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Satanic Killings
The six-six-Sixties were the Devil's Decade. With its heady cocktail of glamour and gore, it’s no wonder dissatisfied youth have been drawn back to those years time and time again in search of inspiration – mostly artistic, some diabolical. The dark side of that swinging decade saw the rise of Satanism in popular Mick Jagger penned “Symphony for the Devil’ and the Rolling Stones released the album, ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’, while Anton La Vey, the founder of the Church of Satan, appeared as the devil in the movie “Rosemary’s Baby”. Meanwhile, another cult had begun recruiting for new Charles Manson was finding his ‘Family’. Then in 1969 all hell broke loose… Even as the Sixties ended in flames, the attendant black smoke formed new shapes for Satan to inhabit and still more powerful envoys to spread his word. Following the rise of Satanism through the Sixties to today, Frank Moorhouse examines the key cases and delves into the lives of the perpetrators, searching for the events that could have driven them to commit such horrific acts. Rather than simply criticize and condemn, Moorehouse remains open-minded as he trawls through the carnage left by some of the world’s most terrifying killers.
288 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2006
1 person is currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Frank Moorhouse
54 books55 followersFrank Thomas Moorhouse AM (21 December 1938 – 26 June 2022) was an Australian writer. He won major Australian national prizes for the short story, the novel, the essay, and for script writing. His work has been published in the United Kingdom, France, and the United States and also translated into German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Serbian, and Swedish.
Moorhouse was perhaps best known for winning the 2001 Miles Franklin Literary Award for his novel, Dark Palace; which together with Grand Days and Cold Light, the "Edith Trilogy" is a fictional account of the League of Nations, which trace the strange, convoluted life of a young woman who enters the world of diplomacy in the 1920s through to her involvement in the newly formed International Atomic Energy Agency after World War II.
The author of 18 books, Moorhouse became a full-time fiction writer during the 1970s, also writing essays, short stories, journalism and film, radio and TV scripts.
In his early career he developed a narrative structure which he has described as the 'discontinuous narrative'. He lived for many years in Balmain, where together with Clive James, Germaine Greer and Robert Hughes, he became part of the "Sydney Push" - an anti-censorship movement that protested against rightwing politics and championed freedom of speech and sexual liberation. In 1975 he played a fundamental role in the evolution of copyright law in Australia in the case University of New South Wales v Moorhouse. - Wikipedia
Moorhouse was perhaps best known for winning the 2001 Miles Franklin Literary Award for his novel, Dark Palace; which together with Grand Days and Cold Light, the "Edith Trilogy" is a fictional account of the League of Nations, which trace the strange, convoluted life of a young woman who enters the world of diplomacy in the 1920s through to her involvement in the newly formed International Atomic Energy Agency after World War II.
The author of 18 books, Moorhouse became a full-time fiction writer during the 1970s, also writing essays, short stories, journalism and film, radio and TV scripts.
In his early career he developed a narrative structure which he has described as the 'discontinuous narrative'. He lived for many years in Balmain, where together with Clive James, Germaine Greer and Robert Hughes, he became part of the "Sydney Push" - an anti-censorship movement that protested against rightwing politics and championed freedom of speech and sexual liberation. In 1975 he played a fundamental role in the evolution of copyright law in Australia in the case University of New South Wales v Moorhouse. - Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 4, 2025
I finished it at least, which I cain’t say for every piece I start. I guess it was interesting enough to see how uninitiated, disenfranchised, psychopathic youths LARP for the god of this Serpent World where we all fell. True Satanists and Luciferians are typically extremely intelligent and wildly successful before they are ever recruited to learn how this old world truly works. I was first introduced to both Native American and Occidental Lodges by a former High Priest in the Church of Satan. He taught me it was important to look at the Dark as well White Lodges to know just what we are up against. The best allegorical sources for these forces taught to initiates of all stripes are JRR Tolkien and Star Wars. Occult does not mean evil, it simply means hidden or secret. The Lodge trucks in ancient, secret wisdom about God, the Soul, Consciousness, Symbolism and Psychology. As Mark Passio once said, “The occult is simply a universal set of Laws purposely kept hidden from you for the purpose of mind control based upon your ignorance of these Laws of Nature.” In the 1940’s, every Occultist knew there were Demons of Hypnotism in radios and so they should be avoided as much as possible. Our souls know we are no longer free and pay illegal, immoral earnings taxes to fund such evils as never-ending wars, child mutilation, Stratospheric Aerosol Injections, Project Monarch, and Safe and Effective mRNA bioweapons just to name a few. Today, thanks to Tik Tok, the NFL, Facebook, Amazon and a million other distractions we vainly attempt to anesthetize our screaming souls in a lifelong hypnotic trance staring at screens. Wake Up Jedi.
