Weird Tract Number 90: "The Devil's Alphabet" by Kurt E. Koch

Troy Davis writes:

Back in 2012, during the production of the short film I wrote, Ivy League Exorcist: The Bobby Jindal Story, I created a promotional Chick tract parody, "A Demon-Hunting Veep" (read it here) because right when the film was released in July, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney had Jindal on his short list to be his running-mate (Romney eventually picked Rep. Paul Ryan) . I even went to San Diego Comic-Con 2012 and passed out about a thousand of the tracts (Matt Groening was one of the recipients).

The original comic book, "A Demon-Hunting Veep?", didn't let the reader know that it was a spoof. One panel became an Internet meme: the panel that warned about the numerous "doorways to demonic possession," an eclectic list of the various practices that composed "Satan's Spiritual Structure"; the list included diverse elements such as "marihuana" and pot parties, yoga, Harry Potter, postmodernism, and Yale's Skull and Bones. Somebody took a pic of the panel and posted it on the Internet without any context. The decontextualized panel soon became a meme and over the past eight years has appeared on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites. People would list the number of the alleged satanic practices they've engaged in. I wrote a couple blog posts on the panel in the context of memetics, cultural deconstructionism, and Poe's Law (here and here).

One of the reasons that the list has endured as a meme is that the list is mostly based on practices attacked by fundamentalists as being the Devil's playground. There were a few on the list that were obvious put-ons such as cyberpunk culture, postmodernism, and "alt" comix, but most of the listed items have been the scourges of Chick Publications. Jack Chick has railed against most the things on the list and former Chick Publications author Rebecca Brown singled out astral-projection and vegetarianism as being demonic in her creepy book He Came To Set The Captives Free.

Theologian Kurt E. Koch (1913-1987) was a German Protestant theologian who focused on the occult. The list of devilish activities in 156-page book The Devil's Alphabet has a lot of overlap with Chick's list. Koch includes as diabolical practices: clairvoyance, Christian Science, fire-walking, Freemasonry, hypnosis, spiritism, wart removal [!], and yoga.

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

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