Supernatural Evil Research Articles

Eyespots: Supernatural or supernormal? A case study from Papua New Guinea

AbstractEyespots are found across many taxa, usually for predator intimidation. In human artefacts, eye designs have been presumed to have an apotropaic function (warding off supernatural evil and envy) rather than an evolutionary function related to protection from agonistic interactions. We hypothesised that, instead, eyespot designs may have been used in human cultures for intimidation of opponents (deimatic display). We examined 1,070 objects from Papua New Guinea, where eyespots are frequently displayed on various objects. We predicted that objects used for guarding or protection would be more likely to have eyespots than domestic objects. Chi-square tests of independence showed that significantly more canoe prows and shields and fewer domestic objects had eyespots than expected. Furthermore, we surveyed 81 respondents, showing objects with and without eyespot patterns. Chi-square tests showed that objects with eyespots elicited significantly more fear and anxiety related emotions, and non-eyespot designs elicited more calm and relaxed emotions than expected. Thus, objects with eyespots were considered more intimidating than those displaying geometric, or plain designs. This research provides empirical evidence for the use of eyespot designs for deimatic display in humans and possible convergent evolution of eyespots due to gene – culture coevolution.

Does Belief in Supernatural Agents Moderate the Association Between Interpersonal Conflict at Work and Worker Well‐Being?

AbstractThis study examines how interpersonal conflict at work is associated with worker well‐being in Singapore. More importantly, it assesses how this association is contingent upon belief in angelic intervention and belief in supernatural evil. Using data from the 2021 Work, Religion, and Health Survey (N = 508), the analyses show that interpersonal conflict at work is positively associated with anxiety and job burnout. In addition, belief in angelic intervention and belief in supernatural evil moderate the association. Specifically, the positive association between interpersonal conflict at work and anxiety is weaker for those who report the belief in angelic intervention. Similarly, higher levels of belief in supernatural evil reduce the positive association of interpersonal conflict at work with anxiety and job burnout. These findings indicate that belief in supernatural agents acts as a key personal resource in the workplace, buffering against the harmful effects of interpersonal conflict at work on worker well‐being.

Maģiskās glābšanas stāsti par svētās Agatas brīnumiem Stirnienes draudzē

In a small north-western Latgale community, Stirniene parish of St. Lawrence, personal experience narratives that highlight folk Christianity have been documented during the late 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. In these narratives, supernatural aid and miraculous salvation in crucial situations are frequently occurring motifs. The cult of saints has a significant role in Latgalian folk Christianity, and these narratives reveal the deep roots of one of the most popular cults of saints – the worship of Saint Agatha in Stirniene parish. Saint Agatha is the patron saint for fire and other disasters. On Saint Agatha’s Day – the 5th of February – bread, water, and salt are consecrated in Catholic churches in Latvia; these items are believed to prevent fire, cure humans and livestock animals, and protect against supernatural evil powers. The coexistence and interlapping of Christian and folk worldviews are presented in the paper, showing the appreciation of the sacramentalia consecrated on this day (bread, water, salt) and exposing the testimonies of miraculous aid through the use of such sacramentalia. Despite the profound political, economic, and cultural changes of the 20th century, and especially of the prohibition of religious practices during the Soviet occupation, it can be concluded that Saint Agatha’s Day traditions persevere both in older and younger generations. The corpus of personal experience narratives collected in Stirniene presents the miraculous salvation stories connected to Saint Agatha’s sacramentalia, thus displaying the continuity of the traditional worldview and values of the informants. The variety of different individual approaches to using Saint Agatha’s bread and water is characterised. The biographical method has been used in the research.

Evil in Turkish Muslim horror film: the demonic in “Semum”

