IBMR explores "Witchcraft and Mission Studies"

 

The January 2015 issue of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research explores the topic of "Witchcraft and Mission Studies."Essays exploring this topic include:

"Putting Witch Accusations on the Missiological Agenda: A Case from Northern Peru by Robert J. Priest

"Beyond the Fence: Confronting Witchcraft Accusations in the Papua New Guinea Highlands" by Philip Gibbs

"Healing Communities: Contextualizing Responses to Witch Accusations" by Steven D. H. Rasmussen, with Hannah Rasmussen

"Toward a Christian Response to Witchcraft in Northern Ghana"by Jon P. Kirby

"Witchcraft Accusations and Christianity in Africa" by J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu

As an Evangelical who has researched and written on Witchcraft in the West academically, who has engaged Witches in relationships and conversations, and who has called for work to address human rights abuses in South Africa and elsewhere in relation to accusations of Witchcraft, I'm glad to see IBMR address this topic. I have yet to read the issue and am a little nervous about how sympathetically it will be explored, but some of the comments from J. Nelson Jennings in the opening editorial give me hope:

"Contemporary Europeans and North Americans may blush at the early modern witch trials in Europe and in Europe’s North American colonies. Accordingly, modern Western theologians and missiologists have for generations conveniently turned a blind eye to such phenomena, which have been rumored to take place elsewhere. In actuality, however, witchcraft-related activities—including violent witch hunts directed toward women and children—stubbornly plague Christian communities all around the world. Missiologists must catch up with these acute, long-neglected spiritual and pastoral issues."

In order to read this issue you must register your email address for free. You can find the publication at http://www.internationalbulletin.org/archive/all/2015/1.

Bewitched Children: A Human Rights Issue for the Church

Katherine Marshall of The Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs has a recent piece at The Huffington Post titled "Bewitched Children? A Problem the Church Should Tackle." This is a problem in the Christian community in Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but Marshall notes that this takes place in other places as well. As Marshall's essay describes it:

What is involved? The telling is painful. A community gets the idea that a child is a witch, usually because something painful has taken place, for example a death or illness or a calamity. The children so accused are subject to acid burning, they are set alight, hot wax and oil is poured over them. They may be starved to death. Children are beaten to extract a confession. Some are buried alive or drowned. The list goes on and on.

Here is a story (the name is changed) from a reputable advocacy source:

"When her aunt died, 12-year-old Belinda's mother accused Belinda of killing her aunt through witchcraft. She was taken to a church in Kinshasa, where the pastor confirmed that Belinda was indeed a 'witch' and guilty of cursing her aunt. Her mother took her home, where her uncle held her down and ran a burning iron over her back and legs while her mother looked on. When the uncle went to fetch acid to pour on the burns, Belinda fled. She spent the next two years living on the streets, before being rescued by a Christian child-care agency."

A quick Google search reveals other good sources of information describing this tragic phenomenon. ThinkAboutIt features a piece titled "Brutalities in the name of Jesus Christ," while Free African Media has a piece titled "Witch-hunts: The darkness that won't go away." 

Marshall's essay notes that Christian churches and organizations are involved in combating this problem, but much more needs to be done. In addition to helping the victims and their families, we need to not only address the casualties of this problem but also deal with the root causes, the religio-cultural beliefs and fears related to witchcraft. It would seem to me that an educational program needs to be put together to help Christian pastors and their congregations come to a new understanding, and which helps them move beyond fear to embrace the way of the love of Christ, even toward those perceived as enemies.

I have been involved in various dialogue and peacemaking efforts that dovetail with the Pagan community, such as my support of The West Memphis Three. The alleged "witch-children" is another issue that I care deeply about, and I echo Marshall's call for the church to get involved in this in greater ways. One way to do that is to get in touch with The Witchcraft & Human Rights Information Network.

If you're an Evangelical, will you join me in fighting this injustice?

Fox News (and Other Media) Denigrate Wicca

Fox News recently portrayed an aspect of Paganism inaccurately and unfairly, apparently as a way of bolstering conservative and Christian feelings of religious persecution in the public square. As the Witchy Words blog reports:

Not only do they repeatedly refer to Wicca as "Wiccanism," but suddenly jump from a figure of 20% (which accounts for the eight standard Wiccan sabbats) to 20 holidays. They continue to stereotype what a standard Wiccan is like, calling us "compulsive Dungeons and Dragons players" or "middle-aged, twice-divorced older [women] living in a rural area." Neither of which I fall under.

The Wild Hunt blog also provides additional video and media examples.

Conservatives, whether of a political or religious stripe, can and should do better than this in at least three ways. First, a fair and accurate understanding is called for. Second, Wicca should be portrayed just as sympathetically as an individual would want their religion and religious commitments portrayed. And third, conservatives have to find a way to move beyond demonizing others in the culture wars as a means of boundary maintenance and bolstering a sense of being under attack. To this Evangelical and religious diplomat, it doesn't appear like this is a very Christlike way of religious encounter.

Mackay: Malleus Maleficarum in Translation, History, and Legacy

I recently became aware of a new scholarly translation of the infamous Malleus Maleficarum by Dr. Christopher Mackay of the University of Alberta. For those unfamiliar with the Malleus (translated as" The Hammer of Witches"), this is a medieval text that served as a resource for those in the church of the time as they sought to identify and address witchcraft. This text was extremely influential in the time, it would later inform the various witch trials and "burning times,"and it continues to exert influence in stereotypical notions of witchcraft and alleged connections to satanism in various aspects of pop culture.

