COURT PULPS TATE'S DEVIL - BOOK

Satan Myth-Monger Fails to Substantiate Claims in High Court

The Curse of the Satanic Child Abuse Myth has consumed one of its most active promoters.  Tim Tate, the man who unveiled the 'threat' of Satanic Abuse to the British Public in the Cook Report's DEVIL'S WORK, has admitted in the High Court that allegations contained in his book, CHILDREN FOR THE DEVIL, were 'utterly without foundation' and agreed to pay out 'very substantial damages'.

In Tate's compulsion to validate the obsessive belief of social workers involved in Britain's first alleged Satanic Child Abuse Case, his book had included 'very grave allegations' which in his court retraction he admitted were ' unfounded and should never have been published.'

Originator of Roger Cook's discredited DEVIL'S WORK, lecturer at Satanic Abuse Seminars, promoter of the Satanic Abuse Myth in numerous TV, Radio and Newspaper articles and interviews, Tate is well-known as an ace promoter of the doctrine of Satanic Abuse. The Satan Scare has perpetuated itself by his hand as much as any other.

Tate hailed his book CHILDREN FOR THE DEVIL as definite proof of the existence of Satanic Abuse. It was reviewed as such in professional journals and newspapers country-wide, yet it has now been withdrawn from sale because of its libelous inaccuracies.

As the humiliating court apology indicates, Tate's reporting of key situations and 'very grave allegations' relating to the police investigation into the Nottinghamshire Broxtowe case was 'utterly wrong and without foundation'.

CHILDREN FOR THE DEVIL gave Peter Cole the kind of  'character assassination'  which Tate honed to perfection on the occult sub-culture. In a satirical attempt to ridicule the Detective Superintendent, who has been a serving police officer for 30 years, Tate wrote that 'Cole had a face like a well-aged baked potato', that he was 'arrogant' and 'had a distrust of women'. That he became 'angry' when Satanic Abuse was discussed, that he was a 'sceptic' who was 'unable to substantiate his theories' and found 'anodyne explanations' to avoid addressing the alleged Satanic aspects of the case. Tate said that Coles 'didn't look too hard or too far' and that there were 'conundrums that he was not prepared to face'.

As if this wasn't bad enough, Tate infered  that Peter Cole obstructed the social workers and kept them under illegal surveillance. An entirely untrue assertion.

Tate's book made a distinct inference that Coles' attitude had left children trapped in the misery of abuse when in fact he had given strict instructions that their interests would be paramount.

These and other falsehoods, when put to the test, failed miserably and the first edition of  CHILDREN FOR THE DEVIL  sank without trace; bringing a new meaning to the term 'pulp-fiction'.  

Tate misrepresented and accused people from the occult-subculture in a similar way but his Track record speaks for itself. The Broadcasting Complaints Commission censured Tate's Cook Report on Satanic Abuse.

The programme criminally misrepresented the man they doorstepped including 'fixing' an old interview to make him appear to be condoning Satanic Abuse. Why pick a victim for doorstepping in a programme 'unveiling' Satanic Abuse to the nation if the man had absolutely nothing to do with Satanic Abuse?

We understand that Peter Coles pursued this litigation on a personal basis and funded the action himself.  In the process he won an unqualified vindication of his honour and a great victory for the truth about Satanic Abuse. Tate was unable to substantiate any of his criticisms against the policeman in charge of the Broxtowe (so-called) Satanic Abuse Case which occurred in Nottingham in 1988. The ramifications of this are immense.

The Broxtowe Case was the first incident upon which all further alleged Satanic Abuse Cases in the U.K. were built and was absolutely pivotal to the acceptance of the Myth. Tate played an instrumental part in promoting and publicising it in the discredited Cook Report and collaborating with key social workers in seminars and programmes.

In the process Tate brought the public and many professionals to believe in his interpretation of events at Nottingham, yet when brought to book, Tate has been forced to eat his words. The interpretation we were being sold as fact, turned out to be Tate's personal opinion and supposition.

Peter Coles action vindicated himself and his colleagues in Nottinghamshire Police Force. The outcome of this case also vindicates those people who have maintained, despite a welter of accusations by Tate, that Satanic Abuse is a figment of the imagination of obsessed religious fanatics.

When the first real test was applied to Tate's main case, the Satanic Abuse Myth crumbled instantly to dust.

The veracity of  Tate's allegations have regularly been challenged by the S.A.F.F. Our technical criticisms of his research for his book were legion and were published in detail in our review of his book WHAT A LOAD OF OLD CODSWALLOP (see column on right)

The long battle of wills between radical social workers in Nottinghamshire and a bobby with his feet on the ground, who stuck to his professional standards and was pilloried for it, is over.

The Broxtowe Satanic Abuse Case is dead and buried. Along with Tim Tate's awful book.

WHAT A LOAD OF CODSWALLOP!

A Review of the Inaccuracies contained within
Children For The Devil,
by Tim Tate

Tim Tate, the brains behind the discredited Cook Report's The Devil's Work (which tried to tell us that the U.K. was being overrun with Satanic Child Abusers- remember all the fuss?)  has spent the last two years working hard to seek out cases to convince us that his original assertions were correct and that Satanic Ritual Child Abuse (SRA) exists. To the casual observer the sheer weight of Tate's research is impressive, but to those who know, his book is a conglomeration of half-truths and misleading statements.

Tate contributes nothing really new to the controversy. He has discovered nothing extra which will offer conclusive proof that Satanic Ritual Abuse exists. The book itself is not the first of it's kind. It has been attempted before by more able historians, from Bodin, through Scott, Summers and Rhodes.  They got it wrong because they all began from a prejudiced viewpoint. How then did Tate do?

Sad to say, CHILDREN FOR THE DEVIL, RITUALISED ABUSE AND SATANIC CRIME is nothing but a fourth-hand re-run of information which was already third-hand and suspect when it was first collated!  In an attempt to convince the reader of the existence of Satanic Ritualised Abuse Tate delves into ancient history and asserts that Satanism has been alive and well for over 600 years! Will the media and the public fall for it?

Those who hoped for a clarification and simplification of Tate's allegations will be bitterly disappointed. After four years Tate is still unable to produce factual evidence of even one case of supposed ritualised child abuse which will stand on its own merits. Inevitably, Tate continues to blend a cocktail of different cases, each of which may have some heinous evil aspect, but none of which display the entirety of his claims that a Worldwide Satanic Cult is abusing and sacrificing hundreds children as part of its belief system.

