Joan Prentis is the one on the right. The other two are Joan Cony and Joan Upney. In 1589 these three ladies were tried at Chelmsford for involvement in Witchcraft and publicly hanged. As you will know there were many others who fell victim to the vilest torture and subsequent execution at the hands of self-righteous inquisitors around that time
As Charles Bowness points out in his book The Witch's Gospel, " Some of the tortures inflicted upon the accused were horrific. " In 1596 Alison Balfour was crushed by the arms in a vice for two days. Her husband, an old man of 80 was 'pressed' under iron weights, while her son had his legs squashed to a pulp in the 'iron boots' and her seven year old daughter was tortured by thumbscrews"
Yet exactly 400 years later the vicious, unyielding, fanatical prejudice which squeezed the life out of Joan Prentis as she danced on the end of a rope is unbelievably forming itself again in the Western World WHILST OUR POLITICIANS AND THOSE IN POSITIONS OF INFLUENCE TURN A BLIND-EYE JUST AS THEY DID DURING THE BURNING TIMES
Do not suppose that because you do not term yourself a witch, that you will be passed over. It doubtful whether Joan Prentice was ever involved in any form of the Old Religion yet she was dragged into the hysteria and suffered horribly all the same. Intolerance is like that
Fanaticism is built on paranoia. 400 years ago that paranoia was instilled into the populace by the Establishment (the barons and the bishops) who controlled force of arms, education, the money system, and all forms of publishing. Using the power of propaganda and counting on the gullibility of the masses they injected fears and hate into the minds of the population towards a scapegoat to divert attention from the fact that, having a vice-like grip on the destinies of their serfs and peasants, the Barons and Bishops THEMSELVES were entirely responsible for the appalling living conditions, poverty and unhappiness of the time
Today we are not so far removed from that same situation. The new Barons are those from the Press & the Media. Their control over the minds of the populace is greater now than at any other time in the earth's history. The Media pretend to offer balanced reportage and information in order for the viewer/listener/reader to make up his/her own mind. This is the sleight of hand of all propaganda. By directing the viewer's attention to a choice between only those alternatives which THEY THEMSELVES choose to project, the media restrict independent thought and manipulate the minds of people who soon become zombies; accepting the standards set for them parrot-fashion, because the TIMING of thought and conclusion is controlled by the Media. By forming the illusion of a debate the Media SEEM to be offering choice but the prime feature of ALL true debate and argument is DIALECTIC. The ability for the viewer/reader to respond at the pace of their own intellect is denied them and they therefore are lulled into not challenging assumptions and conclusions
In short the TV and the Media at large, actually construct the character and morality of their viewers to serve their own purposes and in a most insidious, continual way thereby control and manipulate and sculpture our very society itself, creating desires, images and emotions within an individual on a mass scale. NOBODY is safe from propaganda if exposed to it. The technology of broadcasting is a powerful tool which is neither good nor bad but the people who produce the programmes have faulty and human ambitions and motives in doing so. These are primarily subjugated to the wishes and idiocyncracies of the Media Barons. A handful of POWERFUL people who control the financing, resources, distribution and broadcasting of programmes. A subtle form of slavery occurs where, if the programme makers don't do what is expected of them by their bosses, their access to that form of creativity is denied them and they lose an easy and very lucrative means of livelihood with fat salaries and plenty of kudos. This results in all programs being corrupted and manipulated into political or sensationalist vehicles. Anyone who argues otherwise is simply a result of the TV mind itself. Those programmes which seem revolutionary and anti-establishment exist solely BECAUSE THEY ARE ALLOWED TO. It is not the weight of information within a TV programme/newspaper which gives it its integrity , it is the nature of the news which has been left out.
