Wales Online - March 9, 2011
Five found guilty in sex cult trial
By Robin Turner, WalesOnline
L-R: Colin Batley, Jackie Marling, Elaine Batley and Shelly Millar
The jury in the trial of five people accused of using a black magic influenced cult to sexually abuse children and young adults in Carmarthenshire has found five defendents guilty of 39 serious sex offences.
At Swansea Crown Court, alleged cult leader Colin Batley, 48, was found guilty of 27 offences - including rape, buggery, indecency wih children and causing prostitution.
His wife, Elaine Batley, 47, was convicted of 5 offences, incuding indececy with a child and indecent assault.
Shelly Millar, 35, was convicted of two counts of indecency with children.
Jackie Marling, Batley's lover, was convicted of five offences - including aiding and abeiting rape and indecency with a child.
Peter Murphy QC, prosecuting, has alleged the four established their own religion - which preached free sex and was influenced by notorious English occultist Aleister Crowley.
The prosecution case is that the sex was established in members' homes in the tranquil Cararthenshire town of Kidwelly and children and young adults brought there were abused.
Below: The house where the sex ring was believed to have operated from
But alleged cult member Sandra Iveson, 45, was cleared of a single charge of indecency with a child.
Vincent Barden, 70, of Kempston, Bedfordshire, who was not a cult member, was also cleared of a single charge of rape.
Batley was jointly charged with Barden in connection with the rape and was also cleared of it.
But Barden had already admitted two counts of sexual assault on an under-age girl.
Both he, Batley and the other cult members will all be sentenced at Swansea Crown Court on Friday.
The jury today delivered guilty verdicts for almost every offence that the group faced.
In Batley’s case it included 11 separate rapes, three indecent assaults, causing prostitution for personal gain, causing a child to have sex and inciting a child to have sex.
The jury also found him guilty of six counts of buggery and four counts of possessing indecent images of a child.
Judge Paul Thomas warned the group they all faced “lengthy jail terms”.
As the convicted women were led away to the court’s custody unit an argument erupted with several of them shouting and shrieking at one another.
The jury’s verdict regarding all offences was reached today after four full days of deliberations and two half days.
During the trial, Batley was accused of using the cult as an excuse for its sexual depravity.
The jury heard that he first moved to Kidwelly from London and was followed successively by Marling and Millar and their partners, neither of whom figured in the trial.
Cult members would dress in hooded robes during occult rituals which usually took place before group sex.
A number of houses in the same cul-de-sac were used for the regular cult sex sessions.
Batley would read from the occult bible, The Book Of The Law, written more than a century ago by arch-Satanist Aleister Crowley.
He would also order cult members to have sex together and ensure that other members were present to film it.
The recorded material mentioned during the trial is believed to have been destroyed before his arrest.
Batley was apparently tipped off by friends in London about the impending raid on his home two days before his arrest.
But the evidence against him and other cult proved overwhelming during the trial.
Marling was found guilty of aiding and abetting rape, causing prostitution for gain, and inciting a child to engage in sex.
She was also convicted of three separate counts of indecency with a child.
By the time of his arrest Batley and his wife had separated and Marling had moved in with him.
Elaine Batley was today found guilty of three counts of indecency with a child and one of sexual activity with a child.
Shelly Millar was found guilty of indecency with a child and inciting a child to engage in sex.
Batley was said to have used the cult as a form of brainwashing to justify abuse to his victims.
One schoolboy, now an adult, told the trial Batley had repeatedly abused him as a child when he had access to him.
A schoolgirl, also now an adult, said she was forced into joining the cult through fear for her life.
Batley told her a cult assassin would kill her if she did not take part in an elaborate initiation ceremony.
It started with a 10 minute lecture on the occult by him but concluded with sex.
The schoolgirl was later ordered to Batley’s home on regular occasions when she would have to give him sex.
She was also taken to Satanic sex parties where she would be passed round to have sex with strangers.
“I did it because I was told to by Colin,” she sobbed while giving evidence against Batley via videolink during the trial.
The perverted events described in court took place over several decades in both Kidwelly and addresses in London.
Batley was arrested at his home in Kidwelly last summer where the cult itself was created and flourished under the unsuspecting noses of locals.
As the leader of the cult, Batley’s dedication to Satanist material and Egyptian icons was well documented.
He bred rottweiler dogs from his home for cash, but kept two for personal safety which were named after ancient Egyptian royalty. He also bred cats which were given occult names.
Several of his victims were made to wear upside down crosses, and every home appears to have had at least one laminated copy of The Book of the Law.
Batley and the other convicted cult members will be sentenced at Swansea Crown Court on Friday.
His wife, Elaine Batley, 47, was convicted of 5 offences, incuding indececy with a child and indecent assault.
Shelly Millar, 35, was convicted of two counts of indecency with children.
Jackie Marling, Batley's lover, was convicted of five offences - including aiding and abeiting rape and indecency with a child.
Peter Murphy QC, prosecuting, has alleged the four established their own religion - which preached free sex and was influenced by notorious English occultist Aleister Crowley.
The prosecution case is that the sex was established in members' homes in the tranquil Cararthenshire town of Kidwelly and children and young adults brought there were abused.
Below: The house where the sex ring was believed to have operated from
But alleged cult member Sandra Iveson, 45, was cleared of a single charge of indecency with a child.
Vincent Barden, 70, of Kempston, Bedfordshire, who was not a cult member, was also cleared of a single charge of rape.
Batley was jointly charged with Barden in connection with the rape and was also cleared of it.
But Barden had already admitted two counts of sexual assault on an under-age girl.
Both he, Batley and the other cult members will all be sentenced at Swansea Crown Court on Friday.
The jury today delivered guilty verdicts for almost every offence that the group faced.
In Batley’s case it included 11 separate rapes, three indecent assaults, causing prostitution for personal gain, causing a child to have sex and inciting a child to have sex.
The jury also found him guilty of six counts of buggery and four counts of possessing indecent images of a child.
Judge Paul Thomas warned the group they all faced “lengthy jail terms”.
As the convicted women were led away to the court’s custody unit an argument erupted with several of them shouting and shrieking at one another.
The jury’s verdict regarding all offences was reached today after four full days of deliberations and two half days.
During the trial, Batley was accused of using the cult as an excuse for its sexual depravity.
The jury heard that he first moved to Kidwelly from London and was followed successively by Marling and Millar and their partners, neither of whom figured in the trial.
Cult members would dress in hooded robes during occult rituals which usually took place before group sex.
A number of houses in the same cul-de-sac were used for the regular cult sex sessions.
Batley would read from the occult bible, The Book Of The Law, written more than a century ago by arch-Satanist Aleister Crowley.
He would also order cult members to have sex together and ensure that other members were present to film it.
The recorded material mentioned during the trial is believed to have been destroyed before his arrest.
Batley was apparently tipped off by friends in London about the impending raid on his home two days before his arrest.
But the evidence against him and other cult proved overwhelming during the trial.
Marling was found guilty of aiding and abetting rape, causing prostitution for gain, and inciting a child to engage in sex.
She was also convicted of three separate counts of indecency with a child.
By the time of his arrest Batley and his wife had separated and Marling had moved in with him.
Elaine Batley was today found guilty of three counts of indecency with a child and one of sexual activity with a child.
Shelly Millar was found guilty of indecency with a child and inciting a child to engage in sex.
Batley was said to have used the cult as a form of brainwashing to justify abuse to his victims.
One schoolboy, now an adult, told the trial Batley had repeatedly abused him as a child when he had access to him.
A schoolgirl, also now an adult, said she was forced into joining the cult through fear for her life.
