1

Reference: Petersen, Jesper Aa., “Operation Mindfuck, Viking Edition: How Fear of the Satanic and Cartoon
Exoticism Fueled the Prank of the Century”, in C. Abrahamsson & M. Palmer (eds.), HERE TO GO 2014,
Stockholm: Trapart 2014, p. 52-64. Please do not quote or distribute without the author’s explicit
permission.

Operation Mindfuck, Viking Edition: How Fear of the Satanic and

Cartoon Exoticism Fueled the Prank of the Century
Jesper Aagaard Petersen

You have just touched upon the essence of my principle: you set the stage. The
approximation: if it’s there, even if it’s not authentic – if it just looks authentic, it’s close
enough to evoke that feeling – Anton S. LaVey, Modern Primitives

I have seen the fnords – British railway graffiti on Anarchy Bridge

On A Desert Island: May 1973

It all began in the late spring, right around the time Skylab was launched and the Watergate
hearings covered the news. And it happened on the small desert island of Anholt, right in the
middle of Kattegat, the sea between Denmark and Sweden north of the biggest island,
Zealand. About three hours by ferry from the small port on the nose of Jutland named
Grenå, this is about as far away you can travel from the mainland – an Scandinavian Easter
Island, so to speak. Not that the island itself resembles its more famous brother. Most of
Anholt, about three-quarters, is desert; proper desert, which is very rare in these parts. The
rest is shrubbery, some nice beaches and a small town. Some two hundred people live here
year-round, but in the summer tourists expand that number significantly. Other than nice
beaches, its main claim to fame is migrating birds – and Denmark’s only satanic cult,
apparently.

Around May 17, 1973, residents found 13 “ritual sites” with various objects scattered in the
desert. This wasn’t the first time – “stuff” had been found in the preceding years, but not in
these quantities and arrangements: Strange African- or Polynesian-looking masks, bones
wrapped in string, weird stone formations, black candles, human hair, and a fake shrunken
head on a stake, stuck in the ground through the shoe-strap on a children’s sandal, and so
on. 1 The owner of the desert, either worrying about drug-crazed hippies or zealous cultists
from Copenhagen after reading the local paper (the Manson trial fresh in memory), or more

1
See the complete list in Alver 1974, p. 10-14.
 2

likely, nervous about the use of open fire, alerted the police to a possible violation of
preservation laws about a week later. In any case, as the local police chief arrived from the
mainland, the case exploded in national media with satanic rituals, scared islanders, and
various theories in play.

Predictably, the case moved from semiotic arousal to semiotic promiscuity. It soon escalated
from black masses to human sacrifice, as reporters found the ominous epitaph “BODIL 1955-
1972” in the desert. Luckily, Bodil also read newspapers and contacted the police to say that
she wrote the caption in 1972 to commemorate her 17 seasons on the island.
Simultaneously, well-known Danish actress Hanne Smyrner, notable for her move from
witchcraft back to the bosom of Christianity, claimed that this was revenge for her defection
from the satanic cult. 2 The story of devil worship grew in spurts for a week before subsiding,
with smaller peaks in August and lesser panics in neighboring Norway and Sweden, but not
before inspiring copycat incidents (my favorite being the enormous plaster penis found on
an empty beach in Jutland with the caption “SATAN FORTIFIES THE SOUL” 3) and fully settling
in the public imagination as the Anholt affair. 4

In contrast to the media panic affecting mainland media, the capital and even neighboring
countries, most island dwellers saw it differently after an initial chock. The ethnographer
Bente Alver, who visited the scene in June 1973, recounts that

the thought of worshiping the Devil is taken with calm. It is not the business of anyone, you
see, if you want to do that. This country has freedom of religion. That said, everyone agree
that worshiping him should be done discreetly, without bothering anyone and taking your
things with you. As said by a local resident: ‘Let them just worship him out there in the
desert. But if they come to town and start a ruckus, then they’ll get smacked around and be
thrown in the harbor’. 5

As with all isolated communities, the residents of Anholt mainly saw this as outsiders making
trouble, not a dangerous cult. Partially following their lead, Alver concluded that while
satanic cult might be taking it too far, the work laid in the objects and arrangements and the
stable symbolism used throughout signifies that this could not have been a hoax or a joke.
Based on her somewhat over-zealous interpretations, one or more persons must have had
serious, occult intentions; she calls it “a pattern with magico-religious tendencies and not
merely casual play in the sand”.6 In the following, I will follow the traces of authenticity and
ambiguity to understand how setting the stage can be a powerful instrument for change.

