wing, and so for every day I went to her house about 8:00 and stayed there until nightfall. And she introduced me to Satan, and I really felt um felt his power, and it was the most powerful thing that I'd ever encountered.
In this enlightened age, there are an enormous and growing number of Americans who cling to a belief in the age-old powers of darkness: the occult, witchcraft, Satanism; activities ranging from the turning of a tarot card to the ritual sacrifice of a human being. It is estimated there are over 400 covens in the United States alone. In California, one church performing a weekly black Sabbath boasts 7,000 members. The occult, witchcraft, Satanism—is it merely a passing fad, random neurosis, and occasional meaningless violence? Or is there a demonic continuity in the history of man, a satanic power with the potential to tear at the reality of our lives? When we have told our children all these years that there is no one in the dark, could it be that we've been wrong?
[Music] Stonehenge, a monument to man's ingenuity. Here on the Salisbury Plain, some 85 miles from London, stands the remains of an ancient civilization. These massive stones, now worn and weathered by time, were placed here by a people who believed in the divine power of the sun and the moon. They were a culture of the occult. For centuries, men have pondered the why of Stonehenge. Why would anyone devote so much time and energy to build this place? What was the purpose of Stonehenge? Only recently have archaeologists and astronomers unraveled some of the mysteries of this place. We now know that Stonehenge was built in three stages, from about 1900 to 600 BC, about the time of Abraham, the patriarch of the Bible. These massive stones on the outer circle weigh from 30 to 50 tons each; the smaller stones on the inner circle weigh approximately 4 tons each. Some of these stones were brought from as far away as 240 miles from quarries in the south of Wales. But the real genius of this place is not in its size or in its form, but in its function. Here, in the design and arrangement of these ponderous monoliths, is a computer able to calculate the movement of the stars with incredible accuracy. To the minds and imaginations of men living 4,000 years ago, such a forecast was awesome; such a demonstration of the power of prediction made it a simple matter for the priests to dominate the lives of their subjects. The power to predict became the power to control. But this technology didn't originate with Stonehenge; it only stands as one of the many examples of the power of evil applied to the weakness of men.
Throughout most of man's history, he has been incurably addicted to the search for the meaning of life. The people of Stonehenge were no different. To them, nature was their god; the sun and the moon became the dominant force in their life. But with the worship of nature came the worship of the powers of demons and darkness. The people of Stonehenge became preoccupied with the supernatural, the realm beyond their senses.
[Music] For most of his history, man has wandered the inconstant sands of his planet in search of answers to a riddle called God. His life has seemed a lonely journey between two unknown ports, between origin and destiny, totally at the mercy of a mysterious host of often cruel and sometimes tender forces. The story of man is the story of his passionate and continuing search for God; and if he searches, then it's reasonable that he searches for something lost. According to the Hindu, the Jew, the Muhammadan, the Christian, and philosophies from every corner of the earth, man once lived in a close and personal relationship with God, but somehow he lost it. On this, almost all religions agree; where they differ is in their search to restore what was lost, to know again what they once knew.
[Music] Instinctively, in Babylon, they gathered stone and said, "We will build a tower back to [Music] [Music] God [Music] Here in Baalbek, they reached so frantically for their concept of God that they destroyed their own children in the fires of Baal. [Music] The skeletal stones of the ancient cities are heavy with the blood of human beings sacrificed to the dark and alien gods. In Egypt, they built pyramids to house their preparations for a journey back to where God dwelled in the sun. They reached so passionately that an entire culture sacrificed its life to the building of the pyramids. All the stone monuments of the ancient ages were little more than ladders leaned toward God, or attempts of man to find God by actually being [Music] God. Here is a mystery. Man searched in a thousand directions; religions bloomed like disordered gardens. But throughout the ages, in all the various religions of man, there is one constant: the personality of the being we call Satan. In Samaria, he was Baal; in Egypt, Set; in Persia, Ahriman; in China, he was chief of the warlocks called Woo. There is always the dark god, the fallen god; there's always Satan, and there are always those who, in their search for God, seem to find Satan instead.