Batley told her a cult assassin would kill her if she did not take part in an elaborate initiation ceremony.
It started with a 10 minute lecture on the occult by him but concluded with sex.
The schoolgirl was later ordered to Batley’s home on regular occasions when she would have to give him sex.
She was also taken to Satanic sex parties where she would be passed round to have sex with strangers.
“I did it because I was told to by Colin,” she sobbed while giving evidence against Batley via videolink during the trial.
The perverted events described in court took place over several decades in both Kidwelly and addresses in London.
Batley was arrested at his home in Kidwelly last summer where the cult itself was created and flourished under the unsuspecting noses of locals.
As the leader of the cult, Batley’s dedication to Satanist material and Egyptian icons was well documented.
He bred rottweiler dogs from his home for cash, but kept two for personal safety which were named after ancient Egyptian royalty. He also bred cats which were given occult names.
Several of his victims were made to wear upside down crosses, and every home appears to have had at least one laminated copy of The Book of the Law.
Batley and the other convicted cult members will be sentenced at Swansea Crown Court on Friday.
This article was found at:
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Wales Online - March 13, 2011
Kidwelly sex cult victim breaks silence to tell of childhood horrors
by Robin Turner, Wales On Sunday
A victim of twisted Colin Batley told Wales on Sunday of her anguish as the black magic sex cult leader forced her to put on a satanic symbol and raped her as a teenager.
The woman, who is now a mum in her thirties, spoke out after her 48-year-old tormentor was jailed for a minimum of 11 years at Swansea Crown Court and warned he may never see freedom.
She spoke on condition of anonymity and revealed the hell she suffered at the hands of a man who was convicted of 11 rapes and numerous child sex crimes over some 20 years living in the West Wales town of Kidwelly.
The jury was told about the cult’s fixation with Egyptology and the works of occult writer Aleister Crowley – and their obsession with wife swapping and sex with younger girls and boys.
The woman, who was one of the victims who gave evidence against Batley in court, said that he had everyone in the cult under his spell.
She said: “He (Colin) was the boss. He barked orders at everybody including me.
“People just did what they were told. He had Rottweilers that were scared of him but vicious to everyone else.
“At 15 I had to have sex with Colin. He said it was an initiation into the occult.
“He said he did not want to do it but it had to be done. He said if I did not follow orders I would be killed. People ‘higher up’ in the cult would do it, he said.”
Ex-Tesco security guard Batley was the self-styled “lord” of the bizarre sect which operated for years in the quiet cul-de-sac of Clos Yr Onnen in Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire.
Members filled their Gwalia Housing Association homes with ancient Egyptian idolatry, held ceremonies in robes and hoods and forced a number of children and vulnerable adults into depraved sex acts.
The victim said she was massively relieved by the guilty verdict and hoped he would never enjoy freedom again.
“A hundred years would not be enough for Colin Batley,” she said.
“But at least now myself and the other victims can start to rebuild our lives outside of the shadow of that contemptible man.”
She also spoke of a ceremony she witnessed in Kidwelly involving an altar on which salted bread, oil and a goblet of wine was placed.
Cult members dressed in white robes held readings of occult texts and later sex took place between the members who disrobed, or in their words, “became sky clad”.
The woman, who gave evidence in court via a CCTV system so she did not have to face Batley, added she “did not hate Wales” despite what had happened.
She was originally from London but was brought to Wales by Batley where she was abused and “passed round” to other cult members who had sex with her.
She said: “He said the occult was strong in Wales.”
She said she did not know if there were many more victims of Batley who had not yet come forward, but urged them to speak out if they could.
“Whether there are any more victims in this case, I don’t know, but for the length of time that the abuse went on, it’s highly possible,” she said.
“I hope to encourage anybody who is a victim to come forward, not just in Colin’s case.
“If anybody is going through something similar, we hope they will have the courage to come forward and speak to the police.”
Her husband, who is helping her get over the trauma of her years of abuse said: “We hope to come back to Wales in better times.”
The shadowy cult built up by Batley came crashing down when three victims approached Dyfed-Powys Police with their complaints.
The judge, who presided over the sensational five-week case, commended all the witnesses for their bravery in speaking out.
After they spoke out, the depravity that had been happening behind closed doors at Clos yr Onnen for almost two decades was finally exposed.
Colin Batley was revealed as a monster who forced a number of women into prostitution and made them pay him 25% of their earnings.
He owned two Rottweiler dogs, Toots (after Tutankhamen) and another named Sekhet after the Egyptian lion god.
He would read from Aleister Crowley’s works including The Book of the Law, Equinox of the Gods and The Book of Magick.
On Friday, Batley was given an indeterminate sentence on public protection grounds but will have to serve at least 11 years before he can apply for parole.
Even then he may “never be released” said Judge Thomas because he will have to prove he is no longer a risk to the public.
Judge Thomas said it was a “mystery” how jobless, scruffy Batley, who has several missing teeth, managed to control his women followers, who the judge termed “not unintelligent”.
The judge dismissed The Book of the Law as “a ludicrous document” but accepted that cult members were obsessed with it.
All the women in the cult had identical Eye of Horus tattoos.
Marling even had an “altar” comprising of Egyptian cat goddess statues, a painting of the mask of Tutenkhamun and another painting of the god Horus.
Batley’s wife Elaine, 47, also had a tattoo of Tutankhamen’s face on her arm, a pentagram on her leg and an entire Egyptian script on her back.
According to one of the victims in the case, Batley’s wife was treated “like a slave” but the judge said she became a willing participant in her husband’s “wickedness”.
The jury heard how a young boy was tricked into having sex with her and she was jailed for eight years for indecency with children.
Batley’s long-term lover Jackie Marling, 42, as well as being “besotted” with him, was also obsessed with The Book of the Law, said Judge Thomas, who described her as his “second in command”.
She wept as she was sentenced to 12 years in jail for offences including aiding and abetting rape.
Tears also streamed down the face of bespectacled Shelly Millar, 35, who was said by the judge to have been behind “the prostitution” side of the operation.
Millar, who listed Batley on her mobile phone as “My Lord” was found guilty of indecency with children including a 12-year-old boy and was also described during the case as Colin Batley’s “sex slave”.
The court heard she earned £2,000 a month as a prostitute in Swansea and gave 25% of her earnings to Batley.
Judge Thomas told the defendants they were evil.
“When this case was opened to the jury you Colin Batley were described as evil,” he said.
“That in my view is an accurate statement of your character.
“You set yourself up as the ruler of a sick little kingdom surrounded by three women who danced as your willing attendants regarding you as their master.”
Listen to Chief Inspector Richard Lewis of Dyfed-Powys Police statement to the press following the guilty verdicts against Colin Batley in the west Wales sex cult case.
This article was found at:
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2011/03/13/kidwelly-sex-cult-victim-breaks-silence-to-tell-of-childhood-horrors-91466-28326467/
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2011/03/13/kidwelly-sex-cult-victim-breaks-silence-to-tell-of-childhood-horrors-91466-28326467/
RELATED ARTICLES:
Articles and reports on Ritual Satanic Abuse by Professor Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, University of Alberta:
Diabolic Debates: A Reply to David Frankfurter and J. S. La Fontaine," Religion 24 (1994): 135-188.
"Deviant Scripturalism and Ritual Satanic Abuse" Part One: "Possible Judeo-Christian Influences." Religion 23 no.3 (July, 1993): 229-241.
"Deviant Scripturalism and Ritual Satanic Abuse" Part Two: "Possible Mormon, Magic, and Pagan Influences." Religion 23 no.4 (October, 1993): 355-367.
