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Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History

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I have this particular fear that always makes itself known to me when I'm reading (and reviewing) a scholarly book; especially when the book in question is an informative quality work with analyses that could have prevented immense amounts of human pain and suffering had they only been available to more people. I simply fear that the book is too complicated, written in a much too complex academic language for the common reader to understand. I'm not saying I myself understand everything I read - sometimes I don't even understand half of it - but if the books is about anthropology, then obviously I have a better chance of understanding it than someone lacking a degree in this particular subject.

Evil Incarnate is one of these books that has a much-needed dose of reason and common sense to offer but unfortunately is written in a way that'll probably result in not nearly enough people actually reading it. David Frankenfurter, Professor of Religious Studies and History at the University of New Hampshire, has written an equally complicated as disturbing book about man's view of evil and evil conspiracies. During the 1980s America, as well as Britain and certain other parts of Europe, became haunted by different "satanic panics"; outbreaks of large-scale mass-hysteria focusing on vicious Satanists abducting women and children in order to rape, ritualistically murder, and sometimes even consume them. Studying these events, Frankenfurter realized how these events had much in common with similar accounts throughout history. And thus the idea behind Evil Incarnate was born.

And in 2006, after more than a decade of painstaking research, the book was finally published. Using different disciplines (anthropology, the history of religion, sociology, and psychoanalytic theory, Frankenfurter offers a very complex report where questions such as why and how people collectively search and strike down on a perceived threatening evil, as well as why history repeats itself (and will continue to do so in the future) regarding the perception of evil and what this means, are answered. It's an interesting fact that not a single thread of evidence for all alleged "satanic panics" have ever been found, yet still these outbreaks of mass hysteria happens again and again. Why is that? Well, in Evil Incarnate you'll be given the answer(s).

Perhaps this sounds a little too complicated. And so it is. And that's why it's more or less impossible to come up with a complete summary in a short review. But on the other hand, something that must be pointed out is the very pleasant fact that in case you're lacking the necessary training to fully understand this book, not all hope is lost. Because the very last chapter, "Mobilizing against Evil", is a both short and easy-to-understand summary of Frankenfurter's conclusions, a summary that offers tons of extremely interesting facts despite being quite short.

Actually, this last chapter is so captivating that it makes every excuse not to buy the book pointless. Expensive knowledge, that's true, but also unbelievably important.

This has the distinct, but not unpleasant, aroma of a doctoral dissertation reworked as popular nonfiction book. Given the
'sexiness' of the subject, the restraint of the author as he
describes the social construction of archetypes is nothing short
of remarkable.

For those of you with agendas, he maintains throughout that
demonic conspiracies and satanic abuse are, as the title indicates,
rumors, albeit persistent and highly detailed ones. In 200 C.E.,
Romans were reading about how Christians murdered children in
their detestable cult activities; in 1200, Christians read about
Jews doing the same things, and we're still reading essentially
the same accounts with different proper nouns.

His detailed analysis and reliance on a panoply of scholarly
references may induce glazed eyes in a general readership, but
anyone with a strong interest in the subject will find it
quite absorbing. Just make sure you're well rested and haven't
eaten recently.

Most human societies imagine there are enemies "out there" whose behavior embodies the very opposite of what is right and proper. When these ideas become institutionalized, it can lead to persecutions that target real people, with tragic consequences. David Frankfurter has written a brilliant, chilling history of how evil has been constructed in Western societies, from early medieval times to the present day. The book is organized thematically, taking the reader through the process of the formalization and institutionalization of these cultural projections, using historical examples as illustrations. Frankfurter shows how folk ideas about evil others become systematized through texts, creating a group of experts whose role is to recognize and root out evil. The evil others are imagined as participating in horrific, perverse rites that invert the norms and values (and often the religious rituals) of mainstream society. As this collective fantasy grows and spreads, entire societies can mobilize against evil -- as happened in the European witch persecutions of the period 1350-1750. The tragedy is that there ARE no evil others -- the whole thing is a collective fantasy, and the persecutors themselves end up engaging in the very behavior they find so horrifying and objectionable in imagined others.

The examples in this book are primarily drawn from European and North American history -- the witch trials, conspiracy theories of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the Satanic panics of the 1980s. The underlying principles, however, are applicabble cross-culturally, wherever/ whenever folk ideas about evil others are systematized and institutionalized. I used this as a textbook in an upper-division seminar on witchcraft in anthropological perspective. The students really understood the mechanics of how these extreme othering processes work, and were able to apply them to a number of other socio-cultural contexts in their final papers and analyses.

More importantly, this book should be required reading for leaders and politicians of all stripes, as well as for any educated person. If we were more aware of the perniciousness of the discourse of evil, perhaps we would be less quick to impute it to others, and less likely to repeat cycles of violence and persecution.

This is one of the most biased books written on the topic of ritual abuse.

The author has decided to ignore the evidence showing these crimes happened, to produce a one-sided biased view on this topic.

There was no panic. There was a cover up of these horrible crimes. And this book is part of this cover up.

More accurate information on this topic can be found at :

Diabolic Debates: A Reply to David Frankfurter and J. S. La Fontaine," Religion 24 (1994): 135-188.

"Deviant Scripturalism and Ritual Satanic Abuse" Part One: "Possible Judeo-Christian Influences." Religion 23 no.3 (July, 1993): 229-241.

"Deviant Scripturalism and Ritual Satanic Abuse" Part Two: "Possible Mormon, Magic, and Pagan Influences." Religion 23 no.4 (October, 1993): 355-367.


Satanic ritual abuse exists all over the world. There have been reports, journal articles, web pages and criminal convictions of these horrific crimes against children and adults.

There has also been an attempted cover up of these crimes by child pornographers, those with pro-pedophilia philosophies and those defending child molesters in the public or legal arena.