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Selling Satan: The Evangelical Media and the Mike Warnke Scandal
A follow-up to the award-winning expose published in Cornerstone Magazine. The glossing over of deceit in Warnke's 20-year reign as the "king of Christian comedy" in the evangelical recording and publishing industry is brought to light, as are the struggles of those who sought to be a corrective measure in his life.
-- It is more than the story of one individual; it also deals with his effect on others. (selling sattan) should be read by all those concerned with Satanic-cult hysteria", -- Peter Huston, Skeptical Inquirer
-- It is more than the story of one individual; it also deals with his effect on others. (selling sattan) should be read by all those concerned with Satanic-cult hysteria", -- Peter Huston, Skeptical Inquirer
476 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1993
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March 10, 2019
A very well researched book on the scam master, Mike Warnke.
So many dates and details offered up as proof of his lies, that it is beyond me how anybody could want to even try to defend him.
The authors also touched, briefly, on Oral Roberts, Jim and Tammie Faye and a few others who are all about ministering for money.
To end the book with an interview with Anton LaVey was a stroke of genius, who better to debunk a man claiming to be a Satanist than by asking the head of the church?
So many dates and details offered up as proof of his lies, that it is beyond me how anybody could want to even try to defend him.
The authors also touched, briefly, on Oral Roberts, Jim and Tammie Faye and a few others who are all about ministering for money.
To end the book with an interview with Anton LaVey was a stroke of genius, who better to debunk a man claiming to be a Satanist than by asking the head of the church?
February 27, 2022
The story about con artist Mike Warnke, one of several con men who back in the 70's claimed they were once part of a satanic cult. Going down in history of one of the many frauds to helped spark the satanic panic of the 1980's
Mike Warnke talking about how he was influenced by 1960's-70's Satanic cult movies. Trying to pretend the movies MADE him want to join a satanic cult, rather then using those movies for his fraudulent story. But what he says is still very revealing and explains partly why he did decided to make up this story.
MIke Warnke: It wasn't a demon that jumped out of the TV and grabbed me by the face and dragged me down the road and forced me to join the church of satan. It was just there were certain things in this program that PIQUED MY INTEREST and I decided to study more on my own and if the devil does have PR, then it is definitely cinema.
And of course his wife told a friend she didn't believe his satanic cult stories. Revealing that as he wrote the book he was studying the occult. Which makes no sense because why would you need to do that if you were personally involved? Especially since cults and religions have distinctions/sects with a broad range of beliefs.
Mike Warnke: I was basically drawn into it when I was young JUST WANTING TO BE SOMEONE SPECIAL. I JUST WANTED TO BE DIFFERENT THEN EVERYBODY AND HAVE SOMETHING THAT WAS SPECIAL, THAT EVERYBODY LOOKED UP TO.
To quote Marjoe Gortnor, one of Warnke's fellow con artists
"This is a business and you don't get meetings or you don't get book back unless you have a GIMMICK." "and the guys with the gimmicks get the big meetings and do good."
Gortnor's gimmick was the fact that he was a child preacher coerced by his mother and father. Then when he got older, he tried to play off that gimmick "I was preacher at 4 years old! What can a 4 year old say?! Well, buy my album and find out. There's been thousands of people who were saved just by listening to my testimony."
Of course he had other gimmicks, such as him drawing a cross on his forehead that would turn red due to a chemical reaction from his sweat. He also liked to gimmick his favorite rock stars.
Of course in this book, interviews with Warnke's family members. They call him a "con artist just like his dad." and imply/state that Warnke wanted attention. He was an attention seeker because his mother and father were too busy and barely paid any attention to him.
Very similar to another fellow con artist James Hydrick who used breathing techniques to convince people he was able to move objects with his mind. He would move pencils, leaves on trees, book pages, and even a dollar bill in an enclosed fish tank move "with the power of his mind" when he was put to a test he failed because one of my heroes James Randi realized he was secretly blowing on the objects. So he sprinkled particles of foam around the object which would react if Hydrick blew on it. Later another magician got interested in his case. He went and interviewed him and put him through a bunch of test. Including making him rotate a dollar bill in an enclosed fish tank. The magician was like "okay...how is this guy doing it?" and realized he was blowing on it. So he started to practicing and replicated Hydrick's exact same tricks including the dollar bill trick. Turned out he was exploiting an imperfection of the fish tank. Where he could blow into the fish tank and move it. So the magician did all his tricks in front of him and from the footage it's blatantly obvious Hydrick was confused "how did he do it?!". Eventually the magician finally told him he knew his secret. So Hydrick confessed everything and they interviewed his family.
Magician: Why did you feel like you had to tell them you had powers that you didn't have?
Hydrick: Because I wanted attention. My parents would never give it to me. I never - I was always ignored and kicked around and I had to do this to make my self feel better. It gave me confidence. Every time someone thought what I did was very good, but I'd never tell them what it was because I'd tell them it was something else because if I tell them what it was 'okay fine. It's just a trick' but I'd always tell them it was something else so that I continue to get a recognition.
The book begins with basically a little bit of a rant on post modernism and relativism. That many defenders of Warnke's lies have said "So what if it's all lies? LYING FOR JESUS is good if it serves god" and as I've been saying for a long time, most christians are relativist. They love to bash those on the left as relativist and post modernist, but they are total relativist/post modernist as well. In fact I would argue they are even worse.
I as an atheist despise post modernism and relativism. I also deny absolutes as simply unattainable, so why even bother? Unattainable as far as I can see or comprehend, so why even have this discussion about absolute knowledge? Why have this debate about objective vs subjective? That is totally irrelevent. Whether something is objective or subjective doesn't mean anything. It's an absurd standard is my point.
My point is "should you drink battery acid?' Objective or subjective; totally f**king irrelevent! What is not irrelevent are the FACTS and evidence. If you drink batter acid it will cause injury, scarring, significant harm. You might even die, at the very least go to the hospital and probably not be able to drink or eat normally again. Let alone the medical bills. THEREFOR don't drink battery acid. WHY IS THAT SO DAMN DIFFICULT?! I didn't need to go into subjective, objective, etc. Just the f**king observeable and proveable facts and as I always say "FACTS ARE FACTS. Whether you want to believe in them or not." It is a FACT that battery acid is a burning chemical that can burn through your skin/flesh. It is a fact that if you ingest it it can and will cause significant bodily harm. WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED?!
When I think about today's era...I have to give SJWs some of the blame. Because when BOTH SIDES essentially AGREE that truth doesn't exist. Reality is purely just a "choose your own adventure book".....you gave them ammo. Instead of going "NO! THERE IS SUCH THING AS TRUTH, FACTS, AND EVIDENCE" you 100% f**king agreed it doesn't matter. So now it's just all about ideaologies and picking sides.
And I aint the only who one has said SJWS are a huge gift to the right and they are. One of my biggest problems with SJWS from the very beginning is their blatantly obvious intellectual laziness.
Historian about Joseph Stalin's early days: These 'can do' tough guys who...don't really want to debate the dialectics of Marxism. Don't really want to talk about the nuances of class struggle. But men for whom 'class struggle' meant the fist.
That 100% perfectly describes SJWs and their intellectual laziness to a f**king T! They want to say "I'm an activist!!!!" Without doing ANY WORK, because they are LAZY. Any IDIOT can call me a f**king racist, homophobe, transphobe, rape apologist, etc.......HOW ABOUT AN ACTUAL F**KING ARGUMENT?! "But that's really hard" THEN DON'T F**KING CALL YOUR SELF AN ACTIVIST!!!!! Because actual f**king change is hard. INSULTING people and walking away and trying to blacklist them, etc is easy. "Changing minds is a lot of work" Ya, duh. Stop calling your self an activist!!!!
Warnke's childhood friends are interviewed. His high school friends, and eventually his college friends and people who knew him at the time. As well as family friends. The number one description of Warnke by everyone who was interviewed is "Liar". This guy was a pathological liar from the get go. In fact, a class mate was so sick of his constant lies, he quote said "what everyone called him behind his back; that he was a liar." Warnke apparently got angry and shoved this kid and they got into a fight. A family friend, the mother of a friend quickly realized it saying he was "one big liar." His ex girlfiend and fiancee from college called him a "pathological liar" another friend said he was given a manuscript of his book by Warnke him self and asked to sign a authenticity paper verifying everything to his knowledge was true. This friend said he refused to sign it. The authors asked "Why?" and he said "Because it was poppycock!" Mike Warnke was a pathological and compulsive liar who lied 24/7 apparently. He claimed he had been a Greek dancer, an ambulance driver, a race car driver, etc. He even liked to dress up as a priest and put on this act of being a priest. Even tried to use this priest act to buy wine while underage. Good thing they saw through it and laughed him out of the store.
