The 'Cooked Report'?
Roger Cook's Team Falsifies Evidence
Once I realised that the Cook Report was out to victimise me I refused to give them an interview on camera. One of The Cook Reports most mendacious acts to punish me for that refusal was to dig up an old interview with me which I gave to CTV for another purpose years before and dishonourably edit it to make it seem like I was admitting not taking responsibility for my customers or what they did. The impression given was that I didn't care and was only in it for the money.
What they actually did was to select controversial statements from a long interview, remove several crucial qualifying bits which showed I was speaking generally and present that biased editing without any just or honest light.
The original interview was filmed in May 1986 by a Central Television team for their magazine programme Central Weekend;. This was three years before The Cook Report began their Devil's work programme. At that point I was still daft enough to think that the British Media kept on perpetuating the same old stereotypes because they hadn't had the truth explained to them and took every opportunity to explain the positive nature of the New Age.
You can see clips from some of these excellent interviews here
The film crew who visited the shop in 1986 were friendly enough and promised to portray the increase in popularity of the New Age in a fair light. Thus I agreed that they could film in my shop and interview me and I also travelled to Birmingham to be in the audience for the live programme. It was only when I was sitting in the audience watching the edited interview for the first time that I got to know that the person who had organised it was none other than Roger Cook himself. (Cook mentions his work for Central Weekend on page 92 of his book)
At that time of course there was no suggestion or intimation of the Satanic Ritual Abuse Hysteria which swept the country a few years later. The programme was a debate about the popularisation of paganism and the occult and never made any reference to 'Child Abuse' satanic or otherwise.
In fact the programme was quite well-balanced and was contributed to by other occultists who attended. It also had its quota of off-the-wall Christian fundamentalists, including one Doreen Irvine , who, surprise, surprise, popped up giving interviews about Satanic Ritual Abuse during 1989. Here, three years beforehand, the strongest allegation she made was that as a 'disciple of satan' she had been made to bite the heads off live chickens! (this didn't raise too much concern as Ossie Osborne was biting the heads off chickens in his stage act at the time)
Ironically, the voice-over intro for my filmed interview was done by Cook himself so he can't claim that he didn't know my true and sincere intentions and beliefs.
In another startling synchronicity in these 'orbits of destiny' Doreen Irvine, a long time Christian fundamentalist campaigner (who was famous for writing 'From Witchcraft To Christ' in the 1970s), ended up 'counselling' Caroline Marchant at the Zion Christian Temple at Yate, near Bristol, not a million miles from where Cook lives. Marchant, a mentally disturbed young woman who needed psychiatric help, professed to be a victim of satanic abuse. Her story was later proved to be complete fantasy but gave such a convincing show that she became a cause celebre and was passed amongst the fundamentalist satan hunters whose worst fears she confirmed. Caroline ended up comitting suicide whilst living in the home of Reverend Kevin Logan - an advisor to the Cook Report. Logan also appeared in Cook's programme 'exorcising' children alleged to have suffered satanic abuse.
Many of the most outlandish allegations made by the Satan Hunters during the hysteria (some of which were used to headline the Cook Report) were sourced from the imagination of Caroline Marchant (see here). So here, three years before the Satan Hysteria was ignited the embers of the SRA myth were being inexorably fanned by its major players and the fates were already hooking Cook into the cycle of events.
During the filming I was asked and answered many sensible questions and then came the inevitable controversial ones; I was asked about witches dancing naked etc. and whether that was sexually deviant. Of course, not being familiar with the way the British Media deconstructs filmed interviews I did not realise that when edited the voice of the questioner would be taken out and I would appear to be voluntarily talking about sex linked to witchcraft!
I gave a very succinct overview of my sincere beliefs. I explained that I wasn't a satanist and , I came across as a rational and caring individual. So much so that several nice people wrote to me afterwards congratulating me on portraying the truth about paganism.
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Brockworth, Glos, 17th May 1986 Dear Mr Bray, I am writing to congratulate you on your excellent defence of the occult, which I saw on Central TV last night. The reasoning put forward by yourself, and other defendents of the occult arts, far outweighed the dogmatic and (in the case of the lady) hysterical arguments put against you. Again my congratulations on an excellent example of the REAL people who follow our ways, Yours sincerelyPeter, Surname Witheld |
However, three year's later in a climate of persecution I refused to be interviewed on camera again by Cook solely because I had learned that he had been accepting 'information' from five key people who had spent a year trying to smear me with lies.
A year earlier (April 16th 1988) I had a telephone conversation with one of those key enemies who had taunted me with the fact that she was helping with a Cook Report programme. Because of this and other indications that I was being set-up I got in touch by mail with Cook's producer Gareth Jones about the fundamentalist campaign against me and explained my position but found the Cook Report unresponsive.
Can I just run
that back to you
again? Before the Cook Report had finished it's investigation and
before they had contacted me, I voluntarily contacted them and offered
to work with them to get at the truth of the matter. I had over the
past year, since the initial allegations about SRA had been floated,
amassed a mountain of documentation and research profiles on the main
promoters of the myth showing that it all came from the same source -
Christian fundamentalists. The Cook Report didn't seem to want to know.
From the start I felt that they were treating me as 'the enemy' and I
couldn't get past this prejudice no matter how I tried.
Here's an example of a letter I sent them which the Cook Report
ignored.
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Gareth Jones - Producer GEOFFREY DICKENS AND OCCULT-RELATED CHILD-ABUSE ALLEGATIONS Further to my earlier letter concerning the above and the criticisms I made of your approach at the time. I am pleased to tell you that I have recently received a definitive written response on the subject from the Home Office which entirely supports my arguments and invalidates the hysterical allegations to which you gave credence.I quote from the most important part of the letter from the Home Office so: "Firstly, as you point out, according to press reports, Mr Geoffrey Dickens MP has sent the Home Secretary a dossier of child abuse cases allegedly connected with witchcraft. However this has not been received and the Home Office has no other evidence that there is a problem of the kind Mr Dickens describes. The Government is satisifed that the existing law on child abuse would be sufficient to deal with any offences against children which might be connected with withcraft" I suppose it would be too much to expect to hear from you with an admission that you were wrong or a rejudgement of your actions in this case but I do seriously insist that you make a note of these facts to avoid acting as an agent for religious prejudice in future instead of accepting hearsay from those with a vested interest in slandering the Occult. Yours Sincerely |
One reason why Gareth Jones may not have replied to my letter containing the crucial information that Dickens, a major contributor to the programme, had failed to present his much vaunted 'evidence' to the Home Office (it was never ever presented to our knowledge) was because they already had me lined up for 'the treatment'. A few weeks later (May 3rd 1989) Cook and his team descended on our premises unannounced to doorstep me.
When The Cook report originally asked me for an interview on 31st January 1989 I did agree to meeting with and speaking with Cook or his team OFF camera but for some reason this was not acceptable, which made me suspect that he had already made his mind up to feature me as the villain of the piece. (See clip below from discussion on 'doorstepping' and how people who originally worked with the Cook Report admitted it was misused.) The long and the short of it is that I WANTED to talk to them to correct the false information they had been given by fundamentalists but they weren't apparently interested in any information which undermined their 'take' on the issue. Too much had already been invested for truth to get in the way of a good story.
In the absence of an agreed interview Cook's team cast around for some footage and dredged up the 1986 recording, but, as it stood it wasn't very useful to them. In its entirety it actually answered their questions very fully and showed that I was sincere in my beliefs and not the Satanic Overlord that their 'informants' had painted me to be, as you will see if you check out the verbatim transcript below.
. I had actually given quite a few interviews to the written and broadcast media over the preceding decade (you will find some film extracts here:) so there was lots to go at but all of my interviews are sincere and portray me as a caring individual because that is what I am, so presumably in desperation The Cook Report extracted several controversial parts of the Central Weekend interview and stitched them together out-of-context to make it look like I was admitting to promoting anti-social or criminal acts!
Cook himself then recorded a smear lead-in for which he should be eternally ashamed. The idea appeared to be to portray me as a cavalier businessman making money out of tragedies whilst not taking any responsibility for things I sold or what my clients did whereas in fact the original terms of the interview and it's complete text showed exactly the reverse. That I was actually very responsible tolerant and caring.
Another classic example of how the Cook Report manipulated things to misrepresent me and convince viewers of the programmes claims.
