Q: So when did you first realize you were a victim of ritual abuse?
A: My first awareness of it came when my counselor suggested a therapist because of incessant nightmares I was having. The therapist took
me into a deep trance state and was able to reverse the post-hypnotic impression left by my father to insure my forgetting. When he did it was
like a heavy fog was lifted and I saw all the ways my memory had been altered.
Q: Altered in what way?
A: Before he left us my father basically reprogrammed my memory of key events so that all the things I did and was a party to, the things my
father and his 'family' did to me and others was covered up. No one could have lived through the scenes I recall now and remain sane. He changed
my memory to reflect only one part of the dual life he forced me to live. I thought that I was part of a home where religion was of only minor
importance, where my father was agnostic and emotionally apathetic and where my mother dabbled in religions like a taste-test participant in a
series of surveys. What I didn't realize is almost too horrible to consider - I was being groomed for a purpose, a purpose so sinister I still have
nightmares because of the implications. Nightmares in which I am accused of breaking a vow and told that I will be made to suffer for thwarting
these plans, this destiny that was laid out for me.
Q: You talk about purpose and destiny in such grandiose and theatrical terms, realizing that most readers will have a hard time believing your
story. What was this destiny and why is it that we should believe these memories as anything more than the fantastic creativity of a therapist
and a patient in order to get a financial windfall in publicity and accuse others for your guilt and alienation?
A: My story is part of the central myth of western consciousness, it is the essential climactic element in the primary religious text from which
come our modern moral codes of social behavior and theocratic fealty. And more importantly it is the one story that weaves a picture of our
future and final destination after the inevitable conclusion of the most important war ever to be fought - the Manichean war betwixt the forces of
light and darkness. A battle which I have now chosen to become a conscientious objector in.
Q: You're talking about Armageddon, the Apocalypse discussed in the Book of Revelations; a book written by a madman obviously suffering from
a psychotic reaction to his exile on a lonely isle in the Aegean? What are you saying that you are one of the Four Horsemen, the Beast 666, or
the Whore of Babylon?
A: I wouldn't claim to be 'the Beast 666', as Aliester Crowley has chosen that for his own and consequently the Scarlet woman has been taken
as well. Let's just say that Nostradamus' prediction for the final Anti-Christ has a special relevance as regards my father's family name. I really
don't want to be explicit here for fear of reprisals from over zealous fanatics. I mean look at the abortion debate, I already feel that my father's
associates are apt to seek me out for their own designs, and I wouldn't want to add to that by courting the Religious Right's own 'shining path'
death squads.
Q: What was the nature of these dreams or nightmares you were having? Did they have a direct connection to all these eschatological scenarios you talk of?
A: Yes. The dreams started out simply enough. They were showing the death of the current Pope, John Paul II and the election of the next to last
Pope, John Paul III as the prophecies of St. Malachy predict. Then these dreams became more disturbing as they began imaging this Great War
or WW III, as some would call it, which heralds the coming Apocalypse. These nightmares I found to be unbearable, not just because of their
intensity and visceral qualities, but because they were recurrent and worse yet, they foretold my own death at the hand of the Fisher King if I
chose to follow the path that was set for me.
Q: You actually witnessed your own death in these dreams? You seem to dwell in the future, is this some therapeutic mechanism you use in order
to overcome your past?
A: It is part of my renunciation, a disavowal of the future others would foist upon me. It is the only way in which I can sidestep this horror. It is
also the easiest way for me to heal and get beyond the pain that these memories have caused me. When you have been scarred the way I have,
it is more important to live in the moment and think of the future and the opportunities it offers and overcome what has been done to me.
Act II: I Was A Teenage Satanist
Q: You've talked a lot about the future and your destiny, I wonder if you could talk about your past and the memories you have re-acquired
through this therapeutic intervention? What was it that first put you on this path as you call it? Do you remember?
