Wuhan Journal of Cultic Studies
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Volume 1: Issue 2, 2021
ARTICLE
Revealing Patterns: Darek C. Barefoot, Satanic Images in Jehovah’s Witnesses Publications, and Biblical Typologies Stefano Bigliardi Al Akhawayn University Abstract The article reconstructs and analyses the writings of author, ex-Jehovah’s Witness (JW), and YouTuber Darek C. Barefoot. Barefoot wrote his first book in the early 1990s to explain how his attempt at demonstrating and denouncing the existence of satanic images in Jehovah’s Witnesses publications led to his disfellowshipment. Later, he published philosophical articles including discussions of Clive Staples Lewis’s “argument from reason.” Finally, he specialises in an exegetic method called “typologetics” that he popularizes by blogging and vlogging. This study shows how the narrative about satanic images sent, and is still sending, ripples throughout global conversations about Jehovah’s Witnesses, also in directions that Barefoot would not have suspected nor welcomed, and how Barefoot’s writings, although at first glance heterogeneous, display methodological unity and continuity. Keywords: Argument from reason, Biblical typologies, conspiracism, C. S. Lewis, Darek C. Barefoot, disfellowshipping, Jehovah’s Witnesses, occult images, satanic images, subliminal images, Satanism | ||