Lure of the Sinister


Book Description

A frequent writer on comparative religion and the history of occultism, Medway begins by exploring what a Satanist is and why people worship Satan, then looks at such topics as the history of Satan and the Pact, Satanic crime, hell on earth, sex slaves of Lucifer, and the relationship between paranoia and conspiracy. He explains that as a Pagan he does not believe in Satan, but neither does he believe in Christianity but knows Christians are real. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR




Pranksters


Book Description

Profiles the most notorious mischief makers in Western culture from 1600 to the present day and explores how pranks are part of a long tradition of speaking truth to power and social critique.




Evil


Book Description

"Today our nation saw evil." - President George W. Bush, September 11th 2001 Evil! Like a zombie back from the grave, it has arisen--a word many of us had long ago relegated to Sunday sermons, video games and horror flicks. But of course, evil is not old fashioned, nor has it ever gone away, and may be as robust as ever. So what is evil? Does it exist? Veteran journalist Bill Hart tries to drag evil out of the darkness and hold it up to the light. In doing so, he has written a very readable account of 5,000 years of philosophy, theology and human history as it reflects and refines its notion of evil. More than an explanation of why bad things happen, Evil: A Primer is a tour through the nether regions in search of what we really know.




The Lure of the Sea


Book Description

Corbin argues that with few exceptions people living before the eighteenth century knew nothing of the attractions of the coast, the visual delight of the sea, the desire to brave the force of the waves or to feel the coolness of sand against the skin. The image of the ocean in the popular consciousness was coloured by Biblical and mythical recollections of sea monsters, voracious whales, and catastrophic floods. It was perceived as sinister and unchanging, a dark, unfathomable force inspiring horror rather than attraction. These associations of catastrophe and fear in the minds of Europeans intensified the repulsion they felt towards deserted and dismal shores.




The Re-Enchantment of the West, Vol 2


Book Description

Challenging some assessments of religion in the West, this study argues that, although much organized religion, particularly Christianity, is in numerical decline, in actual fact we are witnessing an alternative spiritual re-enchantment of society and culture.




Evil Incarnate


Book Description

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?"




Satanism


Book Description

Satanism is a phenomenon that has existed as a prominent trope since very beginning of Christianity, when the Church Fathers entertained fantasies about people worshipping the Devil and indulging in macabre rituals. In the early modern period, similarly unfounded ideas led to the infamous witch trials which transpired primarily between 1400 and 1700. In the 1980s and 1990s, what has been labelled a "Satanic Panic" swept the United States and parts of Europe, with again, unfounded rumors about secret Satanist networks committing gruesome murders, kidnappings and ritualistic child abuse. Today, the so called Pizzagate and QAnon conspiracy theories in the United States again draw on these motifs, this time postulating that left-wing Satanists are secretly manipulating politics and doing nefarious deeds in the shadows. This book, however, is only indirectly concerned with the purely fictional Satanism of such paranoid fantasies. It does not deal directly with the literary tradition of Satanism either, where Satanists can appear as antagonists (or, more rarely, protagonists) in the plot of a story, or authors express Satanic sympathies in a poem or two. Rather, our selection of source texts focuses on actual, existing Satanic groups, and thinkers of importance to the emergence of a Satanic milieu that forms part of a broader landscape of alternative religion. Some of the texts do in a sense belong to the above-mentioned categories, e.g., Léo Taxil's spoof on conspiracy theories, or the quite literary pseudo-histories of Satanism - in fact Satanic tracts in disguise of Jules Michelet and Stanislaw Przybyszewski, but we have aimed to concentrate on 1. self-designated Satanic groups and ideologists, 2. groups and ideologists who prominently revere a figure they identify with Satan, even though they may not self-designate as Satanists, and 3. groups and ideologists mostly excluding, however, literary texts and conspiracy theories whose re-interpretations of Satan were crucial to the growth of such ideas--




Deliver Us From Evil


Book Description

Evil is a problem that will not go away. For some it is an inescapable fact of the human condition. For others "evil" is a term that should only be used to name the most horrible of crimes. Still others think that the worst problem lies with the abuse of the term: using it to vilify a misunderstood enemy. No matter how we approach it, "evil" is a concept that continues to call out for critical reflection. This volume collects the results of a two-year deliberation within the Boston University Institute for Philosophy of Religion lecture series, bringing together scholars of religion, literature, and philosophy. Its essays provide a thoughtful, sensitive, and wide-ranging consideration of this challenging problem-and of ways that we might be delivered from it.




Shattered Skull


Book Description

The first time I saw Skull, he was standing atop a speeding motorcycle. The second time, he was putting his fist through my brother’s face. Now he’s everywhere I look. He’s making my life hell with his vulgar remarks and seductive lure, but it’s not my fault my brother joined The Border Lords, his rival crew. I keep my nose out of their business and my head in the books, yet he’s always there provoking me. Dragging me into their conflict. Everyone in town knows you don’t mess with the Sons of Sinister, but no one ever told me what do when a Son of Sinister messes with me. New York Times bestselling author Tabatha Vargo invites you to fall in love with the Sons of Sinister! A new adult spin on MC books with all the grunge, angst, and dirty, foul-mouthed biker boys who know how to handle curves. The Sons of Sinister consists of four standalone novels. Shattered Skull, Dirty Saint, Ruthless Crow, & Joker’s Wild. This series is the Blow Hole Boys meets crotch rockets meets naughty, bully bastards who don’t give a f*ck and the good girls who can’t help but fall for them! They run the streets, the money, and can outride any other crew on the streets.




Children of Lucifer


Book Description

If we are to believe sensationalist media coverage, Satanism is, at its most benign, the purview of people who dress in black, adorn themselves with skull and pentagram paraphernalia, and listen to heavy metal. At its most sinister, its adherents are worshippers of evil incarnate and engage in violent and perverse secret rituals, the details of which mainstream society imagines with a fascination verging on the obscene. Children of Lucifer debunks these facile characterizations by exploring the historical origins of modern Satanism. Ruben van Luijk traces the movement's development from a concept invented by a Christian church eager to demonize its internal and external competitors to a positive (anti-)religious identity embraced by various groups in the modern West. Van Luijk offers a comprehensive intellectual history of this long and unpredictable trajectory. This story involves Romantic poets, radical anarchists, eccentric esotericists, Decadent writers, and schismatic exorcists, among others, and culminates in the establishment of the Church of Satan by carnival entertainer Anton Szandor LaVey. Yet it is more than a collection of colorful characters and unlikely historical episodes. The emergence of new attitudes toward Satan proves to be intimately linked to the ideological struggle for emancipation that transformed the West and is epitomized by the American and French Revolutions. It is also closely connected to secularization, that other exceptional historical process which saw Western culture spontaneously renounce its traditional gods and enter into a self-imposed state of religious indecision. Children of Lucifer makes the case that the emergence of Satanism presents a shadow history of the evolution of modern civilization as we know it. Offering the most comprehensive account of this history yet written, van Luijk proves that, in the case of Satanism, the facts are much more interesting than the fiction.