Dr. Mackay agreed to an interview to discuss his translation, and the history of the Malleus in the past and the present.

Morehead's Musings: Dr. Mackay, thank you for providing some time to discuss the Malleus and your recent translation efforts. For those who may not be familiar with this work, who wrote it, what time frame was it composed in, and what is it's basic content?

Christopher Mackay: The book was published in 1486. The text itself refers to two unnamed authors, and in the public attestation that forms the approbation (certification of orthodoxy) provided by the theological faculty of University of Cologne in 1487, the Dominican inquisitor Henricus Institoris (known in the vernacular as Heinrich Kramer) states that he wrote the work along with another Dominican inquisitor named Jacobus (i.e., Jakob/James) Sprenger. The argument was made in the nineteenth century by a scholar hostile to what the Malleus stood for that the approbation was a forgery by Institoris and that Sprenger had nothing to do with the composition. The evidence for this is in my view very tenuous (and the main argument is clearly invalid). Nonetheless, once the argument was put forward, it took on a life of its own, and people continue to advance arguments in favor of the idea that Sprenger's involvement was a falsification perpetrated by Institoris, despite the fact that this argument was vitiated from the start.

Anyway, regardless of Sprenger's role in the composition, the work is meant to be a demonstration of a specific conception of witchcraft in order to rebut those whose disbelief in that conception was thought to obstruct the prosecution of witches in secular courts. The work is broken down into three sections (books). Book One is a demonstration of the existence of witchcraft in general and of the specific interpretation advocated for it. Book Two covers the practical details of the effects of witchcraft and is itself subdivided into two sections, the first dealing with the practices of witches and the second of the legitimate means to counteract these. Book Three treats the manner of investigating accusations and of dealing with the accused judicially.

Morehead's Musings: How influential was this document in Christendom in first few centuries following its composition?

Christopher Mackay: There are several ways to view this. In terms of the publication history of the book, it was reprinted numerous times until 1519. During this period, the book was apparently quite popular, and presumably it was read as an up-to-date manual on the topic. There is then a gap until 1574, when reprintings resume, continuing until 1669, the last year in which the book was published until the appearance in the early 1990's of two separate facsimiles of the first edition. There was something of a lull in witch hunting activities during the mid-16th century, when the disturbances associated with the Reformation were something of a distraction, and when things calmed down a bit later in the century and there was more free time to worry about maleficent witchcraft, the Malleus began to appear as part of "omnibus" editions of "great hits of witch hunting". Other books were by that time the "up-to-date" treatments.

By this standard, the Malleus was of comparatively short-lived significance, but I'd say that in the broader perspective, the Malleus was much more important. It presents a view of witchcraft known in modern scholarship as diabolism (satanism) that can't be traced before the early fifteenth century (though it builds on long-accepted concepts). Only one earlier work that sets out this notion, the Formicarium of Johannes Nider, appeared in print (remember that moveable-type printing began in Europe only a generation before the appearance of the Malleus in about 1450), and there the discussion is simply part of a discussion of moral reform in Christendom. The Malleus, on the other hand, is a full-fledged attempt to justify the new conception in terms of the scholastic discourse that was the dominant mode of intellectual argumentation in late-medieval Europe. Thus, I'd say that the Malleus was responsible for the acceptance of a new "paradigm" (in the sense advocated by Thomas Kuhn) about witchcraft. That is, the dissemination and widespread acceptance of the point of view (or world view) that underlay and instigated the so-called "craze" of witch hunting in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries can be attributed (ultimately) to the Malleus. Now, it is the case that some of the major elements of the craze are either downplayed in the Malleus (e.g., the so-called black sabbath) or entirely absent (e.g., the devil's mark), but all that shows is that people added, after their own fashion, to the paradigm that the Malleus did so much to help disseminate and make respectable.

Morehead's Musings: What portrait of Witchcraft was painted by the Malleus?

Christopher Mackay: In modern scholarship, the view advocated in the Malleus is known as the "elaborated theory of witchcraft". Belief in magic (however defined) goes back to long before Classical antiquity, and it was taken for granted in the earlier middle ages as a practice that in some way involved the participation of satanic forces, but this was not worked out in an elaborate manner. One particular form of magic/witchcraft related to the behavior of heretics (that is, groups of Christians who rejected fundamental principles of the orthodoxy recognized by the Church). Heretics were thought to meet in covert assemblies (conventicles or synagogues) that Satan himself attended as the sower of heresy. There the heretics were imagined as engaging in promiscuous (sometimes incestuous) sex and in particular in using pastes made from killing babies for various nefarious purposes. The elaborated theory of witchcraft took these associations of religious heresy with witchcraft and Satan a step further by arguing that there is a specific heresy that consists of nothing but practicing maleficent witchcraft. That is, instead of associating witchcraft (and other forms of despicable behavior) with heretics, it is now held that these heretics have no specific religious views on which they disagree with the established Church, and their heresy fundamentally consists of nothing more than rejecting the Christianity that they had taken on through infant baptism and carrying out evil through witchcraft for its own sake. Basically, this "heresy" is an element in Satan's attempt to subvert the true Church and to offend God as an end in itself. Thus, the evil that is believed to be caused by the adherents of this "heresy" needs no further explanation--it's simply something that Satan wants. This means that once this "paradigm" takes hold, there arises both a sense of urgency on the part of those who accept it, and no particular need to explain examples of the crime in terms of normal motives. It is a dangerous thing when you believe that heinous crimes are committed for "illogical" reasons and you can use judicial torture as a means of extracting confessions from those suspected of such crimes.