2
The similarity with Doreen Irvine’s story as told in her book From Witchcraft to Christ (1973) is telling.
3
“Satan gør sjælen stærk” (Alver 1974, p. 4). All quotes are translated by the present author into English.
4
See Alver 1974; Dyrendal & Lap 2002.
5
Alver 1974: 9.
6
“… det hele kan ses som et væv med magisk-religiøs trend og ikke en tilfældig leg i sandet” (Alver 1974: 17).
 3

A Diabolical Currency: October 2013

For decades, the Anholt affair existed on the occult margins of Danish cultural imagination.
Whenever it was revisited, it occupied a zone somewhere between an elaborate hoax and a
spooky legend; too uncanny to be merely laughed away, but also too ridiculous to be
believed.

In late October 2013, the reputable Danish newspaper Politiken ran a huge 6-part feature on
a phenomenon totally unknown to most readers; as it was new to me as well, I can safely say
it was unknown to everybody except a small minority of police officers, priests and
numismatists. 7 The story concerned the so-called Satan coins (SEE ILLUSTRATION) found all
over Denmark and even spreading to holiday destinations abroad. The smaller ones are
made of zinc, brass, or copper, while the larger medallions are made of silver; all of them
depict a dancing Devil or a sinister face and some variation of the date May 13, 1973,
Heaven and Hell, God and the Devil, and the place name Anholt. 8

Since the early 1970s, these coins have been uncovered in the most unlikely places: Behind
statues and under coffins in old churches, in churchyards, museums, and even sent by mail
to various officials and celebrities. Around 400 have been found, most of them around a
small town south of Copenhagen named Køge. They are associated with letters from a
satanic high priestess known as Alice Mandragora; the same name, alongside the names Karl
Klunck and Dunk Wokgnal, has been found on some coins as well. Letters with photos or
short stories have been found at Køge city museum, behind paintings at the police
headquarters in Copenhagen, and they have been sent to people involved in the Anholt case
or the coin mystery. All of these objects point to the same time and place: May 13, 1973,
Anholt.

For me as a scholar of modern Satanism the most amazing element of this story is not the
narrative itself; it is of course mindboggling in its complexity and utterly fascinating, which is
why I will deal with it in a moment. Until then, the most remarkable aspect of the story of
Anholt and the Satan coins is that everybody in the know, from the perpetrators to police
officers, officials and experts such as priests called in as experts or acting as victims and the
aforementioned numismatists, some of which were more deeply involved than they cared to
admit, ALL of these kept it quiet, under wraps, out of the public eye. Contrary to a conspiracy
in the customary sense, they simply agreed without speaking together that this was too
much for the regular folks to stomach – or, more likely, that giving the Satanists publicity
was aiding and abetting criminals. Apart from a few rants in the newsletter of the local
Christian counter-cult Dialogcenteret (Dialogue Centre international) and a few brief articles

7
The six feature articles, separated into chapters and all written by Camilla Stockmann and Gudrun Marie
Schmidt, ran from Oct. 19, 2013 to Oct. 26, 2013. They can be accessed at
http://politiken.dk/kultur/ECE2107708/kapitel-1-satanisten-paa-sjaelland/
8
See Sømod n.d for a brief description.
 4

in historical and numismatic journals (with print runs in the low hundreds), this development
of the Anholt affair has been completely invisible.9

Obviously, those who know can be put in two categories: those who believe this to be a
satanic conspiracy and those who believe this to be the grandest hoax of the century. Yet, as
with the Anholt case, there is a leakage from one to the other – it is too grand to be a mere
joke and too complicated to be a hippie happening, but it is also too absurd and cartoonish
to be true. That said, it does not have to be a grand conspiracy to be dangerous; as proven
by Charles Manson and his Family, a small group of tripping hippies can do a lot of damage.
Nevertheless, when actually reading what the letters, stories, pictures and coins say, it
makes the silence and the underlying panic even more incredible: What satanic cult would
invite itself to blood soup? Why should devil worshipers print garish coins commemorating
an unknown event when they can live in secret? And why are the Anholt Satanists so
stereotypically satanic? To answer these questions, we have to understand what Anholt
means and who Alice Mandragora is.

