Satanism to some it's a religion as valid as Christianity to others it is a dangerous and subversive cult whatever the truth is there are thousands of devotees of Satan and it's becoming more and more popular thanks to the internet but what really goes on beneath the rose amid the candles is there a darker side to the sacrifices and the rituals Satanism refers to the real or mythical figure known as Satan whose followers look at him as an inspiring just and even heroic figure these people that genuinely believe in in Satan and all of his dark
darkness they believe in it far more probably than the pure white light of Christianity what if there is a ladder Beyond us which consists of beings of pure energy and what if some of them are morally good or certain morally evil [Music] foreign that there are as many as 100 000 satanists in the world all worshiping the Devil with the goat of Mendes becoming one of its most common symbols it's a worldwide phenomenon and it's growing every year Satanism is becoming more popular and I think one of the reasons is probably the decline of of
the the Orthodox Church of Christianity they've kept us under a very tight Reign for the best part of 2000 years and yet all of us deep down want to be sinful and and do naughty things and of course that's what Satanism is all about sex debauchery and anything else that you want to do Satanism allows you to do it Hallelujah praise the new Lord Satan Satanism is pretty much at its Pinnacle of popularity it's estimated there's over a hundred thousand members of the Church of Satan and it's really become quite trendy you see a lot
of TV shows geared towards the whole concept of you know very dark satanic witchcraft oriented sort of TV and we see how a whole counterculture of teenagers who are becoming more interested in this and growing popularity than because of it there are certain extremely dubious Black magicians who perform all kinds of Unholy ceremonies In The Name Of Satan and for them by responding to him as the personification of evil they can justify their own evil acts their greed their unrestricted sexuality and the other strange things that they do the blood sacrifices and so forth oh
I haven't come forth in a great many years that I can assure you Satanism is here to stay perhaps the most widely known aspect of Satanism is the Church of Satan itself which was founded by a man called Anton LaVey in America in 1966. today it has thousands of members across the world and has its headquarters in the appropriately named Hell's Kitchen area of New York City where else Gavin badley is the church's representative in the UK and he's agreed to meet me and tell me all about it imagine that there would be more kind
of uh ritual sacrifices and pentagrams and candles and capes and that kind of thing oh we certainly have our pentagrams and candles and capes but yeah that image exists and we play up to it and all the people who are drawn to Satanism are drawn because they uh the sort of sex and blood iconography is is very appealing and certainly there are members of the Church of Satan who indulge in various uh rituals but at core um I think far more significant is the way in which people think and it's very easy as somebody who
occasionally operates as a spokesman for Satanism to be drawn into uh fulfilling other people's expectations they want the the blood and the the candles and the goats and everything and that's there but that's not what Satanism is but do you have ceremonies and and rituals they take place certainly I fielded a lot of telephone calls from journalists over the years who say you know I want you to take me to a a naughty naked ritual you know and I'll bring my credit card and it's kind of like find your own naughty naked ritual if we
do these things they're for ourselves they're a form of theater they're a way of energizing they're fun the Church of Satan is is a very corporate American thing it's very big in the states it's so big in fact now that you can actually Dial 1-800 number and you'll get a call hi Church of Satan how may I direct your call and and the Americans absolutely love it it's a cult and they love Cults it is spreading it's spreading to Europe and it's spreading to England as well foreign you have to imagine there's a lot of
people who feel that the standards that God has set out are just too high and really quite unfair and and not really something that they're they're up for adhering to so this notion of the devil being kind of you know accepting of who you are and just a little bit naughty has a certain appeal to people the Church of Satan wasn't so much a pro-satan pro-evil it was more of an anti-church establishment uh certainly from where it came out of the 50s and 60s you had very much a Christian American ideal uh which for a
lot of people was not what they wanted so it was a very good way of breaking away and say I don't want that I want this I want the sex I want the drugs I want the alcohol I want the music and I want to have fun and a lot of it stemmed from having fun uh they they one of the things Anton nove said was his difference between him and the Christian church was that the Christians believe that if someone strikes you on the cheek you forgive he believed if someone strikes you on the
