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Fake Conversions
12 years ago
General
This essay comes from 
furshinku. It was suggested that it be uploaded in parts, but I really think the whole thing is too important to take in bit by bit. Things may be added or edited as time comes.
Edit: I meant to add this before posting- PLEASE SHARE your experiences with or knowledge of false converts! A list of known fakers will be a tremendous help to those of us who come across a friend who is being fished into religion by these story-tellers. Falling for religion by someone's honest belief is one thing, but being lead to it by blatant lies is another thing entirely. That is one thing I know true believers and atheists can both agree on.
How to recognize fake religious conversions
Introduction
Conversion stories are a popular staple amongst many religious and non-religious people, explaining how and why a person changed their worldview and beliefs. The most famous conversion stories are probably those of the Apostle Paul and Saint Augustine of Hippo‘s book Confessions. They helped establish attributes that would become popular in conversion stories, a sinful life before converting, a turning point of some kind, and then fulfillment in their newfound faith. Unfortunately, not every tale of a sinner finding religion is truthful. Amongst many real stories are stories that are made up by charlatans and attention-seekers to take advantage of people willing to believe them. This is meant to counter these fakers and show what kind of red flags are common in fake conversion stories.
Why is this important? Because fake conversion stories can do serious damage. Sadly, some hoaxsters manage to become very popular through telling their false stories, garnering media attention and make lots of money through books and public speaking appearances. The worst fakers use their conversion stories to spread hatred and paranoia of other belief systems. The Satanic Panic of the 1980s, fueled by fake conversion stories of supposed ex-Satanists and pseudo-scientific forms of recovering repressed memories of abuse are a prime example of this. They are not to be thought of as harmless
I was inspired to write this mainly by reading about the fake conversions of alleged ex-Satanists, so I will be using them as examples throughout, although I’ll throw in other types of fake conversions that I’ve seen online as well. This article doesn’t mean to say that every story of a Satanist or witch converting to Christianity is false, but if you hear a conversion story that says ridiculous things that are less than honest, you should probably take the story with a grain of salt. Although I’ll be focusing on religious conversions, some of these guidelines can be applied to any kind of personal story that seems fishy.
The story is rife with contradictions, or contradictions arise between retellings of the same story
This isn‘t a completely sure fire sign that a conversion story may be fake. After all, it‘s possible people may misremember things or misspeak. But if very important details are self contradictory, then the story should probably be treated with skepticism. One questionable conversion story was that of Doreen Irvine and her 1973 book From Witchcraft to Christ, detailing her life as a witch and conversion to Christianity. In one part of her book she says she was invited to a meeting of witches after she overheard two members talking about it, but later on she’s taught a Satanic rule (she conflates witches with Satanism throughout her book) to “never reveal the whereabouts of a Satanic temple or what goes on in it to an outsider.” There’s also the rule “Never enter a Christian church,” but then she describes herself and her fellow witches entering churches to steal Bibles and burn them. A fuller analysis of From Witchcraft to Christ can be read here. http://www.saff.ukhq.co.uk/dirvine.htm
It also helps to compare multiple retellings of a conversion story, to ensure that parts aren’t being changed or exaggerated over time. This is how the Christian magazine Cornerstone exposed Lauren Stratford (real name Laurel Wilson), an alleged Satanist convert to Christianity, as a fake. Stratford wrote a book entitled Satan’s Underground in 1988 which chronicled her years of abuse as a child and being forced into Satanism by a pornography ringer named Victor when she was 19. Cornerstone tracked down an earlier testimony Stratford gave in 1985 after she became involved with a Satanic Ritual Abuse case in her town of Bakersfield which was completely different from what she described in Satan‘s Underground. By interviewing her friends and family, they learned Stratford’s real name and that she had been Christian all along. Their exposé of Stratford can be read here. http://www.answers.org/satan/satansideshow.html Also, sometimes contradictions between retellings may arise if an earlier version of a story were shown to have false details and in latter versions the narrator quietly “corrects” themselves by omitting them. Comparing multiple versions of the same conversion story should make ret-conning easily apparent though.
Unlikely dates for events or inconsistent timelines
If a conversion story gives dates for certain events, it might be a good idea to check whether the dates add up. Sometimes you might discover problems such as the author lying about their age and being too young or too old to do certain things such as attend college or join the military during the times they say they did. Evangelist Tony Anthony wrote an auto-biography detailing his conversion entitled Taming the Tiger and part of it recalled how in the 80s he got a job as a body guard. The director of Anthony‘s own ministry, Mike Hancock, was unsure of the book’s veracity and began an investigation into it. He found that Anthony’s birth certificate said he was born in 1971, meaning that he would have only been a teenager during his bodyguard years. He also found that Anthony‘s account of his grandfather taking him to China for Kung Fu training when he was four was implausible because his grandfather died seven years before his birth. http://crosswire.org.uk/2013/07/01/.....ography-lies/#
The conversion story plagiarizes from other sources
Although search engines and plagiarism checking programs have made it more difficult to get away with plagiarism, some people still do it anyway and hope their intended audience won‘t notice. I’ve actually had an experience with this myself a few years ago. I saw a video by You Tube fundamentalist VenomfangX in which he claimed the Bible had scientific foreknowledge, but when I looked up one of the verses he cited, I found that he was copying a Ray Comfort website word for word (a typo from Comfort‘s site which VFX accidentally kept intact in his quotation is what gave him away). Plagiarism will reveal that an author may not really have experiences they say they have, or are just plain lazy at writing. This was another red flag that showed that Tony Anthony’s book was suspect. When Hancock and his investigators researched Anthony’s martial arts background, they found that his descriptions of Kung Fu techniques were merely copied from martial arts websites.