The Media find in occultism a ready made 'patsy' for all the ills of society; TO DIVERT THE PUBLIC'S ATTENTION FROM THE FACT THAT THE SOCIETY WHICH WE NOW HAVE HAS BEEN AS MUCH SCULPTED AND MOULDED BY THEM AS MEDIEVAL SOCIETY WAS BY THE BISHOPS. In the same way and with the same obiousness as the Sunday Gutter Press will call for the death penalty for rape on one page and print a topless lady on the other. Many occultists (including myself) have worked hard to give valuable interviews about the genuine aspects of occultism. We had not understood that what seemed an obvious battle between different religious viewpoints was in fact a side issue to the much greater game of Controlling the populace. Occultism is, if you like, the sacrificial anode of our society and is picked upon and blamed for all manner of patently ludicrous crimes
If this was 1589 and not 1989 it would be me and perhaps YOU kicking our heels on that gibbet instead of Joan Prentis and her two friends. My crime was that I dared to set up a bookshop with a selection of titles which covered the entire belief spectrum. Apparently the fundamentalists saw this as some heinous threat to their well-being even though I stocked more books on Christian Mysticism than on, say, Taoism, Buddhism and Satanism. Through being targeted by the fundamentalists I have suffered a concerted and intricate attack on many different levels all designed to put me out of business and deal the occult a death blow. Newspapers have printed the most appalling lies linking me with child-abuse, abortion, skinning & eating foetuses. Charges which are not only ludicrous but entirely disproveable. Not only did they refuse to retract or put my position fairly, but these tabloids printed nothing about the firebomb which gutted my shop during and which their invective had helped come to pass. Even though I mailed every newspaper in the country with the information. An evangelical MP has denounced me in parliament under the cover of parliamentary privilege but my MP says that the rules don't allow him to make a repudiating statement in Parliament on my behalf. Government and the Civil Service have been duplicit ignoring my pleas for help and using middle-management diplomacy to pass the buck to the police and the Police have ignored my requests to have them caution or prosecute the main fundamentalist inciters. Fundamentalists have picketed my shop and libeled me in their books and targeted me for victimisation for in a two year campaign. It is so hard to believe that you yourself will have difficulty in absorbing it, but I am not only completely innocent of every one of their inuendos and allegations but I can incontrovertibly prove my innocence, yet the 'reality' of the situation is that this truth is of absolutely no consequence to the prejudiced bigots in the media, government and Christianity who jumped on the bandwagon to persecute me regardless of the facts.
The Television in the form of the despicably dishonourable COOK REPORT, in conjunction with fundamentalist campaigners perpetrated the most unjust and blatant character assassination in an attempt to drive me out and deal the occult a death-blow. When that failed the fundamentalists firebombed my shop. On a scale of 1 to 10 there are few innocent people who have received the despicable treatment from our society that I have. It was to discover how this abject persecution of an honourable and innocent man could have occurred in a supposedly civilised and cultured society, which lead me to investigate the psychology and motivations behind it and I was surprised to find out how thin the veneer of civilisation really is. Only victims like Joan Prentis have experienced this before; have stood where I now stand, but they were silenced at the stake. Now, after 400 years I can speak for them and my observations are unique.
:(1) The fanatics are insecure maniacs who have repressed all life-loving aspects of their personality to an extent which is impossible to maintain and which has imbalanced their psychology. They fool themselves into believing they have repressed the pent-up evil within them but it sneaks out in their bigotry and intolerance towards those who love-life, live life to the full and partake of a relaxed pluralist environment. By misusing holy writ as religious justification for criminal actions they are free to project onto others is a kamea of their own evil in such a way that they can pretend that it was not them who did the horrible thing, but the hand of their god. These fanatics can NEVER give up their self-appointed task of driving the devil out of everyone and his brother because it is the way they balance their own hypocrisy. The power of these fanatics is growing in direct ratio to the irrelevance of the orthodox churches.
(2) The majority of ordinary Christian folk only condone the fundamentalists action through ignorance and because they are incited to hysterical justification by the media. If they are educated or 'told to disist' by those they 'respect' the hysteria will dissipate, rationality will be reimposed and the fanatics will not be able to rush them with panic.
(3) Those whom the nominal Christians respect (MPs/Ministers/Famous People/Church leaders, leading journalists, etc) will NOT tell them to disist because of fear of losing their own power in their own set through association with the occult and because thel keys which politicians have repetitively used to control the populace are revealed in the psychology of hate which the fanatics also promote. (Meditate on the Dangerous Strangers psychology and its use in nationalistic fervour) . Hence the fanatics are allowed to do their worst until it reflects upon the government, as it did in the Orkney and Rochdale cases.