A: Like I said my mother was a dabbler in religion. When I was young she was in the process of breaking from her parent's faith and establishing
her own story. It was the seventies and alternative religions were in vogue. She read astrological charts and Tarot cards; this was the backdrop
of my formative years even though I had a complete collection of the Bible Stories for Children. In fact my first day care experiences were
at a Methodist day care. One of the last times we went to that church as a family was on a rainy Easter day. Religion, at least organized religion,
had become disposable to her in the wake of marital difficulties. I cannot recall my father ever going to church with us, something that was in later
sessions with the therapist, to become an important clue to the family history.
Q: How is that her interest in these alternative religious ideas effected your own interests? Was it the rejection of her family's religious history or the vogue of these ideas that
interested you?
A: In retrospect I would have to say it was the rejection of that religious tradition which seems so full of hypocrisy and whose text is riddled with
inconstancies and judgmental violence. One of my most fervent interests in grade school was reading about the chivalric orders suppressed by
the Roman church, the Cathars and Templars. Of course at that time I didn't realize the importance of that interest or the implications of how this
knowledge would drive me to reject Christianity in it's organized form. Part of that rejection, or rebellion if you will, arose in my youthful adoration
of the rock band KISS. That in and of itself is not too terribly important when you consider how popular they were among my age group in the
seventies. What is important to consider though is the urban myth that arose around the supposed meaning of their name, 'Knights In Satanic
Service'. This was definitely my first awareness of an anti-Christian or Satanic religious philosophy and consequently the association of such
with the occult underground. And KISS inevitably led to Ozzy Osbourne in the early eighties, where my association with the Luciferian rebellion
became most pronounced.
Q: I understand the rebellion of your youth led you to music that was viewed as dangerous by most adults, but what does this have to do with
your abuse. It sounds as if you were the one that started down the path and that there wasn't any influence on you other than rejection and
rebellion of the status quo.
A: That is true, it would appear that it was my own interests that led me down this path. But what I have now come to see through therapy and
hypnosis was that these desires toward rebellion were being formulated subconsciously in me through the use of post-hypnotic suggestion
which was being placed while I was asleep in the dream state, specifically through the mechanism of astral possession. My father was only mildly
objectionable to my interest in the music in that day-to-day conscious state, but in this other state he was goading my own searching and
association with this rebellious tradition of anti-Christian thought and action. It was all just childish rebellion until puberty and then the activities
I began to be associated shifted in intensity and intent. It was about this time that I began to play, again like so many others of my generation,
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.
Q: But where is the abuse, how were you harmed by this? KISS, Ozzy and Dungeons and Dragons were phenomenon of your age group, your
interest in them doesn't qualify as abuse, much less ritual abuse. Can you give me some specific instances where your father harmed you by way
of ritual activity?
A: When I was born I was supposedly a breach baby, which required the use of forceps in the delivery. This caused one of my testicles to be
ruptured or at least that is the story my mother and I were told. What actually happened was a two-fold ritual act in regard to my destiny. My father
in collusion with the delivering physician, a member of his 'family', removed my testicle so that like the other two great Anti-Christs who came
before me I would have only one testicle. More sinister though was that it was to be used in a ritualistic cannibalism whereby they would become
'God-eaters'. The theory derives from a comment by Aliester Crowley where he stated that "he sacrificed a male-child of perfect health and intelligence
every day." He was talking about masturbation, but my father corrupted the idea and added the cannibalism aspect so that he might further solidify
his hold over me through this sympathetic magickal act of ingestion of the Godhead. This is not unlike the transubstantiation in the Roman mass
whereby a reciprocal connection is established and maintained between the object of worship and the worshippers. It was at the point, not long
after I entered puberty, that this action was taken to insure my continued association with the 'underground stream' of their heresy. It was also
at this time that I was recruited by one of the younger members of his 'family' to form a working ritual group.
Q: How did they go about this? Were you aware of your father's association with them at this point? Or is this something that only came out of your therapy?
A: No I didn't become aware of my father's association until I went through therapy. He was essentially the provocateur if you will, they acted
upon his orders. Shortly after I entered high school I began to have tremendously erotic dreams that left me in a state of acute pain when I awoke.