Morehead's Musings: Why did it finally disappear historically, and when did it resurface in translation?

Christopher Mackay: As I said, the Malleus was already "old fashioned" by the late 16th century, though it continued to be published as long as notions of witchcraft were still intellectually respectable. The issue of why the old "paradigm" about witchcraft broke down fairly rapidly in the early to mid-17th century is a very complicated one, but certainly by that time the intellectual and scientific underpinnings of the work were mostly incompatible with the overall understanding of how the world works as determined by the scientific discoveries of the 16th and 17th centuries.

As for its translation into English, the first translation only appeared in 1928. The translator, Montague Somers, is an interesting figure in his own right, but let's just say for present purposes that in terms of competence, his version is amateurish. He clearly didn't use the oldest edition, he garbles the many references to earlier authorities, and he not infrequently guesses when he doesn't understand something. Also, he writes in a crabbed, old-fashioned style that I think borders on the incomprehensible at times. Finally, he adopts the perspective of curmudgeonly Catholic from the Middle Ages who entirely believes in the view laid out in the work. In his history of witchcraft from the post-First World War period he equates Bolshevism and feminism (the main ills of his own world) with medieval witchcraft. This sort of thing is amusing, but not scholarship.

If I might be allowed to flog my own wares, let me add that as it is, my version only appears in a rather expensive two-volume bilingual edition, but by the start of next year (I hope), a stand-alone paperback edition of just the translation should be available at a much smaller price.

Morehead's Musings: By all means, feel free to promote your work of scholarship. You were recently asked to produce a new translation of the work, which has been released in a two-volume set with commentary. How did this retranslation and your involvement in the project come about?

Christopher Mackay: I was asked by a colleague mine and an MA student of his to come up with a new translation to replace Somers' obviously unsatisfactory version, and they were to provide this translation with an introduction and notes. Eventually, for various reasons the others dropped out, and so the work as it stands is just mine.

In working with a facsimile of the first edition, it soon became clear to me that a proper text of the Latin text had to be established, and this soon became my main focus, though obviously I also translated it. In working with the Latin text, I undertook the laborious task of tracking down as far as I could all the sources used in the text (the authors make it clear in their introduction, which Somers omitted, that to a large degree the substance of the work is copied from earlier texts). You get a much different impression of what's going on in the text from tracking down the sources. Basically, though nearly eighty sources or authors are cited, there are only three main sources, and all the other references come from the small number of main sources.

Morehead's Musings: In your view, how might the Malleus have continuing impact into the present in shaping pop cultural views of Witchcraft?

Christopher Mackay: Well, I think the Malleus is like the Necronomicon of the "crazed Arab Abdul Al-Hazred" in that it is frequently referred to but seldom read in its own right. I should explain that flippant remark by saying that the Necronomicon is a fictional work made up by the writer H.P. Lovecraft that gets referred to in later works as if it really existed (and I gather that someone actually has written a book by that name to make good the lack). Now, naturally, the Malleus really does exist, but it gets mentioned a lot in works of fiction by people (like Dan Brown) who I suspect have never read it (and who could blame them if the only translation available was Somers' version?). I hope that this situation will at least in part be corrected by my new translation (and coincidentally, right around the time of the appearance of mine, another translation also came out, but it's not a complete one, isn't based on the first edition, and doesn't involve all the work on the earlier sources that I've put into mine). As a matter of fact, I recently was reading a book about the role of notions of Satan in the Spanish understanding of the new world, and was surprised to see the Malleus characterized as a work in which witchcraft is conceived of as an offense against the community rather than as a form of idolatry. I don't see how anyone who's actually read the thing could think that in that the work goes on and on about how Satan wishes to promote the heresy of witches as means of angering God against the human race because Satan thereby "steals" people who belong to God via baptism. Apparently, this is a form of treason against the majesty of God, and in retaliation God will give greater permission for witchcraft to take place (peculiarly, the argument of the work is that since God is omnipotent, absolutely nothing can take place without God's authorization, so to some extent the increasing prevalence of witchcraft can be viewed as a penalty for the existence of any in the first place, in a sort of downward spiral of infidelity and retribution).

