Abomination: Devil Worship and Deception in the West Memphis Three Murders

by Ramsey, William

  Echols with Eddie Vedder of the rock band Pearl Jam

  Damien Echols with Satanic transhumanist and Process of the Final Judgement Church Member Genesis P-Orridge, front

  Born Neil Andrew Megson in Manchester, England, he developed an interest in the occult at a young age, adopting the name Genesis P-Orridge. In 1969, he became disembodied and received the “COUM Transmissions” from voices he heard. Inspired, he held impromtu avant garde musical expositions in his native England. He befriended William S. Burroughs, who in turn introduced him to Brion Gysin, whose magical ideas became a major influence upon Orridge. In 1993, he embarked with his wife on a body modification project to become a “single pandrogynous entity” gender neutral human beings that looked exactly like each other. Orridge called Christianity an incredibly sick social psuedo-religion. Among other occult regalia that adorns his modified body, he/she wears prominent ring with a Process Church of the Final Judgement swastika on it. Well known satanist Charles Manson belonged to the Process Church as well.

  Damien Echols and with Satanic musician Marilyn Manson

  Believing that “abusing other people is not such a bad thing,” this satanic musician (born Brian Warner) conjoined the names of Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson to create his stage name.257 “I knew I wanted to be like Nietzsche or Aleister Crowley---men who have, in their own way, drawn people closer to the apocalypse.”258 His album, Antichrist Superstar, sold over 7 million albums worldwide.

  Marilyn Manson and Anton LaVey

  In early October 2012, Damien and Johnny Depp received matching tattoos in Los Angeles, a symbol called "Wind over Heaven," the ninth hexagram of the I Ching.

  Depp shares “ink” with Damien Echols

  TORONTO (AP) — The man Johnny Depp helped release from Arkansas' death row has become like a brother to him, right down to getting matching tattoos. "We have some," Depp said Saturday as he touched a tattoo on the right side of his chest.

  "This one Damien designed. It's one of my all-time favorites, and it means quite a lot to me," Depp told The Associated Press before the premiere of the documentary, "West of Memphis," about Damien Echols and his two co-defendants.

  Echols said whenever he and Depp get together, they often end up in a tattoo parlor. Depp said it's about "celebrating the moment....You saw those initial documentaries, you make a choice: Am I going to watch the thing and go 'Wow, that's really horrible,' and go out and get a milkshake," Depp said. Depp, along with Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, musician Henry Rollins, and filmmaker Peter Jackson, who produced "West of Memphis," helped pay the legal fees to free the three men..."He's been with us every single step of the way. Since we've gotten out, he's become like a brother to me. And that's one of the things we always do just as part of that bond is whenever you get tattoos like that, it's something you carry with you through the rest of your life and it's really meaningful."259

  As recently as October 17th, 2012, Marc Perrusquia, co-author of Blood of Innocents, wrote about his first-hand recollection of the trials of the three defendants:

  Co-defendants Jason Baldwin, then 16, and Jessie Misskelley, 17, appeared in shock. The two sat stiffly at the defense table as they waited for lawyers to return from the judge's chamber, heads bowed, neither daring to lift his eyes from the tabletop.

  Not so Echols. He had swiveled his chair to face the courtroom audience. With a smirk on his face and a hollow stare, he studied the attendees one by one, nodding to some he recognized, all the while resting his head in his hand with two raised fingers pressed to his temple — body language that screamed, "I'm in charge here.''

  I thought then we'd see an insanity plea. That never came. But plenty of other revelations did.260

  Perrusquia recounts the three psychiatric hospitalizations, the hounding by parole officers, and the evidence of past violent acts, verified by witnesses.

  Perruscquia catches Echols in another distortion of the evidentary record. Echols says his nemesis Driver wrongly claimed to have once seen him carrying a wooden "staff'' and he says news reports that such an instrument was found in his trailer are false. "In fact, it was a paint stick, the kind you use to stir a freshly opened gallon of paint,'' he wrote.261 No, it was a 3-foot, wooden club. I found it — a tree limb painted red — between the studs in an unfinished closet wall while canvassing West Memphis neighborhoods doing interviews after Echols' arrest.

  "I kind of feel like I came out of this the victor by not getting my ass handed to me."262

  Life after Death

  In Life After Death, published on September 18th, 2012, Damien Echols provides a hellish portrait of prison similar to the cause celebre’ killers Abbott and Unterwager. Armed with an array of rationales for his actions, throughout the book, Echols casually projects that everyone else is insane or corrupt but himself. A nationwide bestseller, Damien Echols carefully avoids a detailed explanation of his whereabouts on the day of the child murders. Jerry Driver is “bloated, corpulent man with beady little rat’s eyes” and “a very sick individual.”263 Echols acknowledges he kept a skull collection that Driver confiscated. Concerning his first interview with police on May 7th, 1993, he said:

  Instead of attempting to find out who had murdered three children, they indulged in these childish fairy tales and grab-ass games. A fine example of your tax dollars at work.264

  His callous response to police work by the West Memphis Police Department sounds similar to what a suspect would say on the television show Law and Order. He disparaged both Judge Burnett and Prosecutor Fogleman while describing his trial. Throughout the book, everyone but Echols seems to have a skewed view of the murder of three eight year olds.

  In direct contradiction to police and evidentiary records, Echols mischaracterizes Jessie Misskelley’s aggressive nature:

  It was very apparent to anyone of even average intelligence that you weren’t dealing with the world’s brightest guy. He was a great deal like a child. He was harmless.265

  Echols’ spite for his parents fills the pages of the book. He referred to his step-father, twenty years older than his mother, as a hateful bastard and his biological father as a “boy...a child who never lived up to a single responsibility in his life.” Echols saw his father as weak, and after his confinement in a mental institution in Oregon, said to his father “with absolute contempt I spat the words, I’ll eat you alive.”266 By the age of thirteen, he described his life as hopeless. He failed his first year of junior high, receiving an F in every single subject. “I didn’t pass anything, and I didn’t care.” Held back not once, but twice, he became a seventeen year old 9th grader. Eventually, Echols pierced both of his ears and one nipple.

  His home town of West Memphis gets a fair share of his bile:

  People in places like West Memphis don’t like anything that stands out, including intelligence and beauty. If a woman is smart enough to take care of her body so that she doesn’t become a sexless lump, she will get looks of hatred from the local women...If a man is a little too intelligent for the taste of the locals, he will soon find himself ostracized....The one thing that is not tolerated is magick. Any trace of wonder or magick must be snuffed out at all costs...Nothing can be mundane enough to suit the herd. Bland country faces in bland country places.267

  He sums up his grim life in Lakeshore Trailer Park among two hundred other trailers as surrounded by thieves and drug and alcohol addicts.

  Without a dog and a fence, it was just a matter of time before everything in your yard would be stolen and the gas sucked right out of the tank of your car....The residents and locals rarely had regular jobs, although some worked at a box factory nearby. People were more often self-employed thieves or scroungers---for scrap metal, copper, anything you could sell. Addiction of all forms---drinking and meth were the most popular---were daily recreational activities.268

  He admits his first girlfriend, Deanna Holcomb, “was secretly a pagan, she told me quite soon after we me
t. What was called a witch in the old days. A Wiccan.”269 This conforms with the opinion of West Memphis police and verifies that occultism suffused the case. He recounts his violent encounter with Shane Divilbiss, but suspiciously does not include his name in the entire text of Life After Death. I assume this is due to the damning nature of the other side of the story.

  He recalls his flirtation with Catholicism, but strangely equates the ritual in the church services with his magical world view:

  The organ began playing softly and everyone stood as the procession of the priest and altar boys make their way down the central aisle and to the front of the church. I couldn’t take my eyes off the small parade. The robes, the candles, the book held aloft---I was witnessing pure magick.270

  Similar to other occult practitioners, particularly Crowley, he studied Buddhism, describing the practice as “magickal.” He would “tranceout” and slip into a mental state he called “the Land of Nod”, the city where Cain was banished by God in the Book of Genesis. “That’s how I felt---exiled, cast out.”271 His definition of Magick conforms with all western occultists, heading back to Eliphas Levi:

  I have two definitions for “magick.” The first is knowing that I can effect change through my own will, even behind these bars...272

  While in jail, he read other mystical books such as The Tibetan Book of the Dead, A Course in Miracles, and Isis Unveiled by Luciferian author Madame Helene Blavatsky. He also studied the Tarot, the magical society The Golden Dawn (Aleister Crowley was a member) and the Hebrew Kabbalah.

  Echols addresses witches and witch hunts, stating he read about them in his youth in The Children’s Book of Devils and Fiends. Of the witch persecutions, he writes:

  These things were nothing more than the fevered dreams and insane concoctions of religions zealots that the educated world knows them to be....If I would have known then that in just a few short years I would be subjected to the same merciless zealots who would imprison me and sentence me to death, then my heart would have burst of fright right on the spot.273

  He then blatantly contradicts himself in the next page of Life After Death by praising Aleister Crowley, The Great Beast 666, arguably the foremost Satanist, or witch, of the twentieth century. He admits to a fascination for the Beast, which was a vital issue in his murder trial:

  Oddly enough, that same children’s book was where I first encountered Aleister Crowley...I’ve read much about this man and his life’s work over the years, and it’s incredible how much people have misunderstood him...His words have been misconstrued, twisted, taken out of context, and misunderstood continuously. If you don’t know the key with which to decipher him, then you’ll never understand what you’re reading. Others don’t even want to understand, and would rather use his name or image to sway and scare the ignorant, just as the prosecutor did during my trial.274

  Continuing later in the book, he then relates to performing exactly the same Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) ritual performed by Aleister Crowley in Loch Ness in 1900.

