Episode 223: The “Ex-Satanist” Who Fooled America’s Dumbest People (“The Satan Seller”)

SHOW LINKS

• From Selling Satan, Jon Trott & Mike Hertenstein, Cornerstone Magazine, 1992: A generation of Christians learned its basic concepts of Satanism and the occult from The Satan Seller. Based on his alleged Satanic experiences, Warnke came to be recognized as a prominent authority on the occult, even advising law enforcement officers investigating occult crime. We believe The Satan Seller has been responsible, more than any other single volume in the Christian market, for promoting the current nationwide Satanism scare. Through the years, Cornerstone has received many calls from people who felt something was not right concerning Mike Warnke. After our lengthy investigation into his background, we found discrepancies that raise serious doubts about the trustworthiness of his testimony. We have uncovered significant evidence contradicting his alleged Satanic activity. His testimony contains major conflicts from book to book and tape to book, it contains significant internal problems, and it doesn’t square with known events. Further, we have documentation and eyewitness testimony that contradict the claims he has made about himself from Mike’s closest friends, relatives, and daily associates. These people knew the real Mike Warnke, who was not a drug fiend or a recruiter for Satanism. But he was a storyteller. Warnke produced a never-ending stream of tall tales. “He claimed he had some kind of white witchcraft background,” recalls Greg Gilbert. “He claimed he’d been reincarnated any number of times, that he was born in the Irish moors in the 1570s. He claimed he’d once been a Trappist monk.” In The Satan Seller, Warnke paints himself as a freshman guru, dispensing wisdom to an eager audience of disciples: It was difficult, at times, to know whether Warnke believed his own stories or not. “I don’t think it was in fun. I think he himself wanted to believe it,” says Phyliss Catalano. “I used to sit there and be embarrassed, because I’d think, How could somebody that young have done all these things? He’d done everything. And everything he told was with a straight face.” Phyliss’s mother, Mary Catalano,  saw Warnke on a regular basis when the gang gathered at the Catalano house. “He was a likable young man when he visited our house,” she says, “but anything brought up in conversation he’d done it. He said he’d been a Greek dancer. He said he’d been a professional ambulance driver. And he was a monk: he’d come to the house all dressed in black. Of course, we never believed him. We just said, `Boy, is he one big liar.’ ” 
  • • • In college, as he’d done in high school, Warnke continued to costume himself for his roles. Mike particularly liked being a priest. “I remember at Halloween he dressed up like a priest and went around pretending,” says Dawn. Yet another student, Tom Bolger, recalls Warnke boasting how he’d dressed as a priest and gone panhandling. Greg recalls Mike unsuccessfully using the priest bit to get drinks. Just before he published The Satan Seller, Warnke brought manuscript copies to his old high school friends Jeff Nesmith and Tim Smith, and asked them to sign affidavits swearing the events depicted were true. “My initial reaction to the book was, `Come on, Mike! This is poppycock!’” says Jeff. Tim Smith dropped out of college after only two months, but notes, “I had contact with Mike off and on all the way through the fall of 1965 until the summer of 1966.” Tim states he never saw Warnke with long hair or in the drug-induced emaciated state he claimed to be during that period. “Sign the affidavit? I told him, `Nope. Can’t do that.’ ” Warnke’s two high school buddies saw him sporadically throughout the year, but not every day. Yet Mike brought Jeff and Tim the affidavits, but not Lois, Greg, Dawn or the others. It does not speak well for the veracity of Warnke’s claims that he did not ask those who knew him on a daily basis in San Bernardino Valley College to endorse his story.
    • From Selling Satan: The Evangelical Media & the Mike Warnke Scandal, Jon Trott & Michael Hertenstein, 1993: As the record continued to play, Lois got the full update on Mike Warnke’s accomplishments from her friend Dawne. This was just Mike’s first album, Dawne said; he’s made several since. He’s traveled all over the world doing Christian comedy. And he’s written a best-selling book. “You wouldn’t believe how famous he is,” said Dawne. Wow, thought Lois. He really made something of himself. Lois hadn’t seen her old boyfriend Mike since the summer of 1966 when they’d broken off their engagement. The last thing she’d heard was Mike had married another girl from Valley College and they had a little boy. Lois had eventually lost track of everybody. It was strange hearing about all this wild stuff happening to somebody they had known. Lois’s college experience was long over before the sixties had started getting crazy. It was a relief to know Mike had made it out the other side. But something wasn’t quite right. Parts of the story Mike was telling were in conflict with what Lois knew about his college history. As she listened, Lois tried to reconcile her memories with what Warnke was saying about himself. She looked up at Dawne, who was watching her with an expression that made Lois feel uncomfortable. Her admiration for Mike suddenly turned to anger, an anger that grew as the implications of it all sunk in: this guy was telling lies; he was telling lies about her. He’d made records and gone around the world and become famous telling lies about Lois and her friends! 
