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Crowley, Aleister Edward 55
some of the usual SRA cases, the author pulls in
any crime with even the most tenuous link to the
occult, such as the Zodiac killer who murdered
people according to their astrological sign. He
even includes an entry on the overtly Christian Ku
Klux Klan. Perhaps more tellingly, in the few cases
with genuine Satanic elements such as the Night
Stalker murders, one is forced to confront one of
the basic premises of much occult crime thinking,
namely the usually unstated assumption that
Satanism somehow causes individuals to commit
crimes. The premise that the occult is an independent
motivating factor is dubious at best.
In the face of the empirical absence of an infernal
criminal underground, occult crime experts
have often attempted to draw links to organized
Satanist groups, particularly the Church of Satan.
During the height of the SRA scare, police seminars
on occult crime frequently included segments
on organized Satanism that warned against the
social dangers of the philosophy of personal
indulgence advocated by The Satanic Bible.
Despite the fact that Anton LaVey explicitly
rejected unlawful activity—including blood sacrifice—in
The Satanic Bible, the discovery of a copy
of this widely available book at a crime scene has
often been sufficient evidence for investigators to
label the crime Satanic. Perhaps the most significant
case of this kind was that of Stanley Dean
Baker. Arrested in 1970 after a traffic violation, he
confessed, “I have a problem. I’m a cannibal.”
Police found a human finger in one of Baker’s
pockets and a copy of The Satanic Bible in the
other. Baker subsequently regaled authorities and
fellow prisoners with tales of his participation in a
blood-drinking cult in Wyoming. He later blamed
his criminal activities on the influence of drugs,
not the Devil.
See also Night Stalker; Satanic Ritual Abuse
For Further Reading:
Baddeley, Gavin. Lucifer Rising: Sin, Devil Worship
and Rock’n’Roll. London: Plexus, 1999.
Ellis, Bill. Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions,
and the Media. Lexington: University Press of
Kentucky, 2000.
Hicks, Robert. In Pursuit of Satan: The Police and
the Occult. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books,
1991.
Jenkins, Philip. Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New
Religions in American History. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2000.
LaVey, Anton Szandor. The Satanic Bible. New York:
Avon, 1969.
Newton, Michael. Raising Hell: An Encyclopedia of
Devil Worship and Satanic Crime. New York:
Avon, 1993.
Crowley, Aleister Edward
Aleister Crowley (October 12, 1875–December 1,
1947), the most famous and influential ritual
magician of the twentieth century, was born
Edward Alexander Crowley in Leamington,
Warwickshire, England. His father was a preacher
for the Exclusive Plymouth Brethren, and he soon
rebelled against his strict, fundamentalist
upbringing. He was a student at Trinity College in
Cambridge from 1894 to 1897, but dropped out
before completing a degree. His interests in the
occult and sexual activity crowded out his studies.
Although Crowley did not consider himself a
Satanist, he sometimes sported a Satanist image—
e.g., he often referred to himself as the “Beast,” an
allusion to the beast of the book of Revelation—
English author, magician, and occultist, Aleister Crowley
with a selection of occult instruments (Archive Photos)