Anyway, from my perspective, the interest of the work is mainly historical, but in that regard, apart from the interest of why people in the past believed and acted as they did, I think that the witch craze, which is Malleus did much to promote, can give us lessons for understanding human behavior even today. What I mean is that one could readily compare the results of believing in the notion of diabolism, that is, the great witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries, with the major scare about child abuse in daycare centers that spread across the .U.S in the 1980's. At that time, because the notion had taken root that heinous crimes (often associated with devil worship) were being committed against children in some daycare centers, certain mild complaints that had nothing to do with such activity quickly snowballed into gargantuan legal cases that defied all rational interpretation of the evidence (I'm thinking of cases like those involving the McMartin and Little Rascals daycares). It was only in 2004 that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts managed to get around (very reluctantly, I might add) to partially remedying the injustice resulting from one such case when Gerald Amirault was finally released after spending eighteen years in prison for a crime that no rational human being should have believed in the first place, much less on the absurd evidence presented in the case. Now, the word "medieval" is sometimes used to mean "characterized by irrational and superstitious beliefs", but before we get on our high horse of feeling superior to the benighted past, it is worth remembering that all ages are subject to unwarranted and irrational behavior that is based on a deep-seated anxiety. The process that dislocates logical reason in both instances is the same, that is, an overriding "paradigm" delineating the sorts of crimes that are thought to go on in the world can cause people to act in defiance of the actual "evidence" because they form specific expectations in light of the overarching paradigm and then interpret what they "see" on the basis of what they expect.

From a religious point of view, I'm not the one to ask. But I can say that I've gotten two diametrically opposite reactions to the work from committed Christians. One person took me to task for undertaking the job of editing and translating the work at all on the following grounds: "Why is it you -or anyone- think that something as dreadful as the Malleus should be perpetuated? I see no reason for it and in the current climate of unbridled anti-religious bigotry to produce yet another edition seems to be just pouring fuel on the fire." Apparently, this person thinks that the "church" (I'm not sure whether he means Christianity in general or the Catholic Church in particular) looks bad through association with the work, which he strove to show (erroneously, as it turns out) was repudiated by the church. If it is the case that the Malleus makes the church "look bad," that's hardly my fault. On the other side of the spectrum, I recently received an email from a woman who took umbrage at views expressed in my introduction as laid out in an article published in my university's newspaper about the edition. Among other things, she wrote:

"It wasn't clear from the article, though, about the source documentation used for your critical introduction. In the article, you mention 'a place where demons inhabit the earth....and plot to ensnare humans...guide them in their evil-doing and have sex with them....' as having no basis in reality and the Catholic Church concocted their ideas out of nothing. These are very strong statements and most difficult to prove. Indeed, it's always easier to prove a positive than a negative i.e. it would appear easier to prove that the Catholic Church contains the full deposit of the Truth, that there are witches and that Satan exists, that people do have sex with demons... My husband [cut] has a personal testimony that encompasses all of these subjects. He will be giving this testimony at the Edmonton Catholic Charismatic Prayer Breakfast..."

The text isn't entirely clear to me, but if I understand it rightly, she thinks it to be Catholic dogma (as laid out in the Malleus?) that not only do witches and Satan exist, but demons in fact walk the earth and have sex with humans, as her husband can attest, apparently through personal knowledge. I don't think I want to know what this personal knowledge could consist of. Seemingly, in this woman's mind, demons are a metaphysical reality in the world around us and the Malleus can still serve as a guide to understanding this phenomenon. For my own part, in the Edmonton that I live in, there aren't any demons. I guess it just depends on the paradigm you use to make sense of the world!

Morehead's Musings: Dr. Mackay, thank you again for making time to discuss this interesting historical document with far-reaching influences.

My Trip to Salem: Magic, Mystery and More

Yesterday I returned from my trip to Salem, MA. As I mentioned prior to my departure, I flew out to spend some time with my friend and colleague, Pastor Phil Wyman of The Gathering. Phil has been described by the locals as a "revolutionary pastor," and that is certainly true in my experiences with him during the week. I lost track of how many times we were walking around Essex Street and the surrounding area when a Witch or Pagan would call out "Hey, Phil!" and would then proceed to thank him for helping to create a better environment between Pagans and Christians in Salem. Phil and his church members are now preparing for the Brimstone Chronicles, an event that presents a Christian perspective on death and the afterlife as part of the Festival of the Dead events in the city.

While I was visiting Phil I had the opportunity to share my story with his church members on Sunday morning, and to have a teaching time on Sunday night on why I as a Christian enjoy Halloween. The feedback was positive, and I enjoyed meeting members of Phil's church.

With the Halloween season this is the time of year to visit Salem, and the rise in tourism was in swing while I was there, but this will continue to rise as the calendar moves closer to Halloween. As I walked along the streets I had the opportunity to visit lots of shops and to meet a variety of interesting Witches and Pagans. Some of these folks include the gentleman I am pictured with in this post, Christian Day, who is the moving force behind the events associated with the Festival of the Dead. I had an opportunity to discuss a few areas of common interest with Christian, and I hope to keep in touch with him. In addition, I spoke briefly with Dr. Rose Wood who has a Ph.D. in science fiction literature. I mentioned my research in the area of religion, pop culture, and speculative fiction, and she shared her well informed perspectives on this topic.

I also had a chance to do a little sightseeing and I used the opportunity to visit the Salem Witch Trial Memorial and cemetery, and it provided for an interesting time of historical reflection as well as a somber mood as I stood in the place where one of the hanging judges from the sixteenth century with trials was buried, and also stood over the grave of one of the pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower. Salem is indeed filled with a lot of history, an element of the macabre, and a great place to interact with Witches and Pagans. I hope I can return in the near future.

