The Rise and Fall of Satanism

Satanic rituals performed by black-​robed priests in dark cellars, chanting prayers over bound victims on an altar, with flickering candles casting eerie shadows on the walls as the worship of their god, Satan, proceeds. Drawn close by the secret knowledge of some shared mystery with a touch of the supernatural, the young participants on this journey into the occult relish the tingle of excitement that fills the air. They draw close with an uncanny feeling of an exclusiveness that they alone possess.

A harmless, passing fad? Or a demonic evil pervading today’s society?

REAMS have been written in newspapers, magazines, and books about the lurid deeds of satanic cults. Details of the widespread activity of violent satanic groups have been aired on national television and radio. It has become a major problem for police in both the small and the big cities in America, Canada, and Europe.

Satanism has a special lure for today’s youths. The founder of the Church of Satan explains why, as reported in ’Teen magazine of June 1993: “Instead of commanding members to repress their natural urges, we teach that they should follow them. This includes physical lust, the desire for revenge, the drive for material possessions.”

How Satan must be pleased with this diabolically inspired ideology, since it goes counter to God-​inspired Christian principles!

Satanism is on the rise. It is a growing menace, but its demise is imminent. Its god is under sentence of death. So is Satan’s world and its supporters, for “the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” (1 John 5:19; Romans 6:16) To Satan’s worshipers and to all others who are knowingly or unknowingly serving Satan’s purposes, Jehovah’s message is: “The God who gives peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.”​—Romans 16:20.

What future will then come to suffering humanity from “the God who gives peace”? The three articles that follow will show the rise and fall of Satanism and the conditions on earth that will replace it.

Today’s Youths​—Easy Prey to Satanism?

“SATAN worship is spreading out among the youths,” reported a Finnish newspaper of February 27, 1993. According to information obtained by the police of Tampere, Finland, criminals involved with the drug trade are bringing young ones, and especially girls, into satanic worship. In many cases these victims and new recruits are children from 10 to 15 years of age. “Satan worship has found a fertile soil among today’s young teenagers,” the paper reported.

“The new coming of Satan worship is not just a domestic (Finnish) trend,” the paper warned. “For example, the South African magazine the Johannesburg Star recently warned that Satan worship is inciting the white well-​fortuned youths of the country.” Truly, satanic worship is an international nightmare for parents as well as children.

Essentially, Satanism deceptively promises that you will get a lot for a very little. “Worship the devil; do his dirty work, and in return, he’ll give you what you want. And that’s why some kids find Satanism so appealing,” explained ’Teen magazine.

“I believe in living life to its fullest,” said a young teenager who admits to being a member of a satanic group. “I see two forces in nature: good and evil. All the things that people say are evil are the things that make you happy. Sins lead to emotional, physical and mental gratification,” he said.

When a Denver, Colorado, U.S.A., detective, an expert on satanic cults, was asked why he thought teenagers seem so susceptible to Satanism, he answered: “I will never forget what one teenage Satanist told me. He said, ‘What is there to live for? We’re going to live for today and do what we want. There’s no future.’”

Dr. Khalil Ahmad, director of adolescent services at the Nova Scotia Hospital in Dartmouth, Canada, voiced his opinion as to the lure of Satanism. “Teenagers are looking for excitement. The weak-​willed, often the losers, are attracted to [satanism]. It gives them a false impression of power.”

Another noted police authority on Satanism, a San Francisco detective, pinpoints the problem: “Our world is an apathetic place. We are more concerned with ourselves than each other. We live in a violent, negative society. Kids see that as a normal way of life and consequently are drawn into Satanism.”

How deeply are today’s youths involved in Satanism? “Kids are killing themselves and their friends. We’ve got a problem,” warned Larry Jones, president of Cult Crime Impact Network and a lieutenant in the Boise, Idaho, U.S.A., police force. Another police officer, from the state of Illinois, who tracks Satanism in his role as a high school police counselor, said 90 percent of the youths who dabble in devil worship get involved because it is a fad, but 10 percent “get caught up and go deeper and deeper.”