The aim of the following study is to offer a better understanding of the Turkish religious consciousness. Turkey is a secular country with a Muslim majority. Movie characters with different attitudes towards religion and their relationship to supernatural evil within Islamic cosmology will be examined. This will provide better insights into the religiosity among Turkish Muslims and their relationship with religious metaphysics in a secular world through the popular horror movie “Semum” (2008). “Semum” is unique by not utilizing jinn, but a devil as the chosen monster. By that, “Semum” conceptualizes an entity of what is perceived as evil in contrast to the moral greyness presented in jinn-horror movies. It reflects a supernatural world of good and evil to its audience, in which metaphysical questions are addressed. Turkey, as a Muslim-majority society, is less often examined when it comes to theological/metaphysical matters regarding the Islamic faith, than when it comes to social issues. For an accurate understanding, this paper first investigates the director’s own statements about his monster. Afterwards, Islamic sources will be compared to the movie’s depiction of said monsters. Next, the roles of the main characters and their relationships towards the demonic will be explained. By that, it will be seen how the roles of the characters allegedly deal with evil. It will be shown that secularism is considered to be insufficient to deal with possible threats to humanity. Yet, the director asserts that science and religion should co-exist to deal with mankind’s fears.

The Devil and the Victorians: Supernatural Evil in Nineteenth-Century English Culture by Sarah Bartels (review)

The Devil and the Victorians: Supernatural Evil in Nineteenth-Century English Culture by Sarah Bartels (review)

The Curious Absence of the Satan and Spiritual Warfare in Christian Higher Education

This article examines to what extent any engagement with the themes of the Satan, demonic evil, and spiritual warfare appear in the scholarship and teaching within Christian higher education institutions. A review of the course descriptions from 104 of the 115 governing members of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities was conducted to answer this question, along with a review of recent literature in the field of higher education. The results of both reviews suggest that faith integration efforts in scholarship and teaching largely ignore the Adversary and ways to combat his influence. Secondly, this article makes the case that Christian higher education could better accomplish its mission if the Enemy and spiritual warfare were taken seriously. Finally, I argue that a failure to take the Satan seriously is a failure of holistic faith integration and ignores an opportunity to provide guidance to those who believe in supernatural evil.

Path to Viy: features of the artistic conflict

The author undertakes a study of the symbolic-religious conflict, a man and Viy, as a structural and content basis for the integrity of the novella Viy . In Gogol's “paradoxical negative realism”, the “squabbling of life” is depicted from an eschatological perspective. The heterogeneity of the conflict is predetermined by the heterogeneity of Gogol's vision of life: behind the vulgar relations of vulgar people, an existential world, invisible to the characters, shines through, in which an irreal enemy awaits a person in order not to allow this person to avoid meeting with himself. The basis of the conflict of the novella Viy is the subterranean phenomena of the universe, which are at different stages of accepting evil. The mutual negation of the vulgarity of evil (Khoma) and the fantasy of supernatural evil (Viy) does not seem to Gogol absolute, just as the scenario of their movement towards each other does not seem impossible. Analysis of the conflict allows us to assert that Gogol, as a “prophet and philosopher of Orthodox culture”, according to V. Zenkovsky's definition, declares himself already in the story of 1834, and Russian literature owes the “implantation of the religious theme” to this particular work.

War Is All Hell: The Nature of Evil and the Civil War

War Is All Hell is an engaging study of the ways nineteenth-century Americans deployed the rhetoric of evil before and during the American Civil War. Noting that “Americans turned to notions of demons, hell, and Satan to understand the massive changes happening around them,” Edward J. Blum and John H. Matsui ably demonstrate that the devastation of war prompted many Americans to reassess their beliefs in providentialism, and to articulate their experiences through the language of evil (p. 4). This articulation had a startling side effect, however, as Americans also began to identify one another as demonic. Blum and Matsui offer a needed focus on the versatility of demonic language in nineteenth-century America. Slavery was a “supernatural evil,” war was hell on earth, enslavers were demonic, and soldiers fought like devils (p. 13). Secession was tantamount to Lucifer's rebellion in heaven, and groups such as the Ku Klux Klan “weaponize[d] hell” by dressing as demons (p. 137). Furthermore, and perhaps ironically, rearticulations of evil shored up wavering beliefs in providentialism. For many Americans, the unspeakable carnage of war was caused by Satan's activity, not God's inactivity. Soldiers, in particular, found that when “godly rationalizations failed to explain what they experienced, the devil and hell would do” (p. 47).

