An author and podcaster who has similar views about how Satanism is an ideology that best explains extreme leftism, neoliberalism, progressivism, and the woke movement is Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire.
He also believes it is a type of religious cult in which members are united by the Satanic ideologies they share regardless of their self-chosen titles or preferred pronouns.
In his 2017 book, The Unholy Trinity: Blocking the Left’s Assault on Life, Marriage, and Gender, Walsh wrote:
“According to the liberal – the secular Satanist, you might call him – each person is a Me, a Mighty Me, and all values and morals are hallowed out and reduced to serve Me. I am currently autonomous and sovereign, and everything is relative to Me. I make my own truth, my own science, my own universe.
This is what Satan set out to do, and the universe he created was a nothingness of Hell, a Hell that the modern liberal wants desperately to join.”
Walsh further said, “The Satanism of the modern liberal is almost always latent and secular, not theological. What I’m trying to establish is the prevailing philosophy of our culture is rooted in an evil that can be traced back to the beginning of everything. This is not new, we should realize.
I use the terms liberal and progressive and liberalism and progressivism simply because these are the names and labels we place on the contemporary manifestations of this ancient evil. But it doesn’t actually matter what name you use.
You could call it “liberal” or “progressive,” a “banana” or an “oogliebooglie” – it is the belief system, not the labels, we’ll be dealing with in this book, ” he wrote. (1)
This is where I somewhat disagree with Matt Walsh. I do believe that people like myself and Walsh who are opposed to these various ideologies that all come from the same source should stick to one label that best defines them all and that would be Satanism, which I agree, predates them all.
In an interview with podcaster Matt Fradd of Pints With Aquinas Host, Walsh said that the simplest answer is that Leftism is the worship of the self. It is the elevation of the self, which is also the definition of Satanism. (2)
He said, “That is the coherent thread that can connect what we call Leftism and wokeism. It is a religious worship because they believe that the self or ego transcends all boundaries and should submit to no control at all including their own biological identities that they should be able to overwrite by the force of their own will.
The worship of the self is also the definition of Satanism, which I would respond I would respond, yes exactly.
Maybe that is an easier way of putting it.”
HOST MATT FRAD:
It is true. They have their own creed that kind of gets placarded outside of their houses. They have their little tokens that symbolize they’re part of the group. Just like I as a Catholic do.
I wear a miraculous medal around my neck. I got to holy mass. Things like this. I suppose having your pronouns displayed on your Instagram is something like that.
You also have these excommunications. I mean the Catholic Chruch is far more merciful to those who have been excommunicated. It seems to me more than the woke mob when they cancel you.
MATT WALSH:
“My only hesitation, although I say it is a religious cult because it is. Sometimes I worry about putting it that way because when you’re using religion as a pejorative. That is my only hesitation. It is not like there is anything wrong in itself with being religious but there are plenty of religions that are wrong.
The religion of Leftism is the wrongest of them all. I think calling it a religious cult is important. It helps us exactly understand what we are dealing with here,” Walsh said.
In October 2019, not long after Jefferey Epstein’s death, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began releasing hundreds of files that document a massive police investigation into an alleged Satanic pedophile cult known as the Finders. According to the documents, the Finders was founded by Marion Pettie and his wife Isabella in the early 1960s in Virginia and Washington D.C.
It is important to note that Marion also was a retired master sergeant from the U.S. Air Force and records later revealed that his wife was a confirmed employee of the CIA between 1952 and 1961, as well as their son who worked for the CIA contractor, Air America.
The two purchased a large woodland property in rural Madison County, Va., as a real-life experiment using children, adults, and a weird combination of New Age philosophies, psychology, and human development.
The files revealed that the Finders were a secretive group of handlers, parents, and so-called caretakers who believed that allowing children a healthy environment of uninhibited freedom to grow in which they do not need a lot of guidance, discipline or supervision was the best thing for them. They allowed children to be raised by their peers with little supervision and were operated by a secret group of mostly middle-aged men who always wore dark suits in public but often walked around naked behind closed doors.
Former members of the cult described Marion as “The Student,” “The Stroller,” “The Pathfinder” and the “Game Caller” and claim to have been a student of life who taught and learned ‘the game’. It was later revealed that many of his students were runaways, single mothers, drop outs, and drug addicts. He constantly lectured to members about “the New Age way of living” and Eastern mysticism, and it was said that he could peer into their souls almost as if he had X-ray vision.
The curious locals described them as the “watchers” because they seemed to constantly roam the streets, following people home and taking extensive notes and pictures. They often appear at local council meetings, never saying a word but simply observing the scene.
At other times, they plunder the visitor’s center of brochures, maps, and local travel guides. And they haunt the courthouse, scouring land deeds to find out who owns the local real estate.
One of the reports in the FBI files was signed by Special Agent Ramon J. Martinez, who claimed that during his participation in the searches of two of the Finder’s properties in Washington, evidence of the Finders’ intent to traffic children and other potentially criminal acts were found.
Martinez wrote that he was unable to review the evidence after multiple attempts, and said that he was eventually told by a confidential unnamed informant within the D.C. police told him “the investigation into the FINDERS has become an internal CIA matter….No further will be available and no further action will be taken.
U.S. Customs officer Martinez wrote:
“On April 2, 1987, I arrived at MPD at approximately 9:00 a.m. Detective Bradley was not available. I spoke to a third party who was willing to discuss the case with me on a strictly ‘off the record’ basis.
“I was advised that all the passport data had been turned over to the State Department for their investigation. The State Department in turn, advised the MPD that all travel and use of the passports by the holders of the passports was within the law and no action would be taken. This included travel to Moscow, North Korea, and North Vietnam from the late 1950s to mid 1970s.
“The individual further advised me of circumstances which indicated that the investigation into the activity of the Finders had become a CIA internal matter. The MPD report has been classified SECRET and was not available for review.
I was advised that the FBI had withdrawn from the investigation several weeks prior and that the FBI Foreign Counter Intelligence Division had directed MPD not to advise the FBI Washington Field Office of anything that had transpired.
“No further information will be available. No further action will be taken.”
The Finders were ultimately discovered when some people called the Tallahassee, Florida police on February 4, 1987, after seeing two men dressed in suits and ties in the company of six bug-bitten, dirty, hungry children in a van at a park.