Our oldest record of Satan is in the Book of Job, written nearly 4,000 years ago. Isaiah and other ancient Hebrew prophets tell that Lucifer held the rank of Saraf and was a prince among the angels. He was wisest of all the angels and perfect in beauty. Isaiah referred to him as Son of the Morning. But the prophets claimed there came a time when Lucifer challenged God by saying, "I shall exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will be like the most High." And so it was pride that caused Lucifer's rebellion and his fall. Driven from heaven, he took one-third of all the angels with him. Why so many people throughout the ages have turned to Satan and have called on his powers is a mystery. The ancient Hebrew prophets warned of it time and time again. In Deuteronomy, it is told, "No Israeli may practice black magic or call on evil spirits for aid, or be a fortune teller, or be a serpent charmer, medium, or wizard, or call forth the spirit of the dead. Anyone doing these things is an object of horror and disgust to the Lord."
[Music] [Music] But these things the prophets warned against combined to form the oldest continuous religion on earth. History suggests two reasons: Recognizing his own imperfection, man has been drawn to an imperfect God; the fall of Lucifer and the fall of man was a shared experience, and so in time of need, men have reached for the God most like themselves. The second reason is this: If God is real, well then it's logical his chief adversary is real as well; and just as God has power to influence the lives of men, so does his fallen [Music] angel. Calling forth the spirits of the dead, summoning evil spirits for aid, the burning of infant human beings to please the dark god—they are all links in an unbroken chain reaching through time and space, from Babylon to Main Street. Babylon, India, Egypt, Greece—it seems that man was always drawn by the power of the supernatural, usually with the hope of improving his life; more often he only debased it. Temples, gods, stone relics, lifeless idols—all bear mute testimony to the fact that man has been in a tragic search for security.
For most of the Western world, the interest in the supernatural seemed to fade. Modern technology gave man a new hope; science had replaced the supernatural. But like these gods and idols, technology is only a product of man's ingenuity, and it too becomes a lifeless idol that cannot satisfy the spiritual needs of man. So once again we're seeing mankind continue his search for meaning in life, and again we're seeing a resurgence of interest in the occult and the mystical voices of the past. They are heard as echoes from darkness. In the name of sex, in the name of self, in the name of passion, in the name of pride, in the name of power, in the name of warong, by the earth that is her body, by the water that is her womb, by the air that is her breath, and by the fire that is her spirit, and in the name of him who dwells within the fire, Aohhe, blessed be; Aohhe, blessed be.
The words you hear have been spoken in a thousand tongues since the dawn of man's tenure on earth; prayers cast to the ancient horned god, Wanga. Yet this is not Babylon, nor Baalbek, nor some exotic crumbling temple on the Nile; this is now, in a very ordinary tracked home in a very ordinary suburb of San Francisco. The man at the altar is a professional; he has practiced witchcraft for 40 years and has attained the degree of Grandmaster Warlock, or Grand Serpent.
Well, much of my work is of a rather secret nature. So far, I have been engaged in what is known as soul travel, astral travel, which is leaving the physical body and going to various places in the world and conferring with different people. The power originates in what we term the vital or energy body, and that is why, one of the reasons why, that in some of our ceremonies we perform in the nude, because the emanations uh pour forth from our bodies and form the cone of power. And we also do our ceremonies nude simply because that is the way we like to do them; we delight in doing them this way, and that's why we do it.
Well, the San Francisco Bay Area is probably the uh headquarters of occult and metaphysical activity in the United States. They have everything out here; uh, they've got people who believe in uh in human sacrifice, where they actually sacrifice small children, and uh then they have the little old ladies who get together in study groups and and read Edgar Cayce. As a matter of fact, there are over 50 of of those kind of groups in in in San Francisco. All kinds of uh of very unusual groups, various types of… In San Francisco, as in other cities throughout the country, there is a curious yet profound struggle taking place between the powers of light and the powers of darkness. It sounds like a medieval fairy tale, but to those engaged in the struggle, it's incredibly real.