Ordinary Exotica: The Secret Life Of Clerks

After the week-long feature in Politiken, the case now lies fully exposed, even though some
details are impossible to verify or even substantiate. Apparently, the entire complex of
events was the creation of a single man, Knud Langkow (1931-2004), an anonymous office
clerk tending the phone lines at the National Gallery of Denmark (Statens Museum for
Kunst). In the final installment of the feature, Langkow’s niece matter-of-factly admits to
everything – this is what Knud was like, she states, he was an eccentric. To the dismay of his
mother, her uncle have kept the largest prank in Danish history alive in his free time by
planting objects, writing letters, and distributing coins since the early 1970s. 10

At the same time, she flatly denies any satanic involvement. Like many Danes, he was an
atheist and disliked what the Lutheran church stood for, but his alter ego, Alice Mandragora,
was a vehicle for quixotic challenge to conformity, not a satanic witch: “I think normality
annoyed him. I remember he once said that there was nothing more ludicrous than domestic
policy. He did not like ordinary”.11 Stirring the fear of the satanic by actively using outlandish
objects and sock-puppets to construct a nebulous cult, Langkow challenged everything
proper by playing bad – tongue-in-cheek, but never without a bite.

Whether Knud Langkow’s project was a series of pranks for the hell of it or a giant
détournement (hijacking) of satanic panic is impossible to know, as he committed suicide on
New Year’s Eve 2004 after losing his long-time partner. He obviously had it in for the
deadening conformity of normalcy and the repressive middle-culture of Danish society, as he
9
For more on these speculations, see for example Langkjer 2002, Mortensen 2014, Rysgaard 1997.
10
Stockmann & Schmidt 2013.
11
Ibid.
 5

worked on various displacement projects before settling on Anholt and Satanism, including
moving plants and animals from one end of the country to the other to confuse botanists
and zoologists. 12 In the end, his history as a merchant sailor and resulting contact with exotic
places determined much of the nature and execution of the Anholt prank, including the
letters and coins.

Interestingly, the connection between Anholt, the Satan coins and Knud Langkow has
actually been made several times before. Historians, archeologists and counter-cultists have
noted for years that Dunk Wokgnal is the name Knud Langkow inverted. Langkow himself
wrote a surreal travel fantasy called Anholt på vrangen (“Anholt Exposed”), where he meets
witches and finally Satan himself on the island. 13 Further, numismatists in-the-know
recruited themselves to help this ungodly crusade, most importantly the Danish coin expert
Jørgen Sømod (known in the coin milieu as “The Wizard”), who designed, printed and
distributed hundreds of coins independently, together with the original engraver
commissioned by Langkow, Bent Jensen.

Most importantly for the present discussion is a humorous yet oddly serious documentary
on the Anholt affair called Satankulten på Anholt (“The Island of Lucifer”), which premiered a
month before the Politiken feature.14 Here, the intrepid filmmakers, Jonas Bech and Kristian
Ussing, travel to Anholt to witness a satanic mass on May 13, 2011; on the way, they try to
talk to heavy metal Satanists and speculate wildly on the facts of the case. This movie
inspired Stockmann and Schmidt to do the feature and gave them many leads as well, as
Bech and Ussing discuss Langkow’s story in some detail, including his years as a sailor in the
1950s (even crossing the Equator and meeting Neptune), his difficulty settling down and his
first ventures into pranking – putting exotic objects bought abroad near folk religious places
like the Rag Oak (near Køge) or on the island of Anholt.

