WEBVTT - The "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:04.480 Welcome to stuff you should know from how Stuff Works 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:13.200 dot com. Hey you welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:16.320 There's child to be Chuck Bryant. Uh and this is 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:22.240 stuff you should ail satan Man that would have gotten 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:26.079 you locked up a few years ago. Yeah, so I 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:28.000 want to go ahead and say that I would like 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.200 to do one on Satanism. Yeah, for sure, the religion 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.279 misunderstood may include the Church of Satan Will maybe those 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:39.120 are two separate things. Uh. Um. And the p MRC 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:45.000 is that the Tipperate Cord organiz this? Yeah, I just this. 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:47.280 This brought back a lot of memories because we lived 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.360 through the Satanic Bannock for sure, and I remember it 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:54.720 very distinctly, Like I can imagine young Baptist I was afraid. 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:59.640 I can imagine I was very scared. Um. I remember 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.440 like growing up thinking, you know, some of the big 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:06.280 kids are sacrificing things in the woods. Yeah yeah, Um, 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:08.080 which is I mean like that was just part of 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:11.480 your normal, everyday thing, like walking around thinking that was happening. 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:14.800 But um, it turns out in retrospect it was all 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.720 almost entirely made up. Yeah. There was also and imagine 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:24.119 every neighborhood or town had this with There was off 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:30.479 Memorial Drive that was Satan House where supposedly devil worshipers. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:33.479 did you have one in your town? Yeah? Yeah, It's 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:35.080 so funny to me to think about that. Now. They 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.360 were probably just nice, normal people. It's probably some old 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:42.440 uh shut ins, some old folks, elderly folks who just 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:44.400 couldn't get out of the house much, right, they murdered 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:47.120 anybody for years? You ever noticed you never see anyone. Yeah, 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:50.920 it's kind of like kind of dilapidated or run down 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:53.920 because they're old. Uh. And we want to issue a 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:58.600 big c o A here, parents, this is got some 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.160 pretty grizzly stuff in it. You probably don't want your 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:03.920 kids listening to this, even though it was all made up. 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:08.040 Uh yeah, but there's some detail in some of this 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.160 that's I found myself even going, oh, we have to 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:15.679 say that. Yeah, so uh yeah, just it's rated are 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:19.920 maybe even X for content? I'm thinking, Chuck, we should 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:24.920 put together the Times America Lost its mind suite include 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:30.960 this UM, Associative identity disorder UM, deep programming, could deep 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:37.120 program Salem Witchcraft trials, McCarthyism, McCarthyism, that's right. Yeah, we're 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:39.079 gonna do it one of these days, will actually put 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:43.560 some of these suites together. Yeah, they exists her mental 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:47.000 sweets right. Okay, thanks man for letting off the hook. Um. 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:48.480 But I don't know if you guys have picked up 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.360 on it or not, but I keep saying like they 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.680 never really existed. It wasn't actually true, It wasn't real. 0:02:55.280 --> 0:03:00.360 This whole idea that we're talking about, from the roughly 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.640 the mid eighties till about the mid nineties, about a 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:11.720 ten year period, America as a whole was gripped by again, 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:14.960 there's no other way to put it, Satanic panic. This 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:19.520 idea that there were cults of Satan worshippers who were 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:27.000 very widespread, more than you would think, who were abducting, killing, raping, 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:31.440 molesting our children, mutilating animals, and who had been doing 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.400 it for a very long time. In America was just 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:38.120 now waking up to this reality. It's your teachers, it's 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:42.160 the cops, it's the mayor of your town. There's a 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.480 battle between good and evil very much going on right now. 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:51.440 And somehow, some way and people are still studying this. Um. 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:56.400 America clomped onto this idea and ran with it like 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:00.720 it was for real. The idea that they were satan murderous, 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:07.480 child molesting Satanic cults operating almost openly in the United 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:11.560 States was a very deep and widespread belief, not just 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.800 among religious people, although they were at the forefront of 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:20.200 this um, but among people who were writing academic papers 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:25.480 and creating television shows in the news. Um. It was 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.000 people in the courts were subscribed to this. It was 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:33.440 just it was a it was what's called a moral panic. Yeah. 