Devilishly Clever

Among the primary uses of religion, virtuous homicide is rivalled only by crowd control; and an army black ops unit with the Minitrueful name of Information Policy apparently put this fact to good use during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. A Sheffield University academic has published a book in which intelligence officers claim that they whipped up "subtle" artificial panics about Satanic rituals, going so far as to plant black candles and inverted crucifixes in abandoned buildings, in order to propagandise against paramilitary movements. Since the feuding Christian churches evidently did not sense the devil's presence in mere murder and mayhem, it was necessary to invent him so that Protestant and Catholic clerics would exert their moral authority against the troublemakers. It didn't help much, presumably because the churches, like Whitehall, considered the murder and mayhem sinful or meritorious according to which side carried them out; but there were also the additional bonuses of ensuring that buildings used for surveillance were left alone, and of keeping teenagers, children and British Military Intelligence from blundering into anything at night.