Yes folks, it's more of the same intolerant and inconclusive drivel from Mr Tate but this time he has taken so many liberties with the truth that the knowledgeable observer can only conclude that his compulsion to publicise Satanic Ritual Abuse nust have become an obsession.

The twisted collection of selectively edited snippets from a variety of sources is cobbled together in an attempt to convince Joe Public that Tate Satanic Ritual Child Abuse is a real threat.  If this man had his way there would apparently be a nationwide hunt for unorthodox beliefs backed up by special SWAT squads seeking indications of Satanic Ritualised Abuse using the worst kind of medieval superstition. Exactly the sort of ignorance which caused the Rochdale and Orkney SRA fiascos. As usual there are lots of words, but there is not one jot of proof.  The S.A.F.F. have exposed the fragility of Tate's cases in all instances and despite his clever weaving of narrative in this new book, his evidence is again clearly inconclusive.

In descending to using confessions gained though torture during the Witch Trials of the 15 and 16 centuries Tate takes on the mantle of the New Witch finder General. Like Witch finder Generals before him appears ready to convince you by peddling medieval superstition.  Hitching a ride on one of the most reprehensible periods of history at a time when millions of innocent people went to their deaths in Europe because of a hysteria not dissimilar to the one Tate helped to promote during the 1990s, he incorporates confessions gained under torture in complete disrespect for the dignity of the innocent people murdered in such a barbarous and uncivilised fashion.

Tate's book is replete with innuendo, inference and inaccuracies which would take another volume of twice the size to fully explain so we have chosen a few of the more pertinent cases and highlighted Mr Tates errors in those to indicate his misportrayal.  It makes shocking reading, whichever way you look at it.

GILES DE RAIS:

Giles de Rais did not admit to the slaughter of a thousand children as Tate insists. History clearly shows that he was the richest man in France at the time with extensive lands in his possession. He was framed for political reasons and tried for heresy on the pretext that he had struck a priest, not because he killed children.  His supposed child murders were a corollary charge. His Inquisitors selected two of Rais' 500 servants and tortured them until they confessed all manner of atrocities which Rais had supposedly committed - hence the incredible number of claimed child murders.  These two servants claimed to be involved in the carrying out of the crimes and Tate uses their testimony as trustworthy, but he does not mention that after testifying against their master they were both set free; a strange occurrence for two miscreants who confessed to helping kill thousands of kids!

Tate does not appear to have access to the source-works of proper scholars such as Ernest Alfred Vizetelly whose monumental Commore the Cursed and Giles de Rais was first published in English in 1902 and proved conclusively that the idea of a child-killing blue-beard sacrificing thousands of children, which was projected onto Giles de Rais at his trial, was in fact a development of a very ancient pre-Roman Bretton pagan legend and had no basis whatsoever in reality!

The facts are that there was no concrete evidence of any crimes given against Giles de Rais at the hearing. No bodies or bones were ever produced. The 'confession' by his servants made it inevitable that Rais would be burned alive at the stake. His Inquisitors offered Rais death by burning alive or, if he confessed to the put up crimes, the 'mercy' of being strangled beforehand which, faced with the inevitability of it all Rais is supposed to have accepted. The put up nature of the confession was evident in the fact that included in it was a plea that the court records be published in the vernacular. A strategic move by his Inquisitors to gain public condemnation whilst they stripped him of his land and possessions behind the scenes.

Hunting Satanists Pays Dividends

Inquisitors who tried people who were accused of witchcraft were not usually paid by the state but were permitted to charge the victim for their 'services'. What this meant in principle was that the estate of the guilty person was split between the prosecutors.

Now look at this:  Fifteen days BEFORE the trial of Rais began Duke John V (who took part in the prosecution) disposed of his anticipated share of Giles de Rais lands.   Thus even prior to the trial Rais' guilt had been decided and his death made certain by those powerful enemies who ranged against him. 

And yet Tate would ignore this travesty of justice in order to tell you that it was certain that Rais killed hundreds of children!  There is not a shred of reliable evidence that this was the case but Tate would have you believe otherwise, just like he would have believe that Francesco Prelati  who featured in the trial was a 'fellow Satanist' when in fact he was an ordained priest who, after testifying against Rais, was also set free.

Giles de Rais was a victim of political assassination. The Witch Hysteria which tore through 15/16 century Europe became the cover for it. It is amazing though how the superstition of the Satanic Ritual Abuse Myth tends to perpetuate itself even unto modern times. Tate insists that his quoted cases are cases of Satanism, yet Rais' helper in his supposed crimes was a Priest and the trustworthy evidence shows that Rais interest in the esoteric was limited to alchemical experiments to turn lead into gold.  He had no connection whatsoever to any form of organised Satanism.

CATHERINE DE MEDICI:

"The first formalised ritual child sacrifice within a Black Mass is credited to Catherine Medici"

How Tate can make such a bald statement as though fact is beyond our comprehension and we wonder how many readers will believe him?    Firstly De Medici was not a Satanist, and although, like many of her day, she consulted with soothsayers and in particular Nostradamus the famous astrologer, this was always for a political or personal purpose, never to exalt evil or Satanism. The source reference to the supposed 'Black Mass' is in the writings of Jean Bodin, (1530-1596) a French lawyer and politicnick who set himself up to hunt down witches in many trials because it was lucrative work.   He also wrote, conveniently for his purse and with a faint echo that has spanned the centuries, that witches were so cunning it was impossible to prove their guilt so all who were accused should be found guilty even if there was no evidence against them!
  Furthermore, the 'sacrifice' was conducted by a Catholic Priest, not a Satanist.  There was only one such rite performed ( for the purpose of saving the life of Catherine de Medici's gravely ill son). According to Henry Rhodes' classic The Satanic Mass

"This was no Sabbat or offering to Satan".

 In accrediting Catherine de Medici with being the first exponent of satanic ritual child murder Tate completely omits to mention that she was an ardent Catholic sectarian who personally initiated the assassination of Admiral Coligny and the horrendous St Bartholomew Massacre where over FIFTY THOUSAND Huguenots were murdered simply because they were Protestants.

Rather than being the first example of Satanic Ritualised Murder this lady could easily be accused of being the first Christian Ritualised Mass Murderer if it were not for the fact that there are literally hundreds of precedents to that title throughout history!

