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Satanic Panic
Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time, by Michael Shermer, is similar to Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World. Both cover some of the same ground, including witch-hunts. Shermer discusses some of the psychological and sociological factors that can help mass hysteria--such as witch-hunts--take off, and then turns to the "Satanic panic" of the 1980s and 90s. Satanic cults that did terrible things to animals and babies were perceived as reaching epidemic proportions."In the 1970s, there were rumors about dangerous religious cults, cattle mutilations, and Satanic cult ritual animal sacrifices; in the 1980s, we were bombarded by books, articles, and television programs about multiple personality disorder, Procter & Gamble's "Satanic" logo [see above; LDSSR], ritual child abuse, the McMartin Preschool case, and devil worship."
I was a little young and insulated from such things in the 80s, but the list jogged my memory (what about Dungeons and Dragons?). By this time I was thinking of all the Satanic charges fired by anti-Mormons (e.g. pentagrams on the Salt Lake Temple). Continuing:And the 1990s have given us the ritual child abuse scare in England, reports that the Mormon Church was infiltrated by secret Satanists who sexually abuse children in rituals, and the Satanic ritual abuse scare in San Diego. [pg. 107]
Infiltrated?! According to Ed Decker types (Good ol' Ed. What's he up to these days?) Mormonism was Satanism--in disguise (that's a FARMS link, just in case you were nervous). But Mormonism was just one source of Satanism for Ed. One of my prized possessions (no pun intended--or is it?) is one of Ed's tirades against freemasonry, wherein he shows that the street layout of Washington D.C. has masonic symbols and that the White House is at the southern point of a pentagram--which is why our nation is under siege by the forces of darkness. He bemoans the fact that good Christians who join the Masons unknowingly swear oaths to Satan. Good stuff, but I digress.
As coincidence would have it, just a few days ago I happened to read the Church's policy on Satanism and the occult in the CHI (they're against it). A 1991 letter from the First Presidency advised that they not be topics in Church meetings. The Encyclopedia of Mormonism states that: At the present time [~1992; LDSSR], symbols related to Satan have become so prevalent that the warning voices of leaders in the Church have again been raised concerning some people's fascination with the power of evil.
Outgrowths of the hysteria, perhaps? Given the Glen L. Pace memo episode (must read), I think so.
[Addendum: Over at DMI, Kevin Barney provided a link with more information about the Satanism scare in Utah.]
[Further Addendum: This post was discussed on a BCC Zeitcast.]
9 comments:
Fun stuff, Jared. I enjoyed Sagan's book, but haven't run across the one by Shermer. By the way, Elder Scott really shined in the events referenced in the linked Elder Pace article.
Shermer is a good writer. I'll probably not buy the book simply because it's not a topic I'm that interested in.
I do recall a lot of the hysteria from the 90's. It is important not to discount it all. There was that rather horrible story of that family that tortured and raped all their kids and got life sentences for it. (I remember it because the people in question had lived up in Cardston region for a while before moving down to Logan or Ogden or where ever it happened)
So there were some actual pretty horrible things done - often tied more into nasty mental illness, S&M stuff and so forth than organized Satanism. But the folks into that almost always end up talking about Satanism.
Then there was also that infamous 'purge' down in southern Utah around the same time as the Manti business was going on. There were quite a few excommunications over the business. As I recall it was tied up into a sort of rebirth of Sethian Gnosticism. Once again not really Satanism proper but I suspect most Mormons wouldn't see a significant difference.
Then there were the infamous issues at the old BYU Academy before it got rennovated into the current Provo Library. I suspect half of that was kids trying to scare others. But there were some weird things done. Lots of animal sacrifices. There was a small cave up behind the temple that had some stuff like that done in it. (As well as a lot of U2, Depeche Mode and other such graffetti) (We dug out the cave one night - the city had apparently filled it in with concrete. It was kind of cool once you cleaned out a few desiccated cat corpses and the candles)
One tragedy out of all that era was the rise of false memory syndrome. A lot of the witch hunts centered around folks claiming recovered memory of sexual abuse which many cognitive scientists say is bunk and that the memories are most likely implanted by well meaning therapists (and perhaps the hysteria in the media)
Dave,
Do you know more about Elder Scott's role than is referenced in the Wikipedia article?
Clark,
I got it from the library.
Of course I would not argue that there were no Satanic-inspired things going on. I'm not entirely familiar with the Utah examples you provide (I grew up on the other side of the country), but I don't doubt you.
Yes, Shermer hits recovered memories and their role in accusations of abuse, as well as alien abuduction. (See also Elder Scott's remarks in the Wikipedia article.)
Since you brought up the Satanic Panic, here is an awesome article about the LDS satanic panic in the 90s.
Kevin Barney pointed it out to me, when I mentioned Jerald Tanner's talking about it. One more reason blogging is awesome.
Matt W.
I was too young to be aware of these events at the time. In fact, it's all kind of a shock to me. Is this the time when the ouiji board was invented?
I don't know when Parker Brothers started selling their ouija (a trademark name) boards, but they've been around since at least the 1800s--with the rise of the spiritualist movement.
While there is interesting info in Shermer's book, to be sure, I actually thought the book was pretty lousy. It wasn't cohesive at all, and it didn't even attempt to do what its title suggested it would do, namely, provide a thesis as to "why people believe weird things." It should have been titled "A Collection of Random Topics that Interest Me, and That I Want to Put into a Book," by Michael Shermer.
Aaron B
Aaron, I think your alternate title is fairly accurate.
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