Accuses occult groups of committing heinous crimes with no evidence
In many ex-Satanist and ex-witch conversion stories, the narrator might say that they or the groups they were part of would perform animal or human sacrifices, or commit other outrageous criminal activities such as abusing drugs or owning sex slaves. Stories like these became very popular during the Satanic Panic of the 80s, in which many Christian evangelists who claimed to be former Satanists such as Christian comedian Mike Warnke and many others claimed that there were underground networks of occultists committing ritual murders and other lurid activities. But the people telling these stories rarely described themselves going to the police to report these illegal activities. Neither did they cite police reports or news stories talking about animals or people mysteriously disappearing due to being taken away by occultists to be sacrificed. (they will probably claim that there are conspiracies to cover up these activities, which I will deal with later) Usually the “evidence” for Satanic Ritual Abuse rested on victims going through unapproved forms of repressed memory therapy, which would inadvertently implant false memories of abuse. As psychologists and other investigators started to realize that claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse were unsupported by evidence, people such as Warnke have ended up being discredited; the Christian magazine Cornerstone did an exposé on him a few years after they exposed Lauren Stratford http://www.answers.org/satan/warnke1.html and by interviewing Warnke’s friends and family, they found that he was never a Satanist to begin with, and much of his reported history was fabricated. Despite many of these people being exposed as frauds, the conversion stories of people such as Irvine, Stratford, and Warnke are still used by some to raise irrational fear of Satanists and practitioners of Wicca. (see the blog The Wild Hunt http://wildhunt.org/ for numerous examples of religious groups and even politicians vilifying Pagans and repeating stereotypes like they worship Satan or are all demon possessed)
Stereotypes or misrepresentations other belief systems
As shown above, fake ex-Satanist and ex-witch testimonies tend to depict occult groups as secretive and committing all sorts of crimes. They also tend to conflate Satanism, Paganism, Wicca, Freemasonry, and the New Age all together as one, or at least as working together with each other. In reality though, the people that belong to all these belief systems tend to be no weirder than anyone else, and don’t believe in sacrificing humans or animals or enacting any of the other accusations brought against them. Researching and staying informed about the beliefs of many religions will help in recognizing misconceptions or deliberate mischaracterizations, and assist in opposing the vilification of other belief systems. So if you hear conversion stories such as an ex-occultist that claims “Wiccans worship Satan,” or an ex-Buddhist story that says “Buddhists are idolaters,” or an ex-Jew that says “Jews control all the banks and the Holocaust didn‘t happen,” these are serious warning signs that the narrator is either very misguided or is lying!
Sometimes the narrator of a conversion story won’t vilify a religion, but will just say things that are factually wrong or inaccurate. This doesn’t mean that a conversion didn’t happen, although it could indicate the narrator is confused or isn’t being completely upfront about themself. One example would be Rabbi San Stern, a Jewish convert to Christianity. His full story can be read here http://www.menorah.org/rabbisamstern.html , and a critique of his testimony by Reuven Levinson, a counter missionary Jew, can be seen here. http://www.messianicjewishtruth.com.....stimonies.html In his conversion story, Rabbi Stern says that he grew up in a strict Orthodox Jewish family, yet when he describes the various Jewish books he had to study, he describes the Talmud as “the ancient [and] now obsolete Jewish books of jurisprudence…” The Talmud is a very important collection of oral traditions explaining how to interpret Jewish laws, and is believed by Orthodox Jews to have been passed down from God to Moses. http://www.jewfaq.org/torah.htm#Talmud So for a former Orthodox Jew to describe the Talmud as “obsolete” is rather strange! Levinson also points out other problems, such as how Rabbi Stern describes Jewish school inaccurately.