cheek you punch them in the face apart from that it's a beautiful religion [Music] the worship of Satan is a practice as old as our civilization about since the rise and dominance of Christianity in the western world it's gone Underground [Music] in the 18th century it became very fashionable for the aristocracy to hold secret meetings in the dark undisturbed corners of their Estates where these Satanic rituals were said to have taken place now one of these groups was the infamous hellfire club and they held their meetings here in these West Wickham caves the hellfire club
had a reputation for wickedness and debauchery on a legendary scale it was said that there were decadent parties orgies and satanic worship going on deep underground local guy Jack Orr agreed to take me down into the Labyrinth and show me around so we are a set of tunnels that were done in 1748 and the beautiful thing about us is we are a hundred percent man-made okay and the whole way down it goes 300 feet underground quarter of a mile and at the very bottom is the inner Temple which is the man-made hell of this place
the man who commissioned this place Lord dashwood was the head of the debaucherous notorious hellfire club secret society dedicated to well as we believe mocking religion so this is where the hellfire club would have met down in here they used to meet originally a medium Abbey which is a couple of miles away from here but it was too public they had the newspapers following them and so they went oh we need to go somewhere else where better than Underground about halfway down through the caves is a large Cavern cut out of the Limestone where all
manner of debauchery was said to have taken place truly want you to see this is the Pinnacle Point the absolute hive this is what they called the banqueting hall right step on inside oh wow look at that that's extraordinary so what would have gone on in here in here this was where they really released all their their inner Backus as is this is where they succumb to the flesh this was where they became even more intoxicated so as said they were dressed in costume but this is where the costume would start to fall off okay
this is where they would start truly indulging themselves in several different manners so they would begin feasting in here and they would begin drinking even more consuming more and more and in these Chambers behind us these four alcoves they're One bars there were curtains across here and there were beds inside right so as they were all gorging themselves here with gluttony and whatnot they would retire there for the more lustful acts and as you can tell because of how this chamber is built the sounds of all the singing of all the grunting all of it
would have just filled this chamber and would have carried up the passageways this would have come to life and reverberated with just sin I suppose is the best way uh the Hell Fire Club was actually nothing more than a a group of of toffs um upper-class people uh and the whole idea it was sex and drugs and rock and roll um unlike so many things that that people don't know about including Masons and all sorts of other things anything that we don't know because it was always held in secret and the reason it was held
in secret was basically because they were doing things that their wives probably wouldn't have been very keen to know about um and so people make up stories and so it was all to do with demonology and Satanism and and the Black Arts and black magic and all these Dreadful things that they were doing were they yeah a little bit they were probably testing the water a little bit but on the whole I think it was a jolly good drinking Club where a few girls were brought in everyone got drunk and things got rather out of
hand nothing more than that the hellfire club was an exclusive sort of society for highbrow Britain in the 18th century but it was really twisted you're now several hundred feet under the Earth anything can go on there nobody's gonna know this is why you're there you're outside of London no one even knows you're there and what goes on in the Hellfire case stays in the Hellfire caves and you can only imagine that they were completely unaccountable nobody had to apologize for anything you walk into those caves all bets are off you can let all your
inhibitions free and behave just the way all your fantasies would tell you you'd want to behave that was the real 50 Shades of Gray [Music] so how did one become a member of the hellfire club well it was a Society so it was purely on invitation um and sort of electioner a man of the club could put your name forward as a possible member based on your character there were 13 Apostles there was a sort of hierarchy in the 13 apostles were in charge of the more secretive side of the club they led by the
Abbot who is often sir dashwood himself they did all their dark business down here [Music] so now we're about to go to the very bottom we are reaching our final destination as such okay and we're about to cross over the river sticks and I'm sure you know the legend that once you cross over the river sticks that's it no coming back so what there's actually a river down here it is it's a man-made River and they would have taken a boat from where you're standing now to their final points this is it this is indeed
the river of the dead and the dams and around the corner is a cursing well where they used to baptize new members into the club right so there wasn't a Boatman here though there would have been a gondola from this side to the other to Ferry them across all right okay so what would have happened in here well this is where the 13 Apostles and the abbots would have met this is the secret part of the secret society and in here we have statues depicting all of the members for their meeting and at the very