  It should never be forgotten for a single moment that the central and essential work of the Magician is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.275

  Taking advice from other inmates, Echols turned his cell into a improvised school and monastery.276 He selected Good Friday to begin the Abramelin ritual, profaning a Christian holy day. After this admission, there can be no doubt of Echol’s deep affection for Crowley and occultism:

  Today, on Good Friday, I began performing the Holy Guardian Angel ritual as described in The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. It’s a prayer that asks a higher self or outside intelligence for guidance, protection, and for forgiveness of all my weaknesses and sins. Expert practitioners wear white robes and burn candles and frankincense, and use other esoteric paraphernalia. I obviously don’t have all the materials he suggests, but I don’t believe they’re needed...I showered and put on clean white shoes, and knelt to pray. If Aleister Crowley could do the ritual on horseback, then I could do it in a prison cell.277

  Echols devotes the introduction to Chapter 25 of Life After Death to the Holy Guardian Angel ritual:

  I went through the HGA prayer ritual three times today. At about 8:30 a.m., around noon, and at about 6:30 p.m. I’ve been reciting the prayer exactly as written in Abramelin and then praying the prayers again in my own words, making them as heartfelt as possible. Some of the newness is beginning to wear off and cause it to seem like actual work. However, for some reason I can’t define I feel my faith in the procedure growing.278

  The intent of the HGA process, according to Crowley, is to unite the magician, (symbolized by the pentagram) with the external entity (symbolized by the hexagram), which equals Crowley’s master number eleven. As stated earlier in this book, Aleister Crowley’s HGA was Lucifer, or Satan. The Devil.279

  Considering his love for Aleister Crowley and occultism, Damien Echols ends Life After Death with an ominous statement:

  I want to make the world a more magickal place. To give magick a form that people will appreciate, and that changes their lives. 280

  Echols with groupie

  Damien Echols Twitter feeds

  Not only does Damien Echols Twitter feeds reflect his magical world view, but his idolization of Aleister Crowley continues. This snapshot shows Crowley and a twitter feed of his sayings at the top of the list. A brief list of his tweets from 2012 is included below:

  People keep asking about the one in my chest. I designed it myself. It's a talisman for good luck. Also have ones for success and protection 05/08

  My favorite mask. I have quite the collection. 05/08

  I'll be moving up to Salem,MA. I love it up there. Every breath you take is full of Autumn and October's ghosts. It's where I belong,I know. 05/27

  Today I paid a visit to Enchantments. It's one of the more well known magick and meditation supply stores in NYC. Herbs,incense,books,etc. 05/27

  It makes you remember a certain magick that only exists when you're young, and the world hasn't beat you down yet. 05/28

  It reminds you of the days when you talked to ghosts and made magick potions in colored glass bottles. When a kiss was still so,so powerful. 05/28

  Getting to Hammarskjold Plaza was like a pilgrimage to me. In the books,it's the center of all worlds,the hub around which all magick dances. 05/28

  Did you know that tarot is my passion? 05/29

  The tarot is art and religion in one. It's magick and beauty. The tarot was a big part of what kept me sane in solitary confinement. 05/29

  My favorite decks are the Universal Waite and the Deviant Moon. I received the Waite deck as a birthday gift when I was a still a teenager. 05/29

  Tomorrow morning I head back up to Salem for a two day excursion. Can't believe it's already been a month since the last trip. 05/29

  Looks like I'm doing a scene in a movie Monday night. With Genesis P. Orrridge,no less. In Little Italy. Looking forward to it. 06/02

  Went to see "Snow White and the Huntsman". So,so good. So full of magick. It's how the world SHOULD look. I will be watching it again. 06/09

  The wand is your fire,your drive,your ambition. It's your ability to manifest your dreams into reality. 06/09

  The wand is really just a symbol. It symbolizes the mage's will - his ability to change the world around him. 06/09

  Today while walking home from breakfast I found THE most perfect magick wand. Its like it was placed there just for me. 06/09

  It's just too damned hot and bright to venture out today. It sucks the life out of me. There's no magick out there. 06/10

  Now the days will begin growing shorter again,the nights will grow longer. Something about that is soothing to me. It's more magickal. 06/20

  The next stop on the wheel of the year is Lammas- the beginning of the harvest season. I LOVE the harvest. The Equinox,Halloween,all the fun. 06/20

  Not only is it the solstice,but the moon is also dark. The dark of the
moon is when you can banish things no longer wanted in your life. 06/20

  The sheer brutality of the sun made me feel frantic. It withered everything even remotely magickal. 06/22

  It's the Solstice,folks. That hot, nasty time of year when the sun reaches it's peak. That means the Holly King is once more reborn.

  I met the N.Z. Prime Minister,went para gliding,and tried a burger with beets. Had fun...except the beets! 07/22

  Going to bed early so tomorrow comes more quickly. Can't wait to get back to New Zealand. Wintery magick awaits. 07/22

  I leave for New Zealand tomorrow. Going to the film festival there. West Of Memphis is going to be shown 3 times. 07/22

  I walked off of Death Row exactly 11 months ago today. 07/22

  My favorites are the Venetian masks,that look both sensual and slightly sinister. I have a collection of them. 07/28

  The Harvest season begins in about 4 more days. We're almost there,folks. We're going to be carving jack 'o lanterns before you know it. 07/28