A Brooklyn, New York, school newspaper, School News Nationwide, January-​February-​March 1994, in its “Religion” section, ran an article entitled “Why Satanism Attracts Teens.” It reported: “After two boys fought in the high school cafeteria, the winner jumped up and flashed a strange hand salute, a clenched fist with his index and little fingers sticking up. The art teacher couldn’t figure out why so many kids drew pictures of demonic-​like men with goats’ heads. And books on the occult kept disappearing from the school library.

“The kids were, in fact, flirting with the power, the magic, the mystery of Satanism. For most, it was fun and exciting. For some, it was serious​—deadly serious to 17-​year-​old Lloyd Gamble—​who lost his life in a satanic sacrifice.

“After Lloyd’s death and his 15-​year-​old brother’s arrest for the murder, the Monroe county adults learned to understand the signs that had been so mysterious before: the ‘devil’s sign’ hand signal, the goat’s head pictures and the books that fed the teenagers’ imaginations, rituals and spells.”

The reports seem endless of preteens and teenagers killing their parents and other members of their families because of Satan worship. Children have been killed by other children in such acts. Like satanic adults, children have mutilated and killed animals. Family pets have been sacrificed on an altar of satanic rituals. Space does not allow for even a partial coverage of the butchery carried out by children who have embraced the religion of Devil worship.

Are these examples of children just dabbling in Satanism? Are those deep into Devil worship few and far between, a rarity? Not so, is the answer of those who have investigated these occult practitioners. David Toma, a former vice detective turned motivational speaker, said that in every school where he speaks, he asks the same question, “How many of you kids know someone or have heard of someone involved in Satanic practices?” He estimates that a “full one-​third of the students raise their hands.”

According to Shane Westhoelter, president of the National Information Network, from 30 to 40 percent of high school students are involved in some form of the occult. In addition, Westhoelter contends that up to 70 percent of all crimes committed by teens under the age of 17 are motivated by involvement in the occult.

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Satan worship has found a fertile soil among today’s young people

Satanism’s Handmaidens​—Drugs and Heavy-​Metal Music

CARL A. RASCHKE, director of the University of Denver Institute of Humanities, wrote: “It is no accident that drugs, heavy metal [music], brutality, and wanton violence have all become the grisly ensigns that wave above the human desolation as we move toward the third decade of the Age of Satan.” He also said: “You might say heavy metal rock is to self-​styled Satanism what gospel music is to Christianity. Very few people get converted to Christianity just by listening to gospel music on the radio. But heavy metal is a very powerful reinforcement. It legitimizes the nasty stuff the kids are already into.”

This is a strong indictment against what so many of today’s youths consider normal diversions from the anxieties of life​—heavy-​metal music and drugs. Are these charges justified? Can it be that drugs and heavy-​metal music are possible symptoms of Satanism? Consider the comments of those who have come face-​to-​face with the violence of satanic worshipers and those who have investigated them.

“The inflammatory message of heavy metal music is, as might not be surprising, ‘religious’​—in the sense that it proclaims a higher power overseeing the universe. The power, however, is not God,” wrote Raschke, in his book Painted Black. “It is . . . engineered by the Archfiend himself.” Additionally, he said: “The power and violence of the satanic is something toward which youngsters bereft of hope, and with a stunted conscience, can easily gravitate. . . . Troubled and abused youngsters, through a sort of insidious imprinting of experience, believe the Higher Power must be evil. Heavy metal affirms this ‘theology’ and institutionalizes it in the music.”

According to Dr. Paul King of the University of Tennessee, who testified before the United States Senate about heavy-​metal music, the music preference of a large number of disturbed youngsters is that of “unconventional themes of violence, hate, rebellion, primitive sex, abuse of women, and glorification of Satan. When an adolescent’s life-​style includes drugs, this preference is even more likely.” Heavy-​metal music glorifies and extols the power of evil, King said. In heavy-​metal music, “evil acts are glorified to new heights in concerts,” he said.

Consider the fruits of heavy metal’s subliminal message in the items that follow.

