Ghost Girl (36 page)

The only other alternative, of course, is to assume that the events Jadie told me about were true, that she was not a psychotic child in a sane world, but the other way around. In this explanation of her behavior, one realizes that her world would have to have taken on horror-film madness, and she was thus reacting with understandable terror to a situation she had no control over.

Taking Jadie’s stories fully at face value brings us indisputably to ritual child abuse, meaning that she and her sisters and most probably other children were being abused in a predetermined ceremonial fashion by an organized group. Given the nature of many of the things she told us, the obvious conclusion is that it was related to practices of the occult, or more specifically, satanism.

Satanism is not the nonbelief in God, but rather the antithesis of standard Christianity, and the majority of satanic practices revolve around defamation of Christian practices. In reversing the credo of love toward others, it becomes a selfish cult, centered on what individuals can get for themselves. This emphasis on personal power is what gives satanism much of its appeal, particularly to weak and unsuccessful personalities. Its further appeal comes from its creative side. There are no rules and no restrictions governing the practice of satanism. One of black magic’s most flamboyant exponents, Alistair Crowley, had great influence on the development of modern satanism, and his “‘do what thou wilt’ shall be the whole of the law” has provided the justification for fulfilling many abnormal sexual or violent urges.

Certainly, there was a strong satanic flavor to much of what Jadie referred to. The Black Mass is symbolized by an encircled cross, although the drawings of it I’ve seen in books do differ slightly from Jadie’s. Jadie’s was simply a quartered circle. The traditional Black Mass symbol is a cross with bars at each end, like two crossed capital I’s, which then have a circle around them. However, Jadie did also make several other strange symbols, although less frequently than the circled cross. One of them, an inverted T with a small circle just above the crossbar, is remarkably similar to a satanic curse mark. The others we never found interpretations for.

The Black Mass itself is a perverted form of the Catholic Mass. Apparently, there is vast variation in the practice of this ritual, but the main components appear to include an altar and numerous altar artifacts, which usually include among them candles, inverted crosses, incense, daggers, bones, types of jewelry, bells, gongs, chalices, and bowls containing herbs or salts. Most of these items are black, white, or made of silver. The participants are generally cloaked in black, white, or red and/or wear face and body paint. In the Catholic Mass, according to dogma, the communion elements of bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. The Black Mass is a travesty of the Catholic Mass, which uses bodily products, usually urine or semen and feces in place of bread and wine, to represent the carnal spirit of Satan. In further satisfying the carnal nature of this deity, sexual activity is often a major part of the religious ceremony. Pain is also an important factor and masochism is common. And as a further perversion of the Christian practices with their emphasis on life, death plays a significant role in satanic ceremonies. The presence of a coffin is common, with members lying in it or engaging in sexual activities in it.

Many satanists see themselves as simply practicing a chosen religion and no more, a right everyone is guaranteed under the American Constitution. They eschew the darker images of animal mutilations, bloodletting, and human sacrifice, and say that most of what is reported about them in the press is the work of practical jokers, horror-fiction writers, and propagandists from the fundamental religious groups. Others, among them many members of the police departments in major American cities, such as Chicago, San Francisco, and St. Louis, disagree. Animal sacrifice as a regular part of satanic rituals is well reported, as is blood drinking. Ritualized child abuse and human sacrifice still linger in the shadowy netherworld between fact and fiction, as police investigators have virtually never been able to turn up sufficient evidence that the rumored homicides occurred. On the other hand, a considerable number of children over the past ten years have reported startlingly similar experiences. Among these are being given drugs, either legal ones, such as muscle relaxants, or illegal ones, by means of drinks or injections; participating in chanting to call up the devil or demons and to put themselves into an altered state of consciousness; being urinated upon or having excrement wiped over them; being made to eat insects or being told that the insects were messengers of Satan and would report back everything the child did when not with the group; engaging in a wide variety of perverted sexual acts; being placed in coffins and having the lid shut; being tortured by snakes; and being tied to or suspended from upside-down crosses. Several of the children claim to have witnessed other children being sacrificed, in all instances by stabbing through the heart, slitting the throat, or being tied to an upside-down cross and set alight. Reported instances of animal sacrifice have included members of the group physically pulling the animal apart. These reports are not only quite consistent among even very young children, but they are widespread, occurring in vastly separated parts of the United States, as well as Canada, Great Britain, and continental Europe. Because much of what is reported is of a criminal nature, it has been the police departments who have accrued the largest number of these cases. However, the medical community, particularly from the children’s hospitals, such as Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis, have also contributed their knowledge to the understanding of these reports, as have such groups as the National Child Assault Prevention Project. Indeed, both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Department of Justice have received detailed summaries of these findings during the course of the 1980s, Consequently, despite the elusive nature of “concrete evidence,” a large body of people have chosen to believe these children.