The strange men did not cooperate with the police at all. When they would be escorted anywhere they would go limp and when questioned acting as if they went into a “trance-like state”. The children in custody were reported to be “like shells, and zombie-like.”
After being questioned by police, the two men and children made statements that set off red flags for the officers who then immediately placed the men under arrest and took the children into protective custody for further investigation.
Douglas Edward Ammerman, 27, and Michael Houlihan, 28, were taken into custody at a Florida jail in lieu of $100,000 bond each on misdemeanor child abuse charges.
Based on the children being from Washington D.C., the Tallahassee police alerted the FBI to assist in the interstate investigation who were also working with Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).
When the D.C. police were informed the Florida Police had captured the Finders, they said, “Holy shit! We’ve been looking at these freaks!”
According to the Washington City News in 1998, Tallahassee police officer Scott Hunt, D.C. Police believed at the time that The Finders were Satanists and/or survivalists, but claimed they were not criminals.
According to U.S. District Court records in Washington, a confidential informant had previously told police that the Finders were “a cult” that conducted “brainwashing” techniques at the warehouse and the Glover Park duplex at 3918-20 W St. NW. The source said they were being recruited by the Finders with promises of “financial reward and sexual gratification” and of being invited by one member to “explore” satanism with them, according to the documents.
The US Customs Report states:
“U.S. Customs was contacted because the police officers involved suspected the adults of being involved in child pornography and knew the Customs Service to have a network of child pornography investigators, and of the existence of the Child Pornography and Protection Unit.
SS/A [deleted] stated the two adults were well dressed white males. They had custody of six white children (boys and girls), ages three to six years. The children were observed to be poorly dressed, bruised, dirty, and behaving like wild animals in a public park in Tallahassee.
The police were notified by a concerned citizen and all eight persons were taken into custody. The subjects were living out of a white 1979 Dodge van, Virginia license no. XHW 557.”
According to US Customs:
“Upon being taken into custody, the adult white males refused to cooperate, one of whom produced a “business” card with a name on one side and a statement on the other. The statement indicated that the bearer knew his constitutional right to remain silent and that he intended to do so.
Upon interviewing the children, the police officers found that they could not adequately identify themselves or their custodians. Further, they stated that they were en route to Mexico to attend a school for “smart kids.”
SS/A [deleted] was further advised the children were unaware of the function and purpose of telephones, televisions and toilets, and that the children had stated they were not allowed to live indoors and were only given food as a reward,” the report said.
The two oldest children referred to as “Mary” and “Max”, were interviewed by law enforcement where it was discovered that the children were raised on a farm with little adult supervision and that they were being “weaned” from their mothers and were rarely allowed inside the house, even sleeping outside.
The children were examined by a doctor who found that all the children showed signs of malnourishment and two of the six children showed physical signs of sexual abuse and also found human bite marks on some of the children, but could not determine if the bite was from an adult or child.
A behavioral scientist said that the children behaved similarly to those who had been ‘institutionalized for a prolonged period.’
Based on the evidence, investigators were quickly able to obtain a search warrant from a judge for the Finders’ two D.C. properties which included a local warehouse and a duplex apartment.
After searching the properties, police found signs of Satanic rituals at the rear of the residence with a stone circle and a small very ornate gravestone propped up against the support pillar for the porch.
They also found brochures, photos, books on mind control, indices, and a large amount of computer equipment and “instructions for obtaining children for unspecified purposes.”
According to the US Customs report, filed by Ramon J. Martinez:
“During the execution of the warrant at 3918/20 W St., I was able to observe and access the entire building … There were several subjects on the premises. Only one was deemed to be connected with the Finders. [He] was located in a room equipped with several computers, printers, and numerous documents.
Cursory examination of the documents revealed detailed instructions for obtaining children for unspecified purposes. The instructions included the impregnation of female members of the community known as the Finders, purchasing children, trading, and kidnapping.
There were telex messages using MCI account numbers between a computer terminal believed to be located in the same room, and others located across the country and in foreign locations. One such telex specifically ordered the purchase of two children in Hong Kong to be arranged through a contact in the Chinese Embassy there.
Another telex expressed interest in ‘bank secrecy’ situations. Other documents identified interests in high-tech transfers to the United Kingdom, numerous properties under the control of the Finders, a keen interest in terrorism, explosives, and the evasion of law enforcement.
Also found in the ‘computer room’ was a detailed summary of the events surrounding the arrest and taking into custody of the two adults and six children in Tallahassee the previous night. There were also a set of instructions which appeared to be broadcast via a computer network which advised the participants to move ‘the children’ and keep them moving through different jurisdictions, and instructions on how to avoid police attention,” Officer Ramon stated.
Martinez also reported finding disturbing photographs of men dressed in white robes holding a severed goat head, and the children engaging in some type of Satanic ritual with one even holding a dead goat fetus that was pulled from a womb. These images were part of a file called “The Execution of Henrietta and Igor”.
Martinez said:
“On Friday, 2/6/87, I met Detective Bradley at the warehouse on 4th Street, N.E. I duly advised my acting group supervisor, SS/A Don Bludworth. I was again granted unlimited access to the premises. I was able to observe numerous documents which described explicit sexual conduct between the members of the community known as Finders.
I also saw a large collection of photographs of unidentified persons. Some of the photographs were nudes, believed to be of members of the Finders. There were numerous photos of children, some nude, at least one of which was a photo of a child ‘on display’ and appearing to accent the child’s genitals.
I was only able to examine a very small amount of the photos at this time. However, one of the officers presented me with a photo album for my review. The album contained a series of photos of adults and children dressed in white sheets participating in a ‘blood ritual.’ The ritual centered around the execution of at least two goats.
The photos portrayed the execution, disembowelment, skinning and dismemberment of the goats at the hands of the children. This included the removal of the testes of a male goat, the discovery of a female goat’s “womb” and the “baby goats” inside the womb, and the presentation of a goat’s head to one of the children.”
The police report further stated:
“..numerous files relating to activities of the organization in different parts of the world. Locations
I observed are as follows: London, Germany, the Bahamas, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Africa, Costa Rica, and ‘Europe.’ There was also a file identified as ‘Palestinian.’
