Item #: SCP-6237
Object Class: Safe
SCP-6237-A instance, designated as Volume One.
Special Containment Procedures:
National police reports are to be monitored for any activity matching the description of SCP-6237’s influence. Individuals who witness or take part in SCP-6237 related activities are to be amnesticized, and their organizations disbanded. Disinformation is to be utilized to maintain the Veil on a case-by-case basis, but as this will not eradicate the nature of SCP-6237’s threat to maintaining normalcy, further procedures are warranted.
To this end, a broad-scope disinformation campaign is to be implemented across the United States and Western Europe. This campaign will consist of two different yet equally important aspects:
- Embedded agents within conservative organizations, both secular and religious, are to encourage the belief in and provide anecdotal evidence of occult conspiracies at work within the area;
- Foundation personnel will execute false occult activity scenarios for local police forces to respond to. These will serve to form the basis of debunking activities which will be undertaken by prominent psychologists and investigators also in Foundation employ.
Together, these two programs will serve to undermine the public’s awareness of SCP-6237 activities and provide disincentive for local police forces to respond with serious engagement. Within three months of operation, the program is to be taken to national and international media outlets to further the spread of disinformation.
One copy of each SCP-6237-A instance is to be contained in the Safe Class containment wing of Site-106.
Description:
SCP-6237 is a series of interconnected anomalies centered around the production and distribution of esoteric occult literature throughout the United States and Western Europe.
The literature in question is a series of “how-to” manuals for the ritual activities performed by their licensees (hereafter designated SCP-6237-A).1 Instances of SCP-6237-A represent knowledge culled from tomes within the Wanderers' Library, along with other occult sources such as the Global Occult Coalition’s Council of 108. The language utilized to communicate these rituals has been radically simplified so as to be accessible and understandable to a layperson, effectively granting uninitiated civilians the anomalous abilities of a moderately-advanced thaumaturgist.2 The threat to normalcy these materials represent cannot be understated.
Since 1981, Foundation personnel have recorded over two thousand instances of minor anomalies connected with SCP-6237 including, but not limited to:
- Thaumaturgical rituals with ontokinetic effects on local reality;
- Granting of limited ontokinetic abilities to franchise licensee members – flight, transformation, and minor precognitive divination;
- Cognitohazardous effects utilized in recruiting and “brainwashing” members;
- Necromantic thaumaturgical activities;
- Successful summoning of minor demonic entities.
Discovery: Beginning in 1981, numerous events fitting the description of occult or “satanic” practices were reported to law enforcement throughout the United States. A significant portion of these reports exhibited the above-noted anomalous effects. At first, Foundation personnel were able to cover up and amnesticize all those involved as this pattern was slow to emerge. But within eighteen months the frequency at which the events occurred had increased to such a level that the O5 Council implemented a wide-scope disinformation campaign (as noted in the Special Containment Procedures) and dedicated significant resources to finding the source of SCP-6237.
Addendum 6237-1:
Incident Log 6237-233
Date: 13/12/1984
Location: United Church of Baphomet’s Kiss, formerly United Methodist Church of Bedford, Oklahoma
MTF Assigned: MTF Tau-09 (“Bookworms”)4
Foreword: Reports of ritual occult activity matching descriptions of SCP-6237 scenarios were intercepted from local police forces. MTF personnel were to intercede and contain any anomalies present under the guise of United States federal agents. Foundation personnel cordoned off a perimeter and took command of the situation. As containment staff began processing witnesses and local police via administration of amnestics, a squad of MTF Tau-9 entered the premises.
[T9-1, -2, and -3 activate body cameras and breach the church. The interior entryway is lit solely by red candles. A pentagram is drawn on the floor in what appears to be blood.]
[Chanting in Latin can be heard in the distance.]
T9-1: How are our Humes?
T9-3: Kant counter is going a bit crazy, shifting back and forth between 1.0 and -1.0.
[T9-2 bends down and examines the pentagram.]
T9-1: What you got, Karl?
[T9-2 does not respond. T9-1 and -2 crouch next to -3 and cease moving.]
Command: Captain, what are you doing?
[None of the MTF personnel respond. The chanting increases in volume from beyond the door leading further into the church.]
Command: Captain, please respond. Advise as to your status.
[No response is forthcoming. A scream is heard over the chanting from the next room.]
Analysis: Command, Analysis is of the opinion that’s a Class-3 cognitohazard, limited range.
Command: Captain, if you can hear this, we’re initiating the cognitohazard countermeasures we outfitted your team with. Stand-by.
[A strobing light is seen through the camera feed and a prerecorded series of chiming bells is played over the audio feed. T9-1 is the first to regain composure, and shakes the other two until they are responsive.]
T9-1: Thanks Command, we’re going to neutralize this hazard.
Command: Go ahead, but from our end it sounds like whatever is happening in the next room is ramping up.
T9-1: Acknowledged.
[T9-2 opens a packet of ritually-purified salt and spreads it across the pentagram. There is an audible hiss as the blood in contact with the salt begins to visibly boil. All three members approach the door and open it to see a large central area meant for church services. The pews have been stacked up against the walls, leaving the central floor bare. A series of candles are lit around a large sigil taken from the Ars Goetia depicting the seal of Halphas.]
[In the center of the seal is a black goat tethered to a stake. Surrounding the sigil are several figures dressed in red and black robes. One of these figures, a young man dressed in similar robes, is lying face-down in a pool of blood. Smoke issues from the mouth and ears of the deceased individual and is swirling roughly three meters above the floor. Emerging from the smoke is a humanoid entity with a raven’s head and glowing red eyes. The entity is naked, and its skin is a glistening mottled gray with feathers protruding periodically. Hovering in the air above the robed figures – its body only partially visible – the entity begins to speak.]
Halphas: DISGUSTING. [Entity shakes itself, blood dripping from its feathers.]
[The smoke that makes up the portal by which the entity is manifesting is connected by a thin trail of particulate to the mouth and nose of the dead individual on the floor.]
Robed Figure: We brought you the offering, oh dread Lord. [Indicating the goat, which is undisturbed by the events occurring around it.]
Halphas: I DIDN’T WANT TO HURT THE GOAT.
Robed Figure: But we followed the instructions to the letter. Why did you kill Jerry?
Halphas: LIKE I SAID, I DIDN’T WANT TO HURT THE GOAT. I LIKE GOATS. I DON’T KNOW JERRY.
T9-1: [Whispering] Fuck it. Karl, let’s end this, white phosphorus on three.
[T9-1 counts on his fingers and on three, T9-2 throws a white phosphorus grenade at the body.]
[On detonation, the robed figures are blown backward. The body connected to the entity is ignited, and burns steadily for several minutes. The entity screams a string of curse words and insults in Latin, thrashing back and forth in the air. As the body burns, the entity starts fading until it vanishes completely.5 T9-1, -2, and -3 restrain the figures in robes with zipties.]
T9-1: What the hell you think you were doing?
Robed figure: We were following the instructions in the book!
T9-1: Book?
T9-3: [Holding up a book from across the chapel.] Here sir, another one.
[T9-3 approaches, holding an instance of SCP-6237-A. T9-1 grabs it and turns to the robed figure.]
T9-1: Where’d you get this?
Robed figure: I… I don’t know.
T9-3: Come on, just tell us. We’re not cops. We’ll clean this all up. But only if you tell us what we want to know.
Robed figure: I’m serious, I don’t know where I got it. I can’t seem to remember when I got it.
T9-1: Shit, not again.
Afterword: As with all other incidents relating to SCP-6237 activities, the perpetrators have seemingly lost all knowledge of where they obtained the materials. Further investigation is warranted.
Addendum 6237-2: Update 07-12-1988
On 7th December, 1988, Site-106 staff were informed by a UIU embedded agent of an operation occurring in Miami shadowing a GRU Division P agent. The UIU had been tailing the Soviet throughout the day, having been prewarned of his entrance into the country. Surveillance had begun the moment the agent disembarked from his plane at Miami International Airport. Foundation personnel were able to track the UIU operation and get access to the surveillance through the embedded agent. Director Dewitt decided Foundation action would be limited to observation unless a threat to the Veil was likely.
