Oh, the poor dear!

I note with interest that a Satanist inmate is suing Yellowstone County in Montana.

A Billings man in prison for drug possession has filed a $10 million federal lawsuit against Yellowstone County for alleged civil-rights violations, including interference with his satanic religious practices.

Jason Paul Indreland claims in the U.S. District Court lawsuit that county jail staff took from him a religious medallion, denied him access to religious material and ridiculed and punished him for his religious beliefs.

. . .

Indreland said he has been a practicing Satanist for the past decade and the confiscated medallion was a “protective symbol” in his religion. The lawsuit claims jail staff refused to return the medallion or allow Indreland access to a “Satanic Bible or Book of Satanic Rituals.”

Indreland, 35, is incarcerated at Montana State Prison for a term of five years, with two years suspended, for felony drug possession. Indreland was convicted of the crime after Billings police found him with 15 grams of methamphetamine in March 2007.

Indreland has previous felony convictions in Yellowstone and Stillwater counties for bad checks and theft.

. . .

… Indreland named numerous members of the jail staff he alleges participated in violating his civil rights. Among the claims, Indreland alleges jail staff placed “Christian natured greeting cards under (his) cell door describing how he was going to undertake a huge change in his life and how Jesus was ready to save and accept him.”

The lawsuit seeks $3 million for alleged civil-rights violations, $2 million for “the deprivation of his rights and injuries both mental and physical,” and $5 million in punitive damages.

You’ll pardon me if I don’t have much sympathy for poor, dear Mr. Indreland. In my time as a prison chaplain, I ran into several self-proclaimed Satanists. They were distinctly poor specimens of the human race, as I recall. The other prisoners seemed to think so, too.

One of them was a lot of fun. I wrote about him in my as-yet-unpublished memoir of prison ministry, and I thought you might enjoy his story almost as much as I did.

One of the funnier incidents happened in another prison several years ago, and involved a self-proclaimed Satanist and ‘warlock’. He tried to wheedle me into arranging a number of special privileges for him. I refused, of course – there were no circumstances under which I could justify them. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and tried threats. Those didn’t work either. (When you’ve been threatened by experts you get used to it very quickly – and he was no expert!) Frustrated, he finally promised he was going to see to it that I was ‘sorted out’, which I took to mean that he would arrange for some inmates to assault me when I was next on the compound. I discussed the threat with the authorities, who tightened up surveillance, and we waited.

It didn’t take long for word to reach us through informers. He’d bragged to others on the compound that he’d cast a ‘death spell’ upon me. He confidently prophesied that I’d be dead within thirty days. I grinned, and carried on as normal. As time passed, his predictions grew louder and somewhat more desperate, as I continued to portray the picture of good health whenever I came to the prison. (I took care to walk around openly to demonstrate the fact.) As the deadline approached, he became frantic, and tried to bribe a prison gang to attack me. Unfortunately for him, gang leaders knew all too well that visiting Chaplains, such as myself, were their lifeline in the event of family problems. Some of them had needed such assistance in the past. They passed the word that any attack on any visiting Chaplain would meet with their vigorous and extreme displeasure. The inmates got the message loud and clear. The attempt fizzled, the deadline passed, and I was still alive.

This curse-casting cretin now had problems of his own. Not only had his credibility been shattered by my selfish refusal to fall down dead, but certain over-credulous inmates had taken his boasting seriously. They had apparently paid him considerable sums to cast ‘death spells’ on other convicts and staff, whom they regarded as enemies. Since his curse against me hadn’t worked, they were now wondering whether their investment had been well-advised. Sure enough, the deadline for those deaths also passed without so much as a head cold amongst his intended victims. He ended up requesting protective custody in the Hole, and was eventually transferred to another institution. There were too many angry inmates wanting their money back for him to dare show his face on the compound ever again.

(I trust the Lord will forgive my less-than-pastoral pleasure at his predicament . . . )

Ah, memories . . .

Peter