This is Pat Batriciano, a youth minister who works with young people caught in the dangerous web of the occult. But u all through this is is a power that I've I've experienced; I've come in contact with it, and and the power is a is a demonic power, and it is real; it is real, absolutely. As a matter of fact, I became interested uh uh in the occult because uh uh in in the work I'm in in in youth ministry, uh so many of the the kids nowadays are getting sucked into Ouija boards, uh uh I ch uh tarot cards, uh we in these various things. It begins small, and there right, and it begins to develop and begins to grow, and uh many of the um the occult people who are in the white magic claim that their power comes from God, but it's it's a counter—It's not really—it's not really God; it's a demonic power.
Traditional witchcraft and its ancient forms is still practiced here in San Francisco. It appeals to a far greater number of people; it uh appeals to the scientific set in a in a thing called parapsychology; it appeals to the uh people who of a very religious nature through the Eastern religions, and they and most of the the various witchcraft groups can uh achieve a kind of a a degree of enlightenment through chanting and and through meditation, a very passive meditation which opens them up to the uh to the spirit world. They have a power, a power that uh that I've actually even seen and been around, and it's a it's not a power from from God; it's a power from the great counterfeit, Satan himself.
Uh, magic is like physics or electricity; it doesn't make any difference to a current of electricity whether you use it to run an iron lung or an electric chair. Electricity is electricity and will shock you if you aren't careful. It's the same thing with magic. Unless you deliberately set up specifications ahead of time that if I do such and such a thing it won't work, any spell that you're capable of doing, executed in the proper for fashion, will have its effect, regardless of the moral implications of that spell.
I think probably uh uh the most subtle form of of witchcraft in this country is astrology; it appeals to everybody. Another thing that uh that people seem to really go for is uh these these great prophets who make all kinds of predictions about the uh the coming of the world and who who's going to get shot.
When is it a passing fad? All this talk of witchcraft—much of it seems to be the kind of thing that spawns slogan t-shirts and quick-buck commercialism. But behind every fad, as behind every rumor, there always seems to be a seed of reality. The Mystic Eye, supermarket of the occult. Here and at other stores like it, you can buy just about everything you need to set up shop as a witch, a sorcerer, a fortune teller, or a healer. It would seem a display of the Mystic Eye would be rather frivolous evidence of the reality of something old and dark and ominous moving through our society. But in the back room, you can begin to feel echoes of that darkness.
First, we see the Knight of Cups in the area of your physical health, your physical existence. We feel here that the cups signify a change for the better in your physical well-being; your health should be improving very quickly; you should feel a lot more energy in the coming months, and that problem which you were speaking of earlier, of the internal organs, should be cleared up within within a very short time.
Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jube-Jube bird, and shun the fumious bander snatch. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, Lewis Carroll's children's poem captures something of the elusive quality of the current occult world, wrapped in a bizarre shroud of what seems high nonsense, cloaked in commercialism and cryptic philosophy. There is still a form within that is real, yet difficult to identify or grasp. One can dismiss all the outer trappings, but there is something profound beneath it all, something constant and powerful that one can't easily dismiss. Listen to the minds of those who deal with that power.
The occult has a a broad base to it: old people, young people, middle-class people, professional people, all kinds of people here in um in the Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area, um are involved in the occult. It's not just the freaky people, the people on the street, or the former dopers.
Well, I think Peggy and I are fairly conventional people; we both work; we have jobs from 8:00 to 5:00 in the morning uh 8 in the morning to 5 at night; we have two children; they're my stepchildren, but I think of them as my children; we have a son in the Navy who is doing his four-year hitch. Many of the people are um some of my neighbors are involved in the occult. We live, as I said, I think a very conventional and perhaps somewhat square life. We uh we're living in a changing world, and some changes are perhaps for the good; some may not be for such good, but we try to keep up with the times and accept those things which seem to be bettering uh the world as a whole.
