Speak of the Devil (book)

Speak of the Devil: Tales of Satanic Abuse in Contemporary England

Author	Jean Sybil La Fontaine
Language	English
Subject	Satanic ritual abuse
Genre	Non-fiction
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Publication date	1998
Publication place	United Kingdom
Pages	224
ISBN	0-521-62934-9
OCLC	36548968
Dewey Decimal	364.15/554/0941 21
LC Class	HV6626.54.G7 L3 1998

Speak of the Devil: Tales of Satanic Abuse in Contemporary England is a scholarly book by J. S. La Fontaine published in 1998 that discusses her investigation of allegations of satanic ritual abuse made in the United Kingdom. The book documents a detailed investigation of the accounts of children during a wave of allegations of satanic ritual abuse, as well as the processes within the social work profession that supported the allegations despite a lack of evidence. ^[1]

Reception

Academic reviews

The book was reviewed by Joel Best, ^[2] T. M. Luhrmann, ^[3] James Beckford, ^[4] and I. K. Wier. ^[5] Robin Woffitt of the University of Surrey praised the book for clearly describing the origins of the satanic ritual abuse moral panic in the United Kingdom. ^[1]

Subsequent academic reception

The English archaeologist Timothy Taylor critically discussed Fontaine's work in his book The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death (2002). He compared the work to the anthropologist William Arens's 1979 book The Man-Eating Myth , which he described as a "hollow certainty of viscerally insulated inexperience". Asserting that Arens uses a flawed methodology that has echoes of Speak of the Devil, Taylor himself suggests that multiple claims of the Satanic ritual abuse have been incorrectly dismissed for being considered "improbable". ^[6]

Publication details

• La Fontaine, J. S. (1998). Speak of the Devil: allegations of satanic abuse in Britain. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   0-521-62934-9.

References

Footnotes

1. Wooffitt, R (30 June 1998). "Book review - Speak of the Devil: Tales of Satanic Abuse in Contemporary England". 3 (2). Sociological Research Online.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
2. Best, J; Fontaine, J. S. La (1999). "Reviewed work(s): Speak of the Devil: Tales of Satanic Abuse in Contemporary England by J. S. La Fontaine". Contemporary Sociology. 28 (1). American Sociological Association: 107–108. doi:10.2307/2653911. JSTOR   2653911.
3. LUHRMANN, TM (2000). "Reviews - Speak of the Devil. Tales of satanic abuse in contemporary England. BY J. S. LA FONTAINE". Social Anthropology. 8 (1): 79–89. doi:10.1017/S0964028200230085.
4. Beckford, JA (1999). "Book Review - J. S. La Fontaine, Speak of the Devil: Tales of Satanic Abuse in Contemporary England". Sociology. 33 (1): 217–218. doi:10.1177/0038038599033001024. S2CID   220675732.
5. Weir, IK (1999). "Book Reviews - Speak of the Devil: Tales of Satanic Abuse in Contemporary England. By J. S. La Fontaine". Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 40 (5): 829–832. doi:10.1017/s0021963099213832.
6. Taylor 2002. pp. 280–283.