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I am writing a paper on Satanism in America today. I have found quite a few secularist academic sources and would like to know what sources I may find that are written by Catholic and Orthodox authors.

IF you don't mind me saying, that is quite a frightening undertaking! *eek*

Alice

I know but I wanted to make sure that my topic was a bit out of the ordinary. The premise is taking a contreversial group and examining them from a historical/anthropological view to see if they can be classified as an ethnic group.

Satanism is rather fragmented, it will be difficult to pin it down except in broad terms. Even if you limit the paper to the study of people who profess to be worshiping Satan, the claims they make as to what "Satanism" is may not form a cogent narrative.

Do take care and pray during your research, especially if you are to do any footwork. It would be foolish to attend a black mass spiritually unprepared. It may be best to speak to your priest if you want to do any footwork.

Terry

Better yet, pick another topic. This one is well the worst topic I think anyone could pick.

I don't plan on attending a black mass or any Satanic rituals, or interviewing any actual Satanists. I will be pursuing the topic through literary and media sources. The paper is examining whether or not they fit the common perception of an ethnic group (non-racial but cultural). I haven't yet spoken to my pastor on the subject, but I have sought counsel from a Latin-Rite priest who is knowledgeable of the subject. He is willing to guide me through the process and said he would e-mail me some sources in a day or two. I just wanted to know if anyone here knew of any sources that I could start with more immediatly. I cannot change my topic as my professor told us at the onset that once a topic is chosen it cannot be changed. I am going to go about this in a careful way, I plan on praying before and after each reasearch session and have the practice of wearing the St. Benedict Medal (it's a Western practice but just because we're Eastern doesn't mean we can't use it). I appreciate the concern shown here and ask that you pray for me. The paper is due November 19th, so I have about two and half weeks left with it. If you have any sources or know anyone knowledgable of the subject either in the Catholic or Orthodox Church please let me know.

Christos Anesti!

Avoid anything written by Malachi Martin.

"Avoid anything written by Malachi Martin."

Why? Hostage to the Devil is probably the best case study of possession and exorcism recorded and availble to the public.

The stories in the book are fabricated and the author completely discredited. It's good fiction. See below:

"See the informed discussion of Martin and his work in the National Catholic Reporter by a distinguished professor of theology at Dominican University, Chicago, Fr. Richard Woods OP, in the edition of April 29th, 2005. Here's a selection of comments from that piece:-

Back in the 1970s, when possession and exorcism were the cinematic and fictional flavor of the era--one that historian Martin Marty appropriately called "the silly season"--it fell to my lot to conduct a pre-publication review of Malachi Martin's sensational book Hostage to the Devil. I was allied in this with an internationally celebrated clinical psychologist. Working independently, our conclusion was the same: Martin's five "cases" were fabrications of an inventive but disturbed mind, lacking all psychological, historical, theological and pastoral credibility.
Some time later, I interviewed Malachi Martin on television. A former priest, Martin had left the Jesuit order under cloudy conditions, to say the least. (The sordid details were described in Robert Blair Kaiser's agonized 2002 memoir, Clerical Error: A True Story.) In person, I found Martin to be a clever, charming, engaging Irish rogue who evaded every effort to document the instances of possession he so graphically described. In the end, my earlier suspicion that Martin was a deeply disturbed individual was strongly reinforced. A decade later, when M. Scott Peck's second book, People of the Lie, was published, I was appalled to find that he, a newly committed Christian of a vaguely evangelical stripe, had accepted and endorsed Martin's fictional ravings as accurate and instructive case studies...
...Insouciant in his ignorance of the real history of and the extensive literature on possession phenomena, Dr. Peck hails Martin as "the greatest expert on the subject of possession and exorcism in the English-speaking world" and "brilliant," despite his own misgivings and warnings from colleagues that Martin was a sociopath. The psychiatrist's resolute adulation of Martin is thus both disturbing and misleading. Despite Dr. Peck's claim that he was the most famous exorcist in the world, Malachi Martin had no discernible training, expertise or even adequate knowledge of the history or ministry of exorcism in--or out of--the Catholic faith he once professed but which he bitterly turned against at the end of his unhappy life. Moreover, by Dr. Peck's own frequent admission, Martin was a liar and manipulator."

So you discredit Fr. Martin on the basis of Fr.Richard of the Eckhart Society? If you read Fr. Amorth's books you find it matches fairly well with Fr. Martin's descriptions. Kaiser's book has been dismissed as a fabrication and fiction itself. Nor is their much value in anything the National Catholic Reporter publishes, unless of course you want New Age nuns for priestesses. You'll have to do better than that.

No, I do not have to do better than that.

One does not have to be convincing to convince oneself.

Glad to hear you won`t be directly exposing yourself to them or thier rituals. Even research into such a subject calls for much prayers.

INDEED!

Two years ago I read M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled, more out of curiosity to see what a well-known American psychiatrist had to say about the topic of possession than for any serious purpose.

He was clearly an admirer of Malachi Martin, and implied that he learned his exorcism techniques from him. Dr. Peck talks about actually conducting exorcisms on certain people (not all were permanently successful according to him), and he became a Christian of sorts as a result of his friendship with Martin and what he saw during the exorcisms.

I have always had the impression that Malachi Martin was "unreliable", mostly because a) he makes very great claims as a kind of "insider", and b) he rarely cites his sources (which may have been appropriate, but I don't know). So, on Martin I am "ambivalent".

Dr. Peck was performing exorcisms without the permission of any bishop, he was not an "exorcist" according to the proper procedures of any apostolic church, and I wondered as I read the book whether he might be doing more harm than good. I don't know, of course, but he obviously could not provide any spiritual or pastoral counseling to the "patients/victims" afterwards.

However, Dr. Peck clearly acknowledges the objective reality of what he saw (he took movies, which is also an unorthodox practice in these cases), and that what he witnessed were not "psychological" illnesses of the sort he had dealt with during the long course of his professional life.

However, I don't remember if any of the 3 or 4 cases he describes originated from "Satanism".

Fr. Amorth, of course, is the duly-appointed Exorcist of the Archdiocese of Rome, and a well-respected authority on the topic of exorcism. I haven't read his book. If any of you have, would you recommend it? I would be interested more in religious insights he may have developed, and not in any sort of "sensationalism".

Thanks,
Michael