Got in to a brief discussion on Anton LeVay's Church of Satan last night on Facebook, and it got me thinking of Geraldo Rivera's infamous 1988 primetime television extravaganza, "Satan's Underground". One of the best moments, for me, came when Geraldo addressed a question to LeVay's daughter, who was appearing as spokesperson for her father's organization, and she simply got up and walked out, refusing to deal with the kind of crap Geraldo was spewing (a good write-up of how horrible it was can be found in this archived review from the San Jose Mercury News).
The late-1980's were the heyday of what one author called a Satanic Panic (I love this book, by the way; I think it might be hard to find, but make the effort). Whether it was the McMartin Preschool case in California that spiraled out of control, Geraldo's stupid special, or the nonsensical "survivors stories" one heard repeated ad neaseum, the reality is that all sorts of diverse phenomena suddenly became "explainable" as instances of rampant Satanism. Geraldo made things worse by trying to tie Charles Manson to Satanism, in the process getting used by that wily psychopath during an "interview" in which Manson turned the tables on Rivera who was too stupid to realize he was being played, even as Rivera was exploiting the national gag-reflex toward Manson for ratings (I confess I watched the special, and will also confess that I found it by turns hilarious and extremely disturbing, although not as the host would have had me).
Are there disturbed young people out there who might turn to stories of "Satanism" as a means of venting their mental illness? Of course there are. Is there an "official" Church of Satan (with tax-exempt status!) in San Francisco? Of course there is. Is there a secret Satanic underground preying on young women and children that continues to flourish now that the media spotlight is off them?
No.
Like the "CIA/The Mafia/The Communists/The military killed Kennedy" nonsense, the 9/11 truthers, and our current plethora of "birthers" that claim our President was actually born in Kenya, conspiracy theories are impenetrable to reason; very often falsifying data become subsumed as part of the larger conspiracy itself.
I am occasionally asked whether, as a liberal Christian, I "believe" in "Satan". I really have no answer to this question. Do I believe that there is evil in the world? Do I believe that evil is or can be personified in some metaphysical entity, or perhaps entities ("demons") that wreak occasional havoc upon us? Do I believe that our "reality" is merely the plane upon which the larger battle of good and evil, in the "persons" of "God" and "the Devil" occurs?
To the last, my answer is an unequivocal "No". To the second question, I sometimes wonder, but for the most part I have to ask a counter-question: "With all the monstrosities occurring in the world, why would Satan or one of his minions waste time 'possessing' the body of an individual?" In other words, I think much of it is silliness.
To the first, the answer is again unequivocal - Of course I believe there that "evil" exists, to the extent that one can use that word as a descriptor of certain acts, individual and social. Children abused, even tortured, in their own homes. Millions dead at the hands of their own government, either through active or passive means. The list is endless. Yet, I can discuss these instances without any recourse whatsoever to the question of "Satan".
While LeVay's "Church" certainly allows folks to think they're being all hedonistic; while individual instances of disturbed young men and women claiming to act either under the direction of a demon, or through the auspices of "worshiping the devil" certainly exist; for the most part, I feel no need to assign outside, metaphysical, agency to account for evil in the world. We human beings are more than capable of filling that bill.
