Theistic Satanism

has there ever been a movement in any portion of the world of any stature that actually resembled the Theistic Satanism that soccer moms feared actually existed in the States in the 80s?

No and there never has been. It is an age-old strawman that has existed to justify xenophobia and the supremacy of a strict status quo. The Moral Majority was going by the same playbook they have used for a thousand years.

It is kind of disheartening to see the trope live on in TV and movies to this day. A lot of people that should know better think there really were satanic cults. That stuff just makes for a good boogeyman. It gets your heart racing. You will have a higher chance of remembering the commercials.

you're on a Beelzebub kick tonight eh?

Yeah the straw that broke the camels back was an ad for something called "The Witch" only spelt "The VVitch". Turns out AV Club reviewed it today:

given the film’s self-advertised stabs at historical accuracy, one could read this singular shocker as something even more disturbing: a kind of fright-flick answer to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, presenting a revisionist national history in which true evil exists and religious hysteria is the proper response to it.

http://www.avclub.com/review/17th-century-horror-witch-troubling-multiple-level-232153

What if the architects and accusers of the Salem witch trials had it right the whole time? What if the women of their community really were in league with the devil, conspiring in black of night and deep of woods?

this is the fallacy behind all Satanic panic.

That is also basically the idea behind Lords of Salem.

^ Which was disappointing, but given Rob's dunderheaded will-to-sleaze, not terribly offensive.

a kind of fright-flick answer to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, presenting a revisionist national history in which true evil exists and religious hysteria is the proper response to it.

Fuck. I was really, really hoping it wouldn't take that angle. Wound up pissed of by (the otherwise decent) Bone Tomahawk and (the irredeemably shitty) Green Inferno for similar reasons.

The equivalent of building a movie around "but what if The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were TRUE?!?" or "but what if all black people really WERE voodoo drug rapists?!?" Yeah, fucking great, go with that.

OFF, pissed OFF

yeah idk that a fictional account of real salem witches is quite the same as elders of ziyon or black voodoo drug rapists

It's not the same as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But what contendo is saying is that its the same as creating a fictional movie that posits that book as being based in fact.

the same in that they're both taking forgeries/illegitimate panics and positing them as being true i agree, but not the same in that there aren't dozens of countries worldwide today where the salem witch trials are commonly accepted as true

there's a clear difference in the groups targeted/othered - with the Salem Witch Trials it wasn't all women or even a specific set of apostates that were targeted

Not big on fictions that cheerfully demonize the historically oppressed/persecuted/slaughtered. Matter of taste, I suppose...

oh don't be a disingenuous shit contenderizer, you're smart enough to understand the distinction

but not the same in that there aren't dozens of countries worldwide today where the salem witch trials are commonly accepted as true

But there are dozens of countries worldwide today where women are butchered daily for acting weird or looking at someone funny. Plus ca change...

I may be a shit, but never disingenuous. Being a delicate flower, I find such tales offensive.

u could just be like yeah i could see how making a movie about a book that is still a best seller in a number of countries is maybe a bridge farther than a fictional version of the salem witch trials that assumes it's true. you know, like this one

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTI3MDI2NDc3Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNDQ2MzQyMQ@@._V1_UY1200_CR103,0,630,1200_AL_.jpg

http://images.redbox.com/Images/EPC/Kiosk/4934.jpg

Yeah, my pearl-clutching definitely occurs on a sliding scale.

in a way hocus pocus is even worse for making light of the terrible tragedy of the salem witch trials -- and intended for children too, which obv a horror film would not be

i think modern depictions do add to the general culture and sometimes in a bad way. look at how people were upset True Detective didn't "follow through" on its cult ambitions, all that stuff is just made up, yet people intuited there was some truth to it. also we can shrug off theism/satanism as things of the past but let's not ignore many of the lunatics running the country believe in this stuff literally and use it (whether the Scalia-style "the devil exists and is real" or "Hollywood/liberals are evil and have no morals") to oppress those typically oppressed by the long history of Satanic panic. reading through a primary source witch hunting book is a first-hand look at horrific abuse of state/patriarchal supremacy through the ages and a cultural status quo that still has its grip on the world, as many here have noted.

it isn't simply that women were targeted as witches, it underlines much greater and culture-wide problems with anyone outside the status quo. it is not limited to "witches" killed any more than modern state corruption is limited to unarmed people killed.

all that stuff is just made up, yet people intuited there was some truth to it.

that wasn't really the issue there, the issue was with shitty storytelling/plotting

i think we shouldn't make anymore movies that involve/use themes about culture-wide problems, esp horror films.

For stuff like Hocus-Pocus, more that it's kind of gross and embarrassing, sticks happy baby bunny flowers on a misogynist trope with unpleasant historical associations. I don't have to chortle my way through Song of the South, either.

xp lol

I don't mind horror movies about real-world whatever, but as with comedies, I prefer that they punch up.

u kno what tho i remember that they had to drag u kicking and screaming into the brave new tumblr world so i guess it'll take you twice as long for it to wear off as well

historically (its roots in official church witch-hunters rather than local/regional lynch mobs like Salem) it feels like the "they were a witch" functions similarly to "they were armed". as a cover-up for state abuse.

if you have any interest in this stuff i highly recommend "Compendium Maleficarum", a manual written for the Franciscan order in 1608, detailing many reports and cases. once you resolve the fantasy elements and realize what they are actually describing, it is horrific stuff far worse and far more common than the Salem Witch Trials.

u kno what tho i remember that they had to drag u kicking and screaming into the brave new tumblr world

Tumblr world, tumblr world... I geddit, I is become a SJW! I hear a lot about those guys in the comments under news stories. Apparently they are a problem of our modern age.