Failure of basic facts
If you run into a preacher that claims to be an ex-member of Anton LaVey‘s Church of Satan, ask them if they can name some of the 9 Satanic statements, the 9 Satanic sins, or the 11 Satanic rules of Earth. These are some of the basic beliefs of LaVeyan Satanism and can easily be read on their website. http://www.churchofsatan.com/Pages/Theory.html They are not kept secret from outsiders. If the preacher can’t name them or treats them as if they were teachings that only the initiated could know, they’re likely just pulling your leg. You can do this to check if the narrator really knows what they are talking about. One egregious example of this is former child actor Kirk Cameron, an atheist convert to fundamentalist Christianity. He claims to have once been a strong believer in evolution when he was young, but whenever he describes evolution on TV appearances or in debates, he uses the straw man caricature of evolution that creationists propagate, claiming that chimera creatures such as a crocoduck would be proof of evolution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY6pKsBR8UQ A lesser known conversion story rife with errors is that of Athet Pyan Shinthaw Paulu, a Buddhist convert to Christianity whose story is usually used by evangelists proselytizing in Eastern countries. Paulu claimed to be a Buddhist monk in Burma who had died after being infected with Yellow Fever and Malaria at the same time. He miraculously came back to life three days later and described having a vision of hell while he was unconscious. Some Buddhist websites such as this one http://www.buddha.sg/htm/general/faq01.htm and some Christian ones too http://web.archive.org/web/20110216.....TICLE-0036.htm chronicle Paulu’s multiple errors, such as pointing out that Yellow Fever doesn’t exist in Burma. Paulu even got his own monk title wrong!
Another thing to beware of are conversion stories that repeat debunked urban legends, such as the claim that Harry Potter is causing multitudes of people to convert to Satanism (the source for this claim is actually a parody article from the Onion which some people mistook to be real), that the Proctor and Gamble corporation symbol is satanic, or that the FCC is going to ban religious broadcasting. The website Snopes http://www.snopes.com/ takes apart a lot of these urban legends and rumors. Also beware if the narrator touts pious frauds as authentic, such as fraudulent faith healers or forged religious artifacts or documents like the Archko Volumes. (fake documents concerning Jesus allegedly from Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate)
False self-aggrandizing claims or claims of expertise or authority they don‘t really have
This will be familiar to those of you that follow the evolution/creationism conflict. A Young Earth Creationist who claims to be an “expert” in science (eg “Dr.” Kent Hovind) touting credentials that actually came from a diploma mill or are irrelevant to biology. Some authors of fake conversion stories will exaggerate their personal achievements to sound more impressive and endear their audience. Tony Anthony for instance said that he was a three times Kung Fu world champion. Investigators looking into his past could not find any evidence for this claim, and Anthony ridiculously countered that the tournaments he participated in were so specialized within China that the outside world wouldn’t know about them. But as stated above, the discovery that he was plagiarizing martial arts websites cast strong doubts to how much he really knew about Kung Fu.
Speakers or authors that once served in the military might exaggerate or lie about their service. Father John Corapi, a popular Catholic speaker and a former member of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT), used to say in his conversion story that he was a Green Beret in Vietnam. Corapi’s claims about his military service were challenged by the POW Network, an organization which investigates people who falsely claim to be POWs or lie about their military records, and found that he had never served in the Green Berets. (their page on Father Corapi seems to have been taken down, however it is preserved on the Wayback Machine http://web.archive.org/web/20120206.....phonies344.htm ) Corapi’s online biographies then quietly removed his Green Beret claim and when Corapi re-told his conversion story, he’d say he served in Vietnam without mentioning the Green Berets. Since then, in 2011 he resigned from SOLT after accusations of sexual misconduct, drug use, and violating his vow of poverty. http://soltnews.blogspot.com/2011/0.....hn-corapi.html
In regard to ex-occultist conversions, the narrator might claim to be a credible expert on the occult because they once held an exalted position such as being a satanic high priest. (the Church of Satan’s founder Anton LaVey once joked, “where are all the low priests?”) For instance, Doreen Irvine claimed in From Witchcraft to Christ that she ascended in the ranks amongst her fellow witches and was elected the Black Witch Queen, although she doesn’t describe what kind of duties her position entailed. They might also claim to be a friend or relative of an infamous non-believer. This does happen in real life sometimes, such as atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair‘s son William, who converted to Christianity, and the late Christopher Hitchen’s brother Peter, who also became Christian. But amongst real cases there are bogus ones as well. Jess LaVey was one such faker, who falsely claimed to be a long lost son of Anton LaVey who left Satanism for Christianity after years of abuse from his father. http://www.charismamag.com/site-arc.....prove-identity
Evidence that the conversion never happened…
… because the person was a believer to begin with and made the whole thing up. This is one you should be very careful with. It’s annoying to hear Christians automatically dismiss people that de-converted as not being “true-Christians” or atheists say that people who convert to a religion weren’t really non-believers. But sometimes evidence may compel the conclusion that a conversion story is totally bogus and the narrator never changed their religion to begin with. As mentioned above people like Lauren Stratford had made up their conversions completely. But I’d like to mention a more contemporary story for this section as well.
