For some years now certain sections of the media have given regular prominence to lurid accounts which associate occultists with a variety of bestial practices including the sexual abuse of children. The impression that such activities are commonplace has been given some credence by the pontifications of various sensation seeking clerics and the pronouncements of Geoffrey Dickens MP.

The provenance of such stories has always been a mystery to those of us who have never encountered anything of the sort. A recently published book contains a few clues which fellow 'Black Magicians' may find interesting.

"Who Framed Colin Wallace" by Paul Foot (Pan Books) is an account of the activities, trials and tribulations of a former Ministry of Defence (MoD) Information officer. Wallace's involvement in a 'dirty tricks' campaign in Northern Ireland in the 1970s has been confirmed as recently as 30th January this year by the Minister for the Armed Forces, Archie Hamilton MP, in a written Parliamentary answer to Michael Marshall the MP for Arundel.

A section of the book deals with distasteful activities which took place at Kincora Boys Hostel, Belfast, allegedly with the knowledge/connivance and involvement of various figures within the Ulster establishment as well as the civil and military intelligence communities. In 1981 the head of the hostel and two staff members were tried and convicted on 28 charges. More contentious is the apparently well supported allegation that the authorities allowed the situation at Kincora to continue for at least six years after it had been brought to their attention, because of the blackmail and other dirty tricks opportunities it provided the intelligence services.

One aspect of the broader Kincora saga which has received scant attention is the existence of an occult dimension to the business. This is alluded to in a memo apparently written by Colin Wallace in November l974, which is reproduced in Foot's book, relating specifically to ritual overtones in the murder of a 10 year old boy Brian McDermott. It seems that Wallace had some motivation to play down the occult aspects of that affair at the time, because one of the more successful disinformation tactics of the MoD "Information Policy" dirty tricks unit was the manufacture of spurious Black Magic and Witchcraft scenarios.

Detailed accounts are given in Foot's book of intelligence officers buying bundles of black candles and acquiring chicken's blood and feathers to plant in Republican areas. The purpose being to use these as evidence to assist in defamation exercises being mounted against prominent personalities to scandalise their church besotted supporters. The last thing Wallace and his cronies in the intelligence community wanted was a real child-sex and ritual murder scandal attaching to the people on the other side of the sectarian divide who were caught up in the Kincora business.

Several questions arise. One obvious one concerns the extent to which the current media diatribes and attempts to link occultists to child sexual abuse might be the end product of some Wallace-style disinformation exercise, eagerly lapped up by the gutter press, as were the 'Information Policy' stories of the seventies. Other questions concern the whole matter of official enquiry into Wallace's allegations and the ramifications of Kincora or the lack thereof. There have been two inquiries into Kincora during the eighties, but neither addressed the intelligence aspects of the case. This trend continues as Mr David Calcutt QC opens an investigation into Wallace's dismissal from the MoD, which supposedly occurred after his refusal to become further involved with a smear campaign against British politicians. There appears to be no brief for Calcutt to look at the wider aspects of the Kincora affair.

In the meantime Geoffrey Dickens MP raves on with increasing clerical support about the threat presented to society by occultists. If he is really as concerned as he likes to pretend, it seems Mr Dickens should be pressing hard now for a proper inquiry into the death of Brian McDermott, and the reasons why that matter and the involvement of high-level figures in the Kincora scandal appear to have been the subject of a systematic cover-up for over 15 years. I bet he flunks the challenge.

[Colin Wallace has had his murder conviction quashed; and although Geoffrey Dickens MP became markedly less prominent in his ravings about occultism as the scandals of Rochdale, Orkney, etc. were unmasked, he died without ever addressing the challenge posed.]