This was such a blatantly dishonourable act, that at the BCC hearing I demanded that the Cook Report produce the original recording of the Central TV Weekend programme so the Commission could listen to what they had done to it because it showed their malicious intent. The Cook Report Team said that they couldn't for the moment find the recording (people working in the media who know just how carefully recordings are filed and classified and duplicated can pause a few seconds for a hollow laugh here) but Cook and his Team made conciliatory noises to the BCC assuring them that they would find a copy and send it to them in due course. I complained about this bitterly but was over-ruled.
Of course the tape wasn't sent to the BCC in time and this completely blocked one of the main planks of my complaint. It disabled the BCC from giving a proper ruling. It took me months to get a recording by other means. Of course now, years later, the entire clip can be seen on Youtube (see below) but then the words 'stitched up' came to mind. By that time the BCC had come to their conclusion which although it recognised that Cook had misrepresented me would have , of course, been much stronger censure had they been in possession of the true recording for it was prime-facie evidence of the Cook Report's conscious attempt to misrepresent my words and intentions.
This is what people Saw on The Cook Report
Roger Cook narrates the voice-over.
Proprietor Chris Bray has admitted in the past that he has some very dubious clients but denies he has any responsibility for what they do. '
'Now unfortunately there are peopleThree years on Bray did refuse to be interviewed and threatened legal action when asked to explain his part in the current promotion of satanism. "in creation there must be room for them, for all potentialities, and it is unfortunate that they do existwho are more inclined towards the sinister aspects of magic. Towards the darker aspects primarily because it gives them a vicarious thrill or an excuse for their own sexual abnormalities. There is nothing wrong with that providing they do not harm anotherand unfortunately because most of them are exhibitionists they tend to be the ones that the newspapers get hold of and that is the image that has been presented of occultism generally...... We are not evangelical in the sense that we try to push it onto other people but we are here as an access point so that people reach out to us. We never refuse any enquiries at all............
Note: I have crossed through the words above which the Cook Report removed from my statements to make me appear to be saying the opposite of what I actually did. (see Youtube link below for the full video)
NOTE: (1) I have never 'admitted that I have dubious clients' . I refuse to supply anyone with dubious intentions.
NOTE: (2) I did not refuse an interview, I invited it - off camera because of the dangerous situation with fundamentalist terrorists. Cook refused to interview me off camera and then told viewers I would not see him!
Note: (3) The sentences struck out in the above text were qualifications which more properly explained the meaning of what I was saying but which were edited out by the Cook Report to enable them to falsley portray me as irresponsible.Now Click the pic below to view the complete video of the unexpurgated interview which clearly depicts my sincere beliefs and positive moral values which the Cook Report did not want the British public to see.
Transcript of the full Interview follows so you can see How The Cook Report Manipulated It To Infer The Opposite of What I Originally Meant
CENTRAL TV's : 'WEEKEND' Programme
"WITCHCRAFT"
(Friday May 16th 1986)
Including the unexpurgated interview with Mr C.M. Bray from which the Cook Report extracted out-of-context the 'self-incriminating' statements used in their discredited The Devil's Work on 17th July 1989"
STUDIO
INTERVIEWER: "Is that what Black Magick is REALLY like? Well we met a
Wizard whose potions and paraphernalia are sent through the post to
Witches covens, Conjurors and sometimes just the plain curious.
This report by ROGER COOK.
(TRANSCRIPTOR'S NOTE: Mr Bray did not meet Cook or know of his involvement in the programme - Cook's voice over was appended to the interview after filming)
Studio Goes To Video-Tape
VOICE OVER BY ROGER COOK : "Behind this dark door in a Leeds back street lies a booming business. The major supplier to the growing number of believers in Witchcraft and Magic. The Sorcerer's Apprentice was established by Chris Bray 13 years ago at the start of the occult boom."
CAMERA PANS AROUND SHOP AND ONTO CHRIS BRAY
CHRIS BRAY "In modern times people tend to look upon spirituality as though it is an accessory to life when inside they know that it is the most important thing that there is. Witchcraft to the majority of people from the outside tends to smack of satanism which it is not.
The actual religion of Witchcraft is based on the universal religion of paganism which is at the root of all civilisations. It is a prehistoric religion and that gives us sustenance to continue by linking in with the planetary and seasonal cycles and becoming at one with the planet.
So most people involved in Withcraft tend to be ecologically minded they tend to love animals and also be gregarious and willing to help and serve others and that is as far removed from the image of Satanism as you can get.
But bound up in the religion of Witchcraft there is also the practice of magick. Magick is a power, it is an abstract power. lt is the power of genius and creativity which courses through the universe it is nothing at all secular, it can be applied by anyone and magick is the method and the technique by which you apply that formula.
The power is a natural power, it is one that anyone can use, it actually holds you up, magick is the intensive creative power which gives you thought and gives you a reason to be it is not secular so therefore the application of it is a question of technique rather than belief; once you understand that magic does work you can use it for all facets. "
CAMERA CONTINUES TO PAN ACROSS SHOP INTERSPERSING SHOTS WITH CHRIS BRAY SPEAKING
CHRIS BRAY: "There's been a lot of talk about black and white magic and it is important to distinguish between the two. There isn't a generic kind of magick which is black, there is magick pure and simple and the use of it depends upon the good taste of the operator.
Now unfortunately there are people in creation there must be room for them, for all potentialities, and it is unfortunate that they do exist who are more inclined towards the sinister aspects of magic. Towards the darker aspects primarily because it gives them a vicarious thrill or an excuse for their own sexual abnormalities. There is nothing wrong with that providing they do not harm another and unfortunately because most of them are exhibitionists they tend to be the ones that the newspapers get hold of and that is the image that has been presented of occultism generally.
When the magician uses the elemental paraphernalia on the altar, which by the way are usually reflected in most religions anyhow, because the elements, the quality of the elements are a universal truth. They are all represented across a magician's altar. A magician's altar looks very Similar to a High Mass altar and so this equipment is involved in the rite principally to keep the outside busy while the inside, the inside of. the person, is developing on to higher planes of thought, higher planes of being, and of course the equipment, if it is not used for a functional sense, such as incense burners which are used of course to burn incense in, are used in a symbolic sense.
So when a witch holds a dagger for instance, she is not holding a dagger in the general sense of the word she is holding a tool that can be used to chop herbs, to mix potions. It can be used to carve talismans into wood and so on. Likewise the cup which is used as a chalice is used for libations. It is a symbol of water containment. So all these things have a great degree of inner mystery to them which to the outsider may tend to look rather mysterious or sinister and in actual fact they can be explained away.
Occultism is life itself to me. We are very comitted people in what we do. We are not evangelical in the sense that we try to push it onto other people but we are here as an access point so that people reach out to us. We never refuse any enquiries at all and living without occultism to me is really like trying to run a race with one leg. It is impossible.
The sole criterion is that it should work. There is an old withcraft tenet which says that the goddess offers certainty not faith and that is very important so it is 'jam now' and it is a strange thing that unless you have experienced magick work, you don't believe it. It is only a potential. It is a possibility but the moment that we do experience it it changes your whole life and very much to the good. The potential of it. I mean, think of it. If you haven't worked magick and you work a piece of magick and it works.
The potentials are unlimited and that is what people are doing; they are striving to complete themselves, it is their birthright and it should not be denied them."
Video Ends.CONCLUSION: Thus, a balanced interview given years ago for a programme which had nothing to do with child abuse, was wickedly edited by the Cook Report to falsely portray me as being involved in promoting it!
.
DOCUMENT
1.
The Full Text Of
"The
Process"
As it appeared in LOT22 reprinted for
the first time in 20 years
Read it in full and make up your own mind
NOTE: This poorly printed 'proclamation', below, was sent to 'the editor of the LOT' anonymously through the post. I presumed it would have been sent to other esoteric magazine publishers. I was concerned that it was not from the original Process Church but was some other person trying to hi-jack their infamy. Either way I took the decision to publish it verbatim and add my personal comments on its contents as a way of engendering debate and the insight of regular LOT readers.
Page 42
THE PROCESS
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Latest Comment: Obviously it is clear that this article was meant by the person or persons who mailed it to be provocative. Of course its contents will be unpalatable to many - they are unpalatable to me too. However I make no apologies for printing it because I was bringing it to the notice of the occult community for general discussion and warning them of the false magical methodology it promoted. My question to the Cook Report in turn is WHAT HAS ALL THIS GOT TO DO WITH SATANIC RITUAL CHILD ABUSE? Neither the Process nor any members of The Family were ever accused of any form of child abuse. It is as though the Cook Report cast around for the most controversial articles and cobbled them together to portray me as evil when I am not.