Of course they quote paragraphs and claims from Warnke's books, talks, and interviews. Out of that we get descriptions of what he's actually claiming he did and the authors point out that when it came to the gruesome highly illegal stuff, he tried to make him self less culpable. Such as saying he organized and lead the kidnap and gang rape of a young women, but claimed he was so "doped up" he couldn't engage in the actual rape. But in actual talks on stage he would add additional claims such as "I am guilty of rape". A close friend said he was always adding new elements of his stories during his talks. He also claimed they would kidnap young girls; CHILDREN, cut out their "sexual organs" ie vagina, maybe anus, nipples, etc. Then cut open their chest, slice into pieces their heart and then cannibalize the pieces of heart.
The authors ask the most blatantly obvious question any sane, moral, ethical, rational person would ask.....if he's engaging in and or arranging these HIGHLY ILLEGAL activities...then why the f**k isn't he in prison?! Why isn't he helping to actually track down these people and bring em to justice? Put them in prison? Take the cult down?!
As one skeptic put it
"he described the kidnapping, brainwashing, and ritual rape of a young women. As well as the summoning of demons through spells and blood drinking rituals. But after having a change of heart. INSTEAD OF SURRENDERING HIM SELF OVER TO THE COPS FOR HIS CRIMES AND HANDING OVER EVIDENCE TO TRACK DOWN THE CULT AND PUT A STOP TO THEM. He did what any morally sound and good natured person would do. HE FOUND GOD AND BECAME A PREACHER; SELLING HIS STORY AS HE WENT."
Not only, what does that say about Mike Warnke him self, but what about all the people [christians] who believed him?
Maybe this context can provide the answer. There is a christian fundamentalist christian who is also a cartoonist. He's written/drawn a lot of christian propaganda cartoons. One of the people he promoted was another one of these con artist who claimed they too were a high priest of a satanic cult. Funny how every single one of these con artist were never ever a follower, but the leader. I digress. This cartoonist made a comic book about a child molester who was not only raping his 8 year old daughter, but SHARING HER with his friends. She contracts a STD, and so the father is caught. Luckily for the father the doctor he took her to is a christian fundamentalist who tells him "get on your hands and knees and pray. Ask for forgiveness." so the father just prays the child rape away and we get a happy ending. "I won't rape my daughter and share her with other predators anymore" Wife and daughter "YAY!" all smiles. Everyone's happy. Little 8 year old girl forgives her father. The father gets off scott f**king free. ISN'T THAT WONDERFUL?! WHAT A WONDERFUL MORAL, JUST, RIGHTOUS F**KING WORLDVIEW/PHILOSOPHY, UH?!
Commit the WORSE f**king crimes imaginable and get off scott f**king free.
Maybe that explains why this sat so well with the audience Warnke was lying to.
Mike Warnke talking about how he was influenced by 1960's-70's Satanic cult movies. Trying to pretend the movies MADE him want to join a satanic cult, rather then using those movies for his fraudulent story. But what he says is still very revealing and explains partly why he did decided to make up this story.
MIke Warnke: It wasn't a demon that jumped out of the TV and grabbed me by the face and dragged me down the road and forced me to join the church of satan. It was just there were certain things in this program that PIQUED MY INTEREST and I decided to study more on my own and if the devil does have PR, then it is definitely cinema.
And of course his wife told a friend she didn't believe his satanic cult stories. Revealing that as he wrote the book he was studying the occult. Which makes no sense because why would you need to do that if you were personally involved? Especially since cults and religions have distinctions/sects with a broad range of beliefs.
Mike Warnke: I was basically drawn into it when I was young JUST WANTING TO BE SOMEONE SPECIAL. I JUST WANTED TO BE DIFFERENT THEN EVERYBODY AND HAVE SOMETHING THAT WAS SPECIAL, THAT EVERYBODY LOOKED UP TO.
To quote Marjoe Gortnor, one of Warnke's fellow con artists
"This is a business and you don't get meetings or you don't get book back unless you have a GIMMICK." "and the guys with the gimmicks get the big meetings and do good."
Gortnor's gimmick was the fact that he was a child preacher coerced by his mother and father. Then when he got older, he tried to play off that gimmick "I was preacher at 4 years old! What can a 4 year old say?! Well, buy my album and find out. There's been thousands of people who were saved just by listening to my testimony."