(4) The media trade on primeval scares which strike at the heart of their readership. They find that 'exposing' fabricated stories as sensational as the most recent anti-occult ones sells newspapers. Such stories are also CHEAP. No costly bribes for the gaff; the reporter need not even get up from his desk as the fundamentalist press officers will supply pictures, statements and suchlike through the post and quotes down the telephone. Even better, because of the inherent religious discrimination within our society unorthodox believers have little support and are usually not influential - hence there is no lobby to protect them, they are unable to afford the criminally expensive amounts necessary to sue, and the Media therefore has carte blanche to hang-draw-and-quarter any occultist they like with complete impunity. The Media will NEVER cease its interest in flogging the ancient lies and false stereotypes of the occult.
In other words the Media can print absolute and total lies and the public never get to know that they have been fed complete fabrications. They assume that there will be a kernel of truth or some justification. The media can incite thousands of hysterical fanatics to commit crimes against property and people without any curtailment, restriction or accountability whatsoever within our society. In the face of such a silent tacit conspiracy freethinkers are defenceless outcasts in a society which is blind to the benefits we could bring to it. It is therefore essential that all those who wish to reserver their right to believe in what they wish and to change that belief at will, support this project. All genuine freethinkers should be quite willing to spare a few pounds to protect their own future and that of their children. PLEASE POP SOMETHING INTO AN ENVELOPE NOW and know that you have done your bit to counteract the fundamentalist threat and media disinformation. "What can we do?" was the most common question I was asked during the height of the fundamentalists' initial campaign and now those people have the chance they wanted. Look into the eyes of Joan Prentis and imagine her horror and suffering twisting and spinning in her death throes. Did Joan Prentis die for nothing? Prentis was a real person. She could have been your daughter or your mother, your wife or your sister. Give us the tools to do the job. Give it a Stronger Yes. DO IT NOW PLEASE!
The above statement is an abridged version of the fist leaflet which inaugurated the S.A.F.F. going public in 1989, though Mr Bray's work for the freedom of belief in response to the Satanic Ritual Abuse Myth had started a year earlier with the Occult Census. Since then the SAFF has grown to a sizeable organisation with over 1000 committed members who work voluntarily, appropriate to their skills and influence and abilities, to continuously protect YOUR religious rights.
The S.A.F.F. stood into the breach and expanded quickly into a fully fledged human rights group which has done stirling work for ALL religious minorities and unorthodox beliefs. Virtually every conclusion, warning, pronouncement and prophecy we made has come true. We have become used to the sight of people who had previously laughed in our faces at our 'unbelievable' or 'off-the-wall' conclusions, sneaking away with their tails between their legs when we were proved exactly right in the course of time. Hence it is important to remember, if you come with preconceptions which lead you to think we exaggerate, that it was the SAFF which prophecied exactly what was happening years before it became popular knowledge. When Geoffrey Dickens started his campaign against occultism we said it was a sectarian attack organised by leading edge British fundamentalists who were in touch with their U.S.A. bretheren and who were importing disinformation from them. We said that the Satanic Ritual Abuse Myth was a complete fabrication; we said that a clique of leading edge social workers were bandwagonning the myth in order to push through radical feminist social engineering. In return all other commentators said we were dangerous reactionaries, yet within six months it was the SAFF which had obtained DOCUMENTARY PROOF that what we were saying was true. Right from the outset we said the Satanic Abuse allegations were ENTIRELY false - other commentators said that was impossible there must be SOME truth in it. In 1989 when the Satan Hysteria was at its height everyone said it was a seven day wonder. We said the initial scare would span FIVE years. In 1994 almost to the day we had prophesied, the governments' definitive report announced that claims about Satanic Abuse were a myth. People alway seem to believe in what the fundies or authorities have to say in inverse ratio to their efforts to discredit what the SAFF says, yet we can prove that in EVERY instance, our conclusions were thoroughly founded and accurate no matter how bizzare they may have appeared to onlookers at the time