Several hours into the surveillance, the GRU operative entered an office building in downtown Miami, owned by ERS LLC. The UIU agents moved to apprehend when after forty-five minutes the operative was seen running through the parking lot.
Foundation personnel were informed by the UIU embedded agent that the operative had been involved in attempted industrial sabotage. Upon apprehension, the UIU agents began transport to Downtown Miami for interrogation at the federal building. Intercepted communications included the allegation that subject had witnessed thaumaturgical practices while within the building.
Foundation analysts discovered the building in question was the source of a pervasive but imperceptible cognitohazard, noting that the building was not even on official maps of the city. Given the reported thaumaturgy, the anomalous international sabotage, and the apparently anomalous perception filter on the building itself, Director DeWitt ordered the embedded agent to incapacitate the UIU personnel in transit and assist with recovery of the subject by Foundation forces. The UIU personnel were amnesticized and conditioned to report that they had lost the subject, while agent Alexei Laskin was transferred to Site-106 for debriefing.
Interview Log
Interviewed: Alexei Laskin – GRU Division P agent
Interviewer: Director DeWitt
DeWitt: What were you doing at the ERS building?
Laskin: I not help you, Foundation.
DeWitt: Listen, you tell me what I want to know, and you can go home. You don’t, and I’m turning you right back over to the Feds where you can rot in a blacksite with your name redacted.
Laskin: Why would I trust?
DeWitt: I don’t give a crap about you, I just want to know why we had no idea that building existed until you went in and did whatever you did.
[Laskin is silent for nearly a minute.]
DeWitt: Fine. Guard, get this commie out of here and send him back to the UIU.
Laskin: Wait. Just wait. What do you want to know?
DeWitt: What is ERS? What were you doing there?
Laskin: Is devil company.
DeWitt: What?
Laskin: Not euphemism, is actual devils. ERS spreading propaganda and occult nonsense throughout West. We do not want them to push into the East. I was sent to sabotage process, but was discovered. While trying to exfiltrate, I came upon ritual casting. I kill cultists doing devil shit. Then you see building.
DeWitt: Spreading propaganda and occul – oh my god, the self-help books! The ritual instructions, that’s this company?
Laskin: Yes. How did you Foundation types not know? Is in your own back yard.
End Log
Afterword: Laskin was amnesticized and returned to Soviet territory. Investigation into ERS LLC was begun immediately.
SCP-6237-B.
Investigation into Esoteric Ritual Services, LLC (ERS), designated as SCP-6237-B, immediately revealed two points of interest:
- The company had been thaumaturgically enforcing a widespread cognitohazard on its headquarters and activities – targeting normalcy organizations such as the GOC, UIU and Foundation – which had been interfered with by Agent Laskin’s actions on 7-12-1988.6 Memetics and thaumaturgical analysts studied the cognitohazard present on materials distributed by ERS and developed countermeasures which effectively immunized investigating Foundation personnel from the anomalous effect.
- ERS had been, for the majority of the last ten years, producing and distributing instances of SCP-6237-A across the United States and Western European countries.
The company was initially funded by an unconventional business loan with very low interest rates from the Bank of the Sunshine State. The loan was distributed to SCP-6237-B’s founder and current CEO, Oriel Leger, despite the complete lack of previous business ventures. Since SCP-6237-B’s founding in 1980, all financial services have been provided by the same institution.
An embedded agent posing as an undergraduate student7 applying for an internship with the company’s marketing division reported further information about the company’s activities.8
ERS primarily operates on the franchise business model, providing the following services to franchisee organizations:
- Selling exclusive licenses to perform ritual cult activities, along with the instruction manuals (SCP-6237-A) and VHS tapes;
- Direct supply of wholesale occult materials including but not limited to ritually purified salt, robes, bells, virgin’s blood by the quart, and candles by the dozen;9
- A tollfree customer service telephone line (1-800-SATAN4U) available from 5pm to 5am EST.