The strangest fact in this harum-scarum of ideas which the Cook Report cobbled together is that Roger Cook already knew more than me about The Process Church anyway, HE HAD DIRECT CONTACT WITH THEM.
On Sunday 9th April 1972 whilst working for The World This Weekend Roger Cook actually did one of the first in-depth documentary reports on The Process Church.
He was critical of the organisation and went into great detail to explain their beliefs, interviewing a founder member but ROGER COOK MADE ABSOLUTELY NO CLAIMS OF CHILD ABUSE Here's an extract from the programme to give you the gist of what Cook thought about the Process then.
Cook: A bewilderment not helped by the Process's baffling beliefs. Jehova, Lucifer and Satan are all worshipped equally and in their luridly printed and conceitedly printed magazine the Process actually appear to advocate rape and violence. I put that to Father Malachai,Father Malachai: The Process is not advocating rape and nobodys advocating violence.....
Ed Sanders: They're riding away with this Jesus Freak movement....... and try to get recruits from it and accordingly trying to come on more as a Christian unit rather than their belief in Satan and destruction and thou shalt kill and end the world but its hard to believe that a leopard can change its spots ....
How then, 17 years later, did it come about that I, who have no other connection with The Process church other than printing this one leaflet, am being hounded about the group's activities when Cook's contact book already offered avenues so he could ask them what they were doing direct?
Why did Cook need to point the finger of guilt at me for publishing and condemning this proclamation, instead of chasing down his old contacts in the Church itself?
In the intervening 17 years the Process Church had not been prosecuted for any violence or rape. They had certainly not been prosecuted for any child abuse. Why, in an article falsely condemning me as acting as a go-between (which I am not) did the Cook Report fail to chase after and doorstep The Process themselves whom, presumably, the Cook Report suspected were actually committing the criminal acts?
I can see that you will forgive me for thinking that this was another stitch-up where something explainable was kept dark in order to massage the worst fears in viewers' minds and blame me for something I had not done.
DOCUMENT 2:The Rite of Transmutational SorceryBy S.L. SennitThis article is inspired by the "aestheticism" of the Mythos of the Dark Gods and related to the fiction of H.P.Lovecraft, August Derleth and others. As a model of functioning chaos energy the results reached via the method below cause an inner vertigo that tends to over-ride personality interference and thus an immense change in conscious perception occurs. METHOD. (with illustrative reference to the aesthetic effect). The sorcerer is to identify with an aspect of "pure" manifest chaos, represented in this model by the Cthulhu Mythos entity AZATHOTH, "blind and idiot force at the centre of infinity." This invokation is dangerous, but will confer a great deal of perceptive power to those strong of stomach! The chamber should be in total darkness. Choose a heavy cloying incense to dim the Ego-senses and meditate upon the presence of AZATHOTH in an awkward position; one which causes strain or excitement. No instrument of the Art should be used apart from the metaphysical. In your chosen position a mantra scream should begin, low and muffled, coming from the stomach, somewhere near the groin. This should be felt to tear from the physical body as it emerges from the throat, getting rawer, louder, more animal like as it progresses. Eventually the scream must rise more frequently and become the total centre of being as you feel it lift from the dark pit of your stomach into the dizzy vortex of blackness; ripping you apart, rending you free; summoning Azathoth from the abyss of deepest dreaming chaos. AIDS TO THIS WORKING: A sigil may be used as the preordained image of the Primal Scream. Such as: This will have the effect of providing an image of Azathoth, though it will be an abstract, impressionist image. Care should be taken to avoid being sucked into Azathoth's voidal entity, and this sigil will do the job by forcing a subjective identity on it which the sorcerer may "freeze" and contain. In this way, the invokation will be limited but more tangibly successful; the magician becomes an aspect of Azathoth. Such a working is very dangerous but can go further and is infinite in its drastic consequences. I suggest the use of some hallucinogenic herb such as Henbane, Deadly Nightshade or the less effective Woody Nightshade which can be used as an external ointment to aid the projection into the Abyss. However may I remind the reader that these narcotics are obviously very dangerous and care should be taken in their use. (Editor: Henbane and Deadly Nightshade secrete lethal toxins in all their parts which can enter the bloodstream directly through a scratch or open wound, causing a miserable death. We advise against their use.) POSSIBLE USES OF THE RITE: Perception of the very outer limits of consciousness can provide immense changes to the Ego which will diminish if the invokation is succesful, and thus enable further magickal freedom due to the intensity of the experience. Directed magickal results may be obtained by meditating on their fulfillment or sigilized to be reified by the invokation. Such as: obtaining of some material desire; perception of other worlds; contact with other sorcerers; curing and/or injuring other physical beings etc., but the main point of the ritual is to effect a lasting and devastating change in perceptive consciousness. |
Latest Comments: As you can see although the writer of this article suggested the use of Henbane or Deadly Nightshade (which are two traditional hypnogogic herbs used anciently in magic and are said to be part of the Flying Ointment used by witches in mediaeval times) it is supplemental to the rite itself. He also responsibly warns readers of their toxicity.
To supplement this I, as editor, also appended a robust caution about the fact that the toxins in Henbane and Belladonna can enter the bloodstream through cuts and grazes on the skin so therefore are unreliable to all but the experienced.
The article is a genuine modern magical rite based on ancient precepts. The employment of 'Flying Ointment' is historically accurate. I would not have published the article in censored form without it just to avoid the possibility that some idiot somewhere in the world would read it and ignore TWO clear cautions, strive to find enough of what are now very rare plants and still have the persistence to swallow them.
The point is that the toxicity of poisonous plants is often greatly exaggerated (that's what Tate tried to do in the Radio Leeds interview). but the amount of herb required to cause an affect on consciousness is normally far, far below the amount required to cause poisoning. Poisoning itself is not an on/off switch, it is a gradual process, therefore the body gives clear warning of danger and can recover from most overdoses of natural ingredients. Unlike chemical drugs which are so concentrated that once taken can rarely be reversed. For instance:,
Tate complains about my risking my readers health with this article but ironically the closest death by poisoning to him during this farago was that of Caroline Marchant, the SRA victim-imposter who committed suicide at the home of the Reverend Kevin Logan who was looking after her and helping her write up her SRA 'experiences'. Logan not only contributed to the Cook Report but actually appeared on camera exorcising children. There is no suggestion that Logan was at fault in Marchant's death, the point I am trying to make is that she killed herself with an overdose of paracetamol, not Deadly Nightshade.
In other words one would have not only to be very persistent to locate and very very stupid to ingest the amount of these herbs which are required to poison a human to death but would probably be hospitalised long before one got to that impasse.
By its very nature the LOT is read by discerning and intelligent individuals and is not obtainable generally to the ordinary public I was satisfied that any risk was small enough to be accepted. This judgement has been confirmed by the fact that in the 24 years that have elapsed since this article was put into print there has not been any reports of anyone being killed by it.
AND WHAT HAS THIS GOT TO DO WITH THE SUBJECT OF COOK'S PROGRAMME ANYWAY?
So that's it folks! Cook told you that I was promoting Satanic Ritual Child Abuse but his key bits of evidence, document 1 and document 2, HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH SATANIC RITUAL CHILD ABUSE!
The groups and people involved have not been accused of it and not been investigated for it. The articles themselves don't mention it and I have done nothing more than published the articles for open debate.
ROGER COOK'S
DEVIL'S WORK'
WAS A WITCH-HUNT PURE AND SIMPLE!
Roger Cook
Hounds An Innocent Man
for
Twenty Years
Now We Tell The Full Story
"How many times does a falsehood have to be told before the teller of it becomes a liar?"
When the Cook Report depicted me as selling dead bodies and organising Satanic Ritual Child Abuse the public were rightly shocked. They wanted my blood and some of them firebombed my shop because of it; but experienced Cook Report observers saw it as 'entertainment'. The Cook Report were careful not to actually allege what their on-screen inferences clearly inferred. They had not actually said anywhere in their programme that I was involved in Satanic Child Abuse because I wasn't - it was all falsehood. If they had made those criminal accusations I would have slapped them with a writ but their allegations on-screen had been carefully phrased and because of that I could do nothing but keep on insisting on the truth and pointing up their dishonourable actions over the years.
