Abuse & Violence - Psychology, Cults, Child & Infant Psychology & Psychiatry, Demonology & Satanism

Demons of the Modern World

Name: Demons of the Modern World
Author: Malcom McGrath
ISBN: 9781573929356

by Malcom McGrath, Robert A. Baker

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Overview

This fascinating discussion of modern demonology focuses on our ability to differentiate the physical world, with its mechanical laws, from the inherently less predictable psychological realm of thoughts and beliefs. McGrath points out that this ability was a hard-won historical development, and today must be learned in childhood through education. Because of this historical background and our rich fantasy life in childhood, each of us unconsciously suspects, or fears, that supernatural forces may break through the borders of our everyday commonsense order at any time. Indeed, at times of personal stress or societal crisis, the modern boundaries between fantasy and reality begin to slip, and then a magical world of demons and other phantasms can come flooding back into our disenchanted reality.

Through this innovative thesis McGrath goes a long way toward explaining both our fascination with fantasy entertainment, such as horror stories and films, and bizarre crazes such as witch-hunts, Satanism scares, and even claims of alien abduction. Despite our demystified culture the lure of childhood's magic kingdom with its monstrous shadow realm remains strong.

About the Author, Malcom McGrath

Malcolm McGrath (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is a doctoral candidate in political philosophy at Oxford University.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

In 1994, after a $750,000, four-year study, federal government researchers announced there was no evidence that ritual abuse or organized satanic cults ever existed in U.S. day-care centers. Comparing contemporary cult fears with 17th-century witch-hunts and the McCarthy era, McGrath, a doctoral candidate in political philosophy at Oxford University, contends that "the illusion of a world of demons lurking behind our day to day reality is built right into the structure of modern western culture." This concept of a "demonic illusion" is the book's central thesis. McGrath views satanism scares as akin to a mass hallucination, since psychological theories supporting such cults "were in fact no more than unfounded urban legends, spread about by therapists and social workers." He opens by juxtaposing the 1692 witchcraft accusations aimed at once-respected Rebecca Nurse, a 71-year-old grandmother, with the false 1984 claims of organized satanic rituals at California's McMartin Preschool, a case with no credible evidence and no convictions after a 28-month trial. Mapping boundaries between fantasy and reality, McGrath looks at modern-day witch-hunts generated through unreliable child witnesses, rumor mills, urban legends and pseudo-science, noting numerous linkages with popular culture from Three Faces of Eve (1957) and Sybil (1973) to Michelle Remembers (1980), Psycho and The Shining. Dangers of false memories are detailed, alien abduction is dismissed, and the 1991-94 collapse of Multiple Personality Disorder and recovered memory therapy are picked over. Oddly, McGrath has chosen to ignore the massive misinformation circulating daily on the Internet, but this is a terrifically contextualizeddebunking that is sure to generate debate among the faithful. (Nov.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

From The Critics

There's really no need for the lurid dustjacket; McGrath's analysis of the Satanism and recovered-memory scare of the 1980s, as well as many people's continuing insistence on the reality of alien abductions and other frightening phenomena, is chilling all on its own as a lesson on the dangers such beliefs still pose to society centuries after the witch trials. McGrath (doctoral candidate, political philosophy, Oxford U.) traces the origins and manifestations of the "strange fear," which is built into Western civilization: "that somewhere on the edges of our reality there is a world of demons that is trying to break into our world and wreak havoc." His history examines why such myths persist and how lives have been destroyed by them. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)