Expert Report by Stephen A. Kent
October 20, 1997 ASSESSMENT OF THE SATANIC ABUSE ALLEGATIONS IN THE [name deleted] CASE Stephen A. Kent (Ph.D.) Professor Department of Sociology University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2H4
***************
An Analysis of Ritualistic and Religion-Related Child Abuse Allegation
BetteL. Bottoms, Phillip R. Shaver and Gail S. Goodman, Law and Human Behavior, Vol. 20, No.1, (Feb. 1996) pp. 1-34
German woman born into Satanic cult says she endured years of torture and rape
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Prosecutors say man killed 8- and 10-year-old stepdaughters as part of a spell or ritual from "TheSatanic Bible."
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Great article! More information on ritual abuse and child abuse is at childabusewiki(dot)org
ReplyDeleteWhite witches who conducted horrifying ritualistic sex abuse on children as young as three in Cornish coven jailed for 32 years
ReplyDeleteBy HUGO GYE, Daily Mail UK December 14, 2012
Two pagans were sentenced to more than a decade in prison today after being found guilty of abusing children in bizarre sex rituals as part of a witches' coven.
Peter Petrauske and Jack Kemp were said to have worn ceremonial robes and pagan paraphernalia while they abused young girls in Cornwall during the 1970s.
Police believe one of their victims may have been as young as three when the abuse started.
The judge described the victims' experiences as 'nothing less than harrowing' as he condemned their 'utterly horrifying' crimes, sentencing Petrauske to 18 years in prison and Kemp to 14.
The pair, aged 72 and 69, showed little emotion as they were led from the dock at Truro Crown Court and into custody.
Petrauske, who described himself as the high priest of a white witches’ coven in St Ives, was convicted of one count of rape, one count of aiding and abetting an attempt to rape, and one count of indecent assault.
Kemp was found guilty of indecent assault and indecency with a child.
He was found not guilty of four other sexual offences, following more than 11 hours' deliberation.
'I am satisfied that you have both had a lifelong sexual interest in young female children,' judge Graham Cottle told the defendants during sentencing.
'You were two of the surviving members of a paedophile ring. Together with others whose names have been repeatedly featured in this trial, you were members of a ring that operated in the Falmouth area in the 70s and 80s.
'During the course of this trial some of the evidence in this case in relation to the offences committed against young children has been nothing less than harrowing - it has featured ritualistic sexual abuse of young children.'
He added that many of the pair's victims had little prospect of recovering from their experiences and had suffered years of emotional problems including flashbacks.
The judge described their offences as 'utterly horrifying', say they were 'terrifying events' involving 'defenceless children'.
'Finally the truth about your lies and your undoubted propensities has caught up with you,' he concluded.
continued in next comment...
The jury of nine men and three women are still considering their verdicts on several other sexual offences.
ReplyDeleteMr Cottle said he would accept a majority verdict on the remaining charges.
The pair’s victims gave harrowing evidence from behind a screen during the three-week trial. They said they were abused by their tormentors, then given money and sweets to buy their silence.
In a dramatic twist, witnesses also named murdered pagan Peter Solheim and notorious Cornish paedophile Stan Pirie as among their abusers.
Solheim was a 56-year-old parish councillor whose body was found five miles off the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall by fishermen on June 18 2004.
He had been drugged and mutilated by a machete or an axe, and his girlfriend Margaret James was later convicted of conspiring to murder him, though her accomplice was never discovered.
The child abuse was only investigated further by police last year when Kemp was arrested in connection with another incident, causing rumours to spread around his home town of Falmouth and prompting the alleged victims of the historic offences to contact detectives.
The other charges include indecent assault and other sexual offences, and were believed to have been committed much more recently.
Petrauske was backed up by female members of the coven who said that while children were occasionally present, nudity never played a part in the ceremonies. One female friend also described him as 'a gentleman'.
Kemp denied any involvement in paganism, saying it 'wasn't his cup of tea', and claimed he was the victim of a bizarre conspiracy. He said the girls were wrong to name him in the case.
The jury have retired to consider verdicts on the remaining counts. The two men are set to be sentenced this afternoon.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2248123/Peter-Petrauske-Jack-Kemp-convicted-abusing-children-pagan-sex-rituals.html
Eleven accused of child sex ring and 'witchcraft' in Glasgow
ReplyDeleteBBC News August 2, 2022
Eleven people are accused of taking part in a child sex ring which allegedly involved witchcraft, violence and neglect.
Seven men and four women are charged with abusing three young children in Glasgow during a 10-year period.
It was claimed the children were raped at different times while some of the group did "clap, cheer and verbally encourage" as well as video it.
One young girl was said to have been shut in a microwave.
It is also alleged the children were forced to take part in satanic "seances" and made to kill animals.
At the hearing at the High Court in Glasgow, the accused faced a 14-page indictment listing 43 different charges which allegedly happened between January 2010 and March 2020 in Glasgow.
Iain Owens, 43, Elaine Lannery, 38, Lesley Williams, 40, Paul Brannan, 40, Marianne Gallagher, 37, Scott Forbes, 49, Barry Watson, 46, Mark Carr, 49, Richard Gachagan, 44, Leona Laing, 50, and John Clark, 46, deny the charges they face.
Mr Owens and Ms Lannery first face a charge of neglecting the three youngsters along with another child.
Witchcraft
Prosecutors state all 11 are said to have got the boy and the older girl to take part in "seances (and) use a Ouija board...to call on spirits and demons".
They also allegedly got the children involved in "witchcraft", leading them to believe that they themselves had "metamorphosed into animals".
The 11 are further said to have worn cloaks and devil horns as well making the young boy stab a budgie to death.
The group are also accused of killing a number of dogs, including getting the children to attack the animals.
The group face further separate drugs charges.
Mr Gachagan is finally accused of lewd behaviour towards another young girl in the mid-1990s in Glasgow.
Maureen Goudie, Steven McHendrie, Robert Brown, James McLean and Douglas Gachagan are also mentioned as being involved in a number of the charges.
But, the indictment states they are now "deceased".
Judge Lord Beckett set an eight-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow for September next year.
A further hearing was also fixed for October.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-62384842
OPINION: Faye Yager returns with Satanic fears of 1980s - ones that never really left
ReplyDeleteBy Bill Torpy, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Aug 15, 2022
Faye Yager is back on the scene due to a five-part docuseries running on FX. And with that comes memories of a strange time when the devil was in every closet.
“Children of the Underground” focuses on the Atlanta area woman who created a modern underground railroad, a network where children who allegedly had been molested could disappear with their mothers or grandparents and start new anonymous lives.
The story conjures up images of the Reagan and Bush I eras, complete with the much-televised Yager in her floral print dresses, her perfectly coiffed hairdo and a defiant iron will that verged on fanaticism.
The failings of a 1970s Cobb County court created Faye Yager, the Fearless and Zealous Crusader. She accused her ex-husband of molesting their toddler daughter and he was given custody. Later, in the late 1980s, he was put on FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list for different child molestation accusations. He was later convicted.
Yager was performing the Lord’s work, protecting society’s most helpless when the justice system wouldn’t. At one time, she figured she had helped 2,000 families go on the lam and found herself extolling her operation to Geraldo, Oprah and any other breathless daytime TV host who wanted to fill an hour of compelling TV.
What made her narrative all the more sensational was her insistence that most of her cases involved Satanic ritualistic abuse. About 70% of them did, she once told this newspaper.
The Satanic Panic of the 1980s and early 1990s was an era where we now look back and wonder “what in heaven were people thinking?” Countless cases of sexual child abuse in the 1980s were tied to Satanism, and police departments and prosecutors were informed by “experts” who told them what to look out for.