West Memphis Three: Interview with Defense Attorney Dan Stidham

In previous posts I have mentioned the case of the West Memphis Three, the three teens (now adults) who were convicted in 1994 for the murder of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas as an alleged ritual murder perpetrated by members of a satanic cult. Despite the sensationalism surrounding the trial, and that two documentaries and several books have been written as a result of this case, it has received little national mainstream media coverage, and next to none in the Christian community. Dan Stidham was the defense attorney for one of the accused, Jessie Misskelley, and he graciously agreed to answer a few questions related to this fascinating and troubling case.

Morehead's Musings: Judge Stidham, thank you for making time in a busy legal schedule to share a few thoughts related to this case. For readers who may not be familiar with it, can you summarize the case for them beyond what I've mentioned in my introduction?

Dan Stidham: John, it would be an almost impossible task to try and briefly summarize a case that is so complicated and fascinating as this one. When I am invited to speak about the case on college campuses, my basic presentation generally lasts anywhere from 4-6 hours. I usually will turn down any requests for a speaking engagement that won’t allow me at least 4 hours as my powerpoint presentation alone takes at least 4 hours divided into two segments, this just to get through most of the slides and answer a few questions.

The only “one-stop,” if you will, reliable and accurate account of the entire case is Mara Leveritt’s brilliantly written book, Devil’s Knot, and it certainly is not a short read. Once you pick it up, however, you can’t put it down.

The only way I can describe the case in just a few short words is to say that the WM3 case has become an icon for “Injustice in America.” It is a chilling account of just about everything that can go wrong within our criminal justice system if we don’t have the proper safeguards in place.

Morehead's Musings: For those interested in learning more about the case I recommend two HBO documentaries, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills and Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, as well as the book that you have already mentioned by Mara Leveritt, Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West The West Memphis Three (Atria Books, 2002). But there are a a few aspects of this case that I would like to focus on in our interview if we could. First, I am struck by the lack of any significant emphasis on forensics in either the investigation or the trial, and this in a case of triple murder that should have been filled with forensic evidence. Why was this evidence lacking, and why didn't either the Prosecution or the Defense pursue this area in more depth?

Dan Stidham: John, that is an outstanding question. The lack of any physical evidence in this case, a fact that has always been quite candidly admitted to by the Prosecution, is utterly amazing. The convictions are based entirely upon the ridiculous and confusing confession of a mentally challenged teenager with an I.Q. of a five year old child which was corroborated by no real physical evidence in the case at all. The confession itself is just so plainly and patently lacking of any real substance every person that I have ever talked to who actually bothers to read it in it’s entirety is left scratching their heads wondering how this alone could result in anyone’s conviction in our modern day criminal justice system.

I was asked to prepared a synopsis of the evidence in this case after the trials, and it was later updated after I was finally able to consult with some forensics experts on the case post trial after the airing of the initial HBO film. This synopsis appears on the wm3.org website and the link to that page is:

http://wm3.org/live/caseintroduction/synopsis_dan.php

Justice is supposed to be “blind,” but the reality of the situation in Arkansas in 1993 was that is was not. There was no State funded Public Defender system yet in place at the time of the slayings and no Death Penalty Resource Center or Capital Defense system in place at the time of the trials in 1994. In fact, the County and the State fought a rather protracted legal battle over who would be responsible for the legal costs associated with the trials. The County prevailed, and two years later my law partner and I, Greg Crow, finally received $19.00 per hour for the 2000 plus hours that we had expended on the case in defending our client. We had been told that we would receive an average of $50.00 per hour for our work on the case. In addition, we had no money whatsoever other than what Mr. Crow and I could pay out of our own pockets to retain experts which resulted in my having to beg experts to assist us. Two of the best, Dr. Richard Ofshe and Warren Holmes, answered the call for help because they were so convinced after reviewing the case file that my client, and the other two Defendants, were absolutely innocent of these crimes. Ironically, it took two HBO documentaries on the case before other “Freedom Fighters” started showing up to help. I find it less than amusing that some of the same “experts” who refused to even talk to me back in 1993, because I didn’t have $15,000 to retain them, have now rushed to volunteer to work on the case. What a difference a few movies makes!

The State of Arkansas, obviously understanding the shortcomings of the Arkansas Crime Lab and the quality of the Medical Examiner’s office, consulted with experts and laboratories from outside the State. We did not have that luxury. They had unlimited funds and legions of investigators. We had one volunteer investigator, and all our experts were volunteers. Simply stated, we had no funds with which to defend our client.

At trial, Misskelley’s confession with all it’s impossibilities and factual inconsistencies, coupled with the “Satanic Panic” and hundreds of autopsy and crime scene photographs of the victims that were paraded in front of the juries prevailed over the tremendous lack of any real physical evidence and all the examples of “reasonable doubt” that we were able to demonstrate including evidence of alibi. The crimes were so brutal that someone “had to pay.” It is clear that the juries wanted to punish someone really bad. They did. The three Defendants were poor and expendable, and Damien Echols was the perfect “patsy” with all of his pre-trial and Courtroom antics with the media, and displayed in front of the jury.

Morehead's Musings: There have been forensic developments in this case since the trials. Can you touch on some of this?