September 4, 2022
This book was interesting and disturbing to read but I don't agree with the preachy prejudiced/biased opinion of the author regarding people that are troubled teenagers or young people from a poor or abusive background.
Not all teenagers from a poor background are "white trash" or more likely to become a murderer, serial killer or general petty crime related criminal. I am also offended by his opinion about people that are a goth,that self-harms, or is interested in the gothic culture, heavy metal or horror films or if they take drugs, drink alcohol or have tattoos and piercing.
At least educate yourself about different types of communities that young people choose to be apart of. Educate yourself about their alternative beliefs, spiritual practices.
It is very easy to vilify anything or anyone and their lifestyles of beliefs if you don't understand them, but it doesn't necessarily mean there is something wrong with them either just because they choose to rebel against perverted family members/priests or some religious people.
They rebel against being oppressed, controlled by being over protective narcissistic/abusive parents that don't allow their children to learn from their mistakes.
Teachers, school counsellors should be given more power to report suspicious or troubling behaviour of students especially if they are more likely to be violent towards themselves or others. If they are being bullied, abused at home, engaging in self-destructive behaviour, self-harming or abusing substances they should at least be able to raise alarm about it to other teachers and contact the parents if they are concerned.
However some people might self-harm for no reason, they might treat a teacher trying to help them as interfering in their life which is understandable.
Some children and teenagers can be subtly evil and learn to mask their emotions by observing others so then they would know what the appropriate emotional response would be.
They can display a disturbingly ordinary calm and passive demeanor when discussing horrific and very graphic details of murders they are either interested in or they themselves have committed. Most research should be done, to discover the best way of helping these young people understand that the way they express emotions or lack thereof is abnormal, their interests reflect their detachment to empathy or alienation, isolation and being shunned by their peers due to them thinking they are weird and don't want to be associated with them.
There are various crimes mentioned in this book which all share similar backgrounds of the people involved in crimes and who else might be involved. Aleister Crowley, David Berkowitz, The Chicargo Rippers, Richard Ramirez (the Night Stalker), Tracey Wigginton & Lisa Ptaschinski, Count Grischnackh (Varg Vikernes from the band Burzum), Hendrik Möbus, Nico Claux (the vampire of paris), The Kentucky vampire clan, Natasha Cornett, Manuela & Daniel Ruda, Allan Menzies and Luke Mitchell. All of these people if not most of them come from an abusive background which may have resulted in mental illness or PTSD due to abuse or they may have been disturbed already and abuse exasperated it further and made it worse.
Most of them came from an unstable background, their parents are divorced/one parent household or they were abusive and neglectful and gave mixed messages between their parents and grandparents due to their religious faith and preaching to their grandchildren when the parents don't agree. Rod Ferrel was raped by his grandfather that was a member in a cult this later greatly affected him emotionally, he had the emotional intelligence of a 3 year old.
Another issue now with young people is entertainment media, young people prefer to spend a lot of time immersed in a virtual or fantasy based world and some people based they lifestyle to involve their interests such as goths, nerds which is fine.
However when you can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality then you have a problem. A lot more people are developing a problem with this, which is concerning.
Parental neglect has become acceptable and increasingly necessary for monetary survival.
The tv screen has been left to foster children, while their parents (most of the time a one parent household to worry about more pressing matters such as money, paying bills. Children or teenagers now find it hard to tear themselves from a tv, there is a definite link between the amount of time babies and young children spent watching tv and the likelihood of them developing (ADHD) Attention deficiency hyperactivity disorder.
The type of content a lot of young impressionable people liked was/is very graphically violent but there is no scientific cause for anyone of any age that views violent content such as violent videogames, horror films, violent books or satanic imagery used in music ir books that they would commit a crime.