Other files were identified by member name or ‘project’ name. The projects appearing to be operated for commercial purposes under front names for the Finders. There was one file entitled ‘Pentagon Break-In,’ and others referring to members operating in foreign countries.
Not observed by me but related by an MPD officer were intelligence files on private families not related to the Finders. The process undertaken appears to be have been a systematic response to local newspaper advertisements for babysitters, tutors, etc.
A member of the Finders would respond and gather as much information as possible about the habits, identity, occupation, etc., of the family. The use to which this information was to be put is still unknown. There was also a large amount of data collected on various child care organizations.
The warehouse contained a large library, two kitchens, a sauna, hot-tub, and a ‘video room.’ The video room seemed to be set up as an indoctrination center. It also appeared that the organization had the capability to produce its own videos.
There were what appeared to be training areas for children and what appeared to be an altar set up in a residential area of the warehouse. Many jars of urine and feces were located in this area,” police investigators wrote in the original report.
Virginia state police spokesman Charles Vaughn issued this statement to the press about the evidence found:
Among the pictures were those of a crying child looking at a decapitated goat, another captioned ″Ben finds Henrietta’s womb,″ and three others showing children playing with goat fetuses.
″I don’t know exactly how to interpret those photographs. I don’t think that anyone does,″ Vaughn said.
The Finders claimed this was done for “hands-on” educational purposes.
″As long as we have existed there have been allegations against us on many topics because people don’t understand us and strike out against us,″ said Robert Gardner Terrell, a Finders spokesman, in an interview in Washington.
″We had two goats there in the summer and rather than just leave them there to starve in the winter, we butchered and ate them,″ he said.
″We did it with the children present because we thought it would be a good learning experience for them. It turned out to be a delightful experience for them,″ Terrell said.
″We took pictures of the event and kept them for the children as a keepsake. That was what the police found,″ he said.
Officer Hunt of the Tallahassee PD told the Miami Herald, “It is our belief these kids were not kidnapped but that their parents gave them away, because one of the rites of passage into this satanic organization is that you have to give up your rights to you children, and that the leaders of this organization can do what they want to with your children.”
And he said to the Tallahassee Democrat, “As far as we’re concerned, this goes from coast to coast and from Canada to Mexico … There is no doubt in our mind that this will have at least national, if not international, repercussions.”
CBS News reporter from D.C., Mike Buchanan reported that after researching police files, he claimed that the Finders had “worldwide connections,” used “sex and children to obtain power and money,” and had two bank accounts with over $100,000 in each.
About two weeks after the initial investigation began, it was suddenly announced that the MPD and Tallahassee police were dropping all charges due to “insignificant evidence”. They had claimed that after finding no evidence of child sexual exploitation, kidnapping or any related crimes, they dropped the case.
“The lifestyle of the so-called Finders organization may differ from the societal norm, but so far the Metropolitan Police Department has not uncovered any evidence of criminal wrongdoing by members of the group,” Washington Police Chief Maurice Turner told the Democrat.
”There was apparently the killing of goats and some type of blood,” Chief Turner said, adding that it appeared the children did not participate in the killing. Other police officials suggested that the goats were actually butchered for meat, not for some sort of satanic animal sacrifice.
”A photograph can paint 1,001 pictures,” Chief Turner said.
”The life style of the so-called Finders organization may differ from the societal norm,” he added, ”but so far, the Metropolitan Police Department has not uncovered any evidence of criminal wrongdoing by members of the group.
”At this point the Metropolitan Police Department has not found any materials among the seized documents or records that would initially corroborate allegations made by an informant that the organization is a cult and that its activities involve satanic rituals. Documents Being Reviewed
”However, we are still involved in an extensive and detailed review process of the documents and records seized,” he added.
Asked if the group was dangerous, Chief Turner replied: ”I don’t really believe so. If they are a danger, from what I can see, they would be a danger to themselves.”
Another document said a customs agent who asked to review evidence in the case was told it was a CIA internal matter.
In typical CIA fashion, the agency denied any cover-up, saying the charges were like a “nothing burger.”
“This story is a non-story,” CIA spokesman Dave Christian told the Democrat in December 1993. “I think of it as a nothing-burger.”
The doctor who originally examined the children did an about-face on her original assessment by later saying that there was no “conclusive” evidence of child sexual abuse.
Local police officers followed suit by claiming that it all was just a misunderstanding as part of the “Satanic Panic” that has spread across the country.
However, the 324-page file released by the FBI in 2019 paints a much different story.
The FBI discovered that The Finders traveled to places like North Korea, Russia, and Vietnam, which were considered ‘no travel’ zones.
The CIA was made aware of the FBI and local police department’s investigation and claimed to be conducting their own, but refused to cooperate with the FBI or local police. On record, a member of the FBI asks a member of the CIA if the investigation was “treading on anyone’s toes”, to which the CIA agent responded “Sort of…
Marion Pettie continued to live in the same town he operated his cult in relative obscurity until his death in 2004.
He was interviewed before he died in 1998 by Eddie Dean with the Steamshovel Press. It is a telling tale of a man who operated a Satanic pedophile cult for the CIA and had absolutely no regrets.
Hell, why would a government protected asset and most likely paid psychopath think any different?
In the interview, Marion appears to try to find redemption by halfway coming clean about his involvement with intelligence agencies. He tells Dean, “I kept open house mainly to intelligence people in Washington. OSS people passing through, things like that.”
But of course, he says that he was not an intelligence asset himself but he claimed to be a private citizen who spent his life as a “spy of spies.” He claimed to be something akin to a CIA watchdog, proclaiming that he had been studying them since before they were born.
As for Pettie’s wife’s employment with the CIA, hell, that was a secret operation in which he sent her in as a spy, to spy on the CIA for Marion. Being in charge of the records department, his wife was able to find out things for Marion. He also acknowledges that his son worked for the CIA company, Air America.
Here is part of Dean’s interview with Marion Pettie:
“I ask him about the history of the Finders.
Pettie explains that his group is actually the “second round” of a long-term, ongoing experiment he calls the “topsy-turvy university,” in which everyone teaches him, the Student.
“I’ve been keeping open house to fools since the ’30s,” he says. “I rented two apartments in Washington and had open house. Anyone that wanted to could come and stay with me—I’m still doing it.