And it was not just in molestation cases, it was everywhere.
When I was a reporter back in Chicago in the late 1980s, a suburban police chief invited me on a midnight bust. It was going to be big. The cops hauled in two dozen young people and excitedly told me they had busted a Satanic ring. Who knows what kind of crazy, evil stuff they were up to? an officer told me. However, it was just a bunch of Goth kids and some of their heavy metal buds gathering under a bridge doing what teens do on a summer night.
continued below
A real evil of the 1980s great moral alarm were the bogus cases that were created. Most infamous was the McMartin daycare case in California where it was initially believed that hundreds of kids were molested. Bizarre stories of flying witches and secret tunnels abounded. Prosecutors and the press largely gobbled it up with little suspicion. Ultimately, the criminal charges melted away, and after a couple of trials, there were no convictions. Also, most of the convictions in other such cases across the nation were overturned.
ReplyDeleteFaye Yager was one of the first people I interviewed when I came to Atlanta in 1990. (Actually, it was my second bylined story out of 3,343) Mark and Debbie Baskin, who lived in Rome, had two of their young children snatched away by the kids’ grandparents a year earlier. The grandparents had spoken to Yager several times before disappearing. Yager told me they were not hiding in her underground, although she was proud they had followed her advice and vanished so thoroughly.
A detective told me, “The children’s stories were inconsistent and got increasingly bizarre, like they were repeating something someone told them.” Stories of Satanism were involved, of course.
The grandfather was later found in California in 2009. His wife had died earlier. The children, by then in their late 20s, did not want to speak with their parents. The Baskins said they were brainwashed. I could not reach the couple, who now live near Vidalia.
At the time I spoke with her, Yager was facing kidnapping charges in Cobb County so she might have been a bit reticent to say much about the Baskin case. She beat those charges in a much-publicized trial in 1992.
Yager and her husband, Howard, a semi-retired doctor, have for decades operated an inn in a 19th Century home Brevard, N.C. near the Pisgah National Forest. Howard told me his wife was not feeling up to talking, having just come home from the hospital. He said they had nothing to do with the FX documentary, adding she’s no longer in the child-saving business.
Whether Faye Yager actually believed all that Satanism business was certainly one of the questions I wanted to ask her.
Satan was an effective tool at the time. When you are crafting a morality tale of good and evil, what is more diabolical than tying your foes to the Prince of Darkness?
He still is effective. Delineations of good and evil are still being drawn and stories of the devil and molesters are still being employed. However, it has taken root in American politics, making them meaner and more crazy than ever.
Polls in the past couple years show 16% to 18% of Americans think “Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media.”
The farther we move forward, the more our minds lag behind.
https://www.ajc.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-faye-yager-returns-with-satanic-fears-of-1980s-ones-that-never-really-left/YQT6T3U7BRAZZEQ74MEWY6EZCI/
Texas continues to exonerate people who were wrongly convicted during 'satanic panic'
ReplyDeleteNPR, All Things Considered April 18, 2023
By Paul Flahive
Texas courts are still exonerating people who were falsely convicted and imprisoned amid the "moral satanic panic" of the 1980s and '90s. Their persecution was based on lies and conspiracy theories.
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Conspiracy theories are nothing new. Texas is still grappling with the aftermath of a false panic from the 1980s that saw dozens in the state accused of bizarre child sex abuse and satanic rituals. It went so far that it sent innocent people to prison. As Texas Public Radio's Paul Flahive reports, to this day, people are still fighting to clear their records. And a heads-up to listeners, the story does involve allegations of sexual abuse of children and murder.
PAUL FLAHIVE, BYLINE: With a few strokes of a pen Judge Christine Del Prado dismissed the case last week against 75-year-old Melvin Quinney, giving him his good name back.
CHRISTINE DEL PRADO: Mr. Quinney, I have signed the dismissal.
FLAHIVE: This was the final courtroom step in Quinney's exoneration. He spent eight years in Texas prisons, had to register as a sex offender and saw his four children pushed into foster care - all for a crime the courts and his family now say never happened.
DEL PRADO: And I thank you, sir, for your attendance. You are now discharged from this court.
FLAHIVE: In 1991, Quinney's 9-year-old son told a court that his father sexually abused him. Quinney stood accused of leading a satanic cult that murdered children. Now an adult, his son recanted that testimony, saying he was pressured by his mother and her therapist to say those things. Mike Ware is Quinney's lawyer.
MIKE WARE: This is a good day for justice.
FLAHIVE: Standing on the courthouse steps in San Antonio, Ware says the accusations sound ridiculous now. He's with the Innocence Project of Texas and says during the '80s and '90s, the nation was going through a hysteria.
WARE: Children were being coerced by ill-guided professionals to make these outrageous, demonstrably false accusations that have now been proven false beyond all doubt.
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FLAHIVE: According to a 1992 FBI report, hundreds of victims made fantastical and bizarre allegations that offenders had killed people as part of what is now called the satanic panic. Thousands were accused. Far fewer were incarcerated. Ware helped four other San Antonio women get out of prison for similar satanic sex abuse allegations nearly a decade ago. One Austin couple spent years in prison after being accused of abusing children in their day care, at times transporting them by private jet to satanic conclaves. The problem with all these cases was the lack of evidence, says retired FBI agent Ken Lanning.
ReplyDeleteKEN LANNING: No matter what the police did, no matter how hard they tried, over and over again, they'd (ph) simply was no evidence of certain aspects of these crimes.
FLAHIVE: Despite the lack of corroborating evidence, people were convicted by juries based on the testimony of therapists and children. Lanning says investigators pushed the cases because they bought into the false satanic conspiracy.
LANNING: And a lot of them, it grew out of their personal, religious beliefs that this is what they believe - that evil in the world, the devil was behind it.
FLAHIVE: Quinney's ex-wife had become enraptured in religion. She was also mentally ill. After the exoneration, Quinney's son John Parker's eyes are wet with tears. He says he still feels guilt over his role, but he has forgiven his deceased mother.
JOHN PARKER: Instead of getting the help with the real mental problems she was experiencing, she was, you know, persuaded and kept mentally ill with pseudoscience and superstition.
FLAHIVE: Melvin Quinney says, yes, he was wrongfully accused, but the impact on his family goes well beyond him. His ex-wife was unable to care for the children, so they were pushed into the state's foster care system, which did a lot of damage.
MELVIN QUINNEY: Yeah, I was a victim. So what? My four children were the real victims in this whole fiasco that we went through.
FLAHIVE: After 30 years, he says he hopes the final dismissal helps the family continue to heal. For
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/18/1170710006/texas-continues-to-exonerate-people-who-were-wrongly-convicted-during-satanic-pa
I grew up in the Satanic Panic — and it’s happening again
ReplyDeleteI too have been afraid of things that couldn't hurt me. It is never too late to interrogate your fears
By GIGI GRIFFIS, SALON JUNE 19, 2023
I was a young teen when I destroyed my music collection in the name of Jesus.
I stood in the cul-de-sac with my best friend, Joanna, and we smashed our CDs to smithereens on the hot, hard asphalt. Scratched and snapped and broken into pieces, these secular musicians would never again whisper their ungodly thoughts into our young, impressionable ears—a thing we had been convinced, in church and youth group and summer revivals, would tempt us slowly away from our god.
Hallelujah! Free from . . . smooth jazz? Good Charlotte? No Doubt? I don't remember which bands they were, but I do remember that anything not made by a Real Christian™ was trying to plant demonic influence in my very soul. So smash
"Riot Girl" on the pavement; scratch "I'm Just a Girl" until it is no more. The devil isn't in the details, you see: He's in the music.
