Press Release 2024

South Africa is once again caught in a moral (Satanic) panic, reminiscent of the late 80’s. Remember when Rodney Seale, John Gardiner, Kobus Jonker, and their cohorts used to visit schools spreading fear among children during assemblies, with books and pamphlets, warning about the “dangers of rock music and Satanism”? One would think that in 2024, our society would have moved past these outdated perceptions on popular culture, music, and artists allegedly trying to corrupt youth, through subtle references to sex, drugs, violence, and godlessness in their lyrics and concerts. Alas not. This past weekend, almost immediately after Easter, South African media was once again in turmoil over an artist’s alleged “devil worship” and “witchcraft” during concerts and music videos. This time, it is Taylor Swift who has suddenly become persona non grata: the main opponent of the Afrikaner-Christian public, and who is scheduled to visit South Africa for an economically promising concert as part of her Eras world tour. So then, where did Swift go wrong?

It has been reported since February 12^th, in the Rolling Stone magazine that (according to her conservative critics) Swift somehow had something to do with Satan somewhere. Once again, this is a myth borne out of the far-right political columns in the USA. They all opine that during the famous Superbowl, Swift (as a spectator) chugged her beer too quick, during the February 11th game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers. She was subsequently caught on camera, while her rapper friend and companion Ice Spice (Isis Naija Gaston), made the “devil’s horns” gesture with her hand! Now Swift is suddenly caught in the crossfire, between Trump supporters labelling her a “drunkard” and a “poor role model”, and Fox News anchors criticising her as the anti-Christ who attempted to “summon demons (during the football match)”!

Some claim that Swift is the doppelgänger of the late Church of Satan founder (Anton LaVey’s) daughter, Xena. This subsequently justifies their crusades and accusations of witchcraft and Satanic rituals. Additionally, American conservatives have used this as the perfect opportunity to promote their support for Trump with an eye on the upcoming 2024 U.S. elections. As usual, with these sorts of things, there is always some political agenda involved.

The same people are always guilty of inciting outdated panics and conspiracy theories that make Auntie Sarie clutch her pearls in fear. As with the infamous Satanic Panic, such nonsense always appears to find its way to South Africa. This time, an industrial psychologist and self-appointed life coach, Madeleine Pretorius (48), accused Swift of including “satanic symbolism in her songs and music videos, as well as during her worldwide Eras tour” in a Facebook video which has been viewed over 5000 times. Pretorius’ accusations are nothing more than what was initially hurled at Fokofpolisiekar, ACDC, Metallica, and other popular culture and media, in the 80s to early 90s. Moral panics of such a nature are generally proven by experts, to have little (if any) rational basis!

One of the most prominent experts in the field of moral panics is Dr. Nicky Falkof from the University of the Witwatersrand. Falkof argues in her 2022 book, Worrier State: Risk, Anxiety and Moral Panic in South Africa that South Africa’s Satanic moral panics, since its apartheid years, are rooted in the Afrikaner Christians’ fear of neoliberalism and globalisation, accompanied by the loss of influence and power in social, economic, and political contexts in post-apartheid South Africa (p.12), and the rise of evangelical Christianity. Furthermore, the “fear of Satan” in South Africa has also always been closely related to inclusivity towards gay people, black people, and society’s greater tolerance for sexual freedom, as well as the legalisation of drug use such as marijuana (cf. Falkof 2019:134). There are also the more underlying, controversial crises like racial fears; “die swart gevaar” and the fear of a so-called “white genocide”, propagated exclusively among white supremacists in South Africa. Such ideas of a fear and panic-induced victimism, from the Afrikaner people (since apartheid) is supplicated by Falkof, in a more recent publication in the SFS Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, titled From Satanism to Genocide: Moral Panic and White Supremacy in South Africa (2023).