Do Psychedelic Trips Open the Door to Messages from God, Spirits, Transcendent Realities, or the Devil? Links with Attitudes About Psychedelics, Opinions About Legalization, and Interest in Personal Use

ABSTRACT Could psychedelic use open the door to messages from supernatural entities, including God, the devil, or human or nature spirits? Might psychedelics allow a glimpse of some transcendent domain, consciousness, or self that exists beyond the material world? We were interested in how people’s answers to these questions would relate to their attitudes about psychedelic use, legalization, and desire to use psychedelics if given a safe opportunity. After preregistering key hypotheses on the Open Science Framework, we recruited U. S. adults (final N = 800) to complete an online survey. Participants expected psychedelics to prompt psychological messages (from the brain or subconscious) more than spiritual messages, which were typically endorsed more than explicitly supernatural messages; however, even supernatural messages received moderate endorsement. As predicted, seeing psychedelics as a doorway to positive spiritual or supernatural messages (from a transcendent spiritual domain, God, human spirits, nature spirits) was linked with more positive attitudes about psychedelics, more favoring of their legalization, and more past use and interest in personal use. As expected, attitudes about psychedelics were less favorable among those who saw them as doorways to negative messages, either from supernatural evil (devil, demons, evil spirits) or from one’s own mind (dark side, shadow self, “inner demons”). Beliefs in supernatural messages via psychedelics were linked with stronger supernatural beliefs, more prior psychedelic use, younger age, self-identifying as spiritual, more past experiences seen as supernatural (in general and involving psychedelics), and greater approval of psychedelics by one’s religious community (where applicable). In summary, many people see psychedelics as potential sources of supernatural messages. These supernatural attributions, in turn, are closely linked with attitudes, behaviors, and past experiences related to psychedelic use.

Flowing Across with Demonic Hate: Belief in Supernatural Evil and Support for Stricter Immigration Policy

AbstractPrior research has found that different aspects of religion (such as service attendance and fundamentalism) have significant and varying effects on public attitudes about immigration. We identify an important but understudied aspect of how religion connects to immigration attitudes: beliefs about the reality of supernatural evil (e.g., Satan, hell, and demons). Using a national sample of Americans, we find that greater belief in supernatural evil is a strong and consistent predictor of more restrictive views of immigration, even after controlling for other dimensions of religiosity, sociodemographics, and political characteristics. Overall, beliefs about religious evil are the aspect of religion with the strongest connection to views of immigration. Consequently, consideration of religious evil is integral to understanding how religion influences public attitudes about immigration.

Supernatural Defenses Activated through Death

ABSTRACT Objects such as concealed shoes, dried cats, horse skulls, written charms, and witch bottles have been found in thousands of buildings in Britain and elsewhere in the world with the clear aim of protecting the occupants of the building from sources of supernatural evil. There are also an array of marks that have been made on surfaces designed to ward off evil influences. Generally speaking, these objects contain an element of breakage or death before they can be used to protect against magical forces, arguably this is also true where the surface structure is broken to make a mark. Despite the large numbers of these objects and marks that exist, there is rarely any inclusion of them in works about the history of witchcraft. This paper is an exploration of the different objects and marks that were used for this purpose.

Face as Landscape: Refiguring Illness, Disability, and Disorders in David B.'s Epileptic

