The Dark Side of Human Nature

10/9/2025

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
In April, 1979, Dr. Earl S. Patterson, spoke at Conneticut's Meriden Public Library's "Literary Luncbox", a program that featured speakers from the book world. He was promoting his book series Case Books from Hell: Psychiatry and the Occult.

Undercliff State Hospital

In 1962, Dr. Patterson was appointed assistant superintendent of Undercliff Hospital; he had been a consultant there since 1958. Originally known as the Meriden Sanatorium it opened in 1910, and in 1918 it was dedicated to treating children with tuberculosis, German measles, chickenpox, and smallpox. By the 1950s, it became part of the Department of Mental Health and changed its name to Undercliff Sanatorium, then Undercliff State Hospital. In 1976, it closed down.

Starting in 2013, it was demolished to make way for a juvenile courthouse.

The series presented by Dr. Patterson dealt with the occult's relationship to his profession which was psychiatry, and no doubt some of the cases were drawn from his years at Undercliff. It was a subject which at that time he was quoted as saying:

I spent a sleepless night before coming here. The occult is something that I don't like to dwell upon these days. When I started in 1956, I was at Connecticut Valley Hospital. I ran across some cases that were from the Middle Ages.

Dr. Patterson made a presentation about a 10-volume series he wrote about the occult, which present-day no reference can be found about it

Possession of people by supernatural entities dates back to the ancient world, where they could be seen as oracles, or epilepsy was interpreted as being touched by the gods. In the Middle Ages it was seen as something of a darker bent, where the manifestations were proof of being under the sway of the devil. Belief in sorcery was investigated by the Inquisition, much like what happened in the 1692 witch trials overseen by the puritans in Salem, Massachusetts.

According to Dr. Patterson the "latest possession epidemic" was connected to the film The Exorcist released in theaters in 1973. He described that in his town he saw five cases of people who believed they were possessed. Across the country psychiatrists saw approximately 50,000 people for the same reason. He didn't believe the reports were a publicity stunt, and that they were accurate.

Dr. Patterson had recently finished a book composed of a 10-volume series titled Case Books from Hell: Psychiatry and the Occult. The first to be issued was titled Possession. He found that when he first brought his book to a publisher it wasn't accepted because "it presented the darker side of what happens to people who get involved in the occult."

He claimed that pushing the occult through film, books and television was a multi-million dollar business. According to Dr. Patterson, those who benefited from these projects didn't see "the human wreckage they create." Involvement in the occult resulted in people mutilating, killing and torturing their children, or being committed to institutions after their mental stability had been damaged.

He said:

Someone connected with the Vatican once described secret satanic groups as occult Playboy clubs. I don't like this attitude or handling this lightly, because these clubs with secret rituals can lead to killings.

Ad appearing in a Connecticut newspaper in 1970

Dr. Patterson specified that all cults were dangerous, as he had come across reports of murders committed by cult members. The massacre that happened in Jonestown in 1978, according to him, came as no surprise. It was predicted by some since 1974.

It wasn't only psychiatrists who saw the "wreckage" of participation in cults, but police and coroners also saw the results. He provided an in-depth analysis of the murder of Ross Cochran, 17, who was killed in a satanic ritual in 1973, in Daytona Beach.

That same year it was noted that after Herbert Mullins and Kemper, both serial killers, had been arrested for multiple slayings in California, the authorities still had unsolved killings discovered in January and February. It involved two, female coeds from UC Santa Cruz and two from Cabrillo College at Aptos. They were ritually beheaded by a California cult, and their bodies were left on a deserted beach near Highway 101; a third was dismembered.

Dr. Patterson presented cases of individuals who had been psychologically disturbed by dabbling in the occult. All the cases dated before 1965. He said the reason for this precaution was that he didn't want to be sued or killed.

He described where a man wrote a book about Manson and other California cults, including O.T.O. which was founded by Aleister Crowley. The unnamed author disappeared never to be seen again. Another example he gave was an acquaintance who was investigating satanic cult activities in Boston. The person disappeared and was found in Florida, decomposing inside the trunk of an abandoned car.

