# Anti Star Wars book from the late 70s that claimed it was demonic **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [May 4, 2022, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907 "2022-05-04T00:01:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cumberdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@Cumberdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumberdale)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/1 "2022-05-04T00:01:01Z")
Does anyone remember after Star Wars became a hit in 1977 that there was some blow back from the religious right? I don’t recall much about the book other than it was quite short, maybe 100 pages at most. It talked about how Star Wars was anti-God or demonic or something because The Force didn’t recognize the one true God or the divinity of Jesus. Every so often I look for the book but to date haven’t been able to track it down. Just wondering if this was another bad dream I had like with the Star Wars Holiday Special. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/2 "2022-05-04T01:13:37Z")
I don’t know the book, but I do remember this being discussed in church youth group in the early to mid 1990’s. It had to do with the orange jump suits being Buddhist colors or something? We didn’t look at a book, but a guest speaker spoke about it for a bit. I thought the whole thing was nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/3 "2022-05-04T01:51:33Z")
I believe you are thinking about _Turmoil in the Toybox_. > **["Turmoil in the Toy Box" Revisited](https://www.cartoonbrew.com/ideas-commentary/turmoil-in-the-toy-box-revisited-90147.html)** > > Author Phil Phillips spent the 1980s warning parents about the occult forces in children's TV animation. While his notoriety has passed, fear of the messages in cartoons still exists today. A book from 1986, Star Wars was only one of its targets. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/4 "2022-05-04T02:13:55Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > A book from 1986, Star Wars was only one of its targets. I do remember this. They also taught us that Smurfs were demonic or something. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/5 "2022-05-04T02:24:07Z")
I’m picturing myself going back in time to a church where the pastor is ranting about demonic influences in kids’ culture of the 70s. I’d interrupt with “If you can’t handle Star Wars and Smurfs, just wait til all your kids fall in love with Harry Potter, complete with dark magical spells that can kill people.” ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/6 "2022-05-04T02:36:20Z")
my former cousin in law had extensive sets of all the 80s action toys until his parents joined some whack a doodle cult of a church and they thew all of them out (it was hundreds of dollars in toys) I think they burned them like books in some “purging of sin” ceremony … funny thing is 4 or 5 months later the “church” attacked some tv show the parents liked and they’d had enough and left … But he twisted the knife every time he picked up one of those “what toys are worth” books because a few of those toys are worth serious cash ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/7 "2022-05-04T03:08:23Z")
Wasn’t literally _everything_ demonic at that time? My childhood spanned the 80s decade, but despite my nostalgia the satanic panic was abject stupidity even for a grade schooler at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/8 "2022-05-04T03:46:13Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > Wasn’t literally _everything_ demonic at that time? It was. That;s why we’re all satanists now. The religious right couldn’t stop it! The forces of hell were released and took over the country. ---
**Author:** ![Cumberdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@Cumberdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumberdale)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/9 "2022-05-04T10:33:53Z")
Could be, but the title doesn’t ring a bell. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/10 "2022-05-04T19:06:52Z")
I remember a guy on one of our local religious channels claiming that He-Man was demonic. I think mainly because of the phrase “Masters of the Universe.” There’s only one master of the universe, kids, and that’s Jesus! ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2022, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/11 "2022-05-04T19:31:08Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > > [@Atamasama](#): > > > > A book from 1986, Star Wars was only one of its targets. > > I do remember this. They also taught us that Smurfs were demonic or something. YES! This shit popped up in the church my mom made me go to when I was a wee lad; when I told her about it, I never had to attend again (thankfully). ---
**Author:** ![ArtBeforeScience](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@ArtBeforeScience](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArtBeforeScience)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2022, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/12 "2022-05-05T15:55:07Z")
Does anyone remember the “I buried Paul” secret message in one of the old Beatles songs? If you played it backwards and really used your imagination, you could hear this encoded statement, supposedly. Tipper Gore was one of several prominent public figures who had the vapors over music (as opposed to books, movies, or toys). ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2022, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/13 "2022-05-05T16:09:24Z")
> [@ArtBeforeScience](#): > > Does anyone remember the “I buried Paul” secret message in one of the old Beatles songs? If you played it backwards and really used your imagination, you could hear this encoded statement, supposedly. Not played backward… You are talking about [Strawberry Fields Forever](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Fields_Forever). > Among the faintly audible comments over the coda, “Cranberry sauce” was taken to be Lennon intoning “I buried Paul” by proponents of the “Paul is Dead” hoax, a theory that contended that McCartney had died in November 1966 and been replaced in the Beatles by a lookalike. People were hearing “I buried Paul” when playing the song normally, because John had mumbled the real line. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2022, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/14 "2022-05-05T16:11:03Z")
“I buried Paul” is how some people interpreted words mumbled after the first fadeout of “Strawberry Fields Forever”. It’s not backwards. The words, “number nine” spoken in “Revolution #9” sound sort of like “turn me on, dead man” when played backwards. ETA: what atamasama said. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2022, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/15 "2022-12-28T21:58:55Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > They also taught us that Smurfs were demonic or something. [That checks out.](https://youtu.be/gTWjPHfXnUE) Maybe not satanic but definitely a tool of some competing deity. > [@garygnu](#): > > Wasn’t literally _everything_ demonic at that time? My childhood spanned the 80s decade, but despite my nostalgia the satanic panic was abject stupidity even for a grade schooler at the time. I don’t remember any particular large backlash against _Star Wars_ but the “Satanic Panic” was a real thing among the Fundamentalist and Pentacostalist crowds. My mother missed my _AD&D Player’s Handbook_ but tossed all of my _Runequest_, _Traveller_, and _Gamma World_ books and modules, and then smashed acrylic dice with a hammer while I had to watch. Fortunately she didn’t bother looking through my book collection for various Lovecraft, Bloch, and Lumley novels (not really “Satanic” but one would think the Cthulhu Mythos would fall close enough) and didn’t know enough to realize that Bertrand Russell and Douglas Adams were probably the greatest intellectual threat to the weirdly specific and invariably wrong prophesies of her pastor-cum-prophet and his litany of prohibitions and commandments that were as inconsistent as they were out-of-date. (Who knew that Burt Reynolds was Satan’s Abbettor or by the late ‘Eighties even cared?) Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2022, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/16 "2022-12-28T22:18:41Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > They also taught us that Smurfs were demonic or something. That figures: have you heard them [sing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsvQkeu50GE)? Don’t even consider playing it backwards! The Force explodes! ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2022, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-star-wars-book-from-the-late-70s-that-claimed-it-was-demonic/963907/17 "2022-12-28T22:39:14Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > Wasn’t literally _everything_ demonic at that time? “Isn’t everything demonic even today?” I know this was posted last May and the thread was just bumped, but still. February of this year, there was a [book burning](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/04/book-burning-harry-potter-twilight-us-pastor-tennessee) of Harry Pottery and Twilight books by a conservative US preacher seeking to fight demonic influences. Satanic panic isn’t something that ended. It’s still going on.