Dan Stidham: There are some astounding recent developments in the case. There are some things that I can’t discuss because of confidentiality, and there are others that I simply don’t know about yet because we are waiting for more test results to come in. I can confirm what has been published in recent Court filings which are public record and other things that have been reported in the media. First, there has been some DNA recovered from some items of evidence in the case that does not match any of the three convicted men. Secondly, a hair recovered from a ligature that was used to tie up one of the victims has been linked by DNA to one of the victim’s stepfathers.

This is significant for a couple of reasons. First, the hair from the stepfather was not found on a victim that was not his own stepson. This is important in and of itself, but even more important when you think about where the hair was recovered from. It was lodged in the knot of the ligature itself, making the inevitable explanation by the State that it was merely a normal stepfather to stepson “secondary transfer” so ridiculous that one wonders if they will even have the courage to argue it. I can’t go into any more detail, but there are other significant forensic and evidentiary discoveries as well that will shed significant light on this case and make it even more obvious than it already is that the WM3 are innocent of these crimes. And speaking of “courage,” that’s all this case really needs. A little “courage” to do the right thing would go along way right now. I pray each day for someone to simply accept the challenge.

Morehead's Musings: Another area that intrigues me is the prosecution's claim that the three teens allegedly perpetrated this crime as part of an occult ritual which they did as members of a cult. This would seem a foundational part of their case, and yet as the first documentary reveals, the prosecution's "expert" on the occult and Wicca did not possess the necessary education or credentials to discuss let alone substantiate the prosecution's claim, and there is a wealth of good scholarly material available that debunks the existence of satanic cults and occult ritual crime. Why weren't competent scholars brought in to counter this foundational aspect of the prosecution's case?

Dan Stidham: First of all, as you point out, there is no such thing as “Satanic Ritualistic Homicide (SRH)” This is a mere invention by the so-called experts of the day back in 1993. According to the FBI and other research done in the U.K., there has never been a single case of SRH ever documented on the planet.

I know what you are thinking, “What about David Berkowitz and other Serial Killers who have proudly professed that they killed in the name of “Satan.” The difference is that these killings were the work of one deranged individual who suffered from some rather serious and profound psychological disorders, not the work of an organized group of Satanists who are sacrificing children, or even adults for that matter, as part of an organized Satanic Ritual. The “Devil” told me to do it, or the “Devil” in the form of the neighbor’s dog as in the Berkowitz case, are not the same thing as SRH.

Are there Satanists in the world? Sure there are. Do teenagers dabble in the occult? Sure they do. However, there is no evidence that any known group of Satanists have ever engaged in cult style ritualistic slayings. If you buy into the Prosecution’s theory, as set forth by the now “famous for lack of credentials,” Dale Griffis, then you would have to be compelled into believing that the West Memphis Case is the first ever case of SRH ever documented any where in the world.

I remember years ago watching Geraldo Rivera devote an entire episode of his show to the topic. He even had a Catholic Priest on the show as an “expert.” They told millions of viewers that there was a large group of Satanists in this Country that were kidnapping thousands of our children and killing them in “Satanic Rituals” all around the Country. There was a time when every missing kid was generally believed to have been the victim of SRH. These Satanists must be real good at hiding the bodies! Maybe they know where Jimmy Hoffa is?

I do know this, the three teenagers convicted of these horrible crimes, one of which who is on Death Row, are not sophisticated enough to pull off the robbery of a Seven-Eleven, much less a triple homicide. If anyone does believe that they were even remotely this capable, then I suppose that they would also have to believe that:

1. The kids were so sophisticated that they were able to kill all three victims, and sexually mutilate one victim which resulted in a tremendous amount of blood loss by that particular victim, while not leaving any of their own DNA behind at the scene; and

2. They were so sophisticated that they also managed to put a hair from one of the step-fathers inside a ligature binding one of the victims so that they could frame him for the crime 15 years later.

Morehead's Musings: Some of the unfortunate chapters in history include the American witch trials and the satanic panics of the 1980s and 1990s. There is a good scholarly body of literature on these topics that might have provided background considerations for the prosecution's argument for motive. Why weren't these considerations brought into the defense case, and in retrospect, do you feel like the socio-cultural context of Arkansas with its fundamentalist Christian population might have produced conditions that led to a contemporary witch hunt with the conviction of the West Memphis Three?

Dan Stidham: In order to answer this question, you really have to put this case into historical perspective. In 1993, the Satanic Bandwagon Folks like Dr. Griffis were mainstream and largely supported by both the media and established religion. We now know better, just like we now know that there are such things as “coerced confessions.” In 1993, virtually everybody believed that the phenomena of Satanic Ritualistic Homicide was very real, and perhaps even more regrettably, that no one, not even a mentally handicapped person, or a child, would confess to a crime that they did not commit. Thankfully, due in large part to pioneers with real credentials like Dr. Gisli Gudjohnson, Dr. Richard Ofshe, and Dr. Richard Leo, we now understand the dynamics of false confessions. By the way, not many people remember that Dr. Ofshe won a Pulitzer Prize for his work studying religious "cults." He had a dual expertise.

