Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media

by Bill Ellis

Raising the Devil reveals how the Christian Pentecostal movement, right-wing conspiracy theories, and an opportunistic media turned grassroots folk traditions into the Satanism scare of the 1980s. During the mid-twentieth century, devil worship was seen as merely an isolated practice of medieval times. But by the early 1980s, many influential experts in clinical medicine and in law enforcement were proclaiming that satanic cults were widespread and dangerous. By examining the broader context for alleged "cult" activity, Bill Ellis demonstrates how the image of contemporary Satanism emerged during the 1970s. Blaming a wide range of mental and physical illnesses on in-dwelling demons, a faction of the Pentecostal movement became convinced that their gifts of the spirit were being opposed by satanic activities. They attributed these activities to a "cult" that was the evil twin of true Christianity. In some of the cases Ellis considers, common folk beliefs and rituals were misunderstood as evidence of devil worship. In others, narratives and rituals themselves were used to combat satanic forces. As the media found such stories more and more attractive, any activity with even remotely occult overtones was demonized in order to fit a model of absolute good confronting evil. Ellis's wide-ranging investigation covers ouija boards, cattle mutilation, graveyard desecration, and "diabolical medicine"―the psychiatric community's version of exorcism. He offers a balanced view of contentious issues such as demonic possession, satanic ritual abuse, and the testimonies of confessing "ex-Satanists." A trained folklorist, Ellis seeks to navigate a middle road in this dialog, and his insights into informal religious traditions clarify how the image of Satanism both explained and created deviant behavior.

Genres: Nonfiction, Satanism, Folklore, Pop Culture, History, American History, Religion

Hardcover

First published October 5, 2000

Reviews

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book. I originally began reading it while following up a citation to Ed and Lorraine Warren. They’re only mentioned in a footnote here, but mentioned without judgment. Ellis proves himself a critical thinker who’s unwilling to reduce strange beliefs to ridicule, and, as a folklorist, better able to understand human behavior than many a psychologist. Wide-ranging and erudite, this book pulls no punches. There were no massive networks of satanists ritually abusing children in the 1980s and 1990s. There were, however, cultural ideas that made such beliefs seem realistic.

Ellis begins his exploration, as I note on my blog (Sects and Violence in the Ancient World), with the emerging Pentecostal movement. Pentecostalism takes demons and Satan seriously, and deliverance ministry is its form of exorcism. Understanding this is essential to comprehending how widespread belief in satanic ritual abuse eventually became credible. Ellis provides a bizarre, yet logical, context for this. The popularity of ouija boards in the shadow of Spiritualism opened minds to the possibilities of a non-physical world. Dissociative identity disorder also suggested that the mind might be possessed by someone else. Add into this a number of high-profile evangelists who claimed to have been satanic priest, and you’ve got a cultural context begging for release.

The evidence ranges from as far as the Highgate Vampire scare in London to the mysterious cattle mutilations of the American west. Society, folkloristicly primed for supernatural intervention, bought into claims of ritual satanic abuse. Much of the ensuring tragedy could have been avoided if people only understood how folklore works. Instead, folklore studies are tucked into various university departments so as to become invisible. Educated minds don’t like to admit that “irrational” beliefs plague them, even as they do just that. And pretending, as adults, can lead to tragic results.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is marked as "read, graduate student," which means I read it in the style of a grad student: read the introduction & conclusion and used the Index to find areas of interest, but didn't bother trying to read all of the text. When I mark a book as "read," that means I really read it.

I grabbed this book because Bill Ellis's essay in the "Encyclopedic Sourcebook of Satanism" was so interesting, and I was curious to see how he had treated the subject at book-length. Unfortunately, it mostly deals with subject matter I find uninteresting - the so-called "Satanic Panic" of the 80s and 90s when rumors of "Satanic Ritual Abuse" were being taken seriously by psychologists, the media, and law enforcement. As a folklorist, he does take a somewhat fresh perspective of tracing the ways in which these rumors served the collective needs of the communities that spawned them, but it rather predictably concludes that when institutions take such folklore seriously, they become dangerous to civil rights and to the reign of reason. I read through all sections in which he discussed self-identified Satanists such as Anton LaVey, and found little new, and much poorly-documented evidence. Some of the information given here had long been disproven by the time the book came out in 2000 (such as the myth that LaVey had worked on "Rosemary's Baby," which was denied by the director, the producer, and everyone present at the production). Isaac Bonewitz, who has long had an axe to grind against the Left Hand Path, gets a surprising amount of attention for his brief flirtation with the Church of Satan, and is quoted giving misinformation to the FBI during their investigations, which is amusing.