Face as LandscapeRefiguring Illness, Disability, and Disorders in David B.'s Epileptic Erin La Cour (bio) Signifying/Signifiance: L'Ascension du Haut Mal/Epileptic In 1996 French comics artist Pierre-François Beauchard, known professionally as David B., published the first of what would become a six-volume chronicle of the personal and interpersonal, emotional, and medical effects of his brother's epilepsy. In titling the series L'Ascension du Haut Mal (The ascension of the high evil), from the outset he draws attention to the connotation of the antiquated term for epilepsy: a supernatural evil taking possession of the body.1 While many reviewers of the work in both French and English have noted that le haut mal, along with its English counterpart "the falling sickness," fell out of use by the nineteenth century due to advancements in neurology, few have gone further in their examination of David B.'s use of the term as a paratext. In its English translation, first published as a collection of three volumes in 2002 and then in its entirety in 2005, the term le haut mal was abandoned in favor of, "simply," Epileptic. Perhaps one might conclude that the awkwardness of "the ascension of the falling sickness" (or the confusion of the literal translation from French, which might escape the reader) is the reason for the English title, but this easy assumption does not fully account for the connotations of "epileptic." In a review of the collected English translation of Epileptic for The Guardian, Ian Sansom commented on the title: "with epilepsy the disease defines the sufferer, the 'epileptic' as a human type. … In English, it seems, we allow the language to do the work of stigmatisation for us." While the label "epileptic" is problematically still used today (also in French: epileptique), as with many other illnesses, disabilities, and disorders, there has been a movement, at least since the World Health Organization's 1997 press release "Bringing Epilepsy Out of the Shadows: A Global Campaign is Launched," to clarify the difference between "epileptic" as a type of seizure and "epilepsy" as a neurological disorder. People are not defined as "epileptics," but rather "have epilepsy"—a significant and important difference.2 What Sansom does get right, however, is that the neurological disorder has been used to justify the creation of a human type, a fact that clearly did not escape David B. or his long-standing translator Kim Thompson.3 Epileptic is not a direct translation of language or cultural reference, but it speaks to the implied meaning of the original title: an othering upheld by binary conceptions of health and illness, ability and disability.4 Indeed, David B.'s reinscription of le haut mal into the contemporary imaginary, as well as his equation of a person having epilepsy and being epilepsy via the use of "epileptic," are instrumentalized to [End Page 71] engage in a discourse on the stigmatization of epilepsy as a "high evil" and of its sufferers as reduced to their disorder. But Epileptic is not a straightforward story of advocacy, solidarity, or support; much less is it instructional in terms of the ins and outs of prognosis, diagnosis, and treatment. While throughout the narrative we do get a sense of what David B.'s brother Jean-Christophe suffered because of his epilepsy, his diverse treatments, and the communities in which he lived, the comic does not seamlessly fit within the established aim of graphic medicine to give voice to the experience of illness, disability, or disorders.5 Instead, Epileptic is primarily a critically self-reflective memoir about David B.'s experiences living alongside and outside of Jean-Christophe's epilepsy. As French comics artist Appollo suggests in his review of the fifth installment of L'Ascension du Haut Mal, David B.'s choice of genre and representation come with significant risks: self-service in the face of another's disorder, and so, even worse, to the detriment of another. Appollo writes: David B. has definitely decided to go to the end of his story, at the risk of repetition, suffocation, complacency, and, perhaps, boredom. How many readers will follow him in his descent into the depths of his...

Peace through superior firepower: Belief in supernatural evil and attitudes toward gun policy in the United States

Although debates over guns and gun control have roiled the contemporary political scene, the role of religion has received only limited attention from scholars. We contribute to this literature by developing a series of theoretical arguments linking one specific facet of religion –belief in supernatural evil (i.e., the Devil/Satan, Hell, and demons)—and a range of gun policy attitudes. Relevant hypotheses are then tested using data from the 2014 Baylor Religion Survey (n = 1572). Results show that belief in supernatural evil is a robust predictor of support for policies that expand gun rights. Overall, the estimated net effects of belief in supernatural evil withstand statistical controls for a host of sociodemographic covariates, and, importantly, political ideology. Very few other aspects of religion are associated with any of these gun policy attitudes. Implications and study limitations are discussed, and promising directions for future research on religion and guns are identified.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Gun Ownership

AbstractThis question on how religious beliefs shape attitudes about guns has received little attention in the literature. We use the religious concept of supernatural evil, or beliefs about Satan, Hell, Armageddon, and demons, to provide context for ideas about gun ownership and the development of attitudes toward gun policy. While this has been explored quantitatively using national survey data, we argue that an in‐depth qualitative approach provides necessary nuance. As part of an ongoing ethnography in Northeastern Kansas, we conducted interviews with 55 women and 7 men who own and shoot guns. For this paper, we report on a religion module subsample that probes religiosity, spirituality, and gun ownership. Based on the rich contextual information from the interviews, we illuminate a package of beliefs that come together as an ethic, a set of moral principles guiding gun ownership for a subset of gun owners. We suggest the spirit of gun ownership is a bundle of duties that guide individual gun owners to stress the need to protect, be diligent, and defend. Moreover, belief in supernatural evil is bound up in policy attitudes that protect or expand gun rights.

