What’s behind our “teen witch” obsession?

Why do we fear the occult — and the teenage girls who dabble in it? Sady Doyle has some clues. Photo by Flickr user alicetiara.

In my research for Backward Messages, I came across more than one story about groups of teen girls who became temporarily obsessed with the film The Craft. This was before Harry Potter. Indeed, it was before Charmed, the show which brought young, attractive, savvy witches to television screens everywhere. Having a teenager suddenly enthralled by witches definitely worried some parents — but most admitted it was a phase, and it passed.

Still, truths are hidden in our scary movies (even if The Craft doesn’t really fall into that category). Sady Doyle, who writes at the blog Rookie, tackles this topic personally and gracefully in one of her latest posts, “The Season of the Witch.” In it, she writes about her own teen obsession with witchy films — as well as the cultural anxieties that are often behind horror films and our fears of them.

Before there was The Craft, there were the Salem witch trials, which started because the young girls of the town were engaging in unearthly, demonic behavior—such as “screaming” and “throwing things.” You know. The sort of thing you’d never do as a 12-year-old, especially not if you were stuck in a freezing-cold Puritan settlement where the funnest activity was churning butter.

Doyle smartly addresses the stories of cultural figures like Annelise Michel, a teenage girl who died in Germany in 1976 of neglect and starvation because her staunchly Catholic parents insisted that her adolescent behavior (and epilepsy) was the work of demons possessing her. In a more fictional account, there’s The Exorcist, which Doyle views thusly:

Once you realize that The Exorcist is, essentially, the story of a 12-year-old who starts cussing, masturbating, and disobeying her mother — in other words, going through puberty — it becomes apparent to the feminist-minded viewer why two adult men are called in to slap her around for much of the third act. People are convinced that something spooky is going on with girls; that, once they reach a certain age, they lose their adorable innocence and start tapping into something powerful and forbidden.

In our society, women’s sexuality and the occult remain two subjects many people understand less well than they should — and we fear what we don’t understand. It makes sense that these two should be combined, or serve as metaphors for one another, in our films and fiction.

The question remains: why do we fear teenage girls so much? I’ve seen this asked many times, but haven’t found a comprehensive answer. Certainly, it is a topic we revisit in horror films. What’s interesting is, some films are obviously there to allow people to explore these fears in a safe, fictional way. And other films — such as The Craft — help teenage girls come to grips with fears about how their bodies and minds are changing as they enter adolescence and, eventually, adulthood. Although it would be great to leave these fears behind, we haven’t — and this is how we’re dealing with it, for now.

Do these films contribute to actual girl-hatred and girl-fear in our culture? Or do they simply reflect and (hopefully) exorcise the fear that already exists? I suspect it’s more the latter. What do you think?

“The Rite” priest claims Internet is causing increase in demonic possession

Image by Flickr user Joe Howell.

Since Anthony Hopkins’ new film The Rite is #1 at the box office right now, public attention has turned once again to the classic Catholic ritual known as exorcism. This happens every few years, as with the release of The Exorcism of Emily Rose in 2005 and The Last Exorcism in 2010.

It’s interesting that humans can’t really shake this idea that it’s possible for evil spirits to enter us and take over, as though we were puppets. Certainly some forms of mental illness (as well as tremendously bad moods or poor impulses) can feel this way. And for some reason we are especially attached to the idea of teenagers falling prey to the charms of the Devil.

That may explain why Father Gary Thomas, the real-life priest played by Hopkins in The Rite, is warning parents about the demonic dangers of the Internet. In his eyes, looking at Web sites devoted to the occult — everything from Tarot cards to séances — makes teens vulnerable to “demonic influences” and, ultimately, possession. Of course, the only cure for possession is exorcism, which is Thomas’ line of work, so to speak.

As usual, his claims are pretty much based on hearsay and/or anecdotes:

He said there were “no statistics” on how many people might be possessed but said there was a definite increase.

“What I can tell you is that there are more and more Catholics involved in idolatrous and pagan practices,” he said. “That’s really why there’s more demonic activity. There’s the absence of God in the lives of a lot of people.”

He added: “A lot of parents today have no critical eye of faith with which to even recognise the dangers their children are in. A lot of this is going on with the internet. There are lots and lots of demonic websites.”

Since Fr. Thomas doesn’t describe the symptoms of “demonic influence,” it’s hard to say objectively what might be on the upswing. It sounds like he’s talking about more than simply straying from the Catholic flock. But what exactly? Unusual behavior? Criticisms of organized religion? Heads turning 360 degrees? I can’t help but wish he’d been more specific, but I suppose that would make his Internet claims easier to debunk.

From my own observations of cultural behavior (specifically in the context of moral panics), the #1 cause for increases in anything is increased awareness of that thing. You know how when you buy a particular kind of car, suddenly you notice all the other people who own that same car? Now imagine you’ve just been told that demonic possession/influence among teens is on the rise, and the Internet is causing it. What are you going to see the next time your teen acts weird?

Here’s my question for readers today: Did you grow up in a religious household, or do you know someone who did? Did your parents (or the parents you knew) ever chalk up a kid’s bad behavior to “the Devil?” I’d love to hear those stories.