back we have the statue of Venus overwatching everything that they're doing and there's all sorts of rumors as to what exactly happened in here going from oh it was just Lads having a good time drinking a bit much to ladies used to come down here and lose all of their virtues to these men and what about any kind of evidence of satanic worship rituals Sir Francis dashwood has had a whole library of a cult and black magic books he really leaned towards it he found it fascinating so it is possible that he indoctrinated a lot
of these ancient rights among all of the Lords and Ladies in here and you would be absolutely amazed what a lord in the 18th century could get away with if he wanted to thank you [Music] it really is a strange feeling being down here in the caves truly oppressive and quite forbidding a rich man's satanic fantasy carved out of limestone hundreds of feet underground sufficing goats um screaming goats cutting off the heads of chickens drinking blood um and and basically doing everything that's anti Antichrist for want of a better word do they believe that they're
actually getting something out of it or is it a load of absolute crap [Music] they definitely could have gotten up to anything they wanted to in those caves I mean who was going to check up on them we don't have the modern day press hounding them like we have today watching and stalking their every move so it was a very elite group of people very secretive and if one ratted on another one well then there goes their their Community you would think that they would want to keep this secret how who's going to find out
so they can get up to anything that they wanted to without anyone monitoring them on the surface it was really a gentleman's drinking Club but by all accounts it got very Pagan and in fact it was an excuse for the high-class ladies Society to really kind of act out their sexual fantasies because that's what it was it was more of a pagan sex club than it was anything else [Music] the current Lord Dash would agree to meet me in the grounds of his family's estate and discuss the goings-on of his former ancestors so what would
have gone on up there we don't know exactly what went on in direct answer to your question but we have a good idea some people imagine the worst and you have all sorts of stories that come out and particularly in the Victorian times of what they got up to um we know they had a lot of fun that's the main thing was there any sort of Satanic rituals going on down there I like to think not and we have no evidence of it although he was clearly interested in all sorts of um peripheral things on
the side of that so we have Masonic symbols in one of the rooms in the house here um and we have a River Styx at the bottom of the case itself and and in a temple and the river sticks you know your mythology separated real well from the underworld and it was where Care on a Boatman LED you across so so the fact he even built the river sticks you know he was interested in in the afterlife and all of that there's no doubt there's stories about a woman who was said to have been turned
into a nymphomaniac tell me a bit more about that yes that was great fun that was fantastic so so in I think it was in the middle of the 80s I recall it reasonably well and and a coach party of of old ears went down the caves and one of them came out and said she'd been a spinach all her life had no sexual experience whatsoever and she was assaulted by the evil influence of my ancestor and that the Satan was at work and um he was alive and well in the caves and it therefore
it should be closed down immediately because this influence had turned her into a raving nymphomaniac um and the local but not just the local papers actually I think the news of the world or the Sun or one of those newspapers got all of it and it was on the front page you know Clays must be closed down due to evil influence of Sir Francis dashwood and the only result was we doubled a number of visitors who came to the caves who all was he looking out looking for the same experience [Music] and there was a
priest who visited the caves who who felt that there might have been some kind of evil influence down there tell me a bit more about it well it's quite interesting we do get people from time to time who do feel now whether it's our imagination or there's some reality behind it they they definitely go down there and they feel something strange or they're not happy with with the atmosphere or the influence the case have on them it could be their imagination it could be true but but yes now you're absolutely right from time to time
people they come back feeling very strange from having visited the caves [Music] one of the most popular and disturbing manifestations of Satan and evil itself is a possession a human body that has been taken over by a demonic entity or even the Devil Himself Chris Thompson is a practicing Exorcist he says he carries out dozens of exorcisms every year and that he's becoming increasingly busy he's allowed us to film a recreation of a typical exorcism [Music] [Music] step away from her I commanded leave her alone now really all you've got to do is find out
