2. When British Intelligence Created a Satanism and Witchcraft Scare
On what came to be known as “Bloody Sunday“, January 30th, 1972, British paratroopers shot 26 Catholic protesters in Northern Ireland. Fourteen died. An already tense situation known as The Troubles got orders of magnitude worse. Urban guerrilla warfare erupted, as Catholic and Irish nationalist hostility towards Britain skyrocketed. Many who until then had been content with protests and civil disobedience now flocked to join paramilitaries and fight the state. Before anybody knew it, the British military and police had their hands full trying to keep a lid on things. British military intelligence turned to psychological warfare in an attempt to lessen public support for the paramilitaries. As the violence mounted, Captain Collin Wallace, a British Army psychological warfare specialist, executed a plan to link the armed groups with Satanism, witchcraft, and black magic.
Coverage of satanism, witchcraft, and black magic rituals in the Irish press. Pinterest
1. Northern Ireland’s Demonic Panic
British military intelligence wanted to create the idea that Irish paramilitaries and their violence had unleashed evil forces. Against the backdrop of newfound fears triggered by recent movies like The Devil Rides Out and The Exorcist, Wallace and his men scattered upside-down crucifixes and black candles across war-torn Belfast. Simultaneously, the authorities leaked stories about demonic rituals, witchcraft, black masses, and tied them to run-of-the-mill crimes. In the last four months of 1973 alone, over seventy articles about devil worship and the like were published. As a result, a panic about Satanism, black magic, and witchcraft swept through Northern Ireland. As Collin Wallace explained years later: “Ireland was very superstitious and all we had to do was bring it up to date“. As an added bonus from the authorities’ perspective, the manufactured hysteria helped keep kids home at night, and away from buildings used for undercover surveillance.
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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading
