Satan's Underground: The Extraordinary Story of One Woman's Escape

by Lauren Stratford, Johanna Michaelsen (Foreword)

Lauren Stratford's story is one that everyone needs to read, though it deals with a subject most of us would rather not discuss, a subject that for many is too horrendous even to believe. Lauren Stratford lived a life of unending nightmares. As a small child she was offered sexually to strange men. Soon after, she was forced into a torturous routine of pornography, was controlled by mind- and body-altering drugs, and constantly received threats to her life. Though she sought help several times from adults she thought could be trusted with her secrets, no one was willing to risk becoming involved. After years of suffering what many would call the ultimate evil of sexual abuse, Lauren was held captive in the even more appalling world of Satanism and ritual abuse.

Forced to participate in some of the most evil satanic rituals imaginable, Lauren was witness to shocking crimes against children and others, all performed in the name of Satan. Tormented sexually and mentally by the cult members, Lauren survived the torture because of her strong faith in God and her belief that He would deliver her from the evil of which she had become a part.

It is an undisputed fact that this type of abuse occurs in the world today. Through this shocking story, anyone who is caught in the trap of sexual or ritual abuse can learn that there is a way out--that with the help of God and others, victims like Lauren can break free. Parents, counselors, law-enforcement personnel, and anyone who may know of or suspect a case of abuse will find in this book invaluable advice. Discover how the veil of such horrible abuse can be lifted for all who suffer.

Genres: Fiction, Occult, Psychology, Satanism, Christian

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

American woman born in Washington, whose allegations of satanic ritual abuse were published under the alias Lauren Stratford.

Later she claimed to be a holocaust-survivor, which she wasn`t.

Reviews

[Edwina Book Anaconda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I knew at the beginning of this book that it was all made up by the Author, who has a long history of mental illness. It seems that she has a huge craving for attention and sympathy as she would later create a false identity in 1999, with an equally horrific story to tell. Pretending to be Laura Grabowski, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, she collected thousands of dollars in donations intended for Holocaust survivors.
After reading this book, I find it hard to understand why anyone would believe her story.
It lacks detail and is full of holes and nonsense.

[Carrie Poppy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two points for the laughs.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sweet Musical Jesus this is a trainwreck of a novel/memoir/fear factory of fear!

First of all, Laure Stratford is a fraud. Dyed in the wool fraud. None of this happened to her. NONE OF IT. She made it up. While the story would be compelling as a horror novel or maybe a made for tv movie of the week, as it exists in the world it is a torrid piece of bad satanic fanfiction.

True, Stratford, not her real name, got on some tv programs and made a living scaring middle to upper aged white evangelical Xians on her "lecture" tours. And given a certain amount of Xian generosity, maybe, she did help some sex abuse victims come to terms with their abuse. BUT. even if a 100 people were helped, it would not make up for the harm she did to innocent children who's panicked parents suspected every single adult of satanic ritual abuse. Lives were ruined.

That is beside the point, that this book is a stinking turd of terrible writing, bad plotting, and unbelievable dialogue.

First, she at least could have done a little bit of research on magic or black mass rituals. Her lack of understanding of every element of religious ritual is stunning. She has the "high priest" inventing ceremonies to worship Satan. Everything is blood and urine soaked and so, so many people are killed. It is beyond horrible, it is horrid writing.

Second, her plot is abysmal. She introduces characters to have them drift away, she suggests danger and mind control but gives scant evidence of it ever working on her. The conversations she recounts sound like pages cut from the afternoon soaps. But worst of all, she introduces supernatural dangers that seem to simply poof into thin air without much as a cloud of smoke.

Third, it is all just so unbelievable. I mean really really stretches credulity. She attempts to recount sexual abuse, pornographic photo shoots, and powerful men's mansions and offices and it is clear what she knows of all these things she learned from watching "very special" episodes of 1970s sit coms and the bloody innuendo of old time police shows.

I just do not understand how anyone ever fell for this crap. Seriously.

[Bret · Rating 1 out of 5]

On one hand, it's fun to read books like this and be amazed at how seriously people took the myth of rampant satanism and human sacrifice in the 1980s. But the deeper you get into this book, the less entertaining it is. It becomes infuriating. The fact that a religious publisher released a book filled with a mentally ill person's pornographic fantasies about the rape and torture of children (described in detail) is inexcusable and unforgivable. One of the most psychologically poisonous books I've ever read... made more repulsive by its constant proselytizing and the self-pitying tone of the adolescent prose.

[Nick · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this one, somewhat guiltily, in the church library growing up as a preacher's kid following the 80's "Satanic Panic." Like many other so called testimonies of people coming out of satanic cults, this one was fake. What's more...not good reading for a 12-14 year old kid, any kid or any adult for that matter. Very disturbing and graphic. And did I mention--FAKE. Not only is this memoir a total fabrication, but according to the FBI, there is no proof that any satanic-cultic human sacrifices have ever occurred in the US. So I guess you could say that the book is doubly fake.

[Kristyn]

This book is along the same lines as Michelle Remembers. Like that one, it was later proven to be a hoax and then Lauren went on to change her last name and become a Holocaust survivor. I cannot fathom that people actually believed some of the outrageous claims made in this book. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely believe that children do go through some very traumatic experiences and even some of the ones mentioned in the book. However, when it comes to getting raped by a demon or having Satan heal wounds until there's nothing left or completely forgetting that one was pregnant three different times and gave birth, that's where I nope out. If you want to read this to see what Satanic Panic had people believing that would be the only reason to. If not, steer clear of this one.

[Austin DuPonte · Rating 5 out of 5]

A insanely fascinating book. One i think a lot of people misunderstand. This book is written by a genuine nutcase, literally a mentally disturbed women who’s a pathological liar, who’s gotten into so many pyramid schemes, and just overall horrible activities. The reason i believe this book to be so interesting is this, don’t treat it like a true story, read it as a psychological examination. It is vile and nasty what she puts into this book, and it’s somehow so fascinating how someone can write, in horrific detail, these fake experiences, these lies, in which keep building on top of one another until finally, you’re done. A fascinating read knowing the context, horrible person with a horrible mind. I hope she burns in hell.

[Gabe Stringer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'd give this book zero stars if I could. While it offered a few decent points at the end concerning attentive parenting, in summation it was 236 pages of religious propaganda, and I found it to be far more dangerous to those reading it than helpful. Also, there's some evidence that the whole story of the book is fictional, so take the contents with a barrel of salt.

[Lacey · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a pretty interesting book if read as fiction. It is posed as non-fiction but is apparently a hoax. If you don't read it as a documentary, it is pretty entertaining in a weird scary/terrible way.

[Kaylee · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book as a part of my research on the author for my website. Not only do we now know as fact that nothing she wrote is true, it’s not even good story telling as fiction, and contains endless falsities.

[Katherine Wacker · Rating 3 out of 5]

In her book, Satan’s Underground: The Extraordinary Story of One Woman’s Escape, Lauren Stratford tells a harrowing, heart-breaking, and ultimately victorious tale of horrific abuse and involvement in the sex trade and Satanism. This evil was perpetrated on Lauren from an early age and was facilitated by her own mother who also physically abused her. Despite attempts to escape, Lauren continued a downward spiral into unspeakable suffering. Yet, through it all, God did not abandon her. He delivered her, and gave her new life with an incredible testimony.

Satan’s Underground is the hardest book I have ever read, and therefore, the hardest to rate. Reader discretion is advised. I almost did not finish it. To her credit, Lauren does not over sensationalize or traffic in shock value. However, it takes a strong stomach to endure the disturbing content. Evil is real, dark, and deadly. But God’s grace and mercy are infinitely more powerful. Lauren Stratford’s story in Satan’s Underground testifies to that reality.

[Kelsey Beachy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started reading this book before I looked at reviews and realized the story was made up. I kept reading, because I wanted to see how the rest of the story would go and because I thought it could give insight to the sex trafficking world along with the hope of redemption through Jesus. While it certainly gave a picture of how things could be, I don't recommend this source. The satanic rituals described are AWFUL. While I'm not denying that these things might happen-if I'm going to read about the horrors, I'd prefer a reliable source. I got to the part about her beginning to heal but did not finish the book.

[Ashleigh · Rating 1 out of 5]

i just found out this memoir was actually fake ... #classic

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laure...

[Charlie Randkins · Rating 1 out of 5]

Uno de los nombres que aparecen con más frecuencia al echar un vistazo al universo del Abuso Ritual Satánico es el de Lauren Stratford, autora de un libro también célebre en ese contexto que se titula Los subterráneos de Satán.

El libro del subterráneo de Satán es una estremecedora mezcla de memorias, denuncia y alabanzas a Jesús Nuestro Señor. Todavía está a la venta en Amazon. En el libro, la señora Stratford nos habla de su vida como paridora para un culto satánico que abarcaba al noventa por ciento de las fuerzas vivas de su comunidad. Estos cultistas le violaban por turnos en aquelarres realizados en los sótanos de casas particulares y, a veces, en un bosquecillo aledaño, y luego, si quedaba embarazada, abducían al bebé y lo destinaban al sacrificio como ofrenda a Satán, habitualmente en forma de snuff movie.

Esto es, la movida del ARS en su esencia más esencial.

Durante el momento álgido del pánico satánico, la señora Stratford dio su testimonio y promocionó de paso su libro - el cual se convirtió en un best seller y el libro de temática religiosa más vendido de América durante la década de 1980 - en multitud de estudios de radio y platós de televisión. Llegó de hecho a lo más alto: a los reinos catódicos de Oprah Winfrey, la próxima presidenta de los USA según la revista Variety, y de Geraldo - no Gerardo - Rivera, su contraparte masculina y en ese tiempo igual de exitosa. En esas entrevistas la señora Stratford denundió sin temor el apocalíptico alcance del culto satánico que asolaba el país. Tanto Oprah como Geraldo parecieron creerla.

Pero...

El nombre real de la señora Stratford es Laurel Rose Wilson, y no le ocurrió nada de lo que explica en sus "memorias", tal y como se puso de manifiesto años más tarde. Ni siquiera había tenido en cuenta que un embarazo normal ocurre cada nueve meses, escribiendo que sus bebés sacrificados nacían a un ritmo prodigioso, pero por alguna razón ninguno de los millones de lectores de su libro pareció advertir ese pequeño detalle. Para añadir aun más ironía al asunto, los primeros que la denunciaron la falsedad de la señora Stratford aka Wilson fueron otros ex-satanistas evangélicos autores de otros libros sobre abusos satánicos... era un asunto monetizable y cada jugador de ese juego luchaba por ascender en popularidad y ventas a costa de los demás.

Aquí se explica en detalle su historia: http://web.archive.org/web/2011060405...

Después de que la pillaran, la señora Wilson aka Stratford pasó a llamarse Laura Grabowski y se hizo pasar por una superviviente del campo de concentración de Auschwitz-Birkenau. Su paso por ese campo fue igual de falso que su pertenecencia a una cábala de satanistas que sacrificaban bebés, pero igualmente consiguió que le creyeran. Al principio. Que Dios la tenga en su gloria.

[Alexa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ms. Stratford should get a prize for conning a publisher and an editor into putting this in print.

A known con artist long before her book or her appearance on Oprah in 1988, she likely suffered from BPD or another very severe manifestation of Cluster B Personality disorder. Everything from compulsive lying to Munchausen Syndrom to continuous reinvention of her past present and future. It's likely Lauren herself has no grasp on what is true and what her own fantasy fabrications are.

After a troubled childhood and teen years, she moves into false rape allegations (very provably false), which quickly fall apart. She then moves into torture via step mom (she doesn't have a step mom), she pretended to be blind, had been gangraped by lesbians, manifested multiple personality disorder, and then she moved into Satanism which spawned this book. Telling Oprah, she lost multiple children to satanic rituals, but also that she had been sterilized and (I have found random accounts) that her reproductive organs were eaten by Satanists ritualistically. She forwarded the idea of "baby breeders" who supplied children and themselves to the multiple murders required yearly for Satan..

This woman had serious issues, pretended to be a Jewish survivor of the holocaust, changed her name.... I found her in Unmask Alice and fell into the rabbit hole of her shenanigans

[Skylar Dickens-Guy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I own this book personally. What's crazy is that Lauren, or should I say... Aunt-in-law Laurel, has had this happened to her. She married my uncle Don and kept it a secret from the public.

How this is true? Don, my uncle, drove from Washington ALL THE WAY DOWN to California back in the early 80's to visit his mom. Who followed him? AUNT LAUREL'S PARENTS! They followed him all the way to my grandma's house! Don knew they followed him and approached my dad (biological). Don told him that they followed him the entire trip. My dad didn't hesitate to grab an aluminum bat and confront them. They fled after noticing that my dad wasn't f*cking around.

She also had to use different personas to make sure her parents would never find her. If I was in her shoes, I'd do the same. What was depicted in this book is what my uncle told me over the phone a few days ago... January 26th, 2025 to be precise. Shockingly, he's never read any of her books at all. But with him knowing that her parents followed him from Washington to California, how timid she was, and how withdrawn she was from all friends and family (including Don's family).

Call my review fake, fine by me. If you want conformation, my discord user is Skylar_Animation. I'll pull my dad aside and he'll tell you EVERYTHING.

[Анатолий Голицын · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lauren Stratford and Johanna Michaelsen are both very interesting personalities in their own right. That a Christian Charismatic journal, at best a fringe publication, "exposed" Stratford as they also allegedly "exposed" Warnke and that their disputation of the legitimacy of Stratford's account is taken as gospel is in itself specious as a premise for dismissing the information in Satan's Underground. Taken on literary merit alone, Satan's Underground excels other seminal texts of the "Satanic Panic" era (Michelle Remembers, etc.) Stratford's main detractors made their bones questioning whether or not "mind control" existed at all. Tell it to the soldiers, tell it to the sailors, tell it to the marines.