Last year in New Jersey, U.S.A., two 15-​year-​old boys brutally killed a family’s pet Labrador dog named Princess. “It was a sacrifice for Satan,” they claimed. They held the dog up by her chain, kicked her to death, ripped her tongue out and used it in a satanic ritual. They impaled the mutilated body of the dog on a large metal hook and hung it in a neighbor’s yard. Satanic markings were found on the dog’s head, and a pentagram (a five-​pointed star in a circle​—a Satanic symbol) was etched on the ground beneath the dog’s body. On the night of the killing, they were listening to Deicide (which means murder of God), a death-​metal band, whose lead singer boasts of torturing and killing animals.

In California, two teenage lovers, who, according to friends, were obsessed with Satan worship, savagely killed the girl’s mother by stabbing her and by beating her with a wrench. In the same area, another youth offered a prayer to Satan and then shot his father to death. Police investigating the crime were convinced that heavy-​metal music was to blame. “Basically, the music teaches that you don’t have to listen to your parents, and that you should live life the way you want,” said one police authority.

In England victims of serial gang rapes reported to police that one of the rapists bore tattoos of the insignia of a heavy-​metal band whose lyrics contain messages of rape and violence.

In Arkansas, U.S.A., a rural teenager attempted to kill his parents by beating them with a club and then slicing them with a butcher knife. Police found in his audiocassette player a tape cued to a heavy-​metal band’s song, “Altar of Sacrifice,” in which the lyrics scream out: “High priest awaiting, dagger in hand, spilling the pure virgin blood. Satan’s slaughter, ceremonial death, answer his every command. Enter to the realm of Satan . . . Learn the sacred words of praise, ‘Hail Satan.’”

As for the lyrics of other songs sung by screaming members of heavy-​metal bands​—often lip-​synched by their fans at concerts in wild frenzy, or listened to on audiocassette tapes for hours on end—​what influence do such messages have on impressionable youths? Consider, for example, these lyrics: “Satan our master in evil mayhem guides us with every first step,” and “Spill your blood, let it run on to me. Take my hand and let go of your life . . . You’ve spilt the blood. I have your soul.”

“If we already grant the premise that pornography might motivate a child molester,” wrote Carl Raschke, “why not entertain the thought that lyrics that scream kill, mutilate, maim, torture, obliterate might actually spur someone with a deranged brain to perform precisely those acts?”

It is the opinion of researchers everywhere that drug abuse and Satanism go hand in hand. Former vice detective David Toma laments that he has “never met a Satan worshiper who didn’t do drugs.” Drug use, reported ’Teen magazine, complicates matters for teenagers “who turn to devil worship, making it harder and harder to distinguish what’s actually real and what only appears to be real when viewed through the fog of drugs and alcohol.”

“Heavy metal is to heavy drug use as lotteries are to compulsive gamblers,” said Raschke. “The chemically dependent adolescent adopts a life-​style of swagger, brutality, theft and sexual excess​—all of which is reinforced by the yowling and bellowing of the metal groups.”

Without doubt, a youngster becomes easy prey to Satan’s influence when sanity is flushed from his brain and thoughts of perversion and violence take its place.

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One is easy prey to Satan’s influence when sanity is flushed from the brain and perversion and violence flood in

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What are you filling your mind with?

The Days of Satanism Are Numbered

JEHOVAH GOD created Adam and Eve, put them in a paradise garden, and told them to multiply and fill the earth with righteous offspring. They were to take care of the garden, dress it and keep it, and live forever, all on just the one easy condition: ‘You are not to eat of a certain tree in the middle of the garden. If you eat of it, you will die.’​—Genesis 1:27, 28; 2:8, 9, 15-17; Isaiah 45:18.