Even when I attempted to alleviate the source of tension by masturbation, the pain would subside only for a short while, and the masturbation
seemed to increase the frequency of the dreams. What I would later discover was happening was that one of my father's 'family' was visiting me
at night via the astral plane while I slept. She would enter my dream in the form of a succubus, a type of eroticized demoness that feeds on the
seminal fluid of human males. She would engage me sexually and torment me by leaving me unfulfilled, without release, but none the less in an
acute state of arousal. And then I met her in the flesh one Friday night while playing pinball at a neighborhood arcade where several of my male
friends and I played role-playing games. It was strange that none of my companions saw her, in fact she was only there long enough to tell me
that I was to meet her later that night at a large oak tree in a field where we rode our bikes on motorcycle trails. When I asked my friends about it,
they said I was making it up, that I was dreaming. Consequently I didn't tell them about her message of rendezvous or that it was the same
creature that had been plaguing my dreams.
Q: So you went to the meeting, and what happened?
A: I was initiated into a ritual group, which would in turn introduce me to another group that I would someday come to lead. After the incident at the
arcade, my friends and I finished up our game as normal and proceeded home. When I got home around midnight my mother was already asleep
and my father was up reading. Not long after I had come in though he turned out his lights and went to sleep. I waited another thirty minutes and
slipped out my window and rode my bike to the field. The moon was dark so there was little light once I got off the streets and into the canopy
of trees. When I got to the tree she told me to meet her at, I placed my bike in a bush off the trail and waited beneath the mammoth tree. This
particular oak tree was some ten to thirteen feet in circumference and none of the lower limbs were accessible from the ground. As I sat there I
thought I could hear a soft murmuring chant coming from somewhere above me. As I looked up I was nearly blinded by an object dropped from
out of the darkness. When I could see again there was a rope ladder hanging in front of me, which I proceeded to climb. When I got to the top
there was an open trap door, which lead to a windowless room in what appeared to be a rather large treehouse. Once I climbed inside I heard a
soft voice, strangely disembodied say, "pull up the ladder and close the door"; this I did. When I had finished I again heard the voice, which
sounded as if it came from a far corner, while at the same time sounding as if it came from inside my head. This time it said, "take off your clothes
and put on the robe you will find near the door." When I had complied with the request I was told to approach a door in front of me and knock
upon it three times. I was told to respond to the password query I would be asked with the word "Baphomet". After this was done the door was
opened and a cloth sack was placed over my head, my arms were pinned and then tied behind my back. All this took place before I could get a
look at my assailant or the room I was ushered into. I won't go into the particulars of the ceremony, there are enough 'leakages' of this class of
information for those who are interested, and I am already in danger for my defection. Suffice to say that I was conducted about a second larger
room and consecrated with water and fire and then brought before an altar, of course I could not see any of this because I was hoodwinked. I
was forced to kneel and a cold blade of rather large proportion was placed across my throat. I was then sworn to secrecy about what I had
experienced and what I would learn. I was instructed that I would not be allowed to invite others into these practices without conformation from
the magister templi who was administering the oath. When all this was finished the hoodwink and rope were removed and the room and its
occupants were revealed.
Q: Was the person who invited you, the 'succubus' who had tormented your dreams there?
A: Yes, she was the magister templi who had administered the oath. She was wearing a red knee length cloak that was fastened at her
throat with a coiled serpent, her arms and legs were bare. On either side of me were cloaked figures as well, to my left a male, who held the sword
that had just been removed from my neck, in a black cloak fastened with a scorpion. To my right another female in a white cloak fastened with a
two-headed eagle, she had been the one who escorted me about the temple during the consecration. The object, which I was unable to take my
eyes off of though, was the altar itself. Lying atop a low table covered with black silk, was the form of a naked female who appeared to be asleep.