Several attempts to infiltrate the building were met with failure and the loss of MTF personnel. Furthermore, while the investigation was ongoing instances of SCP-6237-A ritual activities were still occurring, especially within the United States and England. Disinformation campaign expenditure increased with each fiscal quarter10 such that the containment of SCP-6237 was regularly among the top five drains on Foundation resources.
Given the above, and the failure of three independent missions to infiltrate SCP-6237-B, the Department of Procurement and Liquidation made the following proposal:
From the Desk of Director DeWitt
Re: Proposal concerning SCP-6237
In respect to the cascading rising costs of containment and the failure of infiltrations of SCP-6237-B, the Department of Procurement and Liquidation proposes the following action. SCP-6237-B is a publicly traded company; despite its anomalous aspects, it is as susceptible to economic strategies as are otherwise similar companies. Therefore:
Details of the Proposal:
- The Department of Procurement and Liquidation will orchestrate a multi-tiered hostile takeover of ERS LLC shareholders, utilizing numerous shell companies, until controlling more than 51% of the shares;
- Such action will allow the Department to control the Board of Directors and thus, the activities of SCP-6237-B.
Benefits:
- Containment can shift from the disinformation campaign and its extensive costs – both in resources and personnel hours – to the modification of SCP-6237-B’s activities, to better serve the Veil;
- With control of SCP-6237-B’s Board of Directors, the Foundation will have access to extensive ritual information and research which would benefit the containment efforts of unrelated anomalies connected to thaumaturgy and the occult.
The proposal was approved by the O5 Council with a margin of 10-3 in favor.
Agent Ruyter11 took lead, forming a conglomerate of various shell companies owned and operated by the Foundation to begin buying shares of SCP-6237-B. Over the process of six weeks, the department orchestrated the buyout of 53% of SCP-6237-B’s shares.12 By 11 February, 1989, the Foundation held a controlling interest in SCP-6237-B, at which time representatives of the Department presented the new status quo at a meeting of the Board of Directors.
The following is the transcript of the first meeting between the Foundation and SCP-6237-B’s Board of Directors.
Date: 11-02-1989
Personnel Present: Hubert Ruyter, Senior Agent. Roxanne Dsouza, Analysis.
Others present: Oriel Leger – CEO of SCP-6237-B. Members of the Board.
Dsouza: As you can see, our firm represents the conglomeration of interests that has recently acquired a controlling stake in your company. As such we–
Leger: Please, madame. We know who you are. Très évident.
Ruyter: Oh?
Leger: Les geôliers.
[Ruyter holds up a clipboard. He is wearing gloves.]
Ruyter: Well, that answers that. Okay, Members of the Board, as I call your name, please rise and follow one of the agents. Peter Bruys, Jack Molay, Geoff Charney, William Sawtre, Janice Hus, Joan Arcivello, Joanna Boughton.
[Ruyter checks off each name from a list as they are escorted from the board room. The two agents are approached by the CEO.]
Leger: You are to… amnesticate them, yes?
Ruyter: Yes. Okay, so you know about the Foundation and you know what we do. That makes things easier, as we have questions.
Leger: The pilgrim often comes to the mount in search of a way to eradicate his ignorance.
Ruyter: Right. [Ruyter looks at Dsouza] Either way, we need some things worked out before you’re processed.
[Leger laughs. He leans against the conference table and shrugs.]
Dsouza: Several teams were lost in investigating this building and your company, we want to know what happened to them.
Leger: Oh, quite dead, even the intern I’m afraid.
Ruyter: [Laughs.] How ‘bout that? That’s way more transparent than I’d expect.
Leger: Although many people have called me a liar, I have never understood it. I’m always honest if at all possible.
Dsouza: What happened to our personnel?
Leger: We ate the intern, poor thing. But the others were kept for ritual stock. Necromancy is resource intensive. Besides, your Slavic fellow ruined un rituel très important working.
Ruyter: He wasn’t our man.
