Mormon Stories

As part of a multi-part series on claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse within Mormonism, today we are interviewing Dr. David Frankfurter - author of "Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History."

David Frankfurter holds the William Goodwin Aurelio Chair of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University. He joined the faculty of B.U. in the fall of 2010. A scholar of ancient Mediterranean religions with specialties in Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, magical texts, popular religion, and Egypt in the Roman and late antique periods, Frankfurter’s particular interests revolve around theoretical issues like the place of magic in religion, the relationship of religion and violence, the nature of Christianization, and the representation of evil in culture.

After earning his B.A. in Religion from Wesleyan University, M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, and M.A./Ph.D. from Princeton University, Frankfurter taught at the College of Charleston and the University of New Hampshire, and he held fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study (1993-95) and the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study (2007-8), as well as research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1992) and the Guggenheim Foundation (2007-8).

A HUGE thank you to Rick Phillips for making this episode possible.

00:00 Introduction
12:46 How talk about this without harming either side of the concern?
13:13 Panic started in the late 70s and 80s
13:49 Feminist critics articulate what the claims do culturally
14:44 Victims of real interfamilial sexual abuse are confused
16:02 Claims of SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse) get intermingled with real abuse
16:41 If SRA happened we want evidence
17:05 Excerpt from Glenn Pace memorandum
20:50 Adressing the idea how unique to Mormonism this is vs how long this kind of stuff has been going on
21:47 David adding to the claim of multiple people having the same experiences. Just a few therapists using the idea.
22:59 John referring to MSP Episode A cautionary tale. Church referring to therapist who used it
24:11 How did David get interested in the subject?
26:59 A short history of the stories on satanic abuse
34:48 Spending 10 y on the work. Multidisciplinary approach
36:20 Experts - but what about doctrine and theology?
38:21 Articulate notion of evil
42:13 Culture views rituals are seen as suspicious
48:15 60s and 70s - setting the stage
49:44 Foreign religious movements. Totalistic youth oriented christian groups
50:44 Brainwashing and deprogrammer movement
51:44 Brainwashing become a part of SRA claims
52:12 Notion of the cult as dangerous religion.
58:20 Ripple effect all through mormonism. Conspiracy theories.
59:22 1980 source
59:54 Classic anti catholic conspiraricies
1:00:25 Live comments, Remembering Satan
1:01:46 People already holding off sexuality, set in a strict religious dominion are susceptible to the claims
1:02:36 Live comments. Jay's journal
1:03:27 Outbreaks of SRA rumors in Utah
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