A mighty angel rebelled against God and became Satan, meaning “Resister,” because he wanted to seize control. He wanted to have the worship of the human race for himself. He influenced Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, claiming that it was good for food and that she would not die but become like God, able to decide for herself what is good and what is bad. Her first decision was bad; she decided that to eat the forbidden fruit would be good. Eve ate, gave some of the fruit to Adam and he ate, and both ultimately died. Thus Adam brought sin and death upon their offspring, who have been dying ever since. (Genesis 3:1-6; Romans 5:12) The first human pair chose to follow Satan and became the first converts to the worship of Satan. Down to this day, millions have decided that the religion of those original parents was and is good enough for them. “If you keep presenting yourselves to anyone as slaves to obey him, you are slaves of him because you obey him.”​—Romans 6:16; John 17:15, 16; 1 John 5:19.

Jehovah pronounced Satan’s ultimate doom, but allowed him to continue for a time. This would give Satan the opportunity to prove a challenge he made, that God could not put men on earth who would prove true to Him under test​—a challenge so dramatically portrayed and answered for Jehovah’s side of the issue in the first two chapters of the Bible book of Job. Under cruel and vicious attacks from Satan, Job himself chose to keep integrity to God, thereby proving Satan to be a liar. (Genesis 3:15; Exodus 9:16; Job 42:7) Hebrews chapter 11 also records a long list of Witnesses who took Jehovah’s side of the issue of universal sovereignty.

Christ Jesus is the outstanding one who for all time provided the complete answer for Jehovah’s side of the great issue of universal sovereignty and human integrity to God. This was a crushing defeat for Satan. Jesus flatly turned down Satan’s offer to give him rulership over the whole world in return for just one act of worship to Satan. Jesus also endured unflinchingly a horrendous ordeal as he died on a torture stake. He overcame both Satan and Satan’s world, providing us with a perfect model to follow.​—Matthew 4:8-10; 27:50; John 16:33; Hebrews 5:7-10; 1 Peter 2:21.

In view of the calamitous times in which we are living, it may seem that Satan is getting stronger than ever and that Satanism itself is on the increase. The Bible book of Revelation, however, paints an entirely different picture at Re chapter 12, verses 7-9, 12:

“War broke out in heaven: Michael [Christ Jesus] and his angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels battled but it did not prevail, neither was a place found for them any longer in heaven. So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him. On this account be glad, you heavens and you who reside in them! Woe for the earth and for the sea, because the Devil has come down to you, having great anger, knowing he has a short period of time.”

The Days of the Paradise Earth Will Be Without Number!

“Knowing he has a short period of time,” Satan steps up his demonic activity in these “last days.” (James 5:1-3) Yet there is a silver lining to the clouds of our days. Revelation 21:1, 3-5 reveals what it is: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea is no more. With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say: ‘Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his peoples. And God himself will be with them. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.’ And the One seated on the throne said: ‘Look! I am making all things new.’ Also, he says: ‘Write, because these words are faithful and true.’”

Thus, Christ Jesus will reign for a thousand years, during which time Jehovah will carry out his original purpose in creating the earth and putting mankind on it. (Revelation 20:1, 2, 6) You will recall that mankind was originally to fill the earth with righteous offspring, care for the earth, look after its plants and animals, live in peace, and love one another. Fulfillment of that purpose has been held in abeyance to let Satan attempt to prove his challenge that he could turn all people away from Jehovah God. He has enslaved billions of people, but he has failed in the case of some millions of integrity keepers.​—Romans 6:16.

During a time of restoration, Jehovah’s mercy through Christ Jesus will reach even into the grave to give opportunity for everlasting life in a paradise earth to billions who have died during the past thousands of years: “Do not marvel at this, because the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment.”​—John 5:28, 29.

Any who then refuse to fit into the righteous environment of that new earth will not remain to pollute or destroy it, its plants and animals, the peace of mankind, or the true worship of Jehovah God. Psalm 37:10, 11, 29 confirms this: “Just a little while longer, and the wicked one will be no more; and you will certainly give attention to his place, and he will not be. But the meek ones themselves will possess the earth, and they will indeed find their exquisite delight in the abundance of peace. The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it.”