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:35.320 And when I was reading this, even though I lived 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:37.800 through it, I kept thinking, how in the world did 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.520 this happen in the nineteen eighties. Nineteen eighties, not the 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:46.920 sixteen forties, right, not hundreds uh. And it turns out 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:50.359 there's a lot of reasons why. And we gotta go 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:51.960 back in time a little bit to touch on the 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:57.360 early reasons. You gotta go back in time. So that 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:00.320 should be our way Back Machine theme song. That was 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:04.520 just two darn loud. What I was continuing with the 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:06.800 back of the Future references. What was too darn loud? 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:10.559 Remember Huey Lewis when he auditioned, he said, I'm sorry, 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:15.400 that's just right, thank you, thank you. Uh. And by 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:17.200 the way. This is not just in the United States. 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:20.440 Apparently it was in the UK, Australia, Canada, South Africa, 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.960 and South Africa still has a cult crimes division. Yeah, 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.000 I believe it. So. Um Robert Lamb wrote this article 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:29.840 of stuff to blow your mind. Uh. And we're gonna 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:32.920 be drawing from other articles as well, which will name 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:36.080 drop along the way. I guess one from Slate that 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:39.479 was good. There's some name dropping. I've got one for you. 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:43.080 I'll hit it up later. So part of the groundwork 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:46.839 was laid for this in ancient history. Uh. And Robert 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:48.599 does a good job in pointing out that there is 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.400 long especially when it comes to Christian theology. Long been 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:57.640 a divide between us and them, heaven and hell, two sides, 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:01.120 good and evil, good and evil, light and dark. I 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.680 was going to repeat that too. What else, Uh, Yin 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:08.600 and Yang Ye's super Christian? No, actually that I think 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:13.000 Yin and Yang worked together, right, Sure, Yeah, we should 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:15.560 do one on Yin Yang. But a lot of people, Um, 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.880 it's not just Christians, chuck, there's humans subscribe to it 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.880 in group out group mentality. Yeah. Absolutely, Like I took 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.520 an anthropology class once and the professor was like, try 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:29.760 to go a day without using words like us them, We, yeah, they, 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:33.960 It's impossible, virtually impossible. Politics. That's just the way our 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.599 minds go. In group out group, and our group is 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:41.159 safe and good. Their group is potentially threatening and possibly bad. 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:44.480 We don't know, absolutely So throughout history this has come 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:47.200 up again and again and again, and innocent people have 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:51.200 been persecuted for doing nothing at all. One good example 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:56.360 are the Jewish people. Um Christians accused Jews in fourteen 0:06:56.440 --> 0:07:01.200 seventy five of using blood for kidnapped Christians children and rituals, 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.000 which is pretty ironic because the Romans just a few 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:08.360 hundred years before had accused the Christians of bathing and 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.840 dining and feasting on baby's blood. Us and them once 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:17.120 again baby's blood to go to thing for vilifying an 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:19.840 out group. Oh yeah, but you'll see baby's blood in 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:22.560 a lot of these cases, because that's I guess, the 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.480 hardest blood to get ahold of. It's expensive blood in 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:30.560 the most grizzly witchcraft. Everyone. Of course we did, we 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:32.640 do one on the Salem witch trials or just McCarthy ism, 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:36.320 we did one, I believe. Yeah, Well, let's say we 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:39.440 have and if we haven't we will like remember on 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:45.000 like them being high on air. Goot, yeah, we did 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.840 something like that. Okay, alright, So fifteenth century you had 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:56.840 witchcraft persecutions all over Europe, innocent women being h killed, drowned, burned, 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.360 you name it. Um. And of course not ad us 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:04.440 was true in all cases. Uh. When it comes to art, 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:07.520 they laid the groundwork, and the nineteenth century, the French 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:15.240 Romantic artist loved painting stuff about Satan and witchcraft and h. 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:19.920 By the nineteen twenties and the West, we had a 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:26.840 pretty firm established groundwork for believing and things like demons 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:31.680 and Satan and a fiery hell. Uh and people who 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.720 who worshiped this Satan. Yeah, and uh, this the weird 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:38.000 thing is, Chuck, is there's this still to this day, 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:42.120 there's this idea that at some point back in antiquity 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:46.720 at least, there were devil worshipers who like killed for Satan. 