SALT LAKE CITY (ABP) — 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 and 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 and 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 voicemail system about Procter and 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 and 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 they had, nonetheless, likely cost Procter and Gamble millions in lost sales.
It's not the first time the company has gone go to court to defend itself against devilish rumors.
Since at least the early 1980s, stories have spread about Procter and Gamble's association with Satanism. Many focused on the company's logo, which features a crescent man-in-the-moon image, facing leftward over a field of 13 stars against the night sky. According to the website 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.”
Procter and Gamble was founded by two businessmen who began selling soap and candles in 1837. The moon-and-stars logo was introduced to mark boxes of Procter and Gamble candles in 1850. By the 1860s, it was used on all the firm's products and letterhead.
The company filed similar lawsuits — some of which also were against Amway distributors — in the 1980s.
According to snopes.com, the rumor re-appeared in the mid-1990s in a different form, alleging that Procter and Gamble's CEO had appeared on a talk show and mentioned that the company contributed to the Church of Satan.
The company has several pages on its website devoted to debunking the sinister rumor.
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