An recent example would be the conversion story of Megan Hodder, http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/fea.....e-me-to-faith/ a claimed former atheist convert to Catholicism. In her conversion story she says she used to be a large fan of “new-atheists” such as Dawkins and Harris when she was young, but began considering Catholicism after reading one of Pope Benedict XVI’s works and eventually converted. Ophelia Benson on Free Thought Blogs saw Hodder’s story and mocking responded with a short blog post entitled “Saved by Ratzinger.” A short time later some of the commenters on Benson’s blog decided to go through Hodder’s old Twitter feeds and Facebook postings to see if they could find any atheist writings by her. But instead they found that she was already Catholic before her “conversion.” http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterf.....comment-560902
Phoney conspiracy theories
Of all the warning signs on this list, I would say this is probably the biggest one. Claims of conspiracy theories tend to be the most audacious, inciting fear of shadowy forces with massive numbers of people behind them that are out to control everyone. For some reason, religious fundamentalism and conspiracy theorists tend to go hand-in-hand. (Jerri Massi, author of Blog on the Way, a blog on opposing abuse in churches, has two articles explaining why this might be so http://jeriwho.net/lillypad2/?p=4057 ) Mike Warnke and numerous alleged ex-Satanists such as John Todd would claim that Satanists were in league with secret societies like the Illuminati and the New World Order, and were manipulating events all around the world. Fake conspiracy theories like these are yet another way to vilify other religions (or any group which the narrator dislikes for that matter). They’re also dangerous because they tend to rely on every logical fallacy imaginable in order to support themselves (confirmation bias, contrived ad hoc hypotheses, and so on) and self sealing argumentation which can be used as an easy get-out-of-jail card to dismiss any criticism. If people doubt the validity of a conversion story, the narrator can say doubters are all part of a conspiracy against them. If a conversion story is said to portray other religions inaccurately, the narrator can just say there’s a conspiracy covering up the “real” beliefs and practices of other religions. If there’s a lack if evidence supporting the existence of underground occult groups and their plots to rule the world, the narrator will say there‘s a conspiracy covering up their activities. (and may even invoke the old saying “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing people he doesn‘t exist”) The irony of many of these conspiracy theories is that they’re not really secret at all; searching “satanic conspiracy” or similar keywords on the web will give you tons of websites explaining many of these conspiracies in great detail. A cartoon on Sci-ence.org entitled The Red Flags of Quackery parodies the non-secrecy of these “secret” conspiracies quite well, “There is a world-wide plot to hide the truth. But it‘s okay, I looked on Google and unraveled the hell out of it.” If these conspiracy theories really were true, one has to wonder why these shadowy groups even allow people like Warnke and Todd to speak out against them and divulge their plans in front of large audiences of people.
Further Reading
Swallowing the Camel’s The Prodigal Witch series, which debunks many alleged ex-Satanists and ex-witches I mentioned, such as Mike Warnke. http://swallowingthecamel.wordpress.....rodigal-witch/
Against Satanic Panics, a website that chronicles the history of Satanic Ritual Abuse and the consequences of media sensations over the false stories of SRA.
http://theisticsatanism.com/asp/index.html
What’s The Harm article on people that were hurt by false Satanic Ritual Abuse allegations.
http://whatstheharm.net/satanicritualabuse.html
Stop Bad Therapy on Satanic Ritual Abuse and myths about recovering repressed memories.
http://www.stopbadtherapy.com/myths/sra.shtml
http://www.stopbadtherapy.com/myths/repress.shtml
The American Psychological Association on repressed memories of childhood abuse. Although it’s not related to satanic ritual abuse, the information here is still useful.
http://www.apa.org/topics/trauma/memories.aspx
furshinku. It was suggested that it be uploaded in parts, but I really think the whole thing is too important to take in bit by bit. Things may be added or edited as time comes.Edit: I meant to add this before posting- PLEASE SHARE your experiences with or knowledge of false converts! A list of known fakers will be a tremendous help to those of us who come across a friend who is being fished into religion by these story-tellers. Falling for religion by someone's honest belief is one thing, but being lead to it by blatant lies is another thing entirely. That is one thing I know true believers and atheists can both agree on.
How to recognize fake religious conversions
Introduction
Conversion stories are a popular staple amongst many religious and non-religious people, explaining how and why a person changed their worldview and beliefs. The most famous conversion stories are probably those of the Apostle Paul and Saint Augustine of Hippo‘s book Confessions. They helped establish attributes that would become popular in conversion stories, a sinful life before converting, a turning point of some kind, and then fulfillment in their newfound faith. Unfortunately, not every tale of a sinner finding religion is truthful. Amongst many real stories are stories that are made up by charlatans and attention-seekers to take advantage of people willing to believe them. This is meant to counter these fakers and show what kind of red flags are common in fake conversion stories.
Why is this important? Because fake conversion stories can do serious damage. Sadly, some hoaxsters manage to become very popular through telling their false stories, garnering media attention and make lots of money through books and public speaking appearances. The worst fakers use their conversion stories to spread hatred and paranoia of other belief systems. The Satanic Panic of the 1980s, fueled by fake conversion stories of supposed ex-Satanists and pseudo-scientific forms of recovering repressed memories of abuse are a prime example of this. They are not to be thought of as harmless
I was inspired to write this mainly by reading about the fake conversions of alleged ex-Satanists, so I will be using them as examples throughout, although I’ll throw in other types of fake conversions that I’ve seen online as well. This article doesn’t mean to say that every story of a Satanist or witch converting to Christianity is false, but if you hear a conversion story that says ridiculous things that are less than honest, you should probably take the story with a grain of salt. Although I’ll be focusing on religious conversions, some of these guidelines can be applied to any kind of personal story that seems fishy.
