Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

Chronology 287
Creation of the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying
game by Dave Arneson and Gary
Gygax. The game was first marketed in 1974.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Dungeons and
Dragons and similar games come under severe
attack by some conservative Christians who
allege that their “occult” content inspires
people to suicide, criminal activity, and/or
Satanism.
1973 The Raelian Movement is founded in France
by Claude Vorilhon, better known as Rael.
1974 Thee Satanic Church is formed under the
leadership of Dr. Evelyn Paglini, following the
division of Thee Satanic Orthodox Church of
Nethilum Rite.
Michael A. Aquino, formerly a member of the
Church of Satan, founds the Temple of Set.
Convicted bank robber Albert Kenneth
Bankston serving time in Leavenworth federal
penitentiary claims knowledge of a violent
occult group conducting cattle mutilations
and other illegal activities. Bankston’s claims
fuel Satanist the conspiracy theory of cattle
mutilations.
1977 Death of Dennis Wheatley, a significant
influence on modern Satanism and one of
more popular British writers of the midtwentieth
century. He is best remembered for
his “Black Magic” novels, many of which
featured Satanists.
1979 Publication of Jay’s Journal, the fictional
story—supposedly based on fact—of a
teenager who gets involved in a youthful
Satanist group containing details of his
participation in cattle mutilations, culminating
in literal bloodbaths and blood-drinking.
1980 A new concern about the possible presence of
Satanism in the United States centered upon
the sexual abuse of children in Satanic rituals
is initiated by the publication of Michelle
Remembers.
1981 The Oxford Golden Dawn Occult Society is
founded by Frater Katon Shu’al, then a
member of the Typhonian branch of the Ordo
Templi Orientis.
1982 The Ordo Lux Kethri is formed by April
Schadler Bishop and Michael Albion
Macdonald, of the Builders of the Adytum.
The first spate of rumors that the Procter and
Gamble trademark—a circle containing a side
view of a man-in-the-moon face looking out
over a field of 13 stars—is a Satanic symbol.
Other surges take place at the grassroots level
in 1985, 1991, 1995, and 1999.
In the wake of a young man’s suicide, his
mother brings a lawsuit against his school, at
which he had been involved in Dungeons and
Dragons. The suit is thrown out and she
organizes BADD (Bothered about Dungeons
and Dragons) modeled roughly after MADD
(Mothers Against Drunk Driving).
Beginning of the McCuan and Kniffen
Families case in Bakersfield and Kern County,
California. This is the first large multi-victim
multi-offender child abuse case in North
America. Accusations of a sex and
pornography ring grow to include allegations
of Satanic ritual murders. Two couples are
tried in 1983, found guilty, and given
centuries-long jail sentences. The convictions
are overturned on appeal and the two couples
are released from jail in August 1996, after
having spent 14 years in prison, isolated from
each other.
1983 Publication of first book-length “exposé” of
backward masking, Jacob Aranza’s Backward
Masking Unmasked.
First accusations in the McMartin ritual abuse
case. McMartin was the first high-profile case
involving charges of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA)
at a day-care center. In the wake of an initial
spate of publicity in the early 1980s, there was
a rash of SRA cases at other day-care centers
until it had become a national phenomenon.
By the beginning of the 1990s, over a hundred
investigations of day-care cases had taken
place on the basis of ritual abuse accusations.
1984 The Abbey of Thelema, an independent
initiatory magical group patterned after the
Argenteum Astrum, is formed by Gregory von
Seewald.
A child attending the Fells Acre Day Care
Center in Malden, Massachusetts, discloses to
his uncle that a day-care worker had pulled his
pants down. After children are persistently
questioned by parents and authorities, the
innocent act of changing a boy’s pants after he
had wet himself during nap time become a
bizarre sexual abuse case involving themes
characteristic of Satanic ritual abuse
accusations.
1985 Francisco Fuster of Miami Florida is convicted
on fourteen counts of child abuse. This case
involved Francisco, his wife, and more than
fifty children. The children related stories of