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:49.760 And all of this was born out of whole cloth, 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:54.320 fabricated from people who were doing the religious persecution along 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:56.680 the way and the people who are being tortured to 0:08:56.760 --> 0:09:01.040 confess into this kind of stuff. It was all just fabricated. 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:03.160 But the fact that it was old the fact that 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.280 it was sensational, and the fact that it had been 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.480 repeated so many times it gained traction to become this, 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:13.120 to gain this idea that it is historical fact. At 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:16.160 some point people just take it as fact. But it's 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:18.680 not true. No, it's not true. It's never never been 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:23.520 satanic Satanic death cults in the United States or anywhere else. Right, 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:26.240 these people have never existed. Now that is not to 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:28.680 say that people haven't killed in the name of Satan 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:31.559 or anything like that, but there's never been any kind 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:35.240 of Satanic death cult ever in the history of the 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:37.320 world as far as we can ever tell. It's all 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:40.960 made up right, And we want to go further by 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:43.120 saying that these people who have killed in the name 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:47.640 of Satan are actually an example of life imitating art. 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:52.760 They're inspired by the the fictitious myth because they're gullible 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:54.480 and buy into it just as much as the people 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:56.320 who think that this stuff is out there too, Like 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:00.440 Richard Ramirez, Sure, and he was driven by eton or 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:02.120 something like that. There was a girl in the eighties 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:06.559 in Georgia who supposedly killed a friend um and then 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:09.880 performed a Satanic Ritchell It's like this stuff did happen, 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:13.680 but it happened as a result of the hysteria. It 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:17.880 is a positive feedback, absolutely. Uh So now we're in 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:20.480 the twentieth century and the roots of Satanic panic can 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:25.840 be found all throughout the entertainment industry. Books. There was 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:29.319 one in ninety seven by Herbert Gorman called The Place 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:35.600 called Dagon, which was very influential and radical at the time. Uh. 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:39.720 Complete fiction, of course, but that doesn't, um, doesn't stop 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:43.560 it from establishing firmer roots that this could be a thing. Right, 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:47.439 that's something that kind of keeps coming up again and again. Um. 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:52.200 A movie or a work of fiction will establish some storyline, 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:54.720 and then somebody will have read it and told a 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:56.880 friend about it or something like that, and then it 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:59.960 becomes a game of telephone along the way, somebody stops 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.679 saying I read in this work of fiction, right, or 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.480 I saw in this movie this happened. Instead it becomes 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:09.440 this happened to a friend of mine's sister. Yeah, which 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:13.240 we'll get to. Urban legend is one theory, of course. Uh, 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:15.560 and I know we did a podcast on that. Uh. 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.000 A couple of movies came out, one horror film called 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.120 The Devil rides out with the great Christopher Lee because 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:24.320 he was in every weird movie. He was great man, 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:28.560 he was the tall man and phantasm right, No, who's 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:32.320 that then? Chris really was? Was he? Oh no, that's 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:35.280 Angus somebody. You're right. Christopher Lee was the guy from 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:39.000 like the Wicker Man, and I mean dozens and dozens 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:43.240 of horror movies played Dracula a lot. Rosemary's Baby also 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.800 came out that year, which was way more mainstream, big 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.200 big hit movie. Uh yeah, really good. Still very creepy 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:55.800 movie with Mia Pharaoh and Cassavettis and Charles CrowdIn. Weirdly, 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:58.760 I guess it's not weird, but I just associate him 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.559 with comedy. Yeah, but he always plays a straight man, 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:03.560 so he could go back and forth. Yeah, he could 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:07.880 could straddle worlds. So those movies were were huge as 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:10.120 far as planning, and you know, of course other things 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:13.720 like The Omen and The Exorcist, and it was just 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:17.400 it was just a big time for talking about Satan 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.240 and movies. Yeah, it's very popular. And what's interesting is 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:23.680 you can trace it back to and initially that um 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:27.880 book