The reason the young people go into the occult is not so simple. I found several reasons. Um, the bizarre groups do don't interest me at all; the Satanist groups, for example, I think give people who are terribly inhibited—they give them a structure and a framework that says, "Okay, be uninhibited, and we'll pat you on the head for it, and you can have a lot of fun." And then you can go out and say that you belong to this bizarre religion, and suddenly this this person who who might have led a very quiet life as a Satanist, and he's getting a lot of attention. Our society is real rigid and tight, and the supernatural has been largely crowded out, and the occult um gives gives a young person an opportunity to talk about the supernatural and perhaps to even experience the supernatural. There's a real draw there. Uh, another thing about the young people is, particularly for the people who have been into the oriental teachings, who have been into the drug scene real heavily, the occult fits in very well; it ties in together. Uh, if you have an experienced uh teacher who's been involved in magic for say 20 to 30 years, he can use those drugs to teach you that there's more than one way to look at the universe, and this is a major lesson you have to learn. Now there's another one that's real big is that the occult provides an a rationale and an environment for drug abuse and sexual perversion. For example, the older generation has taught the young people that sexual activity is supposed to be wicked and evil, that the nature of man is supposed to be very vile. They draw from the teachings of St. Paul and claimed that the flesh is evil and the spirit is good, and that the flesh is at war with the spirit. This is not the teaching of the witchcraft at all; uh, witchcraft is a pro-sexual religion; it is a religion of life; it is a religion of the flesh, a religion of the here and now, and it is a religion of vitality.
In the Bible, we find um divination is spoken against; divination is an attempt to learn of the future, and so it's an important concept of the occult in both the Bible and uh in extra-biblical literature. Uh, also the concept of power—power over people, over situations—and the power is there in the universe for anybody to call down or anybody to use; all they have to do is flick the right switch, and there it is. And this is what magic is all about: learning how to flick that switch.
It's been my experience in not only my research but in my own p uh practical experience with people involved in the occult that through the demonic nature of the occult that there is a power. I deal with a philosophy of white magic, but that's apart from the fact that I have a psychic ability. Um, I think that that we shouldn't confuse being what magic I believe in or I do with the fact that I'm a psychic, because many psychics in the world today do not go into magic at all or occult sciences. I've noticed that people involved in the occult become rather superstitious; they become fearful. This doesn't happen all at once, but it happens over a period of time to a person. For example, in astrology, you began to be um more or less subjugated to the to the horoscope reading; you can actually begin to um give heed to the things that it says. For example, if they have—I can—I will tell them what kind of car and something specific about that particular car so they can identify it, and perhaps I know that that car is going to get damaged in some way, and I can tell them to be careful in their car. The attempt is to bring you into fear. Another thing that the occult does is that it begins to tie you to more and more of the occult; it has a a real tenacity to it, and so uh little by little I began to investigate my first uh love, you might say, of the occult, and this was uh the element of magic.
People go into the occult maybe because it it fascinates them; they have a curiosity about it; they may want to uh experience the supernatural. But pretty soon the their whole life revolves around the occult; they may begin to um make major decisions on the basis of a of uh the occult, so begins to control a person's life. Now it is said that magic and religion are totally separate areas; I don't think they are. For example, I consider witchcraft to be any form of magic being done in a religious context; that means whether you're worshiping someone called Satan or someone you're calling the goddess or someone you're calling Kali or Thor or Indra or anyone of the hundreds of thousands of other gods spawned upon this planet, you're still doing witchcraft if you're expecting to get practical magical results out of your worship.
There are occult-oriented groups that promise such things as success in business, that uh promise um reconciliation where there are se uh separations in a marriage, uh that promise uh even that you become a better lover, and um uh for a fee, of course, and involvement in their group, uh going through various levels or grades of uh spiritual or psychic or mental attainment, and of course each each lever requires more money and deeper involvement in the in the group.
With the coming of day, I embrace my earthly mother; with the coming of night, I join my celestial father. One of the functions of the Order is to have classes in which people may find their way, their path, so that they can live in harmony with themselves. We're dealing with the earth and the universe; we deal with the elements: for North, there's the earth; East is air; South is fire; West is water. On the altar, all of these elements—the salt and the water, the incense, the cauldron of ashes from holy fires from celebrations that we've had—are all part of this. Sounds from bells are in the air; the incense is in the air; the candle flame is the fire, the symbol of spirit energy right there. The Order itself is composed of people from a lot of different backgrounds, as many as many backgrounds as there are people. However, we are able to work together; we see a unity and a direction of teaching, of eventually of founding an actual school that is dedicated to the very simple purpose of teaching a right way of living through the ways of the occult, through the ways of health, of of close interrelationship with the earth, through even through the the simple things of agriculture, of also learning to talk to plants and telling them when to grow, because you can grow amazing crops and no good soil if you know how to tell the plants what to do.
Everyone that enters into the study of the occult enters into it, no matter what their idealistic viewpoint is, to solve their own problems. And here you've got a lot of people with problems: psychological problems, emotional problems, whatever—that are involved in this, and you can wander down the down the line and find your own path and walk on towards God, for all paths lead towards God, whatever your concept of it may be, whether it is a divine creator or a triune God or a goddess or whatever you want—it's your own image, because man makes God in his own image, or makes his own image of God.
I went to school; I got a degree; I was a teacher; I was a wife; I was a nice middle-class housewife; I kept my house clean, and I was supposed to uh fill society's role. This was wrong. I'm not to teach in the public schools, for there is no dignity there; I'm to teach in my own school, our school, the school of the Order. I was a a merit scholar when I was in high school. I dropped out of school because I got tired of it, 'cuz one day I woke up and I said, "Gee, what am I doing going to school?" And the little word comes back: absolutely nothing. And I dropped out of school and since…
Then it's like I hold an honorary doctorate of divinity. And I probably have enough data and knowledge that I could sit down and write a PhD thesis in any one of a 30 or 40 different fields and get the PhD. It's not necessary. My way of life is to be basically the avid of the order, to be the founder of it, to get it started, and to be an astrologer. The weird kids are getting to be more and more in the majority rather than in the minority, because people are starting to think they can't turn to the orthodox systems, and they can't go to the church because the church is also just status quo in a in a spiritual way. And so then then they go look somewhere else, and usually they look in the occult. It's like the like the Zen tradition comes down that the whole secret to Zen is all of life is a joke, and when you realize that you're being put on by everything you come up against is when you're truly enlightened.
There were 25 in the set, and they were I was um the youngest, and I was 23. And the ne there was about a six years difference between the next person, and they were all in their 30s, and they had been in it for a long time. And most of them, the warlocks and the witches, it was you had to have an inheritance, and um and in my family I have two witches on my father's side. The black mass that I participated in was for um the handing out of the gift to be a demon, to be under a demon of destruction, which was Eli. And there were 10 of us, and two of us were going to be selected. And this um and after the two were selected, then there'd be a human sacrifice. Jan and I were selected as to be, and we were given a role, a mission on this earth until we died, and that was to destroy destroy people in any means, any tools, and that the demon would give us these tools when asked, and to thank Satan for this gift there had to be a human sacrifice. The goat had direct communication with Satan, and Satan told him it had to be a six-month baby boy. Jan had a baby that was six months, and she was willing to sacrifice it to Satan, just showing her thanks. And um it because this gift was really uh a high calling. And they had an altar, and it was built of wood and straw. They placed the baby on it uh without any clothes, and they had a a dance ceremony where everyone took off their clothes except for the 10 understudies, and we were just seated around and watching. And they had tambourines and bales and torches, and the music was something like of gypsies. There was yelling and screaming and eerie noises, and the screaming was not from the people, it was the demon that was in them coming out, and you could actually tell the difference in their voices and this yelling and um then they poured this incense oil all over the baby and all over the altar, and they um lit it. And when finally the flames got to the baby and the baby started burning um I was the first thing that came in my mind was I noticed the baby didn't even yell or scream, and I didn't think anything of it. I thought it was just um a glorious thing, you know, because I knew that baby was being uh lifted up for Satan and that it would be in Satan's arms and taken care of. Um there were no afterthoughts about, you know, is this wrong? I didn't feel like uh we had murdered a child. Um I flash back later though about um reading or learning when I went to Sunday school about someone sacrificing or going to sacrifice their son to to a god, and then my god was Satan and um and um it was a good feeling. In fact, I think I even wish that I was Jan, that I could have offered, you know, um a child or even myself. I was so into it, and I really loved Satan.