URBAIN GRANDIER:

In the Loudun Nuns case, in which Urbain Grandier featured, everyone involved was either a nun, priest or Bishop, yet, my readers, remember that Mr Tate is attempting to tell you that these were DREAD SATANISTS. We ask Mr Tate to say at what point a Priest becomes defined by him as a Satanist?

In fact the clergy at that time contained an even higher proportion of licentious perverts than it does now. (see The Black Museum of Priestly Abuse here ) Becoming a Cleric was one way of avoiding penury and starvation, especially for disenfranchised bastard sons of the nobility. During this period there are very many instances on record of priests who had no Satanic connections whatsoever but who had mistresses and illegitimate families by various concubines. It is naive of Tate to over moralise his tales of indiscretions whilst pretending that the French Church and its officiators were paragons of virtue whose word could be trusted.

Urbain Grandier was a parish priest who fell foul of Cardinal Richelieu. He openly made a mistress of one of his young penitents and was suspected of having made pregnant the daughter of the public prosecutor of Loudun. Not good form for one in Grandier's position. Firstly accused of immorality, not heresy, he was found guilty and suspended from clerical duties. Within a year Grandier's political friends had engineered his release and those ranged against him began a conspiracy to incriminate him. Tate fails to mention any of this.

Grandier's enemy Father Mignon, confessor to the nuns of Loudun, persuaded a few sisters to swear that Father Grandier had bewitched them. The nuns went into 'victim imposter' mode started feigning convulsions and began talking in strange voices. The plot misfired and resulted merely in a warning to Grandier by his Archbishop.

The convent quietened but the conspiracy continued. Laubardemont, a close friend of the powerful Richelieu was told that Grandier had published a satire which had enraged the Cardinal. One of the nuns was related to Richelieu. This cocktail of circumstance resulted in Richelieu ordering Laubardemont to form a kangaroo commission to convict Grandier as a witch. The Old allegations resurfaced and, under exorcism the nuns continued their fantastic allegations about adultery, incest, sacrileges and other crimes. Acting as though possessed the nuns became celebrities and were repeatedly exorcised in public.  The similarity between these nuns and modern day SRA victim imposters who appear on stage to tell their fabricated stories at Satan Seminars for social workers will not escape my readers.

Grandier was thrown into jail and searched for 'devil's marks' which were, of course, quickly discovered. The despicable Inquisitors whom Tate would have you trust, found these devil's marks by subterfuge. Using a small needle they would stab one part of his body whilst drawing the onlookers attention to the pressing of another part. This would have worked had not an apothecary from Poitiers witnessed the hoax and grabbing the concealed barb revealed that Grandier's body was ordinarily sensitive to pain at any point.

The trial was a complete travesty of justice. Some nuns who, realising their part in Grandier's serious predicament, wanted to retract their statements were refused permission to do so.

1. They claimed that their allegations had been dictated to them by the parish priest.
   
2. The 'Pact with the devil' supposedly written by Grandier is not thought by any historians to be anything other than a complete forgery.
   
3. The Mother superior of the convent, herself a main player in the framing of Grandier, appeared in court with a noose around her neck and threatened to hang herself to expiate her false witness against Grandier, but she was ignored.
4. Villagers and people who wanted to appear in defence of Grandier were forcibly kept from testifying and in some cases told that if they did so they would also be tried for witchcraft.
   
5. Dr Claud Quillet of Chinon had detected impostures at the public exorcisms and wanted to give testimony to that effect. Laubardemont immediately ordered his arrest and Dr Quillet only saved himself by fleeing across the Italian border.
6. A public meeting supporting Grandier organised by the Baili of Loudun complained about the procedure in the trial and Laubardemont accused all present of Treason to scotch any resistance.
   

On 18th August 1634 Grandier was sentenced to torture of the 2nd degree and burning alive. Even under torture so severe that the marrow of his bones oozed out of his broken limbs Grandier maintained his innocence and refused to bear false witness by naming imaginary accomplices (the sole purpose of 2nd degree torture).

Grandier's dignity and honour under such terrible institutionalised violence make him a giant amongst martyrs to the cause of human integrity. It makes Tim Tate's portrayal of him as a satanist  more than unacceptable. It makes it despicable. Proof of Satanic Ritualised Abuse?  I think not!

THE SATANIST NUN: Magdalein Bavent

Again Tate confuses the issue. When is a Nun redefined as a Satanist? 

Why do all his cases involve Christian priests and Christian nuns?

When does Christian ritualised abuse become Satanic ritualised abuse? 

None of the historical confessions or transcripts which Mr Tate uses contain any references to any person being called Satanists or admitting to being a Satanist. Tate can produce no definitive evidence to show that those accused were termed Satanists or actually were Satanists. We only have Mr Tate's own assurance that this is the case.

The people in Tate's cases may have done awful things, but the S.A.F.F. has just produced the result of 8 years analysis of over 100 child sex abuse cases from the last decade which prove that clergymen and Christian religious fanatics can perpetrate the same and worse things without any form of Satanism being involved (see here). If priests can do it now, they could have done it then. It is a certainty that some renegade priests did awful things as the above cases show.  Thus the depth of horror of the crime cannot be used as an incontrovertible indicator of Satanic involvement. Without clear proof of the existence of a historic Satanic cult, Tate's  allegations about a cult of  baby-killing satanists which has reappared in modern life, are meaningless. None of the cases he reproduces in Children For the Devil support the contention.

Magdalein Bavent became a Nun in an attempt to escape the repercussions of being deflowered by a Franciscan monk who was a customer at the shop where she worked. Her highly detailed and fantastic confessions were published in her autobiography and from its innocent Early Victim Imposter style and details of her confessions during trial various commentators, including Tate, have extracted the allegations which seem to confirm their prejudices.

Tate did not bother telling his readers that Bavent also claimed that she

• had sex with the ghost of a dead priest,
  
• was raped a number of times by the devil in the form of a black Cat which had a huge penis,
  
• saw blood trickling from a holy wafer,
  
• consorted with half-human demons.
  

Neither does Tate mention that in her autobiography Bavent herself wrote that her testimony had been

"based upon nothing else than the vivid suggestion she retained from the questioning".

A tremendously important insight when related to the misuse of interrogation techniques in the Rochdale and Orkney SRA cases.

Bavent's allegations concerned the activities of priest Father Picard who had died some time previously from natural causes. So lunatic were the Satan Hunters of the time at being thwarted that they dug up Picard's corpse and publicly incinerated it on the same pyre upon which they burned alive the poor priest who had taken over from him after he died!

Bavent's allegations regarding eating children were never corroborated.

