The Satan Hunter

Thomas W. Wedge (with Robert L. Powers)

Canton, OH: Daring Books, 1988; Pages: 222

An investigator's view of what he sees as the troubling proliferation of Satanic cults in the modern US. The book purports to be an individual account of the author's own experiences and an advice to law enforcement officers. It is neither. First, Wedge is a practicing Christian, and his self-styled "battle" with evil takes on the coloring of a crusade. This is evident in the way he describes Sean Sellers, the troubled youth who murdered his parents and a Circle K store clerk, and is portrayed as a highly intelligent person who opened himself to demonic possession and therefore was not responsible for his actions. Pure gibberish. The jury did not believe this woozy of a defense and gave him the injection. To Wedge, the killer is a victim, a controversial view that is doubtless influenced by Sellers' conversion to Christianity while on death row. To top it off, the chapter concludes with an open letter from Sellers to the readers. What a joke. Second, the author really has no clue about most of the beliefs, practices, or even the psychology behind them. The book offers a superficial account of gruesome acts and an analysis which reads like the leaflet of some far-right Christian organization. Quotes taken out of context, attributions to professional authorities that miss the point, and outright falsifications, all make up the bulk of the book.

The chapter on recruitment to Satanic cults is a little bit more informative but could benefit substantially by an expansion to techniques used by various cults of different beliefs as these are all the same and vary little from one cult to another. The description of a Black Mass is interesting but is heavily influenced by anti-occult religious propaganda that dates back to the Middle Ages. Some of the depictions read like an inquisitor's wet dream, where the author wallows in indulgent decadence while attributing it to Satanists. Pure gobbledygook.

Then the book hits rock bottom with two chapters dedicated to the alleged pernicious influences of Heavy Metal and Dungeons & Dragons. No person of sound mind could possibly believe the allegations hurled against the music and the game. None of the "evidence" is substantiated, most accounts are either newspaper clippings (what, the heck, journalists know best!) or opinions of parents of suicidal teens who obviously would blame just about anything and anyone but their own parenting skills. In addition, the author brands Black Sabbath as a Satanic band citing the text "just like witches at black masses" from "War Pigs," a line obviously taken out of context from an anti-war song! Give me a break! Then he labels Venom as minions of Satan but this is a band, whose members openly stated that all their evil posturing is a marketing gimmick. Talk about painstaking research. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Heavy Metal causes violent behavior. Neither is there any evidence that D&D drives teenagers to suicide or murder. Again, we are treated to 30 pages of establishment hysteria with no basis in reality. Just look at the manifest of B.A.D.D., the rabid organization that seeks to ban just about everything fun in a young person's life.

The vapid descent into below average quality continues with the chapter on "traditional" Satanism. Curiously, the author uses this label to refer to LaVey's Church of Satan, which is obviously a hedonistic non-religious (not even anti-religious) organization. Even though many misunderstand "The Satanic Bible," it is hardly the evil book that "Maleus Maleficarum" was, for example. Worshipping one's own self may be a bit off the wall, but the humanism does hold great appeal. The "non-traditional" Satanism, on the other hand, is the practice that sends shivers down everyone's spine. Here we encounter animal and human sacrifice, weird ritual killings, and the like. There is definitely cause for concern here but what does the author do? He plugs in a wild assortment of bizarre and disturbing pictures to "illustrate" his narrative. I can tell a disembowelled dog when I see one, thank you. A thinly concealed sensationalism that uses scare tactics to pre-determine the reaction of the readers. Bad strategy when your readers have an IQ higher than their shoe size. Overall, the self-styled cult-bashing "expert" manages to splatter lurid and gross photos throughout the book. The photographs' only redeeming quality is their poor reproduction.

There are also useless chapters on crime scene investigations (the advice is ridiculous and should be offensive to any self-respecting law enforcement officer: as if they did not know to be careful and take pictures! duh!) and candles, the purpose of which eludes me. Then there is an anti-Cuban and anti-African chapter on Santeria, where it is depicted as Yoruba voodoo poisoning America. The author forgets his own injunctions about the protection these groups enjoy under the First Amendment and applauds humane societies' efforts to ban animal sacrifice. This, needless to say, is not going to happen as long as there are Jews and Muslims, who require the ritualized kosher slaying of animals.

The only more or less objective chapter is the coverage of paganism, where the Wiccan beliefs are correctly depicted as a religion, and the meaning of a witch is divorced from its everyday usage and negative connotations. The entire chapter is basically an interview with two Wicce, who share their beliefs and attitudes. One of the few refreshing parts of this book, which hold special emergency because of all the misunderstanding that surrounds the old pagan religions in the US.

In conclusion, it is necessary to mention Wedge's writing skills, which are simply non-existent. I do not know what the co-author did, but it sure wasn't ghost writing. The style is unwieldy, the expressions are atrocious, the organization is fundamentally flawed. There is a lot of repetition, and scarcely any substantial analysis. As a fist look at Satanism, this may be an ok book, but it is definitely lacking more than what it is offering. It is blatantly biased, opinionated, stupid, misinformed, sensationalist, and to top it off, badly written. Worth much less than the $3 that I paid for it. For a very good antidote, check out Jeffrey S. Victor's "Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend" (which also blasts those anti-D&D crusaders).

March 5, 2000. BLS

@BOOK{wedge-88:satan,
    TITLE     = {The Satan Hunter},
    AUTHOR    = {Thomas W. Wedge and Robert L. Powers},
    YEAR      = {1988},
    PUBLISHER = {Daring Books},
    ADDRESS   = {Canton, OH},
    ISBN      = {0-938936-73-5},
    NOTE      = {Pp. 222}
}