The Broadcasting Complaints Commission who looked into the matter saw this and castigated The Cook Report for not making it clear in their report that I was not involved in any form of child abuse.
Some of the Cook Report team were honest enough to admit that there 'had been problems with the programme' but Imagine my surprise when decades later, Cook, knowing what the BCC had said, began falsely re-portraying me as a child-abuser in his last book; and in a recently broadcast radio interview. I have been waiting for over twenty years for an apology and to have my name cleared but Cook appears to now be actually embellishing and strengthening his programme's lies as time passes. I cannot, indeed must not, let him get away with it. History, if it is to mean anything, must reflect the truth.
He may think that the public's memory is so short that he can ignore what has gone before but I cannot allow these lies to persist and so have here related the TRUE story about the Cook Report's The Devil's Work.. It is the never before told inside story about how Cook was conned into broadcasting the biggest Hoax in twentieth century television.
So What Were The Cook Report Allegations:
The allegations made against me by the Cook Report were succinctly put in a radio interview between Tim Tate (the Producer and Researcher for the programme) and myself on Radio Leeds the day after the Cook Report had been broadcast. In response to my question as to what the Cook Report was actually alleging this is what Tate said:TATE: "We wanted to talk to you specifically about the article and adverts in your publication which is the Lamp of Thoth. We specifically wanted to talk to him about the piece from the Process Church of the final Judgement and The Rite of Transmutational Sorcery, we specifically wanted to talk to Chris about that and, let me finish, it includes the suggestion from the author that the person who uses this rite should use Henbane or Deadly Nightshade Psychotropic Drugs which are extraordinarily dangerous."Roger Cook made one additional allegation on-camera to the effect that I was involved in selling dead bodies. This amazingly stupid criminal accusation was trumped-up from a single classified advertisement in the Lamp of Thoth's contact section where an eccentric lady had advertised for a man-friend with similar interests in necromancy,funeral impedimentia and 'body parts'. Today of course she would be termed a 'Goth' but in 1989 Cook tried to insinuate that I was acting as a go-between in the sale of dead bodies! All this would be farcical if it were not so serious, it lead to a long discussion at the Broadcasting Complaints Commission hearing over the difference between necromancy and necrophilia! The Cook Report team either did not know the difference or were trying to add gravitas to their stupid allegation.
. This was the ONLY advertisement which referred to 'body parts' in 27 issues spanning a dozen years. I had never met the woman and didn't know her personally but she actually gave her postal address in the advert. It was an easy thing for the Cook Report to disprove, but instead of visiting and asking her they ran with the falsehood as 'further evidence' that I was involved in Satanic Ritual Abuse. There is absolutely no other evidence of any kind to bolster the ridiculous allegations they were making. Onlookers may say that I was unwise to risk allowing the advertisement but the Lamp of Thoth is a magazine for alternative types. It prides itself on breaking the bounds of censorship of 'normal' publications. Because it was clear that nobody actually involved in grave-robbing etc. would place a public advert admitting it I didn't see what the problem was and bunged it in.
You will see from the above
that virtually the whole of the Cook Report's justification for including
me in their now discredited programme came from statements and articles in
The Lamp of Thoth magazine. In particular
Volume 4 number 4 (which is incidentally the magical square of Saturn!)
which contained both articles which Tim Tate objected to: viz:
The Rite of Transmutational
Sorcery and
The
Process: What Does It Mean .
Tate and the
Cook Report made much of these, as though I was specifically promoting
them, yet in the same issue there were another 15 similarly controversial
articles from different angles, including, The
Manson Report by Jimmi Rocket which Cook did not comment upon. The Manson Report was a round-robbin update of
Manson's state of mind and included a letter from him.
The Lamp of Thoth is one of the best occult magazines around. It is an OCCULT magazine. You would expect to find all this stuff there but none of it has any connection with the lies concerning Satanic Ritual Child Abuse. The Cook report simply selected the controversial stuff they could twist to support their prejudices. To try to portray me as some kind of evil lunatic when if you read an LOT you will see that it is highly responsible and a correct reflection of leading edge thinkers.
Cook and Tate may not like what we print in the LOT but that's no reason to censor lawful self-expression is it? The Cook Report became more an attack on free-thinkers and suppression of alternative beliefs than a crusade to save kids. So you can see how wrong Tate and The Cook Report was I am appending both the articles, in full, in the column left. You don't have to rely on Cook to interpret the worthiness of the Lamp of Thoth. You can judge for yourself by downloading a complete sample copy from here: The Lamp of Thoth.
What Went Wrong With The Devil's Work?
Cook's appalling 1989 TV special The Devil's Work was the summit of his unprofessionalism. It spearheaded and promoted the Satanic Ritual Abuse Myth which did so much harm during 1989 to innocent parents accused of false SRA and of course messed up the lives of their children by forcing them into care. The programme still requires an apology to the British people and to myself whom Cook unfairly targeted on Trial by TV. Yet instead of admitting that this programme was in error Roger Cook has taken the opportunity in Dangerous Ground his latest book to re-write history in his own peculiar perspective. Chapter 9 contains not a discussion of the pro's and con's of the programme but a renewed and concerted personal attack on me for striving to obtain justice. Now according to Cook's latest radio interview I am not only evil, I am apparently mad!
.... and as far as I know he's still mad enough to be doing that today....
He's right, I'm hopping mad about these lies, though I have a feeling Cook meant raving mad because where I am concerned he appears to be willing to say anything to put people off listening to the truth.
This time Cook skips entirely over the real issue - that he told his viewers that there was a nationwide network of satanists torturing and sacrificing children when in fact time has proved that there was none. Instead of addressing this crucial argument and explaining why all the allegations and accusations he made in this programme failed, he blames the sinking of his career on some imagined high-level conspiracy against him by the News of The World!
But here's an interesting story showing how the gods work. When Cook and the News of The World were locked in a two year bitter legal wrangle over claims that he had faked some of his shows Cook admits in his book that it took a personal toll on him so he jetted off to Spain for a break and bumped into me at Malaga airport departure lounge!
Of course I reported this to the SAFF and they published a cheeky account of my 'doorstepping' of the master doorstepper! This made Cook look foolish in many people's eyes and lead to him giving an alarmingly partisan re-telling of the spectacle of me reversing the roles and doorstepping HIM in Malaga airport . In his book he appears to be trying to convince his readers that I was victimising HIM! Poor put upon Roger.....
Inevitable Questions Answered
I am writing this statement to put the record straight to answer the inevitable questions that will occur now and in the future whenever anyone reads his self-congratulatory book. Following the hullaballoo of the Leveson Inquiry it will also be of great interest to those who do not yet see how dishonourably some parts of the British media conduct themselves
Cook has over the years done his best to persecute me by not only misrepresenting me initially but then, when the truth came out and his programme was undermined, continuing to insist that he was right in the first place; yet in the intervening two decades:
How many satanists
have been prosecuted for Satanic ritual child abuse?
None!
How many cases have
the NSPCC brought to book after appearing on the Cook Report urging
action?
None!
What did
the Government's definitive report on the issue say in 1994?
Satanic Ritual Abuse didn't Exist!
No Bodies, No Bones, No Forensic Evidence ever found
Every single case
and allegation quoted by Cook in his The Devil's
Work failed in the course of time.
Every
'victims'' story turned out to be false.
The
allegations were untrue.
There was no substance
to any of it.
More Dangerous Ground is another example of how Cook has doggedly attacked and defamed me over the years regardless of the truth. Yet I am an honest and honourable family man with no criminal record. I have been self-supporting all my life and have contributed philanthropically to many organisations, including being one of the founders of an ecological charity as well as supporting organisations which protect freedom of thought and expression. I have personally aided the police with research and background to disprove several key cases and enhance the course of justice, contributed to the UNA's reportage on religion and belief, assisted the Commission for Racial Equality with its campaign to widen its scope to include religious hate crimes, have worked with many key journalists who have properly informed the public about the truth over the SRA lies and I was one of the few people singled out for thanks in the government's definitive report on The Satan Myth.