And by watching these fools, that’s where I get most of my learning. I do just about anything to humor these bunch of fools that want to come along and be nice to me. And of course, I’m a big fool, too.”
He describes the odd work of the Finders nonchalantly.
“My goal is to know everything and say nothing. I run a private intelligence game, and I send people out undercover to find out various things.
I’ve been investigating the CIA before it was the CIA, when it was the OSS.”
“The only conflict I’ve ever had in my life are with these ungrateful wretches that are suing me now,” mutters Pettie.
“They were dope fiends and emotionally disturbed people, and they got cured in my mental hospital and they left. Now they come back and want to take the hospital.”
He knocks some ashes off the cigar and points the smoldering butt at the silent Berns, scribbling away in his note pad: “These people like him, they’re not cured yet, and he’s only been here 25 years.
He came here as a dope fiend and sick 25 years ago, and I just let him lay on the porch in the sun for a couple of years; now he’s one of my main lieutenants.”
Berns, expressionless, simply nods his head in agreement.
Pettie continues to interview himself while I reel from the cigar and the colliding topics. “Culpeper is a model of a well-run little town,” he explains, pleading no personal attachment to the place.
“I’ve been studying this town for 70 years. I like it here because nobody talks to me. You’re the first person to come here and talk to me.”
Washington Post – https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/02/07/officials-describe-cult-rituals-in-child-abuse-case/11f05df1-48e0-41f7-b46d-249c0bd2bc39/
If you were looking for where the Cult of Modern Satanism had its origins and where this ideology first began to take shape in Western culture, I would point you to the Ancient Cult of Bacchus from Rome whose adherents were known as the Bacchanalia in 186 BCE.
A Satanic cult that tried to take over the Roman empire by destroying it from within.
Here is the history of what happened to these Ancient Roman Satanists.
According to Roman historian and grammarian, Livy (Titus Livius), the Roman Senate took legal action in 186 BCE against the Cult of Bacchus (Bacchanalia) with the largest systematic persecution of a religious group ever seen in Europe. (Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus)
Livy said the troubles began when a woman named Paculla Annia became a priestess and altered the rites turning them into violent sex-orgies, including the rape of females and male adolescents (Ab urbe condita, 39.11.6-7, 39.13.14.).
He claimed that members of the cult were Romans of all classes with over 7000 people persecuted for sexual crimes and immorality in a massive military campaign lasting five years – the majority of them were executed (Ab urbe condita 39.17.4-39.18.9).
Livy said that the nocturnal version of the Bacchanalia involved wine-drinking to excess, drunkenness, and allegations of both heterosexual and homosexual license with young boys and the free mingling of the sexes and classes.
This was a form of unrestrained liberalism that had led to perverse human and sexual acts that could be compared to modern neoliberalism and Satanism. As we see today, there is a similar culture war happening where people are beginning to speak out against these immoralities and what appears to be the outright grooming of children into their Satanic cult with effeminate homosexual and trans ideologies.
The same thing happened over 2,000 years ago.
For example, in 186 BCE, the Roman Legal Magistrates declared;
“Yet it would be less serious if their wrongdoing had merely made them effeminate —that was in great measure their personal dishonour —and if they had kept their hands from crime and their thoughts from evil designs: never has there been so much evil in the state nor affecting so many people in so many ways.
Whatever villainy there has been in recent years due to lust, whatever to fraud, whatever to crime, I tell you, has arisen from this one cult. Not yet have they revealed all the crimes to which they have conspired.
Their impious compact still limits itself to private crimes, since as yet it does not have strength enough to crush the state. Daily the evil grows and creeps abroad. It is already too great to be purely a private matter:
Its objective is the control of the state.”
Today, we can clearly see how this Bacchanalian philosophy from over 2,000 years ago is connected to current events with the Cult of Satan and its followers known as the Satanists. They both have very similar ideologies of extreme liberalism, individualism, hedonism, and immorality and we are witnessing similar controversies arise in modern times with the accusations and news that certain members of the Western elite are part of a Satanic cult.
And yes, just like the Ancient Cult of Bachus, the Modern Satanists’ main objective is to control the state.
The persecution of the Bacchanalia would be akin to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and 1990s, but back then these ancient Satanists did not have TV, radio and internet so they could not control the media and news narratives so these cult members were not so lucky.
However, as I have written before, Holy War: Russia Declares War On Satanists, the country that calls themselves the Third Rome recently announced a modern military style campaign In response to a recent rise in Satanism across Ukraine and Western countries that will target Satanists.
Most of the Russian elite are on board and have agreed to cooperate in the “desatanization” of Ukraine via a special military operation (SVO). This military operation can be compared to the Bacchanalia Panic of 186 BCE when the Roman Senate outlawed and criminally persecuted the followers of the Cult of Bachus.
For example, Alexei Pavlov, Assistant Secretary of the Security Council Russia said in an interview that he believes that the Orthodox Church in Ukraine has been targeted by enemies who want to “reformat the minds” of Ukrainians and convert people from Christianity.
A type of mind control called the “Satanic State of Mind” that I keep emphasizing as the origins of immorality and evil in Western culture and is the premise of this book. You see, this is the same exact problem from allowing these Satanic cults to operate openly and unrestrained that had occurred in Ancient Rome.
This Bacchanalian (Satanic) mindset led its followers into what the Roman Commander of the First Julio-Claudian dynasty, Postimus calls “the absolute destruction of the moral personality, the dissolution of the rational individual into the Dionysian collective.”
What Postimus refers to as the dissolution of the rational individual into the Dionysian collective is exactly the same philosophy that I claim happens to people who become Satanists and end up in a destructive ideology that I call the “Satanic State of Mind.”
Postumius said in a speech over 2,000 years ago;
“Unrestrained lust (libido) is a rage (furor) that snatches man into a whirlpool (gurges) of desires. He then is no longer with himself (suum) but with the ones who conspire to commit every evil deed and every crime.
In other words, the Bacchanalia mean the absolute destruction of the moral personality, the dissolution of the rational individual into the Dionysian collective.
The consul goes so far as to say, “whatever wrongdoing (peccatum) there has been in these years, whether in the form of lust (libido), or of fraud (fraus), or of violent crime (scelus), all of it, you may be sure, has its origin in this one shrine. (Ab urbe condita 39.16.2.)”