More research on this extensive conversation has been widely researched, published, and discussed in some of our country’s most reputable universities, including the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits): Falkof (2023, 2022, 2020, 2019a, 2019b, 2015, 2012, 2010); Stellenbosch University (US): Swart & Dunbar (2012 & Dunbar 2012); University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (UKZN): Wallace (2006, 2015, 2017, 2012), the University of Pretoria (UP): Kroesbergen-Kamps (2022, 2020); Kapp (2024, 2022b, 2022c, 2020) & Blackbeard (2019), as well as the University of South Africa (UNISA): Van den Heever (2023a, 2023b). It therefore remains a cause for concern that news media in South Africa still entertain these sensationalist sentiments of misinformation.

The South African Pagan Rights Alliance (SAPRA), as a public representative of Occult-related religions and worldviews, strives to combat such conspiracies with facts in order to protect the integrity and dignity of our members (and their interests), who as a result of these narratives, face daily discrimination.

Conspiracy theories and moral panics have no place in news reports or Psychology practices and frameworks in South Africa, as they are harmful and unprofessional. Qualified Industrial Psychologists, like Pretorius, aught NOT be endorsing irrational Satanic panic conspiracies.

As a human rights organisation, this Alliance shudders at the thought of the already limited mental health assistance which is available and/or accessible to South Africans who might not be Christian.

Tristán Kapp (Spokesperson & interfaith Officer – SAPRA)

tristan@paganrightsalliance.org

References:

Blackbeard, J., 2019, ‘“You Have Witchcraft on Your Lips”: how a coven of white, Afrikaans-speaking witches negotiate their craft in the context of past and present’, M.A. dissertation, Faculty of Humanities, University of Pretoria.

Dunbar, D. & Swart, S., 2012, ‘’No less a foe than Satan himself’: The Devil, Transition and Moral Panic in White South Africa, 1989—1993’, Journal of Southern African Studies 38(3), 601-621.

Dunbar, D., 2012, ‘The Devil’s Children: Volk, Devils and Moral Panics in White South Africa, 1976 – 1993’, M.A. thesis, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Stellenbosch.

Falkof, N., 2010, ‘Apartheid’s Demons: Satanism and Moral Panic in South Africa’, Hagar: Studies in Culture, Politics, and Identity 9(2), 115-135.

Falkof, N., 2012, ‘’Satan Has Come to Rietfontein’: Race in South Africa’s Satanic Panic’, Journal of Southern African Studies 38(4), 753-767.

Falkof, N., 2019a, ‘6 The Satanism Scare in Apartheid South Africa’ in E. Asprem, A. Dyrendal & D.G. Robertson (eds.), The Handbook of Conspiracy Theory and Contemporary Religion, Brill, Leiden.

Falkof, N., 2019b, ‘Sex and the Devil: Homosexuality, Satanism, and Moral Panic in Late Apartheid South Africa’, Men and Masculinities 22(2), 273–293.

Falkof, N., 2020, ‘On Moral Panic: Some Directions for Further Development’, Critical Sociology 46(2), 225-239.

Falkof, N. 2022, Worrier State: Risk, Anxiety and Moral Panic in South Africa, Manchester University Press, Manchester.

Falkof, N., 2023, ‘From Satanism to Genocide: Moral Panic and White Supremacy in South Africa’, SFS Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, 12 May 2023, viewed 15 January 2024, from https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2023/05/12/from-satanism-to-genocide-moral-panic-and-white-supremacy-in-south-africa/

Kapp, T., 2020, ‘Human rights in South Africa: a liberal theological understanding of Ecclesiastes 4:1-3 in response to injustices of the Dutch Reformed Church’, ResearchGate, viewed 08 April 2024, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346656736_Human_rights_in_South_Africa_a_liberal_theological_understanding_of_Ecclesiastes_41-3_in_response_to_injustices_of_the_Dutch_Reformed_Church  

Kapp, T., 2022a, ‘LETTER TO THE EDITOR | The Klawer murder and the occult: The devil’s advocate’, News24, viewed 21 January 2024, from https://www.news24.com/news24/opinions/letters/letter-to-the-editor-the-klawer-murder-and-the-occult-the-devils-advocate-20220212

Kapp, T., 2022b, ‘The ‘Satanic Panic’: exploring the influence of film in formulating narratives surrounding the lived religion of the Occult and its practitioners’, paper presented at the Hedonistic Occultism: Blood, Desire, Sex and Magick conference, Research Association for the Study of Western Esotericism (RASWE) & University of Masaryk, Brno, June 6-7.