However, they also get some things wrong; rather tellingly, the initiation ritual at the Court
of Neptune is not recognized, but used a documentation of occult ceremonies at sea (anyone
reading ocean adventures or even Tintin and Bruin's Adventures at Sea [Rasmus Klump]
know that they are naval tradition). Generally, the filmmakers exhibit a certain amount of
intentional misreading of exotica, a deliberate dramatization of their utterly uneventful
journey to Anholt, and a purposeful narrativization of history as occult drama. In the final
reveal of the movie, coin collector extraordinaire Jørgen Sømod states that both Langkow
and his partner were “Satanists, pure and simple”. Although this makes a better film, it is at
odds with the rest of the documentary and the total facts of the case. The filmmakers want
the conspiracy and the cult. Although they lose the bloodthirsty Satanists, they gain an
eccentric one instead; with the occult danger gone, the tension of mystery nevertheless
remains.

12
Carsten Viggo Jensen, personal communication, March 6, 2014.
13
Langkow 1983. Self-published, highly entertaining and deeply weird.
14
Satankulten på Anholt can be readily purchased online; a brief interview with trailer was published by Ekstra
Bladet, the yellow paper originally responsible for the Anholt panic (Kastrup 2013).
 6

Operation Mindfuck, Viking Edition

One question is, of course, how well Langkow himself distinguished between myth and
reality; he readily used stereotypes of satanic exoticism, bloodthirsty witchcraft, and
ubiquitous evil to further his own goals. It did not seem to scare him at all, so we must
assume that he considered the entire satanic mythology bogus, something to be used for its
emotional power or as an easy short-hand for adversarial and anti-establishment culture.
This is not that different from contemporary Satanists’ use of what I have called “reactive
modes” or “play with grey”, the ambivalent/ironic appropriation of stereotypes as half truths
to convey a truly satanic message. Cases in point are Anton LaVey’s Satanic Bible and Satanic
Rituals, both of which are documenting the use of anti-Christian blasphemy in the early
Church of Satan as catharsis or to create friction (so-called “phase one Satanism”, the yelling
kind). 15 It is practice, not ideology.

On the other hand, Langkow seems rather unreflected in his use of exoticism and the occult.
His horizon appears to be painted by bad anthropology and pulp fiction, and his knowledge
of Satanism (or Left-Hand Path occultism in general) does not seem to be extensive. His
project is artistically and philosophically subversive, not religious. In this sense, Langkow is
paradoxically more in line with the mainstream views of journalists, theologians and police
officers in his view of Satanism and the satanic than contemporary Satanists like Anton
LaVey. What makes him different from traditional anti-Satanists is his lack of belief; what is
similar is the prejudice. Likewise, what makes him similar to religious Satanists today is the
challenge to the mainstream; what is different is the lack of alternatives offered in its stead.
Not every anti-Christian atheist is a Satanist.

To understand the difference between Satanism as a pure provocation and as a radical

alternative to current modes of living, I have proposed the distinction between a
transgression from hegemony and transgression to a new order.16 While the first is
deliberately using oppositional mythology to challenge established norms and social
structures, often by inversion and friction as in the early Church of Satan, the second is
appropriating the same mythology to point to an autonomous world, the “third alternative”
or independent symbolic order. Transgression from is stuck in a relation with the established
it rejects – transgression to is offering a way out. Both strategies create community and a
shared sense of alternate culture, although the latter tends to run deeper and require an
engagement with philosophical and religious modes of transgression rather than remaining
in an oppositional identity based on popular culture. That said, the “oppositional mythology”
and concrete practices used are often undistinguishable; further, a transgression from the
old can develop into transgression to the new.

15
See Petersen 2013 for the latest reiteration of these arguments and Barton 1990, p. 16-17, 23, 28-29 for
good descriptions of the early Church of Satan.
16
Petersen 2013.
 7

From this perspective, Langkow seems to be stuck in an oppositional mode with no

discernible way out. Nevertheless, I see two interesting parallels to contemporary Satanism
beyond the surface use of diabolical myths and props. First of all, many spokespersons
within the satanic milieu, including Anton LaVey and Genesis (Breyer) P-Orridge, venerate
the agency and freedom of the outsider. Speaking of body modification, LaVey states:

… it’s like taking an antidote which enables [people] to co-exist with the workaday world. It’s
a way of linking themselves with the twilight world or the Dark Side. Some people do this in
ways without physical change: doing, saying or thinking things that would certainly alienate
them from “normals.” 17

In the same interview, P-Orridge elaborates that outsiders seem to recognize each other:
“they don’t have to agree on a philosophy, but they can see a kinship on a certain level”. This
common culture of not fitting in based on self-expression and self-alienation seems to fit
Knud Langkow, at least in outline. The kinship is there.