A lot of the people mentioned in the book lacked a loving and affectionate relationship with one or both parents, encouragement, or support, self-respect, modesty or decency. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with being a goth or alternative minded or alternatively dressed person (metalhead that wears black and "corpse paint" if it reflects your interests such as the occult, vampirism, horror films, gothic culture, tattoos, piercings, BDSM (including "bite parties" and blood-drinking) A few of the people mentioned in the book were goths that drank blood, were obsessed with vampires and eternal life and would take part in rituals, or spent their time in graveyards (morbid to some but fun to others) they wanted to escape their oppressive parents or abuse so they hung around with like-minded people that understood and accepted them for who they are and didn't expect them to change, although things didn't end well and various crimes were committed due to their belief that they are "modern day vampires"
There are various types of modern day vampires: sanguinarian and psychic, tantric vampires.
Most of the "vampires" mentioned in the book are sanguinarian vampires that drink blood from "donors" at "bite parties" bloodletting is part of the BDSM culture (this involves cutting a person and drinking the blood before, during or after sex) It is known as "blood-play"
It's hard not to feel drawn to the vampire culture if you are interested in the occult, satanism, gothic or BDSM sado-masichistic communities or heavy metal.
It is something for young people to bond over, blood-drinking is a very personal and sexual act so it is easy to see why people then believe they are a "real vampire" after being "crossed over" but it is still unknown what their motive was for murder, some people are or choose to be evil and that dictates how they conduct their lives.
People like Varg Vikernes I like his as a musician but I don't agree with nazi propaganda or any ring-wing groups/nazi record labels mass producing "white only" music for racists.
However I do agree with Euronymous and his "anti-Christian" beliefs but i'm not a nazi/nazi sympathiser, holocaust denier, satanism or communist but I do believe that christians are hypocrites that protect rapists and they took away the religion or beliefs from the native americans and vikings and forced them to convert to their faith.
This is the main reason Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth) hated Christianity and burnt a few churches in Norway.
Euronymous (he was pro-communism) & Varg Vikernes did not see eye to eye on everything because Euronymous was a communist and Varg Vikernes believed in the Odinism/he was a Odinist & believed in Norse mythology, but he was also a neo-nazi.
Nazi extremism was integrated into heavy metal, death metal and the gothic culture successfully, it is disturbing how even though the use of nazi swastika's have been banned from being used in Germany since WW2 but people can still join or create nazi/fascist groups or organizations.
Why haven't they been banned as well?
The insidious far reaching tendrils of the fascist ideology has now become the acceptable political neo-nazi regime to join.
I'm disgusted by it and I don't follow any political, or fascist group or organization, or fascist ideology I don't understand how many countries that were our allies during
WW1 and WW2 are not accepting of fascist groups, nazi marches, nazi music or racially motivated crimes. The neo-nazi would now feel welcome in America or possibly Norway.
I think the fact that now all the evidence related to the crimes the murderers were convicted of was not properly investigated or the evidence was contaminated due to negligence.
The fact that Nico Claux was not believed when he said about roaming around the Pere Lachaise or passey Cemeteries in Paris, France or that he had a "tool kit" to open and rob graves disturbs me. The worst thing that he did was to remove human remains (bones & ashes to "decorate" his home with his macabre trophies)
While working as a morgue/stretcher assistant he removed the flesh of corpses to take home and eat, he also stored bags of blood that he liked to drink.
He was a cannibal, but he also had neophiliac needs as well.
The most shocking crimes would have to be the murder of Frank Hackert by Manuela and Daniel Ruda, the Kentucky vampire clan that murdered the parents of Heather Wendorf, the murder of almost all members of the Lillid family sadly the youngest member of the family survived, but he has only one eye and he is paralysed.
There are some crimes that I wish there was about about such as the following: The Beasts of Satan, Miranda Barbour (the craigslist killer), the Kentucky vampire clan (I just want to know more about the people in the vampire clan), lesser known vampiric/occult related crimes Matthew Hardman (he believed he was a vampire, he killed a 90 year old elderly woman by stabbing her death, removing her heart, then drinking her blood. He begged a female German exchange student to bite him or allow her to bite her so he could become a vampire), there have been various satanic cults in various parts of the world, such as Russia and America, Britain.
Not all teenagers from a poor background are "white trash" or more likely to become a murderer, serial killer or general petty crime related criminal. I am also offended by his opinion about people that are a goth,that self-harms, or is interested in the gothic culture, heavy metal or horror films or if they take drugs, drink alcohol or have tattoos and piercing.
At least educate yourself about different types of communities that young people choose to be apart of. Educate yourself about their alternative beliefs, spiritual practices.
