Evil incarnate : rumors of demonic conspiracy and ritual abuse in history

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書誌事項

Evil incarnate : rumors of demonic conspiracy and ritual abuse in history

David Frankfurter

Princeton University Press, c2006

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注記

Includes bibliographical references (p. [259]-279) and index

内容説明・目次

内容説明

In the 1980's, America was gripped by widespread panics about Satanic cults. Conspiracy theories abounded about groups who were allegedly abusing children in day-care centers, impregnating girls for infant sacrifice, brainwashing adults, and even controlling the highest levels of government. As historian of religions David Frankfurter listened to these sinister theories, it occurred to him how strikingly similar they were to those that swept parts of the early Christian world, early modern Europe, and postcolonial Africa. He began to investigate the social and psychological patterns that give rise to these myths. Thus was born "Evil Incarnate", a riveting analysis of the mythology of evilconspiracy.The first work to provide an in-depth analysis of the topic, this book uses anthropology, the history of religion, sociology, and psychoanalytic theory, to answer the questions 'What causes people collectively to envision evil and seek to exterminate it?' and 'Why does the representation of evil recur in such typical patterns?' Frankfurter guides the reader through such diverse subjects as witch-hunting, the origins of demonology, cannibalism, and the rumors of Jewish ritual murder, demonstrating how societies have long expanded upon their fears of such atrocities to address a collective anxiety.Thus, he maintains, panics over modern-day infant sacrifice are really not so different from rumours about early Christians engaging in infant feasts during the second and third centuries in Rome. In "Evil Incarnate", Frankfurter deepens historical awareness that stories of Satanic atrocities are both inventions of the mind and perennial phenomena, not authentic criminal events. True evil, as he so artfully demonstrates, is not something organized and corrupting, but rather a social construction that inspires people to brutal acts in the name of moral order.

目次

List of Illustrations ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xv Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Sorting Out Resemblances 4 Circumstances for Imagining Evil 6 Evil in the Perspective of This Book 9 Chapter 2: An Architecture for Chaos: The Nature and Function of Demonology 13 Thinking with Demons 13 Demonology, Lists, and Temples 15 Beyond the Temple: Demonology among Scribes and Ritual Experts 19 Conclusions 26 Chapter 3: Experts in the Identification of Evil 31 Prophets, Exorcists, and the Popular Reception of Demonology 33 Witch-Finders: Charisma in the Discernment of Evil 37 The Possessed as Discerners of Evil 48 Contemporary Forms of Expertise in the Discernment of Evil: Secular and Religious 53 Conclusions: Expertise and the Depiction of Satanic Conspiracy 69 Chapter 4: Rites of Evil: Constructions of Maleficent Religion and Ritual 73 Ritual as a Point of Otherness 76 Ritual and the Monstrous Realm 85 Ritual as a Point of Danger 101 The Implications of Evil Rites 119 Chapter 5: Imputations of Perversion 129 The Imaginative Resources of the Monstrous 129 Constructing the Monstrous 136 Conclusions 158 Chapter 6: The Performance of Evil 168 Performance and Demonic Realms 169 Direct Mimetic Performance 179 Indirect Mimetic Performance 188 Direct Mimetic Parody 198 Conclusions 203 Chapter 7: Mobilizing against Evil 208 Contemplating Evil, Chasing Evil 208 Matters of Fact and Fantasy 212 Notes 225 Select Bibliography 259 Index 281

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