The conditions were quite obviously very ripe for this kind of thing to happen in Arkansas in 1993 because it did happen here in Arkansas. But I do not believe for an instant that this type of situation is unique to Arkansas. The atmosphere that allowed this type of phenomena to occur can, and does, happen anywhere and everywhere. Perhaps I am naïve, but I think that this type of thing happens more as a result of simple unadulterated intolerance to anyone different than that held by the mainstream in society, rather than due to any particular set of religious mores, or beliefs. It’s a matter of being “different,” outside the mainstream of society, wherever that happens to be. Is Arkansas different than New York City or L.A.? You bet it is. When you are in L.A., you see a thousand “Damien Echols” walking down the street and no one seems to think anything about it, or even care. People wearing Black clothing and listening to Heavy Metal Music are the norm in some places around the Country, but not in Arkansas in 1993.

Intolerance can raise it’s ugly head in many other contexts besides religion, i.e. race, age, gender, sexual preference, etc., etc. We see examples of this throughout history, both ancient and recent. Also, it is worth pointing out that the similarities between this case and what happened during the Salem Witch Trials almost exactly 300 years ago is absolutely stunning.

Remember, the first “Witch Trial” occurred in Salem, Massachusetts, not West Memphis, Arkansas! Will history repeat itself again, I hope it won’t, but unfortuneatley, I bet it will.

Morehead's Musings: As I have researched the witch trials and satanic panics, and then looked at the situation surrounding this case, it seems to me as if Christian sociophobics and the creation of an evil social other played a large role in arrests and outcome of this case. And yet curiously, while various Neo-Pagans, celebrities, musicians, and people from the general population have rallied around this case to raise awareness and raise funds for appeals, I have not been able to track down much if any concern for social injustice from Christians on this issue. Has your experience been different? Might the concerns about an alleged satanic cult involving a Wiccan confirm the worst fears and stereotypes of Christians and this then turns away any consideration of speaking out on this issue?

Dan Stidham: My experience has been quite different from the inside looking out as opposed to only being exposed to the case based on what I saw in the media. I get a lot more letters, emails, phone calls and other outpourings of support from people all over the World that you would identify more as “Christians,” than I do from people whom you would describe as “Pagans, celebrities and musicians.” The difference is, simply put, that the media shows up when “celebrities and musicians” take a stand on social issues. When John Doe Citizen starts a “WM3 Awareness Group” in Russellville, Arkansas; Lincoln, Nebraska; Ft. Meyers, Florida; or Fort Hays, Kansas, the media just doesn’t seem to care. But these are the folks who fight the fight in the trenches every day. Out there organizing fund raisers and raising awareness in their communities about this case.

Having said that, the “celebrities and musicians” who do get the media attention are an integral part of the fight for justice in this case. These are folks who have figured out that they have a unique power to change things in the World, and they are not afraid to step up and fight for what’s right. For this, I admire them greatly. They also have more resources to assist than most other folks. While I have not met them all, many of the “celebrities and musicians” that I have encountered while working on this case have left me in awe of them when I consider the magnitude of their impact and contributions to the case. I am not in awe of them because they are famous, but instead because they are famously compassionate about social justice, and the plights of others less fortunate. The more I got to know them, the more I realized that they don’t fit the stereotypes of “celebrities and musicians” and are really no different than anybody else and are truly wonderful human beings.

Morehead's Musings: Do these three young men have any hope of appeals left?

Dan Stidham: Yes, tremendous hope is still out there. While this fight is far from over, I am more hopeful today than at any other time during the past almost 15 years that I have been working on the case. Thanks to the generosity and hard work of the people I described above, in response to your last question, we have finally put together a team of lawyers, investigators and forensic experts that are second to none. I can tell you without hesitation that they are the best I have ever seen.

Morehead's Musings: How can interested readers get involved in helping with this case?

Dan Stidham: By just remembering that everyone counts and everyone can make a difference. There are support groups all over the World who are dedicated to this fight. The best place to start is the http://www.wm3.org/ website. It is filled with information on how everyone can help. Also, please continue to pray for Justice, not just for the WM3, but for Justice for the victims’ families who deserved so much better than what they got in terms of an investigation and closure for the death of their loved ones. We can also never forget that a killer is still out there, and this killer needs to be brought to justice.

Morehead's Musings: Judge Stidham, once again, I think you for making time for this interview, and thanks as well for being the only attorney from the original trials who has continued to be involved in working for justice for these young men.

Dan Stidham: I sincerely appreciate your kind and generous words and the opportunity to talk about this very unique case. I hope that you will allow me to thank some very special folks who have inspired me to keep moving forward in this case, even in it’s darkest days, and on the days when it seemed no one cared, and I was all alone in the fight. There were only two days that I wanted to quit. Not just quit the fight, but quit the legal profession as well. This was the two days after the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed Misskelley’s confession in a 7-0 decision. After licking my wounds for a couple of days, I emerged with an even stronger resolve to keep fighting, thanks to the support and encouragement from my family who never complained about all the time I was gone from home working on this case.

Also, I cannot thank enough the people from whom I got all the emails, letters and prayers from. They may have been complete strangers at the time, but a phone call or a letter of encouragement, out of the blue, would sustain me for weeks and even months. Sometimes these strangers became friends, good friends. “Good friends” are like my own family to me, and I have made many good friends from all over the world. Regrettably, I have lost touch with some of these folks over the years, but all of them have become my heroes in this case. My “heroes” have names like Bruce, Mike, Joe, Mara, Lanette, Grove, Burk, Pam, Mark, Richard, Warren, Kathy, Lisa, Eddie, Kevin, Winona, Laura, John, Mandy, Michael, Ron, and a very wonderful and special person whom I have never even actually met, at least not in person, because she lives all the way on the other side of the planet, way “down under.” She inspires me on an almost daily basis, and I must say, Jill, thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

John, I thank you, for your interest in Justice, and your interest in this case.