It is very easy to vilify anything or anyone and their lifestyles of beliefs if you don't understand them, but it doesn't necessarily mean there is something wrong with them either just because they choose to rebel against perverted family members/priests or some religious people.
They rebel against being oppressed, controlled by being over protective narcissistic/abusive parents that don't allow their children to learn from their mistakes.
Teachers, school counsellors should be given more power to report suspicious or troubling behaviour of students especially if they are more likely to be violent towards themselves or others. If they are being bullied, abused at home, engaging in self-destructive behaviour, self-harming or abusing substances they should at least be able to raise alarm about it to other teachers and contact the parents if they are concerned.
However some people might self-harm for no reason, they might treat a teacher trying to help them as interfering in their life which is understandable.
Some children and teenagers can be subtly evil and learn to mask their emotions by observing others so then they would know what the appropriate emotional response would be.
They can display a disturbingly ordinary calm and passive demeanor when discussing horrific and very graphic details of murders they are either interested in or they themselves have committed. Most research should be done, to discover the best way of helping these young people understand that the way they express emotions or lack thereof is abnormal, their interests reflect their detachment to empathy or alienation, isolation and being shunned by their peers due to them thinking they are weird and don't want to be associated with them.
There are various crimes mentioned in this book which all share similar backgrounds of the people involved in crimes and who else might be involved. Aleister Crowley, David Berkowitz, The Chicargo Rippers, Richard Ramirez (the Night Stalker), Tracey Wigginton & Lisa Ptaschinski, Count Grischnackh (Varg Vikernes from the band Burzum), Hendrik Möbus, Nico Claux (the vampire of paris), The Kentucky vampire clan, Natasha Cornett, Manuela & Daniel Ruda, Allan Menzies and Luke Mitchell. All of these people if not most of them come from an abusive background which may have resulted in mental illness or PTSD due to abuse or they may have been disturbed already and abuse exasperated it further and made it worse.
Most of them came from an unstable background, their parents are divorced/one parent household or they were abusive and neglectful and gave mixed messages between their parents and grandparents due to their religious faith and preaching to their grandchildren when the parents don't agree. Rod Ferrel was raped by his grandfather that was a member in a cult this later greatly affected him emotionally, he had the emotional intelligence of a 3 year old.
Another issue now with young people is entertainment media, young people prefer to spend a lot of time immersed in a virtual or fantasy based world and some people based they lifestyle to involve their interests such as goths, nerds which is fine.
However when you can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality then you have a problem. A lot more people are developing a problem with this, which is concerning.
Parental neglect has become acceptable and increasingly necessary for monetary survival.
The tv screen has been left to foster children, while their parents (most of the time a one parent household to worry about more pressing matters such as money, paying bills. Children or teenagers now find it hard to tear themselves from a tv, there is a definite link between the amount of time babies and young children spent watching tv and the likelihood of them developing (ADHD) Attention deficiency hyperactivity disorder.
The type of content a lot of young impressionable people liked was/is very graphically violent but there is no scientific cause for anyone of any age that views violent content such as violent videogames, horror films, violent books or satanic imagery used in music ir books that they would commit a crime.
A lot of the people mentioned in the book lacked a loving and affectionate relationship with one or both parents, encouragement, or support, self-respect, modesty or decency. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with being a goth or alternative minded or alternatively dressed person (metalhead that wears black and "corpse paint" if it reflects your interests such as the occult, vampirism, horror films, gothic culture, tattoos, piercings, BDSM (including "bite parties" and blood-drinking) A few of the people mentioned in the book were goths that drank blood, were obsessed with vampires and eternal life and would take part in rituals, or spent their time in graveyards (morbid to some but fun to others) they wanted to escape their oppressive parents or abuse so they hung around with like-minded people that understood and accepted them for who they are and didn't expect them to change, although things didn't end well and various crimes were committed due to their belief that they are "modern day vampires"
There are various types of modern day vampires: sanguinarian and psychic, tantric vampires.
Most of the "vampires" mentioned in the book are sanguinarian vampires that drink blood from "donors" at "bite parties" bloodletting is part of the BDSM culture (this involves cutting a person and drinking the blood before, during or after sex) It is known as "blood-play"
It's hard not to feel drawn to the vampire culture if you are interested in the occult, satanism, gothic or BDSM sado-masichistic communities or heavy metal.
