Demons of the modern world
By: Malcolm McGrath ; foreword by Robert A. Baker.
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Amherst, N.Y
Language: eng
Number of pages: 323
Subjects: Demonology -- Psychology.; Satanism -- Psychology.; Child psychology.; Ritual abuse.
Other titles: Demons
Description: This fascinating discussion of modern demonology focuses on our ability to differentiate the physical world, with its mechanical laws, from the inherently less predictable psychological realm of thoughts and beliefs. McGrath points out that this ability was a hard-won historical development, and today must be learned in childhood through education. Because of this historical background and our rich fantasy life in childhood, each of us unconsciously suspects, or fears, that supernatural forces may break through the borders of our everyday commonsense order at any time. Indeed, at times of personal stress or societal crisis, the modern boundaries between fantasy and reality begin to slip, and then a magical world of demons and other phantasms can come flooding back into our disenchanted reality.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 311-316) and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: 1. The History of the Fear; title: 2. The Psychological Source of the Fear; title: 3. The Intellectual Origins of the Great Witch-hunt; title: 4. The Reality of Satanism; title: 5. The Recovered Memory Movement; title: 6. The False Memory Machine; title: 7. Children and Satanists; title: 8. The Illusion of a World of Demons; title: 9. Children as Widows on the World of the Demonic; title: O10 Dreams as Windows on the World of the Demonic; title: il. Madness as A Window on the Demonic World; title: 42. Doors to the Demonic World; title: and the Personality of Satanists; title: The Road From Fantasy to Reality; title: The Monster That Never Dies and Alien Abductions; title: Notes; title: t Bibliography.