The story is rife with contradictions, or contradictions arise between retellings of the same story
This isn‘t a completely sure fire sign that a conversion story may be fake. After all, it‘s possible people may misremember things or misspeak. But if very important details are self contradictory, then the story should probably be treated with skepticism. One questionable conversion story was that of Doreen Irvine and her 1973 book From Witchcraft to Christ, detailing her life as a witch and conversion to Christianity. In one part of her book she says she was invited to a meeting of witches after she overheard two members talking about it, but later on she’s taught a Satanic rule (she conflates witches with Satanism throughout her book) to “never reveal the whereabouts of a Satanic temple or what goes on in it to an outsider.” There’s also the rule “Never enter a Christian church,” but then she describes herself and her fellow witches entering churches to steal Bibles and burn them. A fuller analysis of From Witchcraft to Christ can be read here. http://www.saff.ukhq.co.uk/dirvine.htm
It also helps to compare multiple retellings of a conversion story, to ensure that parts aren’t being changed or exaggerated over time. This is how the Christian magazine Cornerstone exposed Lauren Stratford (real name Laurel Wilson), an alleged Satanist convert to Christianity, as a fake. Stratford wrote a book entitled Satan’s Underground in 1988 which chronicled her years of abuse as a child and being forced into Satanism by a pornography ringer named Victor when she was 19. Cornerstone tracked down an earlier testimony Stratford gave in 1985 after she became involved with a Satanic Ritual Abuse case in her town of Bakersfield which was completely different from what she described in Satan‘s Underground. By interviewing her friends and family, they learned Stratford’s real name and that she had been Christian all along. Their exposé of Stratford can be read here. http://www.answers.org/satan/satansideshow.html Also, sometimes contradictions between retellings may arise if an earlier version of a story were shown to have false details and in latter versions the narrator quietly “corrects” themselves by omitting them. Comparing multiple versions of the same conversion story should make ret-conning easily apparent though.
Unlikely dates for events or inconsistent timelines
If a conversion story gives dates for certain events, it might be a good idea to check whether the dates add up. Sometimes you might discover problems such as the author lying about their age and being too young or too old to do certain things such as attend college or join the military during the times they say they did. Evangelist Tony Anthony wrote an auto-biography detailing his conversion entitled Taming the Tiger and part of it recalled how in the 80s he got a job as a body guard. The director of Anthony‘s own ministry, Mike Hancock, was unsure of the book’s veracity and began an investigation into it. He found that Anthony’s birth certificate said he was born in 1971, meaning that he would have only been a teenager during his bodyguard years. He also found that Anthony‘s account of his grandfather taking him to China for Kung Fu training when he was four was implausible because his grandfather died seven years before his birth. http://crosswire.org.uk/2013/07/01/.....ography-lies/#
The conversion story plagiarizes from other sources
Although search engines and plagiarism checking programs have made it more difficult to get away with plagiarism, some people still do it anyway and hope their intended audience won‘t notice. I’ve actually had an experience with this myself a few years ago. I saw a video by You Tube fundamentalist VenomfangX in which he claimed the Bible had scientific foreknowledge, but when I looked up one of the verses he cited, I found that he was copying a Ray Comfort website word for word (a typo from Comfort‘s site which VFX accidentally kept intact in his quotation is what gave him away). Plagiarism will reveal that an author may not really have experiences they say they have, or are just plain lazy at writing. This was another red flag that showed that Tony Anthony’s book was suspect. When Hancock and his investigators researched Anthony’s martial arts background, they found that his descriptions of Kung Fu techniques were merely copied from martial arts websites.