      • Lois agreed to meet the Cornerstone reporters in a California restaurant.  As they waited at a table for Lois, the waitress noticed their copy of The Satan Seller on the table. “That’s one spooky book,” she said. “You’ve read this?” asked the trio. “Oh, sure. Mike Varnke came to my church. He told the story about how he put a hex on a bar and burned it to the ground. It gives me a chill just thinking about it.” This surreal conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Lois, who was pert and forty-something with a refreshing frankness. “My boyfriend told me I shouldn’t talk with you guys,” she confided. “But I had to. I’ve been waiting for a lot of years for someone to ask me what really went on with Mike Warnke.” Lois explained that she had long given up trying to connect the story as told by Warnke to what she knew had happened; besides, he’d always been a storyteller. “I used to catch him in lies all the time, stories that didn’t jibe. I didn’t want to believe that it wasn’t possible for him to have done everything. I didn’t want to believe that he was crazy.” As the waitress reappeared occasionally during the evening, she pretended-but not very convincingly-to appear uninterested in the strange conversation at her table. “If he said he was a Satanist between September of 1965 to June of 1966, he’s lying,” said Lois. “How could I not know my boyfriend was into Satanism?” The writers thumbed through The Satan Seller, reading passages out loud and letting Lois respond. How about, for example, the Mike in The Satan Seller who flew around the country on satanic business trips to San Francisco (where he allegedly met Anton LaVey); New York; and Salem, Massachusetts?” “How could he fly when he didn’t have two pennies?” asked Lois. “I don’t remember there ever being a time when we didn’t see or talk to each other every day. We went to movies together; I went to the country club with him in the mountains; we went to the beach. We used to go to Jay’s Coffee Shop in San Bernardino. That was the big thing. He introduced me to hot fudge sundaes. I spent the majority of that year with him.” Mike’s charm impressed Lois. “It was pretty fast that we said we were going to get married,” said Lois. “Within two or three months of school starting, he gave me a rose ring with a diamond in it. It cost sixty dollars. He had to make payments on it. I thought he really loved me. And I thought I loved him, too. I’m just glad I didn’t marry him.”
    • From Satan flirtation claim termed empty boast, Joe Maxwell, Tampa Bay Times, 1993: The Columbia Journalism Review may be an unlikely place for catching up with the Christian evangelical scene, but featured in the November/December issue are Mike Hertenstein and Jon Trott, a sort of Woodward and Bernstein of the evangelical world, whose 12-page article in Cornerstone magazine is credited with exposing fraudulent claims by Mike Warnke, who bills himself as “America’s number one Christian comedian” and as an ex-Satanist who later turned his life over to Jesus Christ. Much of Warnke’s fortune is derived from books and tapes that feature tales of his Satanist past, a largely fabricated past, according to Hertenstein and Trott. Over a 20-year period, Warnke, 47, has made himself into an almost legendary figure. Trott and Hertenstein’s expose featured former college friends of Warnke, along with a variety of documents and photographs which counter his claims that at one point during his college years he was in bad health from drugs and alcohol and led a Satanist cult of about 1,500 people. The article on Warnke portrays him as a master storyteller who has trouble distinguishing fact from fantasy and further claimed that Warnke has lived a duplicitous life, asserting strong Christian convictions while engaging in adulterous relationships that contributed to three divorces. Since the Cornerstone article, Warnke has teetered on the verge of collapse. Fewer come to his concerts and and many Christian bookstores, including a chain operated by the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board, have suspended sales of The Satan Seller, the book that put him on the map. Word, Inc., an evangelical publishing house, has halted the sale of his records. The same  journalists had previously exposed as fabricated the past life of a woman who said she was a survivor of satanic ritual abuse. The target of that 1989 article was Lauren Stratford, who had told her story in a book called Satan’s Underground. In an effort to save his ministry, Warnke has issued often-conflicting statements regarding allegations. Warnke’s attorney, Michael Conover, disputed as invalid Warnke’s remark to a concert audience that his ministry could be out of business by the end of October. In an interview for that article, Warnke said at least one of Cornerstone’s allegations _ that he had lied in saying he once led a Satanist cult of 1,500 _ was substantially true. In the same interview, Warnke and business partner Rose Warnke made more waves by contending that Cornerstone is part of a Satanist cult out to destroy Warnke’s ministry. Conover said the Warnkes had denied making those comments. https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1992/12/05/satan-flirtation-claim-termed-empty-boast
