Procter & Gamble decades-old Satanism rumors wrapped up

For those who needed any more reasons to discount the decades-old rumor that one of America’s largest and oldest consumer-products companies was in league with Satan, a federal jury recently provided about 19 million of them.

The Procter & Gamble Co. announced March 19 a jury had awarded it $19.25 million in damages after a trial in the Utah federal district court. The jury entered the judgment against distributors for the Amway Corp., another household-products firm that competes with Procter & Gamble, for spreading the rumors about satanic affiliations with the company.

The case began in 1995, when four Amway distributors circulated a message via a company voice mail system about Procter & Gamble donating some profits to the Church of Satan. Although they soon retracted the rumor, the messages made their way to hundreds of Amway clients — and, eventually, to Procter & Gamble attorneys.

The Cincinnati-based company — makers of Ivory soap, Tide laundry detergent and a host of other household products — sued the distributors and Amway. While Amway successfully argued it had acted quickly to quash the rumors, the jury found the distributors had, nonetheless, likely cost Procter & Gamble millions in lost sales.

It’s not the first time the company has gone to court to defend itself against devilish rumors.

Since at least the early 1980s, stories have spread about Procter & Gamble’s association with Satanism. Many focused on the company’s logo, which featured a crescent man-in-the-moon image facing leftward over a field of 13 stars against the night sky. According to the Web site snopes.com, which debunks urban legends, some Christians have discerned allusions to the number 666 in the curlicues of the moon-man’s beard, as well as in the star pattern. The number is mentioned in Revelation as that of the "mark of the beast."