The Flesh and the Devil: Belief in Religious Evil and Views of Sexual Morality

We examine an understudied connection between religion and sexuality: beliefs about the reality of supernatural evil (Satan, hell, and demons). After controlling for multiple other aspects of religiosity, beliefs about religious evil remain a strong and consistent predictor of attitudes about issues involving sexuality, including abortion, homosexuality, premarital sex, extramarital sex, and pornography use. Further, the effects of religious service attendance on attitudes about sexuality are contingent upon beliefs about religious evil. Moral condemnation of non-traditional sexuality is significantly higher among regular religious participants who believe strongly in religious evil compared to actively religious people who disbelieve in religious evil, as well as compared to people who do not attend religious services. Beliefs about religious evil are therefore central to understanding the empirical connections between religion and support for conservative, traditional views of sexual morality.

Belief in Supernatural Evil and Mental Health: Do Secure Attachment to God and Gender Matter?

AbstractThis study examines whether belief in supernatural evil is associated with mental health. In addition, it assesses how secure attachment to God moderates this association and how gender conditions the moderating effect of secure attachment to God. Among a variety of mental health outcomes, this study focuses on general mental health problems as well as anxiety‐related disorders (e.g., general anxiety, social anxiety, and paranoia). Using data from the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey (N = 1,627), the analyses reveal that belief in supernatural evil is positively associated with general anxiety and paranoia. In addition, secure attachment to God buffers the positive associations between belief in supernatural evil and social anxiety and paranoia. Yet, when general mental health problems and general anxiety serve as the outcome measures, secure attachment to God attenuates the positive associations of belief in supernatural evil with mental health only for women, but not men. These results underscore the ways that religious beliefs have both positive and negative implications for mental health. Furthermore, they highlight the importance of gender in the complex relationships between religious beliefs and mental health.

Macbeth dir. by José Luis Valenzuela

Reviewed by: Macbethdir. by José Luis Valenzuela Michael W. Shurgot MacbethPresented by Oregon Shakespeare Festival at Mountain Avenue Theatre, Ashland, OR. 05 28- 10 11, 2019. Directed by José Luis Valenzuela. Lighting by Pablo Santiago. Costumes by Chrisi Karvonides-Dushenko. Set by Christopher Acebo. Music and sound by John Zalewski. Fights by U. Jonathan Toppo. With Danforth Comins (Macbeth), Amy Kim Waschke (Lady Macbeth), Chris Butler (Macduff), Al Espinosa (Banquo), Robin Goodrin Nordli (First Witch), Miriam A. Laube (Second Witch), Erica Sullivan (Third Witch), Rex Young (Duncan, Doctor, Porter), William Thomas Hodgson (Malcolm), Cameron Davis (Donalbain), Will Wilhelm (Fleance), MacGregor Arney (Lennox), Russell Lloyd (Ross), Michele Mais (Hecate, Lady Macduff, Nurse), Lillia Houshmand (First Murderer), Torrin Kelly (Second Murderer), Eric Solis (Third Murderer), Nicolai Moore (Macduff Child), and others. Amid an otherwise dismal 2019 Oregon Shakespeare Festival season, José Luis Valenzuela's Macbethwas insightful and inventive. Though again this year forced out of the Elizabethan Theatre by smoke from forest fires, the company carried on and staged an especially memorable Macbeth. Christopher Acebo replicated the front of the Elizabethan Theatre in the indoor Mountain Avenue Theatre: two levels, with curving stairways ascending to the upper level. Hecate occasionally appeared above, and Macbeth and Lady Macbeth ascended the stairs to murder Duncan and the grooms. The Weird Sisters retreated to small entrances at stage left and right, as if hiding, and from there watched Macbeth and Lady Macbeth over whom they exercised considerable power. As the Mountain Avenue Theatre is considerably smaller than the Elizabethan, the stage seemed increasingly claustrophobic and frightening as Macbeth's reign of terror engulfed women and children. The opening dumb show, the funeral of the Macbeths' child (yes, Lady Macbeth had given suck), began with the cast members as mourners—all in black except for three figures in white, who later emerged as the Weird Sisters—approaching the casket center stage from the aisles. Macbeth and Lady [End Page 591]Macbeth emerged with the casket from backstage, the same place from which Macbeth later emerged sitting naked in a bathtub-as-cauldron in 4.1 as the Sisters poured their poisonous concoction all over him. Also employed throughout the play were three large steel frames on wheels that the Sisters moved about the stage constantly, as if they were "framing" the characters and the action to their satanic designs. They often stood within these metal frames, peering intently at the characters yet invisible to them. Their most stunning use of these frames occurred as Lady Macbeth, furiously wringing her hands and wearing the immaculate white gown from her first entrance in 1.5, emerged from the back of the stage in 5.1. As if seeking to recapture a sense of innocence and purity beforethe murder of Duncan ("A little water clears us of this deed"), she had gone to her closet to fetch the white gown, sensing in her insanity that it was fitting for her final walk about the castle. The Weird Sisters aligned the frames from back to front of the stage, creating a steel corridor through which they marshaled her toward death and damnation. She hanged herself with a long rope dangling from the top of the stage by twisting her body so tightly into it that she could apparently suspend herself by her neck. It was as stunning an acrobatic movement on stage as I have ever seen. The "Weird Sisters," or Witches as identified in the program, clearly represented a supernatural evil. They were on stage throughout the action, from attending the opening funeral to bearing witness to Macduff holding aloft Macbeth's severed head. They acted as stage hands, arranging the steel cages to accommodate the movements of characters as the action unfolded, and their constant presence strongly suggested a profound influence on the Macbeths. They constantly peered at the royal couple as they dove deeper into evil, and attended Macbeth during his soliloquies. Indeed, in 4.1 Danforth Comins's powerful Macbeth was almost reduced to a child taking his Saturday night bath as the Sisters hovered over his naked body, delighting in terrifying and humiliating him. While Valenzuela's staging here might have...