Like Modern Satanism was imported into the U.S.A. and other Western countries by the Brittish Spy, Aleister Crowley, the Cult of Bachus was also a foreign religion that came to Rome from a different country.
Livy said that the Bacchus cult is an alien religion, imported from Greece via Etruria, which, first, “spread like an epidemic” thereby “infecting the people’s minds with error,” and, secondly, is not performed openly in public but “secretly and at night”.
He tells us about the history of the Bacchanalia “had started as a cult for women, and it was the rule that no man should be admitted. There had been three fixed days in a year on which initiations took place at daytime into the Bacchic mysteries, and it was the custom for the matrons to be chosen as priestesses in rotations” (Ab urbe condita 39.13.).
Livy quotes an account by Hispala who reports:
[Paculla Annia] had performed the ceremonies by night instead of by day, and in place of three days in a year she had appointed five days of initiation in each month. From the time when the rites were held promiscuously, with men and women mixed together, and when the license offered by darkness had been added, no sort of crime, no kind of immorality was left unattempted.
There were more obscenities practiced between men than between men and women. Anyone refusing to submit to outrage or being reluctant to commit crimes was slaughtered as a sacrificial victim. To regard nothing as forbidden was among these people the summit of religious achievement (Ab urbe condita 39.13.9-11).
Livy said a principle of the society is to hold every ordinance of god and nature in contempt. Men, as if seized by fits of madness, gave oracles; and the matrons, dressed as Bacchae, with disheveled hair and burning torches ran down to the Tiber River plunging their torches into the water. But since their torches contained sulphur and chalk, they were not extinguished.
Men who refused to take part in the orgies and crimes were said to be thrown into dark caverns, while the perpetrators declared that they had been carried off by the gods.
Livy said that the Roman Senate decreed that the priests of these rites, male and female, were to be arrested, not only in Rome but in all market-towns and centers of population. They prohibited by law that no one who had been initiated into the Bacchic rites or should attempt to assemble or meet for the purpose of holding these ceremonies or to perform any such religious rite. More especially, it was decreed that an inquiry should be held regarding those persons who had assembled or conspired for the furtherance of any immoral or criminal design (Ab urbe condita 39.14.7-8).
When the meeting was dismissed, according to Livy, there was great panic in the whole City, nor was this confined only to the walls or the boundaries of Rome; but gradually [p. 269] through all Italy, as letters were received from their friends concerning the decree of the senate, concerning the assembly and the edict of the consuls, the terror began to spread.
Many during the night after the day when the revelation was made in the meeting were caught trying to escape and brought back by the guards whom the triumviri had posted at the gates: the names of many were reported.
Livy wrote that men and women, committed suicide. In the conspiracy, it was said, more than seven thousand men and women were involved.
But the heads of the conspiracy, it was clear, were Marcus and Gaius Atinius of the Roman plebs, and the Faliscan Lucius Opicernius and the Campanian Minius Cerrinius: they were the source of all wickedness and wrongdoing, the story went, and they were the supreme priests and the founders of the cult.
It was seen to be that at the first opportunity they were arrested. They were brought before the consuls, confessed, and asked for no delay in standing trial.
Livy describes the immediately following persecutions, which were enacted as question extraordinaria on the basis of the decree as necessary emergency measures. Livy also reports that the measures caused great terror inside and outside of the city, numerous suicides, and a mass flight from Rome. According to Cicero, the measures even included military operations, which makes them appear almost crusade-like (De legibus 2.15.37).
It is my belief that the Cult of Bacchus that was once a small portion of the Roman Empire and was once almost eliminated has now grown today into a massive world-wide army of both complicit and incomplicit soldiers and civilians.
What Russian philosopher, Alexandr Dugin calls, “the Armies of Hell.”
These are the same people today fighting for so-called neoliberal (Libertine), atheistic, woke, and Satanic ideologies such as transgender children, LGBTQ rights, abortion, and the right to do whatever the hell they want to whomever they want regardless of the moral and ethical implications.
The reason is because like Ancient Rome had members of all classes in the Cult of Bacchus, today we have a similar and much sinister problem with the Satanists inserted into every branch of our government, military, religious institutions, and the media.
People who may seem just like you and I but who are secretly controlled by the “Satanic State of Mind,” whether they call themselves Satanists or they know it or not makes no difference.
That is what they are.
As I have said many times, you will know a Satanist (tare) by their fruits (works) or the lack thereof – not by a membership card.
“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.
But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.
So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’
He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’
But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” (Matthew 13:24-13:30)
When Jesus’ disciples were alone with him, they asked him to explain the parable.
Jesus said that the sower of the good seed represented himself and the Apostles; the field represented the world; the good seed, his righteous followers; and the tares, those who followed Satan.
Satan was the sower of the tares.
The harvest represented the end of the world, and the reapers represented the angels.
The Armies of Heavan.
SOURCES:
Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri Book XXXVIII, erklärt von M. Weissenborn
Livy. Books XXXVIII-XXXIX with an English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1936: published without copyright notice.
Admitted Satanic murderess, Miranda Barbour, then 19 years old made international headlines after she told a local reporter on Valentine’s Day that she was a serial killer.
In a jailhouse phone interview, she told the reporter that at 22 victims, “I stopped counting”
Miranda also known as the “Craigslist Killer,” said that she was ready to speak with the police about her other victims – “I can pinpoint on a map where you can find them.”
In another interview with reporter Francis Scarcella, she claimed that she belonged to a “satanic cult” in Alaska with her husband, Elytte Barbour since she was 13 years old.
In a Newsweek interview with Mathew Lysiak, Miranda said when she was 4, her “darkness” was created by her Uncle Rick, who sexually molested her.
Miranda was not even 3 years old when she and her sister who was 3 years older was molested by her uncle Richard Fernandez who had just moved five houses away from her family home with her aunt at the North Pole, Alaska.
The sexual abuse happened for over a year even after Miranda complained of her anus and vagina hurting on several occasions to her mother.
Eventually, Richard Fernandez was arrested and sentenced to 19 years in jail, but was released from prison early after serving only nine years and four months.
After his release, Fernandez was busted again for possession of child pornography after police investigators found hundreds of images on his computer, and sentenced him to 40-years in prison. He is scheduled to be released in 2035.