if it is genuinely something that's possessing them or whether it's in the mind I mean obviously people can get terrified by what's going on so first of all you establish if it's genuine and then find out who it is and get them to move out using whatever methods necessary there's various things I use I do have holy water I can also use smudging which is burning white sage I've also got smokeless methods as well that I can use what is the point of an exorcism what are you trying to achieve the idea is to get
whatever's moved into the host out of there what are you saying has moved in it could be a demon or just another Spirit that's moved in there to somehow try to interact with the person and are they real are they just imaginary on the um part of the person you're exercising so the person that I'm exercising they are very real but who knows does this Spirit actually just affect the mind or does it affect the whole body all right there do you believe that there are demons there are spirits that go around possessing people I
do believe that there are things that we don't know about the definite I've recorded them on many occasions I've experienced them for myself yes I'm a medium but I'm also very skeptical and I'm trying to find out what it is I don't know whether what I'm talking to is the spirit of another person or forever I know it could be a little men from Mars that's somehow communicating with us and I need to find the answer to exercise someone you have to believe that they are possessed by a demon by something evil um it it
basically comes again from Christianity of course and the fact that there's good so there has to be evil and so anyone that that happens to be hearing voices or anything like that it's a demon that's either whispering in their ears or a demon that has possessed them and the only way to get that demon out is by bringing in um a priest uh splashing holy water on you um screaming begone evil demon getting him to to recite various Oaths and things um there's no such thing as demons trust me according to the Catholic World to
conduct an exorcism you have to be an ordained priest but in as regards Christianity as a whole is concerned any good Christian can conduct an exorcism a successful exorcism I personally have in the past conducted exorcisms we can't tell you whether they've worked or not because I'm not sure how much I actually believe that anyone is possessed with an evil demon in exorcism there's the sorts of things that you would expect and you've been seen in films for for a long time so the primary objective is to find out the Demon's name if you can
find out the demon Demon's name you can expel them but while you're trying to do that you have the the person who's who's suffering who's possessed they're speaking in tongues they're vomiting they're using vulgar language they're they're behaving in a way that looks like as though they're mentally ill they're both buying into the fact that there's a demon involved here and thus they're both taking on roles that may just be that not real sort of possession but physiological sort of association with what they think they should be saying and doing and behaving exorcisms can get
extremely wild and rather volatile to say the least um projectile vomiting spitting um young girls that are literally um timid um actually with with male voices um scratching and literally literally having to be held down by by men to stop them from from attacking the person that those actually conducting the exorcism um whether it is a demon inside them or whether it's just whether they're just playing Bonkers I don't know I'm not going to deny the existence of a spirit world but what I do deny is the authenticity of most of these exorcists I think
they're putting on a show I think it's sort of uh Placebo they're behaving in a way they've seen on television or they feel they need to behave in order to get a reaction a placebo reaction from the possessed it's really a show nine out of ten times I don't think it's very authentic at all when you do in an exorcism and I haven't done many but but yes I think you can actually tell if if there is something genuinely in when I say in that person uh demon I don't know about but I I think
you know whether they are genuine or whether they're actually acting it out and putting it on whether they've put themselves into a trance before it or it's just purely an act yeah you can tell on some occasions I think that we are dealing with a mental problem a psychosis of some kind and if the person with that psychosis has a deep religious conviction that evil spirits exist and that one has got into him and a priest then performs an exorcism if he believes both in the power of exorcism and in the evil spirit as part
of his psychotic imaginings he will then feel better so an exorcism can heal psychosis as well as driving out some sort of tangible psychic entity thanks [Music] [Music] a famous Satanist was Alistair Crowley an English occultist from the early 20th century now he set up the religion and philosophy known as telema in which he was the prophet entrusted with guiding his followers he gained widespread notoriety for his use of religious sacrifices and Sex Magic and was denounced by the press as the wickedest man in the world Crowley was a strange man he wasn't a Satanist
he wasn't a witch but he was he was wicked he was evil and at the age of 11 he actually murdered the family cat and the reason he did it was because he wanted to test whether a cat really had nine lives so he bashed it on the head he strangled it he poked its eyes out he he tried to drown it he and he set fire to it and this was all as he said in the name of science he was a strange gentleman he was into sex and drugs and rock and roll debauchery