With that story as my Genesis, you won't be surprised to learn that I grew up during the Satanic Panic of the '80s and '90s, when a large portion of the U.S. population truly believed that cartoons and musicians and a certain type of book were trying to convert their kids to Satanists. Rock music, they said, when played backward, contained hidden messages from the devil. The Smurfs were a gay cult. My Little Pony was trying to entice me to witchcraft (never mind that the witches were the bad guys). And an underground Satanic cult was abusing children en masse.
The only safe choice for us teens: Smash those CDs. Turn off the cartoons. Burn the books.
Be afraid.
Because anything might be trying to destroy your soul. A punk rocker, a Care Bear, a rainbow.
Now, the so-called villains are drag queens, queer people, history teachers, gender rebels. Ironically, in the crossfire of both panics lie the children—who are learning to be afraid
This was my childhood. My teen years. My formative moments. A collection of fever-pitch fears that the most innocuous things might be the very path to hell. You may not be surprised to learn that I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder in my 20s. I'm hypervigilant, prone to panic attacks, triggered in the clinical sense of the word. For so much of my life, everything felt like a threat. Some (even innocuous) things still do.
Fear is something I've since learned to interrogate in myself. Because fear is natural, and even good sometimes. It tells us not to touch the hot stove. It asks, "Do you really want to walk down that dark alley"? It protects. But when the fear is unjustified—not grounded in real danger—it can be a prison. It can do real harm.
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During the Satanic Panic of the '80s and '90s, that fear led to the false imprisonment and deportation of innocent people. Terrified parents decided their kids were being abused by daycare providers and, despite a complete lack of evidence, the paranoia that had gripped the nation pushed judges and juries to convict. One couple spent 21 years behind bars.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there were the invisible victims, like me and my cohort. With our panic attacks and our shame and our confusion about who and what to trust. With our childhoods missing pieces because instead of laughing at cartoons, we were being asked to interrogate them, tattle on them, and destroy them in the name of God. The panic stole some part of our innocence and had a ripple effect deep into our lives.
For the past few years, I've watched—with growing unease—as another Satanic Panic unfolds in my lifetime.
QAnon is still growing (in 2021, an alarming 16 percent of Americans said they believe its core tenets, according to a 2022 PRRI study), pushing the idea that secret Satanists within the government are both sacrificing children (because the bad guy is always secretly sacrificing children) and trying to undermine your personal safety and take away your (unspecified) rights. Rippling outward from there, an even larger sample of the population seems to be stuck on the idea that children's books and history classrooms hide a secret evil that's coming for our children.
Just like in the '80s and '90s, it's not just the secret, powerful Satanists who are the focus of this cultural fear. It ripples outward to yet again demonize marginalized groups. It's the heart of the panic about Critical Race Theory and gender education that has already resulted in the introduction of dozens upon dozens of legal attempts to censor education. It's the foundation of the panic about so-called obscenity in kids' books (being so loosely defined as to sometimes include fart jokes or dressing the "wrong" way), leading to campaigns to defund entire library systems. And it's what has turned the nation to a sinister debate about who uses what bathroom, which has already resulted in legal changes that Human Rights Watch warns will undermine people's rights to health, education and privacy.
They say that history repeats itself, but I didn't realize history was so short. That I'd watch the fever pitch play out in my teen years and again as I approach 40. Of course, these aren't the only two moral panics to grip a nation and destroy lives. Go back further and you find actual witch hunts. You find Jeanne d'Arc burned at the stake for wearing pants. You find the myth that Jewish people were ritually killing Christian children, a myth known as blood libel that has put millions of Jews in danger in multiple eras.
Our children aren't in danger from the stranger in eyeliner or the person of ambiguous gender; they are in danger from their fathers, brothers, family friends. The latter is an uncomfortable truth, one our hearts rebel against.
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We like to think modern people are logical. But I see no logic in the screaming terror at seeing a performer in a feather boa or in the stubborn denial of the real statistic that 80 percent of those who commit sexual violence know their victim. Our children aren't in danger from the stranger in eyeliner or the person of ambiguous gender; they are in danger from their fathers, brothers, family friends. The latter is an uncomfortable truth, one our hearts rebel against.
ReplyDeleteIn 2020, as I watched these dominos falling, fear building, I quietly started writing a book I'd meant to write for years: "The Wicked Unseen," a young adult novel set during the Satanic Panic that asks the same questions, now weighing even more heavily on my heart. How do we bridge the gap between what we are afraid of and what we should be afraid of? How do we get better at interrogating our fears? If the stove is clearly off, should we still be afraid to touch it? If statistically there is no danger from drag queens, should we be afraid of them?
In my book, the pastor's daughter disappears on Halloween weekend, and the whole town cries "Satanists!" But their panic, their assumption, their focus on Satan, is keeping them from the truth. And that's the point. Panic often keeps us from the truth. Instead of making us safer, it makes us less safe.
In the '90s, the so-called villains of the panic were innocent daycare teachers who ended up jailed or deported with no proof of wrongdoing. Now, the so-called villains are drag queens, queer people, history teachers, gender rebels. Ironically, in the crossfire of both panics lie the children—who are learning to be afraid. To break their CDs and burn their books and run from ideas their parents disagree with instead of wrestling with them. Children like me, in therapy for over a decade, grieving the unnecessary loss of childhood innocence.
I'm not coming to this essay on a high horse, the wide-eyed shock of How could this happen? or This is not my America. I'm coming here with a broken CD in my outstretched hands, saying I too have been afraid of things that couldn't hurt me. And that it is never too late to interrogate your fears, measure them against the facts, and change your mind.
We do it every day.
When we jump because we thought the scarf on the floor was a snake—but realizing it's a scarf, we pick it up. When we think someone doesn't like us and then learn they're shy and become their friend.
The panic is here. The panic is dangerous. But the panic isn't inevitable. I say this as person who has—many times—reevaluated and changed my mind. Every one of us has the choice to stop participating, to make those mind changes, heart changes, action changes. To say that if "My Little Pony" can turn us from church to witchcraft, well, our faith wasn't very strong in the first place, was it?
Gigi Griffis writes edgy, feminist historical stories for adults and teens, including "The Empress," a Netflix tie-in. She’s a sucker for little-known histories, “unlikable” female characters, and all things Europe. After almost ten years of semi-nomadic life, she now lives in Portugal with an opinionated Yorkie mix named Luna and a fancy blender that cost more than her couch. Her main hobbies are righteous anger, swearing, and gazing lovingly at the dog or the blender. "The Wicked Unseen" is her YA debut.
https://www.salon.com/2023/06/19/i-grew-up-in-the-satanic-panic--and-its-happening-again/
They took part in Apache ceremonies. Their schools expelled them for satanic activities
ReplyDeleteEducators on the Fort Apache Reservation have repeatedly condemned teens for participating in a sacred dance. It follows a pattern of Christian discipline begun more than a century ago
Nicolle Okoren with photographs by Trevor Christensen, The Guardian June 24, 2024
The way the school saw it, it was devil worship.
In October 2019, three teenage girls were punished for participating in a spiritual ceremony. Their Arizona school expelled two of them, and let the third off with a warning, citing their attendance as a violation of school policy and grounds for expulsion.
Caitlyn, now 18, says she and her friends were disciplined for participating in a Sunrise Dance, a traditional Native ceremony at the core of White Mountain Apache culture.
The Monday after the dance, Caitlyn’s parents told her to stay home that day. They had received a call from East Fork Lutheran school telling them not to send their daughter in. She didn’t know why. Then around noon, her mom got another phone call. The principal wanted to meet with Caitlyn, her parents and the local preacher. The principal and preacher also invited the two other girls and their families to their own private meetings with school leadership.