Of course he had other gimmicks, such as him drawing a cross on his forehead that would turn red due to a chemical reaction from his sweat. He also liked to gimmick his favorite rock stars.
Of course in this book, interviews with Warnke's family members. They call him a "con artist just like his dad." and imply/state that Warnke wanted attention. He was an attention seeker because his mother and father were too busy and barely paid any attention to him.
Very similar to another fellow con artist James Hydrick who used breathing techniques to convince people he was able to move objects with his mind. He would move pencils, leaves on trees, book pages, and even a dollar bill in an enclosed fish tank move "with the power of his mind" when he was put to a test he failed because one of my heroes James Randi realized he was secretly blowing on the objects. So he sprinkled particles of foam around the object which would react if Hydrick blew on it. Later another magician got interested in his case. He went and interviewed him and put him through a bunch of test. Including making him rotate a dollar bill in an enclosed fish tank. The magician was like "okay...how is this guy doing it?" and realized he was blowing on it. So he started to practicing and replicated Hydrick's exact same tricks including the dollar bill trick. Turned out he was exploiting an imperfection of the fish tank. Where he could blow into the fish tank and move it. So the magician did all his tricks in front of him and from the footage it's blatantly obvious Hydrick was confused "how did he do it?!". Eventually the magician finally told him he knew his secret. So Hydrick confessed everything and they interviewed his family.
Magician: Why did you feel like you had to tell them you had powers that you didn't have?
Hydrick: Because I wanted attention. My parents would never give it to me. I never - I was always ignored and kicked around and I had to do this to make my self feel better. It gave me confidence. Every time someone thought what I did was very good, but I'd never tell them what it was because I'd tell them it was something else because if I tell them what it was 'okay fine. It's just a trick' but I'd always tell them it was something else so that I continue to get a recognition.
The book begins with basically a little bit of a rant on post modernism and relativism. That many defenders of Warnke's lies have said "So what if it's all lies? LYING FOR JESUS is good if it serves god" and as I've been saying for a long time, most christians are relativist. They love to bash those on the left as relativist and post modernist, but they are total relativist/post modernist as well. In fact I would argue they are even worse.
I as an atheist despise post modernism and relativism. I also deny absolutes as simply unattainable, so why even bother? Unattainable as far as I can see or comprehend, so why even have this discussion about absolute knowledge? Why have this debate about objective vs subjective? That is totally irrelevent. Whether something is objective or subjective doesn't mean anything. It's an absurd standard is my point.
My point is "should you drink battery acid?' Objective or subjective; totally f**king irrelevent! What is not irrelevent are the FACTS and evidence. If you drink batter acid it will cause injury, scarring, significant harm. You might even die, at the very least go to the hospital and probably not be able to drink or eat normally again. Let alone the medical bills. THEREFOR don't drink battery acid. WHY IS THAT SO DAMN DIFFICULT?! I didn't need to go into subjective, objective, etc. Just the f**king observeable and proveable facts and as I always say "FACTS ARE FACTS. Whether you want to believe in them or not." It is a FACT that battery acid is a burning chemical that can burn through your skin/flesh. It is a fact that if you ingest it it can and will cause significant bodily harm. WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED?!
When I think about today's era...I have to give SJWs some of the blame. Because when BOTH SIDES essentially AGREE that truth doesn't exist. Reality is purely just a "choose your own adventure book".....you gave them ammo. Instead of going "NO! THERE IS SUCH THING AS TRUTH, FACTS, AND EVIDENCE" you 100% f**king agreed it doesn't matter. So now it's just all about ideaologies and picking sides.
And I aint the only who one has said SJWS are a huge gift to the right and they are. One of my biggest problems with SJWS from the very beginning is their blatantly obvious intellectual laziness.
Historian about Joseph Stalin's early days: These 'can do' tough guys who...don't really want to debate the dialectics of Marxism. Don't really want to talk about the nuances of class struggle. But men for whom 'class struggle' meant the fist.
