Last month Salem Hospital tentatively settled a bizarre lawsuit. Hospital officials won't say a word about the deal--and it's no wonder. The suit stems from a 1992 incident in which the hospital asked a self-described former witch to treat a patient. The witch, Pat Mangis, is a 64-year-old housewife with a grade-school education who believes in the existence of baby-slaughtering satanic cults. Mangis consulted the patient, Pat Rice, hours before Rice fled in a car and killed someone. That an Oregon hospital would call on a witch--instead of a doctor--is more than a quirky court case costumed as a Halloween tale. It's a tale that reveals the widespread belief among prominent Oregon individuals and institutions in satanic ritual abuse and the occult. "Go to Powell's and look at all the people standing at the occult section," says Dr. Loren Pankratz, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health Sciences University. "There's enormous belief in the occult." "I think you're just hitting the tip of the iceberg in terms of the depth and breadth of people's belief in satanic ritual abuse," says Michael Dwyer, a Portland lawyer who's helped two patients sue their therapists for planting "memories" of satanic ritual abuse in their minds. Indeed, a number of Portland-area mental health counselors, cops and clergy concede that they embrace theories about satanic cult abuse. "To chalk it up as a few individual nut cases is really missing the point," says Dwyer. You wouldn't expect rational, well-educated professionals in the 1990s to subscribe to demonology. But the way Salem Hospital treated Pat Rice shows just how willing professionals are to shelve their skepticism when it comes to satanic cults. Although hospital officials and Rice have agreed, as part of their settlement, not to discuss the case, a thick file in federal court paints a clear picture of the facts, if not all the motives. Rice, a 47-year-old Vancouver, Wash., woman, drove to Salem Hospital on the night of June 27, 1992, quaking with fear and claiming she was the victim of satanic cult abuse. Two emergency-room nurses, Nancy Boucher and Laurie Partridge, observed Rice talking to her fingers--a practice she believed would enable her to get answers from some of the other 93 personalities she said she had. Rice told the nurses that her daughter was going to marry Lucifer at midnight, and that her husband--a federal meat inspector--was outside the hospital with a machine gun waiting to kill her. The nurses verified with a phone call that Rice's husband, Ken, was in fact at home in Vancouver, miles away. But Boucher still thought Rice's stories of satanic abuse might somehow be true. "I found them believable," Boucher testified earlier this year in a legal deposition. Rice was then examined by Dr. Dennis Winner. He too found Rice credible. Winner--who has been an emergency room physician at Salem Hospital for 10 years--acknowledged, under oath in a deposition, that he believed it was possible that Rice had witnessed human sacrifice. "We felt it may be true that they were involved in a cult," Winner testified. He did not return WW's call. Winner had Partridge call the mental health department in neighboring Polk County, which knew of someone expert in cults. That someone was Mangis, who arrived at the Salem Hospital at 11:30 pm, toting a reddish-brown leather briefcase full of literature on the occult and gruesome photos supposedly depicting a victim of satanic torture. She was accompanied by her church friend Joy McGavock, a social worker for Polk County. Mangis was taken directly to the room where Rice was waiting. She proceeded to tell Rice about her familiarity with cult ceremonies. The hospital discharged Rice at 2:40 am to the care of Mangis, McGavock and a friend, Don Blake, who was going to provide Rice with a "safe house." Rice was by then so out of touch with reality--having had her fears reinforced by Mangis--that she thought Blake was the devil, and only pretended to be interested in staying with him. Several hours later, Rice bolted in her car and, while driving east in a westbound lane, careened into four cars before colliding head-on with a fifth, killing Stewart L. Williams, 54, of Portland. Rice was found guilty of manslaughter, but insane, and was sentenced to 20 years of home supervision. She sued Gina Gamage, the Washington hypnotherapist who allegedly had planted the ideas of satanic abuse in Rice's mind after she had gone to Gamage for help with losing weight and quitting smoking. Last year, Rice won a settlement of $700,000. Rice then sued Salem Hospital for $700,000, charging that the hospital did nothing to check Mangis' credentials and that Mangis "put her over the edge." Hospital officials did not return Willamette Week's calls; and the hospital's attorney, Keith Bauer, refused to comment except to say that the case is not final. Rice's attorney, Kris Houser, confirmed