Witches and Warlocks and Satanists, oh my!

The approaching day of Halloween is the perfect time for fundamentalist pastors to dig out one of their favorite topics: How Practitioners of the Occult are planning to take over America’s youth via television shows and storybooks. That fact that these dabblers in magic have allegedly been working tirelessly since the 60’s with very little to show for it does not bother fundamentalists in the least. The more you don’t see them the more you know they’re there.

It’s easy enough to gather fodder for these types of claims since any reference at all in a book or video game to magic, magical creatures, spells, black pots, goats, wizards, spirits, or even unicorns can be construed to be the subtle hand of the New Age Movement subtly instilling a love of Satan in people’s hearts. And here you thought you were just watching Sesame Street. You fool.

Do you practice Yoga? Read your horoscope? Believe predictions from the Weather Channel? You might as well be sacrificing a virgin and branding Satan’s mark on your forehead. But never fear, if you’re an evangelist who can claim to be a former believer in the occult it’s worth its weight in spell books.

Never mind that the total number of Wiccans, Pagans, and other such folks is less than 0.1% of the population. Never mind that folk tales about the fantastic and supernatural have been around for as long as time. The world’s of imagination and make-believe evidently have no part in the fundy’s worldview unless the writer’s name happens to be Lewis or perhaps Tolkien.