Naw, the evil witches thing has bothered me since I was a kid. I don't like the reliance on ugly/old/deformed/dark-clad (or dark-skinned) monster villains in fantasy, either ¯\(°_°)/¯

Adam Bruneau OTM

https://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1bbfbd0e7b1d6d8084082d0b728d0cf1?convert_to_webp=true

there's def uncomfortable race stuff in the way Tolkien describes his hordes of "swarthy" bad guys

something else that owned - KKK grand wizard gandalf leading the charge against a bunch of savage hottentots in Rotk, i swear some of those shots were straight out of birth of a nation

― the shitbirdification of america's youth (cankles), Friday, July 24, 2009 12:38 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's something royally fucked up about all fantasy stories wherein an entire race of sentient beings is irredeemably evil by dint of birth tbh

jfc we really are re-living the 80s

http://nypost.com/2017/03/03/gang-members-charged-with-killing-woman-in-satanic-ritual/

(I can't find the 80s Satanic Panic thread - I thought there was one?)

the totally insane true story behind the 1970s film and book Sybil

ah right. yeah that thread drifted a bit from its title lol...

I've been reading Dan Barker's God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction and I'm curious whether any metal bands ever played straight with the sociopath from the Torah. You know, all the good news like Psalm 137:9 "How blessed will be the one who seizes your young children and pulverizes them against the cliff!"

jfc we really are re-living the 80s

El Salvador was called "the world’s most homicidal country" by the Guardian in a 2015 story, noting that "Even Iraq – with its civil war, suicide bombings, mortar attacks and US drone strikes – could not match such a lethal start to the week." i imagine these gangs do worse things than collecting Satanic statues. this story doesn't tell us about drugs or human trafficking.

which is par for the course for Satanic panic. i tried looking up Madonna Kabbalah videos and was flooded with "jewish black magic" youtube shit-tier anti-NWO propoganda.

Sanpaku, that particular psalm is by an enslaved people about the overthrow of their oppressors. what context does Barker take it in?

Barker is an ex-evangelist preacher whose been a avowed and very public atheist for decades. His book is essentially a once source shop for all the misogyny, racism, genocide, etc. in the OT (maybe he gets to the NT later in). However, the sheer mass of remarks from YHWH that would be considered rather evil in the modern context is certainly enough for a few albums of verbatim death metal.

so this guy has made his career preaching those bad things and now he's making a career off them still. good for him. he doesn't sound like a very spiritual person to me.

God does seem to have his darker side. this only makes since, if He is everything, then of course he is the bad stuff too. the root of all demonic lore is in the esoteric post-Christian OT DLCs

P sure there are OT death metal bands (even Jewish ones!) But I'll defer to Mordy on this pt.

Barker is an ex-evangelist preacher whose been a avowed and very public atheist for decades.

Places him among what could be the most cynical group of people on earth.

I'd place the root at Zoroastrianism, and its cosmic battle between Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, which certainly had its influence during the Achaemenid period in Palestine from 539 BC to 330 BC. That's were the monotheistic religions obtained the devil, afterlife, heaven, hell, messianism, and free will, of which there's little evidence prior to the Babylonian captivity. Shaitan was just a court servant of YHWH in Job.

Aside: the Achaemenids are *such* a fascinating period. Cyrus the Great as the first emperor of a multi-ethnic/multi-cultural empire and arguably the first liberal. Jesus of Nazareth was speaking the lingua franca of the Achaemenid empire (Aramaic) five centuries later (and after 3 centuries of Greek/Roman rulers).

I LIEK SATAN

There is a crossover Jewish band called Christkiller that is p dope. Their first album was called Nailed It. They are that kinda band

Xxxxxxpost

Awesome tracklisting:

http://www.allmusic.com/album/nailed-it%21-mw0002832945

Track Listing
1
Christ Killer
2
Legacy of Hebrewtality
3
From The Dreidel To The Grave
4
Yom Kippur/Bong Ripper
5
Ignorance Is Bris
6
Mazel Tov Cocktail
7
11: Thou Shalt Thrash
8
Repentless

I'm curious whether any metal bands ever played straight with the sociopath from the Torah. You know, all the good news like Psalm 137:9 "How blessed will be the one who seizes your young children and pulverizes them against the cliff!"

― Sanpaku

Funeral Mist - Blessed Curse. Lyrics are all verbatim Deuteronomy verses, and the sample is from an exposition of Psalm 75:8.

I'd place the root at Zoroastrianism

That's were the monotheistic religions obtained the devil, afterlife, heaven, hell, messianism, and free will

since we are leaving Satanism and the that heirarchy of spiritual beings / magical knowledge, you can easily look past Zoroastrianism. Akhenaten instituted a monotheistic cult in Egypt a thousand years before your date, and had existed for a thousand years before then. the religion of the ancient Egyptians features heavily in the OT, famously as Moses had a showdown vs Egyptian magicians, who could pretty much match everything YHWH can do. clearly the people who wrote the Books of Moses were studied in the Egyptian mysteries. the Egyptian religious tradition itself date back to at least 3000BC. The Book of the Dead dates back to 2400BC and includes a heaven (The Field of Reeds or The Horizon) and afterlife with a final judgement (the weighing of the heart by Ammit the Eater of Souls) as well as complex metaphysical cosmology with evil forces battling good. Osiris is the sort of central Christ figure, the son of God, a virgin birth who is betrayed, killed, and brought back to life.

when discussing Theistic Satanism imo the monotheism/polytheism dichotomy becomes meaningless. once you accept a heirarchy of multiple supernatural entities all w unique personalities interacting w one another then is it really monotheism anymore?