Marxism, Satanism, and the Worship of Self

Any time commentators like me invoke the term Satanism, we run the risk of being dismissed out of hand by people whose image of Satanism was formed in the 1980s. As a child of that decade, I remember the "Satanic panics" among Christian groups that specifically targeted the music industry. For instance, the name of the rock band, KISS, was imagined to stand for Knights In Satan's Service, some insisted ACDC stood for Anti-Christ, Devil's Child; and the name of my personal favorite band, Rush, was imagined to stand for Ruled Under Satan's Hand. In the 80s, the concept of "backward masking" also emerged: The idea was that if you played a vinyl record of a Satan-influenced band backward, sometimes you could hear voices speaking messages about the devil. Led Zeppelin's blockbuster album IV became a target of this imaginative frenzy of accusation, and it was further said of that album that the inlay painting of a man on a hill, when held to a mirror, formed the picture of a fearsome devil dog.