he was bisexual and he was into the occult big time Alistair Crowley might be the most famous cultist author and most importantly ritual practitioner of magic it's ever been [Music] thank you some historians claim that Crowley was recruited into British intelligence and that he remained a spy throughout his life although this was never proved as his actions became more and more extreme in 1920 he was told to leave Britain or face arrest so he established a satanic commune in Sicily where he lived with his followers practicing ritual sacrifice Sex Magic and other depraved Acts Aaron
Paramore is an occult researcher who has studied Crowley in detail he thinks he really was as wicked as he was portrayed so what was Crowley getting up to Well he kind of earned his name the wickedest man in the world um because he was a notorious bisexual he took um the enjoyed men as well as lots lots of women he uh he was a mountaineer he was the infant terrible he was a he took lots of drugs uh he uh he performed sexual magic and all of this um in in that time frame was just
considered to be absolutely whoa kind of like off absolutely off the map off the deep end you know he was members of secret organizations occult organizations he claimed he was the great Beast 666 um so and he performed you know various rituals uh we know that he sacrificed a goat in the Abbey of telema in in Sicily there was a rumor of um a cat being sacrificed and the blood being drunk although that probably wasn't true certainly not the blood-beam drug but he got up to you know pretty extreme things he was into extremes you
know um and he pushed his followers into those extreme ends as well even if you weren't comfortable with it he would push you and push you and push you and push you he's um you know he he's a magical uh motto is I will endure so it gives you a sense of what this guy is essentially Crowley's uh I think Crowley is a bully um but he he bullies and pushes people and they end up burnt out and he's used them and he cast them side and he keeps moving forward himself he'd got devotees that
were doing anything and everything that he wanted they believed that he was talking to to the spirits possibly to aliens um whether he really was whether he really was was this this um new Messiah or whether he was just a dirty old perv that was having it off with anyone and everyone that believed so much in him nobody really knows what happened in Sicily in Sicily he establishes his um his religion and followers come out there and he forms what he hopes to be a spiritual College um what it's more like is a commune in
the 60s so you've got a lot of free love people having sex taking a lot of drugs which is absolutely scandalous uh the British press get hold of this and he's absolutely you know called The Wicked man in the world by the press and while he's there and eventually the goings-on um and the Rumor and the and the the rumor mill gets so bad that Mussolini himself has had enough of of Mr Crowley and the attempts to get him kicked out and does eventually get him kicked out off Sheffield uh in sheffaloo he was known
by the people as a truly free man who lived as it lived freely throughout the restrictions of kind of religion but rituals did go on in there we know there was a sacrifice of a goat in a particular ritual uh we know there was a lot of drug taking and experimentation there was a room in there called the Chamber of nightmares and these were these amazing psychedelic paintings of uh people copulating with goats a big degenerate god with a big phallus and this was supposed to allow you to get rid of your um pornographic fantasies
you you would eventually become clearer all that sort of stuff and it would it wouldn't mean anything to you you would get rid of all your Christian and your um baggage as it were and you you'd be free from guilt that was that was the big thing about it is about being free free from your own guilt proudly moved to Sicily and that's when things got really bad that's when the sex and debauchery really really started in Earnest sacrifices drinking of blood um sex with anybody the man was trisexual he'd try anything and he really
was um an evil creature there's no getting away from it in fact it got so bad that he he actually believed in vampires and and all of this sort of when he actually had his his fangs filed down and pointed so that when he was um biting the necks of his of his of his lovers mainly female but both he actually referred to it as giving them a love bite Aleister Crowley was definitely one of the most evil men in the world and the legend speaks for itself doesn't it Jay participated in Black masses and
really questionable ritual practices with his whole the Lima religious group that he was involved in uh kicked out of England for his behavior and his involvement and really got up to some really nasty Deeds this is where they would have blood sacrifices animal sacrifices and although we can't prove it we believe human sacrifices really morbid sort of stuff and guess what he was at the center of it it was all about him almost a bit and really it's something you'd imagine happening in the 60s not in the 20s certainly um after Crowley's death in 1947
um things go quiet um the Oto his big organization begins to Splinter and break up a bit but it's the 60s where it's really really picks up the Beatles put Crowley on there on on the Sergeant Pepper album um his books get reprinted again uh people are finding him in second-hand book shops you know for very little money now now they're like currency now you know um and his whole philosophy begins to be taken on board by the 60s do what that Wilt you know do what you want it they took it to mean that