It is something for young people to bond over, blood-drinking is a very personal and sexual act so it is easy to see why people then believe they are a "real vampire" after being "crossed over" but it is still unknown what their motive was for murder, some people are or choose to be evil and that dictates how they conduct their lives.
People like Varg Vikernes I like his as a musician but I don't agree with nazi propaganda or any ring-wing groups/nazi record labels mass producing "white only" music for racists.
However I do agree with Euronymous and his "anti-Christian" beliefs but i'm not a nazi/nazi sympathiser, holocaust denier, satanism or communist but I do believe that christians are hypocrites that protect rapists and they took away the religion or beliefs from the native americans and vikings and forced them to convert to their faith.
This is the main reason Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth) hated Christianity and burnt a few churches in Norway.
Euronymous (he was pro-communism) & Varg Vikernes did not see eye to eye on everything because Euronymous was a communist and Varg Vikernes believed in the Odinism/he was a Odinist & believed in Norse mythology, but he was also a neo-nazi.
Nazi extremism was integrated into heavy metal, death metal and the gothic culture successfully, it is disturbing how even though the use of nazi swastika's have been banned from being used in Germany since WW2 but people can still join or create nazi/fascist groups or organizations.
Why haven't they been banned as well?
The insidious far reaching tendrils of the fascist ideology has now become the acceptable political neo-nazi regime to join.
I'm disgusted by it and I don't follow any political, or fascist group or organization, or fascist ideology I don't understand how many countries that were our allies during
WW1 and WW2 are not accepting of fascist groups, nazi marches, nazi music or racially motivated crimes. The neo-nazi would now feel welcome in America or possibly Norway.
I think the fact that now all the evidence related to the crimes the murderers were convicted of was not properly investigated or the evidence was contaminated due to negligence.
The fact that Nico Claux was not believed when he said about roaming around the Pere Lachaise or passey Cemeteries in Paris, France or that he had a "tool kit" to open and rob graves disturbs me. The worst thing that he did was to remove human remains (bones & ashes to "decorate" his home with his macabre trophies)
While working as a morgue/stretcher assistant he removed the flesh of corpses to take home and eat, he also stored bags of blood that he liked to drink.
He was a cannibal, but he also had neophiliac needs as well.
The most shocking crimes would have to be the murder of Frank Hackert by Manuela and Daniel Ruda, the Kentucky vampire clan that murdered the parents of Heather Wendorf, the murder of almost all members of the Lillid family sadly the youngest member of the family survived, but he has only one eye and he is paralysed.
There are some crimes that I wish there was about about such as the following: The Beasts of Satan, Miranda Barbour (the craigslist killer), the Kentucky vampire clan (I just want to know more about the people in the vampire clan), lesser known vampiric/occult related crimes Matthew Hardman (he believed he was a vampire, he killed a 90 year old elderly woman by stabbing her death, removing her heart, then drinking her blood. He begged a female German exchange student to bite him or allow her to bite her so he could become a vampire), there have been various satanic cults in various parts of the world, such as Russia and America, Britain.
June 30, 2016
The cover art and text blurbs on the back suggest something much more sensationalistic in tone, with author Frank Moorhouse's prose occasionally slipping into such a sensationalistic tone indeed, imagine my surprise when the actual content turned out to be an exercise in demystifying the media hysteria surrounding apparently occult-motivated crimes.
Indeed, the title is somewhat misleading since a few of the murderers described are actually Neo-Pagans rather than Satanists - id est Henrik Möbus and Varg Vikernes, whose crimes as much were motivated by their secular extremism in Social Darwinist/Fascist Revivalist tradition. Likewise, so are others of the criminals described not practising Satanists as well as just intered in the occult on the side or just wannabe vampires... indeed, one of the profiled (id est Nico Chaux) did not become a Satanist until he was behind bars and begun corresponding by mail with the Devil's disciples.
While the famous cases like David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz and Richard "Night Prowler" Ramirez are covered, what I found most interesting that less well-known cases of murder linked to the occult are described in detail with a strong sociological perspective on the broader cultural context of not just their families and home communities, but also the subcultural milieus they were a part of. The chapter on Tracey Wigginton and Lisa Ptaschinski, for instance, contains a more in-depth information about Australian goth rock than I've ever found outside biographies of Nick Cave. Most importantly, we get a good sense of getting into the heads of the perpetrators and the people they affected.