At the start of each meeting, the families were chastised for participating in the dance. Caitlyn remembers her mother telling the principal and preacher how hypocritical they were to say the Apache people were not praying to God. “In the Bible, God himself says to come to me in all sorts,” she argued. “The dance is also a prayer; it’s another way.”
The leadership of the school, on the Fort Apache Reservation, disagreed with that interpretation and used pictures of the event posted on Facebook as evidence for their expulsions.
The other two girls were immediately given letters of expulsion. Caitlyn was just given a warning. “I knew that I was already one of the principal’s favorites,” she says. “I think they just gave me a second chance, but they gave me a strong warning not to have a dance.”
For the first 12 years of her life, Caitlyn looked forward to having her own dance – a sacred coming-of-age experience celebrating the transition from girlhood to womanhood. It’s a great financial sacrifice for the family. Over four days, a girl’s community prays for her. They offer her gifts and witness her as she participates in rituals symbolizing her maturity and growth. A medicine man presides over the event, praying and singing with holy members of the community called Crown Dancers, who recite the creation story to the audience.
The idea meant the world to Caitlyn. But she didn’t have her own Sunrise Dance: if she were found out, she would be expelled from school immediately, a stain on on her permanent record that could affect her college opportunities.
At the time, her private school’s teachers were mostly white people who would often discuss the satanic nature of Apache traditions. When Caitlyn was in fifth grade, she was given an F on an art project for drawing the White Mountain Apache crest and including an eagle feather. An “A” student, she was devastated to be chastised this way. As Caitlyn remembers it, her teacher smiled and explained that this kind of project wasn’t allowed because it denoted “pagan worship”. Her father was furious but the family couldn’t do anything about it. It was what the girl and her family expected from the white people who worked on the reservation.
But these expulsions felt different. Watching other girls get publicly exiled from their school community meant that fear soon took root, cracking the foundation of Apache pride her family had worked to build beneath her.
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Caitlyn finished her eighth-grade year at East Fork Lutheran school and then moved on to a school off the reservation, but the damage was done. For the next four years, Caitlyn struggled to integrate into her Apache culture. She explained: “I didn’t allow myself to engage or talk about my culture,” she says. “Even after I graduated, I had that paranoia that I would get in trouble for talking about or participating in it.”
ReplyDeleteThree and a half years after the expulsions, in early 2023, nine women gathered in the front room of a small house on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation to talk about this pattern of expulsions.
In the middle of the room, two recording devices lay on opposite ends of the table. Abby, an older White Mountain Apache woman with her hair in a loose bun, hosted the evening. She sat down next to the black cast iron stove which had been lit hours before to keep the room warm and texted her sisters, Millie and Althea, who were coming.
Various women walked through her front door. Some were family members, others acquaintances. Nine women gathered to finally talk about what kept happening at East Fork Lutheran school.
Althea, the oldest of the sisters, spoke first. Two of her granddaughters were expelled from school in 2018 and 2019. She still has one of the school’s letters tucked away in a box in her house.
It states that these 13-year-old girls will only be allowed to return to school if they agree to confess in front of the Wels church, school and community that they were worshiping the devil when they took part in the Sunrise Dance. They must promise never to do it again.
Maria, a younger woman in her late 30s, was there to share a similar story. The school board found that she had also participated in what they considered a satanic ceremony. Her children were not allowed to return to school the next year. The school had decided to penalize the children for the perceived sins of their mother.
Astonishingly, this pattern of Christian discipline, started more than a century ago, had never stopped.
A ‘demonic manifestation’
The Fort Apache Reservation in Arizona spans 2,625 square miles – just a little larger than the state of Delaware, but with a population just over 14,600.
Based on our reporting and speaking with members of the tribe, there are over 80 churches on the reservation, representing 27 different Christian denominations. The tribe indicated that there was an official list the churches operating on the reservation but no list has been delivered.
East Fork Lutheran school was founded in 1951 by the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (Wels), a religious group which has been active in Arizona since 1893 as part of its Apache Mission – an effort to convert “unreached tribes” to Christianity. This was one of many schools built on the reservation by Wels. The mission has shifted to now being focused on training Native American Christians to lead in the ministry and serve as missionaries to other Indigenous nations throughout the US and Canada.
The school is not unique in its dogma opposing traditional Indigenous practices; the vast majority of the churches on Apache land teach families who participate in traditional ceremonies that they’re damning themselves by worshiping the devil. The Whiteriver Assembly of God, a Pentecostal church, stated in its missionary handbook that Crown Dancers – those who help welcome the girl into womanhood during the Sunrise Dance – could be a “demonic manifestation”.
Since 2020, Wels has published 180 sermons on its YouTube channel, Native Christians. Thirty-one of the 190 videos – almost a fifth – include disparaging remarks about tribal practices including the Sunrise Dance or medicine men, including two completely dedicated to convincing the congregation of the evil within the Sunrise Dance.
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Only two Christian denominations operating on the reservation told me they do not include anti-traditional-Apache rhetoric in their sermons and ideology: the Catholic church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon church. Families on the reservation commonly have a similar understanding.
ReplyDeleteThe influence of this religious teaching throughout the community affects the tribal government as well. Less than half of the 11-person White Mountain Apache tribal council participates in Apache ceremonies, according to the councilmember Annette Tenijieth. She believes seven council people do not participate in Sunrise Dances or support the work of medicine men.
Apache families who send their children to the East Fork Lutheran school face a complicated choice. Some families do so because students in Christian schools are seen as more successful than those attending the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) schools down the road. Others simply value a Christian education, and feel that their children might get on the “right path” with that background.
Still, many families have their children participate in Native ceremonies, ignoring the school’s racist policies. They just hope they do not get found out by the teachers.
‘Mom, did you know you are worshiping false idols?’
“One would think that a story like this would be out of 1890, not 2024.”
When I talked to Dr Robert P Jones, the president and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), a non-profit, non-partisan organization, he was dismayed that churches still teach against Indigenous tradition.
“It is worth noting that the posture being described comes from this conviction that European Christianity is the pinnacle of human civilization,” he said. “And anything other than that is inferior and worse religiously because it can lead you to eternal damnation.”
The Sunrise Dance is a celebration of puberty endowing girls with blessings from God and their community. It is one of the few Apache rituals that has survived the Indigenous genocide that resulted in the death of as many as 15 million Native Americans over the last 500 years.
The dance is sacred both because of its origin and the spiritual impact it has on a girl’s life.
Bruce Burnette, a White Mountain Apache medicine man – a spiritual leader endowed with traditional knowledge of healing – oversees these dances. Burnette explained:“It’s about the girl. The Sunrise Dance is not for today, not for tomorrow. It is fixing the room for her, fixing the road to success. The reason why it is so important is that a woman has got to be strong to move on the path to what she is going to become.”
According to Burnette, the dance came in a vision to an early medicine man. The ceremony has remained the same through the generations.
“The prayer that is put down for her is that it would be easy for her, that it would be comfortable for her in whatever she wants [to do],” Burnette said. “If she wants to go to military life, school, or look to find a job – everything will be there to be successful. That is the prayer that is put down.”
Maria’s crime, as the school saw it, was that she sponsored a Sunrise Dance – never mind that it took place on the weekend and off school grounds. In doing so, she helped welcome a friend’s daughter into adulthood and created a familial bond for the rest of her life, which is a huge honor. But just before the school year started, she received an email telling her that her children were not allowed to return.