that a tentative settlement was reached with the hospital last month. The terms of the settlement remain confidential. It's no surprise that people are intrigued by witches. From MacBeth to Oz to nose-twitching Samantha Stevens, witches have long been part of popular culture. These days, witches are alterna-cool. The most recent "Girl Issue" of SPIN magazine, for instance, lists 100 things that define "girl culture." At the very top of the list are witches. Witchcraft's appeal comes from "its incredibly feminist doctrine" that "a goddess created the universe and that women can control their own destinies," says SPIN, adding that witchy role models, from singer Stevie Nicks to Sabrina, TV's teen-age witch, make witchcraft "as light and airy as supermodel worship." It's a long leap, though, from an interest in eco-feminism, love potions and ancient pagan rites to the kind of satanic ritual abuse that Mangis and others believe in. In an interview last week, Mangis said she was initiated into witchcraft in her hometown of Racine, Wis., at age 5. Sitting in the living room of her small house in Dallas, 15 miles west of Salem, under a portrait of soap-opera vampire Barnabas Collins, Mangis explained how the ceremony occurred in a field, where she was ringed by "hooded figures holding torches." It was part of a family tradition--Mangis says she hails from a 300-year-long line of witches. Thanks to special tutoring by her grandmother, Mangis claims, she rose to the lofty position of "supreme high priestess" in a "white witch coven" whose jurisdiction stretched from North America to England and France. Mangis says she uses the term "white witch" only to indicate that she did good deeds. She's quick to stress that there is no such thing as "white" or "black" witchcraft. "All witchcraft is the same," she says, referring to the ancient pagan religion that imbues some of its practitioners with magical powers. "It's like a gun; police and criminals use it for different purposes. It all depends on the person whether witchcraft is white or black." One must be born into witchcraft, she adds, to have any true powers. Many young women who are drawn to witchcraft today are merely poseurs, according to Mangis. Although Mangis says she did have the power to cast spells--which she refuses to discuss--she says she didn't like being a witch. Shortly after meeting her husband, Roy, 44 years ago, Mangis quit witchcraft and converted to Catholicism. Still, she retained her interest in the occult and began to get casually involved with law enforcement authorities and other institutions. Mangis first worked with police investigators about 15 years ago, she says, when she heard about a strange and possibly cult-related suicide in Oakridge, a tiny timber town east of Eugene. Mangis went to Oakridge and says she discovered something even more bizarre. "They found rabbits all over the town that didn't have any insides," she says. "And they found human saliva on the rabbits' mouths." The mysteries of the suicide and the people-who-sucked-rabbits were never solved, she says. That only served to boost her interest in fighting the dark side. She built a library on the occult, developed a network of law-enforcement contacts and said she appeared in 1983 on a KATU-TV "Town Hall" program about the occult. What distinguishes Mangis and her ilk from so many people fascinated with the occult is her adamant belief that brutal, secretive, satanic cults exist in Oregon. Mangis claims that there are "intergenerational satanic cults," whose members practice child pornography, sexual abuse, torture, sacrifice and cannibalism and hand down those "family values" from generation to generation. The intergenerational cults, according to some theories, are involved in killing up to 50,000 American children a year. Because these cults infiltrate the highest levels of state and federal government, the network of satanists is able to keep its activities secret. Many law-enforcement experts think Mangis' beliefs are about as credible as flying monkeys. The best-known of these skeptics is Ken Lanning, an agent based at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va. Lanning spent seven years investigating satanic cults because, after a decade of studying child sexual abuse, he believed humans were capable of "just about anything." But Lanning couldn't find any credible evidence to support the stories of satanic ritual abuse. "No pornography has ever been seized which portrays this activity," Lanning wrote in his landmark 1989 study. "Not only are no bodies found...in spite of major excavations...but also, more important, there is no physical evidence that a murder took place, especially a human sacrifice involving sex, blood, and mutilation." Similarly, spokesmen for the Oregon State Police and the Portland Police Bureau told Willamette Week they've never found concrete evidence of satanic cult