That 100% perfectly describes SJWs and their intellectual laziness to a f**king T! They want to say "I'm an activist!!!!" Without doing ANY WORK, because they are LAZY. Any IDIOT can call me a f**king racist, homophobe, transphobe, rape apologist, etc.......HOW ABOUT AN ACTUAL F**KING ARGUMENT?! "But that's really hard" THEN DON'T F**KING CALL YOUR SELF AN ACTIVIST!!!!! Because actual f**king change is hard. INSULTING people and walking away and trying to blacklist them, etc is easy. "Changing minds is a lot of work" Ya, duh. Stop calling your self an activist!!!!
Warnke's childhood friends are interviewed. His high school friends, and eventually his college friends and people who knew him at the time. As well as family friends. The number one description of Warnke by everyone who was interviewed is "Liar". This guy was a pathological liar from the get go. In fact, a class mate was so sick of his constant lies, he quote said "what everyone called him behind his back; that he was a liar." Warnke apparently got angry and shoved this kid and they got into a fight. A family friend, the mother of a friend quickly realized it saying he was "one big liar." His ex girlfiend and fiancee from college called him a "pathological liar" another friend said he was given a manuscript of his book by Warnke him self and asked to sign a authenticity paper verifying everything to his knowledge was true. This friend said he refused to sign it. The authors asked "Why?" and he said "Because it was poppycock!" Mike Warnke was a pathological and compulsive liar who lied 24/7 apparently. He claimed he had been a Greek dancer, an ambulance driver, a race car driver, etc. He even liked to dress up as a priest and put on this act of being a priest. Even tried to use this priest act to buy wine while underage. Good thing they saw through it and laughed him out of the store.
Of course they quote paragraphs and claims from Warnke's books, talks, and interviews. Out of that we get descriptions of what he's actually claiming he did and the authors point out that when it came to the gruesome highly illegal stuff, he tried to make him self less culpable. Such as saying he organized and lead the kidnap and gang rape of a young women, but claimed he was so "doped up" he couldn't engage in the actual rape. But in actual talks on stage he would add additional claims such as "I am guilty of rape". A close friend said he was always adding new elements of his stories during his talks. He also claimed they would kidnap young girls; CHILDREN, cut out their "sexual organs" ie vagina, maybe anus, nipples, etc. Then cut open their chest, slice into pieces their heart and then cannibalize the pieces of heart.
The authors ask the most blatantly obvious question any sane, moral, ethical, rational person would ask.....if he's engaging in and or arranging these HIGHLY ILLEGAL activities...then why the f**k isn't he in prison?! Why isn't he helping to actually track down these people and bring em to justice? Put them in prison? Take the cult down?!
As one skeptic put it
"he described the kidnapping, brainwashing, and ritual rape of a young women. As well as the summoning of demons through spells and blood drinking rituals. But after having a change of heart. INSTEAD OF SURRENDERING HIM SELF OVER TO THE COPS FOR HIS CRIMES AND HANDING OVER EVIDENCE TO TRACK DOWN THE CULT AND PUT A STOP TO THEM. He did what any morally sound and good natured person would do. HE FOUND GOD AND BECAME A PREACHER; SELLING HIS STORY AS HE WENT."
Not only, what does that say about Mike Warnke him self, but what about all the people [christians] who believed him?
Maybe this context can provide the answer. There is a christian fundamentalist christian who is also a cartoonist. He's written/drawn a lot of christian propaganda cartoons. One of the people he promoted was another one of these con artist who claimed they too were a high priest of a satanic cult. Funny how every single one of these con artist were never ever a follower, but the leader. I digress. This cartoonist made a comic book about a child molester who was not only raping his 8 year old daughter, but SHARING HER with his friends. She contracts a STD, and so the father is caught. Luckily for the father the doctor he took her to is a christian fundamentalist who tells him "get on your hands and knees and pray. Ask for forgiveness." so the father just prays the child rape away and we get a happy ending. "I won't rape my daughter and share her with other predators anymore" Wife and daughter "YAY!" all smiles. Everyone's happy. Little 8 year old girl forgives her father. The father gets off scott f**king free. ISN'T THAT WONDERFUL?! WHAT A WONDERFUL MORAL, JUST, RIGHTOUS F**KING WORLDVIEW/PHILOSOPHY, UH?!
Commit the WORSE f**king crimes imaginable and get off scott f**king free.
Maybe that explains why this sat so well with the audience Warnke was lying to.
July 30, 2023
TLDR: Total overkill when it comes to presenting the evidence, but I found it fascinating and oddly enjoy the sometimes over-the-top writing style.