Accuses occult groups of committing heinous crimes with no evidence
In many ex-Satanist and ex-witch conversion stories, the narrator might say that they or the groups they were part of would perform animal or human sacrifices, or commit other outrageous criminal activities such as abusing drugs or owning sex slaves. Stories like these became very popular during the Satanic Panic of the 80s, in which many Christian evangelists who claimed to be former Satanists such as Christian comedian Mike Warnke and many others claimed that there were underground networks of occultists committing ritual murders and other lurid activities. But the people telling these stories rarely described themselves going to the police to report these illegal activities. Neither did they cite police reports or news stories talking about animals or people mysteriously disappearing due to being taken away by occultists to be sacrificed. (they will probably claim that there are conspiracies to cover up these activities, which I will deal with later) Usually the “evidence” for Satanic Ritual Abuse rested on victims going through unapproved forms of repressed memory therapy, which would inadvertently implant false memories of abuse. As psychologists and other investigators started to realize that claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse were unsupported by evidence, people such as Warnke have ended up being discredited; the Christian magazine Cornerstone did an exposé on him a few years after they exposed Lauren Stratford http://www.answers.org/satan/warnke1.html and by interviewing Warnke’s friends and family, they found that he was never a Satanist to begin with, and much of his reported history was fabricated. Despite many of these people being exposed as frauds, the conversion stories of people such as Irvine, Stratford, and Warnke are still used by some to raise irrational fear of Satanists and practitioners of Wicca. (see the blog The Wild Hunt http://wildhunt.org/ for numerous examples of religious groups and even politicians vilifying Pagans and repeating stereotypes like they worship Satan or are all demon possessed)
Stereotypes or misrepresentations other belief systems
As shown above, fake ex-Satanist and ex-witch testimonies tend to depict occult groups as secretive and committing all sorts of crimes. They also tend to conflate Satanism, Paganism, Wicca, Freemasonry, and the New Age all together as one, or at least as working together with each other. In reality though, the people that belong to all these belief systems tend to be no weirder than anyone else, and don’t believe in sacrificing humans or animals or enacting any of the other accusations brought against them. Researching and staying informed about the beliefs of many religions will help in recognizing misconceptions or deliberate mischaracterizations, and assist in opposing the vilification of other belief systems. So if you hear conversion stories such as an ex-occultist that claims “Wiccans worship Satan,” or an ex-Buddhist story that says “Buddhists are idolaters,” or an ex-Jew that says “Jews control all the banks and the Holocaust didn‘t happen,” these are serious warning signs that the narrator is either very misguided or is lying!
Sometimes the narrator of a conversion story won’t vilify a religion, but will just say things that are factually wrong or inaccurate. This doesn’t mean that a conversion didn’t happen, although it could indicate the narrator is confused or isn’t being completely upfront about themself. One example would be Rabbi San Stern, a Jewish convert to Christianity. His full story can be read here http://www.menorah.org/rabbisamstern.html , and a critique of his testimony by Reuven Levinson, a counter missionary Jew, can be seen here. http://www.messianicjewishtruth.com.....stimonies.html In his conversion story, Rabbi Stern says that he grew up in a strict Orthodox Jewish family, yet when he describes the various Jewish books he had to study, he describes the Talmud as “the ancient [and] now obsolete Jewish books of jurisprudence…” The Talmud is a very important collection of oral traditions explaining how to interpret Jewish laws, and is believed by Orthodox Jews to have been passed down from God to Moses. http://www.jewfaq.org/torah.htm#Talmud So for a former Orthodox Jew to describe the Talmud as “obsolete” is rather strange! Levinson also points out other problems, such as how Rabbi Stern describes Jewish school inaccurately.
Failure of basic facts
If you run into a preacher that claims to be an ex-member of Anton LaVey‘s Church of Satan, ask them if they can name some of the 9 Satanic statements, the 9 Satanic sins, or the 11 Satanic rules of Earth. These are some of the basic beliefs of LaVeyan Satanism and can easily be read on their website. http://www.churchofsatan.com/Pages/Theory.html They are not kept secret from outsiders. If the preacher can’t name them or treats them as if they were teachings that only the initiated could know, they’re likely just pulling your leg. You can do this to check if the narrator really knows what they are talking about. One egregious example of this is former child actor Kirk Cameron, an atheist convert to fundamentalist Christianity. He claims to have once been a strong believer in evolution when he was young, but whenever he describes evolution on TV appearances or in debates, he uses the straw man caricature of evolution that creationists propagate, claiming that chimera creatures such as a crocoduck would be proof of evolution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY6pKsBR8UQ A lesser known conversion story rife with errors is that of Athet Pyan Shinthaw Paulu, a Buddhist convert to Christianity whose story is usually used by evangelists proselytizing in Eastern countries. Paulu claimed to be a Buddhist monk in Burma who had died after being infected with Yellow Fever and Malaria at the same time. He miraculously came back to life three days later and described having a vision of hell while he was unconscious. Some Buddhist websites such as this one http://www.buddha.sg/htm/general/faq01.htm and some Christian ones too http://web.archive.org/web/20110216.....TICLE-0036.htm chronicle Paulu’s multiple errors, such as pointing out that Yellow Fever doesn’t exist in Burma. Paulu even got his own monk title wrong!
