Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History

From the Salem witch trials in 1692 to the alleged satanic ritual abuse of children in day care centers in California in the 1980s, individuals have sought to restore moral order by rooting out what they regard as evil conspiracies. In a thought-provoking if sometimes pedantic study, University of New Hampshire historian Frankfurter draws on religion, sociology and anthropology to uncover the reasons that societies publicly raise cries of demonic conspiracies to explain various social evils. During the Salem witch trials, for example, the fascination with and the terror of the mysterious Witches' Sabbat gave rise to a cadre of so-called experts who claimed to judge accurately the behavior of a witch. Both the experts and the defendants performed their roles in the social ritual of identifying and persecuting the accused. Frankfurter convincingly demonstrates that demonic conspiracies and satanic ritual abuse are simply myths of evil conspiracies that provide societies an excuse for bullying those who are already considered suspect. He observes trenchantly that those seeking to purge demonic conspiracies have done more violence than the devotees of those so-called evil groups. Frankfurter's conclusions will likely be hotly contested, especially among those who claim to have been ritually abused, but his judicious insights about the nature of evil in our world provide thoughtful glimpses at the ways societies demonize the Other. (July)