The second parallel is more speculative and leads to another perspective I wish to discuss
here, namely artistic design. When discussing his notion of total environments, immersive
worlds to move within, LaVey succinctly recaps his theory of magic and even his ontology as
“setting the stage”: “… if it just looks authentic, it’s close enough to evoke that feeling”. 18
Although LaVey’s theory implies work on a more personal level, I cannot dismiss the fact that
Langkow meticulously created a world of Satanists to both escape a feeling of ennui and
really change the world. Not in a political sense of making it a better place, but making it
different while frightening meaning makers in the process. In this sense, the entire project
became a total environment working through stage-setting pranks playing with authenticity.

A prank is a mischievous act; contrary to the practical joke, the prank implies a malicious
ambiguity or wicked intent beyond mere amusement.19 Where the joke invites a laugh, the
prank undermines and subverts. Compare some random rom-com on the telly with a forced
acid trip courtesy of the Merry Pranksters, and you will get the idea. Parallel to modern
phenomena like trolling, internet hoaxes, culture jamming, and meme hacks, pranks
appropriate and transform “for the lulz”, simultaneously using and producing a
destabilization of the boundaries between authenticity and forgery, sincerity and deceit.
Sometimes, this provides support for nobler goals, but in other instances it is to dress up the
world – to set the stage. Like the trickster gods of mythology, pranksters create and destroy
following their own agenda by manipulating order and chaos.

We have a name for this activity from a different subcultural milieu, the Discordians. What
Langkow did was Operation Mindfuck, a paradigm-disrupting practice of activism as

17
Vale and Juno 1989: 94.
18
Vale and Juno 1989: 95.
19
Vale 1987: 1.
 8

advocated by Robert Anton Wilson and others.20 Originally, the concept dealt with the
multiplication of disinformation and counter-information regarding political conspiracies,
introducing the Illuminati into counter-cultural vocabulary. The point is that even though it is
very funny and deeply confusing, Operation Mindfuck is not merely a prank or a hoax.
Hopefully it stimulates the victim to sudden realizations of satori-like awakening, where they
“mutate to a wider, funnier, more hopeful reality-map”. 21 If not, they should at least get the
most fitting world, or reality-tunnel, to live in. Again, even though Langkow in all probability
knew little of the theories behind Situationism, the guerilla ontology of the Discordians, or
the culture jamming of the 1970s and 1980s, he has a certain kinship with them on a
practical level.

The Best Christmas Present Ever: December 2013

The time has come when the normal revolt against time, space, and matter must assume a
form not overly incompatible with what is known of reality – when it must gratified by
images forming supplements rather than contradictions of the visible and measurable
universe – H. P. Lovecraft

After reading about the coins and watching the documentary, I immediately set my father,
who is something of an antiquities wizard, on the case: I needed a coin. And he found one
just in time for Christmas, which is the coolest present I have ever received, including the
three core rulebooks for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons I got in 1989. But incidentally, I
also got a taste of the panic surrounding the coins some months later, when I gave a phone
interview on a local Danish radio station. In the pre-interview, also done by phone, the host,
a middle-aged woman in high spirits, was really triggered when I mentioned that I owned
one of these objects. She wanted to hear it, so I tapped in on the table and dropped it in a
glass. And she wanted to know: Was I not afraid to own one of these coins? Even though I
lived 800 kilometers from Copenhagen, in Trondheim, Norway, didn’t I feel threatened by
satanic forces? What if they were real?