The details of the crime have been described by the trial judge as the most physically extreme case of abuse he had ever seen and are a matter of public record.
Soon thereafter, she would learn the ideologies of Satanism.
Miranda told Newsweek that she joined a satanic cult at the age of 12: “I kind of slid into it. But they weren’t just into Satan, there were into hating minorities too.”
She said that Satanism was a positive influence in her life and helped her harness that darkness inside of her—most of the time. “I worship a dark entity,” she explains, “but just because it is dark doesn’t mean that it is bad.”
Speaking to Pennsylvanian paper The Daily Item, Miranda’s mother, Elizabeth said that she started running away from home and fell into the clutches of a 25-year-old Satanist known only as Forrest.
Elizabeth said, ‘(Miranda) ran away from home when she was 12.
‘She got hooked up with a guy who was into satanic stuff, and when she came home one day, she told me that he owns her now.
‘I asked her what she was talking about, and she told me that this man owns her and she has to do whatever he says.
‘She said he branded her by carving a swastika on the back of her neck and his name on her thigh.
‘She told me she was out prostituting at 12-years-old and that this man was her ruler.’
And she has absolutely no regrets about killing Troy LaFerrara, or about the 22 other people she claims to have killed. “I felt no regret.
None,” she says. “I didn’t hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it.”
Claiming responsibility for the 22 additional deaths, Ms. Barbour told Sunbury’s The Daily Item that “I feel it is time to get all of this out. I don’t care if people believe me. I just want to get it out.”
She said to The Daily Item it was because she wanted to come clean and stop living a lie. She said she felt no remorse for her victims and said she killed only “bad people.”
“I feel it is time to get all of this out,” she said. “I don’t care if people believe me. I just want to get it out.”
Miranda said she spent the next three years in Alaska, continuing in the satanic cult, and claimed to have participated in several murders. To this date, police have yet to be able to verify if her statements of murdering 22 people are true.
Police in Pennsylvania told The Daily Item that they’re working with investigators from other states to probe possible connections to unsolved murders.
Alaska law enforcement sources said they couldn’t comment on whether they’d launched their own investigations into her time in Alaska.
What is true is that as a child, Miranda had one of the worst crimes committed against her when she was molested by a her sick uncle who was then released after only 9 years.
This will cause the victim to feel betrayal, powerlessness, and stigmatization that may have lasting impacts such as post traumatic stress, dissociation symptoms, mood disorders, depression, behavior problems, inappropriate sexualized behaviors, substance abuse, self harm and suicide.
Dr. Jeff Sugar, chief of the Child and Adolescent Trauma Psychiatry Program at the University of Southern California said;
“A 5-year-old can form a verbal representation of the events, the abuse. When younger, the child may sense something is wrong but is not able to describe it.”
He said that early sexual abuse can cause something known as developmental trauma disorder, or complex post-traumatic stress disorder, which results in complex PTSD can disrupt belief systems and create a clinging dependency on the abusive caregiver.
“Sometimes they will try to recreate scenarios that capture the essence of (their) trauma to experience it from a different perspective or to experience being in control,” Sugar said.
After the murders, in a jailhouse interview, Miranda would reveal what turned a little girl into a cold-blooded killer.
“People think I’m a monster, but I’ve done a lot of good.” She has said that her murders spared “hundreds” of young girls from abuse. “The justice system doesn’t work, so I did what I did.”
“I wasn’t always there (mentally),” she said, adding that she had begun to use drugs.
“I knew something was bad inside me and the satanic beliefs brought it out. I embraced it.”
You see – this statement by Miranda Barbour is the whole premise of this book.
She is a perfect example of someone who was abused as a child and her parents and the system failed in protecting and rehabilitating her.
She then discovered the perfect ideology for her rage known as Satanism. A philosophy that teaches adherents to take no shit and when someone trespasses against you – DESTROY THEM!
We can say that Miranda Barbour embraced the “Satanic State of Mind.”
And as a result, a man has been murdered without a trial and she now sits on death row for the rest of her life.
In the 1970s and 1980s, a phenomenon known as the “Satanic Panic” swept through America.
This was a time when many people believed that Satanists were trying to take over the world.
There were rumors of cults sacrificing children and drinking their blood. Many people became convinced that satanism was a real threat, and they were terrified of what might happen next and others thought it was lunacy fueled by religious zealots.
One thing is for sure, it’s a period of history that is often misunderstood.
It was a time when people believed that Satanists were conducting rituals and sacrificing children all across the country. This religious fear was stoked by serial killers such as the Son of Sam and Richard Ramirez who openly professed they were Satanists who sacrificed their victims to Satan.
This is where the true Satanic Panic originated and it spread from here like hell fire.
It was events like that of Ramirez flashing an upside down pentagram on his hand at his murder trials that helped fuel the fear of the American nation.
This is why when the words Satan and serial killer are used together, it strikes fear deep into the hearts of most good people and especially devout Christians who are taught to fear and fight Satan.
Parents and religious leaders were convinced that a satanic cult was targeting children, and they did everything they could to protect their kids. There were even allegations of Satanic cults infiltrating daycares and schools such as the McMartin preschool, which led to a number of high-profile criminal cases across the country.
Parents became terrified of what their children might be exposed to, and many began to homeschool their kids or take them out of public schools altogether.
This was also the time when Satanism, the devil and the occult became deeply embedded into the minds of Americans and pop culture. Movies like the Exorcist, role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons debuted in 1974, scandalizing pastors and giving parents nightmares of their children falling under demonic spells.
A 1988 documentary about Satanism and ritual abuse by Geraldo Rivera called Devil Worship: Exposing Satan’s Underground became the highest-rated televised documentary to air up to that point. The documentary further fueled the worries of concerned parents and Christians across the nation.
This hysteria led to some pretty bizarre incidents, and a fierce cultural debate in the media and even congressional legislation was put forth to make Satanism illegal.
All the while, Satanists like The Church of Satan capitalized upon “some of these allegations,” by focusing ONLY on criminal cases where the defendants were found not guilty.
By doing this, they could divert the attention of an uneducated media and concerened American citizens to the Satanic crimes that were proven to be false, while completely ignoring the true stories.
It didn’t help that some ridiculous conspiracy theories helped bolster the Satanic Panic cause.
