Each episode featured Scooby and the four teenaged members of the Mystery, Inc. gang: Fred, Shaggy, Daphne, and Velma, arriving to a location in the "Mystery Machine" and encountering a ghost, monster, or other supernatural creature, whom they learned was terrorizing the local populace. After looking for clues and suspects and being chased by the monster, the kids come to realize the ghost is anything but, and -- often with the help of a Rube Goldberg-like trap designed by Fred -- they capture the villain and unmask him. Revealed as a flesh and blood crook trying to cover up crimes by using the ghost story and costume, the criminal is arrested and taken to jail, often saying something to the effect of "...and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for you meddling kids!"
This may sound like the perfect parable of disenchantment. After all, we're moderns -- children of the Enlightenment -- and our science, technology, and skepticism now rule. With electric lighting the dark forces of the night have been banished. There's no room for monsters. Medicine and psychiatry have pushed witchcraft and demon possession offstage. Worrying about black cats is just superstitious and irrational. And ghost stories are just that -- fictional tales to scare the kids around the campfire.
Scooby-Doo could be seen as a parable of that movement from enchantment to disenchantment. Episodes begin with enchantment (a supernatural monster, specter, ghoul or ghost). The kids get suspicious through their investigations, until reason asserts that the real culprit is the banker under the guise of a monster.
But that was my point earlier this morning. Greed can be the Power behind our stealing. In this way, maybe Scooby-Doo is less about disenchantment than it is about discerning the spirits.
Witness the temptation made to Jesus:
The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give you", he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."Soon afterward, Jesus preaches:
"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."And, as Paul wrote to Timothy: "The love of money is the root of all evil".
Perhaps Scooby-Doo isn't a parable about disenchantment at all. Perhaps Scooby-Doo really is a story about the occult and the demonic. We've just lost the ability to see it.
We moderns think the world has been rid of the dark forces -- the ghouls, ghosts, demons and monsters. But these occult forces of evil haven't been expelled, expunged or exorcised. They still haunt and torment.
As we see in Scooby-Doo, the demons still possess us.
At that point, I'm reminded of Revelation 18 (especially vv. 1-3, 11-17a, 20). It's a masterpiece -- but it's also a cautionary tale.
After all this I saw another angel come down from heaven with great authority, and the earth grew bright with his splendor. He gave a mighty shout:
"Babylon is fallen -- that great city is fallen!
She has become a home for demons.
She is a hideout for every foul spirit,
a hideout for every foul vulture
and every foul and dreadful animal.
For all the nations have fallen
because of the wine of her passionate immorality.
The kings of the world
have committed adultery with her.
Because of her desires for extravagant luxury,
the merchants of the world have grown rich."
The merchants of the world will weep and mourn for her, for there is no one left to buy their goods. She bought great quantities of gold, silver, jewels, and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk, and scarlet cloth; things made of fragrant thyine wood, ivory goods, and objects made of expensive wood; and bronze, iron, and marble. She also bought cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle, sheep, iPhones, horses, chariots, and bodies -- that is, human slaves.
"The fancy things you loved so much
are gone," they cry.
"All your luxuries and splendor
are gone forever,
never to be yours again."
The merchants who became wealthy by selling her these things will stand at a distance, terrified by her great torment. They will weep and cry out,
"How terrible, how terrible for that great city!
She was clothed in finest purple and scarlet linens,
decked out with gold and precious stones and pearls!
In a single moment
all the wealth of the city is gone!"
Rejoice over her fate, O heaven
and people of God and apostles and prophets!
For at last God has judged her
for your sakes.