Institutional Crusades Against Satanic Rites Can Do Far More Damage Than Rites Themselves

December 29, 2000

Hazleton, Pa. -- When confronted by satanism scares, both secular and religious leaders should avoid the temptation to persecute those suspected of occult activity. While evil certainly exists and a few individuals have suffered as a result of satanic rites, institutional crusades against real or imagined satanists have the capacity for infinitely greater evil, according to a Penn State folklorist.

"Satanism scares are both the cause and effect of various tinkerings with the occult, real or imagined," says Dr. Bill Ellis, associate professor of English and American studies at Penn State's Hazleton Campus and author of the recent book, "Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions and the Media" (University of Kentucky Press).

"In either case, they can actually serve a social need for individuals or groups, who are seeking proof that they have control over supposedly demonic forces and that the universe, while frightening, is essentially ordered and meaningful. Satanism scares belong to the realm of folklore and are generally harmless unless they are taken too seriously by governments, churches, the media or any other official moral censor."

Satanic rumor panics, such as the Cattle Mutilation Scare of the 1970s, were secular revivals, helping participants believe that their faith in themselves and their mythologies is justified, according to Ellis.

The Penn State researcher adds, "Anticult crusaders see signs of satanic activity not as random accidents but as validations of ultimate divinity. In the case of Satanic rumor panics, the absence of any tangible result of these crusades is paradoxically a sign of their effectiveness, since believers feel they have stopped the devil worshippers from practicing. No amount of skepticism from experts will challenge this faith."

Moreover, when evil co-opts the ideals and institutions of religion, the consequences are much more harmful than when persons carry out self-consciously evil acts. This is the great lesson of the 1692 Salem witch trials and many others, which over the centuries have claimed thousands of innocent lives while punishing a handful of malevolent cranks.

The book deals with a variety of satanic practices ranging from Ouija boards to graveyard desecration to "diabolical medicine," described by Ellis as "the psychiatric community's version of exorcism."

Among the best known satanism scares he cited is the Cattle Mutilation Panic which broke out in the American Great Plains less than three decades ago. Ranchers reported finding some of their cattle dead and drained of their blood. In an even more bizarre touch, the animals' sex organs, udders, eyes, ears or tongues often seem to have been meticulously cut off with scalpels.

"Most veterinarians agreed that the cattle had died natural deaths, then had been attacked by common predators like coyotes and vultures. But many ranchers and private investigators preferred to believe that hippie witchcraft cults killed the cattle as part of weird religious rites, drinking the blood and eating and using the organs during devil worship ceremonies," Ellis says. "This interpretation attracted keen interest from the popular press until several high-level reports attributed almost all cases of cattle mutilation to natural scavengers and public hysteria."

Nevertheless, the Cattle Mutilation Scare had taken on a life of its own with new and even more fantastic elements. Observers began to see mysterious, silent helicopters which landed and carried off cattle for sinister experiments being carried out by federal agencies. Thus, proponents of the scare went beyond demonizing satanists to demonizing the American government.

"Not everyone who reports or investigates cult activity is hysterical or deluded," the Penn State researcher notes. "In fact, for such people, satanic cult beliefs may well be cultural language that allows them to express emotions and experiences that they might otherwise not be able to handle. Ironically, when societies lack traditions of belief that describe such events, persons there may often experience greater psychological trauma because they fear that describing their experiences will label them as deviant.

"In any event, a folklorist is morally obligated to confront institutions when they misrepresent subcultures that we claim to value," Ellis says. "To opt for a purely objective, neutral position here suggests that some kinds of folklore are so negligible in value that we should allow politically powerful groups to define them as forms of devil worship and systematically eliminate them."

Ellis, an active member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has served as president of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research and of the American Folklore Society's Folk Narrative Section.

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Contacts:

Paul Blaum (814) 865-9481 (o)

Vicki Fong (814) 865-9481 (o)/ (814) 238-1221 (h)

EDITORS: Dr. Ellis is at (570) 450-3026 or (570) 788-2021, or at by email.