Rev. Morris Cerullo's Witchmobile, 1972

For many young people who grew up during the late-1960s & early-1970s, appreciation & understanding of our admittedly peculiar approach to the divine was unfortunately biased by touring "Christian" ministries whose sole purpose was to frighten the dickens out of curious, open-minded teenagers. For the most part, these evangelical ministries had no more in the way of good intentions than your average carnival sideshow tent, shocking impressionable children & their parents into filling the collection plates at the end of multi-media presentations that owed more to Z-grade horror films than to the teachings of their manipulated martyr, Jesus Christ (a character for whom we Satanists have nothing but sympathy). 

In fact, Rev. Morris Cerullo, the half-Jewish head of Morris Cerullo World Evangelism, used a recreational vehicle that once housed a particularly venal carnival attraction as his "Witchmobile". This cleverly branded caravan had been the traveling home of an obese drug addict who attached himself to various midway companies throughout the 1960s, putting himself on display as a cautionary tale for cotton candy-brained rubes. When the wretched geek (for he came from a long tradition of sideshow bottom-feeders whose main freakish characteristic was a penchant for self-destruction) drown in a corrugated steel stock tank that doubled as his bathtub, Cerullo purchased the vehicle, cleaned up the junkie's squalor, repainted it in "groovy" colors & filled it with sinister gewgaws meant to reveal our diabolic practices to the laypersons of Iowa, Kansas & Nebraska. 

To quote from Cerullo himself: "The Witchmobile is colorfully painted to show the 'pretty' mask being stripped off Satan to reveal the true ugliness underneath. That is what we have done, presented the ugliness underneath the bait that traps the unwary. Inside the unit are hundreds of occult items, including a real human skull and a robed satanic priest. The seemingly 'pretty' side is depicted by meditation lamps, beads, etc., as well as the more horrible appearing details."

Though there was nothing in the refurbished recreational vehicle one couldn't find in the darker corners of your average Sears Christmas Wishbook, presentation is everything & what menace the cumulative effect of the objects couldn't evoke was supplied by recordings of eerie sounds & music, psychedelic lighting & chilling personal anecdotes. The latter were provided by such cottage-industries of Satanic Panic as Mike Warnke, author of the best-selling anti-debbil memoir The Satan Seller & performer on a slew of popular Christian stand-up comedy records. Enjoy & as always, Hail Satan!

 Inside Morris Cerullo's Witchmobile: