Even the police show an interest in Satanism. Why? Because in many cases they are finding links between crimes and satanic cults. Just recently, a police detective was quoted as saying: “What we are dealing with is a religion and people who believe in it as others believe in Christianity, Judaism or Islam. What you are seeing are not crimes for crime’s sake, but crimes for the sake of a religion.”

One outstanding example was the murders by the Manson clan in California back in 1969. According to history professor Jeffrey Russell, “Manson claimed to be both Christ and Satan. . . . Manson’s follower Tex Watson announced, when he came to murder Sharon Tate, ‘I am the devil; I’m here to do the devil’s work.’”

In South Africa, for example, witch doctors exert great power, and people take them very seriously. Recent cases reported in the press were of mobs burning alive people who were accused of causing lightning to strike fellow villagers! The local witch doctors accused innocent victims of these “unnatural” acts and then tied them to a tree to be burned. Such belief in sorcery or magic is likewise a worship of demons.

Professor Russell notes that the “constant semiserious propaganda for evil has had decomposing effects on silly and weak minds. One result has been a rash of appallingly degenerate crimes, including the violation of children and the mutilation of animals.”

A recent case startled New Yorkers. According to a newspaper report, a 14-year-old boy, “obsessed by Satanism,” stabbed his mother to death and then committed suicide.