West Memphis Three, Satanic Panic, and a Call for Christian Involvement in Social Justice

I've commented in a previous post on my discovery not long ago of a shocking murder case in Arkansas in 1993 that involved three teens convicted for the murder of three eight-year-old boys. The condemned are called the West Memphis Three, and the story of their trial and conviction is just as disturbing as the murder of the young boys.

An overview of the case are summarized by the WM3 website:

Shortly after three eight-year-old boys were found mutilated and murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas, local newspapers stated the killers had been caught. The police assured the public that the three teenagers in custody were definitely responsible for these horrible crimes. Evidence?

The same police officers coerced an error-filled "confession" from Jessie Misskelley Jr., who is mentally handicapped. They subjected him to 12 hours of questioning without counsel or parental consent, audio-taping only two fragments totaling 46 minutes. Jessie recanted it that evening, but it was too late— Misskelley, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols were all arrested on June 3, 1993, and convicted of murder in early 1994.

Although there was no physical evidence, murder weapon, motive, or connection to the victims, the prosecution pathetically resorted to presenting black hair and clothing, heavy metal t-shirts, and Stephen King novels as proof that the boys were sacrificed in a satanic cult ritual. Unfathomably, Echols was sentenced to death, Baldwin received life without parole, and Misskelley got life plus 40.

For over 14 years, The West Memphis Three have been imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit. Echols waits in solitary confinement for the lethal injection our tax dollars will pay for. They were all condemned by their poverty, incompetent defense, satanic panic and a rush to judgment.

I have read through a number of the materials coming out of the trials, watched the Emmy award winning documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills on the trial, and recently ordered Paradise Lost 2: Revelations for a consideration of the various developments in the case since the 1994 trials and convictions, many of which are detailed here. (Additional information is available in the books on the subject, including Mara Leveritt, Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three, and Guy Reel, Marc Perrusquia, and Bartholomew Sullivan, The Blood of the Innocents.) As I have reviewed this case several things amaze me. First, the crime scene was bungled by law enforcement, and this was evident in the lack of forensic evidence, let alone any that tied the accused to the crimes.

Second, the suspects only came to the attention of authorities after one of them offered a confession and identified the other two as alleged perpetrators. But there are problems with the confession. It was recanted, only 45 minutes of a 12 hour police interrogation was recorded leading to questions about leading the witness, and the defendant has an IQ that puts him in the category of the mentally retarded. This hardly seems like an ideal starting place for identifying suspects, let alone securing convictions.

But third, and even more amazing is that soon after the bodies of the boys were discovered rumors began to circulate that the killings were the result of a "satanic cult" in the area. (Shades of the Laci Peterson case where the media circulated stories about the kidnap and murder resulting from satanic cults in Modesto, California.) While good scholarly research (and at least one FBI report debunking satanic and occult ritualistic crime) points out that such conceptions of satanic cults cannot be substantiated and the evidence for them is wholly absent, this became a major facet of the prosecution's case, so much so that they brought in an "expert" in the area to testify. However, under cross-examination he that he did no coursework for either his masters or doctorate, and had taken no classes in esotericism, the occult, or Wicca in order to receive his "degrees."

With this lack of evidence and a credible foundation directed at the accused, why did the case move forward and why were the three considered part of a violent, sexually deviant satanic cult? Because of stereotypes confirmed by the way these kids looked, and the non-traditional interests (at least in that part of the country) they displayed. At least one of the defedants enjoyed heavy metal music in the form of Metallica, wears black, has read occultist Aleister Crowley, and identified during the trial with Wicca. Interestingly, in his closing arguments, the prosecuting attorney said that while these items individually are not a problem, put them together and allegedly they reveal something sinister, no doubt confirming the suspicions and fears of the Christian townspeople, and feeding into long-standing sociophobics about the evil religious other as part of our unfortunate history of not only satanic panics, but also with-hunts.

I also find it interesting (and startling) that while artists, musicians, and the Neo-Pagan and esotericist communities have gotten involved in raising awareness of this case in the hopes of righting an injustice, I could not find any Christian voice on the matter through an Internet search. Perhaps my search did not find something that is indeed out there. Or perhaps because evangelicals tend to circulate in their own subculture, coupled with the fact that this case has not received major national news coverage, few Christians are aware of or concerned about this case. Are we not concerned out of a lack of awareness, or because we lack a concern for social justice directed toward alleged representatives of those groups that represent our spiritual and cultural bogeymen?

While my blog has a limited readership I'd like to hope this post can rectify the Christian silence on this issue. We are fond of quoting the ten commandments but at times it seems as if we forget the one about not bearing false witness against our neighbor, particularly when it comes to our Neo-Pagan neighbors. This case is a classic example of stereotypical and folkloric tales of satanic cults that do not represent reality. Where is the Christian voice on this issue of social justice? There is much that we can do to help, and I hope that my Christian readers will promote this issue on their blogs so that we too can make a difference.