In the middle of the Waco siege Chris Bray was interviewed by the Daily Telegraph. The Davidians were a Christian sect, not an esoteric cult; their CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST credentials were clear, their belief in the Zionist Occupational Government myth and Armageddon were CLEAR. The investigation had been started by the authorities originally because of fears of SATANIC CHILD ABUSE in the compound. Fundamentalist groups who had stirred the scare in the U.S.A. were involved in ADVISING the government. Chris Bray told the Daily Telegraph reporter that these dangers existed and that because of the hysteria the authorities were making all the wrong conclusions. The best way would quite simply be to pack up and leave the Davidians alone, but he feared that the ignorance of the authorities would provoke a showdown in which many people would be unnecessarily killed because the Davidian members would see it as a tribulation sign of the beginning of the 2nd coming and sacrifice themselves for their god. Some of this was printed in the Telegraph, not as a plea for calm, but, apparently, as an indication of how 'reactionary' ad off-the-wall the SAFF was! Within a week dozens of Christians and their young children became victims of the Satanic Ritual Abuse Myth in the compound's conflagration after the AFT troops stormed the building.. Their deaths were utterly and easily avoidable but these poor people died because those who knew what was going on, like Mr Bray, had been kept muzzled by the British press who preferred to create hysteria by printing the muck handed out by believers in Satanic Ritual Abuse. Ever since then the true story behind Waco has been the subject of a U.S. government cover-up of gigantic proportions. ( pause for the cacophony of voices telling us that this cannot be right)
The full story of the S.A.F.F. will go down in history as a phenomenal response to a phenomenal challenge, but as intolerance grows daily along with the converts the fundies are making, we need to constantly increase our influence and rebuff their mission to erradicate ALL other minority beliefs and religions and relegate the other world-orthdoxies to toothless parodies of Christian Holy Writ.
This concerns YOU! Do NOT think that you are safe because you have not adopted an unpopular belief system or because you keep yourself to yourself. This is a fight for ALL freethinkers. What is happening to those who most closely approximate the historical hate heaped upon pagan beliefs will also happen to YOU and YOUR belief in due course. Ask the social workers and care workers in Wales and Devon who are today having their careers and lives destroyed because of an epidemic of claims of institutionalised sexual and physical abuse which is itself a sub-thread of the Satanic Ritual Abuse Myth. Did they lift a finger to help pagans who were victimised by it? No, many of them actually took part in it! Then ask them why they are now themselves suffering?
Ask the hundreds of innocent people who have been imprisoned because of False Memory Syndrome, (another sub-thread of the Satan Myth), whether it might have been wiser to protect the interests of pagans and satanists, no matter how unpopular they are, five years earlier when these 'ordinary' people were tut-tutting at the media revelations never thinking that the witch hunt would come to haunt them?
Any historian or anthropologist will tell you that witch-hunts will flame through entire populations like wildfire. When one social level is burnt out it re-emerges in more subtle form to consume another until so much blood is shed that war-fatigue creeps in and the politicians and the media are unable to incite any more hatred. The S.A.F.F. has tracked and can document every single prototype motif which has caused scares and tragedies since 1988 in the Satanic Ritual Abuse Myth. From Devil Dogs, through paedophile gangs, via BSE, Measles vaccine scares, Drink and Drug hysteria, Food toxicity scares, mobile phone terrors and more. The people who are responsible for this are not the fundamentalists who created and promoted it, but the plebs who put discernment aside and allowed themselves to be used by opportunist sectarians and opportunist politicians.
All of these scares and motifs were a direct result of the unbridled atavistic, mediaeval fear let loose by the Satan Myth. It could have been stopped dead but the politicians and the media ran it to help their control over YOU. Now we shall all suffer, in some way, first hand, or third hand. If you support the S.A.F.F. and get regular updates from us at least you will be prepared for what is to come and be able to deflect or, hopefully, help stall it with us. Not because we need to save occultists from victimisation, but because it is a poison which has infected the whole of society, our society, and it would be socially irresponsible for us to do anything but our utmost to eradicate it.
In 1998 the one time U.S. presidential candidate and Christian fundamentalist leader Pat Robertson, publicly urged thousands of his Christian listeners to stone UFO hunters to death, because belief in Alien beings directly opposed the will of god and believers in UFOs were therefore agents of the devil and should be erradicated.