the Place called Dagon, which inspired HP Lovecraft. Yeah, 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:31.679 that started at all basically uh music of course, which 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:33.679 if we ever do one on the PMRC will get 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:37.680 to that and backmasking more heavily. But uh, Satanic imagery 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:41.200 and everything from like Iron Maiden to King Diamond and 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:45.720 remember they got hauled in the court for back masking 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:50.960 man people I know. And h then you have some 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:55.160 real life things, real life occult like Alistair Crowley and 0:12:55.200 --> 0:13:00.480 Anton LaVey, who really didn't help quell satanic panic fierce 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:03.320 if anything, that helps set the stage now, dressing up 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:07.679 like with candles and and being naked with like cloaks 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:12.640 and pentagrams isn't gonna make people feel any better, but 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.040 that's what they're doing. And if you will, like I said, 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:17.480 we'll do on on Satanism. If you look at Satanism, 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.640 it's it's not let's sacrifice animals and throw blood on 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.480 each other. It's more like, hey, we're on this earth 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.920 for a short time, let's party and just live for ourselves. 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:32.440 It's more about hedonism and being atheist than some weird 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.840 dark occult. Alistair Crowley was darker and more cult sure, 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:39.440 and Anton LaVey definitely dressed his brand of Satanism up 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:43.000 in that kind of like dark theatrics. But the really 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.839 ironic thing about both of those guys occult stuff is that, 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:51.320 again it was life imitating art or life imitating fiction. 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:54.480 Their ideas of the black mask or the witches Sabbath 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:58.400 or wearing pentagrams, all that stuff came out of those 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:02.080 witch persecutions from before war. They were fabricated from whole cloth. 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:05.280 So these guys were tapping into what was already part 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:07.880 of the popular culture in the in the way of 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:11.000 what people thought of Satanism and Satanic rituals, and we're 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.760 just basically playing it up to the It was very 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:19.320 much so. But two people who are scared to death 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.720 of the idea that Satan is real and his worshippers 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:24.440 are here on earth and are ready to kill you. 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:30.080 Those guys scared those people and just proved that this 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.600 is very real. See look at those two Anton LaVey 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:37.280 Alistair Crowley proved that they are Satanic cults exactly. And 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.080 who knows what's going on behind that big, huge iron 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:43.240 wooden door. All right, well, let's take a break here 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:46.560 and we're gonna come back and talk a little bit about, uh, 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:51.520 the nineteen seventies um Stranger Danger panic, which factors in 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:11.920 all Right, it's the nineteen seventies and all of a sudden, 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.320 all you can hear about on the news is our 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:22.840 stories about child pornography, rings, murders, child murderers, kidnappings, uh, 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.040 crimes involving children in general, and not just that. Chuck. Like, 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:29.880 at that time, America was really waking up to the 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:35.000 um to just how widespread child abuse was the nineteen seventies, 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:39.040 which is great, Yeah, it really was, because apparently it 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:41.840 took just a couple of doctors to really stand up 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:43.880 and be like, I'm not looking the other way again 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:48.240 on these unexplained breaks to a child's arm. Um, it's 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.280 the it's the parents. You're you're breaking your kid's arms. 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:54.800 It's abuse. That's wrong. Stop doing that. And as a result, 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:57.000 the government stood up and was like, Okay, we need 0:15:57.040 --> 0:15:59.560 some laws here. One of the things that they enacted 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.280 were mandatory reporting laws. If you're a doctor and you 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.800 notice signs of child abuse, you have to report it. 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:08.880 And as a result, in ninety four, child abuse cases 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.720 went from sixty thousand nationwide to the year two thousand 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.800 there were three million reported, right, and it was because 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:20.200 of public education, a lot more visibility um, and then 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:24.040 mandatory reporting laws. But it had this cumulative effect of saying, America, 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:28.200 your children are being they're in danger and you need 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:30.880 to do something about it. And this child protection movement 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:33.160 grew out of it. Yeah. I also get the sense 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:37.240 that pre the late seventies, I think the media that 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:40.000 was unsavory to report on this kind of stuff, like 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.400 that's that's that family's business. Yeah, and just period it's like, 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.280 no one wants to hear about this stuff. It's awful. Uh. 