Gods and Satan

Kristine McKenna’s commentary on the UCLA film series (“Pretty Women, Pretty Scary,” Jan. 12) wonderfully illuminated many of our society’s most regressive yet still deeply held beliefs about women. But I’d like to mention one point that may have been overlooked:

The “Cat People” voice-over quoted refers to “an ancient race of people who fell away from Christianity and began to worship Satan . . . .” As writers as diverse as Ian Illich (“Gender”) and Margaret Alice Murray (“The God of the Witches”) have shown, such “ancient people” in fact often worshiped the gods that were widely believed in before Christianity--gods to which some Christians later gave the name of Satan during the persecution of those “pagans” who remained loyal to them.

TOM SILVESTRI

Studio City