Another thing to beware of are conversion stories that repeat debunked urban legends, such as the claim that Harry Potter is causing multitudes of people to convert to Satanism (the source for this claim is actually a parody article from the Onion which some people mistook to be real), that the Proctor and Gamble corporation symbol is satanic, or that the FCC is going to ban religious broadcasting. The website Snopes http://www.snopes.com/ takes apart a lot of these urban legends and rumors. Also beware if the narrator touts pious frauds as authentic, such as fraudulent faith healers or forged religious artifacts or documents like the Archko Volumes. (fake documents concerning Jesus allegedly from Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate)
False self-aggrandizing claims or claims of expertise or authority they don‘t really have
This will be familiar to those of you that follow the evolution/creationism conflict. A Young Earth Creationist who claims to be an “expert” in science (eg “Dr.” Kent Hovind) touting credentials that actually came from a diploma mill or are irrelevant to biology. Some authors of fake conversion stories will exaggerate their personal achievements to sound more impressive and endear their audience. Tony Anthony for instance said that he was a three times Kung Fu world champion. Investigators looking into his past could not find any evidence for this claim, and Anthony ridiculously countered that the tournaments he participated in were so specialized within China that the outside world wouldn’t know about them. But as stated above, the discovery that he was plagiarizing martial arts websites cast strong doubts to how much he really knew about Kung Fu.
Speakers or authors that once served in the military might exaggerate or lie about their service. Father John Corapi, a popular Catholic speaker and a former member of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT), used to say in his conversion story that he was a Green Beret in Vietnam. Corapi’s claims about his military service were challenged by the POW Network, an organization which investigates people who falsely claim to be POWs or lie about their military records, and found that he had never served in the Green Berets. (their page on Father Corapi seems to have been taken down, however it is preserved on the Wayback Machine http://web.archive.org/web/20120206.....phonies344.htm ) Corapi’s online biographies then quietly removed his Green Beret claim and when Corapi re-told his conversion story, he’d say he served in Vietnam without mentioning the Green Berets. Since then, in 2011 he resigned from SOLT after accusations of sexual misconduct, drug use, and violating his vow of poverty. http://soltnews.blogspot.com/2011/0.....hn-corapi.html
In regard to ex-occultist conversions, the narrator might claim to be a credible expert on the occult because they once held an exalted position such as being a satanic high priest. (the Church of Satan’s founder Anton LaVey once joked, “where are all the low priests?”) For instance, Doreen Irvine claimed in From Witchcraft to Christ that she ascended in the ranks amongst her fellow witches and was elected the Black Witch Queen, although she doesn’t describe what kind of duties her position entailed. They might also claim to be a friend or relative of an infamous non-believer. This does happen in real life sometimes, such as atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair‘s son William, who converted to Christianity, and the late Christopher Hitchen’s brother Peter, who also became Christian. But amongst real cases there are bogus ones as well. Jess LaVey was one such faker, who falsely claimed to be a long lost son of Anton LaVey who left Satanism for Christianity after years of abuse from his father. http://www.charismamag.com/site-arc.....prove-identity
Evidence that the conversion never happened…
… because the person was a believer to begin with and made the whole thing up. This is one you should be very careful with. It’s annoying to hear Christians automatically dismiss people that de-converted as not being “true-Christians” or atheists say that people who convert to a religion weren’t really non-believers. But sometimes evidence may compel the conclusion that a conversion story is totally bogus and the narrator never changed their religion to begin with. As mentioned above people like Lauren Stratford had made up their conversions completely. But I’d like to mention a more contemporary story for this section as well.
An recent example would be the conversion story of Megan Hodder, http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/fea.....e-me-to-faith/ a claimed former atheist convert to Catholicism. In her conversion story she says she used to be a large fan of “new-atheists” such as Dawkins and Harris when she was young, but began considering Catholicism after reading one of Pope Benedict XVI’s works and eventually converted. Ophelia Benson on Free Thought Blogs saw Hodder’s story and mocking responded with a short blog post entitled “Saved by Ratzinger.” A short time later some of the commenters on Benson’s blog decided to go through Hodder’s old Twitter feeds and Facebook postings to see if they could find any atheist writings by her. But instead they found that she was already Catholic before her “conversion.” http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterf.....comment-560902
Phoney conspiracy theories
Of all the warning signs on this list, I would say this is probably the biggest one. Claims of conspiracy theories tend to be the most audacious, inciting fear of shadowy forces with massive numbers of people behind them that are out to control everyone. For some reason, religious fundamentalism and conspiracy theorists tend to go hand-in-hand. (Jerri Massi, author of Blog on the Way, a blog on opposing abuse in churches, has two articles explaining why this might be so http://jeriwho.net/lillypad2/?p=4057 ) Mike Warnke and numerous alleged ex-Satanists such as John Todd would claim that Satanists were in league with secret societies like the Illuminati and the New World Order, and were manipulating events all around the world. Fake conspiracy theories like these are yet another way to vilify other religions (or any group which the narrator dislikes for that matter). They’re also dangerous because they tend to rely on every logical fallacy imaginable in order to support themselves (confirmation bias, contrived ad hoc hypotheses, and so on) and self sealing argumentation which can be used as an easy get-out-of-jail card to dismiss any criticism. If people doubt the validity of a conversion story, the narrator can say doubters are all part of a conspiracy against them. If a conversion story is said to portray other religions inaccurately, the narrator can just say there’s a conspiracy covering up the “real” beliefs and practices of other religions. If there’s a lack if evidence supporting the existence of underground occult groups and their plots to rule the world, the narrator will say there‘s a conspiracy covering up their activities. (and may even invoke the old saying “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing people he doesn‘t exist”) The irony of many of these conspiracy theories is that they’re not really secret at all; searching “satanic conspiracy” or similar keywords on the web will give you tons of websites explaining many of these conspiracies in great detail. A cartoon on Sci-ence.org entitled The Red Flags of Quackery parodies the non-secrecy of these “secret” conspiracies quite well, “There is a world-wide plot to hide the truth. But it‘s okay, I looked on Google and unraveled the hell out of it.” If these conspiracy theories really were true, one has to wonder why these shadowy groups even allow people like Warnke and Todd to speak out against them and divulge their plans in front of large audiences of people.