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:51.400 And somehow it got transferred to probably to drive ratings, 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:54.360 like this is sensational, is what it is. Yeah, anytime 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:56.440 America is scared, all you have to do is poke 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.080 and product and you will get people to watch your 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:04.040 TV show. And it's done very frequently. It's sad and despicable, 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.439 but it happens a lot. It still does. There's another 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:11.000 aspect to this too, Chuck Um with the with the 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:15.320 child protection idea. Um. This is also a time. The 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:18.639 seventies especially, is when it when women started to go 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.200 back to work after they had kids. Before they may 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:23.919 work and then they would have kids and that was 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:26.400 it for their professional career. They would just stay home. 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:27.959 They were moms. For the rest of their time, if 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:31.639 they ever worked at all. Originally right now, in the 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.680 seventies and the eighties, women were having kids, going back 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:36.720 to work, and as a result, they were having to 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:40.160 leave their kids in more and more daycare workers care, 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:44.160 and so this idea that their children were being abused 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:48.080 or potentially abused really resonated with families where their kids 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:50.840 were in daycare and weren't like constantly under their supervision 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:52.920 all the time. How well do you know the people 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:55.600 watching your kids? How much do you trust them? Are 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:59.760 they Satanists? And this this fear took root because of 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:02.679 the um collective anxiety at the time with more and 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:06.000 more families putting their kids in daycare, right or they're 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:09.640 just latchkey kids a little older who I remember during 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:11.879 the Atlanta child murders, do you know where your children are? 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:15.600 Where your children are? It was just a time of 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:21.200 in a good way, people were more aware of than 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:25.080 ever of potential dangers for their children. So it's not 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:27.680 like it was all bad, but when it goes into 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:31.359 panic and well, we'll just see what happened. Yeah, I 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:35.679 went from zero to just a couple of seconds. So 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.159 what happened was during the Satanic panic U. Largely it 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:46.560 is based around um court cases where largely daycare centers 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.760 and people who cared for children were now being accused 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.680 of some of the craziest things you could ever imagine 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.560 in your entire life. And like you said, one of 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:00.600 the reasons this was fueled was very much because parents 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.879 could relate to it. Uh. I mean, should we go 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:06.879 ahead and talk about a couple of these cases. Yeah, Um, 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:09.560 you know, the whole thing sounds crazy and weird and everything, 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:15.960 but just innocuous, I guess until you come across the 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:19.240 court cases and then you're like, oh, real people lost 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:23.160 decades of their lives because of this because gulibal people 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:27.240 were in position of power and lock them up. Yeah, 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:30.000 all right, let's talk about the killers. What was the 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:34.840 actual This is one in Texas. Yeah, in Austin and Austin, Texas. Uh. 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.560 Frances and Dan Keller ran a daycare center out of 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:43.800 their home and were accused of the following things, among others, 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:49.400 drowning and dismembering babies in front of other children, killing animals, 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.080 dogs and cats in front of children, and baby tigers, 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:57.280 baby tigers, that's right, Uh, taking the kids to Mexico 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:01.440 to be abused sexually by Mexican army soldiers and then 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:03.680 brought back in time for their parents to pick them up. 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:08.639 That's right, Uh, dressing his pumpkins and shooting children in 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:13.080 the arms and legs, putting children into a pool with sharks, 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:16.919 that eight babies, putting blood in their coool aid, forcing 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:22.879 children to carry the bones of of bodies that they 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:26.159 had dug up. And this is just a few And 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:28.840 I'm getting most of this from this great Slate article 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:32.080 The Real Victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse s r A 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:36.119 by Linda Rodriguez McRobie. So the colors were accused of 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:40.679 all this stuff. Um, and here's generally what happens. Robert 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:44.480 points out. A lot of times it starts with one, um, 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:50.359 perhaps credible case of child abuse, sexual or otherwise, and 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:53.840 then that's snowballs. They tell the parents, maybe this is 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:58.280 going on. So they tell the parents, uh, hey, that 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:02.119 your child may being may be abused. The parents start looking, 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:05.240 They start talking to other parents in that same daycare center. 