I didn't recognize her then of course, but she would become my direct contact in the group as well as my magickal mentor. The table was low
enough that her arms and legs hung down and her feet and hands were lain flat upon the ground. On her chest between her breasts stood a
chalice of silver, which moved ever so slightly in time with her breathing. Beneath the chalice on her stomach lay a long dagger. An athalme
with a skull and crossed bone pommel with the point resting in the short hair just above her vulva; she was obviously breathing from her diaphragm
because the blade rose and fell more than the chalice did. The two objects made a sort of crux ansata or ankh, the Egyptian symbol of life
on the pale flesh of her naked torso. At this point the other members of the temple, excluding the female on the altar and the magister templi
were given license to depart and the figure at my left was told to guard the portal. I didn't see what happened next because my eyes were on the
athalme gently rising and falling, but before the door could be closed a black cat came in from the room where the others were now assembling.
Q: What happened then?
A: To seal my connection with my mentor I had to perform an act of sexual magick often called in some traditions the 'grand rite'. I was instructed
to stand, but not by the magister templi, by the disembodied voice I had heard earlier. I was offered the chalice after it had been charged
by the athalme's immersion in its liquid contents. It tasted warm and slightly bitter, almost immediately I felt a sensual heaviness descend
over me. The voice then instructed to kiss the body of the magister templi in five places: the eyes, the mouth, the breast, the vulva, and the feet,
she now stood between me and the altar with her cloak pushed back over her shoulders. Her body had a distinct smell to it, like herbs and wax, the
flesh was warm and her vulva was moist with arousal. At this point I was also acutely aware of my own arousal. When I stood again after kissing
her feet she deftly grabbed my phallus and before I could react, drew the blade of the athalme, which she held in her hand, across the tip, the
cut forming an equilateral cross with the openning. She then returned the five-fold kiss I had bestowed on her. When she reached my phallus
she cleaned the blood from around the cut. I was then instructed by the voice to stand at the right or foot of the altar and take the athalme
from the magister templi, who went to stand opposite me at the left or head of the altar. While these kisses had taking place, the black cat
had taken the place of the ritual objects on the female altar's chest. When I stood at my place I found that the chalice had been placed beneath
the edge of the altar just in front of me. I was then instructed to use the skull on the pommel of the athalme to carefully arouse and open
the vulva of the female on the altar. As I did this I noticed that there was some blood on the tip of the skull and around the lips of her vulva.
When she began to arch her hips slightly and the moisture was readily apparent, I was instructed to insert my phallus, while continuing to use
the skull to caress her clitoris. Once I had done this I was instructed to lock my eyes on those of the magister templi, who now stood
astride the face of the female on the altar. We stood with our eyes locked for some time as I was told to slowly push further inside while continuing
to manipulate her with the athalme. I was then told to strive towards orgasm, it was about this time that I realized that I was hearing the
sound of fluid dripping down into the chalice. When I reached climax I blacked out from the pain it caused because of the wound I had earlier
received. I awoke in my bed and it was morning.
Q: Was there any evidence that this story you have just told wasn't just a continuation of these dreams that you had been having? Was there a cut on your phallus?
A: I have no knowledge of how I got home, although my bike was there as well. No there wasn't a fresh wound, although there was the slightest
hint of a scar. I went to the tree and could not see any treehouse. Although the following week at school I made the acquaintance of a female
who was interested in many of the same subjects I had been studying and closely resembled the female who had been on the altar and who was
to become my magickal mentor. Some of the magickal objects she had in her possession were a chalice and athalme identical to the ones we had
used that night, as well as a dark bottle which she said contained a blood sacrifice she had made with the help of another practitioner during an
initiation. She would often take her monthly blood and use it as a sort of fertilizer on a herbe garden that contained baneful magickal herbes near
the oak tree. The following full moon she introduced me to a group that she worked with, although I remembered none of them from that night of
the first initiation. When she went off to college I continued to work with this group and progressed to the magister templi position. When
she left I was instructed to find and secure a potential candidate to replace my mentor.
Q: What were some of the things you learned from her and through working with the group she introduced you to? How did they relate to the group that
initiated you at your father's bequest?