• From Soc.Religion.Christian, Eric Pement, Usenet, 1992: I’m one of the senior editors for Cornerstone magazine. We are responsible for publishing “Selling Satan: The Tragic History of Mike Warnke.” We are convinced that the information we published is accurate and thoroughly researched. The interviews are devastating to Mike Warnke’s claim to having been a high priest in Satanism. People who knew Warnke during the time of his alleged involvement, Warnke’s closest friends and family members, univocally tell a different story. Moreover, when you work out a chronology of events (try matching the book with a real calendar), you’ll find there isn’t time for Warnke to have done what he says he did. In an interview broadcast on “Focus on the Family” on March 16, 1985, Mike Warnke told the audience that when he was at the height of his satanic power, “I had white hair. It was down to my belt . I had six-inch [long] fingernails; I painted them black.” We published a photograph of Mike Warnke, dated April 30, 1966, next to his fiancee, Lois Eckenrod (never mentioned in “The Satan Seller”). He’s a straight, almost nerdy looking young man, whose hair is so short it doesn’t touch his ears. Normal looking hands and fingernails. Finally, in addition to internal conflicts (e.g., anachronisms) and external difficulties we must realize that Mike Warnke has NEVER produced one person who will (or can) admit to having been actively involved with him in Satanic worship. It doesn’t matter if they’re Christian now or not … if Mike had been leader of 1,500 Satanists, is it too much to expect that he could remember names of his chief lieutenants, underlings, or others he recruited or directed in his coven? Though we would expect him to be able to provide at least a few people who might be able to corroborate his story (even if they’re still Satanist, it’d be **something**), it appears that the reason he has not done so is because he CANNOT do so. He has lied to the Christian world about his background. We are all too well aware of the negative impact this will have on Christians who have trusted him, and on those in the secular world who are already looking for reasons to dump on Christianity. However, it is better to tell the truth than to piously hide a fraud and a deceiver for the sake of appearance. We **have** prayed for Mike and his family. Yes, Mike Warke has responded and the faxes are flying furiously around here. By and large, his response is to offer names of well known people who affirm that his story is true (first wife Sue, co-author Dave Balsiger, radio host Bob Larson, writer Johanna Michaelson), but there is no **positive** evidence in support of his testimony. Mike also claims to be submitted now to certain people, and to know god’s forgiveness for his past sins. Mike learned that we were doing this article many months ago. He didn’t contact us. We contacted him about a month before going to press, and he didn’t want to have anything to do with us without his attorney present. We’re Christian journalists, and we’re interested in truth, honesty, holiness and repentance — not plea bargaining. We’ll try to stay abreast of the postings on this area, and answer as many direct questions as we can. Thanks.
• • From Soc.Religion.Christian, BLD, Usenet, 1992: I don’t often post to this group (although I like most of the discussions), but this topic is too hot to pass up. I too have read the Cornerstone article and found it to be very convincing. As mentioned earlier, it is very well researched and well documented. In an effort to get both sides of the story, I asked about the controversy in a local Christian bookstore. They gave me a 30+ page statement from Warnke Ministries that included a 12 page letter from Mike himself where he basically said the Cornerstone article is full of errors. He unequivocally stated that all events described in the Satan Seller are exactly as described. Most of his letter focused around Carolyn Alberty, his second wife, who he says supplied Cornerstone with all of the “lies.” He even goes so far as to call her “cold-hearted” and “temptress.” He blames Carolyn for the break up of his first marriage to Sue. Anyway, he doesn’t talk about the testimonies of his other 7 or 8 college and high school friends, whose contributions to the Cornerstone article were most convincing. The one thing that his friends all agreed upon was that he was a great “storyteller” and would often stand by a story until one could no longer argue with him. So it comes as no surprise that he would stand by the Satan Seller and everything in it. The remaining 20+ pages are written statements from Warnke’s friends in his ministry. They all say about the same thing, and they all stand behind Mike. Most noteworthy in the statement is a notarized statement from Sue Warnke, Mike’s first wife. According to Mike, Cornerstone made an ethical error by not interviewing her, who would have been able to verify “60%” of the events in the Satan Seller. Sue’s statement did, in some ways, verify parts of Mike’s story, but she admits that during the course of the school year, especially the spring, she “lost track of” Mike. She also does not mention any of Mike’s friends and their testimonies about him. The other five or six letters from Warnke’s supporters are all written by people who have been associated with Warnke since his alleged time as a Satanic high priest. Do they actually have more knowledge and “hard evidence” that you and I? Probably not. They are only character witnesses. P.S. Read Romans 3:7-8 in regards to truthfulness and integrity.
