The Charge of the Armchair Crusader

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.