A: The woman who performed the actual initiation was part of my father's 'family' or working group. She was, I have been told by my mentor, often
serving in the place of the female altar for my father who served as the magister templi of that group. What is hard to except, in relation to
what I experienced, was that she was the mother of my mentor, and consequently her mentor or teacher. I learned that this is common in the
tradition my father and his 'family' belonged to; given a new and specific meaning to the word 'family'. Incidentally her father was the individual
who held the sword across my throat. I learned none of this until she was leaving and even then this was part of the information which my father
succeeded in suppressing from my conscious memory. She, I will call her Astarte, taught me about the working of these ritual groups and about
magick in general. She was also well versed in the growing, collection and use of herbes for magickal purposes. I learned that the chalice at my
initiation contained hashish oil in a green honey, which is derived from feeding bees in early spring the flowers of specific plants. This causes the
honey to be mildly hallucinogenic and narcotic, which was why I blacked out, it was timed to happen that way. Astarte also instructed me in
sexual magick continuing the work we began at my initiation, we used especially the oral sex discussed in Crowley's Psalm 69, symbolized by
Solomon's seal the Holy Hexagram. It is my fear that the dark bottle which contained our combined sexual fluids and blood may one day be used
to produce another progeny for my father's 'family'. She also instructed in the ritual use of certain hallucinogenic compounds, specifically, oil of
hashish, psilocybe mushrooms, and LSD made from the ergot fungus found on grain. Part of the work she required me to do was to research the
use of these hallucinogens in indigenous and classic cultures. For instance the Assassins of Hassan-I-Sabbah, Xochipilli, the God of Flowers in
Aztec and Mayan iconography, and the Greek Rites of Eleusis, which was the central religious act in that culture for two thousand years.
Q: Did you actually use these substances or were you just studying them?
A: They were used, the studying of them was part of the process to put them into a ritual context in order to avoid the traps of contemporary usage.
Indiscriminate usage was shown to be a product of the cultural dependence on exotic substances which more often than naught was initiated
because they were ascribed aphrodisiac qualities, this can be seen in tobacco, sugar, alcohol, and coca -coffee as well as cocaine. My first
experience with LSD, long after I had been using hashish and psilocybe, was a magickal event where I was directed to channel an emotive force
at an undifferentiated cloud mass to form a funnel cloud that I then dissolved by absorbing the same force I had directed. The use of these
substances was not an end in and of themselves. They were used as a means to loosen, and in some instances jar open the psychic portals in the
mind, which acculturation had closed over the centuries through guilt, shame, and especially suppression of the knowledge of their existence and
use. As tools they are useful in the right context, but taken out of that context or utilized for non-ritual purposes they do little but titillate and
distract the aspirant from the goal of knowledge and communion of the microcosm and the macrocosm.
Q: You mentioned a replacement for your mentor whom you had to recruit, tell me about that? When were you given the position of magister
templi, and what did you have to do to receive it?
A: Before my mentor left I was given the opportunity to take on the position of magister templi, although it required a sacrifice. Now
something you should know about sacrifices is that blood is a very powerful substance in regard to its magical efficacy. In fact there is a prohibition
against blood sacrifice, as I mentioned earlier my mentor, would often use her 'moon' blood as sacrifice, which is quite common. The use of other
creatures and human blood is just not done, as it is wasteful. The actual ritual I performed was part of my renunciation of the Christian faith,
something which still compels me to this day; it can not be undone. I won't describe the actual working, as I wouldn't want to propagate the
information for others to misuse, as I would then be responsible for their actions. This is one of the reasons for the mentor and aspirants
relationship; they are directly responsible for how you use the knowledge imparted. In this working I made a sacrifice and it couldn't be just 'moon'
blood, it required the destruction of a life, for I was taking the last step across the Abyss, a step from which few are capable of returning. I
magickally charged a toad with the name of Christos and sacrificed it on a cross in order to carry me across the Abyss and back. Once I completed
this I was given the grade but the not the position, that would be transferred to me when I found my aspirant. I cannot reveal the information
about my search for an aspirant for fear of legal complications. Suffice to say the ritual caused her to transpose me with a young male who had
raped her. The working was obviously too psychically potent for her to deal with consciously.
Act III: Sacrificing the King of Kings
Q: For someone who was ritually abused you still seem to be at the least conversant and accepting of ritual magick and its belief system. From
what you have just detailed your story seems more like a Anne Rice novel without the vampires?
