Abstract:

Modern Satanism is far more than the “subculture” examined by Chris Mathews in his recent book, and critical scholarship is much better if divested of confirmation bias, cherry-picking, and ideological crusading. In the latter part of the article, I sketch three angles of importance when analyzing fragmented occultural milieus: how the research object is delimited; how accessible material is read and understood; and how this is substantiated through ethnographic research.

Modern Satanism: Anatomy of a Radical Subculture, by Chris Mathews. Praeger Publishers, 2009. 246pp., hb., $49.95. ISBN-13: 9780313366390.

Author: Jesper Aagaard Petersen