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

In the 1980s, 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 sacrafice, brainwashing adults, and even controlling the highest levels of government. As historian of religion David Grankfurter 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. The first work to provide an in-depth analysis of the topic, Evil Incarnate 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?"