One of the witnesses at the trials confessed before being burned that he had prompted Bavent about the Sabbath orgies and that the details of liturgy supposedly recited at the 'Black Mass' had been dictated to him by his interrogator who had bribed him with six sous to give evidence against Bavent.

What do you mean, Tate didn't mention any of this?

CHAMBRE ARDENTE :

This is perhaps the most real of Tate's cases. The Chambre Ardente was convened by Louis XIV due to the widespread poisoning murders which were occurring amongst the French nobility.  The astonishingly immoral excesses of the court of Louis XIV, which had nothing whatsoever to do with satanism and all to do with the bestial appetites of an exceedingly rich and unaccountable ruling class, hastened the  onset of the French Revolution. During this warm-up period, when there were rumblings of revolt against the nobility, the Sun King threw the plebs a show-trial, The Chambre Ardente, to silence the mob.  Unfortunately most of the evidence regarding the 'Black Mass' was obtained under torture and so the details which Tate relies upon for his 'proof are unreliable.

There is no doubt that a large number of poisonings took place but the poisonings had nothing to do with Satanism. Poison was much in demand by women who wanted to bring the lives of their husbands to a premature end either to obtain their wealth or to free them for a further marriage. A common occurrence in the corrupt French nobility because of the catholic church's prohibition against divorce.  The network which made available the poison was organised by several noblemen including the son of the Attorney general of Aix, himself a lawyer. The motive was, as always money.

The licentiousness and intrigue of the French Court is well known and much money was to be had by poison suppliers who also catered for the libidinous indulgences of the French aristocracy of the time. Several fortune - tellers including the notorious La Voisin were used to distribute the poisons which were nearly always used by leading French celebrities and nobility.  It is more than possible that a blackmail racket was also being worked as a sideline on those who asked for supplies of poison. The proportion of occult involvement in all of this was negligible but was blown up by the police chief for political reasons in order to scapegoat a few guilty people. throw the onus on the plebs and allow the nobles involved to go free.

Tate misleads his readers woefully in attributing 2,500 children's deaths to this affair. In fact this quotation came from a witness who claimed that La Voisin HAD TERMINATED 2,500 PREGNANCIES. At that time abortion was of course illegal and, due to the depravity of the king's court, much in demand.  Drugs would be given to stupefy the patient, many of the drugs which stupefied were also poisonous in larger doses. It was natural that women willing to perform ' abortions and who also had access to such drugs, would be in demand. La Voisin denied being an abortionist but her friend La Lepere more or less admitted it. It seems that somewhere down the line a cross-over occurred in all this criminal activity where a catholic Abbot (Guiborg) employed the aborted foetuses in a parody of the Catholic Mass to a select audience of sensation seeking nobility.   At the trial La Lepere was accused of providing Guiborg with aborted foetuses for the 'black masses', not of killing children, an important legal distinction which Tate fudged.

At this point the trial had become a witch-hunt and eventually under torture various admissions and allegations were obtained.

It is from these admissions under torture that details of the abominations which are supposed to take place at a 'standard' Satanic Black Mass were synthesised and later enshrined in history as 'fact'. 

It is important to note that all the people tortured were Priests and that each priest gave separate (sometimes conflicting) details of the Black Mass which were later selectively cobbled into a legend greater than the sum of its parts.  It is of course natural that serving priests would be able to invent that which would abominate most.

The homologated Black Mass produced an overall impression suitable to their persecutors. Abbe Guiborg, confessed that in ONE ritual he had murdered a child. Whether Guiborg 'copped a plea' for this confession is unknown but he wasn't executed for it.

In contradiction to Tate's assertions there was no evidence to confirm that any of these people were part of an organised Satanic Group or that what they were doing was part of an existing cult. The whole thing appeared to be spontaneous extemporisation of things diametrically opposed to Christianity done for the natural obscenity of depraved and indulgent people who were pillars of the establishment and who therefore created space for themselves to experience forbidden things at a time when the church's iron gauntlet of sexual repression had a vice-like grip on morality. As things turned out they were quite right. The corrupt nature of Louis XIVs court ensured that the nobility escaped prosecution and blame whilst others took the wrap.

La Vigoreux and La Bosse were burned alive and Francois Bosse was hanged. However La Voisin and the other fortune-tellers were more cunning and began implicating the nobility to the embarrassment of the prosecution. Sensing his delicate political position the Police Commissioner Reynie resorted to torturing the accused in order to gain 'confessions'. La Voisin was put in the torture chair and then her legs were crushed in the 'boots'. La Voisin still denied all charges of poisoning. The verbatim accounts of the torture record her shrieks at each successive crushing of her legs, but she still admitted nothing.

The Attorney general demanded her tongue be cut out and her hands chopped off, but the court instead sentenced her to burning alive. An eye witness reported:

 " She was forced to the stake, tied and bound with iron. Cursing all the time she was covered with straw which five or six times she threw off her, but at last the flames grew fiercer and she was lost to sight."

Such perceptions of the barbarity of the time are important lest Tate's readers are lead to judge the happenings one-sidedly by assuming that the authorities at the time were compassionate and uncorrupted people who used similar yardsticks of morality and behaviour with which we can identify.  The activities of all concerned could easily be described as 'evil' but with Mr Tate's version you only get part of the story.

After continued investigation Madame de Montespan, a former mistress of Louis XIV was found to be a key player in the scandal and in order to avoid further embarrassment the king ordered the investigation to continue in secret. Tate's recording of the extent of the trial is misleading. He states that 104 people were sentenced in the case. In all 319 people were arrested, 36 were put to death, 4 were sent as slaves to the galleys and another 34 were banished. The missing 30 were actually acquitted. Seventy four people sentenced for poisoning and involvement in the scandal is a great number but not all of the 70 were sentenced for imagined Satanic practices of course.

Additionally the 'forensic proof which Mr Tate makes much of is not as clear- cut as the impression he gives and the evidence he provides whilst sounding authoritative is wrong. Firstly in La Filastre's testimony about the sacrifice of her baby it was not Guiborg who did it but herself aided by two other officiating priests Abbe Deshayes and Abbey Cotton.

Secondly whilst is quite probable that Voisins' daughter saw aborted foetuses incinerated in an oven and that 'forensic evidence' of human remains was found it is quite another thing to suggest that this proves that children were murdered in Satanic Rituals. These are emotive issues which it is difficult to talk about in a matter of fact way, but it is the fact's we seek. In order for the reader to make up their minds they should have been given the full story for although Tate calls Voisins' daughter's evidence

'the first reliable testimony'

and quotes from it in great detail he omits to tell his readers that she withdrew it all later in the trial.