I have done all this
freely and received no payment for it. Unlike Cook, who, let us not
forget, made millions out of pursuing his victims on TV. Cook prefers to
overlook all my good works in the past 30 years including being a member
of the United Nations Association and organising thousands of signatures
of support for the first international climate change meeting in Brazil
which lead to the Kyoto Summit which swayed most of the world's nations to
do something about protecting the environment. Cook ignores all those
things and instead writes about me as though I am a crook!
There's No Secret About What I do
In my lifetime's work at the Sorcerer's Apprentice Bookshop I have for over three decades assisted the personal and spiritual development of over 70,000 clients worldwide who have an interest in ALL types of religions and beliefs. That includes Christianity. There has never been any secret about what I do. For over a decade prior to the Cook Report I worked happily with the media and gave many radio, newspaper and TV interviews to portray the positive things about occultism. You can see some of them here My shop was then open 6 days a week and anyone, including detractors, could call in and challenge me at any time if they wanted. I am reachable by phone, by Fax, by email, and by post. My entire range of goods can be seen on my website here: www.sorcerers-apprentice.co.uk 24 hours a day. You can read what my customers think and get up to on the S.A.'s forum here and you can even download and read over 100 lessons on magical technique which I have written to explain the estoeric to newcomers instantly from here to see that none of them promote satanism. Could anyone possibly be more open?
My premis has always been, right from when I first started the Sorcerer's Apprentice (indeed it was one of the reasons FOR starting it) that there is common ground between all ideologies. My intention was to provide a platform where people from ALL beliefs could get to see those common connections and perhaps avoid the deadly conflict which is an end result of the fanaticism of orthodox religions.
How prescient this was! When Cook was doing the sectarians' dirty-work for them in 1989 I was warning everyone that the implications were immense and that these people wanted to start another Holy War against all other religions. Here we are after 9/11 and the London Bombings with what is to all intents and purposes another Crusade between the Christianised West and Islamic theocratic extremists in the Middle East; the full ramifications of which have yet to be understood by many who have swallowed the convenient political lie that it is all about oil.
Cook Traffics with Fundamentalist Troublemakers
Any state would be happy to have tax-paying
self-supporting, unselfish citizens like me; yet Cook cooperated with and
listened to a cadre of self-declared sectarian enemies of my
all-encompassing approach because they feared it would undermine their
control over the minds of the masses. It was this gang of five, including
a leading MP, Geoffrey Dickens, who invented the untrue outrageous
statements, and allegations which headlined Cook's programme. He was USED
and manipulated by these people.
Whether Cook personally knew their hidden agenda to bring down the Sorcerer's Apprentice when he started is unclear but he certainly knew that I was not a satanist and that I was sincere in my religious convictions because three years before The Devil's Work was broadcast he organised a middle-of-the-road programme on me which involved filming at my premises and portraying my business in a balanced light (see 'The Cooked Report' column left for full details).
Additionally, Cook's close confidant and head of The Cook Report team Tim Tate admitted in a radio interview a day after the Devil's Work was broadcast that they were aware that fundamentalists were campaigning against the occult. Did they know that some of those fundamentalists who were providing them with information had already expressed a desire to close my bookshop down? Tate denies this is the case but the facts speak for themselves and I did formally tell the Cook Report this when I first wrote to them months before they doorstepped me.
One key
consultant to the Cook Report was Maureen Davies. Davies is a christian
fundamentalist agitator and prior to the Satanic Ritual Child Abuse
Claims, had spent years protesting and campaigning about aspects of the
New Age which most people would find quite innocuous. Transcendental
Meditation, Yoga, Astrology, Tarot Cards, Heavy Metal music and all the
usual nonsense came within her remit as symptoms of 'Satanism'.
She was a director of the Reachout Trust, an evangelical action group which took a major part in floating the Satanic Ritual Child Abuse myth but which had earlier spent decades attacking the New Age without mentioning it!
Not only did Davies act as a consultant for the Cook Report but she also managed the 'helplines' set up after The Devil's Work was broadcast. Here is a picture of her doing it (see right). She was shown being interviewed by Roger Cook in the Cook Report Update and claimed that 900 calls about satanism had been received. But if you click on the photo above you can hear Davies lecturing to church audiences on 'How To Deal With The Occult In Your Area' where it is clear that she thinks everything which is not Holy Writ is somehow a gateway to Satan!
Of course, many christians, thinking occultism is spiritually worthless, might say that Davies has a right to attack it but that is because they are very dim of what the real issues are here and how fundamentalism starts with the most unpopular sections of society and then works up to affect everyone else, often embodying latent racism. Look at this:
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"REACHOUT ATTACKS HINDUS: As the fundies become stronger they begin to show their hand more readily. In a tape recorded lecture about her visit to USA fundamentalists Maureen Davies attacks Hinduism. Accusing schools of promoting Witchcraft and Cannibalism to four year olds , in the same breath she goes on: "They're not allowed to have Christianity, but they're bringing in Hinduism, reincarnation, all these things through their visualisation. ... And it is being brought in in a very subtle way. And then they'll bring in a Hindu to share and the whole lot. ...I think we need to realise how our education is being contaminated. " Not content with besmirching believers in Hinduism, one of the most widespread religions in the world, puritanically protestant Davies moves straight into slandering Catholicism with the following slight: "Catholicism and Satanism really mix well".
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I wonder if those easy-going christians who were inclined to listen receptively to Reachout's allegations about Satanists will also support Davies' attacks on Hindus and Catholicism? Are we seeing a chink of light here?
Now I ask you dear reader, do you think it is fair for Roger Cook to allow a zenophobic sectarian evangelist to be allowed to direct blood-libel allegations against an opposing belief and base a programme almost entirely on it? Isn't this something like allowing a Hasidic Jew Settler present evidence of blood-libel against Palestinians? There would be an absolute outcry if Cook tried that wouldn't there? Well here's the proof:
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26.6.90: EXTRACT FROM REACHOUT TRUST'S LECTURE TAPE RECORDING ENTITLED : HOW TO ACT TOWARDS THE OCCULT IN YOUR AREA.................... "Go down to WHSMITH and
look at the magazines or go into any large newsagents and look at
the magazines and you will find one or two and especially one
particular magazine under the title of PREDICTION. Now Prediction is
an astrology magazine; is a star sign magazine and you may say "well
what's wrong with that, you know, no harm in that etc. etc. " You
open it up and flick through it. What you will find in there is,
first of all there is often an article in there, advert in there,
Winning with Witchcraft. There are also a number of adverts in there
for occult shops and in these occult shops; AND ONE ESPECIALLY UP IN LEEDS WHERE WE HAVE
SOME FRIENDS WHO HAVE BEEN MARCHING ROUND AND REALLY TAKING HOLD OF
GOD TO CLOSE DOWN", Note 1:
This Reachout tape which so clearly proves my contentions to the
Cook Report was sold by mail to fundamentalists in the Reachout
network as a training leture on what they can do to campaign against
The New Age and specifically singles my business out. This campaign
was going on for over year before the Cook Report got
involved. Note 2; The
photograph alongside shows two fundamentalist agitators picketing
outside The Sorcerer's Apprentice bookshop in Hyde Park Leeds which
was firebombed after the Cook Report. You can see a larger
version of it here. The Reachout Trust was the major organisation which spread belief in The Satanic Ritual Child Abuse Myth in the U.K. The shocking allegations gave this previously provincial and unremarkable charity which for years had specialised in cruelly slandering Jehovah's Witnesses as an evil 'cult', entre into high levels in the U.K. child scare industry who sucked up their lies to gain more funding and expand their own influence. As soon as SAFF work began to make an impact and the media turned against the myth the Reachout Trust STOPPED making claims about SRA and went back to condemning JWs! Maureen Davie's then split off into a new organisation, the Beacon Trust, which specialised in SRA. How can Cook and Tate possibly say that the people who fed them false research were not troublemakers intent on closing my business down for sectarian reasons? One could easily make the case that British fundies chose me to attack precisely because I was the only person at the time who was contradicting the false accusations about satanic abuse which they were using to obtain sectarian control over the moral direction of our society. Why was I contradicting them? Because they were blaming me for it and I knew I was innocent, hence could see through the veil of illusion they were foisting on everyone else. When I checked into their claims I saw that they were all wicked exaggerations or complete falsehoods. What a pity Cook didn't do the same thing! |
Now we don't mind criticism and we don't avoid
debate. We live in a free country and I am ready to debate with
ardent Christians about what I do any time. I expect them to accord me the
same rights. This is essential for a proper understanding of the
truth. However I do draw the line when obsessive evangelicals begin to
tell others that I am involved in criminal activities simply because they
hate me.