For example, in 1978, a conspiracy theory claiming that McDonald’s was secretly funding satanic enterprises gained so much popularity that the company had to release an official statement denying it. The founder, Ray Kroc had to reassure frightened customers by telling them that he was “a God-fearing, God-loving man.”
In the memoir, Michelle Smith, Michelle Remembers, introduced readers everywhere to satanic ritual abuse in a story about being caged, tortured, and sexually molested by members of a satanic cult. The story and the author were eventually debunked.
It is cases like there that became the focus by Satanists on the “false allegations” and “uneducated religious zealots” became the perfect calling card for the “Satanic Panic” and their main defense strategy that they still employ to this very day.
By doing so, they could claim that these were ALL false allegations made by crazy Christians causing social hysteria fueled by fearful media depictions of godless teenagers listening to deviant music and wearing heavy metal t-shirts.
Over thousands of years, magicians have developed the ability to control attention, to distort perception, and to influence choice. This is done in advertising and marketing by corporations who use false images and deception to influence our decisions.
The fear of a Satanic Panic eventually faded from the American collective consciousness, thanks in part to a public relations campaign conducted by the Church of Satan.
I contend that one of the main reasons the hysteria died out was because the founder of the Church of Satan, Anton Lavey, and his High Priest, Peter Gilmore, stepped into action to combat the negative publicity with their own PR campaign.
According to Peter Gilmore, he spent many hours combatting their foes and educating the public about Satanic philosophy. Gilmore said:
“The Satanic Panic” (80s-90s) there was proposed congressional legislation to make Satanism illegal. During that time Anton Szandor LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, had encouraged me as a spokesperson for the organization and the means for combatting this proposal was to educate people about what Satanism really was, rather than the, then current, fantasy of Devil worship, child abuse and sacrifice promulgated by evangelical Christians and gullible journalists.
Lavey did not have the Church of Satan issue statements rallying its members to sally forth. Instead, he felt that fulfilling the purpose of the Church of Satan—educating others as to what it represents—would serve to dissolve the false definition of Satanism fueling that proposed law. And so it did and I spent many hours accurately representing the reality of our philosophy in all forms of the media to that end.”
But several prominent authors and scholars who are not part of some Satanic sect or get paid to be a Satanist like Peter Gilmore would disagree with the Church of Satans and other people who claim that the Satanic Panic was the purely result of false allegations, religious fantasy, and irrational beliefs.
Sure, there was definitely a lot of that going on but there were also a lot of true stories that were being swept to the side or ignored all together.
In the midst of the Satanic Panic, author and Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the University of Denver, Carl Raschke was asked by his publisher to research and write a book about Satanism. What Raschke discovered was that there was in fact credible evidence and a plethora of stories to support the narrative that Satanists were committing murders and other criminal acts.
Raschke’s book is really more about mind control and how during the 1960’s, various occultists like Anton Lavey tried to overturn mainstream religious and political beliefs. America’s youth and young adults were being manipulated by Satanists who were putting their message out through the media with art, books, music, movies, and drugs and free sex.
As Raschke eloquently points out, the 60’s was a time in our country when it was encouraged for both the father and the mother to work outside the home leaving a whole generation of kids at home alone.
This phenomenon created a new psychological term to describe their abandonment called latchkey kids – school age children of working parents who must spend part or most of the day unsupervised (as at home),
The kids of this generation had a vacuum to be filled that was once their parents, and Satanism would happily take their place.
Out of these abandoned kids, there were children who had been physically and sexually abused, rejected by parents and were never taught any moral values.
These kids would be on the fringes of society. They were angry and needed an outlet for their hate for the world and the violence they wanted to unleash upon it.
This is why Satanism and the neoliberal lifestyle of extreme freedoms, drugs, sex, music and media that came with it would be the perfect home for these wayward youth.
The kids thought that Satanism was going to lead to power, wealth, fame, and anything else that their little hearts desired. But once they got addicted to the lifestyle and vices of drugs and sex, they became under the mind control of their very Satanic doctrines they foolishly thought would be the answer to all their problems.
This can be seen time and time again by many people who take this path. A Satanic road that is littered with lost souls and ruined lives everywhere you look.
From drug addicted gurus like Aleister Crowley who died penniless and addicted to heroin to Ozzy Ozzborne’s open display of decades of hedonism, family turmoil and constant drug use and Church of Satan members like Marilyn Manson who in recent years has been accused of a long list of crimes.
As Raschke notes, there is no dabbling in the occult because depravity and bondage quickly develop.
Satan may promise much, but never delivers.
In 2021, I interviewed Carl Raschke and asked him about the Satanic Panic and his book. He believes to this day that there was a massive PR campaign to sanitize the bad press and he actually became a target of Satanic propagandists.
Raschke said:
“There was a whole PR campaign to try to sanitize what was happening and I was the target. A lot of these groups had the kind of intellectual authority. Satanism was not my thing. I knew a lot about it. I’d heard a lot about it on the ground.
The narrative, let’s call it, the PR campaign, was actually pushed by less than reputable academics who were just kind of in it to protect themselves and to protect their research clients.
I’m not saying there was necessarily a thing corrupt about it though. There have been rumors that it’s kind of like the tobacco industry.
How they tried to tell you in the early days that tobacco is not as harmful as they got their authorities together and they created this narrative,” Raschke emphasized.
He said, “That Satanism was a panic, based on the idea of a moral panic, that term was posed by a guy. I can’t remember his name, but it was called satanic panic.
It came out in the nineties and it was a sociological term that basically tried to look at the whole phenomenon as if it were just a bunch of spooked out people who didn’t really understand what was going on, who were panicking.
That’s totally false because the thing emerged kind of organically and slowly.
There must be this pure thing, purity you call Satanism, which is being slandered and abused and blah, blah, blah. And you know, so the whole thing was literally a shit show.
I got caught up in the middle of that and the book I didn’t expect that I was just trying to honestly write from the notes and the interviews and the stuff I read,” Raschke noted.
Similar to what Carl Rashke found, I also discovered the facts that people have been murdering people all across the U.S. for several decades that claimed to be either Satanists, demon possessed or did so under the orders of Satan or the Devil.
To a person outside the occult world of black magic and Satanism, they might ignorantly think that these stories are just crazy journalism and part of some type of Satanic Panic propaganda. But they could not be more wrong.
