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The Department of Truth explores conspiracy theories and the dangers caused by such misconceptions. It just took aim at the Satanic Panic.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers from The Department of Truth #13, on sale now from Image Comics.
Ask people what they consider to be the ultimate embodiment of evil, and many will answer “the devil.” For ages, religious fears of the devil have been a central theme in art, literature and cultural practices. Yet these fears are not entirely rooted in Biblical beliefs.
One particularly dark period in US history was the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, in which roughly 12,000 instances of Satanic ritual abuse were reported–none of them confirmed. Public perceptions about the devil’s influence and supposed worshippers were unfounded, having nothing to do with either religious doctrine or actual events taking place. Image’s The Department of Truth #13 by James Tynion IV, Martin Simmonds, Aditya Bidikar and Dylan Todd explores some of these beliefs in-depth, showing the original myths that led to the Satanic Panic.
The Department of Truth is a comic about conspiracy theories, dealing as much with the truth behind unfounded conspiracies as with the harm that such beliefs can cause. The series’ protagonist, Cole Turner, is an ex-FBI agent haunted by childhood memories of his teacher indoctrinating him into a Satanic cult and making him eat babies in the service of a devilish man with stars for eyes. Cole rationally understands that these are false memories and that such things never happened, but he remains traumatized nonetheless.
In real life, therapists who try to uncover repressed memories in patients can actually create false memories, which many people believe was the primary force behind the many reported incidents of ritual abuse during Satanic Panic. Church leaders and parents might also have been partially responsible for instilling such memories in children, while some cases were flat-out falsified. Whatever their reason, Cole Turner suffers from false memories.
When Cole is kidnapped by a traitor in his organization, he is taken back to his old childhood home and elementary school, forcing him to confront his childhood traumas. He explains the historical roots of Satanic fears to his captor. In the early Middle Ages following the decline of the Western Roman Empire, disparate petty kingdoms were unified by the Church spreading its new shared faith. Some of the polytheistic traditions of the various peoples were appropriated and incorporated into Christian traditions, but mostly, non-Christian beliefs were vilified, and all of them were lumped together and mislabeled as Satanism.
The idea of Hell, which was absent from the Old Testament (ie., the Tanakh), was extrapolated upon and used to scare non-Christians into converting. Pagans who didn’t convert were treated as Satanic and subjected to violence. Even worse violence was used against Jewish people, who lived in insular communities. During the Crusades, some Christians began spreading antisemitic lies that accused Jews of eating babies, something known as blood libels. Fear-based bigotry toward outsiders combined with the protectiveness of children, inspiring Christians to massacre Jewish communities.
Unfounded beliefs about blood libels would be repeated throughout history. In the 1980s, these myths resurfaced amid fears stoked by the rise of televangelism and Evangelical homophobia over the AIDS virus. Cole was one of many children in rural America whose community was impacted. He reported his false memories about eating babies and the star-eyed devil. The claims proved false, but the damage was done. Cole’s teacher committed suicide after being accused of Satanic cannibalism.
Unfortunately, these dangerous beliefs resurfaced again. Cole now battles their influence as groups like Q-Anon who repeat stories about baby-eating Satanic cults (and who, in the fictional world of the Department of Truth, are funded by a mysterious organization known as Black Hat). As Cole knows firsthand, the real evil threat is not Satanic cannibalism. It’s violence by spurned on by such misinformation.
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