  • From Raising the Devil, Bill Ellis, 1999: In 1970, Mike Warnke appeared at Hotline, a drug rehabilitation center sponsored by a revival center in San Diego, California, where he claimed to have been converted from Satanism to Pentecostalism. Hotline was a forum for many California hippie drug-and-sex confessions, and one participant recalled that the Charismatics were anxious to hear about alleged cult experiences: “The times were right for that kind of testimony. People wanted to hear that their worst fears were true.” Warnke’s conversion itself occurred in a typical Pentecostal way: He complained of demonic attacks, a result of his earlier occult dabblings. Diane Speakman, a member of a charismatic prayer group, advised him to claim the power of The Blood in prayer. A few nights later, Warnke says, he woke to find a “tall, black, humanlike figure … standing in the doorway of our bedroom:’ As Mike fell to the floor in convulsions, his wife claimed the power of The Blood, and the demon left them. From this point on, according to Warnke’s story, his demonic oppression lessened, and a few months later, with the help of Charismatics, he began to speak in tongues.Warnke soon went far beyond the typical confession. Working with evangelist Morris Cerullo, he helped develop a San Diego ministry aimed at teens who dabbled with fortune-telling and the occult. They joined forces with journalist Dave Balsiger to research and write Cerullo’s book, The Back Side of Satan (1973). This book swept together many of the social issues then emerging around the evangelical anti-occult crusade, decried the public attention that the witchcraft revival was receiving, and implied that one effect of this tolerance was “Satanic, incorrectly noting that UC-Berkeley “now has an entire department in witchcraft” (perhaps an allusion to its program in folklore, recently established). Warnke and Balsiger developed the “Witchmobile:’ an early traveling display of occult paraphernalia. These included an Ouija board, a crystal ball, magickal knives, a black robes and candles, and “voodoo” charms like “graveyard dust” and a jinx-removing “bag:’ Traveling with the Witchmobile in the first months of 1972, Warnke testified to his deliverance from the occult before youth organizations and church groups. By June 1972, Warnke and Balsiger decided to form an independent, nationally based anti-occult crusade. Now that Warnke had become something of a celebrity among the young Pentecostals, his detailed confessions soon emerged in own book, The Satan-Seller. Warnke successfully integrated the Illuminati scenario into the hippie blood cult threat, thus providing a broader framework for fitting still more elaborate elements into the developing Satanism Scare.
  • From Confessions of a Creature Feature Preacher, Dave Canfield, Satanic Panic, 2015: As a self-styled entertainer, I was singing for pay at the time, including occasional stints as an opening stand-up act for bands, and my ultimate goal was to be a well-known Christian personality. It’s more than fair to say I wanted to be like Mike Warnke. I also helped others with their ministry by promoting concerts: Distributing handbills, cold calling churches and helping backstage not only got me into concerts for free, but taught me about the business and gave me the chance to meet my heroes. I went to my first Warnke show when I was about 19 or 20. We laughed and, when Warnke talked about the Satanic Ritual Abuse survivors he and his wife Rose were sheltering, we cried. Warnke told us that Satanists were doing anything they could to find and kill them, and armed guards often accompanied him. Especially heart-breaking was Warnke’s story of Jeffy, a young boy found crucified upside-down. When Warnke came back to town a few years later, the promoter offered me the chance to head up the behind-the-scenes preparations. I jumped at the chance—it was fun getting the hall ready, but more than anything I wanted to be the one to drive Warnke to the venue, even though I hadn’t been behind a wheel long. The night of the show, it was dark and misty as I drove my Lincoln to Gippers Hotel and Lounge. When Warnke appeared I think I hit that poor man with every geek move in the book. I sweated like crazy, stammered and stuttered, starting talking about my own standup, recited his own jokes back at him and basically worked myself up into a nice perfect lather. Warnke for his part said little. Then we got into the car. I briefly panicked about a preacher saying something weird on the radio, worried that Warnke would think I listen to this kind of stuff all the time (which I did). I switched the radio off and he turned to me to ask, “Whadja do that for?” Wide-eyed, I said something like “harglegarrrrr.” Because of the misty weather, what should have been a short 10-minute ride to the gig turned into half-an-hour of me weaving all over the road. Warnke kept shooting me increasingly nervous glances until we arrived, and even then there was a problem—I couldn’t remember where the backstage door was. First, I turned into an alley behind the auditorium where a slew of fans literally mobbed my car. Then, I got to the front where my way was blocked by a large stone flower pot, which I accidentally ran into hard enough to knock it over and lodge it under my front bumper. We were now five minutes late. I remember Warnke asking me if I was okay at one point, but he also looked like he wouldn’t have minded a sharp stick just in case the Satanists had sent me to assassinate him. Finally fed up, Warnke yelled, “Son, I used to be a Satanist high priest and you are scaring me to death” At that moment, his travelling companion opened the stage door—I can still remember the sound of him laughing when he saw the state Warnke was in. I was heartbroken and never saw Warnke again.