Customer Reviews

In Pursuit of Satan: The Police and the Occult

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In the late seventies, it was a profitable new bag for shock-peddlers. All throughout the eighties, it grew, mutated, and spread like a cross between the most virulent urban legend and a cancer. Now, at the dawn of a new set of numbers on the cosmic odometer, the 'fact' that the normal behavior of Satanists is to kill, molest, mutilate, and destroy has been accepted by everyone from religious fanatics to police officers to some of the would-be Satanists themselves.

As a result, we are beginning to reap the whirlwind of self-fulfilling prophecy, while innocent day-care providers still languish in prison on false molestation charges and any kid who dares to wear black to school is set upon by legions of counselors and shrinks.

This book is the first and best rebuttal to the Satanic Network Theory that I have come across. If it were widely read it could do a lot towards helping law enforcement officials avoid making jackasses of themselves due to religious prejudice.

The Communists, the traditional demon-designees, went by the wayside. Lo and behold, an alternative was found, none other than the Prince of Darkness himself! The author does a thorough job of exposing the cult-like obsession with alleged cults, Dungeons and Dragons, and various teen rebellions, which they, the cult cops and their disciples, with a comical lack of evidence, have made into a global, multi-generational conspiracy of devil-worshipping cannibals. Indeed, it's such a thorough job that this ain't no 2 1/2 hour read, but it's scholarly and well-researched. If nothing else, it may lead one to ask: at what point does government (i.e., police) intervention become inappropriate and a manifestation of a police state? The book is from the early '90s. If you think then that it's dated, note that the with hunt trial, in which a young man in Arkansas was condemned to death--partially on the word of a cult-cup whom the book exposes--because he dresses in black and listens to Metallica took place in 1996. No, the threat is still there, and gaining steam! Finally--and the only fun I can get out of the real threat the witch hunt represents--is on the obsession with the game Dungeons and Dragons: picture a group of leftists terrified that their kids playing monopoly would convert them into conservative Republicans. As likely to happen...

Hicks examines the satanic scare that has swept the country over the last few decades and related phenomena. He goes into detail, showing how fallaciuos thinking and outright hysteria have convinced many people (including many of our law-enforcement officers) of a completely fictitous threat. An interesting and relevant book--one of the finest works of nonfiction I've ever read.

Having served as expert witness in comparative religions, and in pyschology, as associate professor at a state college, and as police officer, my opinion of this book is it is not worth reading twice. It is highly inaccurate and biased. It overlooks the proven cases of criminal satanic practice, such as Matamoros Mex, (Palo Maiombre). It agrues from silence. It is just an attempt to make a buck by telling people what they want to hear, religios crimes do not exist, or at least are not a serious threat. Too bad he does not know what he is talking aboiut