From: gclapp@javelin.sim.es.com (Glenn Clapp)
Subject: SLCM1192-5/5
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Corp.
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 23:52:11 GMT


==================
THE WARNKE PROBLEM

        In our book, Satanic Ritual Abuse and Mormonism, we wrote
the following "While we have been aware of the influence of the
occult for many years, we were always somewhat suspicious of some
of the tales of ex-Satanists. We have always tried to be very
cautious about accepting stories concerning conspiracies unless
strong evidence could be marshaled to support the accusations. We
have seen too many people make the mistake of leveling serious
accusations against individuals and organizations without
carefully considering all of the facts." (page 1) Unfortunately,
we have learned that there is a serious question with regard to
Mike Warnke's story regarding his involvement in Satanism. Warnke
is a noted Christian comedian who wrote the book, _The Satan
Seller_. Mr. Warnke claimed that he became a satanic high priest
and had 1,500 followers! Warnke, in fact, claimed to be working
for the Illuminati.

        Christian writers Jon Trott and Mike Hertenstein, who
have done extensive research concerning Mike Warnke's life, claim
that they were unable to verify his claims concerning Satanism.
They, in fact, feel they have evidence to disprove his published
statements. They note, for example, that he started attending San
Bernardino Valley College on September 13, 1965, and then make
this observation: "Mike writes in _The Satan Seller_ that it was
after he started college that he first was introduced to drugs,
sex, and finally Satanism. And he continues, it was only after
the Satanists threw him out of their coven that he joined the
navy. Warnke's military records say he entered the navy on June
2, 1966. Therefore, whatever happened in Mike's life regarding
Satanism had to have happened between September 13, 1965, and
June 2, 1966." (_Cornerstone_, vol. 21, no. 98, page 9)

        This, of course, gives Mike Warnke less than nine months
to become a Satanist and advance to his high position in
Satanism. Trott and Hertenstein quote the following from Warnke's
book, _Schemes of Satan_: "In my own case, being away from home
at college and not having any close friends there meant that
almost no one could have known what was happening to me except,
of course, the members of the Satanic Brotherhood, and they were
not telling!" (Ibid.) Trott and Hertenstein go on to reveal the
following:

                "In reality, Mike Warnke simply did what
        countless other freshmen have done: he found a new circle
        of friends. We found that new circle, and they were not
        part of the Satanic Brotherhood. None of these people are
        mentioned by Warnke in _The Satan Seller_ or anywhere
        else.

                "Greg Gilbert was one of Mike's first and closest
        friends at college.... Greg reflects upon the notoriety
        of his old college roommate. 'After Mike became a star, I
        assumed that since he had gotten this far with his Satan
        story, he'd always get away with it. I never knew what to
        do. Who could you tell?'...

                "Greg's college girlfriend, Dawn Andrews, gave us
        her assessment... 'I remember how upset I was when _The
        Satan Seller_ came out, because what Warnke said was a
        lie. He has a very fertile imagination.'

                "Dyana Cridelich was another of Mike Warnke's
        college friends introduced by Greg. 'After he got famous,
        I always wanted to write him a letter and say, Mike,
        remember me? The one you gave the silver cross to? When
        were you able to have this coven of fifteen hundred
        people? Don't you remember about the most exciting thing
        we used to do was play croquet in Greg's backyard?"
        (Ibid.)

        The same article points out that Mike Warnke became
engaged to a woman after he entered college and that she knew
nothing about his satanic activities:

                "It was there that Lois Eckenrod, a girl who was
        soon to be his fiancee, joins the story. 'Mike and I met
        in September or October, that first semester at Valley,'
        Lois said. 'It was only a couple of months before we got
        engaged. Hardly a day went by that we didn't see each
        other.'

                "His friends remember Mike Warnke as thin,
        with... short hair.... Yet Mike says in _The Satan
        Seller_ that when college started... His hair, he writes,
        was already collar length. Within a short time, he claims
        to have become a full-fledged hippie: 'I... bought some
        black pants and freaky shirts. My hair was longer than
        ever, and I bleached it blond...

                "'He looked like everybody else,' says Greg....

                "On his Mike Warnke Alive! album, Mike further
        claims: 'I'd had hepatitis four times from shooting up
        with dirty needles. I had scabs all over my face from
        shooting up crystal. I was a speed freak. I weighed 110
        pounds soaking wet. My skin had turned yellow. My hair
        was falling out. My teeth were rotting out of my head.
        I'd been pistol-whipped five or six times. My jaw had
        been broken. My nose had been almost ripped off. I had a
        bullet hole in my right leg. Two bullet holes in my left
        leg.'