Maria had sent her children to East Fork because she hoped a Christian education would harmoniously supplement the foundation of their Indigenous heritage and identity; she now realized that East Fork was extreme in its anti-traditionalism.
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She was devastated. During our interview, she cried as she explained the shame her daughters felt at not being allowed to go back to school. They were also nervous about being sent to the Bureau of Indian Affairs school, where the classes were bigger and they didn’t know anyone.
ReplyDeleteJust last year, the youngest of her three children attending the school came home from East Fork and asked: “Mom, did you know that when you go to Sunrise Dances, you are worshiping false idols?”
Maria was shocked. “Who told you that?” she asked.
“My teacher. She said watching the Crown Dancers is worshiping Satan.”
To hear this – and for her daughters to be told such insulting falsehoods – was mind-blowing. “Our ceremonies are what we were blessed with, our language, our everything,” Maria said. “Those are the things we were blessed with to be Apache people. So I try to explain it to them in a way where they understand: no, we’re not doing anything bad here. We’re not.”
Maria described feeling powerless – like she was hitting a wall in speaking to church leaders. (The Guardian received no answer from Wels after asking about Maria’s experience.)
All the while, her kids were wading in uncertainty about the nature of their cultural identities. Were they evil if they participated in ceremonies, or was it permitted? Who was right?
“I felt like the longer I kept them at the school, the more confused they were,” Maria said.
Still, she hoped to keep them there because the classroom setting was good. The student-to-teacher ratio was small. They received guaranteed attention by their teachers and a thorough education.
When it came time for registration, Maria did not receive any notification from the school. It finally notified her two weeks before the school year started that her children would not be invited back. She had to move them to the public school. “Now that they’re in a public school, and they’ve adjusted to it, they are more proud of their traditions or culture, they’re more proud of who they are,” she said.
A Wels spokesperson responded to requests for comment by saying, “Wels churches serve people by proclaiming the entirety of God’s message to us as presented in the Bible. Apache members, teachers and pastors have been faithful leaders as our Wels churches strive to present God’s truth among communities with their own valued religious practices. Wels has had a trusted partnership with members of the White Mountain Apache Tribe in sharing the message of the Bible dating back to 1893.”
Maria and her family no longer attend church. Though they are still devoted Christians, they’re not comfortable in that space. “Rather than giving a lecture about the Bible, the preachers bring it back to culture – ‘You’re not supposed to be doing this. You’re not supposed to be doing that,’” she explained.
Even the programs handed out at the beginning of the service have an unwelcome message written on the front: it states that if you have participated in a Sunrise Dance, you cannot take communion.
‘Kill the Indian in him, and save the man’
In August 2022, the Oglala Lakota Nation in South Dakota voted to kick out a missionary from the Pine Ridge Reservation who was distributing anti-traditional proselytizing materials. The nation now requires all missionaries and religious groups to register and go through a background investigation before entering the reservation and working.
No Indigenous nations in Arizona have publicly enacted these same regulations for a myriad of reasons – one being the short-term welfare perks of having religious groups freely operating on the reservation. Religious groups bring in donations, food and clothes to a population impoverished by crippling racist policies and the psychological legacy of genocide and spiritual abuse. The price for these benefits can include being forced to let go of tradition and Indigenity.
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Tenijieth, the councilmember, explained that the White Mountain Apache Tribe is caught in a difficult position when it comes to expelling Wels from East Fork. “We can take that land back if we want to, but nobody has brought it up because there is a school there,” she explained. “Even though they are twisting the children’s minds, it is still a better school than others. We need to stand strong. Keep your language strong. Teach your children how to speak Apache … that’s the reason why we’re a sovereign nation.”
ReplyDeleteThere is a straight line between the beliefs that underwrote Christopher Columbus’s claims to the Americas and the current attitudes of religious leaders on the reservation.
Columbus modeled the essence of the 1493 papal decree the doctrine of discovery, which consecrated any “new” territory not yet inhabited by Christians for the Christian world. When Columbus landed in the Americas, he claimed it for both Catholicism and Spain, officially intertwining religion with real estate.
In 1845, the doctrine of discovery was reminted for the country’s largely Protestant population as the doctrine of manifest destiny – the spiritual right for new Americans to expand westward and claim all territory in the name of “progress”.
Year after year, new policies were drafted to ensure that the Indigenous nations already living westward would help keep pioneers who chose to cross the Mississippi River safe. Treaties were signed under the illusion that the US government would honor land rights and cultural identity.
But in 1883, the Office of Indian Affairs, within the Department of Interior, established the Code of Indian Offenses, making it illegal to participate in traditional ceremonies. It wasn’t until 1978, with the passing of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, that participating in the Sunrise Dance was decriminalized.
The establishment of the Office of Indian Affairs paved the way for the 1887 Dawes Act, which divided tribal lands into allotments and included a provision that entitled religious organizations that worked with Indigenous people to keep up to 160 acres of federal land to support their missions.
To this day, these churches still draw from the spiritual legacies of Christian missions and receive funding from off-reservation congregations under that definition. Global Ministries of the United Methodist church spent over $11m in 2022 for missionary services. Wels spent $661,018 just for the Apache missions and over $23.5m for all missions, as laid out in its most recent report, from 2023.
Wels first came to Arizona in 1892, five years after the Dawes Act. When it was clear that exterminating the Apache people would not be possible, the federal government engaged Christian denominations working with the military to force the assimilation of the Indigenous people. RH Pratt, the superintendent of the first “industrial” boarding school under this policy, coined the term that embodied the philosophy behind these institutions: “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”
Federal boarding school policy allowed the military to forcibly remove Apache children from their families and send them to industrial schools in an attempt to militarize and alter their identities. They were forbidden to practice their religion or speak their language, and reports of physical and sexual abuse were common. Many children never returned home.
If an Indigenous child was found outside during school hours, Indigenous police were appointed to snatch the child and deliver them to a school under the US military’s jurisdiction. If a parent sought to hide their child, they could be imprisoned or cut off from food and other necessary daily supplies.
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Apache children were kidnapped and taken as far as Pennsylvania, where they were forced to fully assimilate into Anglo-Christian society. Their clothes were burned, their language forgotten. Many children died of disease, neglect or abuse. And while the number of deaths is not yet known, it is believed that Apache children comprise a quarter of the graves at Carlisle Indian Industrial school.
ReplyDeleteTo think that 1800s attitudes towards Apache children have changed would be a mistake.
Outside of the Wels mission, volunteers of other denominations drive around in colorful buses and still pick children up throughout the reservation, whether on the side of the road or other public areas. They take them to play games and learn about their version of Jesus and then drop the kids off again where they found them hours before. Parents are not always told or asked permission.
Ministry members post on social media about the good they are doing by “be[ing] the hands and feet of Jesus to some of the most vulnerable kids in our nation”. They then post pictures of themselves surrounded by garbage, validating their projection of vulnerability on these families.
Referring to how white missionaries target communities of color and paint their converts as impoverished victims in need of Christianity, Jones, the Public Religion Research Institute founder, said: “I’ll put it as bluntly as I can. I think it’s because most white Christian denominations in this country have hardly begun to reckon with how white supremacy has become deeply embedded in our faith. So we perpetuate it, sometimes consciously but often unconsciously.”
He continued: “If you happen to be a Christian and of European extraction in some way, it’s a pretty powerful drug to think that your race and your religion were chosen by God and represent the pinnacle of human achievement. There’s power in asserting that vision. And at the end of the day, it’s about power. While we are beginning to see serious efforts to try to disentangle white supremacy from Christianity, that legacy still haunts us.”
