Is the “Ripper”a Devil Worshipper?

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 898, 15 February 1930, Page 20

Is the “Ripper”a Devil Worshipper?

SAY by day the latest news about the German “Jack the Ripper" engrosses our attention (writes the Rev. D. Morse-Boycott in an English newspaper). Our chief wonderment is not over the wickedness of the murderer, but the impotence of the police. Their difficulty is that, whereas in most murders there is an obvious motive that points accusingly at some person or persons, there can be no clue to the identity of a mad monster who attacks those whom he has never met before. I wonder, however, whether the police have considered the possibility that the “Ripper" is inspired by “religious” frenzy. It should not be impossible to make u well-surveyed city yield up its occult secrets, if it has auv. Devilworship goes on in many parts of the world. You have only to look in the face of a nun to see how love and purity and self-sacrifice write themselves upon character. And If goodness can do that, evil can do it too. THE IMPULSE TO EVIL If a good person wifi go out of his way to do kindly acts all through life, it is equally certain that a thoroughly evil one will seek an outlet for the lusts that lurk in human nature. I read the other day of a young man who went down to an African village to see a witch dance. He scoffed at the idea that there was any danger in it. An hour later he was dancing, demented, with the natives. Goodness has its counter part in evil. The exquisite plainchant that whispers ltsief into silence amid the lofty arches of a cathedral has a very terrible parody. Friends of mine have told me how they have sat listening

Clergyman Discusses Evil Cult that Attracts Many Followers . . .

to the monotonous chant of natives until they were almost overborne by It. BLUEBEARD’S 800 VICTIMS “Religious” motives have dominated many of the most appalling murders in history. Take Bluebeard, for example. Most of us were brought up to dread him, in childhood, through the fearsome story of his inquisitive wife, who peeped into a cupboard to her destruction. But the Bluebeard of the nursery tale is a very gentle creature in comparison with the Bluebeard of history. He was none other than a French baron named Gilles de Rais, who threw in his lot with Joan of Arc. There is no doubt her gentle influence kept in check the turbulent passions that found a temporary outlet in warfare. But when it was all over, and the Maid had been burnt as a witch, religious fervour went mad, and the young man devoted himself to a life of inconceivable debauchery. This Send in human form hunted children. Sometimes a mysterious old woman, in a black mask, procured them for him. In the crypt below his chapel he put hundreds of innocent children to death before he was brought to book. CULT OF DEVIL WORSHIP Some historians have attributed as many as 800 deaths to him. J. K. Huysman, who has written the classic book on Bluebeard, suggests that the religious exaltation which he experienced in the Joan of Arc days was turned into a mystical Satanism.

There are devil-worshippers in England. They abound on the Continent. Bluebeard offered the innocent children in sacrifice. I do not suggest that such crimes are committed by "respectable” adherents of the cult of Satan. The law holds us all tightly in its grip. The law is a sign of the i triumph of human nature over evil. It is something to be proud of. Lord Brentford has lately hinted that there is a realm of evil in London of which we do not dream. The law protects us from being overwhelmed by it. But it exists at its height, perhaps, on the borders of the Mediterranean. The disciples of the Devil are known as the Yezidis. “Their homes,” says a writer, “are scattered through Asia Minor and on the edge of the Syrian desert. “The headquarters of the cult is in a paradise of foliage and flowers in the hinterland of the mountain ranges that sweep down to the Gulf of Alexandretta.”

That men do sell their souls to Satan is a fact. A little while ago the Barcelona courts were agitated over a will in which there was a clause thus: “I abandon my soul to the devils who are clever enough to get hold of it.” I suggest then, that the German Ripper may be inspired by some mad religious motive which has its roots in Satanism. Have the police scoured the second-hand booksellers who now and then have books on Diabolism for sale? Has an expert examined the ritual of Diabolism?