In all, the book may be of interest for those interested in the subject, but has little in the way of new findings.

[Lynne Nunyabidness · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably this book deserves more than 3 stars. However, I was expecting a more general historical examination of Satanic panics. This work is much more academic in nature, from the folklorists' perspective. Not quite what I was looking for.

That said, Ellis provides endless bits of information and ties them together in an in-depth, focused narrative. It turns out that so many bits of conspiracy theory from the batshit brigade are tied together via occultism and the fear of it from cultural, social, and political perspectives: blood libels and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the witch trials, the hippies, anti-immigration movements...even the NRA's fear-stoking about the government coming to get their guns and Henry Kissinger as Antichrist.

Fascinating book, although maybe more academic than the average reader might be interested in.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

"An old legal principle holds that a dog is entitled to one bite before it is ruled vicious. How many bites do we allow a dysfunctional myth?" -Bill Ellis, Raising the Devil

Always fun to read about the Satanic Panic of the 70's and 80's. At times I felt the cohesion of the book was a little shaky but that could just be due to the sensational nature of the subject matter which can quickly overshadow the ideas being presented. Otherwise an enjoyable, well-researched look at the power of myth and the often unnoticed influence of folklore on everyday lives. Smart conclusion as well, focusing on how religious institutions and doctrine often become the very evil they are supposedly trying to eradicate.

[Sharon Reamer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent review of witchcraft/satanic scares as depicted by the media with some witchcraft history thrown in. Mostly America-centric with some U.K. case studies thrown in. Mainly concentrates on the evangelical movements and their take on alternative methods of spirituality, including their own.

Probably not a good book for beginners because it skips over a lot of things, especially as regards the differences between so-called satanic cults and is too broad in scope to be really useful other than an overview.

Nevertheless interesting and even-handed.

[Marilee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, nuanced look at a social/pop culture trend that keeps resurfacing. Somewhat dense scholarly language, but fascinating topic and a good read!

[Richard Bartholomew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raising the Devil is a valuable but idiosyncratic survey of several strands that have contributed to public fears around the idea of "Satanic cults". The author's perspective is that of a folklorist, and his argument is that folk-beliefs about magic and witchcraft can become dangerous and oppressive subversion myths in the hands of institutions.

Ellis's starting point is Kurt Koch, a pastor who denounced the Satanic nature of his native Germany's folk magic traditions; Koch's books were translated into English and influenced the Charismatic Christian movement in the USA. The origins of the "Satanism scare" are most readily located within strands of Christianity: "magical" folk traditions are demonized and occult "dabbling" (most famously, adolescent use of the ouija board) regarded fearfully, while practices of exorcism and deliverance supposedly provide empirical evidence of malign supernatural forces. The book and film of The Exorcist was followed by works such as Possessed by Satan by Adolf Rodewyk and Malachi Martin's Hostage to the Devil; Ellis also describes the "Bayside Prophecies" of Veronica Lueken, a Catholic housewife in New York who warned of increasing Satanism in doggerel.

Ellis explains that Koch was also associated with the psychiatrist Alfred Leucter, and that the idea of demonization caused by occultism also came to influence Christians involved in secular therapy. Ellis links the altered states of consciousness in deliverance with a capacity for story-telling that also manifests in therapeutic encounters: this provides the context for introducing the Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder, whose work on recovered memories with his patient Michelle Smith resulted in the sensational book Michelle Remembers. Michelle claimed to have remembered growing up inside a Satanic cult – and linking this to his earlier discussion, Ellis notes Pazder had a particular interest in African religion, interpreted via missionaries "devoted to diabolizing traditional African folk culture".