As recently as 2022, the Wels leadership published an article directly translating the words of an early pastor from German to English detailing how Hitler’s regime united Lutheranism in Germany, although it does describe misgivings about how Hitler handled the rest of the country.
This article was featured in the quarterly magazine sent to all of their congregation members throughout the country.
‘That’s a stupid question. That is a white-person question’
Millie’s husband, Ramon Riley, the Apache cultural resource director at the White Mountain Apache Culture Center and Museum, attends the Catholic church and remains devoted to the traditions and rituals of his Apache identity.
I asked him how he reconciles his Christian faith with the history of violence upon the Apache people in the name of Jesus Christ.
He took a beat. “That’s a stupid question. That is a white-person question.”
His response, when pressed, encapsulates the huge gap in understanding about the religious binary white people operate in and the spiritual life Riley identifies with. “I have intergenerational historical trauma. I get through it by doing my sweat.”
Riley attends Catholic mass and then immediately does a ceremonial sweat. He finds solace in both practices and brings up the Catholic church’s repeated apologies for past wrongdoing.
In 1987, Pope John Paul II came to Arizona and made it clear that ceremony and tradition were not a threat to Catholicism. And in March 2023, Pope Francis repudiated the doctrine of discovery. On a 2022 tour of atonement in Canada, he said: “Never again can the Christian community allow itself to be infected by the idea that one culture is superior to others, or that it is legitimate to employ ways of coercing others.”
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When asked the same question about the relationship between Native traditional religion and Christianity, Tenijieth’s answer is similar: “God hears our prayers. Who are we praying to? We are praying to the same God as they’re praying to. White people cannot judge us, you know? Only God can judge us.”
ReplyDeleteShe explained that Christianity and traditional religion are the same: both worship the same God. She will defend her Christian beliefs as hard as she will defend her right to the protection of the Sunrise Dance.
Dr Greg Johnson, professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, notes that many Christian traditions tout an all-or-nothing viewpoint. “Time and again, Native peoples have said, ‘You know what, we will re-engineer your Christianity to better suit our purposes. So even if you tell us it’s exclusive, even if you discipline us in a way, cut our hair, dress us, make us feel a certain way, we’re not done being Apache and we will make your Christianity do things you didn’t expect.’”
The morning of Good Friday, Father John Cormack, presiding priest of St Francis of Assisi Catholic church in Fort Apache, agreed to an interview in his office. His ministry – a rarity on the reservation – is an example of the weaving of Apache tradition into Christianity. The chapel is decorated in Apache symbols and sacred tools. When he collects written prayers, Father John uses Apache traditional burden baskets, canes and other ceremonial objects. Above the door are Eagle feathers, a sacred symbol of strength.
He’s known to attend Sunrise Dances and offer a prayer at the ceremony when invited to do so. “We encounter God in many, many ways. And each other in all these beautiful traditions,” he said.
Father John, who came from Castlebar, in Ireland, took on this role right before the pandemic hit. He grew emotional as we spoke, pausing throughout the conversation to consider the parallel of the British empire’s impact on Ireland and the US occupying the land of the Indigenous nations.
He cried over the shared injustice of his people and also the people he was serving. He cried over the sins of the past and present committed in the name of Christ.
“We have to always look for justice. Gandhi, in another country under British rule, said, ‘If it weren’t for Christians, I’d be a Christian.’ It’s difficult to talk about but no matter what, you should always seek justice for all of us. That is what Christ did.” (Gandhi was quoted as saying: “I like your Christ, but not your Christianity.”)
Wels went as far as banning Millie from participating in communion because she sponsored a Sunrise Dance.
The Guardian reached out to each of the six Wels pastors preaching in the White Mountain Apache and San Carlos Apache Reservations separately to discuss their beliefs surrounding the Sunrise Dance and received no response.
Millie, Althea and Abby have spoken to their Wels pastor to ask why the church is becoming more determined in its anti-Indigenous ideology. In the past, the preachers did not actively scout out those who participated in Apache traditions and then cut them off from church services. They have received no substantial response.
Private schools operate as they choose, and there are no legal precedents, nor federal laws or policies, which could be used to protect Indigenous beliefs in this context. Even in public schools, Indigenous students and communities are still fighting in court to be allowed to wear traditional tribal regalia, traditional hairstyles, or tribal clothing, especially during high school graduation ceremonies.
‘We still have to use the white man’s weapon to keep what is rightfully ours’
When Naelyn Pike, of the Chiricahua Apache Nation, was just 14 years old, she moved from Mesa, Arizona, back to the San Carlos Apache Reservation.
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A few weeks in, a school friend pressured her to convert to Lutheranism, making her question whether she would go to hell if she did not convert and give up her traditional ways.
ReplyDeletePike, now 24, was shocked. As a young woman with an ancestry of activists and community leaders, Naelyn knew that to better serve her people, she needed to understand what these missions were teaching them.
Once she started college, she decided to take catechism lessons to better understand what her community was taught. She went to college in Mesa – three hours from the reservation – and drove back to the reservation on weekends to attend classes.
“I would go to church sometimes to see what it was like. The one thing I remember is one of the pastors had told the congregation, ‘It’s OK if you wear your camp dress, but it’s when you believe in it [as a spiritual or cultural act], you shouldn’t wear it. It’s OK to eat your fry bread, but it’s when you believe in eating the frybread that you shouldn’t eat it,” she said.
Naelyn was devastated. Following a visit to the church, she got in her car to make her way back to Mesa Community College, but made one sacred stop at Oak Flat, a swath of land in the Tonto national forest of utmost sanctity. It is believed to be the largest copper deposit in North America, and the federal government wants to transfer it to Resolution Copper, a mining project owned by the mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP.
That day, Naelyn walked towards the mesa and, through her sadness and heartbreak, she prayed for her people.
“There’s so many missionaries or organizations that come in thinking that they can [teach the Apache people that living in their culture is wrong] because now we’re the shadow in this country. We’re the dust underneath the carpet. We’re the people that are never seen, even though we’re the First People. There’s this whole idea that we’re people of the past, we’re not people of the present or the future.”
On 1 March 2024, the ninth circuit court of appeals ruled 6-5 in favor of Resolution Copper. The decision is expected to be appealed to the US supreme court in the upcoming months.
The court’s decision will be largely dependent on the interpretation of the 1852 treaty of Santa Fe, and was signed by representatives of the US government and various Apache leaders, including Chief Mangas Coloradas.
More than 170 years later, Mangas Coloradas’s direct descendant Michelle Colelay sits at a table with three of her four daughters and her husband, Chester, a descendant of another great chief, Chief Alchesay.
“We’re still fighting,” she said. “We still have to use the white man’s weapon to keep what is rightfully ours, so we are fighting in court. What are they going to do with it? It doesn’t have any meaning to them, except monetary. They wouldn’t allow us to go into their homes and take whatever we wanted. So why would they do the same to us? In many different ways. It is hurtful. It is frustrating.”
When the Colelays’ first daughter was six or seven years old, she asked her parents if it was true what she was learning at the Wels church, that participating in traditional ceremonies was tied to the devil.
After that Sunday, they never went back to the Wels church.
“We tell our stories to our kids. We want them to feel it, see it, live it, and be part of it,” Chester said. “When the Spirit gets to you, you can either be at the river, on top of the mountain, praying in front of your house, inside a church, it could be at a Sunrise ceremony. Wherever the spirit catches you is where you belong. That’s where God is at. God is not just in church. God is everywhere.”
Through it all, the Colelay family said, “we’re still here.
“We’re still surviving. And we are always Apache first.”
to see the links and photos embedded in this article go to:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/jun/24/apache-students-school-reservation