So why only three stars? To begin with, very early on the author makes a rather glaring factual error that in the time the book was written could be easily corrected, id est perpetuating the urban legend that Anton Lavey himself played the role of the devil in "Rosemary's Baby" when a simple visit to the Internet Movie Database could have made it clear that the actor in the devil suit was actually Clay Tanner. When the author writes something I know to be factually incorrect and very easy to double-check at that, I become a lot more hesitant to take on good word that he did his research.
Another problem is that the sociological perspective on the occult crimes in question sometimes becomes prime evidence for the "if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail" proverb. Frank Moorhouse is very willing to explain everything in terms of chalking the Satanically-motivated crimes he's described up entirely to social problems that can be satisfyingly solved by public policy by way of numbers-crunching by economists and sociologists. While I don't doubt that this is relevant to several of the cases, others of those described most notably Varg Vikernes (again: he's a Neo-Pagan *not* a Satanist) do not fit his armchair-sociologist diagnosis at all.
Furthermore, there is a general sense that Moorhouse in the end does not see the wood for the trees by being so simplistic in his explanation. I do not doubt there is some kind of deeper cultural crisis afflicting Western civilization in the last many decades, but he does not seem to even consider that the real questions might be as much those raised by Hegel and Nietzsche than Hayek and Keynes. I just can't help but compare to another book about the overlap between esoteric occultism of Satanic cult and the exoteric world of popular culture, "The Satanic Screen" by Nikolas Schreck which clearly benefits from being written by an insider to the occult milieu.
It's not a bad book and quite full of interesting information, but the obvious factual errors mar the reading experience as does the feeling that the author in the end fails to completely illuminate what might draw people towards the dark side.
Indeed, the title is somewhat misleading since a few of the murderers described are actually Neo-Pagans rather than Satanists - id est Henrik Möbus and Varg Vikernes, whose crimes as much were motivated by their secular extremism in Social Darwinist/Fascist Revivalist tradition. Likewise, so are others of the criminals described not practising Satanists as well as just intered in the occult on the side or just wannabe vampires... indeed, one of the profiled (id est Nico Chaux) did not become a Satanist until he was behind bars and begun corresponding by mail with the Devil's disciples.
While the famous cases like David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz and Richard "Night Prowler" Ramirez are covered, what I found most interesting that less well-known cases of murder linked to the occult are described in detail with a strong sociological perspective on the broader cultural context of not just their families and home communities, but also the subcultural milieus they were a part of. The chapter on Tracey Wigginton and Lisa Ptaschinski, for instance, contains a more in-depth information about Australian goth rock than I've ever found outside biographies of Nick Cave. Most importantly, we get a good sense of getting into the heads of the perpetrators and the people they affected.
So why only three stars? To begin with, very early on the author makes a rather glaring factual error that in the time the book was written could be easily corrected, id est perpetuating the urban legend that Anton Lavey himself played the role of the devil in "Rosemary's Baby" when a simple visit to the Internet Movie Database could have made it clear that the actor in the devil suit was actually Clay Tanner. When the author writes something I know to be factually incorrect and very easy to double-check at that, I become a lot more hesitant to take on good word that he did his research.
Another problem is that the sociological perspective on the occult crimes in question sometimes becomes prime evidence for the "if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail" proverb. Frank Moorhouse is very willing to explain everything in terms of chalking the Satanically-motivated crimes he's described up entirely to social problems that can be satisfyingly solved by public policy by way of numbers-crunching by economists and sociologists. While I don't doubt that this is relevant to several of the cases, others of those described most notably Varg Vikernes (again: he's a Neo-Pagan *not* a Satanist) do not fit his armchair-sociologist diagnosis at all.
Furthermore, there is a general sense that Moorhouse in the end does not see the wood for the trees by being so simplistic in his explanation. I do not doubt there is some kind of deeper cultural crisis afflicting Western civilization in the last many decades, but he does not seem to even consider that the real questions might be as much those raised by Hegel and Nietzsche than Hayek and Keynes. I just can't help but compare to another book about the overlap between esoteric occultism of Satanic cult and the exoteric world of popular culture, "The Satanic Screen" by Nikolas Schreck which clearly benefits from being written by an insider to the occult milieu.
It's not a bad book and quite full of interesting information, but the obvious factual errors mar the reading experience as does the feeling that the author in the end fails to completely illuminate what might draw people towards the dark side.
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December 4, 2013Iormnmk3
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews