Witch Trafficking Part I

Conspiracy lore is of course littered with sinister and perverse agendas. Evidence of these agendas varies from case to case, but certainly one of the most controversial are the whispers of a national and international child trafficking ring. To the layman the notion that high ranking members of our political and military establishments, in addition to barrens of industry, finance, and entertainment, could be heavily involved in pedophilia, child pornography, and the like, is simply to much to handle. Further muddying the waters are then even more fringe claims linked to child trafficking -namely the allegations of Satanism, brainwashing, and the creation of 'Manchurian Candidates,' among others. These elements have led even some of the most reliable researchers to almost completely deny the child trafficking networks. The normally brilliant Patrick Harpur writes:

"The sexual abuse of children is a tricky, emotive issue to write about. It undeniably occurs. But the addition of satanism complicates matters. Ritual magic, both benign and malign, is practiced; devil-worship does take place. But the connection between satanism and sexual abuse has not been established. Despite widespread belief in such a connection, causing fear and outrage like that of the medieval witch-hunts to sweep through whole communities, especially in the USA, conscientious police investigations have failed to uncover any hard evidence. Th chief basis for accusations of satanism and sexual abuse remained the stories of the children concerned. Under questioning they spoke -more evocatively and vaguely than precisely -of strange 'rites' which included sexual abuse by parents, incest, the drinking of blood, the killing and eating of child or of aborted fetuses. Such stories were substantiated by a number of adults who claimed to have undergone similar horrors in childhood. (We should note, however, that at least some of these adults seem to thrive on the attention given to them as 'escapees'; many of them are 'unstable,' with a long history of neglect, abuse, and drug-taking -to say nothing of the reliability or otherwise of memory.)"
(The Daimonic Reality, pg. 221-222)

Harpur attempts to reduce the modern Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) panic to the level of myth, with deep roots in the medieval witch hunts of Europe, and America's own peculiar brand of fundamentalism.

"If I say that satanists are the equivalent of witches, I am not saying that no satanists exist. But I suggest that they exist in the same way as Murray's witch cultists exist. They are acting out a myth which, denied its own rightful daimonic imaginative space, takes possession of our (secondary) imaginations where it is duly literalized by the overweening, single-minded ego. At any rate, although I cannot prove it, I am willing to bet that there does not exist, as social workers have claimed (but equally cannot prove), a vast nationwide conspiracy of satanic cults dedicated to the corruption, and worse, of children.

"Like medieval witchcraft, modern belief in the existence of satanism is largely a product of the Christian imagination. Many of the social workers involved in 'rescuing' children from satanists had been influenced by Christian fundamentalist groups, originating in the USA, who spoke persuasively and doubtless sincerely about the actuality of satanic ritual abuse, and distributed lists of 'indicators' by which it could be detected... Like the witchcraft myth which emerged during the inquisition of alleged witches and their interrogators, a satanic ritual abuse myth soon emerged from the interaction of the alleged victims and their rescuers."
(ibid, pg. 225)

The comparison to the modern SRA phenomenon and the witch hunts of our forefathers (which largely occurred after the Middle Ages) is apt, but in ways Harpur clearly does not comprehend. While countless numbers of innocent women and men alike were murdered during the witch hunts of Europe and the United States, things were rarely as cut and dry as mainstream historians would have us believe. Consider the most notorious witch hunt in the history of these United States, namely the Salem Witch trails. Most conventional histories would have you believe that the notion of 'satanic' or occult rituals taking place in Puritan New England were nothing but the ravings of religious fanaticism. The thing is, the upper crust of Puritan society had quite a fascination with the occult.

"...the Puritan movement owed much to occult ideology current in England at the time, with connections to Pico della Mirandola, Cornelius Agrippa, and other saints of the occultist canon. This form of occultism -known as Christian Cabala to historians -was an amalgamation of the Jewish Cabala with Muslim and Christian elements; in other words, an attempt to integrate the three religions by focusing on some basic, mystical elements that they had in common. Among these was the belief in a sophisticated form of numerology where letters have numeric equivalents, and in rituals of invoking angelic forces. Eventually, this intellectual and spiritual movement came to be represented in such organizations as the Rosicricians and the Masonic societies, and to embrace various occult disciplines such as alchemy and ceremonial magic.

"What may cause some New Englanders no small degree of astonishment -if not, in some cases, amusement or even alarm -is the fact that no less a personage than Governor John Winthrop Jr. was a practicing alchemist during his administration (1659-1676). It is noted that his library contained some '275 books of alchemy and the occult.' He was well-versed not only in these arcane matters, but also on the subject of the Rosicrucians, a putative secret society (like the Freemasons and the Templars) whose existence was proclaimed at the very beginning of the seventeenth century, probably by occult scholar Robert Fludd. During Winthrop's tenure, in fact, many people were accused of witchcraft, and three were executed: Rebecca and Nathaniel Greensmith of Hartford and Mary Barnes of Farmington."
(Sinister Forces Book One, Peter Levenda, pgs. 16-17)

Winthrop was hardly the only member of the Boston elite to be heavily involved in the occult. Further, members of the community of Salem, including some of the ones accused of witchcraft, actually did dabble in the occult:

"It should be clear by now that our historians have erred in their assumption that there was no witchcraft practiced at Salem, or that if there was it was of little consequence. The documents, rightly read, present us a far different picture. In Bridget Bishop, Candy, and Mammy Redd we have three people who practiced black magic, an with demonstrable success. In the Hoar family George Burroughs we have people who established a reputation for black magic and then traded on it, although whether they were actually witches remains uncertain. There are other cases, like those of Sarah Good and Samuel Wardwell, which I have not treated in detail because the evidence is suspicious but conclusive, and one can only guess that some of them were probably practicing witchcraft. Finally, we have a variety and abundance of white magic, some of which merges with the black because it was intended to harm the witch. And if the testimony concerning Roger Toothaker and his daughter may be taken at face value -and there is reason to believe it may -we have one case of murder by witchcraft -one case in which occult means used to take human life away."
(Witchcraft at Salem, Chadwick Hansen, pg. 86) 

As to this murder by occult means, Hansen writes:

"A doctor by the comically appropriate name of Roger Toothaker had boasted to one Thomas Gage

that his daughter had killed a witch. And I asked him how she did it. And said Toothaker answered readily that his daughter had learned something from him. I asked by what means she it. And he said that there was a certain person bewitched, and said person complained of being afflicted by another person... And further, said Toothaker said that his said daughter got some of the afflicted person's urine and put it into an earthen pot, and stopped said pot very close and put said pot into a hot oven, and stopped up said oven.

The next morning the witch was dead; apparently she was bewitched to death.

"Most of the physical effects of witchcraft are attributable to hysteria, but not death. People do not die of hysteria. But death, like the hysterical symptoms of bewitchment, begins with the victim's fear of the witch's power."
(ibid, pg. 81)

Is it then possible that the events that unfolded in Salem were something other than the complete hoax mainstream historians would have us believe? Peter Levenda seems to think so:

"....can hysteria be consciously controlled? The psychiatrists of today tell us no, that is a pathological condition beyond the conscious control of an individual. That would rule out fraud in the case of Salem, since the symptoms were so severe and so representative of the cases found in Janet, Charcot, Freud, et, al. that there is no way to disregard them as a kind of adolescent prank.

"Many of the symptoms of conversion disorder seem equivalent to the type of phenomena witnessed in cases of demonic possession, and certainly many such cases were thus identified in the past. Hysterics in New England in the seventeenth century were often 'cured' by prayer, which would seem to indicate a close relation to cases of demonic possession. It is possible that 'conversion disorder' and 'demonic possession' are simply two ways of saying the same thing... but that should not lull us into a false sense of security...

"It is common to say that a belief in possession carries with it concomitant belief in exorcism, and that is why exorcism works and not because there is a real demon possessing a human being. But that is somewhat tautological. Cancer patients undergoing radiation treatments and chemotherapy are told to think positive, to visualize their cancer cells dying, to develop a 'will to live,' etc., leading us to wonder how much modern cancer therapy is analogous to witchcraft. If the mind-body system is so interdependent as to support a whole host of radical therapies aimed at treating much illness as psychosomatic -if not in origin, then, at least in cure -then perhaps we are missing the boat on hysteria, possession, and witchcraft. And if some of the current theories of quantum physics hold any deeper meaning for us, then perhaps the notion of an 'outside force' is not too far-fetched."
(Sinister Forces Book One, pg. 26)

If there was an 'outside force' at work in Salem, then from where did it come from? And was it some kind of supernatural force, or a far more human one?

Initially the ringleader of the Salem witch coven was believed to be a South American slave named Tituba, who apparently passed on some of her native folk ways to the impressionable Puritan youth. When questioned, Tituba claimed to be under the sway of a sinister 'man in black' based out of Boston. Continuing with Levenda:

"This is always a stranger, someone from outside the village, and Tituba in her testimony before the magistrates began to point a finger at evil outside influences behind the witchcraft covens in Salem. She claimed that the ringleader of the witches was a 'man in black' who lived in Boston in spirit form, and that they received their instructions to return to Salem and hurt the children living there."

"In the final analysis, what we have here is probably the first recorded instance of what would become the satanic survivor craze of America in the 1980s. In fact, many of Tituba's 'memories' -as well as those of her 'co-conspirators' -were slow in coming, and memory disorders, real or imagined or feigned, were part of the Salem experience. Recovered memories, tortured children, witch covens, a satanic network spanning the Northeast... welcome to Gerlado Nation. Add to this mixture the figure of the 'man in black,' and Tituba's account of leaving her body at night and traveling to the meetings, and then returning again before dawn, sounds eerily similar to some accounts of alien abductions... In fact, Tituba first claimed that she flew to Boston through the air in both body and soul, but amended this fact later to state she only appeared in Boston in the spirit."
(Sinister Forces Book One, pgs. 19-20)

Certain esteemed Puritan fathers such as the Reverend Cotton Mather even alleged that a satanic conspiracy had been at work in Massachusetts since at least the 1650s. As unhinged as this may sound, a true covert agenda may have been hidden within these claims. Again with Levenda:

"The attack is being waged by 'invisible hands,' the first wave of a plot that was in existence forty years before the Salem trials, that is, sometime in the 1650s. The allusion by Mather to a person convicted of witchcraft and murder in Salem, executed at about that time is mysterious, as it does not come up in any of the documents I have been able to locate. Yet, the insistence by Mather that the occurrence of witchcraft in Salem is the result of a plot by devil worshippers to take over the country is worth considering for several reasons.

"In the first place, such accusations would serve to rally the people together by making witchcraft a threat to everyone and not only to those afflicted by torments and curses. It is a master stroke, and reminiscent of Hitler's castigation of a Jewish plot against Germany.

"In the second place, it implies that the witches are well-organized and have been setting this up for over forty years. In other words, it is impossible to know who your friends are. People you have known all your life may, indeed, be part of this ongoing plot to destroy Christianity in the New World. If they are truly operating by invisible means, then normal systems of defense are hopeless.

"In the third place -and perhaps most importantly of all -the 'malefactor' of forty years ago was a murderer as well as a witch. This linking of supernatural powers and religious rebellion with actual murder is very important. As in the case of the satanic cult survivor syndrome of the 1980s, satanic cults are not deemed threatening or even newsworhty unless they have been killing people. This may be an early result of the Church coming to terms with science. When the threat of diabolic powers and unholy worship is no longer enough to frighten -being deemed more the domain of fairy tales and legends than the real world of physics and chemistry -then murder is enough to bring the subject of satanists and witches back to the front burner. Remember, also, that these murders were the result of black magic and not .44 calibre bullets. A poppet studded with pins, hidden in a wall or buried in the garden, coupled with a corpse, was enough for a conviction. It satisfied means and opportunity, if not always motive; but if the motive is the plot to overthrow Christianity, then no further evidence is needed. The dead child or adult was simply a target of opportunity in all-out war against the forces of Light."
(ibid, pgs. 21-22)

Clearly something more sinister seems to have been occurring at Salem than the mass hoax that mainstream historians chalk the events up to. Can the same also be said of modern America and the persistent rumors of networks dedicated to the trafficking of children?

Seemingly dismissing the claims of a national child sex ring as merely a projection of Christian fundamentalists grossly over looks the problem of child abuse and neglect in the United States. Even worse, because of a lack of data, its difficult for us as a society to even estimate the scale of this problem.

"There is considerable debate as to whether there is a problem in this country with missing children. Some claim that 200,000 or more children disappear without a trace every year. Others steadfastly maintain that numbers such as those are grossly inflated, and that abduction of children by strangers with bad intent is actually quite rare. The problem is that nobody really knows for sure, since the FBI -America's compiler of crime statistics -does not bother to keep track. As the Los Angeles Times reported in July 2002, there is a 'lack of knowledge about the prevalence of a crime that historically has not been included in the federal government's Uniform Crimes Report. Local agencies have only sporadically kept data.' Many believe that the numbers are not compiled because the FBI does not want to know -or more accurately, the FBI does not want the American people to know, how many children disappear every year.

"What is known though is that reports of child abuse have skyrocketed. Between 1963 and 1988, reported cases of child abuse rose from 150,000 to 2,000,000 per year, a 1300% increase in just a quarter-century. Child abuse may in fact be the most prevalent crime in American society -and possibly the most significant as well, given that it provides the breeding ground for so much of the more visible crime plaguing Western culture. As Thomas reports: 'over 90 percent of the teenage prison population are now victims of child abuse.' And that population is growing rapidly."
(Programmed to Kill, David McGowan, pgs. 25-26)

There are a lot of ways to interrupt the skyrocketing number of child abuse claims. On the one hand, with virtually every thing under the sun being illegal in the US nowadays, its likely a decent number of them are frivolous. On the other hand, the ever rapidly declining morals and values of American society has likely led countless children to be treated in a fashion that would have been practically unimaginable several decades ago outside of certain circles. The media and academia have played a large role in this transformation:

"Coupled with the fact that the press have consistently downplayed the occurrence of child molestation is the equally disturbing fact that that very same media have actively promoted the sexualization of children -a trend that has been greatly accelerated in recent years, and which has served to, to some degree, legitimize pedophilia. Taking note of the proliferation of young teen -and even pre-teen -sex symbols, Tom Junod in Esquire (February 2001) that: 'the entire culture is besotted with the erotic promise of teenage girls... The lure of jailbait now supplies the erotic energy to a popular culture desperate for what's new, what's young, what's alive...'

"It is not just the media that has been actively promoting the sexualization of children; certain segments  of academia have been busily doing so as well. On April 19, 2002, the Washington Times carried a report detailing a 'movement with academia to promote 'free sexual expression of children.' This 'movement' to legitimize sex between adults and children is gathering steam, warns Stephanie Dallam, researcher for the Leadership Council for Mental Health, Justice, and the Media in Philadelphia, an organization that deals with prevention and treatment of child abuse. 'Dome people view children as the next sexual frontier,' Ms. Dallam says.' Referenced in the Times article is Judith Levine's book Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex... Levine's book endorses a Dutch law passed in 1990 'that effectively lowered the age of consent to 12.' As the Times article points out, the book 'is only the most recent in a series of academic arguments for consensual sex involving children.'"
(ibid, 27-28)

Another blow in the 'there is no conspiracy' side is the epic rise of child prostitution in both the United States and internationally in recent years.

"...child prostitution is a booming business. A&E's 'Investigative Reports' has noted that law enforcement figures indicate that there are currently some 600,000 child prostitutes working in the United States and Canada, in an industry that generates $5 billion a year worldwide. A&E also reported that, throughout North America, there is 'growing use of children in the sex trade.' Young boys make up 51% of that trade. The FBI, alas, has turned a blind eye; for the last quarter-century, 'federal prosecutions of major pimp operations have been virtually nonexistent.' As Dr. Lois Lee noted, 'It's not a high priority with the FBI to go after kids that are being transported across state lines. It's really a disgrace.'"
(ibid, pgs. 28-29)

Note that this is the second time in which we've seen mention of the FBI seemingly neglecting the pursuit of justice. It will hardly be the last one you, dear reader, shall encounter in this series. Continuing with Mr. McGowan:

"A landmark study on the commercial sexual exploitation of children was concluded by the University of Pennsylvania's School of Social Work in 2001. The chilling report issued by the researchers was completely ignored by the U.S. media. That no doubt was due in part to the rather curious timing of the release of the report: it was issued on September 10, 2001 -less that twenty-four hours before the World Trade Center towers came crashing down. Written by Richard J, Estes and Neil Alan Weiner, the study notes that the era of 'economic globalization, internationalization, and free trade' has been accompanied by a 'dramatic rise worldwide in the incidence of child exploitation... Child pornography, juvenile prostitution and trafficking in children for sexual purposes have emerged as significant problems on the national, regional, and international stages. So, too, has child sex tourism.' The ugly reality is that, in the global marketplace, everything has a price tag -including the sexual services of our children...

"...DePaul University's International Human Rights Law Institute released the results of a three year study of sexual slavery. Researchers concluded that some two million women and children are held in sexual servitude worldwide -and those numbers are growing. As with other academic study, the report's authors conclude that the 'advent of globalization has exacerbated the problem by creating what some call market opportunities for traffickers in human beings and for their exploiters.' Also as with the other study, researchers found clear evidence of official complicity in the trafficking rings."
(ibid, pgs. 28-31)

The final statement is not remotely as far fetched as it may first seem when simply considering the stats above. Seriously, does anyone really believe that the Powers That Be would be completely oblivious to a $5 billion dollars-a-year (domestically) industry? There is simply no way a criminal enterprise of such scale could be conducted without some serious pull from high in the Cryptocracy. And it just so happens, more evidence of this complicity has become public record than one may imagine. But then again, institutions such as the mass media and the FBI have vested interests in keeping these rings out of the public eye, as shall be discussed in the next installment as well as several of the more well known child sex rings that have come to light in recent years.

Part two can be read here.