Not long after Mike Warnke's The Satan Seller was published, I ran across it at my aunt's while on vacation and out of books. I thought it an entertaining read but had serious doubts about its authenticity - always seemed to me Satan did his best work through people who thought they were working for God or for good. There's no indication in the Bible that Satan has any interest in organizing humans into a conspiracy to do his dirty work -- on the contrary, the Bible portrays Satan as someone who falsely claims to be good, an "angel of light" pretending to do the works of God while leading others astray. The idea that Satan rules hell and has a zillion human minions knowingly worshiping him isn't in the Bible.
Plus Warnke showed no real interest in trying to help those still trapped in this supposed Satanic network. In my experience, people God rescues out of such sordid pasts have great compassion on those still trapped by the lies and expend a lot of effort trying to help them - yes, even when doing so is very risky. Warnke talked a lot about how the Satanists were out to get him and about the horrors they perpetrated on innocents, but showed little compassion on those presumably as lost as he had been. Saved Mike may have had considerable compassion on people in the abstract, but when it came to the people he'd personally known, Saved Mike was as uncaring as Satanist Mike.
Not saying that I finished the book shouting, "He's a fake, he's a fake!" (my actual review when my aunt asked was "Interesting"), but I was far from convinced. So when Cornerstone published the articles exposing Warnke's lies, I was saddened rather than shocked. I didn't need to read the book to be convinced Warnke was a fraud - the article had plenty of evidence and the followups in other media presented even more. I wanted to read the book to understand why Warnke had gotten away with it for so long.
The book delivered on that front in spades - as the subtitle indicates, the book is an exploration of how evangelical media works as much as it is a Mike Warnke double biography (Warnke lies versus reality). It's a brilliant exploration of how the Christian media buys into ideas just as unbiblical as those behind Warnke's booga-booga version of Satan, and what kind of impact these ideas have on their reporting.
There's not a lot of theology, but the authors do discuss pertinent issues - forgiveness, holding leaders accountable, dealing with a confirmed liar - as they come up. While they do sometimes drift from Warnke a bit to give background on some of the other people they interview, that drifting always felt tightly connected to the whole, for me. I also enjoyed the authors occasionally wry humor, although that's gotten them considerable grief in a lot of Christian venues. Christ wasn't above a bit of sarcasm, after all.
While I have had my differences with some articles in Cornerstone magazine, in 400-some odd pages this book only hit one sour note for me -- when the authors use Paul Ingram as an example of "people who'd been falsely accused of being Satanists." I agree with them that Paul Ingram probably wasn't a Satanist, but Paul Ingram wasn't arrested for being a Satanist - he was arrested and sent to prison for sexually abusing his daughters. The authors imply his daughters' testimony was completely false, but the daughters were not the only ones to testify to Ingram's abuse. Maybe it's not a practice recommended by the official Church of Satan, but it still seems to me that sexually abusing your own children is paying homage to Satan.
The author's argument is that the whole Ritual Satanic Abuse frenzy harmed many, but exposing Paul Ingram's abuse was not harmful, so it's a pretty poor example of negative fallout. I expect the authors had not read the original court transcripts, plus the 1996 Ingram parole hearing (where new evidence came out) hadn't happened yet, so a poor choice but understandable at the time. The fact that, going on his blog, Trott still seems to think Ingram was railroaded did drop him down a few notches on my reliability chart, though. :p
And the interview with Anton Le Vey in the appendix is totally worth reading, IMHO. But that may be because the authors see Le Vey much as I do - not really anything new in there, but a nice response to people who get all wound up on Le Vey's power and all-round evilness.
Longish article on the Ingram case:
http://www.kspope.com/memory/facade.php
Not on the Internet, so far as I know, but a review of the case concludes that Ingram was most likely guilty and that the guys clamoring for his release are relying on secondary sources rather than the original court trial records and the like (Ingram confessed guilt but still went before a judge for sentencing and stuff):
Harvard Society for Law & Public Policy, Inc. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy - Spring, 1999 - 22 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 523 The Guilty and the “Innocent”: an Examination of Alleged Cases of Wrongful Conviction from False Confessions by Paul G. Cassell
Not long after Mike Warnke's The Satan Seller was published, I ran across it at my aunt's while on vacation and out of books. I thought it an entertaining read but had serious doubts about its authenticity - always seemed to me Satan did his best work through people who thought they were working for God or for good. There's no indication in the Bible that Satan has any interest in organizing humans into a conspiracy to do his dirty work -- on the contrary, the Bible portrays Satan as someone who falsely claims to be good, an "angel of light" pretending to do the works of God while leading others astray. The idea that Satan rules hell and has a zillion human minions knowingly worshiping him isn't in the Bible.