A: Anne Rice wrote a good story but that is where it stopped, it was a fictional account, an imaginative tale she wove, and there was no truth to
it. I prefer less fantastic and more macabre authors who tell more historically verifiable accounts. Andrei Codrescu recently wrote a book which
is a good example of this entitled The Blood Countess which detailed a noblewoman in Hungary who was told by her spiritual advisors
to bathe in the blood of virgins to maintain her youth and beauty. In the realm of the fantastic I would rather read H.P. Lovecraft or Arthur Machen,
their work is much more esoteric and compelling, not relying on sex to keep the attention of the reader. I also enjoy the grafting of older traditions
on to the moral ideals and template of Christianity in Tolkien's work, which to me is less proselytizing then his fellow Inkling C.S. Lewis. And since
we are in the realm of the purely fantastic I also thoroughly enjoy Lucas' redemption of the 'dark Christ' in the story of Darth Vader/Annakin
Skywalker. Both of these writers seemed to have gotten the moral message without so much of the fascist hyperbole. The story I related is part
of my recollection of events and helps to illustrate the nature of my father's 'family' and their overtly anti-Christian tradition. In regards to the
belief system, I still feel magick is efficacious, just look at how well the mass works for the Roman church. It is a thinly veiled form of sympathetic
magick as I suggested earlier. My main complaint about my father and his tradition is that they were manipulating me without my consent, which
is a destructive act of coercion that nullifies trust and belief. The turning of Christianity on its head does not function to annihilate Christianity,
it only guarantees it will continue to feed on the unwitting and the gullible, it provides the object of disavowal with an enemy to focus its intention
on, and consequently generates more followers sympathetic to its cause. Satan was a tool created by the church to help consolidate power over
the heathen, those rural peasants who persisted in their pre-Christian or Pagan faith towards naturalistic and tribal deities and rituals. I chose to
renounce Christianity because of very concrete reasons. That my father and his 'family' pushed me on in the discovery of those matters little.
What I refuse to do though is play the role of their Anti-Christ and encourage the belief that the eschatological nightmare of the Apocalypse has
to happen. Prophecy to me is a perception of what might be not what will be. It is inherently a warning to those who come after; a signpost in the
road that says if you go down this road this will be the possible outcome. I choose to avoid that path altogether.
Q: What happened to your father when these things began to come out in therapy? And your mother how did she deal with the revelations your memories brought about?
A: My father knew the jig was up when I went to the therapist, and he knew he couldn't avoid the repercussions, so he fled. It was at about this
time that the Cult Awareness Network was working to expose groups like his. From what my mother has told me he joined the Church of Scientology
in Los Angeles and was instrumental in getting that organization to buy out CAN in order to cover his tracks. My therapist was unable to get
a prosecutor to look into the case, due largely to the lack of physical evidence. When my father left he insured I would have few leads and no
witnesses if I chose legal maneuvers. In fact it took many months for my therapist to break through the post-hypnotic lock my father had left on
my memory, and even then the hypnosis was only functional in retrieving those memories when sodium brevitol was utilized in tandem. By the
time we finally got to the truth of much of the story, it was too late to track his, or the members of his 'family' (the few I was even aware of) where
abouts; worse yet my mother was forced to sell our house and move. The trauma was too much for her and consequently she chose to move us
far away in order to put it out of her mind. When we moved to the Pacific Northwest she became involved with the channeler J.Z. Knight, spiritual
head of Ramtha. I was old enough at this point that I had had enough of superficial religious cults and chose to move out and make my own way.
With the help of my therapist I have written a book on my experiences at the hands of my father's 'family'. I attempt to avoid much of the Apocalyptic
quality of the story where I can, primarily to protect myself from both sides of this religious war, but largely because I feel by giving it voice I
endanger everyone with its inevitability, and the constituent pain and horror that will entail. I personally believe we can and should avoid the
prophecies of desert prophets, theirs was a desolate and loveless environment where sex and the life it created were a hindrance to the survival
of the tribe. I prefer the ripe multiplicity and fecundity of those heathen that the goat-footed God played his lovely pipes to.