Further Reading
Swallowing the Camel’s The Prodigal Witch series, which debunks many alleged ex-Satanists and ex-witches I mentioned, such as Mike Warnke. http://swallowingthecamel.wordpress.....rodigal-witch/
Against Satanic Panics, a website that chronicles the history of Satanic Ritual Abuse and the consequences of media sensations over the false stories of SRA.
http://theisticsatanism.com/asp/index.html
What’s The Harm article on people that were hurt by false Satanic Ritual Abuse allegations.
http://whatstheharm.net/satanicritualabuse.html
Stop Bad Therapy on Satanic Ritual Abuse and myths about recovering repressed memories.
http://www.stopbadtherapy.com/myths/sra.shtml
http://www.stopbadtherapy.com/myths/repress.shtml
The American Psychological Association on repressed memories of childhood abuse. Although it’s not related to satanic ritual abuse, the information here is still useful.
http://www.apa.org/topics/trauma/memories.aspx
It's a woman who claims to have been homosexual but then God made her straight and now she's a Christian extremist. I'm not certain how much truth there is to her claims, I haven't looked into them properly. Stories of people changing sexuality throughout their life aren't unheard of, but linking it to religion just seems like a very unfair way of misguiding people. "If you start gay and you become straight, God is giving you a chance to repent. If you start out straight and you turn gay, the Devil is tempting you and you must never touch the person you love" just doesn't fit with our current understanding of human sexuality.
However, the difference here is the honest belief that one gains during a conversion. If you've grown up in one belief all your life and your closest friends can affirm that you've never been a non-believer, then to say that you converted from anything is a bold-faced lie. When one claims that they used to be an atheist or a satanist, they're trying to appear more relatable to the people they're trying to convert. There really is no doubt in my mind that they're just scared for their atheist friends and are trying to win them over so they don't go to hell (or whatever punishment one gets for not believing in their specific god). The intention (at first) may be completely pure and good, but you have still lied in order to gain someone's trust. What happens when your converts discover you've lied this entire time? Nine out of ten times, they will leave your religion, thinking all people of your faith have lied to gain their trust, and never return. This is the exact opposite of your goal to save souls and you have, using your view, damned them for eternity.
On the other hand, if you're successful at what you do and find yourself getting payed to evangelize, become a great speaker and start making millions, then you've come to a different "sin" all together- the one of greed. Perhaps many would listen, but a great many more would just see money bags and that will either further cement a non-believer in their views or it will convert those who are only in it for the money. "Hey, this guy got rich when he converted, maybe the same thing will happen to me!" And again, when it is discovered that one has lied about their conversion, those who were hanging on to your testimony will leave. Those who were just in it for the money may not at first, but when/if they find themselves no richer than before, they will leave as well. Now you've damned even more with your false story.
An honest change of belief is always ideal. If you honestly believe that something has happened to you that cannot be explained through reason and science, then by all means, believe what you want and testify to your heart's content. But don't make up stories in order to appear more relatable, pitiable, and, for lack of a better word, appealing. To use a metaphor, when I was in church, I was told that faith is built on a foundation. What happens when someone finds out that their foundation is a lie? In a sense, the foundation isn't really there and the faith crumbles.
For now, I don't know what would actually make any atheist believe a person's testimony. If it's a personal experience, then odds are it's not going to convince anyone. Personal experiences cannot be falsified or confirmed. It helps when the person you're trying to convert is a friend and trusts you, but anyone else would take it as a story that you either made up or you think actually happened. Most testimonies are personal experiences. Now, if something can be demonstrated, that's another thing entirely. However, if it looks like a magic trick, then odds are, it's a magic trick. If anyone can provide solid evidence- such as the skeleton of a unicorn, a dragon, live talking serpent, etc., then we can talk conversion.
I wrote this against people who are being dishonest or exaggerating in their conversion stories, not against all conversion stories, so Leah, Lewis, and Welch wouldn't be included here. If an ex-wiccan told me "I was a wiccan for a few years but it didn't work out for me, but after reading the Bible I decided I preferred Christianity," I'm more willing to believe that because there's nothing unusual about it. But if the conversion story has a lot of really outrageous things like "when I was a wiccan, I drank animal blood and had weekly meetings with the Illuminati but now I'm Christian," I'm less likely to believe a story like that.