Plus Warnke showed no real interest in trying to help those still trapped in this supposed Satanic network. In my experience, people God rescues out of such sordid pasts have great compassion on those still trapped by the lies and expend a lot of effort trying to help them - yes, even when doing so is very risky. Warnke talked a lot about how the Satanists were out to get him and about the horrors they perpetrated on innocents, but showed little compassion on those presumably as lost as he had been. Saved Mike may have had considerable compassion on people in the abstract, but when it came to the people he'd personally known, Saved Mike was as uncaring as Satanist Mike.
Not saying that I finished the book shouting, "He's a fake, he's a fake!" (my actual review when my aunt asked was "Interesting"), but I was far from convinced. So when Cornerstone published the articles exposing Warnke's lies, I was saddened rather than shocked. I didn't need to read the book to be convinced Warnke was a fraud - the article had plenty of evidence and the followups in other media presented even more. I wanted to read the book to understand why Warnke had gotten away with it for so long.
The book delivered on that front in spades - as the subtitle indicates, the book is an exploration of how evangelical media works as much as it is a Mike Warnke double biography (Warnke lies versus reality). It's a brilliant exploration of how the Christian media buys into ideas just as unbiblical as those behind Warnke's booga-booga version of Satan, and what kind of impact these ideas have on their reporting.
There's not a lot of theology, but the authors do discuss pertinent issues - forgiveness, holding leaders accountable, dealing with a confirmed liar - as they come up. While they do sometimes drift from Warnke a bit to give background on some of the other people they interview, that drifting always felt tightly connected to the whole, for me. I also enjoyed the authors occasionally wry humor, although that's gotten them considerable grief in a lot of Christian venues. Christ wasn't above a bit of sarcasm, after all.
While I have had my differences with some articles in Cornerstone magazine, in 400-some odd pages this book only hit one sour note for me -- when the authors use Paul Ingram as an example of "people who'd been falsely accused of being Satanists." I agree with them that Paul Ingram probably wasn't a Satanist, but Paul Ingram wasn't arrested for being a Satanist - he was arrested and sent to prison for sexually abusing his daughters. The authors imply his daughters' testimony was completely false, but the daughters were not the only ones to testify to Ingram's abuse. Maybe it's not a practice recommended by the official Church of Satan, but it still seems to me that sexually abusing your own children is paying homage to Satan.
The author's argument is that the whole Ritual Satanic Abuse frenzy harmed many, but exposing Paul Ingram's abuse was not harmful, so it's a pretty poor example of negative fallout. I expect the authors had not read the original court transcripts, plus the 1996 Ingram parole hearing (where new evidence came out) hadn't happened yet, so a poor choice but understandable at the time. The fact that, going on his blog, Trott still seems to think Ingram was railroaded did drop him down a few notches on my reliability chart, though. :p
And the interview with Anton Le Vey in the appendix is totally worth reading, IMHO. But that may be because the authors see Le Vey much as I do - not really anything new in there, but a nice response to people who get all wound up on Le Vey's power and all-round evilness.
Longish article on the Ingram case:
http://www.kspope.com/memory/facade.php
Not on the Internet, so far as I know, but a review of the case concludes that Ingram was most likely guilty and that the guys clamoring for his release are relying on secondary sources rather than the original court trial records and the like (Ingram confessed guilt but still went before a judge for sentencing and stuff):
Harvard Society for Law & Public Policy, Inc. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy - Spring, 1999 - 22 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 523 The Guilty and the “Innocent”: an Examination of Alleged Cases of Wrongful Conviction from False Confessions by Paul G. Cassell
September 14, 2017
It is usually annoying to me when a book has a specific topic or focus which could be covered in 150 pages, and then takes every opportunity to go off on any possible tangent in order to beef up the page count. For instance, when you are reading a book about an athlete, and it mentions their third cousin, and the next thing you know a whole chapter is devoted to giving you the life story of a third cousin whose relevance was minor in the first place.
This book goes off on a lot of very extended tangents. People looking for a concise explanation of the problems with Mike Warnke's credibility back in his heyday will probably lose their minds.
