They Just Don’t Make Satanic Panics Like They Used To

Back in the sixties, the 1860s, a French feller named Baudelaire wrote a story for the Parisian paper “Le Figaro” that contained a witticism that would be used over and over again to various degrees. Where he got it from we aren’t too sure, but near as we can tell everyone since then got it from him.

Elle ne se plaignit en aucune façon de la mauvaise réputation dont elle jouit dans toutes les parties du monde, m’assura qu’elle était, elle-même, la personne la plus intéressée à la destruction de la superstition, et m’avoua qu’elle n’avait eu peur, relativement à son propre pouvoir, qu’une seule fois, c’était le jour où elle avait entendu un prédicateur, plus subtil que le reste du troupeau humain, s’écrier en chaire: « Mes chers frères, n’oubliez jamais, quand vous entendrez vanter le progrès des lumières, que la plus belle des ruses du Diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas!

Here is the same excerpt from a translation by Arthur Symons published in 1918 in “The English Review”. Baudelaire referred to the Devil using the feminine pronoun “elle” and the masculine pronoun “il” in different sections of the story. Within the excerpt above Baudelaire primarily employed “elle”, but English translators have used “he” instead of “her”. The original text contained the mistaken phrase “your hear” instead of “you hear”

He complained in no way of the evil reputation under which he lived, indeed, all over the world, and he assured me that he himself was of all living beings the most interested in the destruction of Superstition, and he avowed to me that he had been afraid, relatively as to his proper power, once only, and that was on the day when he had heard a preacher, more subtle than the rest of the human herd, cry in his pulpit: “My dear brethren, do not ever forget, when your hear the progress of lights praised, that the loveliest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that they don’t exist!”

Or as the mastermind villain Keyser Söze put it in one of the pivotal scenes of The Usual Suspects “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist”.

Fittingly, we can’t even get our mythology of talking about the devil straight, let alone dealing with the prince of darkness himself.

It’s a clever line but attributing it as some kind of Prime Directive for Mephistopheles is mostly just playing into the mythology even further. The truth is, the greatest trick of Satan – or the devil, or whatever we are going to call the fallen dark one – isn’t tricking anyone to do anything; it is sitting back and getting the credit for people doing as the worse angels of their natures dictate without him having to do anything at all.

The perfect example would be labeling anything and everything one might not like, approve of, or hate as demonic, satanic, or of the devil and turning it into a good, old-fashioned, all-American satanic panic. There sure is a lot of that going around lately, but far from providing keen theological insights or manning the picket line of spiritual warfare, the talk of demons, Satan, and all manner of dark things is mostly used the same way hot sauce is used on a burrito: to punch it up a little.

Why struggle with mere social media accounts and political issues when you can wage digital warfare against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places ¹ for the signaling and praise of your fellow Culture War in-group in low places? Fighting evil itself takes you from merely being in a regular Marvel movie to getting the primo “assemble” line in Endgame. Plus, making your opponent a servant of Satan lets you supercharge the othering process, bypass all cultural norms of behavior, jump the guardrails of your own personal accountability, and wage scorched earth warfare on those evil Mr. Something Somethings From H-E-double-hockey-sticks, in Jesus’ name and in all Christian love.

Who needs to wait for the redeemer to ride in on a white horse and smite the enemy, pass judgement, and rain down righteousness when you can self-smite the evil ones by smashing that send button? Satanic panics can be Armageddon all day, every day, every which way. War! Fighting! Victory! Slay!

We, as a people, really ought to have enough pride to have a better quality of Satanic panics.

Que la plus belle des ruses du Diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas, or some such.

There is this big fancy theology word for the study of sin called Hamartiology. Derived from words meaning “to miss the mark”, it gets into some really deep theological water. The TL:DR version is this: sin is offending one’s God or injuring others. Human nature doesn’t need a devil to do any of that; it comes naturally to the unchecked mind and untended heart. Humans can do unspeakable things to each other when they get a mind to. And often appealing to God, religion, or greater good is the banner those unspeakable things get done under. Nothing is so dangerous as the utterly convinced self-righteousness. And the interwebs have never made it easier for such folks to congregate, collaborate, and charge the gates of Hell with water pistols squirting the outrage du jour.

We got politics and smartphones, a legion of “them” to defeat, and damnations of demonic, satanic, and evil to throw at “them over there”. Pity the devil, he’s practically out of a job when it comes to modern America socio-political discourse. Not only did he have nothing to do with it, he couldn’t even get a word in edge wise.

1. This is a riff off of Ephesians 6:12 “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”(KJV)