Leger: [Shrugging.] As you say. But those men who infiltrated our sovereign space were trespassers either way, and we felt we were owed certain recompense for the offense.
Ruyter: Care to explain how your company was able to incapacitate and kill two separate teams of Mobile Task Forces?
Leger: Is this what you call your wetworks teams? Mobile Task Forces. Hmm, I like it. But how, you ask? Magic.
Ruyter: Magic.
Leger: Well, black magic to be precise. Curses, summoned infernal creatures, that sort of thing.
Dsouza: Like what your provided to your clients, correct?
Leger: Franchisees! They are partners in the venture. Never customers.
Ruyter: Could you answer the question?
Leger: [Holding up his hands palms out.] Calm yourself, Agent. The pitch is rooted deep, and I forget the company I am in. Yes, well, some of the rituals were held back from mass publication. One must always keep the juiciest apples to tempt them later with.
Dsouza: I’m sorry, a moment ago you said “infernal creatures.” Do you mean as in H–
Leger: Indeed! The underworld, Hell, Dis, Perdition, etc. Home of damned souls and demon princes! Very exciting, don’t you think?
Dsouza: And you sold this to housewives and rotary clubs?
Leger: And Elk’s Lodges, high school drama clubs, community centers. Even some Freemason groups, they always loved their occult knowledge. Goes back to the Templars, an–
Ruyter: Why?
Leger: Excuse me?
Ruyter: Why were you selling occult knowledge?
Leger: Are you joking, my good man? Have you looked around? As the man said, greed is good.
Ruyter: Where did you get the information present in those books?
Leger: Oh, now that is proprietary knowledge. I couldn’t just divulge it.
Dsouza: The Foundation owns your company, Mr. Leger.
Leger: It’s Leger, Agent.
Ruyter: We own your company, so there’s no such thing as proprietary anymore.
Leger: Of course there is. It is proprietary to me. I wrote those books. And I do not wish to tell you where I learned the dark arts. Unless you’d like to offer me a deal, like you did those many shareholders?
Ruyter: We have control of your records, we’ll find it eventually.
Leger: [Laughing again] I wish you luck!
[Ruyter signals the last agent to escort Mr. Leger from the room. Leger follows the agent, but stops at the door when Agent Ruyter speaks.]
Ruyter: Sorry, one last question. Why’d you publicly offer shares? You’d spent a lot of time and energy on staying off the radar of the Foundation and GOC.
Leger: To make more money, Agent. Cash. Is. King.
[Ruyter nods and waves him away. The agent escorts Leger out.]
Dsouza: What’s his deal?
Ruyter: Thinks he’s the French Gordon Gekko.
Dsouza: What are we going to do with them?
Ruyter: The Board we can amnesticize. Leger, we interview some more. See if we can’t get the source of his occult knowledge, and then he gets the little yellow pill too.
Afterword: In subsequent interviews, Leger was not any more forthcoming about the source of his knowledge. After several fruitless attempts, Director DeWitt decided the best course of action was to amnesticize and release him. Unfortunately, Leger proved entirely immune to amnestics and thaumaturgical attempts to wipe his memory. Therefore, he was designated SCP-6237-C and contained.
SCP-6237-B’s activities were scaled back, and the focus of the company was changed to “New Age” supplies and seminars. The company’s occult literature and records were absorbed into the Foundation database for further study.
Over the next two months, SCP-6237-C became a model anomalous detainee. He would willingly divulge all aspects of SCP-6237-B’s anomalous dealings and capabilities, except for the source of his knowledge. The subject became friendly and jovial with all containment staff, convincing them to allow for an interview with Director DeWitt.
Over the course of ninety minutes, SCP-6237-C was able to convince Director DeWitt that he had imperative information for the consideration of the O5 Council. Despite the unconventional nature of the request, Director DeWitt submitted a proposal for Overwatch Command to hear this information. This proposal was initially denied, but after several more requests by Director DeWitt an O5 delegation was scheduled to meet with SCP-6237-C on 5 April, 1989.