Kapp, T., 2022c, ‘Satan speaks: Satanism and the post-apartheid scare of ‘the other’ in a Christian hegemonic South Africa’, online paper presented at Dancing Under A (South) African Moon: New Religious Movements in a Christian Hegemonised Context, South African Pagan Rights Alliance (SAPRA), Pretoria, South Africa, 24 September viewed 08 April 2024 at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/363840613_Satan_speaks_Satanism_and_the_post-apartheid_scare_of_’the_other’_in_a_Christian_hegemonic_South_Africa

Kapp, T., 2024, ‘South Africa’s Occult Crimes Unit: How Apartheid shaped South African attitudes toward Paganism and the Occult’, paper presented at Reimagining contemporary Africa: Circulations of objects, knowledges & spiritual practices University of the Western Cape, Faculty of Arts and Humanities; École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), PSL; Institut des Mondes Africains (IMAF) & L’institut Français D’Afrique du Sud (IFAS), Recherche, 24 & 25 January. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/378739628_South_Africa’s_Occult_Crimes_Unit_How_Apartheid_shaped_South_African_attitudes_toward_Paganism_and_the_Occult

Kroesbergen-Kamps, J., 2020, ‘EXPERT OPINION: The South African Satanic Church – looking beyond thename’, University of Pretoria, viewed 08 April 2024, from https://www.up.ac.za/news/post_2906048-expert-opinion-the-south-african-satanic-church-looking-beyond-the-name

Kroesbergen-Kamps, J., 2022, Speaking of Satan in Zambia: Making cultural and personal sense of narratives about Satanism, AOSIS Publishing, Cape Town.

Wallace, D., 2006, ‘The construction and articulation of a pagan identity in South Africa: a study of the nature and implications of a contested religious identity in a pluralistic society’, PhD thesis, Dept. Religion & Theology, University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Van den Heever, G., 2023a, Exorcizing “Devilsdorp”: Demonization and Satanic Possession in South Africa, in Doole A.J. and Bauer N.M., (eds.), Ideas of Possession: Interdisciplinary and Transcultural Perspectives, New York, Oxford University Press, viewed 08 April 2024 from https://www.academia.edu/92147091/Exorcizing_Devilsdorp_Demonization_and_Satanic_Possession_in_South_Africa

Van den Heever, G., 2023b, Disenchantment, Re-Enchantment, Magic, and Vestigial Mythologies: A Political History of Religion and the Secular, paper presented at Magic and Mischief: Text and Practices in Philosophy, Theology, and the Sciences, Hybrid Conference at Andrew Murray Centre for Spirituality, 31 August to 2 September, viewed 08 April 2024, from https://www.academia.edu/113142300/Disenchantment_Re_Enchantment_Magic_and_Vestigial_Mythologies_A_Political_History_of_Religion_and_the_Secular

Wallace, D., 2012, ‘Healers, Heretics and Witches: African Diviners and Pagan Witches Contest the Boundaries of Religion and Magic in Africa’, in Cheira, A. (ed.) Representing Magic, Undoing Evil: Of Human Inner Light and Darkness, Brill, Leiden.

Wallace, D., 2015, ‘Rethinking religion, magic and witchcraft in South Africa: From colonial coherence to postcolonial conundrum’, Journal for the Study of Religion 28(1), 23-51.

Wallace, D., 2017, ‘Pagan Identity Politics, Witchcraft, and the Law: Encounters with Postcolonial Nationalism in Democratic South Africa’, in Rountree, K. (ed.) Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Modern Paganism, Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities, Palgrave, Macmillan.