that's not actually what it means it means find your a true will your reason for being here on this planet and pursue it with a Vengeance that's that's what he was saying if you were to go on the internet and drag up the worst possible internet fetish sites you could find Crowley probably did it now you have to remember he was one of the first so he was always looking for something new something interesting uh there's a particularly famous one where he had did a particular magical ceremony which involved a woman having sex with a
goat um there was other ones where somebody died where they drank the blood of a cat that had been sacrificed um so if you can think of it he probably thought of it about 100 years ago how popular is Satanism today still very very popular um you've got the Church of Satan still going strong you have the Church of set which is a splinter group of that and then within the church we set the the order of the trapezo hydroid which is a sort of HP lovecraftian kind of feeling uh uh a form of Satanism
a fairly sort of repugnant um Splinter of Satanism is the order of nine angles these guys have mixed Nazi uh ideology within Satanism uh and they're very very far-right group you can get a lot of stuff on the internet now about them and all their pamphlets and information are kind of published on the internet now but quite um kind of nasty kind of form of Satanism to the point that neo-nazis disowned um the order of nine angles and anybody associated with an occult uh Neo satanic uh Nazi group at the very heart of Satanism are
its rituals the most infamous being the Black Mass its purpose was not only to worship the devil but also to mock God and may well involve animal sacrifices and blood as well as blasphemy and obscenity its celebrants May well wear black robes and carry chalices and candles and may often form a pentagram shape to carry out their ceremonies it all is as you can imagine rather eerie if I was to come across a a Satanic ritual or a black mass what would I see the altar is often a naked woman The Chalice is not filled
with with wine it can be filled with a mixture of um I believe sperm and water and then sometimes it's filled with bourbon you know so there are elements of that still within Satanism but Satanism has become much more sort of magical movement now it's much more about spells much more about sort of modern occultism and less about um the old form of black mass which was you know incomplete reversal of um of worship of God foreign a black mass is a ritual ceremony that uses magic for two purposes one is the defamation of God
and two is the veneration of Satan it's based on on a Catholic Mass only it's a lot darker it's people dressed in in Black robes with hoods black candles um inverted crosses Bloods sacrifices the killing of goats and their blood drunk um all manner of of debauchery and and sex and and the even the altar is actually a naked woman a live one but a naked woman I think the credibility of black masses is really questionable if you think about the participants why are these people participating in something like this is there something psychologically going
on on with them and believing in the power of that is probably what produces the power or the energy surge for them of exerting their will in this this form of evil to try to obtain what they want so I think it's really about the psychological aspects of it does it really have magical powers in my opinion no um a satanic black mass is a magical ceremony and inversion or parody of the Catholic mass for the purpose of mocking God and worshiping the devil according to reports some have involved human sacrifice as well as obscenity
and blasphemy of horrific proportions are we becoming more satanic as a society I would say yes we are I think I think we are I think we're moving away we like to indulge ourselves people go to the gym people like to have sex people like to take drugs people like to do all these things that were you know restricted and we do them people go out at weekends sometimes they'll take ecstasy and all the rest of it um and that's considered normal now you know [Music] certainly as Christianity is in Decline people are are turning
to Alternative forms of religion and obviously satanism if there is such a thing as Satan it's the alternative it's something different but to be honest with you it gives a lot of people what they want I don't think the church ever has you know when you look at it let's be honest the devil has a far better Manifesto than the Ten Commandments how difficult are they this is the era of 50 Shades of raid so going out having a drink getting drunk cheating on your expense reports having an affair those are things that you could
kind of justify and you know not be held accountable so it's a whole different era when you think about it it seems then in this ever-changing world The Cult of Satan is as popular as ever with more and more people meeting online or in person to worship or simply hang out a few of them are pretty hardcore but the majority consider their Satanism as a kind of protest vote against the church they don't consider themselves particularly demonic simply alternative I'll see you next time [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause]
