“Blackness and darkness are almost always asociated with evil, in opposition to the whiteness and light associated with good. This is true even in black Africa. Blackness has an immense range of negative and fearful associations: death, the underworld, the void, blindness, night stalked by robbers and ghosts. Psychologically it signifies the fearful, uncontrollable depths of the unconscious. it is also associated with depression, stupidity, sin, despair, dirt, poison, and plague.”

—Jeffrey Burton Russell, from The Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History, 1988.