This myth has been around for many years, and was long ago proven to be a load of crap. But I recently received an email about it, so that gives me an excuse to tell the tale again.

No one knows exactly how or when the Satanism stories got started, but they seem to have been inspired by the P&G logo, which featured the man in the moon in a circle with 13 stars. The stars and the circle were from an old symbol that was used to on cartons of Star Candles, an early P&G product, which was eventually adopted as the companies logo.  The 13 stars symbolized the 13 colonies, and  the man in the moon was added later.

Some people decided this must be a satanic symbol. They claimed that if you held the logo up in front of a mirror, you could see “666” in the swirls in the moon mans beard, and that you got 666 if you connected the stars, like playing connect the dots. And, of course, the horns.  Anyway,  in the early 1980’s,  P&G  started getting an ass load of calls asking them about their logo and alleged connections to the Church of Satan. Some of these were the result of   fliers being handed out that said Proctor & Gamble was donating 10% of their profits to said church.  There was also a story that the president of the company had admitted to P&G’s involvement with the Church of Satan on the Sally Jessie Raphael show, or the Donahue show in some versions. No version of this story is true, as P&G’s president never appeared on any of these shows making such statements.

Procter & Gamble, having had enough, finally started fighting back…even going as far as to sue those that were spreading this rumor. But eventually, they gave up, and after more than 100 years, they retired the moon and stars logo. But even though the logo is long gone, the rumor still remains.