First published in 1900, Carus’ book funnels all myths and religious imagery through time and space to get to the great black heart of the matter. “Evil personified appears at first sight repulsive. But the more we study the personality of the Devil, the more fascinating it becomes… The Devil is the rebel of the cosmos, the independent in the empire of a tyrant, the exception to the rule, the craving for originality; he overturns the monotony that would permeate the cosmic spheres if every atom in unconscious righteousness and with pious obedience slavishly followed a generally prescribed course.” SK

Publisher: Open Court
Paperback: 496 pages
Illustrated

“Just when it seemed that Science and Reason had scored their greatest triumphs, the mid-19th century witnessed an astonishing rebirth of occultism and anti-rationalism… A secret tradition of knowledge rejected by the Christian or scientific establishments suddenly became emboldened to seek publicity and converts. Webb’s painstaking researches carry him into the undergrowth inhabited by such illuminated personages as Mme. Blavatsky, the Rev. Leadbeater, the Brotherhood of Luxor, Annie Besant, Krishnamurti, Swami Vivekenanda, Spiritualists, Rosicrucians, Vegetarians, Mithraic cults, and all manner of occult propagandists.”

Publisher: Open Court
Paperback: 535 pages

The authors of this book assess the horrific costs recovered-memory therapists have heaped upon the American public in many ways: billions of dollars thrown away by the justice system, families torn apart in the most painful way possible, a loss of trust in the judicial system, an overtaxed child protective system threatened by junk science, distrust and “the most virulent and violent antisexuality the world has known since the days of Tertullian in the second century.”
Co-author Ralph Underwager first found himself intervening on behalf of an abused child when he was a Lutheran pastor in 1952. He and co-author Hollida Wakefield, both psychologists, continued to work with incest victims, but in the late ‘70s, they began to see early examples of false accusations and were often consulted as experts in court cases. In 1992, they helped to form the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.
This comprehensive book answers every imaginable question about false-memory syndrome. It explains how “memories” can be implanted by therapists through hypnotherapy, guided imagery and survivor’s groups, and examines the social, legal and therapeutic milieu that has created a situation in which people accused of bizarre, unspeakable crimes bear the burden of proving themselves innocent. The authors provide accounts from retractors and lay out the devastating consequences of false accusations to the accusers and accused alike. They painstakingly examine different theories of memory and forgetting, dissect research on theories of repression and dissociation, and scrutinize such commonly used concepts as traumatic amnesia, post-traumatic stress disorder, splitting, multiple personality disorder and body memories. MH

Publisher: Open Court
Paperback: 431 pages

A sociologist turns his trained eye on the Satan Scare of the ‘80s, which began quietly enough with rumors of cattle mutilations and the book Michelle Remembers and then seemingly peaked in the media consciousness in 1988 with those astounding Geraldo specials like “Satanic Breeders: Babies for Sacrifice.” Actually “rumor-panics” about secret Satanic cults are still sweeping through small towns across the Rustbelt as America’s economic decline fuels mass hysteria, and innocent people are being convicted of “ritual abuse” (a vaguely scientific buzzword used by those who believe in the existence of secret Satanic cabals) and locked away for their entire lives. Explore the legend of how Dr. Green, as a Hasidic death-camp teen, invented Satanic ritual abuse while collaborating with the Nazis by combining his knowledge of the Kabbalah with scientific Gestapo brainwashing techniques. Learn about an Ohio child who was proclaimed kidnapped and sacrificed by a Satanist cult only to be discovered six years later by the FBI living in Huntington Beach, Calif. with her grandfather, who had actually abducted her; backward masking teen suicide cases; and the uproar over Proctor and Gamble’s Satanic corporate logo and its “profit-sharing deal with the Devil.”
Author Jeffrey Victor sees the unconscious appeal of Satan-hunting as a metaphor for parents’ fears about the future and their children, but he also delves into groupthink among psychology professionals, giving firsthand accounts of occult psychological seminars which he attended. He provides examples of similar “rumor-panics” in other cultures, like the legend of American baby-parts importers which spread like wildfire across Latin America in the ‘80s, and the French rumor-panic in the late ‘60s about Jewish mod boutique owners abducting teenybopper babes for the White Slave Trade by employing secret trap doors in their changing rooms. He shows how belief in “Satanists” confirms in a convoluted way the existence of God for those wavering in their convictions, and reconfirms once again humanity’s propensity for justifying its evil in the name of Good. SS

Publisher: Open Court
Paperback: 408 pages
Illustrated

“The bizarre, pathetic doings of spiritual artists, vegetarians, mediums, astrologers and magicians intertwine with the lives of Richard Wagner, Baden Powell, C.G. Jung and other surprising notables. But there is a sinister side to this absorbing saga of folk dancing, health foods and rejection of capitalist rationality: search for purity of ‘blood’ as well as purity of bowels, allied with the conviction that all unwelcome features of modern life are consummations of a malignant conspiracy. In this meticulously researched history of occultism since 1918, Webb examines the ‘Illuminated Politics,’ which saw its greatest triumph in the Hitler regime. After Hitler, occultism continued to pervade art and literature, and expressed itself in the such movements as the beatniks, hippies, Situationists and anti-psychiatry.”

Publisher: Open Court
Paperback: 535 pages