Recovered memories of involvement in Satanic cults were complemented by sensational claims by supposed "ex-Satanists" that were promoted by Christian networks: Ellis focuses on Doreen Irvine for the UK, and Mike Warnke and John Todd for the USA. Such works drew on broader conspiracy myth-making, and Ellis provides a brief overview of "anti-Illuminati" conspiracy thinking in the USA, noting in particular the works of Leo Taxil, William Guy Carr, and (in LP form) "Myron Fagan". In the age of Alex Jones and Infowars, it's good to be reminded of some of the antecedents of modern conspiracy thinking in America. Writing in 2000, Ellis associates such thinking with the hard right, although these days one is just as likely to find conspiracy ramblings about "Rothschilds" and such on the left.

However, Christian mythmaking about Satanism also owes much to new and alternative religious traditions, as brought to wider attention in the media: thus someway into the text we at last get to the point of the book’s subtitle. Ellis suggests that the "confessing Satanists" drew inspiration from tropes derived from occult groups, as channelled into popular culture via Dennis Wheatley novels and Hammer horror films. The rise of Wiccan groups was received with horror by some Christians – and news of Isaac Bonewits's BA in Magic from UC Berkeley may have provided some inspiration for the "ex-Satanist" opportunists (John Todd formed an association with the Christian cartoonist Jack Chick, and one of Chick’s comics relating to Todd features an individual called "Isaac" performing a human sacrifice).

However, while Wiccan groups might have cause to complain about being misrepresented (or conflated with Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan) by Christians, Ellis points out that some Wiccans have themselves promoted notions of malign powers using dark forces: the British witch Alex Sanders, for instance, claimed British covens of white witches were protecting society from black magic rings. Leslie Roberts, who was associated with the Wiccan Doreen Valiente (and who also "discovered" Sybil Leek), alleged knowledge of human sacrifice in the towns of Rottingdean and Eastbourne in the south of England.

The existence of "Dennis Wheatley"-type Satanic groups appears to have become received wisdom: a former Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent named Robert Fabian (known to the public as "Fabian of the Yard") wrote in his 1950s expose of Soho London After Dark that "there is more active Satan-worship today than ever since the Dark Ages"; and talking about the film of The Devil Rides Out, the actor Christopher Lee casually opined that "there are such cults and such people even today, at every level of society". Similarly, Roman Polanski, publicising Rosemary's Baby, explained that "there is quite a lot of this particular kind of Witchcraft going on in Britain today". In what appears to have been a feedback loop from broader cultural trends, the later Hammer Dracula films incorporated Satanic cults and conspiracies.

Polanski, of course, was speaking not long before his own heavily pregnant wife was murdered by members of Charles Manson's "Family", an incident that also fanned the flames: here, Ellis focuses in particular on a book about the subject by the counter-culture writer Ed Sanders. Sanders produced a work which "tells less about Manson and his followers than about the wealth of rumors and beliefs about Satanism that were then current in the California subculture". Sanders would later link allegations of cattle mutilations with secret government weapons testing; according to David Perkins, he and Allen Ginsberg had come to the Naropa Institute in Colorado to investigate the matter.

The "Great Plains Cattle Mutilation Panic" is the subject of the book's final chapter, and it eclectically follows an account of London's "Highgate Vampire" legend and the tabloid-fodder shenanigans of David Farrant and Sean Manchester (based largely on British newspaper reports). On the topic of cemetery vandalism in Britain, Ellis points out that some desecrations were instances "witch-hunting" rather than witchcraft, despite the pronouncements of supposed experts such as Francis King.

It must be noted that the book is marred by some errors that may not be serious but that indicate a need for caution. Other reviewers have noted that Ellis repeats the debunked story that Anton LaVey had advised on Rosemary's Baby. To this we can add that Aleister Crowley famously died in Hastings, not Brighton; and when Ellis writes about William Guy Carr's anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that "Oliver Cromwell’s rebellion against the Catholic monarch Charles II was also financed by Jewish synagogues", one wonders whether Ellis is aware that this is historically garbled.