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What is Satanism? The word has functioned as a powerful indictment of one's rivals, an expression of rebellion against authority, and sometimes to describe the deliberate worship of dark, supernatural forces. This Element provides a concise overview of Satanism from its origins in early modern Europe through the present. It covers such topics as legends of the black mass, hell-fire clubs, the Romantic Satanism of Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, and nineteenth-century occultists who expressed reverence for Satan. It describes modern Satanic religions including the Church of Satan, The Temple of Set, The Order of Nine Angles, The Satanic Temple, and others. It also addresses contemporary Satanic Panic from the 1980s through QAnon. This Element should prove useful to anyone seeking to learn more about this complicated and frequently misunderstood tradition.
This chapter discusses the ways in which psychoanalytic concepts influenced the American popular Gothic during the post-war era. The 1950s and 1960s were what Nathan G. Hale has described as the ‘Golden Age of Popularization’ for psychoanalytic thought in the United States. The historical underpinnings of this psychoanalytic ‘boom’ period are discussed, with a focus upon the prominent place occupied by American ego psychology during this period. As argued, this influence soon permeated the ‘popular Gothic’ fiction of the era, which was characterised by texts which revolved around tensions rooted in the dysfunctional nuclear family, sexual and emotional repression, and unresolved childhood trauma. The work of authors such as Robert Bloch, Charles Beaumont, William March and Ira Levin is considered. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the ways in which the late 1970s ‘Satanic Panic’ scare, which drew upon both core psychoanalytic principles and the most lurid elements found in works of horror fiction such as Rosemary’s Baby (1967) and The Exorcist (1971), severely damaged the movement’s reputation in the United States.
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