Of course if police chief Reynie, ( who is obviously held in high esteem by Mr Tate going by his lauding of him in the book) , was willing to resort to inhuman tortures in order to force confessions then it is quite possible that he would think nothing of also planting evidence. We cannot be sure of any of these things of course, AND THAT IS EXACTLY THE POINT.

ISABEL GOWDIE: 

An indication of the weaknesses of Tate's allegations is his deployment of the pathetic Isabel Gowdie case. In an inverted volte-face Tate quickly gets over the problem that all historians consider Gowdie a rustic Pagan and not a Satanist, by trying to confuse the reader into thinking that the authorities at that time had not got round to making the distinction between Paganism and Satanism. Of course we only have Tate's word for this. In reality it could be exactly the other way round. The authorities didn't use the term Satanist because none had been discovered. That puts Tate into a real quandary for he is on record as acknowledging that the Old Religion of Paganism has nothing whatsoever to do with evil practices or child abuse and he admits this elsewhere in his book.

Gowdie's confessions show her to be clearly unstable. She gave four voluntary confessions from which Tate extracts those bits he wants you to see and leaves behind the bits that tell the full story. As well as admitting to sacrificing 2 children the poor woman also said that she could:

• turn herself into a jackdaw or a cat
• could fly through the air on a bit of straw
• could 'shoot down' any Christian who saw her and did not bless himself. ( But no Christian who had seen her and blessed himself could be found to corroborate the' matter. )
  

Gowdie said that she shot people with Elf Arrows which she had seen little Elf boys sharpening. Her coven were so 'abominable' that they spent most of their time raising storms by hitting a stone with a wet rag. Hardly the stuff of Satanic Horror. So uncelebrated was Gowdie's imbecility that the court scribe forgot to record her sentence and no-one knows what happened to her afterwards. This is proof of Satanic Child Abuse?

THE HELLFIRE CLUB - The Monks of Medmenham: 

In his curious documentary-cum- novelette style Tate activates our imagination and prepares a detailed description of people and circumstance, peppering his narrative with snippets of facts and the names of real people he leads the reader to believe that in his attention to detail he will portray the whole story.   But Tate's mission appears to be not to tell the WHOLE story, but to prepare a version which panders to expectancies in the reader's mind.  Passing off the licentious indulgences of the privileged classes, which is all that the Hellfire club was,  as Satanism Tate adopts his self- righteous Victorian morality mode and ignores the fact that few people who have researched the scandal other than himself think that Dashwood's and the other Hellfire Clubs were anything other than debauchery.   There is in fact a direct corelation between the excesses of Louis XIV's court and the indulgencies of Daswhood's Dandies where upper-class English gentlemen rodgered their way around servant gals on their extensive estates, free of the fetters of the rules of law which applied to the lower classes. 

Tate quickly polishes over the fact that there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that any satanic rituals were held by Dashwood. 'No detailed accounts of the Hell-Fire Club's rituals survive'  He says, presupposing their were some, and goes on to complain about child prostitution and obscenities which have been a disgusting but ever present part of human society in privileged circles where people consider themselves above the law, for thousands of years.

 Tate does not tell his readers that Dashwood was in fact a fully paid up Christian. He refers to him as a Satanist.

Tate tries to cobble together a convenient sociological theory that those involved in Satanism will always swing towards Christianity for repentance because this fits in with fundamentalist victim imposters, whom he terms Satanic Survivors and from which he has accepted evidence on SRA.  In fact the reverse is true.  Misfits who have become ashamed at the indiscretions of their youth make up outrageous stories about how far they descended into the pit of hell, to  underline how strong their conversion to Christianity has become.

 The committedness with which Dashwood pursued his licentiousness had nothing whatsoever to do with a belief in Satanism.  Still it avoids Tate having to explain why Arch satanist Dashwood would voluntarily collaborate with Benjamin Franklin to publish The Book of Common Prayer.  Rather than prove the existence of Satanic Ritualised Abuse Tate's historical cases reveal a higher, incidence of indicators which
prove a connection with Christian Ritualised Abuse.

THE MYSTERIOUS DR BATAILLE:

Ah, the mysterious Dr Bataille!   After telling us that Dr Bataille probably didn't exist and that the book was most likely written by a collection of 19 century fundamentalists Tate waves that away and goes on to tell us that nevertheless we must believe that the book contains first hand experience of the Black Mass!  In fact the two people associated with authoring the sensational Le Diable Au XIX Siecle were one Gabriel Jogaud- Pages (who also used the pseudonym Leo Taxil) and one Dr Hecks (which may have been another pseudonym of Pages).

According to Wade Baskin ,  In 1897 Leo Taxil admitted publicly that he had fabricated all of Dr Bataille's sensational revelations.

In his Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1920) the learned Lewis Spence mentions the book in this way:

"He purports to have witnessed the secret rites and orgies of many diabolic societies, but a merely perfunctory examination of his work is sufficient to brand it as wholly an effort of the imagination."

In the case of the mysterious Dr Bataille there is obviously more evidence to suggest that the contents of his book are bunkum. Is it right to include bunkum in a serious analysis of Satanic Ritualised Abuse of Children?

ALEISTER CROWLEY, Wickedest Man In The World? 

Tate spends a great deal of time impressing the reader with his research on Crowley and constructing a case to 'prove' that Crowley was the father of modern Satanism but this is a lie. Crowley was not a Satanist. Now that we have escaped Tate's historical cases we don't have to rely upon suspect third hand information and the glaring technical inaccuracies in Tate's potted biography are revealing.

Tate claims that Crowley invoked the Satan God Horus to convince the reader that Crowley was a nasty piece of work. But Horus is not a Satan God. Horus is the Egyptian Sun God whose mythological purpose was to help mankind to enlightenment by combating the forces of darkness which in Egyptian mythology are controlled by the God Set. This is a very strange mistake for Tate, a theology graduate, to make for the American based Temple of Set who take their name from this god, have been a target for Tate's accusations. Of course Crowley DID NOT traffick with Satan and his invocation of Horus was an attempt to bring enlightenment and knowledge for the benefit of mankind, a completely different perspective to that which Tate has given his reader.

