Date: 01-19-94  01:57
From: Chuck Ohlemann
  To: All
Subj: Witchcraft/Deviltry

From _The Mammoth Book of the Supernatural_, by Colin Wilson,
pp.323-326:

In Britain, is has also become clear that the modern witchcraft
cult has its negative side, as cases involving 'black magic' and
ritual child abuse have made national headlines.  Just before
midnight on July 10, 1971, two police officers on the island of
Jersey, in the English Channel, set off in pursuit of a car that
had shot through a red light at high speed.  After a chase they
caught up with the driver when he abandoned his car in the middle
of a field.  More police arrived and helped subdue the furiously
struggling man.  As they bundled him into a police car, one of
them noticed something strange about his clothes.  Two rows of
sharp nails protruded from the shoulders of his jacket.  He had
another row of nails on his lapels, and wore bands studded with
nails on his wrist.  At the police station the man was searched.
In his pockets police found a wig, a rubber face mask, and a
length of pajama cord.  It seemed that they had finally caught
the 'Jersey rapist' --- a man who had been terrorising the island
for more than a decade.
     The attacks had begun in 1957 when three women had been
assaulted by a man with a knife.  In April 1958, a man threw a
rope around the neck of a girl, dragged her into a field, and
raped her.  In October 1958, a girl was dragged from a cottage
and raped.  For over a year attacks ceased.  Then in January
1960, they took a more alarming turn.  A 10-year-old girl woke up
to find a man in her bedroom.  He warned her that if she cried
out he would shoot both her parents.  The man was wearing a
rubber mask.  He sexually assaulted the girl in her own bed and
left by the window, driving off in her father's car.  One month
later the rapist assaulted a 12-year-old boy.  For the next
eleven years repeated attacks made Jersey an island of terror.
In many cases the masked rapist carried a child out into the
garden, committed the assault, and took his victim back to the
bedroom.
     When the police in 1971 captured the man with a mask and a
pajama cord in his pocket, they had little doubt that he was the
rapist.  His name was Edward John Louis Paisnel, and he was in
his early 50s.
     Questioned about the peculiar attire he was wearing when he
was found, Paisnel told the police that he was on his way to some
sort of 'orgy.'  He implied that this gathering was connected
with black magic, and explained that all the participants were
unknown to one another, because they wore masks.
     When the police visited Paisnel's home, they discovered that
he slept apart from his wife in his own room.  In this room they
found an alcove containing what appeared to be a small altar.  On
the altar stood a china toad and a small chalice.  Suspended
above these objects was a dagger on a length of cord.
     In the same room the police found a cupboard that swung away
from the wall on hinges. Behind it was a small room containing a
blue track suit and a fawn raincoat with nail-studded lapels.
Earlier descriptions of the Jersey rapist had mentioned a blue
track suit and fawn raincoat.
     Nevertheless, Paisnel continued to protest his innocence.
He insisted that he was a member of a black magic group and had
no connection with the rapes.  Then came the break.  The car
Paisnel had been driving before his arrest proved to have been
stolen.  In the glove compartment the police discovered a
crucifix made of palm fronds --- apparently the property of the
car's owner.  The detective in charge of the case threw it on the
table in front of Paisnel and asked: 'Is this yours?'
     Paisnel's face went red.  His eyes bulged.  Then he began to
laugh.  'No, it's not mine.'  Then after a pause: 'My master
would laugh very long and very loud at this.'
     The detective had no need to ask him the name of his
'master'.  In Paisnel's room the police had found various books
on witchcraft and black magic.  Paisnel was speaking of the
Devil.
     The police made one more interesting find.  Among Paisnel's
books was a biography of the 15th-century child-murderer, Gilles
de Rais --- the man on whom the story of Bluebeard was based.
Gilles de Rais had been one of the richest noblemen in Europe,
and had fought bravely at the side of Joan of Arc against the
English.  His extravagance forced him to mortgage many of his
estates, and finally he began to practise black magic, hoping
that with the aid of the Devil he could discover the secret of
turning lead into gold.  Some of these black magic rituals
require the 'blood of innocent virgins', and this may explain how
Gilles came to acquire his taste for killing children.  When
Gilles was arrested --- for assaulting a priest in the course of
a quarrel --- his mansion was searched, and the dismembered
remains of more than fifty children were found in a locked tower.
Gilles admitted that he had murdered the children after
committing sadistic attacks on them.  He was burned at the stake
in October 1440.
     It gradually became clear to the police that Paisnel was
obsessed by Gilles de Rais.  It even seems likely that he
believed himself to be a reincarnation of Gilles.  No other
members of the 'black magic group' were ever discovered.
Presumably they existed only in Paisnel's imagination.  Charged
with seven sexual assaults, Paisnel was found guilty and
sentenced to thirty years' imprisonment.
     It seems certain that Paisnel was no armchair student of the
occult.  He practised black magic, and he believed that he had
sold his soul to the Devil.  He worshipped his 'master' before an
altar, and he probably offered up prayers before he set off in
search of victims.
     The logical view of all this is that he was simply a 'sex
maniac' who indulged in devil-worship as a kind of imaginative
exercise that enabled him to ignore his conscience.  (A 'devotee'
always has that advantage over an unbeliever.)  But this chapter
should at least have raised some doubts about the logical view.
The truth is that our scientific rationalism has blinded us to
the truth behind witchcraft.  And in order to grasp that truth,
we have to begin by recognising that _all_ primitive people take
the reality of the 'spirit world' for granted.  We also have to
recognise that circumstantial reports of ghosts can be counted in
their thousands, that they date back as far as recorded history,
and that to try to dismiss all this as superstition is mere
silliness.  We may reject the Christian notion of the Devil as an
embodiment of evil (because surely evil is merely another name
for stupidity?), just as we reject the Manichaean notion that
matter itself is evil, while still recognising that the evidence
for the existence of 'spirits' is very powerful indeed.  And the
history of spiritualism, like the history of witchcraft,
demonstrates that it is not difficult for human beings to
establish contact with 'spirits', and that some do so easily and
naturally.
     So it would probably be a mistake to dismiss Paisnel's
devil-worship as sheer self-delusion.  The more likely truth is
that he was a man whose fantasies had opened him to certain dark
forces, and who had become a willing tool of those forces in
exchange for the satisfaction of sexual cravings --- in short,
that he had done what a mediaeval theologian would call 'sold his
soul to the Devil'.
     It is also interesting to note that his charmed life of
immunity came to an end when he stole a car containing a
Christian crucifix...
-!-
 þ SLMR 2.1a þ I have seen the truth, and it makes no sense.