.
These facts should have put a stop on Cook's
programme but it didn't. In fact one of the gang who ranged
against me could not wait for the programme to go out and actually let the
cat out of the bag by threatening me with the Cook Report when I
telephoned her to complain about criticisms she had made of my shop in a
radio interiew.
Even after Cook had backed the 'mother of all Satanic exposes', there were other key occasions when he could have changed tack (or at the very least re-arranged the tabloidesque thread of his programme to give more balance) , including my several offers to discuss it all with him off-camera. I explained to him in detailed letters (sent via my solicitor so their existence couldn't be denied) that I was being persecuted by sectarians who wanted to destroy all alternative spiritual beliefs and that some of these were being retained by him as advisers to his programme. I warned him that the idea of Satanic Child Abuse was a figment of their demon-soaked imaginations. I told Cook this months before he doorstepped me but it didn't appear to have any effect - he was intent on making me the villain of the piece.
Government inquiry proved me right and Cook wrong.
Yet, in
1994 after a long period of research with access to the very cases Cook
highlighted in his Devil's Work programme the government's official report
said exactly the same things that I had been trying to tell Cook earlier!
The scare had been a figment
in the minds of Christian Fundamentalists who had fooled Cook and many
social workers
"Detailed study of cases showed that the Evangelical Christian campaign against new religious movements has been a powerful influence encouraging the identification of satanic abuse..."
Definitive Government report
I had been right all along and Cook had been wrong,
very wrong -
insistently
wrong beyond good reason.
Today Cook plays down
the earlier sensationalist language on this issue. In his recent Bristol Radio
interview he says:
Interviewer: Another programme that you did towards the end of the Cook Report was one about Satanic Abuse. Now this is ah, people like Private Eye will say this doesn't exist , what did you find out about it.Cook: Well, as far as we could see it did, I mean it wasn't as widespread as some people tried to say but on the other hand those who said it didn't exist were clearly wrong....
Sorry? Did I just hear Roger the Dodger switch from the position of his 1989 programme which told you the British Public that the U.K. was rife with satanic groups intent on sacrificing children and back off now to a position where he was blaming OTHERS for over-sensationalising it at the time? Times do change, as the following cutting shows...
There was no such baby! It was all the outpourings of the imaginations of mentally unstable women who invented the crimes whilst under recovered memory therapy. The therapists and social workers WANTED them to be real but they weren't. They talked of them as though they were real, and they passed them to Roger Cook and other members of the media as though proven cases but it was all a phantom of their worst fears.
Reasoned argument does not make good TV apparently. Is that why Cook persisted with door-stepping me instead of listening to my unquestioned expertise on the esoteric? It is clear to me in hindsight that they probably couldn't find anyone else whom they could twist this story to fit around. At that time there was no other character in the burgeoning New Age movement in the U.K. whose business was big enough and who had the audacity to actually hold out for the religious rights of all beliefs, as a universal principle, including Satanists and Christians.
Of course under the British Human Rights Act, Satanists (like all other religious groupings) now have equal rights with other religions and the public are slowly coming around to realise that it is unjust to give one person a precedence over another simply because the former has chosen a better-known spiritual belief. Of course the highest indication of tolerance is when someone recognises inalienable rights BEFORE they are forced to do so in law, as I always have. You can see a copy of the BHRA and learn more about it's implications by clicking on this SAFF link
We Uncover The REAL Threat To Children
Ironically it was our pioneering research to inject a sense of perspective over the frankly hysterical claims being made by Cook's Team which first exposed the endemic and continuing abuse of children by Christian Clergy. Our research uncovered the blind-spot of the British Media and showed that there had been THOUSANDS of cases of physical and sexual abuse by Christian Priests and that there was a continuing ongoing threat to children from clergy and the church (which often covered up for the abusers and moved them elsewhere only to have them abuse children AGAIN). Our shocking statistics were first published in The Black Museum of Clergy Abuse where the now historic strap-line declared
Your child is a thousand times more likely
to be abused by your local Priest
than by satanists.'
Of course since we dared to tell the truth about Clergy Abuse in the early 1990s it has become 'common-knowledge' with dozens of TV programmes exposing examples of the various churches discovering paedophile priests and moving them to new parishes where they abused again, and again. Only last week there was another celebrated case where a repetitive abuser had been whitewashed by the church only to abuse his child victims again. Our statistics prove that three new children will be abused each and every week; week in, week out; year in, year out. This scandal is of world-wide proportions and has cost the Vatican alone Billions of pounds in hush-money payments.
I tell you all this because I want you to consider why Cook and his team were wasting resources victimising me, an innocent man, over unsubstantiated rumour and innuendo from sectarians who obviously had an axe to grind when there was one thousand percent more incontrovertible evidence of similarly evil crimes being perpetrated by Paedophile Christian Clergy, many of whom must have relaxed in the thought that the Satanic Panic was a fine smokescreen for their activities. If he had bothered to look he would have seen that this was happening right under his nose yet he chose to focus upon the Myth of Satanic abuse.
Will Cook Always Refuse To Accept He Was Wrong?
Once the
Devil's Work was broadcast the die was cast
and Cook will never escape its ramifications. It is a despicable blot on
an otherwise professional career.
Even though
most of it's claims were discredited in the following years.
Even though every single case Cook used as evidence
of his allegations failed in the course of time.
Even though not one prosecution was ever brought
which supported Cook's position he still insists it was a valid
investigation.
Even though many if not all of his
'consultants' have since been discredited (see cutting
right)
The Devil's Work is seen by many as a blight on his career yet he still continues to try to discredit me as though I am somehow to blame for it! As though by trying to silence my demand for justice he can avoid answering the many questions about his dubious programme. The only thing I am to blame for is having the guts to stick up for myself and enter a David and Goliath fight against a multi-million pound media machine which has repetitively tried to stop me from putting my case.
You would think it might be sensible for Cook to let sleeping dogs lie but here he is again in his new book More Dangerous Ground trying to discredit me two decades later! Is this to silence me, or fool you?
His re-telling of our head-to-head in Malaga Airport is so shot through with falsehood that I am bound, for posterity, to give you the true story as it happened so you can compare both sides. Then you will be in a better position to judge just how much credence you can give to this and the rest of Cook's book.
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'The break built on that good beginning, with lots of sun, sangria and sympathy. We met up with some other old friends and Frances indulged in a little retail therapy in Puerto Banus. Those few days did us a power of good - it was a great relief to be distanced from our ongoing legal trauma, even for so short a time. Unfortunately, the feelgood factor faded almost as soon as we arrived in the departure lounge on our way home. While we sat over coffee waiting for our flight to be called, we were approached by a man with a vaguely familiar face, As you are inclined to do in these circumstances, I greeted him cordially. He asked for an autograph, which I gave him on the back of a napkin. He inspected it and nodded in satisfaction. "You are Roger Cook, then, hiding behind a beard now," he said. ' [FALSE: - This is an interesting example of how Cook takes liberties. I did not say anything at all about his beard in my conversation with him BUT Cook has transposed an extract from my interview with the SAFF (see later) and inserted it into his idea of the conversation we had! During the SAFF interview I said: 'Cook... has grown a beard, Colonel Sanders style, presumably to avoid old enemies..'] '"I'm Chris Bray." He waved the signed napkin. "I'll have some fun with this on the internet." And as he turned on his heel to leave, he added: "I'm going to make your life a misery." '
What actually happened was that I was already sitting at a table with my group drinking coffee when Cook walked in and sat down at the next table but one. Realising this was a gift from the gods I first took a surreptitious photograph of him (see pic right) as proof of the meeting and then I found a pen in my bag picked up a clean napkin and walked across and asked him for his autograph. 'Of course, what's your name'. Said Cook. I said "It's Chris..... " and he wrote 'For Chris Keep Safe, Roger Cook' .., and then I said. '...you know; from the Sorcerers' Apprentice Bookshop'.