crimes in their respective jurisdictions. Despite this lack of evidence, Salem Hospital isn't the only institution to have relied on Mangis' not-so-scientific expertise. Polk County Mental Health crisis workers were familiar enough with the former witch to refer the hospital to her. Mangis says the county mental health agency even made a videotape of her speaking to crisis workers. Polk County Mental Health Department administrators and crisis workers did not return WW's repeated calls. Mangis says "the mental health department has called quite often." She declines, however, to say who called and why. "It's better not to say," she explains. "It doesn't sound too good to the public if the department is calling on an ex-witch." A number of law enforcement agencies have also called on Mangis--despite the lack of evidence of occult crimes. To prove that she has worked with police departments, Mangis keeps the business cards of officers she's advised in Lake Oswego, Salem, Clark County, Dallas and Tualatin. She also says she used to attend regular monthly meetings of officers interested in the occult in Salem. The Portland-area officer most closely linked to Mangis was Sgt. Helen Bicart (formerly Foster) of the Lake Oswego Police Department. Bicart spoke only briefly to WW and refused to answer most of our questions. She did, however, testify at length about her investigation of satanic cults in a 129-page deposition taken in May 1996 for a lawsuit. A 19-year veteran of the force, Bicart first became interested in the occult in 1988 when the department received complaints about graffiti, chanting, whistling and dog yelping under Lake Oswego's State Street Bridge. Her investigations led her to attend seminars and workshops on the occult and satanic rituals. Soon, Bicart plugged into the Positive Action Center, a Portland-based clearinghouse for people interested in cults. Run by Anne and Adrian Greek, who retired in 1994 and disbanded it, the center introduced Bicart to a group of clergy and mental-health counselors who not only believed in satanic cults, but also subscribed to theories that local satanists were part of an organized "intergenerational cult of satanic abuse." Bicart testified in the 1996 lawsuit that she had received 20 to 30 calls from psychotherapists who believed their patients were victims of satanic cults. Those therapists, Bicart said, included Patti Hills of Portland--who claims to be a survivor of satanic ritual abuse and a witness to human sacrifice--and Dr. Glenn Ruminson, a psychiatrist on the credentials committee at Portland Adventist Medical Center. Neither Hills nor Ruminson returned WW's calls. Eventually, Bicart too came to believe in the existence of satanic ritual abuse. Testifying under oath in the 1996 lawsuit, Bicart admitted that she had believed an "organized network of satanic cult activities or group members [was] operating in our community." She even had her picture taken wearing Mangis' witch robe, so she could use the photo, she told WW, in slide-show presentations she gave to state Children Services Division workers in the early 1990s, alerting them to the signs of occult crimes. It's not something Bicart wants to discuss today. She wouldn't talk to WW except to confirm her association with Mangis and to say, "I'm not doing anything with the occult anymore. I've moved on in my career." Lake Oswego Mayor Bill Klammer says he doesn't believe in satanic ritual abuse. "I would think the officer had some reason for her belief," he says, but he wouldn't comment further until he had "explored the situation." Other officers weren't even willing to say that much. Mangis says she's advised Rick Buckner of Clark County, Gary Fisher and George Finch of Salem and Pat Duncan and Mark Chase of Dallas. None of the five officers returned WW's calls. There are other officers who never met Mangis--or even heard of her--who share her belief that satanic cults exist and engage in ritual abuse of people. "Yes, absolutely," says Officer Norm Tollefsen, a spokesman for the Tualatin Police Department. "Although I haven't personally seen any hard factual evidence of ritualistic abuse in this city, I've learned enough in classes to say, in my mind, this is real." Sgt. Peggy Prather, a homicide investigator with the Clark County Sheriff's Department, echoes Tollefsen's view--although she too lacks any evidence and attributes her belief to stories she's only heard or read about. "Whether we like it or not, satanic cults do exist," says Prather. "So if [Mangis] has some expertise we'd be willing to listen to her." Mangis says she's not at all surprised that Bicart and other officers didn't want to talk about their work with her. "Police don't want the media to know because the public will make fun of them. That's why I don't like much publicity," she says. "Because now the media will say tax money is going to hire a witch." Mangis says there's