Micah 4:2-4 promises true peace and security: “Many nations will certainly go and say: ‘Come, you people, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will instruct us about his ways, and we will walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion law will go forth, and the word of Jehovah out of Jerusalem. And he will certainly render judgment among many peoples, and set matters straight respecting mighty nations far away. And they will have to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. They will not lift up sword, nation against nation, neither will they learn war anymore. And they will actually sit, each one under his vine and under his fig tree, and there will be no one making them tremble; for the very mouth of Jehovah of armies has spoken it.”

This peacefulness will also spread to include animals, as Hosea 2:18 says: “I [Jehovah] shall certainly conclude a covenant in that day in connection with the wild beast of the field and with the flying creature of the heavens and the creeping thing of the ground, and the bow and the sword and war I shall break out of the land, and I will make them lie down in security.” Ezekiel 34:25 speaks also of a covenant that excludes the presence of any “injurious wild beast.”

Further, Isaiah 11:6-9 promises peace between the animals in Paradise: “The wolf will actually reside for a while with the male lamb, and with the kid the leopard itself will lie down, and the calf and the maned young lion and the well-​fed animal all together; and a mere little boy will be leader over them. And the cow and the bear themselves will feed; together their young ones will lie down. And even the lion will eat straw just like the bull. And the sucking child will certainly play upon the hole of the cobra; and upon the light aperture of a poisonous snake will a weaned child actually put his own hand. They will not do any harm or cause any ruin in all my holy mountain; because the earth will certainly be filled with the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters are covering the very sea.”

The meek will inherit the earth. They will care for the air, the water, and the soil. Springs and streams of water will soak the parched lands. Forests will clothe the mountains that have been denuded for selfish gain. Woodlands will flourish and former deserts will blossom as the rose. The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will walk, and the speechless will talk. (Isaiah 35:1-7) Appreciation for Jehovah’s glorious mountains and valleys and his coastlands bordering surging seas and oceans will never allow human greed to rise up again to ruin the earth. It will be easy, natural, for perfect mankind, filled with the fruits of Jehovah’s spirit, to delight, each one, in loving his neighbor as himself, and above all to love Jehovah with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. Yes, all mankind will bear the spiritual fruitage of “love, joy, peace, long-​suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-​control.”​—Galatians 5:22, 23.

Too Good to Be True?

By now some readers may be saying, ‘All of that sounds too good to be true.’ But, no, the conditions existing now are too bad to continue. We are in what the Bible calls “the last days.” Look around, and you can see that this is so. “In the last days,” says God’s Word, “critical times hard to deal with will be here. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-​assuming, haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, disloyal, having no natural affection, not open to any agreement, slanderers, without self-​control, fierce, without love of goodness, betrayers, headstrong, puffed up with pride, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power; and from these turn away. But wicked men and impostors will advance from bad to worse, misleading and being misled.”​—2 Timothy 3:1-5, 13.

Even with this graphic picture of our times, many will still ridicule. That also is to be expected. Their ridicule is itself a piece that fits into the pattern of proof that we are in the last days: “In the last days there will come ridiculers with their ridicule, proceeding according to their own desires and saying: ‘Where is this promised presence of his? Why, from the day our forefathers fell asleep in death, all things are continuing exactly as from creation’s beginning.’ . . . The heavens and the earth that are now are stored up for fire and are being reserved to the day of judgment and of destruction of the ungodly men. . . . There are new heavens and a new earth that we are awaiting according to his promise, and in these righteousness is to dwell.”​—2 Peter 3:3, 4, 7, 13.

Jehovah promises that, in his new world of righteousness, this wicked old system of Satan’s world will not even come to mind: “Here I am creating new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be called to mind, neither will they come up into the heart. But exult, you people, and be joyful forever in what I am creating.” (Isaiah 65:17, 18) The days of Satanism are numbered, and in God’s due time, Satan himself will be destroyed forever.​—Revelation 20:1-3, 7-10.

Indeed, the blessed conditions to come in the Paradise earth are not too good to be true; Jehovah considers the present conditions of this old system under Satan too bad to remain.

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The blessed conditions to come in the Paradise earth are not too good to be true