In 2025, an article was written surrounding the mystery of why Joan Didion abandoned her book about the Manson Family and the murders at Cielo Drive:

Luckily for the other writers immersed in the Manson world (some of whom were buying dead bolts for their doors), Didion’s book with Kasabian did not ultimately come to fruition. As I’ve researched my own book in progress about coverage of the Manson saga, I’ve been flummoxed by the reasons behind Didion’s apparent abandonment of the book, which had commanded a substantial monetary advance and received its own wave of media attention. What journalist would give up that sort of coveted exclusive? When others questioned Didion throughout the 1970s about the project’s fate, she often gave vague responses. Members of the Manson Family were reportedly smug that she had walked away, convinced that their intimidation efforts against other journalists may have done the trick with her, too.

Dr. Patterson c.1979

Dr. Patterson clarified, that even in the Meriden area where he lived there were satanic groups, and persons who believed they were possessed. Caution he advised, should be practiced if an individual decided to join a secret organization. Cults and satanism were dangerous and potential members sometimes didn't know the entire truth about who, and what they're getting involved with.

His book was compiled from 3,200 pages of notes and newspaper clippings gathered from 1956 to 1965. To gain a modern perspective he contacted persons currently involved in occult practices. This resulted in 900 hours worth of taped interviews.

The next hurtle was getting the book printed. According to Dr. Patterson there were regular setbacks that one encounters while publishing a book, but then he described where "tape recorders refused to run. Three typists quit, and one went into in-patient treatment for a problem that was related to the material she was typing."

Expensive copysetting machines that had cost $6,500 each broke down; all three of them. At the completion of the project he claimed he was left with "a sickness of the soul" and after this avoided cases involving occult related problems.

He told the audience:

It makes me sick. It makes me sick to be talking to you about it right now. I couldn't even read a newspaper for awhile afterward, because they were littered with accounts of this sort of thing. It was a kind of depression, physical and emotional, although my mind seemed to be working properly. It was sort of a taste of evil that removed you slightly from the world. It was like a layer of clouds was always between me and the sunshine. There is evil, that goes beyond the control of men. It sets events in motion that go beyond them. When it goes beyond anything men can control they are engulfed or sickened by it.

Slaughter of followers of Jim Jones in Guyana c.1978

The year before Dr. Patterson made his presentation, more than 900 adults and children ended their lives. In November, 1978 members of the Peoples Temple in Guyana were part of a ritual suicide at the cult's jungle commune. Rev. Jim Jones was the one who orchestrated the mass deaths, and also the ambush and slaughter of U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan and four Americans that accompanied him.

Death was delivered by drinking a cyanide potion, and parents killed their own children. Jones was found shot to death, a likely but not proven suicide. Even today the question remains how many took the drink voluntarily or were forced by armed guards.

Before ending up in Guyana in June, 1977, Jones started his cult in Indiana, then moved to San Francisco. He forced donations from his members, and beat them for minor transgressions. He raped both male and female followers. At the peak of the temple's activities in California, Jones claimed he had a following of 20,000. He advertised the church as a Christian movement employing moral force to deal with man-made problems, but the main message embedded in his diatribes was anti-establishment.

Previous to the ambush Leo Ryan met with Jones and interviewed many of his followers. Not surprisingly, some families and several individuals asked to leave with Ryan, while others apparently left on foot on their own. Jones was not happy.

Jim Jones, right, with an unidentified man at Jonestown on November 18, 1978. Shortly after taking the picture, the photographer was killed during the ambush at the airport.

There were too many people to fit into one plane, but Ryan feared for anyone left behind, so he waited for a second plane to arrive. As Ryan's plane was taking off, a dump truck from Jonestown came on the scene, which included several armed men. They opened fire on one plane. A cultist named Larry Layton on board the other plane pulled out a gun and began shooting.

Steven Katsaris of Ukiah who had accompanied Ryan since his daughter Maria was living at the temple, escaped. He was at a hotel in Georgetown with 9 others who had traveled to Guyana with the delegation. A pilot was also able to escape. He described where he was fired upon, and is this when Ryan was mortally wounded.

Layton, the only member of the Peoples Temple tried in the U.S. for criminal acts at Jonestown, was ultimately extradited, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison.

Perhaps what Dr. Patterson had observed in some cases was the effects of demonic possession. These inmates ended up inside an asylum, hopefully before they committed horrible acts. However in the case of the Peoples Temple, their leader fled to another country. It is undeniable that Evil orchestrated so much death and destruction using Jim Jones and some of his followers as vehicles.