It is important to note that the people who commit serious crimes they claim their allegiance to Satanism are just a tiny fraction of the Satanic movement as a whole. But due to the serious nature of the crimes that some of these people commit, to say it is not a problem or factor is simply a lie.
I have found that both the Church of Satan and the Satanic Temple have made these public statements about the ordeal,
The Church of Satan has stated;
As Satanism is a recognized “New Religious Movement,” it’s important for an understanding of what is and what is not Satanism to be maintained. “The Satanic Panic” in the 1980s-90s is evidence of a willful distortion of this religion as the concept of a conspiracy of murderous “satanists” was promoted primarily by evangelical Christians and taken-up by the media worldwide.
Law enforcement debunked the claims of the evangelists but not before many people had become victims of false accusations of ritual child abuse, sacrifice, and kidnapping.
Some Christians—despite the five decades of a clearly defined belief system called Satanism expounded by a worldwide organization—still use this term to reference any acts or beliefs they consider to be “evil” or simply contrary to their own beliefs.
Ill-informed members of law enforcement agencies and journalists, often believers in some form of Christianity, also continue to misrepresent the religion of Satanism.
If the definition of Satanism is not kept clear, any unstable or insane person working from a Christian context could claim their actions were due to self-termed “satanic beliefs,” thus criminally implicating actual open adherents of Satanism to the public at large, people who are not generally familiar with the beliefs and tenets of religious Satanism.
The recent case of murderer Amanda Barbour, who along with her boyfriend murdered one person but claimed to have murdered many others as part of an interstate “satanic cult,” is another example.
The Church of Satan works publicly to maintain a clear understanding of the atheist, individualistic, and law-abiding nature of Satanism and regularly consults with law enforcement as well as journalistic researchers and academicians to this end.”
It appears that the Church of Satan is making a valid claim that these killers are just lunatics and even though they may be “affiliatd with some form of Satanism,” in no way is this some vast conspiracy of an organized Satanic cult. The reason I say that is valid is because I agree with them on this point.
What I do not agree with is the entire claim that these killers are in their words “any unstable or insane person working from a Christian context could claim their actions were due to self-termed satanic beliefs.”
While I agree with the truth that these people are unstable and or insane, the reason I don’t entirely agree is because there are many different sects of Satanism and also personal Satanic beliefs. People will kill innocent people and abuse babies in the name of Satan and or no God regardless of what anyone says or what press release is issued.
The Satanic Temple claims that the Satanic Panic was mainly about Satanic Ritual Child Abuse such as the McMartin Preschool Trials, which occurred a few years later during the late 1980s.
Here is their general statement on Satanic Panic;
“We then see an unconvincing attempt to justify this petty and undignified public temper tantrum with the claim that “it’s important for an understanding of what is and what is not Satanism to be maintained.
“The Satanic Panic” in the 1980s-90s is evidence of a willful distortion of this religion as the concept of a conspiracy of murderous ‘satanists’ was promoted primarily by evangelical Christians and taken-up by the media worldwide. Law enforcement debunked the claims of the evangelists but not before many people had become victims of false accusations of ritual child abuse, sacrifice, and kidnapping.”
Apparently, this “understanding” can only be gained by dogged insistence that only the website of the CoS defines Satanism. This is particularly infuriating as TST, unlike the CoS, has been actively fighting against the Satanic Panic which still exists, nor is it “promoted primarily by evangelical Christians.”
One need only look at our Grey Faction campaign to recognize that actively fighting back against anti-Satanist propagandists is one of the primary functions of TST.”
On the Satanic Temple’s website via their Grey Faction initiative, they state one of its main purposes is to “document, expose, and aggressively seek to bring to an end pseudoscientific mental health care practices that contribute to harmful conspiracist Satanic Panic delusions.”
I agree that pseudoscientific mental health care practices should be exposed and put an end to, but the facts are that this is just the small tip of the Satanic Panic iceberg. While there is definitely some validity to these claims by the Satanic Temple, it is only one of the reasons for the Satanic Panic.
In our present culture, religious Satanism exists primarily as a decentralized subculture. It does not appear to be an organized front on the surface but I contend that Satanists are united by their ideologies and thus united by an inherently “selfish and evil state of mind” that often (not always) leads to the practitioners unhappiness, destruction, and sometimes death.
What I’m simply claiming is what they are failing to address are the various crimes and murders that have been committed over the last five decades by people who claim to be aligned and or influenced by Satanism in some fashion.
With that said, let me state again that not all Satanists are evil, child abusers, and or criminals.
The facts are that 99% of the Satanists in the modern world are people just like you and me but who have chosen the Satanic lifestyle i.e.: individualistic, carnal, selfish, and materialistic life over the spiritual as their chief aim. You will find a hell of a lot of good people in this movement and the vast majority are certainly not all evil child abusers and or killers of innocent people for Satanic sport.
In fact, many of the people who I might call “good Satanists” would enjoy nothing more than killing the evil Satanists like child abusers and killers for sport. I have seen it happen in prison and it happens all the time behind bars.
The reality is that to the average person and even the hardened criminal, it is unthinkable how any one person could become so diabolical and evil that a good night for them is to go hunt for little children or women to abuse, rape, torture, and kill for sport.
Many people would say they are not human. Religionists may call them Demons. Like the Christian Scripture says, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”
Please keep in mind that when I use the words demons, Satan, and the devil when speaking about some of these brutal killers, these names are not something I dreamt of for a script or religious sensationalism.
No, these are the actual words used by many of the Satanists and murderers themselves after they are caught.
In no particular order, I would like to give you some real-world examples of cold-blooded killers who have said they worship Satan and or were Satanists.
It is important that you understand that the stories I present are just a small example of the number of cases that I could have reported on. This could be a book spanning several volumes.
But my goal is not to list every crime or murder committed by a Satanist. It is to prove a point that it does happen and that a Satanic State of Mind may not only lead someone to self destruction, it can also result in murder.
You will find that each killer who was involved in Satanism were in every single case young men and women who had terrible childhoods and were abused
They found that Satanism was the perfect ideology to not only accept their damaged and rebellious souls, it was the ideal philosophy to unleash their internalized rage against a society who had abandoned them.
