Mind-Control, The Process Church, Satanism, The FBI, & The Life of a Public Paranoid
Former FBI Special Agent in Charge Ted Gunderson was one of the most influential propagators of the Satanic Panic throughout the 80s and 90s, often appearing on mainstream talkshows speaking as an expert on occult crimes, government mind-control, and Satanic conspiracies. As a private investigator he created sprawling conspiracy narratives around the high profile cases he was retained to investigate, creating an enduring paranoid folklore that still inspires irrational stupidities (such as "PizzaGate") to this day.
Lucien Greaves, co-founder of and spokesperson for, The Satanic Temple first began speaking to Gunderson while researching a cult known as the Process Church of the Final Judgement, whom Gunderson helped to senselessly implicate in a sting of serial murders in New York City. Convinced that Gunderson was as much a genuine paranoid as he was a con man, Greaves became intrigued by Gunderson's influence on the most prevalent conspiracist narratives of our age. After Gunderson's death in 2011, Greaves requested Gunderson's FBI file and began piecing together a portrait of the career of a public paranoid.
Come see this multimedia lecture presentation to learn more about a bizarre and embarrassing episode in FBI history & how one man's delusions still have an impact upon conspiracist cuture today.
"Though his name is virtually unknown outside the hardcore conspiracy fringe, Ted Gunderson will live on in the enduring suspicions he sowed — in each case he explored as a private investigator — of deeper, more sinister plots at play behind-the-scenes. Where hysteria spread, he went to legitimize irrational fears in the FBI’s name. Many of those infected with his paranoia remain, still today, invested in his dystopian vision. Trying to cope in the wake of unfathomable crimes committed in their midst, vulnerable minds gravitated to the delusional narratives Gunderson supported which, while claiming to confront the stark horror of “reality”, offered a comfortably tidy narrative, linear and coherent, where demarcations between Good and Evil are unmistakably clear, and nothing occurs without purpose. In Gunderson’s hands, an infamous murder became the work of Satanists sanctioned by demonic government forces — the confusion created by his investigation still causing for controversy and suspicion. With his late intervention, the debunked McMartin preschool Satanic Ritual Abuse panic is revived for true believers who hold firm to an appearance of tenability founded on Gunderson’s claim that, with the aid of an archaeologist, he had unearthed secret tunnels underneath the site of the school where barbarous, sadistic rituals had been enacted. Gunderson’s investigation of fraud at a credit union in Nebraska predictably revealed a Satanic plot extending to the highest reaches of the government, creating another panic that also retains unshakable believers today." -- Lucien Greaves on Ted Gunderson
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