'What are you going to do with this?' Cook said. I said I would probably frame it for old-times' sake. A sneer crept across Cook's face Then I said that I had changed my mind and that the napkin would look good on the SAFF website along with the photograph I had just taken. Can I have my pen back?' I said. Cook snarled and virtually threw it at me. Those are the words as they happened - no threat, no lack of civility, no pre-arranged plan - just the gods working off a bit of karma. Quite a bit different to the impression Cookie gave huh? A link to the original SAFF article and interview is here. .. ]...Back To Cook's Book It then dawned on me that Bray was the proprietor of a strange shop called The Sorcerer's Apprentice ®, which had featured in a programme on Satanism which we had made in 1989. Apart from selling artefacts and regalia for Satanist rituals, the shop and the publications it also sold acted as contact and recruiting points for at least two fringe organisations advocating child abuse and violence. [False: These are the same falsehoods which Cook and his Team tried to float in 1989. It is based on the usual guilt-by-association trick, where amongst the hundreds of magazines I stocked on all aspects of esotericism two carried obscure advertisements for groups which I had no personal contact with and which after the event Cook wove into the weft of his programme. The offending magazines were years old but were all the dirt the Cook Report could dredge up. I have absolutely no connection with any group which harms children and if I knew of any I would report them to the police immediately. Cook has no evidence otherwise. None whatsoever. Our shop has NEVER acted as a recruitment point for any groups which abuse children. The proof of this is clear to see - if these obscure groups had really been as criminally inclined as Cook insisted then why was he focussing on ME for selling their magazines instead of them for harming children? The answer is that those groups did nothing illegal for otherwise they would have been quite rightly, picked up by the police and featured in the programme, but the main thing is that I had nothing to do with them. The allegation sounds appalling but was completely without foundation, just like the rest of his wicked programme . The fact that he is repeating damaging and serious unproven accusations again in a mass-market book is an indication of `vindictiveness, particularly as the Broadcasting Complaints Commission had already publicly castigated him for doing it before. The Sorcerer's Apprentice has been in business continuously for over 30 years and has over 70,000 regular clients from all over the world. We were the first New Age shop in Britain stocking several thousand books and magazines. At the time of the Cook Report ONLY SIX touched on Satanism. That's Six out of three thousand titles! Hardly what one would call, 'promoting satanism' - we actually stocked more books on mystical Christianity than on Satanism but Cook is apparently blind to the truth if it interferes with a good story. It is an indication of the attitude of Roger Cook that he has sought to make these allegations again two decades after they were first disproved both in light of my campaign to clear my name over the years and the failure of everything he claimed in his programme. Cook Victimises Me a Third Time: The Child Abuser That Never Was.Unfortunately, Cook's viciousness over his programme's wicked lies continues two decades after they were first floated. In his latest interview with Bristol Community Radio he has the gall to glibly state:Chris Bray sold all the appurtenances for conducting satanic ceremonies but also served as a distribution point for literature advocating satanic abuse and child abuse and a meeting place for such people...'Roger Cook is despicable. Now I am accused not only of being a distribution point for child abuse but he is inferring that I hold meetings of satanic child abusers in my shop! This appears to be an outright lie. If Cook did not mean what he said then he sould publicly retract it, otherwise it is a lie. He has told these untruths so many times now they are inflating with the telling. Considering that my shop was firebombed after the Cook Report I have no need to tell you what the implications of such a despicable statement could be. It is because Cook has refused to accept that he is in the wrong and has lately begun to reportray and even exaggerate these dangerous mistruths that I must publish all this information in full - to make sure that the truth is available to those who want to read it. A Chance For You To Know The Truth At LastI want you, dear reader, to understand this fully. I had never met Cook prior to his doorstepping me in The Devil's Work and had no axe to grind. Before he began persecuting me out of the blue I used to watch his programmes with interest just as you probably do - but now I know that he is a man who, in my case does not understand the principles of natural justice . Now that so many years have passed and his TV career is almost over he could have been magnanimous and admitted the fundamental errors in The Devil's Work. He could have admitted the truth; that: (1) Several of the key 'experts' and 'advisers' who helped him research his programme were leading fundamentalist activists who had already been involved in campaigning against my business. 
(2) A campaigning vicar who assisted with Cook's research and appeared 'exorcising' children in his programme was a do-or-die bible-thumper who had already written a book attacking the New Age which heavily criticised my business, not for child abuse, but for purveying New Age books. He is shown holding the very book in the illustration right. He also started a campaign to ban Harry Potter's books because he believes they are a doorway to the occult! (3) Additionally, as Cook could not find a Satanist in the U.K. who could be accused of causing harm to children he paid for an arch satanist to be flown over from the U.S.! (4) Cook's director-researcher sneakily came to my shop posing as an ordinary customer to purchase new robes and regalia for the U.S. Satanist to be used in filming - clear entrapment.  (5) Cook, put the U.S. satanist up at a swish country club and filmed a mock 'initiation' ritual in the grounds to try to convince viewers that child-abusing Satanic groups were endemic in the U.K. - even though he obviously couldn't find any here. 
(6) Worse, Cook's programme accused the U.S. Satanist of Satanic Child Abuse. What most viewers didn't know was that BEFORE The Devil's Work was broadcast he was cleared of all the accusations. So we had the spectacle of Cook filming an imported Satanist who was actually innocent of the very allegations Cook was making on-screen to 'prove' that SRA existed in this country! (7) Cook's team dishonourably edited an old interview with me given for a different and positive purpose and made it appear I was irresponsible and did not care when the original interview actually said the reverse! (see here) And Cook has the audacity to complain about the deceit of the News of The World! Astounding Facts but True NeverthelessThese facts may appear astounding to the ordinary reader but they are just a few of many more shameful things that went on as this programme progressed. Including the fact that the woman who manned Cook's help-lines after the show was eventually exposed as a fundamentalist trouble-maker in the Daily Telegraph and was herself doorstepped by BBC Wales' Week-in-week-out in a superb documentary special about unproven Satanic Ritual Child Abuse claims! 
Further; I have a recording of a radio interview given prior to the Cook Report where this woman states clearly that she wants to close my business down because she is a Christian fundamentalist who does not want me to sell occult books and paraphernalia. . Of course times have now changed and with the assent into law of The British Human Rights Act as well as recent religious-hate legislation the appalling treatment Cook and these fundamentalists meted out to me in 1989 would today be classed as a hate crime and be highly illegal. But back then, that was the price I had to pay to maintain not only my freedom of speech but the freedom of religion and thought for others too. Cook cannot be unaware of these and more facts which I tried to tell him about BEFORE he broadcast his disgusting programme but his team had apparently already made their minds up and would not be swayed. Following the programme, Bray had complained to the BCC about our treatment of him and the allegations we had made. In the event, his complaint turned out to be one of the relatively rare ones that the Commission had actually rejected outright. 
