Deception of a Generation

Deception of a Generation is a video from Eagle's Nest Ministries that is horribly flawed. Here, Gary Greenwald, who did other videos for the congregation, including one where he called rock music a tool of the devil, targets cartoons and toys alongside Phil Phillips, a writer infamous for writing fear-mongering books such as Turmoil In The Toy Box and Saturday Morning Mind Control (the former being responsible for destroying many a childhood back in the day).

This was made during the time in the 80's when fear of anything Satanic was at its peak. This video is basically another example of how such ministries and churches uses fear-mongering to force families to convert to their beliefs. Throughout the video, Gary shows clips from cartoons like 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, He-Man, She-Ra, The Transformers, and other cartoons popular at the time are shown (whether or not Eagle's Nest Ministries got permission to use said clips in the video is unknown), along with some of the toys. Heck, even Care Bears and My Little Pony are targeted in this video.

The two presenters do a horrible job making their case. Phil claims he started looking into this when he was on a fourteen day fast and bought one of the toys, and after showing it to his ministers, he heard God speak to him about what happens when a kid plays with a toy, which makes me question if it was God or a voice that is a result of being delusional from hunger. The video contains a lot of misinformation, as they mispronounce names, and Phil even tells of a story where a four-year-old said God is not master of the universe, He-Man is, treating it like it was a bad thing (the kid was four years old at the time, so he didn't know better, that is, if the stories are actually true). Also, the two compare items on the toys to actual occult symbols, which is not good because even if something resembles such icons, it may not be the same.

Overall, this video is flawed, and I have to feel sorry for the 80's kids whose parents fell for this blasphemous fear-mongering garbage. Gary and Phil prove through their dialogue that they cannot tell reality from fantasy, instead looking at any detail in a cartoon and toy they can label an occultist image in an attempt to continue the trend of religious fear-mongering, and even going as far as to even include any religious nut's favorite target, Dungeons & Dragons. It's people like these two that are the reason why people tend to avoid going to church, and even go as far as treat religion as a joke. True Christians should steer clear of this one.

Don't get me wrong. The majority of Christians out there in the world would think that what these two are talking about is complete nonsense. But back in the 80's there was a small, but vocal, group of Christians that saw the Devil in literally everything. And to be fair there some of those things were legitimate like heavy metal album covers and the like. But for the most part it was just them making connections to things that weren't there.

Enter "Deception of a Generation" by two guys who I want to assume are earnest in their belief that the Devil is everywhere and want to show it to you. The problems is they have nothing to back up their words, get a lot of what they say wrong and present anecdotes that literally they have no evidence for.

They present children toys and can't even get the names right. That by itself might not be a big deal but it shows the level of investigation that they did. For example they refer to He-Man as coming from "Ethernia" when it's "Eternia". Or mistake a character called "Man E Faces", an obvious reference to the fact he has three faces, to "Mini Faces" and says he turns from a demonic creature to a human. Actually he has a robot face, a monster face and a human face. The monster face or "demon face" as they call it is also his weakest face as it allows him to be controlled by Beast Man. Or let's not forget the original "My Little Pony" which they refer to as simply "My Pony" and their biggest takeaway from this is that some of them use magic. Magic is of course evil because it comes from the Devil according to them.

Fact is there is no real evidence for what they put forth and it's really nothing more than scare mongering from some rather stupid and gullible people. Watch it if you want a laugh, not to get actual information on what's going on.

Many of us as kids were trying to enjoy the 1980s, while many who were pushing the paranoia-laced "Satanic Panic" were trying to discourage our parents and grandparents from letting us do just that, out of the fear that our toys, games, and cartoons were possible links to Occultism and that we were all going to become little servants of Satan. Oh, how wrong they were.

Gary Greenwald, a self-proclaimed prophet, left a quarter-million-dollar sign business in 1978 to start Eagle's Nest Ministries when he allegedly received prophetic words confirming his call.

Since then, he published several books, cassette lectures, and Eagle's Nest TV shows attacking but not limited to rock music, paganism, Halloween, children's toys, Saturday morning cartoons, Asian martial arts, yoga and statues and jewelry with a perceived occult influence.

With "Deception of a Generation", being joined by Phil Phillips, who wrote several books trying, in vain, to connect occultism to children's toys, joined Greenwald to present his findings about children's toys, Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, and even comic books having influence on children, claiming that they were a catalyst for occultism.

The only problem is much of their findings, as is the case of Greenwald's previous works, are without any conclusive or relative evidence. They watch clips of cartoons without actually watching them before hand and give out-of-context information on them, as well as the toys they look at and review.

Such outrageous claims made by the duo are old arguments that D&D led to impersonating deities, occultism, suicides, murders, behavioral alterations in pre-teens and teenagers, and that people burned D&D material and heard screams as they burned. Another laughable claim was that Star Wars was a propagator of Satanism, saying that The Force was a gift handed down to witches from Satan.

Not only is their presentation out-of-context and sorely lacking in actual evidence, but half the time also they can't even get names right, but continue to claim that every toy, game, comic, and cartoon they talk about is connected to occultism.

Anyone who would watch this show today would laugh it off as absurd, laughable, or ridiculous because all the statements made by Gary Greenwald and Phil Phillips has long since been debunked, and no connections to the occult have been found.

However, at the time of this show's release, many parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles believed these statements to be true, the true Deception of "Deception of A Generation" was rather the "Destruction of Childhoods".

Give it a watch if you want a good laugh, that's all it is good for anymore. Today, the show is considered a Cult Classic of the Satanic Panic era and it is so laughable and bad that it is good, and sadly there are people who still believe the message of it, although it has long since been debunked and considered irrelevant.