The main weakness in Tate's attack  is simply that Crowley was one of the most prolific occult writers and over 200 of his books available today show that despite his tongue in cheek manipulation of fools who hung on his every word, he had nothing whatsoever to do with Satanism and actually ejected one famous occultist from his order because he believed he was a black magician.

By using the unfair device of searching Crowley's extensive writings and correspondence to discover a quotation which, out of context, seems damning Tate may convince you of another fundamentalist hobby horse and a necessary piece in the jigsaw of insisting that a Global Satan conspiracy exists. Of course we could very quickly find hundreds of references from Crowley's writings which showed that he only had the best interests of mankind at heart and his philosophy, which presaged women's rights and pluralism, is very pertinent to our society. We have not space to contradict all of Tate's pronouncements on Crowley but we have picked a few examples for comparison.

Although bi-sexual Crowley favoured homosexuality but his liasons always involved mature men. Tate avoids using the term homosexual and instead cleverly substitutes Sodomy which has both a biblical and legal inference. Of course at that time homosexuality was still a crime punishable with harsh penalties. Does Mr Tate want to outlaw homosexuality again , like the fundamentalists?  Or is he just playing to a captured audience?

Tate goes to great lengths to besmirch Crowley's teachings by trying to assert that his method 'released the demonic inside the individual Satanist' In fact Crowley's magical method did exactly the reverse and Tate very well knows this. It released what, in his own words, he termed man's Holy Guardian Angel NOT demons or devils, and in his approach to demonology Crowley's thinking seems a lot less medieval than Mr Tate's, as can be gleaned from Crowley's forward to the magical book The Goetia

'What is the cause of my illusion of seeing a spirit in the Triangle of Art... The Spirits are portions of the human brain and their seals represent methods of stimulating or regulating those particular areas through the eye'

In short he saw magick as esoteric psychiatry.

Crowley never sacrificed any human and it is despicable of Tate to assert that he did. - In a lifetime of occult study his magical diaries show that he experimented with sacrificing a few birds and couple of cats. Hardly what one would call ultimate evil and a lot less than the thousands of Frankenstein experiments conducted on animals by the medical establishment, or fast food outlets for that matter!

The main support for Tate's allegations is the chapter on the BLOODY SACRIFICE in Crowley's book MAGICK. This provides the 'link' which Tate makes to the supposed criminal activities of today's O.T.O. This link is false. It does not take into account the fact that, unlike Mr Tate it would seem, Crowley had a very definite sense of humour.

Crowley couldn't write a definitive work on magick, historical and modern, without including a chapter on THE BLOODY SACRIFICE for human sacrifice was (and animal sacrifice still is - Halal, Kosher slaughter) a component part of most religions. The best way of dealing with this was the way Crowley did it. Leaving it to the intellect of the reader to read between the lines.

Tate would have you believe that Crowley wrote a very impressive and technically brilliant piece of literature on hermetic theurgy for public consumption and included in it a bland confession that he had sacrificed 2,400 children. Amazing how that number keeps cropping up?  Who shall we take seriously, Mr Tate or Mr Crowley? If commonsense be not your guide then an extract from R A Wilson's Cosmic Trigger provides us with the answer:

"The Satirist even more appreciated Crowley's boffo one-liner in "Magick" where he speaks of sexual yoga (in code as usual) as a form of sacrifice and says that he thus sacrificed "a male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence" 150 times a year since 1912. The sacrifice in sexual yoga is the semen, which is indeed a "male child" and does indeed contain within the DNA code a very high intelligence, the genetic blueprint of planet Earth. "

Crowley's allegory therefore refers to auto-eroticism. He was not admitting killing over 2000 children as Tate maintains. He was presenting the information subtly beyond the range of the profane for those who had the awareness and the wit. He was setting a trap for the narrow-minded, the unvisionary, and the ignorant. A trap which Tate has fallen into.

Tim Tate has accused Crowley, a dead man who cannot argue his case. on the slimest of pretexts. But in his wisdom and intelligence Crowley has had the last laugh on those who would misrepresent him. Crowley's trap has caused virtually the whole of the fundamentalist movement, many very unwise Social Workers and in this instance Mr Tate, to stick their necks out and reveal the lack of proportion of those who jump at the obvious if it fits their own prejudices.

Apart from this 'confession' in Crowley's "Magick" Tate has absolutely no other evidence whatsoever that Crowley harmed children. The joke is from the grave, and it is at the expense of Tate.

Those who want to see the REAL background to Crowley's life and work can read the interesting revelations here:

The First Successful Prosecution For A Satanic Killing:

Tate refers to the Andrew Newell case in 1987. This was nothing of the sort. Newell has always denied being a Satanist. Newel made a confession to the police under duress but later retracted it. (sound familiar?) Whilst he had an interest in general occultism he was a beginner and had no connections with any Satanic group. His original trial was a travesty of justice and the appeal court eventually overturned the life-sentence for murder, commuting it to manslaughter. The trial had not taken account of Newell''s claim of self- defence. He contended that the murder was the result of an argument which got out of hand and it probably was.

Tate would have you believe that Newell was a killer who sacrificed someone in pursuit of Satanic philosophy. The reality is that Newell got into a fight with his friend and flat-mate after coming home dead drunk and in the process he unintentionally  killed his mate.

• No ritual.
  
• No trappings.
  
• No Satanist.
  
• No group of Satanists.
  
• No Satanic connection.
  
• No Sacrifice.
  

Nothing but an obsessive anti-occult prejudice from Tim Tate. We have challenged Tate before on these points . Tate is very well aware of the fact that Newell's father made a formal complaint to Central Television about claims in the Tate researched Cook Report (The Devil's Work) about Newell being a Satanist when he knew that his son was not and had never claimed to be a Satanist. That he had no connections with any other Satanist and still maintains that he is not a Satanist.

Additionally to further sensationalise Newell's supposed evil inclinations the Cook Report inferred that Newell slept in a grave.   In reality Newell had once crashed out in a graveyard after walking home blind drunk and the situation was a one-off.

Tate makes great play over the down-to-earth detective superintendent who brought Newel's case to court and relies upon his statements to convince the reader of the 'ritual' aspects of the killing. His readers should know that the S.A.F.F. disagree with Det. Inspector Cole's scenario of the case and we told him so when he sent a couple of detectives to ask for our advice on the ritual aspects of the case before it came to court. His assertion that the knife wounds were specially placed is speculation and do not relate to any historical or known method of sacrificing anything, particularly human beings.