                "Greg Gilbert and the others saw Mike on a daily
        basis, and say that it is totally impossible for Mike to
        have had hepatitis, facial scabs from injecting
        'crystal,' and wounds from being shot three times.
        'Without us knowing it? It's a lie,' Greg says.

                "Lois's reaction to Mike's tale? 'That's just
        make- believe,' she states. 'Mike never fell in with
        drugs... I was training to be a nurse, and I think I
        would have known if he was using drugs. I wouldn't have
        dated Mike if he was drugged.'.... Tim Smith... states he
        never saw Warnke with long hair or in the drug-induced
        emaciated state he claimed to be during that period....

                "By Christmas of 1965, Mike and Lois were seeing
        each other on a daily basis. 'It was pretty fast that we
        said we were going to get married,' says Lois. 'Within
        two or three months of school starting, he gave me a rose
        ring with a diamond in it. It cost $60. He had to make
        payments on it....'

                "In _The Satan Seller_, Warnke has gone through
        his drugs, sex, and promotion to high priest before
        Christmas of 1965.... Shirley Schrader says Mike had
        Christmas dinner in Crestline with the family. 'He didn't
        seem emaciated by drugs to me,' she says....

                "According to _The Satan Seller_, Mike Warnke's
        reign as a satanic high priest ends, apparently sometime
        in the spring of 1966, when Warnke crumples under the
        strain of too much responsibility and too many drugs. On
        a 'Focus on the Family' radio broadcast, he described his
        appearance at this time: I had white hair. It was about
        down to my belt... I had six-inch fingernails; I painted
        them black.'... On the Mike Warnke Alive! album he
        describes his hair length the night before boot camp: 'It
        hit me just below the pockets.' He continues: 'The night
        before I went to boot camp I went to this party.... I
        smoked a bunch of dope and ate a bunch of reds... the
        girl I was with decided the thing that would really be
        cute is if she braided my hair.... She... braided it all
        together, and hung a jingle bell on the end of each
        braid.'

                "Lois says she was the girl who gave Mike his
        going-away party. When she heard this story for the first
        time in 1979, she was furious. 'I couldn't believe it
        when I heard that!' she says. 'I'm the one who gave him
        the going-away party! We never touched drugs. He never
        had long hair--his hair was short, short, short!'

                "Greg and Dawn... offered Lois the use of their
        apartment for the party. (Ibid, pages 9-12)

        On page 8, Cornerstone has a photograph of Mike Warnke
reportedly taken April 30, 1966. Instead of showing that he had
white hair reaching down to his belt, it supports his fiancee's
claim that his hair "was short, short, short!"

        The reader may wonder what effect the charges against
Warnke will have on our views regarding Satanic ritual abuse.
Actually, we have never cited Mike Warnke as an authority on this
subject. Although we had no idea of the depths of the problem, we
had heard there might be questions regarding his claims about
Satanic involvement. Consequently, we did not consult his books
in preparing our material.

        Actually, Mike Warnke's works present a problem with
regard to the claim that human sacrifice takes place in Satanic
rituals. When he was interviewed on The Oprah Winfrey Show,
Warnke claimed he was never involved in such sacrifices:

                WINFREY: Did you witness killings?
                Mr. WARNKE: No, I never did. I never witnessed a
        human sacrifice... you just heard rumors of it even within
        the occult . . (The Oprah Winfrey Show, Sept. 30, 1986,
        Transcript #8007, pp. 8-9)

        While Mike Warnke claimed he had 1,500 followers in the
satanic cult, he stated that he had no first-hand information
about human sacrifice. For this reason the book, _The Satanism
Scare_, page 130, uses Warnke as a witness against those who hold
to the idea of satanic ritual abuse. If Mike Warnke was really
involved in an important position in Satanism, his statement that
he had no personal knowledge of human sacrifices might throw some
doubt on the stories told by the survivors of satanic ritual
abuse. Unless, however, Warnke can in some way overthrow the
strong case that _Cornerstone_ has built against him, his
testimony concerning Satanism is of no value to either side of
the controversy. Those who would like to know more about the
Warnke problem can obtain a copy of _Cornerstone_, vol. 21, no.
98, for $2.00 from _Cornerstone_, 939 W. Wilson Ave., Chicago,
Il. 00640.

        The reader will notice that on the front page of this
newsletter we have a special price on our book, _Satanic Ritual
Abuse and Mormonism_, if it is ordered before December 31, 1992.

==================
"WE HAVE NO KING
   BUT CAESAR"

        In the Bible, we are told that when Pilate brought Jesus
before his enemies, "they cried out, 'Away with Him, away with
Him! Crucify Him!' Pilate said to them, 'Shall I crucify your
King?' The chief priests answered, 'We have no king but Caesar!'
So he delivered Him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus
and led him away." (New King James Version, John 19:15-16)

        Like the chief priests who lived almost 2,000 years ago,
we are all confronted with the question of what we are going to
do with Jesus. Are we going to receive him as the king of our
lives or crucify him in our hearts? Jesus himself said: "He who
is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me
scatters." (Matthew 12:30) God has given each of us a free will
so that we can make our own decision. We can either fall down
before him and cry out, "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28), or we
can be like those mentioned in a parable who said, "We will not
have this man to reign over us." (Luke 19:1)

        The Bible says there are eternal consequences involved in
this decision. Speaking to those who questioned his divinity,
Jesus said: "'He who believes in the Son has everlasting life;
and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the
wrath of God abides on him.' " (John 3:36)

        In our natural condition we are not fit subjects for the
kingdom of God. In Isaiah 59:1-2 we read:

                "Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that
        it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear.
                "But your iniquities have separated you from your
        God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that
        He will not hear."

        In his book, _Plain Christianity_, page 75, J. B.
Phillips speaks of the gulf that separates us from God: "For the
gulf between us and God is not merely an intellectual one--it is
not that God is infinitely wise and we, by comparison blundering
fools, though that is true--but the real gulf lies in the moral
realm. You and I, through our own sins and failures, as well as
by the infection of the sins of other people, are separated from
God by a moral gulf."

        In Romans 3:23 we find that "all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God." Because of our sinful condition we do
not know the personal God who wishes to have fellowship with us.
Fortunately, however, God has prepared a way for our salvation
through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross:

                "And you He made - alive, who were dead in
        trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according
        to the course of this world, according to the prince of
        the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the
        sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once
        conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling
        the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by
        nature children of wrath, just as the others.

                "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His
        great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead
        in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by
        grace you have been saved), and raised us up together,
        and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ
        Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the
        exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us
        in Christ Jesus.

                "For by grace you have been saved through faith,
        and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of
        works, lest anyone should boast.

                "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ
        Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that
        we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2: 1-10)

        Although we usually think of the emperors of Rome when we
hear the word "Caesar," anything which controls our lives and
keeps us from coming to the Lord could be considered to be as
tyrannical to our soul as Caesar was to the people who lived in
the Holy Land during the time of Jesus. When the Pharisees were
trying to trick Jesus, they brought him a coin. Jesus looked at
it and said, "'Whose image and inscription is this?' They said to
Him, 'Caesar's.' And He said to them, 'Render therefore to Caesar
the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are
God's.' " (Matthew 22: 20-21)

        If we become enslaved to the desire for money, for
instance, we find ourselves worshipping in the court of Caesar.
We find these words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 6:19-21:

                "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth,
        where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in
        and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in
        heaven,- where neither moth nor rust destroys and where
        thieves do not break through and steal.
                "For where your treasure is, there your heart
        will be also."

        The way of Caesar is the popular way. It is disastrous
when we put our desires for fame, power or riches above our
relationship with the Lord. In John 5:44, Jesus warned: "How can
you believe, who receive honor from one another and do not seek
the honor that comes from the only God?" While it is certainly
worth it, there is a price we have to pay if we desire to follow
Jesus:

                "Then Jesus said to His Disciples, 'If anyone
        desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take
        up his cross, and follow Me.
                "'For whoever desires to save his life will lose
        it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
                "'For what is a man profited if he gains the
        whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man
        give in exchange for his soul?"

        We accepted the Lord into our lives over thirty years ago
and have never been sorry for that decision. While life on this
earth is not always easy, we have great joy and peace and have
received many answers to prayer. Moreover, we look forward to the
time when we will have inexpressible joy in the kingdom of
heaven.

        Instead of saying, "We have no king but Caesar," we would
urge all our readers to turn their lives over to God so that they
can say:  "We Have No King But Jesus".

-- 
=============================================================================
= Glenn Clapp                          |  gclapp@thunder.sim.es.com         =
= Evans and Sutherland Computer Corp.  |  My opinions are my own, but then  =
= Salt Lake City, Utah  (801) 582-5847 |  that's my opinion.                =
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