[FALSE: The Broadcasting Complaints Commission's ajudication is a matter of public record and you can get a copy by writing to them. The BCC did not 'reject outright' my complaint - it accepted it and ajudicated it fully. "The Commission do find that the programme was unfair to Mr Bray in as much as Roger Cook's questions to him could have been taken by the viewer to associate Mr Bray personally with child sexual abuse. ' In other words, the commission, having heard both sides, having studied submissions from Cook's Team and my own side; having spoken to me and questioned me at length and having reviewed ALL the facts, rightly came to the conclusion that The Cook Report misrepresented me because their programme made criminal assertions and inferences linking me with child sexual abuse which made me appear guilty of it when I wasn't. That evil allegation was a kingpin of the entire programme. The official finding was a bombshell which the Cook Report would obviously prefer to forget, yet here we are again, two decades later - and even though the BCC have ALREADY officially censured him NOT to associate me with child sexual abuse Cook has ignored their ruling and done it again in his book and in the BCFM radio interview. These are not slights, they are SERIOUS criminal allegations. What kind of a man is this? His fans will trust his words and read between the lines that his persistence in making these allegations means that they must be true. They will not know that I have invested 20 years of my life fighting for justice against these evil lies. Let me run this past you again dear reader so that we are sure you understand the situation fully. Cook told you ' ' he was just about the only one who was turned away at the door' even though Cook was actually sat directly behind me at the BCC hearing which publicly castigated his team! Not long after our return from Spain, we learned that Bray's website had published several pages of unfounded inventions based on the News of the World's falsehoods and on his rejected BCC complaint, which he now mendaciously claimed had been upheld. [FALSE on several counts: Firstly the
'unfounded inventions' were not mine, I was just reporting the
claims the News of the World made about Cook in good faith. If these
had been true it would have had a bearing on my case. Secondly, the website Cook refers to is not my website. My website, for those who want to see exactly what I do and how I have personally helped tens of thousands of good people to achieve fulfillment, is on http://www.sorcerers-apprentice.co.uk . The website Cook complained of is run by the Subculture Alternatives Freedom Foundation (SAFF) which took a leading part in discrediting and undermining the fundamentalist attack on alternative beliefs of which the Satan Scare was just one part. Without the SAFF more innocent children and parents would have undoubtedly been sucked in to be institutionally abused by madcap social workers in dawn lifts in the very scare Cook helped promote. The SAFF interviewed me about my meeting with Cook and then put a page up about it, including a photo of the signed napkin as proof of the meeting. Then, presumably ordered by Cook, big-time lawyers at Central TV had the entire website killed off. They did not ask the SAFF for a correction, they just contacted the ISP and the website was terminated. Needless to say the SAFF planned to start a mirror-site elsewhere but before they could do that Cook's legal heavies wrote and threatened me with a writ for libel. I replied that you can't be done for libel for telling the truth. I heard nothing more from them. However the SAFF decided not to include the pages that Cook had complained about as it appeared too easy for a national media conglomerate to censor things it didn't like on the net and it was disrupting the wider scope of their work. The SAFF website, which contains lots of background and information on the campaign to suppress alternative beliefs and particularly in relation to the Satan Myth, can be seen on http://saff.nfshost.com The head-to-head at the airport between Cook
and myself occurred some years back and was water under the bridge
as far as I was concerned until Cook re-ignitied this controversy in
his book. Now obviously unless you get sight of the full 'banned
interview' you may be more likely to believe Cook's misaligned
version and so the defamation in his book and the slandering of me
in his latest radio interview have necessitated airing it
again here ....... Back to Cook's story:] Worse, Bray had revealed where we lived, together with what amounted to an invitation to his readers to take whatever action against me they thought fit. In the circumstances, this was pretty nearly the last straw. It took several worrying weeks to get the website removed by the hosting company. [FALSE on two counts: The SAFF did not mention Cook's address in the 'webpage covering the Malaga head-to-head as you will see when you read it. An important inaccuracy and the reason why I have been forced to reproduce it below here. The webpage which Cook complained revealed his address (Taped Crusader Turns Quiz-Master) only mentioned the town where Cook lived, it specifically did not give out the full address for security reasons even though they had it. This proves that they were being responsible. His allegation that we were inviting his enemies to take action against him is typical Cookese and you will not find any words like that in the original. There was no such threat and no such invitation. The SAFF never said any of those things but even if they had nobody could have done anything about it because the full address was not given! All the SAFF was doing was handing Cook a bit of tit-for-tat but he obviously has no sense of humour. This is another key point in his obfuscation - trying to make me and those good people who run the SAFF appear to be radicals. Because Cook has given the entirely wrong impression about these things I must give YOU the chance to see the reality. and here it is:
Yes folks, this is the EXACT and complete
un-edited text from the lead-in to the SAFF webpage which Carlton
Television demanded they take down on the rich justification that by
mentioning the town in which Cook lived the SAFF were 'breaching his
privacy'. You will see that there is:
...he went on at his website, publicising my address, inviting his supporters to come and punish me as they saw fit...
I will leave it to the judgement of the reader as to who is playing fair here. Consider this: The Cook Report Team worked with
sectarians He appears to be full of this type of humbug. It's all right for him to beseige people he targets outside their homes and arouse anger and resentment against them on national TV but when the tables are turned if only slightly he bleats louder than a sheep farmer losing his subsidies. I Believe The Cook Report Caused The Firebombing of My ShopCook's irresponsible featuring of my business on national TV resulted in my bookshop being firebombed. I and many others believe this was a result of the despicable falsehoods Cook had promoted to an audience of millions. This was exactly the type of sectarian reaction I had expected and actually prophesied to all the authorities I contacted for help during this period of persecution. The police whom I called in to oversee fair-play when Cookie laid seige to my shop stationed a squad car outside the premises on special watch every night to protect it from vandalism. The week after they stopped their protection my shop was firebombed and suffered extensive damage. Full details here: For Roger Cook to repeat these allegations, knowing full well that the people who originally firebombed my business are still at large, is utterly irresponsible. Of course if I had actually been guilty of
Cook's allegations I would have probably done a bunk like most of
his targets do, but I am thoroughly innocent. I saw this campaign against me for what it
really was an attack on freedom of speech and a direct censorship of
valid alternative beliefs so I fought back and instead spent
subsequent years rebuilding the shop and my livelihood. I founded
the SAFF and fought the SRA lies on many fronts, not just for
myself, but for all other free-thinkers who assume they live in a
society where personal choice and action is a right. My main targets are the fundamentalist
extremists who hi-jack social issues in order to constantly lie,
cheat and slander alternative beliefs. The damage they do to a
secular society is IMMENSE and not fully understood by most people
though scientific materialists are beginning to fight the dangers.
Their weasel ways are particularly not understood by ordinary
Christians who are from birth programmed to fall for their wicked
disinformation. Cook fell for the lies of the fundamentlists and became inextricably linked with them. He does not seem to understand what is at stake and appears to think this is limited to some kind of personality clash between him and me! One day some enterprising media-person will no doubt make a film about my utterly unjust persecution but for now I'm having to do this 'documentary' which is so important for the future well-being of the varied communities which make up Britain today............back to Cook's book: ] Meanwhile the Daily Star had somehow been persuaded to take Bray's side. [FALSE INUENDO: I have never spoken to or contacted anyone at the Daily Star. Does Cook really think I was part of some conspiracy against him? If so, it is entirely untrue.] They went into print suggesting that he was an innocent 'victim' of The Cook Report, [ an innocent victim of The Cook Report! ] repeating some of his false, decade-old allegations and directing readers to his website with its clear clues about how to find our home. This was grossly irresponsible.' Extract Ends: |
[FALSE: I did
not say any of those words. There was absolutely no threat
involved. When I first spotted Cook I told my companions that I
was going to have a word with him. My wife advised me not to be
provoked and to avoid giving him any excuse for misrepresenting
the situation, so I was particularly careful not to say anything
untoward. My three companions heard everything that went on and
will witness to that fact. 
Cook had
already finished signing the napkin (see right ) and I could see
his tiny mind working to put two and two together. The Master
Doorstepper had just been doorstepped.
So there we are readers. Thousands of trusting
people will buy and read Cook's Dangerous
Ground and listen to his radio interviews and maybe believe his side
of the story. You on the other hand have seen it from a fuller
perspective.
If Cook was willing to target an innocent man on the flimsiest of circumstancial evidence, if he was willing to take the word of obvious fanatics who had an axe to grind; if he was predisposed to twist that interview in order to portray me as what I am not; if he was prepared to misrepresent the BCC ajudication and decades later make the same irresponsible allegations that the BCC censured him for, then I do worry about other people Cook doorstepped.
I know
about The Cook Report having to pay out 700,000.00 in damages and legal
costs to an Army Corporal for wrongly accusing him of beating up
recruits.
I know the BCC severely censured The Cook Report in 1993 for pursuing an innocent doctor and manipulating evidence against him.
I know that TV
executive Lorraine Heggessey Doorstepped Roger Cook about the way his team
misrepresented Arthur Scargill and the supposed Libyan Slush Fund.
But the injustices
in The Devil's Work were of a
singularly different order of magnitude.
They
were not just the result of over-eager tabloid journalism. They were the
result of Cook Report choosing to run with a barrel of lies by Christian
fundmentalists which they did not sufficiently substantiate because of the
media's utter disrespect for anyone with eccentric or unpopular
beliefs. In my opinion they were lured by the guaranteed
mega-sensationalism it would create and thus were purposefully manipulated
by the rantings of fundamentalist agent-provocateurs into setting back
liberal principles of free-speech for decades.
People who want to partake in this debate can post their comments and opinions on the SAFF's Forum, or, if they want to inform me about something privately they can email me via my website here: and I will do what I can to assist them. It is all a question of freedom of speech.
All the statements I have made above can be proven with documentary evidence. If Cook thinks this is not the case then let him debate the points and the issues and I will confound him. Freedom of speech is not something The Cook Report seems to value unless they are the ones doing the speeching, so make a copy of this page NOW as it may not be here for long and then you will have lost all chance to hear the full story.