We did point out that in cultures where Human Sacrifice (Aztec civilisation) or execution was undertaken it was usual to tie the victim's hands and legs together, in which case Booth, the murder victim, would not have had 'defence wounds' on his wrist.

After showing us Newell's 'magical diary' we told the detective that Newell was obviously a beginner and his studies into occultism had nothing to do with Satanism. Other information they gave us lead us to categorically insist that Newel was not a Satanist and the death was not a premeditated ritual as the Cook Report later claimed.

The detectives made extensive secret investigations into Occult and New Age groups and personalities in and around the Telford area in an attempt to find a connection that would fit in with their Satanic conspiracy theory. They failed for there was no such conspiracy and the death was not sacrificial.

We offered to stand up and give evidence in court. The detectives were not happy with all this and left saying they would be back in touch. We did not hear from them again.

Later the appeal court reviewed the facts and came to a conclusion nearer our own. Tate has used this case before to try and convince the public about Satanic Killings. It is a major plank in his armoury of cases yet he continually misrepresents it. In the Cook Report it was billed as a Satanic Murder when it was in fact manslaughter.

SO WHAT IS TATE ACTUALLY SAYING?:

Tate collects an impressive selection of cases which one after the other stun and confuse the reader's consciousness into accepting by sheer weight of evidence that this is collective 'proof that Satanic Ritualised Abuse Exists. But as we have shown here that is not the case. Tate's argument is not singular, it is a hydra composed of a number of different heads none of which, alone, prove anything much. The author's intent and aim is as unspecified as his argument. His writing is replete with emotional and sensational statements designed to shock-horror the reader into belief, yet overall the book fails in producing any meaningful solution or recommendation.

Mr Tate has spent the last three years setting himself up as one of the UK's foremost researchers in Satanic Ritualised Abuse. He has had access to pro-SRAMist circles and key social worker's cases. He is now lecturing on ritualised abuse and satanic crime.

Tate castigates Satanism as ultimate evil yet admits that many Satanists are perfectly law abiding and do not sacrifice children, like the British satanist whom he filmed being initiated for the Cook Report. Tate personally bought him a pile of regalia and paraphernalia for the rite.  If some Satanists are abusers and some satanists aren't then of what consequence is the philosophy of Satanism to the motivations of supposed child abusing Satanists?

Tim Tate is well aware that Priestly Child Abuse is a much bigger problem in our society than Satanic Ritualised Abuse ever could be and that definite prosecutions have revealed that many clergy and religious fanatics (who have no satanic or occult connection whatsoever) have committed crimes far more terrible and heinous than those Mr Tate relies upon to discredit Satanism. In short Satanic Ritual Abuse (if it exists at all) is no worse than existing cases of child abuse which are on record. What does it matter therefore how child-abusers justify themselves, surely it is the crime which matters and the care of the children which is paramount not the philosophical bent of the perpetrator?

In, Children for The Devil, Tate also tilts at Heavy Metal Rock Music and asserts that it incites young people to get involved in Satanism. What about the millions of Heavy Metal Fans who avidly listen to Metal Music without succumbing to an interest in Satanism?   Is it the music or the person's nature which is the trigger?

Could it not simply be that the type of person whose curiosity leads them towards investigating satanic philosophy also just happens to be interested in Heavy Metal Music and the two have no direct connection?

Has Mr Tate considered that most Satanists may also use Red toothbrushes and if they did what difference would it make?

If we ban Heavy Metal Rock Music will Mr Tate also want us to ban black leather jackets, T- shirts with occult symbols and studded belts as well?

How far must we go to restrict the freedom of teenagers in order to safeguard them from fear of corruption? If we banned Heavy Metal Music can Mr Tate guarantee us that teenagers would not go off the rails over some other angle?

Of course there IS one reason why Mr Tate may rush to identify Heavy Metal Music as a direct cause of Satanism (apart from the fact that it is a ready made piece of propaganda already promoted by fundamentalist agitators in the U.S.A.) and that is that the very professional people whom he hopes to convince of that are likely to be the parents of rebel sons and daughters who enjoy Metal music which they cannot understand.

Isn't the reality of the situation that Mr Tate is simply a mega-stick-in-the-mud who is so far removed from his own youth that he can't credit teenagers with the intelligence to decide for themselves what they want to do with their lives and instead wishes to impose restrictions and mores upon them from his exalted position as an adult?

Mr Tate criticises the publication of Occult Books & Magazines. Is Mr Tate really trying to tell us that if all genuine occult books & Magazines were censored that the TV and Media from which he makes his living would also agree not to publish occult fiction, occult programmes and historical articles on Occultism which might also indirectly interest teenagers and provide information for budding satanists?  Yeah sure they would!

Could an argument not be made out, using Tate's own criteria, that his obsession with researching and publishing the methodology and the minute details of Satanic Rituals and supposed Black Masses has actually done more to promote Satanism to the impressionable than anything any of the authors he condemns in his books and TV programmes?

In his book Tim Tate states that Occult Bookshops and mail-order retailers of ritual equipment have sprung up and proved highly profitable. What kind of slur is this? Should an Occult Bookshop NOT be profitable? Do the proprietors not pay taxes like Mr Tate?

  Is Mr Tate trying to infer that there is something unscrupulous or illegal about the way that Occult Bookshops make their money?  Please let us not have any more of Mr Tate's Humbug. He has himself achieved a considerable income from Newspaper and Magazine articles, TV programmes. Books, Serialisations, Radio programmes and now is being paid to attend Seminars on the subject of Satanic Ritual Abuse.

We should not allow the pot to call the kettle black and let Mr Tate get away with hypocritical inferences about the motivations of bookshop owners and the beliefs of occultists when Mr Tate has never in all his writings bothered to mention the colour of his own religious beliefs and affiliations.

When chided by Private Eye magazine over his motivations Mr Tate wrote that he 'did not belong to or attend any church of any denomination'. This is not the same thing as saying that one is an atheist. Before Mr Tate continues to slander and question other people's beliefs we feel it only fair that he should reveal his own, he did after all get a doctorate in theology from St Andrews university.

Despite a chapter devoted to the excesses of Christian fundamentalism Tate continually reverts to using fundamentalist scenarios in his book. In fact his whole book is replete with scaled down arguments derived from fundamentalists paranoia.

He knocks Heavy Metal Records and quotes supposed American cases which were hyped by the fundamentalists; but does not mention the key fundamentalist off-the-wall theory of 'Backward Masking' which is supposed to include subliminal commands in music  tracks which take over the minds of the young and get them to commit satanic crimes. 