This is one of the major beauties of Langkow’s mindfuck; he is playing on the what if
imprinted in all of us through recurrent satanic panic. And he is doing it with as much 1950s
exoticism and tongue-in-cheek Hammer horror aesthetics as he can. The host seems to think
that possession equals danger, as if the coins where some kind of diabolical GPS. In my book,
this is exactly what the project intended. Never mind that religion scholars and
anthropologists have distinguished ostensive acting and crime inspired by satanic mythology
from beliefs and practices of contemporary Satanists for decades.22 Never mind that the

20
See e.g. Cusack 2010, Shea and Wilson 1988 (1975) and Walker 2013.
21
Walker 2013.
22
Ironically, the first studies on modern Satanism where published in the early 1970s.
 9

content of the letters are as absurd as fairy tales. Neither fact registers in the horizon of the
journalists and priests with easy access to the media, and so never even affects the public.

Langkow’s prank demonstrates that in the secular West, reality still involves satanic
conspiracy and satanic cult as part of the visible and measurable universe. In other words,
the public reaction to Langkow’s monumental gesamtkunstwerk shows us that the Anholt
case, the Satan coins, and the letters – even though they seem absurd – are a supplement to
the reality-tunnel of Danish modernity, not a contradiction. Of course, many Danes never fell
for the satanic angle and dismissed it all as a ridiculous joke. But because of the objects left
behind and the occult resonance and tenacity of the story, it never disappeared or dissolved
into an obvious punchline. Forty years hence, not even coldest heart can resist a smile when
it is revealed to be a deception of such magnitude it becomes irresistible.
 10

REFERENCES

Alver, B. 1974. Blæsten om Anholt. Tradisjon 4 (1974), p. 1-21.

Barton, B. 1990. The Church of Satan. New York: Hell’s Kitchens Productions.
Cusack, C. 2010. Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith. Farnham: Ashgate.
Dyrendal, A. and A. O. Lap. 2002. Satanism as a News Item in Norway and Denmark: A Brief
History. SYZYGY 11 (2002), p. 197-233.
Kastrup, K. 2013. Anholt kalder: Satankult [online]. Ekstra Bladet Sep. 19, 2013. Accessed
Feb. 27, 2014 at www.ekstrabladet.dk/filmmagasinet/article2101350.ece
Langkjer, B. 2002. Alice Mandragora – mysteriet er opklaret? Den Nye Dialog 089, Sept 14,
2002 [online]. Accessed October 30, 2013 at
http://dialogcentret.dk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=891
Langkow, K. 1983. Anholt på vrangen. København.
Mortensen, M. E. 2014. De Satans Satans mønter [online]. Accessed April 6, 2014 at
http://www.kunstnyt.dk/satansmoenter.htm
Petersen, J. Aa. 2013. The Carnival of Dr. LaVey: Articulations of Transgression in Modern
Satanism. In The Devil’s Party: Satanism in Modernity, edited by P. Faxneld and
J. Aa. Petersen, p. 167-189. New York. Oxford University Press.
Rysgaard, T. 1997. Hvem er Alice Mandragora? Den Nye Dialog 068, June 14, 1997 [online].
Accessed March 5, 2014 at
http://www.dialogcentret.dk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=
797&Itemid=34
Shea, R. and R. A. Wilson. 1988 (1975). The Illuminatus! Trilogy. New York: Dell.
Stockmann, C. and G. M. Schmidt. 2013. Kapitel 6: Hvem var Knud Langkow? [online].
Politiken Oct. 26, 2013. Accessed October 30, 2013 at
http://politiken.dk/kultur/ECE2114058/kapitel-6-hvem-var-knud-langkow/
Sømod, J. n.d. Satankult på Anholt [online]. Accessed Feb. 27, 2014 at
http://www.danskmoent.dk/soemod/satan.htm
Vale, V. (ed.). 1987. Pranks! RE/Search #11. San Francisco: RE/Search Publications.
Vale, V. and A. Juno (eds.). 1989. Modern Primitives. RE/Search #12. San Francisco: V/Search
Publications.
Walker, J. 2013. Robert Anton Wilson and Operation Mindfuck [online]. Posted Aug. 21,
2013 at http://disinfo.com/2013/08/robert-anton-wilson-operation-mindfuck/.
Accessed Feb. 27, 2014.