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| Gary Greenwald in his glory days. |
Now, this is a legend. It’s been a while since he’s been in the spotlight, but Gary Greenwald was big in the 80s and early 90s, the heydays of the Satanic Panic movement, to which he contributed a series of currently much sought-after videos in which he would find occult or satanic symbolism almost everywhere, especially in toys, music or television shows for kids. His primary target was, in fact, rock music, which he claimed contained much demonic backward masking, but many raging fundies were doing that in the 80s and Greenwald’s name is forever tied to the videos he created with “Turmoil in the toybox”-author Phil Phillips, in which they analyzed Saturday morning cartoons and various toys for their putative Satanic influence. Apparently winding each other up, Phillips and Greenwald would make more and more bizarre claims; here you can for instance watch Greenwald top Phillips’s claim that Smurfs are undead corpses with an anecdote about Dungeons and Dragons game pieces screaming in pain when thrown into the fireplace. Apparently Greenwald still runs something called “Eagle’s Nest Ministries” in California and practices faith healing.
Greenwald’s topics were not limited to music and toys, but also concerned Asian martial arts, yoga and cursed statues and jewelry that might have a demonic influence on their owners. Highlights of his output include:
- The Punk Called Rock (1981) a cassette series where Greenwald would expose satanic subliminal messages in the popular music of the era. These are currently coveted collectors’ items.
- Marijuana, the Heavenly Deception (1983), a book.
- Rock’s Primal Scream (1983), a VHS where Greenwald presents examples of how Satan uses rock music to control listeners and in the end completely possess them.
o Scooby-Doo, which promotes occult things like amulets, spell-casting and “dark and evil realms.”
o E.T., which sent a clear Satanic message (it’s actually a bit unclear what it was, but E.T.’s healing powers were apparently meant to mislead children into thinking that Jesus was an alien).
o He-Man: the toys were magical objects, and the show instructed kids in how to use these items to cast spells (with incantations like “By the power of Grayskull”) and worship pagan idols; the message of the show being that “He-Man is more powerful than Jesus.”
o The Thundercats series; promoting all sorts of paganism (after all, the main characters were human/animal hybrids much like the deities of many ancient religions); also, they would use martial arts, which is clearly a Satanic practice since it is rooted in false Eastern religions.
o Superman, which promotes necromancy.
o The Smurfs: primarily designed to get children to think that an entirely homosexual community is just fine – in addition to the fact that their blue color being a symbol of the fact that they are spirits of the dead. Yup, gay zombies, no less.
o She-Ra; explicit promotion of witchcraft.
o My Little Pony; unicorns are pagan and hate Jesus.
o Star Wars, which promotes paganism, Zen Buddhism and outright Satanism (the Force is obviously Satan); moreover, Darth Vader was “intentionally designed to look like Odin,” something that was definitely lost on anyone but Greenwald and Phillips (he was also, you know, the bad guy, but perhaps Greenwald and Phillips didn’t quite see it that way).
- Prophets and Prophetic Movements (1990), a book with an impressive range of random but consistently completely insane pieces of advice on how to run a church.
- Seductions Exposed: The Spiritual Dynamics of Relationships (2003), a more recent book in which he explains various factors that can lead to abusive relationships and romantic problems, such as “cursing yourself through forbidden statues, jewelry, and practices.”
It is worth noting that Rock’s Primal Scream followed a series of lectures and at least one mass record smashing event.
Diagnosis: A legend. True, his efforts may have caused some frustration among kids in the eighties, but he arguably makes up for that with the entertainment value he provides these days. Complete idiot.