I was personally interested in the information provided about the early Jesus movement, and the development of the Contemporary Christian Music market, and the Jesus People USA, and the trials and tribulations of being investigative journalists for a Christian magazine. So I enjoyed it, even as I recognized that I had not read Mike Warnke's name for 20 pages.
This book goes off on a lot of very extended tangents. People looking for a concise explanation of the problems with Mike Warnke's credibility back in his heyday will probably lose their minds.
I was personally interested in the information provided about the early Jesus movement, and the development of the Contemporary Christian Music market, and the Jesus People USA, and the trials and tribulations of being investigative journalists for a Christian magazine. So I enjoyed it, even as I recognized that I had not read Mike Warnke's name for 20 pages.
July 23, 2019
I’m impressed with the quality of investigative journalism executed by these apparent underdogs. For some reason, when this news broke in 1991, I was oblivious to it and didn’t hear about it until two weeks ago, and ordered this book. I grew up listening to Warnke and along with my immediate family, took him at his word. I admired him completely from my tiny munchkinhood. Reading this and other sources on this subject makes me realize how much I was conditioned to accepting exorbitant lies, setting me up for disaster in adulthood. My research on the Satanic Panic of the 80’s continues.
February 5, 2020
Very thorough investigation and education on Warnke’s life and how it fit into the emerging Christian media and satanic panic uprising.
I was surprised (or saddened?) with the present parallels of how many evangelicals respond to accusations of immorality from a favored leader. The journalists spend a lot of energy discussing how Warnke’s “ends” of spreading the story of Jesus doesn’t justify the “means” of using fabricated stories and lying about where his money goes. So much energy was needed because they faced a lot of criticism for judging others, bringing disunity to the church, or hearing “who cares if it works?” from other Christians. It brings to mind the current debate on whether evangelicals’ support of a president with no moral compass justifies a few political victories on a few issues.
I was surprised (or saddened?) with the present parallels of how many evangelicals respond to accusations of immorality from a favored leader. The journalists spend a lot of energy discussing how Warnke’s “ends” of spreading the story of Jesus doesn’t justify the “means” of using fabricated stories and lying about where his money goes. So much energy was needed because they faced a lot of criticism for judging others, bringing disunity to the church, or hearing “who cares if it works?” from other Christians. It brings to mind the current debate on whether evangelicals’ support of a president with no moral compass justifies a few political victories on a few issues.
January 11, 2019
The rating doesn't come from a lack of research. The authors show their extensive work, and it's commendable that they took the time to expose the fraud that Mike Warnke was. The topic is interesting enough to warrant finishing the book, but I found the actual writing and narration dry and going in circles.
September 24, 2021
An excellent investigative journalistic book delving into the Evangelical / "Comedian" Con Man Mike Warnke. Warnke was partially responsible for creating the satanic panic that still infiltrates right wing thought today. He's a terrible man. Great book.
October 23, 2021
Absolutely fascinating. I’d never heard of Mike Warnke but am very familiar with the Satanic panic. Reading this makes me second guess who I hold in high esteem. Who is telling the truth? Warnke outright lied about his past and present, but how often do we commit minor embellishments?
May 31, 2018
Great book. Interesting not only for its extraordinary Barnum like subject, but for its detailed examination of the ethics of writing a Christian expose. Even for an atheist.
July 25, 2013
Mike Warnke was one of my favorite Christian comedians in the 80's. We even helped with one of his concerts in Tulsa. I was completely blown away when these allegations came forward, and I do believe they are true. Seems like a messed up guy. I think on some level he's sincere, but he also is very deceiving. Leaves me puzzled about people. Still some of the most funny material I've ever heard, but sad to see where it comes from.
October 28, 2019
Most books are rated related to their usefulness and contributions to my research.
Overall, a good book for the researcher and enthusiast.
Read for personal research
- found this book's contents helpful and inspiring - number rating relates to the book's contribution to my needs.
Overall, a good book for the researcher and enthusiast.
Read for personal research
- found this book's contents helpful and inspiring - number rating relates to the book's contribution to my needs.
August 7, 2008
good investigative piece.
August 24, 2012
Never finished this in its entirety but at least half or more; enough to be convinced of their claim. There's so many credentials and info supporting their claim it's exhausting!
July 7, 2016
First Edition. Excellent piece of investigative reporting by the now-defunct JPUSA magazine.
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