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A Straight Dope Classic from Cecil's storehouse of human knowledge
31-Jun-1986
Dear Cecil:
I heard a rumor that the people who run Procter & Gamble belong to the Church of
Satan, and that the symbol on most P&G products (it looks like the man in the moon
surrounded by dots, but it's so small you can't tell for sure) reflects this affiliation.
I'm more than happy to let others pursue Satan at their own risk, but I feel a little
queasy knowing there's a satanic figure stamped on every box of Puffs, Cascade, and the
many other P&G products I've come to like. Is there any truth to this story or has it
been concocted by Lever Brothers or some other P&G competitor? --Judy M., Chicago
Cecil replies:
Judy, I hate to be cruel, but did your mother take thalidomide, or what? You may well be
the last person in North America to hear this story, which is taken seriously chiefly by
people who talk to themselves on the bus. More to the point, Procter & Gamble decided
to phase out its man-in-the-moon logo in May 1985. In other words, not only have you been
taken in by a totally idiotic rumor, you have been taken in by a totally idiotic rumor
that is years out of date.
[Cecil's note: Lest you think we dragged this out of the dead dogs file just to
re-embarrass Judy, you should know that the last question we got asking if P&G was run
by satanists was dated January 31, 1997.]
No one knows exactly how the satanism stories got started, but they first attracted
attention in the South in the late 1970s. They were inspired by the enigmatic P&G
logo, which featured the man in the moon in a circle along with 13 stars. The stars and
the circle were an outgrowth of an old symbol that was used to identify cartons of Star
Candles, an early P&G product; there were 13 stars to symbolize the 13 colonies. The
man in the moon was added around the turn of the century for no better reason than the
fact that it was a popular symbol at the time. Somehow people made the leap from this to
satanism. Some said that if you held the logo up in front of a mirror, you could see
"666" (the "mark of the beast," symbolic of the Antichrist) in the
swirls in the man in the moon's beard. Others said you got 666 if you connected the stars
with curving strokes. A minority view held that the logo merely proved the company was
owned by the Moonies.
At any rate, in the early 1980s P&G began getting thousands of phone calls about its
links to the forces of darkness--15,000 a month at one point. Many of the calls were
inspired by fliers passed hand to hand claiming that 10 percent of P&G's profits went
to the Church of Satan, and that the president of the company had admitted P&G's
diabolic connection on the Donahue show. [The 1997 version of the rumor says this show
aired in 1994; in fact by 1994 the Donahue people had spent more than ten years denying
any such show had ever taken place.] All of the rumors, so far as can be reasonably
determined, are bunk.
Determined to fight brimstone with brimstone, the company convinced Jerry Falwell and
other fundamentalist leaders to proclaim P&G's innocence. P&G also invited
reporters down to its corporate headquarters to check the place out, and even sued people
it caught spreading the rumor. (Some of these, interestingly, were employed by rival
consumer products companies, although there is no evidence that the companies themselves
were involved.)
The credulousness some people display about things like this is amazing. Once on a radio
talk show I got into a discussion of "dumb things people believe," in the course
of which I happened to mention the P&G rumor. Having at the time a childlike faith in
the good sense of the populace, I failed to emphasize sufficiently that the dumb things
people believed were in fact not true. The P&G switchboards lit up, and the next day a
frantic P&G flack was on the phone inquiring why I was spreading horrible rumors about
his employer. Had I been so inclined I could probably have parlayed his concern into a
lifetime supply of Tide, but as it was I merely promised that I would be more careful in
the future.
P&G's efforts succeeded in damping down the rumor for a time, but it flared anew in
1984. At last the company threw in the towel and announced that it would phase out its
logo, then 103 years old. Eventually it was to appear only on P&G's letterhead and
internal publications, and of course at any Black Masses that the company happened to
sponsor. Having just inventoried the closets here at Straight Dope World HQ, I can tell
you the logo appears on none of the P&G products we happen to have. But judging from
your letter, I'd say the company's problems are a long way from over.
--CECIL ADAMS
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