Right now that's what I want. There you [Music] [Music] go relax [Music] dream hallelujah [Music] [Music] hallelujah [Music] hallelujah heat heat [Music] heat [Music] heat [Music] hallelujah heat heat [Music]
What you have just seen may have shocked you, but there's a need to realize that more and more people are becoming involved in the occult, and they're experiencing real supernatural phenomena. What's happening now is nothing new, and it has all the power of its dark past. The occult world is a threat to mankind at whatever level of involvement, whether horoscopes or tarot cards or Satan worship. The ancient Hebrew prophets and New Testament writers warned us of this danger. They even predicted the current rise to popularity. It is their guide that can steer us into a secure relationship with the supernatural. The Bible can give us an understanding of the past, meaning for the present, and hope for the future.
Through the long corridors of past history, the occult world has survived and flourished in each age. It surfaced in various ways: false religious systems, strange philosophies and beliefs, even demon possession and satanic influence. All that is happening today happened in the Old Testament. God warned his people Israel of stargazers, of those who cast spells, who speak with demons and are fortune tellers. When Christ came, great spiritual darkness wrapped the Western world like a shroud. Greece and Rome worshiped the planetary gods. In Israel, demon activity was rampant. But as today, the answer was not education nor materialism, but spiritual deliverance. Jesus, the savior, encountered scores who were possessed of evil spirits. Exact case histories are even recorded in our day, but only through his forgiveness and power could the spirits be driven out. The Apostle Paul too was confronted by a young girl who was a witch, and prophetus, a demon spoke through her and challenged the gospel of Christ proclaimed by Paul. Paul commanded the demon in the name of Jesus Christ: Come out of her immediately. She was delivered.
There is a conflict that makes the history of man a continual struggle: the God of this world system opposing the God of creation. Deliverance can be found only in the death and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In the dark occult night of this Aquarian age, the light of Jesus will not be extinguished. The purpose of this film was not to stir up sentiment against those who practice witchcraft, rather it was to present the reality of the power that works within them. There is, however, this greater power, the power of Jesus Christ, that builds rather than destroys, that offers hope where there is despair. The young girl involved in the human sacrifice has since discovered this power in the love of Jesus Christ that can change a life and give new purpose.
I was having nightmares again of this human sacrifice. Like when I'd smell burning hair, I would just totally freak. I would just visualize this baby burning, or when I saw a little baby boy, you know, I'd flash back. It was starting to haunt me. Finally um it happened about I think it was last summer when the Lord just gave me really peace about it, where I could talk about it, where it doesn't bother me anymore. And I just knew that that baby was in heaven. My life has changed completely. Before I couldn't handle everyday living. I just couldn't get up in the morning and face reality, but with the Lord I can. I lived a life of fear before, and when Christ came into it I just felt completely forgiven, or it's like a little voice inside me saying "No, it's not true." That what happened in the past is all forgotten, and it's not a cop out because I'm living in reality and not a fantasy world. Um I'm not saying that my life is a bed of roses. I have a lot of problems, but the void that I had, the the emptiness, the incompleteness has been filled. I was made to depend on my creator. I think you're coping out when you depend on on things that are lower than the creator, and the creator is God, and that's who I depend on. All these years we've told our children there was nothing in the dark, nothing beneath the mist of our senses. Apparently we were wrong, but this recognition of our error is the first step toward the light.