[Daniel Pool · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found this in a box in my parents garage when I was about 14 and read it in a day. I assume it was given to them by someone at a church meeting in the late 80's and they just politely accepted and discarded it, because when I brought it up they both had no recollection of ever having read it.

I vividly remember this absolutely melting my adolescent brain and thinking that it felt like extreme BDSM erotica. Even at 14 years old in 1998, I felt something wasn't right, and a quick search on Lycos or whatever search engine was popular back then confirmed my suspicions that it was all fake, and that began a lifelong obsession with the satanic panic. I would love to re-read this knowing what I know now because I suspect it would be a lot of lurid fun. 5/5 stars tbh.

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is not for the faint of heart.

Start within in the first couple of pages, you become thrust in a world so unimaginable it almost seems impossible to be true. It holds nothing back, and therefore has often been far too intense for a few people I have recommended it to.

However, if you enjoy non-fiction and are not going to shy away from a good book when the story becomes almost too repulsive to fathom (the 1st time I read it it helped to keep reminding myself that I had already seen interviews with the "little girl" outlined in the book, now a grown woman, so I know she survived this hell), this will be one of you favrites,; I guarantee.

[ophan ⋆˚࿔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

its good as a fiction piece in a v.c. andrews way, lots of drama.

i feel complicated about the entirety of the satanic panic subject, including this book, considering how it's more than fundamentalist christians being kooky, and was weaponized by the church to exert obscene amounts of control over women and children through experimental psychiatry. i mean, you could try to read this without the context of what the satanic panic was about but it still just feels exploitative and weird at times. i have a lot of thoughts about the author and this book but i'll elaborate later on. maybe.

[Lindsey · Rating 1 out of 5]

TW for mention of CSA and child/infant death* A now debunked “repressed memory” memoir. The author was later revealed to be mentally ill. She later impersonated a Holocaust survivor…. A Christian magazine later came out with an expose finding little to no evidence of anything this author states. I’m horrified that the publisher published this. I know this was a big thing in the 80s and I have Michelle Remembers on my to-read list. I get that it was a popular topic at the time but still. Who was this book’s target audience? Child rape, child torture, child murder and sacrifice. Who was reading this from a empathetic perspective? I doubt many. Knowing that so many innocent people went to jail due to the Satanic Panic of the 80s makes the book worse. It’s media like this that ruined people’s lives. The book framed the CSA details as necessary to make a change for the better but it seemed obvious they published this to make money. They knew people would buy it to read about CSA and children being murdered. Not even to mention they probably manipulated a mentally ill woman to write it.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very hard to read.

But not for the reasons that a lot of commenters have made, nor the information on Wikipedia.

This book has the Ring of Truth.
And an endorsement by Johanna Michaelsen is all the further evidence I need.

A Google search will reveal the Author to be a complete liar and suffering from Mental Illness.
Satan is real.
What would he do to cover Truth?
Exactly what some of the comments and Wikipedia does.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two stars for the sheer audacity and entertainment value. This author was exposed as a fraud and my mind boggles at how she came up with some of the shit in this book. The language is overwrought and ridiculous. The first half of the book is the best—where the author is describing (making up) all the things that happened to her. The second half is how she recovered and warning readers that SATANIC ABUSE IS REAL!

I am fascinated by the “Satanic panic” phenomenon so I enjoyed this book.

[Patty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm glad i know about this stuff!it's helpful

Those ppl are SICK evil bastards who IF up to ME they would all be on their own island without animals and deff NO kid's, all alone with bread and water to keep them barley alive .and you don't want to know the rest! These THINGS because they are NO way humans,are pieces of shit! And they have a big surprise coming!!!!

[ceaser greer jr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love is the key

At first it was hard book to read but I stuck with it especially when she talk about her children I cried too. My problem is the alcohol and cigarettes in fact if I had known some of truths that I know now back then I would have stay a virgin until God had bought my wife to me.

[Fausta · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you believe this book to be true, ask yourself why you want it to be true. Hint: the author also claimed to be a Holocaust survivor, taking on a new name for that particular hoax. This books stories of being a survivor of SRA are as true as those later stories of surviving death camps.

[Seth Pierce]

Another classic text of the Satanic Panic. The author was debunked by Christian magazines, but the evangelist Johanna Michaelsen continues to peddle the sordid tale.

[BRIDGET ESPINOZA · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horribly written. I didn’t find out till after I read this that it’s a false story. I kept reading thinking the writer was a lunatic. Don’t waste your time.

[Erica Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was excellent, very eye-opening to hidden and not so hidden evils in our world. It's a hard read but well worth it.

[Joe · Rating 1 out of 5]

an awful story about awful things, written awfully. the appendix chapters are...inspired...?...but the novel itself is a slog