OUTCOME AND ROOTS OF EARLY MARRIAGES IN GILGIT-BALTISTAN: A QUANTITATIVE DESCRIPTIVE STUDY

The aim of this study was to find out the causes and outcome of the early marriages in the light of victims and gatekeepers observations. However, one-third of under-aged girls in the developing countries are married before the age of 18 years. Although in Northern areas of Pakistan, early marriage is a very common problem in both gender, especially, in Gilgit-Baltistan and the ratio is higher than any other part of the country. Moreover, in this region, early marriage is prevailed due to traditional customs, religious dominance and supernatural evil. The present study chose two categories, first category for victims which includes respondents of age group from 10 to 40 years old and married before 18 years of age. The second category was chosen for interpretation of the community gatekeepers. We utilized a quantitative survey method to collect data from each district and examined 200 sample. A sample is divided into two groups, the victim's group includes 150 respondents and the group of gatekeepers includes 50 sample size. The tailor-made close-ended questionnaire was designed for the collection of data. Beside this, a Likert scale was also used for Professionals. 
 There is a need to take some serious steps to eliminate this social disease which promotes the illiteracy, poverty, crime, economic burden, terrorism, domestic violence and rapid increase in population which is surmounting challenges in the pathway of regional development. Early marriage has psychological, physical and economic consequences; most girls remain unable to complete their primary and secondary education and also have the negative impact on their health.

The Holocaust in film: witnessing the extermination through the eyes of children

ABSTRACT A number of filmmakers cinematize the Holocaust from the standpoint of children, making them the main characters and depicting the genocide through their eyes. Most of such films are framed, at least in part, as a fairy tale, whereby the Holocaust becomes the dominant evil to face and overcome. In the minds of children, the persecution and genocide that simply cannot be imagined as part of their everyday reality become a supernatural evil over which good must triumph. These films do not deny the Holocaust as myth but use those simple and familiar qualities to illustrate its severity.

Stephen King’s vampire kingdom: Supernatural evil and human evil in TV adaptations of Salem’s Lot (1979, 2004)

Abstract This article compares the representation of evil in the two TV mini-series adaptations of Stephen King’s 1975 vampire novel Salem’s Lot. The first adaptation for CBS in 1979 was directed by Tobe Hooper, and used a heightened gothic style in order to depict the takeover of the town by an atavistic European vampire who is presented in the style of Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922). In contrast the 2004 version for TNT, directed by Mikael Salomon, takes a more realist stance, downplaying the gothic in favour of suggesting that it is much more petty and human forms of evil that are the principal force behind the town’s destruction. As articulated by failed catholic priest Father Callaghan, the distinction between supernatural and human evil lies at the heart of King’s novel, and arguably at the centre of his writing more generally, and so by examining the way evil is depicted across these two adaptations, this piece will consider the duality that lies at the heart of King’s vampiric metaphor.