He uses the 'black mass' testimony of Born Again Victim Imposter Michelle Pazder and others comparing it with historical records as some supposed proof of accuracy. Then he omits to tell his readers that all the facts in her book which could be checked (location, people etc.) have been shown to be bogus and she has been discredited in the U.S.A.

Tate goes to great pains in the Chambre Ardent affair to establish the idea that Satanists adopt the practice of using aborted foetuses for rituals. The anti-abortion issue is a very powerful and emotive one and is one of the main planks of the reform of the Christian right. Tate uses the Natalie case testimony to try and show that teenagers are at risk from being sexually abused and made pregnant in order to obtain foetuses for sacrifice. This is his only case, it is inconclusive and the allegation is different from that which occurred in the Chambre Ardent affair in that Guiborg used foetuses from women who came voluntarily for abortions. The one does not prove the other.

Tate cannot produce incontrovertible evidence to show what he and the fundamentalists claim on this issue; that women and children are kidnapped sexually abused and used as 'breeders' to produce foetuses which are aborted for Satanic sacrifice. In this one sentence we have perhaps the most vivid example of inhuman action which can only be termed ultimate evil. It is an emotional stun-grenade which rolls together everything which any decent person would find absolutely abominable. Yet independently its component parts occur on a repetitive basis within our society without any connection with Satanism and often by perpetrators who are nominal Christians  (child sexual abuse / child physical abuse / child murder / kidnapping / adult sexual abuse / rape / murder / legal and back street abortions etc.).

This collection of terrible things is if you like a cultural and religious icon of the Most Evilwithin our society and demands moral support from any decent individual. The fundamentalists fight to change the moral structure of our society on many fronts but this is the biggest bogeyman of the lot. The kind of mind which would perpetrate such a combined crime is so abnormal that it could only be described as evil and it is natural for ordinary people to be too ready to believe in that stereotype even though there has never been any evidence to corroborate the fears and Tate's book still fails to provide anything but 'guilt by association'. When all the huff and puff has gone the Icon of The Most Evil reveals itself as being SYMBOLIC and not real.

NEW WORLD ORDER LIES

Continuing his interpretation of fundamentalist scenarios Tate clearly forges the link between Satanism and World -Domination inferring that Freemasonry is a pit of Satanic activity. He doesn't go so far as to accuse them of controlling the banking system and gaining pan-global economic control as the fundamentalists do but there are continuous references to powerful and influential international cartels the leaders of which are too powerful to be brought to book. The sole evidence for this is that the O.T.O has a freemasonic grade structure and a some of the members of the Magical Order of the Golden Dawn were Freemasons. The magnitude of such assertions based completely on circumstantial evidence and supposition is beyond all sane comment as exampled by the fundamentalists firmly held belief that Procter and Gamble's Man in the Moon logo is proof that the firm is part of this freemasonic plot to control world economies.

Is Tim Tate really trying to assert that the majority of Freemasons are Satanic Child Abusers? Then he is patently wrong and should be told so.   He has obviously not read David Aaronovitch's Voodoo Histories which proves that legends and lies promoting the idea of a New World Order were created by anti-semitic agent provocateurs at the turn of the 19th century who forged documents purporting to come from a secret clique of Jewish Bankers who were conspiring to destroy Christendom by promoting back-door Communism. It was this idea which influenced the early Nazi movement and hitler himself.  Does Tate realise he is indirectly perpetuating lies which contributed towards the deaths of millions of Jews in the Holocaust?  

 If Tate is asserting that only a small minority of freemasons are supposedly abusing children then why bother with the ludicrous conspiracy theories?  Does Mr Tate want to outlaw Freemasonry? If he doesn't then other people who have helped him with his research do. Like Dianne Core of Childwatch and Maureen Davies of The Reachout Trust and The Beacon Foundation.  Both these leading promoters of Satanic Ritual Abuse are on record as holding far-out Freemasonic Conspiracy views; like the fundamentalists.

TATE REFORMER OR PERSECUTOR? :

There are MANY other incorrect assertions and wrongful allegations in Mr Tate's book. We find page after page of biased misinterpretation which we would like to contradict and challenge and we will do so in due course if necessary. It is obvious from this lengthy review that anyone who accepts Mr Tate's evidence without obtaining corroborating proof is likely to be getting a very biased partial view of the whole. Anyone who is interested in our response on specific cases or allegations in the book which we have not covered here should contact the S.A.F.F. at the email address below.

CONCLUSION:

Does CHILDREN FOR THE DEVIL contribute in any way to a proper understanding of the Satanic Ritual Abuse Myth?  I am afraid it does not.  It simply confuses the issue further with more wild goose chases. It is certainly not a document which will help professional social workers or the police get at the truth for its many inaccuracies, biased misinterpretations and fudged conclusions make it virtually worthless in our opinion.

It is a journalistically polished synthesis of aspects of the phenomenon which have been dealt with separately in better detail elsewhere. A blend of advocacy and argument written in a style which is neither academic nor popular. The sine-wave of Tate's writing style rises and falls through complex layers of historical fact, theory, supposition, superstition and disinformation. Perhaps only Tate knows where one begins and the other leaves off.

He weaves a thread of impressions which only have one thing in common, they are designed to impact upon our sensibilities by exacerbating prejudices and stereotypes which already exist within us in order to convince us that these horrible things are happening. In legal terms it is called 'guilt by association'. It works, but it is unjust.  

With Tate everything is clear. There's the goodies and there's the baddies. The Baddies are the ones that do this and this. The goodies are the ones that do this and that.

Is it all that simple?   Of course it's not and that is why, thank goodness, the efforts of people like Tim Tate have been buffered by the common-sense and experience of the police in this country.

Tate has a go at them too (can anyone disagree with him?) and mutely asserts another fundamentalist hobby-horse, that today's police are complicit in ignoring the evidence because it would involve people in high places.

In a typical piece of Tateese hypocrisy he commends Louis XIVs police chief Nicholas de La Reynie for his professionalism. Tate writes:

' that so much reliable detail of French satanic ritual crime was recorded is both a tribute to his professionalism and an eloquent condemnation of the shoddy amateurism of many modern law-enforcement departments '.

Self righteous stuff indeed. I wonder if Tate would also recommend our police forces to adopt La Reynie's methods of obtaining evidence through torture, including smashing the accused's legs to pulp with mallets?

Ultimately reader's of Tate's book will believe what they want to believe, but they won't believe it because they have been shown proof.