ABSTRACT
Kenya, at the end of the twentieth century, experienced a moral panic over devil worship. With the August 1999 release of the report commissioned by President Daniel Arap-Moi in 1994, most Kenyans came to believe that they were in the midst of a devil worship epidemic. Fears, accusations, and rumors about satanic practices spread far and wide, and became part of the nation’s popular consciousness. Stories of ritual murder, kidnapping, and other dark and nefarious deeds circulated in both the informal and legitimate presses. A sampling of a few headlines from 1999 to 2002 illustrates the pervasiveness of devil worship fears: “Devil Worship Alive in Kenya,” “Satanism Is a Strong Evil Force,” “Man Wipes Out Entire Family for Satanic Ritual,” “They Were Killed by Freemasons,” “Ritual Killing on Ngong Road,” and “People behind Children [sic] Ritual Murders.” However, newspapers were not the only source of information; numerous oral narratives about devil worshippers circulated in Nairobi and throughout the country.2 Fear of devil worshippers permeated all levels of society; people found the rumors and stories believable and acted on their outrage, which lead to several public lynchings. On one occasion, in Nairobi, an elderly man was beaten to death because people thought he was kidnapping two children for a satanic ritual. It turns out that he was the children’s grandfather and was simply taking them to school. Many Kenyans believed that devil worshippers were pervasive and ineluctable, and imagined them conducting nighttime rituals that facilitated their acquisition of wealth and power. But even more frightening, Satanists, it seems, were after Kenya’s youth. National newspapers reported that devil worshiping cults were growing and recruiting in Kenya’s primary and secondary boarding schools. In short, Kenya’s youth were in danger.
