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 caused by 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. Neo-Pagan religions are reinventions of belief systems from cultures such as: Celtic, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, etc. This popularization of Pagan cultures, because of its supernatural qualities eventually combined itself with practices of 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”, has strong influence and connection with the cultural shifts in Neo-paganism and the formation of murderous cults such as the Manson Family and the Peoples’ Temple.

During 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. These people were associated with Satan worshipping, though Wiccan culture has no recognition of the concept of the devil. 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 and brands or scars them with symbols. In the case of this short story, the symbol is a shape, a 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 are 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 starting to become 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 as Wiccan. There has been a specific “idioculture” as described by Gary Alan Fine, related to these cults and their practices. The unique qualities of the Manson Family parallel those of the Wiccan society in the way they are collected into organized groups, that technically could be considered part of the same culture. 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 adults 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.

Many things go on in a decade and many things change, especially culture. Cultural change during the time this story was written became an integral part of the storyline. “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. The two cultures also affect Stephen King in similar ways, in that they inspire dark themes in his novels. The context that influenced this short story, without a doubt, influenced other Stephen King stories around the same time. King’s novel Carrie, as mentioned earlier, also utilized symbols from the neo-pagan movement to convey a genre, however, this story does not have the direct evidence of culture that “Children of the Corn” does. The ‘idioculture’ mentioned by Fine earlier in the paper is a collection of beliefs and culture of not just either the cults or the Wiccan people, but a combination with influences from both. The two influences as a team have influenced Stephen King by adding a cultural and historical background to his story about a murderous cult of children in a small, Nebraskan town, called Gatlin. 
