I work for a humane society. Many animal shelters refuse to adopt out black cats (or black animals, or white animals, or animals with blue eyes, etc.) for a period of time before Hallowe’en, on the belief that Satanists will adopt the animals and then torture them to death in evil rituals.
Sounds like hogwash to me, and I convinced our shelter to stop this policy a couple of years ago.
Today, one of our staff members did a weekly television spot with some shelter dogs, and apparently she took along a black dog and said he was “ready to go home today.” We soon got a nasty email from someone who was Shocked at what we were doing, didn’t we know about all the Satanists and Witches around who sacrifice black animals on Hallowe’en?
Rather than tell her she’s a twink, our director agreed to look into the matter; her solution is that we’ll thoroughly investigate anyone who comes to the shelter specifically looking to adopt a black animal during October.
But what about it, dopers? Can any of you find any evidence of Satanists adopting animals from shelters and sacrificing them? What about evidence of Satanists torturing black cats/dogs to death on Hallowe’en at all? I’ve looked, and all I can find are rumors.
Daniel
PS I almost want to put this in the Pit: when I expressed my skepticism, one of my coworkers gave me a snotty little look and said, “It’s true: I know people who were ritually abused as children.” And what I want to say about her is Pitworthy. But I want the question answered more than I want to vent, so I’ll leave it here in GQ.
I would suggest that the more pertinent question is, do Satanists exist?
I have serious doubts that there are people who truly believe in and worship Satan. There may be some who sort of muddle around with their concept of what Satanists do, but my perspective is that the only ones who truly believe in Satan are those who believe in and worship God.
I wouldn’t say that’s there’s no one around demented enough to try an animal sacrifice. I would say that the overwhelming majority of reputed such behavior exists only in the minds of those who buy into rumors and fears. They never seem to have any objective evidence.
Sounds like an outgrowth of Xian witchcraft hysteria. An actual animal mutilation case would make for great halloween copy, yet no one ever reports any ritually killed kitties in this neck of the woods.
Religioustolerance.org has a good page on Satanists. They devide Satanists into three groups. The first is a legimate, if not very widespread, religious movement (the Church of Satan/Temple of Set types). The second type are the imaginary, evil, widespread Satanists who preform black rites and sacrifice animals and people to their dark lord. This type doesn’t exist. They have never existed. They’re a myth. And the third type are dabblers, mainly teenagers, who are rebelling against their Christian heritage.
Animal sacrifice is not a part of Religious Satanism, and I’m not aware of any evidence that Religious Satanists are more likely to torture animals than the average person. Animal sacrifice is a part of Gothic Satanism, but since Gothic Satanism is a myth with no practioners, it’s unlikely that any animals are harmed because of it. As for the Satanic Dabblers, well… There have been reported cases of animals being sacrificed by Dabblers. Having said that, by all accounts it is quite rare, and is not support for the common belief that a lot of animals are sacrificed. I don’t know what the odds are that an animal from your shelter would be sacrificed, but I suspect it is miniscule.
Amok and Gary, I agree that any such mutilations are most likely done by troubled teens (although I’ve known some twentysomethings that were stupid enough to fancy themselves Scary Satanists, so I’ll expand the age range a bit). The whole widespread-satanic-cult idea is too silly for words.
It looks like no one has a very clear idea of how often kids styling themselves Satanists hurt cats. I do know that of the terrible cruelty cases I’ve heard about, not one of them has involved a self-styled Satanist.
There are probably people who will take black cats just for pranks-and as snopes said, for “decoration”-kind of like the dalmation craze after the Disney movies come out.
Perhaps some have adopted cats to use in “pranks”-setting cats loose everywhere, or just something stupid.
We used to make it a point to keep our cat indoors on Halloween because animals in the neighborhood had been harmed on that occasion. But I think that was “sick creeps” not “Satanists.”
Just out of curiosity, Sparrowhawk, were you aware of specific animals that were harmed? Or was this a general warning that people in the neighborhood gave?
I learned something from Amok’s link. I wasn’t aware of those Satanists. I always assumed the term refered to people who worship the devil–which is certainly implicit when fundamentalist Christians decry Satanism. Apparently they could learn something, too.
The Dallas Morning News ran an article two or three years ago about “cat mutilations.” The reporter quoted people who believed they were due to some disturbed person who would kidnap a cat, take it back to his workshop, cut it up, then bring it back and drop it in a field near the home where the cat came from. He didn’t seem to entertain the crazy idea that maybe coyotes (which we have many of) might be snatching fluffy, taking it to a nearby field and eating parts of it.
I sent a letter to the reporter, but never heard back. I feel like I did the research for this reporter, pointing out the M.O. sounds much more like coyotes than people. For a finishing touch, I found a series of articles from newspapers in the California bay area which said that cats were being mutilated, and people were doing it, then an article sometime later where it was solved, and it turned out that coyotes had been the culprit all along.
And even though the police finally arrived at the obvious answer, the people at the humane society refused to believe it. It’s like they had too much at stake in protecting the cats from humans to admit that this might be something else.
Yup I’m indirectly related to one (step great uncle)…him and his wife get quite a kick out of media portrail of satanism. No animal sacrifices, no virgins deflowered, no conjured demons in circles of power, just a different agenda like many other religions.
Its soo much more sexy to be thought of as a demon summoning virgin slayer I guess.
I have to agree with SparrowHawk, every time I’ve read about something happening to animals around this time, it’s usually attributed to disturbed people not Satanism. Although I have to say that I haven’t heard of anything happening in several years.
I have a black cat (she’s an indoor cat anyway, so I don’t worry about “keeping her in”) that I adopted from the shelter several years ago in late September and I couldn’t believe what they put me through. Came to my house, copied my driver’s license, wanted a larger “donation” and everything. I couldn’t figure it out. It was my sister who made the connection between the black cat and Halloween coming up. I didn’t really think about it, I picked her because she was cute and friendly.
Satanists or no satanists, I have some real crackpot kids in my neighborhood (as does everyone else, I’m sure) and I believe they can be the real danger. Better safe than sorry. Keep those pets on a short leash this time of year.