one other reason some officers are reluctant to talk: They suspect their superiors are cult members. "Several have told me they won't share information because they think their bosses might be involved." Belief in satanic cult abuse also extends to clergy, battered-women's crisis workers and licensed psychotherapists. Some know Mangis, some don't. James Fiske, pastor of the United Methodist Church in Woodburn, heard Mangis when she was invited to speak to his congregation just two weeks ago. Fiske says he found Mangis and her warnings about satanic cults credible. "No question about it," says Fiske. "I've accepted the idea of Satanic abuse for a long time, although I can't cite any evidence." Another believer is Tess Wiseheart, who has been the executive director of the Portland Women's Crisis Line for almost 10 years. The crisis line is a nonprofit organization that receives almost $200,000 a year in federal, state and local tax dollars to provide a hotline, support services and safe homes for people in the tri-county area suffering from domestic violence and sexual abuse. Wiseheart has never heard of Mangis, but she's heard enough about the approximately 1,000 calls the crisis line receives every year complaining about ritual abuse to be convinced it's real. "Oh yes, intergenerational satanic cults definitely exist in Oregon," says Wiseheart. Wiseheart acknowledges the lack of scientific evidence to support her belief. But she says science and the police are far from perfect. "Science is often wrong," she says, "and this is the same FBI that recently admitted it may underestimate rape in this country." She added that until recent decades Americans did not believe in the widespread existence of rape, sexual harassment and sexual abuse. Wiseheart believes so strongly in ritual abuse that she provides the crisis line's 13 directors and approximately 100 volunteers with training in how to deal with callers who say they are victims of such abuse. Some of that training is conducted by Patti Hills, the Portland mental health counselor who told a 1991 "Town Hall" TV audience that she was the victim of satanic ritual torture from the ages of 5 to 14. "I was forced to participate in child pornography and prostitution and human sacrifice," Hills said on "Town Hall." That training doesn't sit well with some. Hala Gores is a Portland lawyer who used to volunteer for the Women's Crisis Line. Gores quit, partly because she didn't believe in satanic ritual abuse. "It would be really interesting if the Women's Crisis Line received a call from someone claiming to be abducted by aliens," Gores says. "Would they believe that? Obviously not. But they are trained to believe callers who claim to be victims of ritual abuse." Hills is now being sued for planting false memories of satanic abuse in one of her patients. Dwyer, the lawyer bringing that suit, has spent the last three years immersed in cases of alleged satanic abuse, along with another Portland lawyer, Michael Shinn. The two estimate there are up to two dozen therapists and counselors in the Portland area who believe in satanic ritual abuse. The two lawyers attribute this belief to three factors: religion, sympathy for female victims and money. For one, Shinn says therapists with deep religious beliefs are excited by the idea of battling evil. "It's certainly more exhilarating than talking to overweight people who complain about not being as productive as they'd like," he says. For another, a flood of disclosures in recent decades about the prevalence of sexual abuse has made people more likely to believe in satanic ritual abuse. "If you believe the world is against women, it's not too big of a next step to say satanic abuse is occurring," Pankratz of OHSU agrees. Finally, the two lawyers maintain that financial gain plays a role, because patients diagnosed as suffering from satanic abuse require years of treatment, which is covered--under the clinical diagnosis of "multiple personality disorder"--by many health insurance plans. "Whether it's conscious or not," says Shinn, "as soon as a therapist diagnoses someone it means years of therapy." Throw in a little of what Dwyer calls "end of the millennium hysteria" and you've got the makings of a contemporary Salem witch trial mass psychosis. Because evidence is so scant--and because they too have a potent financial incentive--lawyers like Dwyer and Shinn are garnering lucrative settlements for their clients. Wiseheart says she'll continue to err on the side of those who claim to be victims of satanic abuse. "If we say this is just urban myth we might as well let them go ahead and kill themselves," she says. But Pankratz says it can be more dangerous to believe in cultism. "Because Pat Mangis bought the whole story and didn't see the enormous psychopathology behind it," he stresses, "somebody lost their life."
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