In spite of this official involvement, it still takes an unusually open mind to encounter such information and not dismiss it immediately. Even to me, now, much of what Jadie said and of what the children above reported seems too farfetched, like a nasty mix of Stephen King and
National Enquirer
. This made this particular explanation of Jadie’s stories the most difficult for all of us to deal with. I, myself, knew nothing of the darker side of occultism when all this began, other than the usual lurid media accounts of the Manson Family and of a particularly nasty murder which had taken place near my hometown in the seventies. My firsthand experience was limited to the Ouija board and tarot cards as part of a fairly standard rites of passage through adolescence. As a consequence, it was pure coincidence that we made the first connection between Jadie’s behavior and satanism, because if Hugh hadn’t been waiting near that occult bookshop during his lunch hours, I doubt I would have ever related the encircled cross to satanism. In fact, if I’m honest, I don’t think I would necessarily have made the connection when Jadie started talking about the cat and the blood. Part of this was due to innocence. I simply didn’t
know
and it is hard to see things one is ignorant of. Part of this was due to a certain amount of blindness. I was accustomed to seeing all disturbed behavior in psychological or psychiatric terms, and it was thus easy not to see other alternatives. And part was undoubtedly resistance. I didn’t
want
to see it. Like UFO’s, abominable snowmen, and the Loch Ness monster, the lighter sides of occultism are a part of modern folklore, real in the way that they speak consistently to a secret side in every one of us. They are the trolls and fairies of urban society. However, it takes a brave soul to admit to believing in such things. Even when matters became fairly advanced between Jadie and me, I was reluctant in the extreme to acknowledge something so far outside the ordinary could account for her experiences. I was fairly young, not long established in my career, and terribly vulnerable to the pressures of “being professional.” Consequently, I found it difficult to jeopardize my status by espousing ideas usually reserved for the lunatic fringe.

None of this was helped by the fact that at the time it was virtually impossible to find any concrete information on occultism in acceptable, mainstream sources. Brenda and her bookstore were my only outlets during the course of my time with Jadie, and I found myself wholly suspect in seeking out information in such a location. As the years have gone by, I have acquired considerably more knowledge from considerably more respectable sources, but even today the basic knowledge has to come from the fringe.

With added knowledge, I must admit that, incredible as it all sounds, there is no way to deny the similarities of some of Jadie’s stories to those of other reported cases of occult abuse. Jadie often talked about Miss Ellie and the others “having their faces on” or wearing “ghost clothes,” which may have referred to face paint or masks and robes. It may also account for her not recognizing any members of the group. Perhaps the omnipresent soft drinks that she reported Miss Ellie always administered at the beginning of these sessions contained drugs, which may have further enhanced her inability to recall precise details. Her fear of spiders may have been a psychological scare tactic to keep her from revealing what was going on. Perhaps “the stick” Jadie referred to her sisters and herself “going upside down on” was an inverted cross. And her talk of eating feces, the sacrifice of Jenny, and, of course, the voodoo doll are all in close concurrence with very well documented Satanic practices. Perhaps most convincing of all for this theory, however, is that much of her distress and the reported abuse coordinated quite closely with important dates on the pagan calendar, with, most notably, Jenny’s death occurring near April 30th, or Beltane, the second most important sabbat, or celebration date, and Tashee’s reported murder and Sapphire’s first molestation occurring near or on Halloween, the most important sabbat.

This brings us, of course, to the question of Tashee. Looking at Jadie’s stories in this light, this means, of course, Tashee would have been a real child, and Jadie may have witnessed her murder as part of a ritual sacrifice. In fact, much of Jadie’s account fits within the framework of occult ritual. Six, Tashee’s age, was recognized as being important within the group and as giving power. Six is considered an important number within witchcraft and other magic-based groups, as it is a multiple of three and therefore more highly endowed with magical power. It is also highly regarded among satanists as part of the number 666 or the mark of the beast, generally taken to mean Satan. Jadie also reported Tashee’s throat to have been slit with a crescent-shaped, elaborately carved dagger, which implies a weapon of ceremonial design. And, of course, there was the blood. Moreover, Jadie made frequent reference to “the power” the group would bring on themselves by sacrificing a six-year-old child.

The police in Pecking and Falls River took Jadie’s allegations about Tashee’s death seriously and did a very thorough job of searching the area in and around the Ekdahls’ home and also in a wooded area not far from Pecking. However, nothing was found. They also tried to establish Tashee’s possible identity, although no child of Tashee’s age or description had been reported missing from the Pecking or Falls River area. As the investigation continued, they cast their nets wider to include the city, and, as the months passed, eventually the entire United States. They sifted through information on thousands of missing children, but Tashee was never identified. This does not, however, necessarily disprove her existence. A lot of corpses aren’t found for many reasons and that may be sufficient answer. As to precisely who Tashee might have been, if she was a real child, that’s harder to answer. Looking at it from the satanic perspective, perhaps she was the product of a “brood mare,” young women in the group who have been made pregnant solely to provide a child for sacrifice and whose resulting baby is born at home and the birth not registered. If that assaults common sense too severely, perhaps it would be easier to find her among the thousands of faceless missing children, abducted maybe years earlier, perhaps even by a family member, and the police simply failed to identify her.

Like the psychological explanation for Jadie’s stories, the occult explanation is fairly complete and, if one can cope with the incredibility factor, it makes acceptable sense of the information. Yet, like the former theory, I still find myself with unanswered questions. Once again, I find the issue of cameras and video recorders not satisfactorily explained. This is a fairly mundane matter in comparison to some of the others, but it figured with great frequency in Jadie’s accounts. In no literature have I found reference to photography or video recording as an integral part of occult activity. Indeed, the stress on secrecy inherent in such counterculture behavior seems to rule out such a permanent and easily interpreted kind of record. Another hole in the satanic theory was the simple fact that Jadie never once, neither with me nor with the police, mentioned Satan, the devil, the master, or any of the other common references to the deity. It is possible, of course, particularly in light of the fact that the group appears to have been led by a woman, that this group was not purely satanic but a type of black magic coven, but even here Jadie did not attach significance to such things as pentagrams and other commonly used symbols of witchcraft.

This leaves us with only one other possible explanation for Jadie’s accounts and that is that someone was using the girls for pedophilic purposes, most likely to make pornographic films, and the occult activities were used either as a pretext to frighten the children and keep them in line, or else as a part of the content of the films themselves. Or perhaps both.