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.160 They start looking, they start asking their kids, and at 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:12.400 all snowballs into these little preschoolers basically making stuff up. 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:14.840 And not only that, it's like, yeah, yeah, I've heard 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:18.480 about that. That's just abused, Like it's some Satanists that 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:21.040 are like molesting children and murdering them. And the parents 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:24.479 are like what or that plays into something they'd already 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.040 heard on on TV, which we'll talk about the media's 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:29.760 role in this. UM. And like you said, it's snowballs 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:33.080 and snowballs and all of a sudden, UM, once concerned 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:37.760 parents get involved, UM and start talking to one another 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:43.040 panicked concerned parents, UM, then people can end up falsely 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:46.840 accused of some pretty horrendous stuff. People stopped thinking critically, 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:50.760 and UM, you've got problems if you're on the receiving 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:53.520 end of finger being pointed at you. Well, yeah, because 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:54.960 if you're a parent and your child goes through this 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:58.080 daycare center, another parent and the cops come and say, hey, 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:02.400 this parents kid was sexually abused. What parents gonna be like, Oh, 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:05.560 I'm sure it's fine, you're fine, quick complaining, I'm not 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:09.120 going to check out my kids take a salt tablet Um. 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:14.600 So so with with with the McMartin case, which happened 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:19.200 in UM southern California. Yeah, And and actually UM ended 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:22.040 up helping turn the tide against this but the McMartin 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.600 case and then the Keller case in Texas, both of 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:32.200 those were bolstered actually by bad medical testimony by inexperienced 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:35.400 doctors who didn't know what they were looking at, who, 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:39.680 in their defense, a little bit um was the at 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:41.919 the time, no one knew. No one was looking at 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:45.399 little kids like three year olds vaginas in describing what 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:49.000 normal ones looked like. So since you didn't know what 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:52.359 to look for, but I thought you were looking for 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:57.600 evidence of sexual abuse, anything could conceivably look like evidence 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:01.239 of say, um, vaginal trauma, so thing like that. And 0:23:01.280 --> 0:23:04.560 in the case of the Kellers, in particular, UM, the 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:08.760 little girl who was basically, I guess, um accuser zero 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:13.440 of this um it was, was examined and found that 0:23:13.800 --> 0:23:18.240 um her vagina showed some evidence of trauma. Later on, 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:22.760 the doctor, after gaining decades of experience, saw that, no, 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:26.119 that was totally normal what I saw and is not 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:31.200 the it's I basically gave false testimony unwittingly, and I'm sorry. 0:23:32.119 --> 0:23:34.280 And that was a huge thing because these people were 0:23:34.320 --> 0:23:37.760 locked away because of medical testimony. And again the case 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:40.840 against the mcmartin's was also bolstered by bad medical advice 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:43.359 as well or bad medical testimony. Yeah. So with the 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:46.720 killer case, Uh, the patient or not patient victim zero 0:23:46.840 --> 0:23:52.200 Christie Cheviers Chevier. I don't know how you would say. 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:55.120 She was three years old, didn't go to the daycare 0:23:55.119 --> 0:24:00.280 center much. Uh, and told her mom that dan Keller 0:24:00.400 --> 0:24:04.640 had spanked her. That's what started this whole thing. So 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:08.840 all of a sudden, the mom says, uh, and here's 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:14.280 a key fact, you're the mom goes to her therapist. Uh. Yeah, 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:16.960 Donna David Campbell, who the little girl was seeing because 0:24:16.960 --> 0:24:19.320 she had been acting out. She's like a central figure 0:24:19.320 --> 0:24:24.560 in this whole thing. Who who the doctor? Yeah, So 0:24:24.640 --> 0:24:27.400 they go to her and say, listen, something's going on here. 0:24:27.440 --> 0:24:29.280 Can you talk to her about it? And all of 0:24:29.320 --> 0:24:33.360 a sudden, uh, Donna Campbell, Donna David Campbell starts coaxing 0:24:33.359 --> 0:24:39.520 out all these really bizarre allegations about what's going on there. Uh. 0:24:39.560 --> 0:24:41.760 They made us take off our clothes and had a 0:24:41.840 --> 0:24:45.080 parrot peck us on the pepe That was the one 0:24:45.520 --> 0:24:49.160 that was the earliest accusation that that formed the foundation 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:52.640 of this whole case, the basis of the snowball. Yes, 0:24:53.040 --> 0:24:56.320 so this is this is this is what begins the snowball. 0:24:56.560 --> 0:24:58.399 This is when the mom goes to the other parents, 0:24:58.520 --> 0:25:00.520 like you hear, what's going on here, look at what's 0:25:00.520 --> 0:25:03.719