When fundamentalist anti-abortionists continued to create havoc and stress and terrorisation at abortion clinics throughout the U.S.A. and Europe, the government, police and authorities did not lift a finger to stop them. Until the fundamentalists began bombing the clinics and hurt a pregnant woman; but then the authorities whinged that there was no 'evidence' to link the anti-abortionist groups with the criminal acts! It was only when a fundamentalist who had been attending an anti-abortion group rally in which 'Dead or Alive' posters were shown of Dr Gunn, ( an obstetrician who resisted the terror of the anti-abortionists) went out and shot him dead at point blank range, that the government took action and gave these fundamentalist killers the short sharp shock which would have saved Dr Gunn's life had the cowardly politicians bothered to stand firm a year or so previously. You see, they WAIT until YOU say you have had enough. Until public outcry gives them the justification for overcoming religious affiliations.
Most Christians I know are fair and honourable people; they live and let live, but the christian fundamentalists who are causing this divide within our pluralist society are NOT tolerant. The S.A.F.F. is not anti-Christian, it is anti-fundamentalist and if you are nominally Christian then it is YOUR responsibility just as much as ours, to keep these fanatics out of power and under control. The unfortunate fact is that after ten years of trying SAFF experience shows that ordinary Christians are so indoctrinated with the emotional concepts which the fundamentalists excite that people who should know better tend to prefer to trust these hate-mongers than give non-Christians fair do's. Which is very strange seeing as how in the 16th century fundamentalist Christians in Europe were being slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands BY THEIR OWN CHURCH as dissenters. Whatever one believes in, that's what one becomes if one doesn't agree with the exact demands of atheocratic, monotheistic orthodoxy - a dissenter; thence a protestant, thence a heretic, thence a witch.
So, the S.A.F.F. does an essential job of highlighting fundamentalist activity in all arenas and needs YOUR support, monetarily, morally and physically if you can help. Membership confers upon you plenty of advantages too, all outlined in our membership pack which will be sent to you by post upon receipt of the membership form below. Members get regular updates by Email whenever anything new breaks. The information in just one of these newsletters can be worth the subscription alone.
The Xists rely upon the inate laziness of the human species; they expect you to surf in and surf out of our website and do nothing. They expect it because that's what they've trained you to do at home when you are sat watching the box. Behaviouristically you are given 30 minutes of humbug a night in parodies of debates with 20 second soundbites, interspersed with utterly irrelevant advertisements, timed out responses due to 'airtime pressures', and lead-in voice-overs for the next programme before the credits have rolled off the screen for the last. All of which is designed to disjoint your process of deduction and break your concentration before you have chance to even think what you can do about the situation as it affects you. The bottom line is the TV people don't want you to do anything at all except sit there and watch.
Any of you remember 'Cathy Come Home?' That was the time when a TV documentary could change the social conditions in this country at a stroke by creating uproar in the populace overnight. Today the politicians shed crocodile tears for seven days whilst the shock dissipates and by then another tut-tutting programme will have drawn your attention, temporarily, of course.
So, at some time or other, you are going to have to strike a blow for freedom. If all that requires is for you to send us a cheque and write out your name and address, it shouldn't be too much to ask. For twenty years we have been unconditionally risking our lives protecting your freedom of belief. Fair's fair - now it's your turn to contribute. If you can help us by publicising our site, uploading documents to newsgroups, getting links with other sites, that would be great. If you are ready to donate then 10.00 would really help us along here - and gets you full member status. Remember that we are combating propaganda from 4,000 Christian evangelical groups in the U.K.. Some of these have turnovers of MILLIONS of pounds - most have hundreds of thousands of pounds to spare. We do this on a shoestring budget in comparsion but we obviously can't do it on fresh-air.
Please read the contents of this website again - it is only a FRACTION of the documentation and information we hold to prove that there is a campaign to suppress non-Christian beliefs. We are occultists, yes, but what does that mean? It simply means that we seek hidden knowledge. The inner-sanctums of all religions are occult in context but an occultist is defined by his or her wish to seek revelation directly and forgoe the intervention of priests and orthodoxies. That's why we are seen as a 'danger' to priesthoods. Occultism is a reflection of the sum-total of human endeavour on this planet. It involves ALL beliefs and these are not evil in context. It is in fact a common denominator, not a differentiator. If you think we all do something unpalatable then you are beset by the residual disinformation promulgated by sectarians which the SAFF was inaugaurated to dispel. Please donate some cash and help the cause of freedom of belief. Thanks.
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