Troy Davis writes:
Hal Lindsey was a key figure in American Christian fundamentalism in the later half of the 20th century (and he's still active in 2020). He is notable for popularizing Darbyism for the masses (and making gobs of money from it) with his 1970 book
The Late Great Planet Earth (TLGPE), one of the top-selling books of the 1970s. Darbyism emphasizes a pre-tribulation rapture in which the saved and babies are whisked into heaven while their unsaved neighbors do double-takes and have to face The Great Tribulation for seven years until Jeebus arrives for a Final Victory (see chart from the comic below). Using the right approach and marketing, Lindsey made Darbyism highly profitable, much the same way Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins did in the 21st century with the
Left Behind multi-media franchise. This is a trippy comic book that deals with Lindsey's interpretation
of The Book of Revelation using the comic book art of Al Hartley. Below are excerpts from the book (
click here to see Hartley's illustration of a foxy Whore of Babylon from the book).
Less known about Lindsey was his role in setting the stage for the '80s satanic ritual abuse moral panic as well as his attempts to cover for one of its most egregious proponents. In The Late Great Planet Earth, Lindsey had a chapter on how much of the counterculture embraced occult teachings. Included in the chapter was an unlikely exchange Lindsey had with a member of the counterculture whose mind had been destroyed by drugs. Echoing fabulist and former Jack Chick collaborator John Todd, Lindsey claimed that "Satan works subliminally in the area of modern music." (see NOTES below). The counterculture's interest in the occult, was to Lindsey, evidence
that Satan was marshaling his forces for battle against Jesus. This weak line of reasoning lead to a
follow-up bestseller, Satan Is Alive and Well On Planet Earth.
Soon after the launch of TLGPE was the publication of another book that greatly contributed to the 80s satanic ritual abuse scare, Mike Warnke's
The Satan Seller (the book was published by Logos International, a short-lived publisher of bizarro Christian authors; it was featured by the museum
here). Warnke claimed to have been a "Satanist high priest" with a following of 1500 people and that he had an alliance with the Illuminati (see NOTES below).
Once the Satanic Ritual Abuse moral panic became firmly established in the 1980s, others in Lindsey's family tree decided to cash in. Lindsey's then-sister-in-law Johanna Michaelsen wrote two books about how she was a former psychic healer who eventually found the true God. Michaelsen claimed to had possessed satanic paranormal powers and had performed lung transplants with her bare hands (more on Michaelsen's bizarre claims here).
By the '90s, many of the claims put forth by Satanic Panic proponents began to implode. Alleged satanic ritual abuse victim Lauren Stratford had been exposed as a fraud. More important, as a result of a thorough investigative report in 1992 by a Christian publication, Cornerstone Magazine, Warnke's claim of being a satanic priest collapsed completely. The evidence was conclusive that Warnke was a complete fraud. For instance, at a time in which Warnke claimed to have had waist-length white hair, a wedding photo showed him with an Ivy League haircut.
Despite the exhaustive evidence that everything about Warnke's story was fraudulent, he had his defenders. Several prominent fundamentalist figures vouched for Warnke. One of them was Pat Matrisciana of Jeremiah Films (the museum has many of his works). Matrisciana was later discovered to have phonied up an infomercial for Jerry Falwell to hype his videos accusing the Clintons of murder and drug smuggling. Lindsey and Michaelsen also wrote letters of support for Warnke. Fortunately, these efforts failed; Warnke's ministry folded soon thereafter.
NOTES: Lindsey and John Todd claimed the music industry added satanic subliminal messages to their rock records. In the 80s, Congressman Bob Dornan, an Orange County nutjob, introduced House Resolution 6363 that would have required a warning label on supposedly backmasked albums (Dornan's Orange County colleague in Congress, William Dannemeyer believed that convicted killer Scott Peterson was framed by a satanic cult) . . . Tim LaHaye, who later milked Darbyism for millions with the Left Behind series, met Warnke before he published The Satan Seller. At the time, LaHaye, a paranoid Bircher, was reading William Guy Carr's nutty conspiracy book Pawns in the Game and quizzed Warnke about The Illuminati. LaHaye asked Warnke if The Illuminati were involved in his satanic activities; Warnke wasn't familiar with the concept. Nevertheless, Warnke took the Illuminati theories he heard from LaHaye and incorporated them in The Satan Seller. LaHaye knew Warnke was a fake but said nothing, allowing Warnke to scam gullible evangelical Christians for millions for the next 20 years. For more on this episode, read the book by the Cornerstone Magazine journalists who exposed Warnke, The title of the book is Selling Satan: The Evangelical Media and the Mike Warnke Scandal.. . . After Spire Christian Comics went out of business in the early '80s, Barbour Christian Comics of Uhrichville, Ohio (not too far from our museum) began reprinting Spire titles for a few years . . . Check out the Spire Christian Comic in which Archie is offered an orgy! . . . Check out the museum's rare 1970s Spire Christian Comics spinner rack.
The
Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les
Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome
Statement of The Museum here.
For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes. The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts
The index of tracts for the museum's website is here.
Contributions
of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird
tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street,
Bellaire, Ohio 43906.
