Book Review  PAINTED BLACK, by Carl A. Raschke.  Harper & Row, 1990.
Hardcover, 276 pages, $16.95. by Shawn Carlson, PhD

For the last ten years, communities throughout America have suffered
at the hands of profiteers of the irrational who see the Devil under
every quilt and cornerstone.  Churches have  been  burned,  minority
religions harassed, and millions of tax dollars wasted in efforts to
expunge a  non-existent  "satanic  conspiracy"  from our lives.  And
just when it seemed that the fires of anti-satanic hysteria couldn't
burn any hotter, along comes another tanker of kerosene in the guise
of Carl Raschke's new book, "Painted Black".  In it, Raschke lands a
firm clout on the jaw of reason by hailing  Satanism  as  the  force
behind child abuse, teen suicide, and drug addiction.

Despite  Raschke's  position  as a professor of religious studies at
the University of Denver, the text is bursting with sloppy  research
and fuzzy  thinking.   Howling errors and half truths leap off every
page.  Raschke messes up even the simplest facts.  He refers to  the
"Ordo Templi Orientis", an extremely well known occult group, as the
"Ordo Templi  Orentalis"  (p.  92  and index).  Practitioners of the
"Palo Mayombe"  religion  call  themselves  "Paleros,"  but  Raschke
invents the awkward "Palomayombists" (p. 11) and misrepresents their
beliefs.

During  an  interview  on  KGO  Radio  in  San  Francisco,  he  even
mispronounced the name of the  most  infamous  figure  in  twentieth
century  occultism  --  Aleister  Crowley  --  and  then dismissed a
caller's correction, saying, "you must be a follower of [Crowley] if
you know how to pronounce [his name]."  Not  true,  Carl  --  people
with only a passing knowledge of the occult get it right.

Raschke's  retort  to the caller illustrates his tactics; he prefers
intellectual bullying to persuasive reason. "Painted Black"  bullies
with  a  clever  trick  -- it barrages the reader with many unbroken
sequences of one  paragraph  summaries  of  newspaper  stories  with
recount reported satanic horrors.  The word "item" leading each such
paragraph produces a dramatic impact -- looking over these pages the
reader sees "Item ...   Item  ...  Item ...  Item ...  Item ..." for
page after page giving the impression that satanism is running wild.

But Raschke doesn't help his  readers  think  critically.    In  the
chapter,  "Bad  Moon  Rising,"  for  example,  Raschke  presents  41
separate "Items" without a single citation and neglects  to  mention
that some  of  the stories are over ten years old.  An appendix does
contain a list of "sources" used in each chapter, but Raschke covers
his tracks by listing  these  alphabetically  (sometimes  by  title,
sometimes by author) with no way of telling which, if any, relate to
a given  "item."   Worse, Raschke apparently didn't follow up any of
these reports, as though he just believed them to  be  complete  and
accurate.  In  fact, newspaper accounts are rarely such.  I've found
that most newspaper stories of "satanic crime" are more often due to
the reporter's ignorance of minority religions and cultures than  to
Devil-worshiping cultists.

Raschke puts  nothing  in  context.   He talks of the rising satanic
tide but doesn't mention that of the 100,000  murders  committed  in
the U.S. over the last five years, fewer than 100 involved occult or
satanic  overtones  and  most  of  these  were committed by mentally
disturbed adolescents who were doing violence years before they took
up the occult.

Raschke makes much of the tragedy in Matamoros, Mexico in which  the
leader  of a drug running cult ritually sacrificed fifteen people in
order to obtain Magickal [sic] control over the police.  But Raschke
doesn't  report  that  to  find  another  example  of  ritual  human
sacrifice one  has  to  go  to Cuba over eighty years ago.  In fact,
according to the FBI, there hasn't been a single documented case  of
a stranger being abducted and ritually murdered in the United States
in U.S. history.

So where does Raschke get his information?  In his preface he thanks
one  Dale  Griffis  "for  his mentoring and Avuncular oversight" (p.
X).  He borrows heavily from "Dr."   Griffis'  materials  throughout
the  book,  lauds  him  as a "leading expert in the investigation of
occult crime" (p. 76) and even uses his endorsement  on  the  book's
back cover.  But Raschke omits the fact that "Dr."  Griffis is a one
man  anti-satanic  crusade  whose  degree  is  from  an unaccredited
diploma mill and whose work has never been  considered  reliable  by
serious researchers.

Raschke's material on Jayne Mansfield comes from May Mann, who wrote
"Jayne  Mansfield:  A  Biography"  after  Jayne's  ghost  supposedly
returned from the grave demanding that Mann complete the  biography.
How much of this work was dictated by the ghost is unclear.  Raschke
acknowledges the ethereal connection (p. 199), then uses the book as
the  definitive source on Mansfield's involvement with the Church of
Satan.  Many of Raschke's other sources are equally dubious.

It's not that  good  information  isn't  available.    Many  skilled
researchers have  investigated satanic crime.  Yet Raschke dismisses
or ignores the Justice  Department,  the  FBI,  The  National  Child
Safety  Council,  and numerous scholars and police officers as "cult
apologists."  When he singles out a detractor by name,  Raschke  can
be extremely  vicious,  even  petty,  in his attacks.  For instance,
referring to FBI special agent  Ken  Lanning,  Raschke  writes  "...
satanist  criminals  have  had  one of their best friends ... at the
highest level of national law enforcement" and opines that Lanning's
paper,  "Satanic,  Occult,  Ritualistic  Crime:  A  Law  Enforcement
Perspective",   is   "written   with   the  literacy,  the  research
sophistication,  and  the  rhetorical  finesse  of  a  high   school
sophomore" (p. 75).

According  to  Raschke,  Lanning's  paper  consists of "volley after
volley of emotional diatribe, innuendo, non sequitur, glittering and
unsupported generality, and bogus appeal to his own authority [as an
FBI agent]" (p. 75).  In fact,  Lanning's  report,  with  its  solid
reasoning  and clear command of the facts, earned him the respect of
his colleagues and cemented his position as a premier  authority  on
Satanic crime.    After  Raschke finishes his sophomoric tirades, he
goes on to systematically misrepresent Lanning's ideas.

In short, "Painted Black" is a  masterpiece  of  the  new  "satanic"
McCarthyism.  Horribly researched and hysterically reasoned, it sets
new standards  in  panic  mongering.   Although its unclear how many
people will be hurt by the social scares it is sure to generate, one
thing is certain -- "Painted Black "is the EXXON VALDEZ of  rational
journalism.   Some  American communities will be years in recovering
from Harper & Row's decision to publish it.

[Physicist Shawn Carlson works at Lawrence  Berkeley  Labs,  is  the
science columnist for the national "Humanist" magazine and is on the
Board of Directors of Bay Area Skeptics]