The fascination with the occult novels that began in the 1970’s began with Stephen King. He began writing horror and mystery novels and has been writing in this genre since. The author started his career with his work called Carrie, about a shy girl that develops magical powers from instigation from an overbearing, religious mother and bullies at school. King’s novels hold his career nicely, but in addition to these he also has written poetry and short stories, including a very famous short story, called The Children of the Corn, that was later made into a movie. This story shows obvious connections to the culture of the time in America. This book was written in 1977 and was preceded with the increase in Neo-Pagan practices that led to the combination of this culture with witchcraft. This combined culture became known as Wiccan.  Inspired partly by this new cultural group, large cults, such as the Manson Family, began to make their way into headline news. The Manson Family and others like them used Pagan-like practices and symbols to form a sort of hierarchal system within their cults. Charles Manson used symbols from Paganism to create fear and awareness of his group.  The context of Stephen King’s The Children of the Corn, comes from the cultural shifts in Neo-paganism and the formation of murderous cults such as the Manson Family and the Peoples’ Temple.

The 1970’s people were faced with all new types of diversity. The Neo-Pagan followers became a part of the mainstream culture and formed with witchcraft practices to become what is known as Wiccan. The Wiccan people had records of many different symbols and practices that they would use to control the spirits or goddesses of the elements. The Children of the Corn takes characters of the cult branded or scarred with these symbols. In the case of this short story, the symbol is a shape, the pentagram. Ritualistically, a pentagram was used to symbolize the coming of the devil or bad luck. Stephen King took this symbol and had it carved into the characters’ chests to damn them. Also, because of the Wiccan beliefs in the elements, the use of fire was common. There are practices of sacrifice, involving fire, that recognize some impurities that a person gains when they pass the age of eighteen. Fire became the ritualistic damnation ground for the opposition to the cult in this short story. Incantations can be for many different uses in different groups of people, however, in particularly the Wiccan culture chants are used to move certain beings in nature to perform the duties one wishes them to. Incantations in The Children of the Corn are for a ceremonial practice involving a pit of fire, but whatever the purpose the incantations, no doubt, resemble those of the witchcraft culture. The influences of this group on the context of King’s novel is obvious. Wiccan culture had just been created and popularized a decade or two before this novel was written and would have been all over the news and a new trend amongst younger people.

Along with the news blowing up the Wiccan culture, News stations could not get enough of the murderous cults that also began to form about the same time. The hierarchal structure of the cult in King’s story is a solid portrayal of the historical influence that groups such as the Manson Family and the Peoples’ Temple had on the masses of the 1970’s. The Manson Family is a murderous gang that was created by Charles Manson in California. This cult was formed not even a decade before this short story was written. The children in the short story and the Manson Family share similar induction processes. New members being inducted into the Manson family were depleted of an emotional or sometimes physical necessity until they felt that joining the group was the only option for survival. In the short story, the children that ran the cult went through town and murdered all the adults, creating lost orphans of the children and forcing them to join the cult. This act of murder mirrors a practice that was practiced by cult groups, like the Peoples’ Temple, of the 1970’s.Mass suicide was another common aspect that became part of the occult with the introduction of the Peoples’ Temple during the 1970’s, who believed in a strong sense of self-sacrifice. There was no evidence of mass suicide in this story, but early on in the book there is a mass killing of all the adult in the town where the children live. The idea of cleansing a society is common in both these practices even though they are carried out very differently.

The Children of the Corn draws only contextually from these sources. Stephen King has such strong influences from these sources that it almost seems that he is directly referencing them. There has been a specific ‘idioculture’ as described by Gary Alan Fine, in his work about the Manson Family. The unique qualities of the Manson Family parallel those of the Wiccan society in the way they are collected into organized groups. The two cultures also affect Stephen King in similar ways, in that they inspire dark themes in his novels.     